by Keith Taylor
PULSE
AN APOCALYPTIC EMP SURVIVAL THRILLER
KEITH TAYLOR
Copyright © 2017 by Keith Taylor
All rights reserved. This book or any portion thereof
may not be reproduced or used in any manner whatsoever
without the express written permission of the publisher
except for the use of brief quotations in a book review.
First Printing, 2017
If you are writing any book about the end of the world, what you are really writing about is what's worth saving about it.
–Justin Cronin
:::-:::
About the Author
Keith Taylor is the true identity of the million plus selling author behind the pen names Aya Fukunishi and K A Taylor, who toiled for years writing trashy but bizarrely popular romance novels that you absolutely shouldn't ever read, not even to satisfy your curiosity. Not even on a dare. Just don't do it. You'll never get that time back.
Throughout those long, cold years in the romance trenches Taylor secretly longed to return to his first love and true calling: apocalyptic fiction. The bestselling Last Man Standing series was written in the months after he finally realized he couldn't write one more damned love story. He moved back to his writing bunker in Mongolia, disconnected from the world and returned with HUNGER, CORDYCEPS and VACCINE. Following their unexpected success he once again withdrew to the bunker, returning in August 2017 with the bestselling novel This is the Way the World Ends.
Taylor hails from the rainy suburbs of Manchester in the north of England. He lives with his wife, Otgontsetseg, and splits his time between Ulaanbaatar, Mongolia and Bangkok, Thailand. He's been deported from more than one country, once spent two months living in his car, has crapped in the wilderness everywhere from the Gobi Desert to the Pamir mountains on the Afghan border and survives on a diet of meat, cheese, beer and cigarettes. He probably shouldn't still be alive, but for now appears to be unkillable.
Website: authorkeithtaylor.com
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:::1:::
IT WAS THE cranks and conspiracy theorists who noticed it first.
They’d been talking about it on the forums for weeks, but of course few of us bothered to listen. After all, why would we? For years the lunatic fringe of the Internet had been spouting spittle-flecked paranoid theories about everything from chemtrails to lizard people to alien-built pyramids, all of them without a single shred of evidence. There was no reason to believe they were right this time when they’d been wrong so many times before, but… well, even a stopped clock is right twice a day.
The first to figure out what was happening was a Twitter user who went by the handle DPRKTruth, an anonymous figure who seemed to communicate almost exclusively in all caps, spelling errors and misplaced apostrophes. For a month after the Pacific nuclear test he spammed prepper forums with his theories, derailing conversations and pestering other users until the moderators finally lost their patience and revoked his membership. His posts were long, disjointed stream of consciousness tracts, unbroken by punctuation and untroubled by logic, and only a handful of people bothered to slog through what appeared to be the ravings of an unmedicated lunatic, but those few who made the effort found themselves wondering about the question he posed:
Why is North Korea suddenly playing nice?
It was a fair question, and it wasn’t easy to find a satisfying answer. For years the Democratic People’s Republic of Korea had made a habit of boasting to the outside world whenever their leader so much as cut a decent fart. Bizarre propaganda and ominous threats were their specialty.
Almost daily the regime published photos of Kim Jong-un saluting military parades and proudly pointing a chubby finger at enormous missiles, always surrounded by the flock of fawning generals who shadowed his every step, notepads open and pens at the ready to hoover up the nuggets of wisdom that fell from their leader’s lips. They'd made an art form of appearing terrifyingly unhinged, like the kid in high school even the bullies avoided because he had a habit of biting when he felt threatened. Only this kid had nuclear weapons, and his chubby finger was always hovering just an inch above a big red button.
Since 2006 North Korea had conducted a dozen tests of its nuclear warheads, all of them taking place at Punggye-ri, an underground facility in a remote and mountainous region of the north east. The tests fit the profile of a regime that was rapidly improving its technology, steadily increasing the payload of its weapons with an eye towards miniaturization, the key to perfecting a nuclear warhead that could be carried by an ICBM. After each one the west held its breath just a little longer.
The high altitude Pacific nuclear test in April of 2019 had been the next logical step, both a show of force and a demonstration that the regime was able to make good on its previously empty threats. The test proved that the Koreans could now launch a devastating nuclear attack on any capital city between Tokyo and Berlin, and that they could even – and this is the part that made the US government sit up and take notice – finally reach parts of the lower 48 states. The maximum range of Pyongyang’s new Hwasong-15 missile was unknown, but there was little doubt that it was capable of reaching at least as far as the Pacific Northwest.
