Dead Pulse (15 page)

In a painful sprint she passed abandoned vehicles, burning houses. Her street looked very different, she had made good headway from the crowd and stopped looking down at her ruined pedicured feet and a newspaper stuck to the floor. The headline read, ‘The Dead Live.’ She tried to make out the news story but the paper was too damp.
It’s a damn B-film
; she chewed over in her mind.

To her left she noticed a body lying on the road, at first she thought it was a rubbish bag but she spied its pale white hands. Cautiously she approached, and then touched the grey bearded man. There was no movement, he was dead with a neat single gunshot through his forehead. Giving a few tugs she struggled to remove his long navy raincoat. Leaving him further exposed to the elements, putting on his coat she rolled up the sleeves a little then bent down and removed his walking boots. Slipping into the leather boots she kept a watchful eye down the street. As she pulled the belt of the coat tight around her waist her bloodshot eyes widened. Just then more dead, all mixtures of the community came forwards out of doorways. Some she recognised and could clearly see from their decaying skin that they were not the people she once knew. Again she ran, darting past a few scattered slow moving walking dead.

At the top of the street she looked down to the valley below where a city once stood. It was now an array of collapsed buildings, difficult to get her bearings and spot any familiar landmarks. The wind rushed past her exposed legs, ruffling her coat like a raised flag. It was clear to her that whatever had happened the dead now ruled and she would have to survive, have to adjust.

This grim, dark and foreboding new place appeared far more appealing than the glossy superficial world that she loathed, and wanted to abandon. Relieved she did not breathe her last breath, now she had rationale on the earth dominated by death, the dead. Born a new, Stratten Chambers purpose was simply to stay alive...

AUTHORS NOTES

I wish to stress that I
do not endorse occult.

Thank you to my editor Rhian Bond and my wife, without either I never would have completed this book.

A kind thank you to you the reader.

Mike Watkins, wherever you are.

A special thank you to all those that have provided research material and those who have given their utmost support, you know who you are.

ABOUT THE AUTHOR

N
ovelist/Producer A. M. Esmonde was born in Wales, United Kingdom. Producer of the film Terminus (2010) and director of the music video 'Say My Name' (2013). Author of Blood Hunger (2010) and Dead Pulse (2011).