DEAD PULSE
A.M. Esmonde
Dead Pulse
A Saturn Lite Book 978 1 451525 58 8
Dead Pulse is Copyright © 2011 by A.M. Esmonde. All rights reserved, including the right to reproduce in whole or in part in any form or medium.
145 1 525583
No part of this publication may be reproduced, stored in a retrieval system, or transmitted, in any form or by any means, without prior written permission of the publisher, nor be otherwise circulated in any form of binding or cover other than that in which it is published and without a similar condition being imposed on the subsequent purchaser.
All characters in this publication, other than those clearly in the public domain, are fictitious and any resemblance to real persons, living or dead, is purely coincidental.
1st Edition*
Published by Saturn Lite 2011 KindleEdition 2013
Cover by Angel, model Sarah Ann Williamson
*this is the British unedited version and
has not been adapted for readers outside the United Kingdom.
Printed and bound in the USA.
ISBN – 145-1-525583
EAN- 978-1-451525-58-8
DEAD PULSE
A.M. Esmonde
“Everything appears to promise that it will last; but in this world nothing is certain but death and taxes.”
- Benjamin Franklin
Dead adjective, no longer living.
Pulse noun 1. Throb of blood in arteries 2. Any regular vibration or beat.
PROLOGUE
Zombies or re-animated corpses appear in many cultures worldwide and in different manifestations. Whether it is voodoo, folklore or in today’s pop culture, they are ultimately humans who lack full consciousness. Death has fascinated humans as long as life itself.
Ishtar the Babylonian goddess of fertility in an ancient decree supports this. As Ishtar approaches the gates of the underworld, she demands of the gatekeeper:
If thou openest not the gate to let me enter, I will break the door, I will wrench the lock, I will smash the doorposts, and I will force the doors. I will bring up the dead to eat the living. Moreover, the dead will outnumber the living.
How true Ishtar’s words were to become as this story tells...
PART ONE: EPIDEMIOLOGY
At thirty knots and half-laden, HMS Tarvos cut through the Atlantic Ocean, the huge grey mass leaving behind a wash as far as the horizon which caused a wonderful refraction of light upon the waves.
In spite of the Anglo/American Coalition Treaty relationships were still strained and not many words were exchanged on the Direct Action Penetrator (DAP) helicopter. NATO Special Forces soldiers, a British/ African named House and his colleague and friend Finn, a thin compact framed man sat in anticipation on Marine 3, accompanied by two Navy Seals. The gunship landed hard and the four men jumped onto one of the Tarvos’s empty runway strips.
“It’s a ghost ship.” House whispered into his headset, as the team of four men armed with M-240 machine guns jogged along the length of the carrier. They separated speedily as they reached the end of the deck; House spun the circular lock hard on the watertight galvanised steel door and as it swung open he stepped into the darkness. Finn followed, descending the anodized aluminium and stainless steel stairwell on a 68 degree angled ladder.
The heavyset Air Craft handling officer seemed to smell soldiers’ presence before hearing or seeing them. In death, while its mobility was hampered by rigor mortis, an electric pulse from the core of its brain heightened the man’s senses. Although slow he appeared from the gloom and in a flash the dead officer was upon one of the Navy Seals before he could fire his gun. Feeling a static shock from the weighty corpse in a frantic brief struggle, the Navy Seal quickly snapped its neck, dropping the yellow clothed corpse to the grey painted corrugated floor. Taking a moment to get his breath back, he checked his weapon.
From the shadows a man with a severe head injury, dressed in a blue plane handler’s uniform rushed at him, pushing him off balance. The second Seal took aim letting his machine gun erupt. The bullets had no impact other than to send the corpse holding his friend overboard, within seconds the two hit the water, the force knocked out any life either of them had left.
From the Mess Hall, a landing signal handler with most of his nose missing, the skin torn open and the cartilage in view, dragged his feet forward, his once white uniform now blood stained. He paused at the door and then moved forward with a heavy limp.
