Dead Pulse (2 page)

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 wa
s 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 what 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.

Just off a faded dirt track in the forest, gunfire had briefly stopped Carpenter in the midst of his lewd act on a girl, whom he had remorselessly stabbed seven times. It was his third kill. He ruffled his short hair and slowly ran the palm of his hand down his face. He looked at his blood-covered hand and raised an eyebrow. His heart began to slow, scrabbling around on the layer of leaves and twigs that covered the ground he found his cherry-red lipstick and put it back into his top pocket.

Carpenter
reflected over his past kills while he pulled up his jeans and fastened his shiny Levi belt buckle that reflected in the sunlight that broke through clouds. He thought of his first kill, Marilyn, back in his hometown. A sexual assault that went further than he first anticipated. He had waded out with her weighted body and let her slip into the murky water of Lake Garrow.

The second was Jenny Tucker, he rolled over in his mind the stormy day he lured her into his car
offering her a lift to get out of the rain, she didn’t stand a chance. He’d beat her first until she was barely breathing; she was certainly unconscious and no longer able to fight off his sexual advances. After he had killed her a short-lived remorse came over him. Almost disgusted with his behaviour he quickly buried her in a shallow grave not far from his fresh kill that lay before him, Dorothy.

Dorothy’s
smudged lips and freckled chin were covered with the crimson lipstick that Carpenter liked to wear once he had captured what he thought of as
his girls
. Her clothes were ripped and matted with blood. Her lifeless eyes looked blankly up at his chiselled good-looking face, albeit one also smudged with red lipstick. Carpenter closed her eyes whilst giving her a kiss on her cooling cheek, oddly feeling a tingling sensation in his lips as he inhaled the scent of her body. Turning from the body his crazed beady eyes scanned the ground for his spade; he was nothing if not prepared.

As he turned back to where the corpse lay ready to start digging her shallow grave, Dorothy’s corpse sat bolt upright. She tightly gripped his ears and sprang at
Carpenter’s face.

Birds
fled the trees as Carpenter met his demise with a resonant scream.

As the drizzling rain stopped the clouds cleared, and the pale blue seemed to dissolve, becoming a deep orange. Farmore’s only Cemetery sat amongst scattered trees and was for the most part fairly neglected, the oldest graves and tombs were on the whole unkempt. Many of the graves marked a tragic period in the town’s history of a collapsed mineshaft that took many of Farmore’s men and children. A memorial statue was erected in the only regularly maintained part of the cemetery. The statue of a miner cradling a child in his arms stood in a neatly trimmed circle of lush grass.

A
gentle wind with the smell of cut damp grass caught Sam's breath as he placed some of his grandmother’s favourite flowers tulips gently on her grave.

The news reports of an imminent pandemic scared him and made him value life that little bit more. Mulling over the issue of his own mortality as he walked through the graveyard he could hear eerie thumps and thuds. Trying to place the sounds that were all around him
distant fireworks,
he thought. Stopping he looked intently at one grave. It had a small oval picture of a rounded face man under an etched cross, below was a verse, the engraving half covered by ivy that twisted and twined around the base of the headstone. Stepping closer his brown boots crackled on pinecones, pausing for a moment in the silence of the graveyard a dull thump seemed to come from the base of the headstone. He moved closer to the grave, gawking, convinced that he heard something.
Did he see the ground move?
He stood up and shivered in the fading light, he intuitively knew something wasn't quite right. The grave seemed to be stirring to life and despite his instincts telling him otherwise he moved forwards once again.