Dead Pulse (10 page)

Looped, melodic music quietly played, as the faint smell of popcorn and candyfloss was lost in the rushing wind that whistled through the fairground. Tarpaulin blustered, discarded sweets and litter scattered the wrecked ground that has once been home to Farmore’s fair and visiting circuses.

A circus elephant wandered the grounds, crunching corpses, seats and over-turned stalls with its huge mass. The elephant raised its heavy head and looked at the big wheel that groaned and creaked loudly as one of the carriages began to move. A dead dwarf; dressed as a clown, in a candy stripe
all in one, leapt up onto the safety bars of the carriage doors. Forever hungry it let out a moan and franticly began to shake the bars like a rabid caged animal. The big wheel’s carriage began to sway and creak as the soiled, foul smelling clown clung to the bars. The door of the carriage suddenly swung open and the dwarf found himself dangling from it by his dirty, blood stained ruff. The carriage door held him like a dog with a puppy in its mouth. Confused, the zombie clown momentarily stopped moaning and struggling. The air was quiet. The clown’s red nose fell, tumbling through the air before bouncing off the elephants back and onto the dirty floor.

As the elephant moved, the dwarf hit the floor with a thud. With its bones cracked and legs crushed, the clown, still moving, crawled its way forwards, craving for blood, craving for the elephant. The clown’s red wig slipped off as he was crushed by the 500 pounds of bedraggled lion pounced onto the clowns head, turning it’s skull to pulp. The dead who had been waiting in the shadows began to move forward, surrounding the lion and its kill. Despairingly, the lion snatched up the clown like a gazelle and disappeared into the abandoned ghost train, leaving the gathering crowd of the dead hungry for flesh.

PART FOUR: SYLLOGISM

Farmore lay in darkness, the only sound breaking the early morning stillness was the caw of a raven ruffling its black feathers whilst pecking at flesh from a skull. A flash of lightning lit up the sky disturbing the raven who hopped along the ground before taking flight. The white light caught the tips of its wings, and reflected off the wet roofs below causing the rain to sparkle and glisten as it fell. A loud crash of thunder interrupted the silence. The damp blanket of drizzle as if on cue turned into intense heavy rain. The rumbles of the three tanks as they moved slowly forward were lost in the storm. Over thirty soldiers marched alongside, their footsteps muffled in the gathering puddles. The sound of the rain hitting their waterproof clothing was soothing to Frank Marshal’s ears.

His mission had originally been to transport the rounded-up dead for destruction; now an impossible task, his mission had moved to stage two of the contingency plan.

Hardy took out a waterproof touch-screen military device and handed it to Frank, touching the palm size screen his mission details flashed onto the screen:

20. Destroy all secure dead units in preparation for termination.

Code 1477
c.

With a flick of his finger on the rain-covered screen, a map of Farmore was displayed. Highlighted in neon green was their next stop; the local school. He tapped the screen again.

4.c Cellar/Basement containment, an estimated hundred, (100), active deceased.

Code 1977a.

He wiped the screen with his hand
and gave it to Hardy who replaced the phone in his waterproofs. The soldiers continued to make their way through the dark streets with night vision goggles. As they trudged through the town, picking off the remaining dead with silenced rifles and handguns. They grew closer to the school, closing in, ever nearer.

Jayne pulled a lamb’s wool blanket over her shoulders, reminded of one of Sam ‘stolen’ finds. She looked up at the ceiling as the lightning outside lit it up. The rain beat rhythmically and hard against the single stained-glass window. The noise of the storm echoed throughout the building filling the school with its sound, reverberating through the corridors. Sitting there listening to the rain, Jayne was oblivious to what was approaching outside, and what lurked beneath her. She felt unsafe but wasn’t sure why.

In the vast storage cellar of the school bodies moved. Whilst wire fencing closed them, the electric security fence no longer worked due to the breaks in the electricity, only a manual red leaver stood between them and the schools corridor. Close to the fence lay the dead teacher Jayne had shot. The dead had begun to gnaw at each other; their yearning for flesh was immense, and it no longer mattered to them whether their kill was recent. Body parts were sca
ttered all around the school’s underground store. One of the dead, a bloated, obese man stretched his hands through the fence reaching to grip the hair of the dead teacher. Slowly at first, it began pulling her towards the fence. Suddenly she stopped moving despite his insistent tugging at her hair, her foot had caught on the red leaver that stuck out from the ground near to the fence. Desperate to get his next meal, he began tugging her hair more insistently. The rocking motion of her being pulled backwards towards the fence caused her foot to keep knocking against the leaver. Slowly it began to move...

The soldiers stopped at the outside perimeter of the school fence awaiting Franks’ next order. The schoolyard was large making the fence a fair distance from the school, but easily within firing range.

Frank turned to Hardy who was standing next to him like a lost puppy.

“The fence had been constructed especially to keep the dead in, just in case they escape from the confinement.” Frank chewed on his gum and signalled for the tanks to move into position. He wiped his brow with the collar of his jacket, tired and exhausted he took off his helmet
rubbed his temples and let the rhythm of the rain soothe his troubled mind. He wished he could quit they were fighting a losing battle. Nevertheless, he knew if he left now he would have nowhere to go. At least he wasn’t part of the problem; he was part of the solution - eradicating these creatures. He spat his gum onto the floor near Hardy’s boots and turned his attention to a commotion near tank two. Surprised by the sight of a yellow sports car parked up in front of it, he put his helmet on and was back in kick ass mode.

             
“I want to speak to the person in charge!” yelled Sam over the noise of the tank.