Cursing and focusing on the spot where his comrade once stood the Seal turned hearing the heavy dragging footsteps moving towards him. He began to walk backwards his boots clanking on the metal floor. Keeping his eyes focused on the approaching enemy; he raised his gun squeezing the trigger sending rounds into the sailor that was in hunt.
The dead eyed man continued forwards despite the force of the bullets tearing into his white uniform. Bloody tissue, flesh and bone shards flicked up into the air. Suddenly, a door left of the Seal swung open and a skinny air wing captain gripped his hand and bit into his fingers.
House motioned to Finn to silence their radio communication.
“It's a death ship,” Finn whispered looking at a broken terminal and burnt hard drive.
House held up his hand silencing his colleague and spoke quietly into his radio. “Sierra November one, Sierra November two.”
The radio crackled, followed by a gurgle and then a nasty lapping sound. House looked to Finn with a worried expression. “I think our back up is dead, the ships controls destroyed and seventy-seven development is lost if it was on that hard drive.”
Finn clicked his radio’s button. “This is Foxtrot four. Code Delta, that’s D delta,” said Finn as he peered overboard and down the length of the ship. His eyes widened as they were approaching land.
“We’re not going to stop this.” Inhaling deeply, House shook his head and glanced at his boots as the sea air filled his lungs he picked up the small hard drive.
“The ship running aground?" queried Finn.
House exhaled, “No, the pandemic. This is it, hell.”
The carrier stirred to life, its dead crew and its harboured dead civilians came from everywhere like termites out of the woodwork, as if hiding in wait for a captive audience.
“We’re running out of time!” shouted House pointing to the shadows moving towards them from within the doorways.
“Air strike, code four abort!” Finn shouted into his radio. “We gotta get outta here, before they blow us up or we get eaten!” he said to House.
Drowned out by the moans of the approaching dead House and Finn didn’t hear the reply as it came back to them over the radio, “We are unable to abort the strike, over.”
Assessing their surroundings for the approaching danger, they made a dash across the gangway towards the upper deck.
“Chopper man, don’t you leave, don’t you damn leave.” House muttered under his breath.
Running parallel to the white and yellow painted lines across the vast deck, the two remaining soldiers appeared to be miniscule to their colleagues in the helicopter that circled above them. Heading back towards the landing DAP their heavy boots stomped across the carrier. Their dead assailants who moved in varying walking speeds followed them closely. Periodically the soldiers stopped and turned, kneeling they let off short bursts of fire, aiming for the head. Finn turned to House, “Hell House if we don’t make it to the Black Hawk we’re toast!”
“It’s a DAP Huck.” House corrected smiling.
Finn laughed, “I’m under pressure here!”
“Trust me; we’ll be home in time for cornflakes Huckle Berry.” House quipped.
The two dead Navy Seals were now part of the advancing crowd that seemingly multiplied i
n front of their eyes and their shots were futile in their effort to slow their advance. Making a final dash they jumped into the awaiting gunship that immediately lifted into the air.
The rotary blades of the DAP whirred in the dizzy heights of the fading clear sky, it banked sharply to the left as House looked down to witness an almighty crash below.
The huge mass of the carrier grounded against an outcrop of rocks crushing hundreds of tonnes of metal, denting and splitting the ship’s hull sending its contents and dead occupants, smashing, soaring and plummeting in all directions. The HMS Tarvos began to take in gallons of water.
Inland the corpses walked aimlessly up a bloodstained sandy and pebbled stretch of beach, some waded into the sea towards the wreckage as if to greet their passed away fellows. They watched lifelessly as the other dead walked off the high decks, tumbling overboard crashing into the choppy water and onto the outcropping rocks. On the deck of the carrier many of the dead struggled to rise to their feet, their limbs weak or missing, but their search for the living stimulated them on.
The sight of the huge carrier high and dry was surreal. As they flew away from the scene all House could reflect on was the aimless falling dead. Lemmings he thought.
Just then, two Lockheed Martin F-22 Raptor fighter jets soared past the DAP. Relieved, the helicopters passengers looked on in expectation as the two jets launched their arsenal of missiles raining down into the carrier.
