Dead Pulse (5 page)

Within a week, they had both cl
eaned and tidied up room 12. Over the smell of detergent they clinked champagne glasses looted from the local shop on one of their trips to get more supplies.

With everything that was happening outside the school gates, they still managed
to keep their spirits, playing board games that they had found in one of the other classrooms. At one point they set up an electronic game station but with the electric supply so unreliable the game kept cutting out and Jayne in frustration smashed it into pieces with the butt of her gun.

One night, Sam returned from his supermarket haul with three bottles of wine, some bland tinned food and biscuits. They ate and talked about life, death and marriage in the warm coloured dancing light of the candles against the walls

“I saw you get into that car you smiled.”

Jayne didn’t really remember seeing Sam in town before the outbreak became serious. “I clearly recall the day I spoke with Major Marshal.”

“It’s getting too dangerous out there, the dead can smell me, they must be running low on food and they seem more riled up than usual.”
He changed the subject. “Would you want a child in this world?” asked Sam opening can of tinned of tangerines.

“Yes,” coughed Jayne.

“But why?” he took another mouthful of tangerines.

“Humans have always encountered disasters throughout history, the children keep coming. Anyway we’ve just got comfortable.” she smiled holding a glass of wine in the air. “See, we’re not even on the brink yet.”

“So we have to survive, as a race,” he put down the can and gently topped up her glass.

“It’s pre-programmed in
to us,” she looked deep into the rippling red wine, “that survival instinct. We’ve just forgotten with our modern comforts. Other countries will be coping and surviving better than us. The Congo, Haiti... Many districts in Europe. Hell even downtown L.A.”

“It’s that same instinct that’s keeping those things going. Damn land sharks.” spat Sam.

“It’s possible to live our life out here.” Jayne muttered.

“Didn’t you hear me? Its feeding time out there and they are really hungry.”

“We’ll adapt,”

“O
utsmart them.” Sam mused.

“Build a dead killing machine
. Then smash! Our time, the living back on top again,” she enthused, swirling the wine in her glass before finishing it off.

“Who’ll restock the shops?” questioned Sam picking some crumbs off his jeans.

She stood up and looked though a gap in the boarded window.
He’s right
, she thought,
would it be sustainable to grow their own food, how long before the water supply was exhausted?
Many different thoughts ran though her mind as she gazed at the surrounding fence to the school.

With her forefinger she checked the
cleanliness of the windowsill, “There was a biological agent, colourless, odourless and tasteless, an extremely poisonous gas. That said it does not kill or harm living organisms,” Jayne counted on her fingers, “it was test number seventy-two, essentially a vesicant
,
a pulmonary agent, an incapacitating agent.”

“In English, layman terms, please Jayne.” Sam looked at her puzzled.

“It can be a gas or solid compound it was designed to kill the dead.” The atmosphere of the room turned sombre.

“So why haven’t the government used it?” questioned Samuel.

“They did. It failed. But I think they were looking at a genetic instead of practical level.”

“What do you mean?” he asked.

“After test 72 failed, the network gave their full attention to me and EMP solution.”

“EMP?”

“An electromagnetic pulse,” She paused, long conditioned to secrecy, “A burst of electromagnetic radiation usually from the detonation of a nuclear bomb.”

“
I knew it came close again when the outbreak first started, but not a nuclear bomb to stop this! We’d all die. They were going to blow us up,” Exclaimed Sam shaking his head.

“It was seriously considered, but I was developing an alternative.”
He looked at her confused. “Okay picture an explosion high above the earth in military terminology it’s called HEMP or high-altitude electromagnetic pulse. The damage caused varies on different factors, the yield, gamma rays and altitude, EMP 1, EMP 2 and three.

“
Its science fiction stuff?” he gave a look of disbelief.

“No, not at all, you can find this in unclassified literature.
This has been around since 1946 but was pushed forwards leaps and bounds in the sixties.”

“What has this do with these walking c
orpses?”

“NNEMP,
is a non-nuclear electromagnetic pulse. It’s used to block communications usually delivered by cruise missiles the energy yield is lower. Kind of putting foil in a microwave affect, screwing with anything powered with a pulse, electronic warfare.”

“These things are po
wered by some kind of electric? That’s why if you touch them you get a little static shock? I see where you’re going.” Sam stated smiling.

“Exactly, we’ve all got a low current
that pulsates though us but these appear to have a higher electric pulse.” She became excited. “We took the foundation of the High-energy radio frequency weapon HERF and high-power radio frequency weapon HPRF and interjected this with the electromagnetic pulse.” She continued to ramble. “Giving us a weapon that doesn’t have the effects to our central nervous system at most we’d get some nausea and or disorientation. In theory seventy-seven would heighten their already high electric pulses, peaking their power...”

“And fry
their brains that are giving these mother-fuckers life.” Sam interrupted.

“This is a crude overview but you’ve got the idea.”
Confirmed Jayne.

“B
ang! Fried brains. The Jayne bomb.”

“A seventy-seven
dead pulse that can be adapted to be deployable in missile or bomb via a whole range of delivery vehicles.”

“Seventy-seven dead pulse. I like the sound of that.” Sam gave out a laugh.

“It was developed; no one really knows if it would have worked,” She shrugged, “forget it. It’s meaningless now.”

“... The dead will repent, and the living shall likewise perish.” Sam mumbled.

“What was that?” Jayne asked as she turned from the window.

“It’s something an old man said to me, before I got this,” he pointed to his scar.