             
“Do not shoot him!” Frank moved forwards towards Sam. “Not yet in any case. Okay son, you don’t look like a crack head.”

“I’m in charge,” shouted Frank, “What’s the problem?”

“Test seventy-seven, it works. You know about it right?” Sam questioned erratically. “There was a soldier, Jacko, Jack, Jackson...” Sam realised how crazy he sounded. He gave a sigh. “Jayne Reed, she may be in that school, she worked on experiment seventy-seven. Seventy-seven kills the dead.”

“Okay, now calm down son. This school is a hazard and it will be rubble in just five minutes.
Only Jack I’ve heard of is Jack shit but I have heard of experiment seventy-seven. I’m tired, I’ve been redeployed from one mission to the next. I’m pissed. As for the girl you think is the answer to our problems, it’s highly unlikely that she can help us, I knew Jayne Reed, she’s dead.”

“Dead? When? I was with her about a week ago.”

“It can’t be the same Reed...” mumbled Frank.

“You’ve got to give me time, or it’s all for nothing!” interrupted Sam squaring up to Frank.

“Damn it, you’ve got to give him a chance soldier,” Karen pleaded.

Thoughts of a possible futures and memories of the past ran through Frank’s old mind. House featured prominently, although he still could not recall his real name...

The rain continued to beat down, large, cold, wet drops. Frank looked around at the cold and wet soldiers and checked his watch. They had been through enough.
Maybe it is Jayne
, he thought, but he couldn’t keep his men hanging around on a ‘maybe’ for a dishevelled man and his Amazonian, skinhead sidekick.

“You have ten minutes, and that’s it. No more, if you’re not out of there by then I will give the instruction for the tanks to move forward and to fire at will.”

“Is anyone with me?” shouted Sam to the listening soldiers. The soldiers stared blankly at him; some shook their heads while others walked away. “Pah,” scoffed Sam.
Why do they look so worried? These are the pros,
he briefly wondered
.

The lighting lit the sky up once again. Karen stood
by the car blending into the darkness with her black clothes. “I’ve got it - you remind me of my brother.” She looked into Sam eyes. “I’m with you.”

Sam had seen that look before. It was the same look Jack had given him just before he died. Sam knew he couldn’t let her go with him into the school
. Whilst he knew Jayne would still be in there, he didn’t know what else could also be there, waiting in the darkness.

“I’ll just be two minutes. I’ll be back.”

He climbed the fence with ease and ran across the yard splashing through the cold rainwater that lay in puddles. Sam paused for a moment as he reached the doors of the school. Its entrance was like a mouth; Sam entered unaware of what was in its belly. Entering the building he gave a quick glance back to the outline of the soldiers and tanks.

Jayne awoke to the noise of rapidly approaching footsteps. She stood up listening intently. She knew that these footsteps were real unlike the pattering footsteps of the dead children that played in her mind. She stood with the window behind her, facing the door. The footsteps grew closer and a shadowy figure appeared in the doorway. The shadow called her name, it was Sam’s voice. Lowering her gun she walked towards the door. “Sam?”

Lightening lit up the room, for the briefest time the stained glass sent a spectrum of colour into the room. To Jayne’s horror, it was not Sam that had stood at the door. The hunched corpse of a man lurched forwards knocking Jayne backwards, they both fell onto the grimy floor. She let off a shot, but missed her target. As she hit the floor she lost grip of the gun, from the force of the impact and it fell out of her reach. The decaying corpse that pinned her to the floor was strong and held her tight as she struggled to reach for the gun. Her fingers touched the butt of the gun but it was just a fraction out of reach making it impossible for her to get her hands around it. With all her might, knowing it was now or never, she reached out. Managing to grip the gun, she turned it on her assailant and fired.
Click, click,
click,
the gun was out of ammunition. The unexpected shot of gun rang out in the room as blood splattered over her. Sam stood in the doorway, his gun smoking.

“Let’s get out of here,” shouted Sam reloading his gun, “it’s all over Jayne!”

Jayne looked back out of the window; through the rain she could make out the silhouette of the tanks at the fence.

“The army is here, they’re going to blow up the building,” added Sam.

As they ran down the corridor, breathlessly Sam told her about test seventy-seven.

“It works!” Jayne yelled excitedly.

As they were reaching the end of the corridor an explosion burst through the school sending Sam and Jayne to the floor.

“Where’s my ten minutes, you bastards!” Sam yelled.

The corridor ablaze with flames was blocked by falling rubble. Coming up the other end of the corridor walked the dead. Jayne pulled Sam up from the floor.

“Where the hell did they come from?” Sam spat.

Turning they ran up a small set of stairs. Coming out onto one of the upstairs corridors, fire faced them in one direction the dead in the other. The corpses were slowly but steadily moving up the stairs behind them. Bracing themselves for the onslaught they fired their weapons taking off the fingers and exploding some of the heads of their potential attackers but the dead continued to move forward as Jayne and Sam walked backwards towards the fire.

“Save a bullet for me Sam.” Jayne screamed.

Masses of the dead ambled toward them; lifeless eyes stared at the two human beings as they backed towards the burning flames. The faces of the dead were terrifying; Sam felt sick recognising some of them as neighbours and friends from right here in his hometown. Sam and Jayne continued to fire their guns aiming for the faces as they moved towards them. On some bizarre level it was like a funfair’s shooting range but without the fun or the cheap prize. They were nearly out of ammunition as they backed closer and closer to the flames that licked the walls behind them, the smoke rising quickly.