Finn shook his head. “That was close.”
“Do you think we ever could have stopped it?” House brooded over the uncertainty taking out the charred and dented hard drive.
“Who knows, but a couple of billion green-back and scum just bit the dust,” replied Finn.
“Pounds,” House Mumbled.
The two men lent back into the cabin of the DAP catching a final glimpse of the white seawater littered with bodies, pushing against the burning Tarvos, as its decks, starboard and port continued to rupture and explode into the sea.
FARMORE
If ever there was a perfect, small, idyllic town, it was Farmore. A mix of Medieval, Georgian, Victorian and modern architecture made it quite the retirement place. A natural landslide isolated it in 1875, which kept the closest city of Ravenswood ten miles away. The only thing that marred Farmore, despite protests from residents, was a large prison situated five miles away that was built just before the boarder of the next county.
In the light breeze that swept through the town the smell of freshly baked bread greeted mothers pushing infants in their prams. Towns’ people went about their daily business in the bright last day of summer. Some walked their dogs, an old couple sat on a bench chatting, passers-by gave each other welcoming nods and good mornings.
Blurry-eyed Samuel Davison left a small store; a tinkle of a bell saw him out. The smell of flowers drifting from the shop’s hanging baskets were subdued the cool air. Passing by shoppers on the pavement he walked to the back of his van the smell of the fruit and vegetables from the open-air market caught his nose. Stifling a sneeze, he cheerfully greeted two women joggers as he slammed the vans rear doors ruffling his unkempt short mousey hair.
Hung-over smelling of yesterdays drinks having celebrated his thirtieth birthday the singing of ‘Happy Birthday Sammy’ still rung in his head. His average build settled into the driver’s side, glancing up he caught the eye of a pretty woman getting into a dark car parked adjacent to him. Giving a quick smile he turned the key in the ignition, welcomed by the familiar rumbling of his vans Diesel engine.
Jayne Reed got into the rear of the awaiting unmarked vehicle returning the smile to the man in the parked van. The scientist’s smile quickly disappeared as she turned and acknowledged the vehicles driver, Major Frank Marshal’s second in command Thomas Hardy. The look of concern on Franks face did not fill Jayne with much confidence.
Why had Frank and Hardy had come in person, disturbing my rare visit home? It means that either something is very pressing or someone has fucked up. She thought as she made herself comfortable in the passenger seat.
“The weather is changing Miss Reed,” Marshal stated.
“I don’t think you came all this way because you wanted to chat about the weather Major,” said Jayne giving him a sideward glance.
The following day the grey headed Major, stood at the door of 32 Crow Street, another officer Hardy held an umbrella tightly over the Major protecting him from the endless downpour. “Your country needs you, son.” Frank stated firmly to Quaid Stockwell who restrained his brown Labrador with a sharp click of his fingers.
Although Quaid was particularly astute, his muscular build attracted trouble from his peers at an early age, he had been a restless and rebellious teenager. His grandparents had raised both him and his sister Karen. It hadn’t been a strict upbringing, their Grandmother tended to their every need while their grandfather had very little interaction with them. To an outsider he seemed to be a lodger in a busy household, a shadow that lingered in the background.
Overtime, his sister Karen naturally assumed the role of a mother figure until she left for Art College. Quaid on the other hand, during his teen years had found himself spending most of his time in the back of police cars, until the shock of his unassuming grandfathers death made him realise that he had more to offer the world. He had the same artistic flare as his sister and built on this, he turned his life around and eventually fell into design, ultimately specialising in incinerator designs.
Why military personnel were at his front door, he had no idea, but it certainly was not anything to with the thefts he’d participated in as a youth.
Kissing his frail grandmother goodbye, he bent and patted his Labrador’s head, accompanying the men to the awaiting unmarked car.
Frank awkwardly removed his raincoat as he got into the sizeable car. “You see son, Mr. Stockwell; even out here you may have heard about these random attacks that are causing people to inflict terrible harm on others.”
Blasé, Quaid replied, “I've read the papers and heard the news reports - people are freaking out, problems in the Middle East and Canada and central Europe.” he pulled back his hood and rubbed his cold hands.
