Dead Pulse
DEAD PULSE
A.M. Esmonde
Dead Pulse
A
Saturn Lite Boo
k
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.
1
st
Edition*
Published by Saturn Lite 2011 KindleEdition 2013
Cover by Angel, model Sarah Ann Williamso
n
*this is the British unedited version and
has not been adapted for readers outside the U
nited 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 of
ficer 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.
F
rom 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 cartil
age 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 a
nd 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 in 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.