Over the next few days, Jayne walked the corridors of her old school trying to remember some good times. Death was at the door. Waiting... wanting... waiting for them to make a mistake. Death could wait and want far longer than they ever could.

With the deathly silence that was now in the school hallways it was hard to picture those happy school days. The place seemed more like a ghost house these days. The school was however secured; the metal fences were quite new and well made. Turning, she walked back to room 12. Sam was packing his things into a bag. Jayne’s heart sank, she knew this day was coming.

“Are we the only ones here?” Jayne questioned Sam. She found it strange that no one else had thought of hiding here
, especially with the protection of the oddly newly erected fences.

“Yes. I checked all the rooms. Everyone must have been evacuated because there was no sign of a struggle,” he held up the large blade of the machete, inspecting it.

Jayne knew what he was thinking, “There is nowhere to go, and there is nothing out there.” She stated frankly with her head in her hands.

“There has to be, armies, government people, communities, there must be real people still living and not just screwed up nomads,
people like us,” Sam expressed optimistically. “I need to be a part of something. I need a goal; I miss the everyday rules, don’t drink and drive; pay your bills and taxes; don’t steal, don’t kill. Now there is no order, there are no consequences anymore.” He zipped up his bag. “There has to be more than this.”

The silence and the unruliness of it all had left him on edge and it had been playing on his mind. Meeting Jayne had helped, definitely, but over the last five days or so, he had concluded that her company was not enough. As comfortable as they were with each other, they were passing people with plenty of things in common but with different goals. Jayne Reed had seen what the world had become and needed protection. Sam had seen very little further than the supermarket food aisles and needed to find out for himself - whatever the danger.

“You can sit round here, with a tin up your arse all day! I’ve been doing that and it isn’t getting me anywhere.’ He bellowed pacing the room.

Calmly Jayne whispered, “I’d rather sit round here with a tin up my arse, rather than get bitten on it or shot up it. I’ve tried to warn you. There is nothing more to say other than...” She paused contemplated going over seventy-seven again, but stopped herself from giving false hope. “Stay Sam, don’t go out there.”

Soon after Sam left Jayne moved from room twelve, staying in a large storage cupboard on the other side of the school. She had covered up the window and blocked herself in with only the noise of the dripping cistern nearby to keep her company.
No entrances, one exit, it was safer than an open room whilst she was one her own,
she thought.

Covered with a dark blue woollen blanket around her shoulders, Jayne sat on a p
lastic gym mat hugging her legs, she rocked slowly back and forth, rested her head on her knees and drifted into an uneasy sleep.

Jayne and her family sat around a maple table waiting for dinner. They all were gaunt and pale apart from her. Then, she was on the table with an apple in her mouth. She was naked, paralysed and vulnerable. They began to banging the table hard with their cutlery. They were all dead. She tried to close her eyes and shake their blank looking faces from her mind. Her father stood up as the rest continued to pound the table. He plunged his fork into her thigh and began to tuck in. He stabbed and sawed with his knife and fork, and blood, her blood began to spray on their faces!

Jayne awoke in a sweat.
Breathing deeply, she got her bearings back.
Only a nightmare
, she told herself. Nevertheless, she couldn’t shake the images, she missed her family so much but despite the nightmare being over the banging she had heard in her sleep continued! Shaking her head she realised that the sound was not in her head, these thumps were real.

As the dull bangs continued, a cold chill came over her and she reached for her handgun. The blanket fell to the floor as she half-heartedly got up to investigate. Cautiously, Jayne slowly walked down a long corridor towards the noise. Coming to the end of the corridor she began to walk down a flight circular plastic tread covered stairs. The banging became louder,
so loud,
thought Jayne, she wanted to cover her ears. Then the noise abruptly stopped. Only the creak of the stairs broke the silence.

Her mind raced
. Had kind Sam locked someone in a room so he could have the school for himself? Was it someone who had locked their self in for protection? Was it the zombies?
Gone were the times when a zombie was
tall mixed drink. Jayne had decided that it was time to call them what they really were.

The noise was coming from a large metal double cellar door. She stood over the door with her gun at the ready.

“I’ll shoot, now tell me who you are!” she yelled.

There was no reply, she knelt down and put her ear close to the door. There was a pungent smell and she briefly backed away. She listened... silence, then... Bang! The doors pounded and she jumped back, it was quiet once again. Shaking with dread and fear, Jayne tried to compose herself.
It can’t be living,
she concluded taking a deep breath.

Her grip tightened around the gun in her perspiring hand. She was ready to blast whatever it was away, she placed her other hand on the cold steel handle. She yanked it back. The smell engulfed her first, death. Walking backwards the smell of decaying flesh, excretion and smells of other bodily secretions filled the air. Her spine arched and she retched, almost fainting with the pungent smell, she steadied herself up against a wall.

From the dark hole surfaced a bony dog, half-eaten. It ambled weakly past Jayne, whining. Its coat was torn exposing the flesh beneath, it was obviously in immense pain. Jayne killed the dog ending its suffering. As she looked up from the dog’s body her face filled with horror, and as the world seemed to spin in slow motion, nothing could have prepare her for what she now saw. Children, dead children, were emerging from the cellar. Quickly Jayne backed up the stairs looking down at the ten little rotting faces that made her hair stand on end. She wanted to shoot but she couldn’t bring herself to do it. Their little pale faces gazed at her menacingly. Then a woman, Jayne presumed a teacher, in a white stained blouse and plaid skirt came into sight. Without hesitation, she fired off a round of ammunition sending the dead woman hurtling back down the tomb-like cellar.