Frank took out an apple polishing it on his sleeve. He let his earlier question hang in the air, ignoring the fact he did not get an answer.
“But what has this got to do with me?” frowned Quaid.
“It's classified at this time. Listen, I don’t want to be here either. Hell, I should be retired, drinking iced tea in Florida. We need your expertise.” Frank bit into the apple, chewing he looked deep into the longhaired man’s eyes. “Someone accused you of being the best. You’re part of the solution, son, the containment and eradication.”
The car sped through the rain; heavy clouds lay low in the valley, casting darkness over the small town.
In the diming light, two hunters silently made their way cautiously through the thicket of the lush forest as the rain came to a stop. The buck Fallow deer grazed on the foliage around a tree stump. They took up position, Matt leant his Tikka T3 rifle on a thick tree branch. Getting the deer in his sights he rested his trigger finger. Ralph slowly inched forwards... they gave each other a cheeky smile. Ralph’s footing broke the silence as he stepped on a small branch snapping it in half. In the stillness, the crack appeared to sound as loud as a gunshot and the Fallow darted deeper into the vegetation.
“Damn Ralph,” seethed Matt. “I had him in my sights.” Matt skulked off into the coppice.
Ralph bent down to do his bootlace; he mumbled and cursed as he tied his lace. He looked at the ground curiously, noting that the dirt looked disturbed, as if something had been recently been buried. Just as he pondered on this for a second, a hand appeared from some mulch beneath him gripped his boot. A rancid girl burst out from within the ground sending loose earth into his eyes as he fell. Ralph gave out a yell as he struggled to back away from the person that had grabbed him. Her neck was ripped open, the skin torn and shredded revealing wha
t appeared to be an empty ribcage - her major organs missing, however from the waist down the girl appeared preserved as if kept in a refrigerator, her scant remains were weathered and wildlife had largely skeletonised her upper body. She sunk her teeth into the horrified man.
The shots of an Anschut’s rifle echoed throughout the forest disturbing birds and foraging wildlife. It wasn’t long before Ralph had fired off five .22 bullets.
Matt smashed the girl in the face with the butt of his gun and she fell to the floor.
Ralph sat gasping for breath holding his neck as Matt he leant over trying to stem the blood from his friends sustained wound.
“That thing came out of the ground and attacked me!” shouted Ralph, his hands and shoulders splattered with blood. “You know who that was don’t you? That was that missing girl who has been in the papers! Jenny Tucker.” he panted.
“Murdered Tucker, they couldn’t find the body to arrest that Carpenter guy.”
Ralph looked at his blood-covered hand. “Is it bad?”
“It’s not that bad,” Matt lied as he spat on the ground nodding to Ralph with his face screwed up in disgust.
“Well you found her alright, naked as the day she was born and now we’ve killed her, again?” Matt murmured hoping to distract Ralph from the wound and the steadily seeping blood.
“Yeah we find a missing girl, presumed dead, and I shoot her four times in her gut, were going to get pinned for this!” shrieked Ralph.
Jenny Tucker rose once again and lumbered onto Matt who was crouching in front of his friend. Pushing him off balance he fell to the floor, his red cap lost in the brambles. As she lunged towards him, he held her away at arm’s length from his face as her teeth snapped and she snarled. Mustering all his strength he launched her away from him and she tumbled away. He gripped his sidearm, a .500 Magnum revolver and holding the orange safety grip, he took aim. Before he could let off a shot Ralph suddenly attacked him from behind causing the gun to go off in Matt’s face. Blood and skull splattered onto the damp grass, quickly followed by Matt’s body thumping to the forest floor. As his body convulsed with the last breaths of life Ralph lumbered to his knees and began to chew on his friends arms. It wasn’t long before Jenny joined the feast. In the light drizzle that now fell she knelt down besides Ralph and like two hyenas dining on a stolen kill; they bit into the softer body parts of the dead hunter, quietly observing the view over Farmore’s forest and the ruffled wildlife that hid in the undergrowth.
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