Property values in Seattle and Portland plummeted overnight.
The tension in the US and across the western world was palpable, and by May war seemed inevitable. The question wasn’t whether the western coalition would attempt a preemptive attack – that much was taken as a given – but whether we’d be able to land a killing blow before the regime had the chance to launch a cataclysmic retaliatory nuclear strike.
The stock markets tanked. Gold hit its highest value in history. The evening news ran segments on how to survive a nuclear attack, as if there was anything people could do but hug their families and say a final prayer as they waited for the blast wave to reach them.
And then, completely out of the blue, in early June the UN ambassador to North Korea announced in general session that the DPRK would immediately halt its nuclear program. No further attempts would be made to improve its missiles, and no new weapons would be manufactured. In return for the lifting of sanctions the Koreans would open up the country to UN weapons inspectors to oversee the safe disposal of every last warhead. The North, the ambassador claimed, finally wished to join the civilized world.
It was a bizarre move, completely out of character for a regime that had built its reputation on constant threats of aggression and an almost pathological isolation from the wider world. North Korea seemed to gain nothing from the deal. Just as the world cowered in fear of a Korean nuclear attack they snatched defeat from the jaws of victory, supplicating themselves at the feet of western leaders.
Of course we struggled to make sense of it. This was so far from the North Korean playbook that we didn’t even know where to begin. We all had our own pet theories, of course. Some thought it was a delayed reaction to the years of crippling sanctions. Others suggested that the generals had started to feel the pinch after three punishing years of crop failures and famine. They’d been happy when it was just the peasants who went hungry, but they drew the line when the shortages hit their own dinner table.
Perhaps the most credible explanation came from the intelligence community. According to the shaky, ragtag spy network that operated out
of Seoul the North was almost completely bankrupt. Kim Jong-un had finally drained the nation’s coffers in his quest to develop missiles and warheads that could lay waste to the west. The Pacific test had been his last hurrah, a final eye-wateringly expensive display of his power, but without the funds to keep the military leaders in the lifestyle to which they were accustomed the regime was on the verge of open revolt.
Kim was a marked man, they claimed, just weeks away from execution or assassination at the hands of his own generals. His only hope for survival was to come to the table to discuss a détente with the west, if only so that the sanctions might be eased enough to allow for fresh supplies of Johnny Walker and Marlboro Reds to keep his subordinates from mutiny.
But was that the real reason North Korea was suddenly willing to talk? Was it really just a bankrupt leader trying to cover his ass and tamp down a revolt?
DPRKTruth didn’t think so. He had an alternative theory, one that helped explain the nuclear test over the Pacific, and it sent a chill down the spine of anyone who heard it.
Along with the rest of us he’d seen the satellite footage from the Pacific test. Like us he’s seen the telltale double flash that confirmed that the detonation had been nuclear in nature, and like us he’d seen the analysis of seismic and infrasound data that estimated the yield at around two hundred kilotons. This matched with predictions from intelligence sources that the Koreans would use their most powerful weapon in their demonstration. The test was a show of force; a baring of teeth. So far, so normal.
DPRKTruth, however, had noticed something in the photos that hadn’t been mentioned in the official reports. Approximately half a second after the characteristic double flash of the nuclear detonation a second double flash was recorded, barely visible and much, much weaker than the first, at a much higher altitude and around two miles to the east of the initial explosion, almost completely hidden by the initial blast.
Where did it come from? The double flash suggested that the second explosion was also nuclear, but whatever it was it failed to register as more than a momentary blip on either infrasound and seismic data. It was a ghost explosion.
If it was a nuclear blast the yield of the warhead had been no more than five kilotons, just a third the yield of the bomb we dropped on Hiroshima, little more than a cherry bomb by modern standards. It had been years since the Koreans had tested a nuclear weapon so small.
So why would they do it now? Why would they set off two nuclear warheads at the same time? Were they trying to hide one with the other? If so… why?
DPRKTruth believed he knew the answer.
What if the Pacific test was just a smokescreen? What if the entire Korean nuclear program was just a smokescreen, a shell game designed to distract our attention from their true aims?
What if, he suggested, the Koreans had developed a weapon much more dangerous than a conventional nuke? A weapon so terrifying, so apocalyptically destructive, that it was safer for them to convince the western world that they planned to decimate our cities with nuclear-tipped ICBMs than reveal the truth?
What if they were coming to the table and begging for peace, falling to their knees and pleading for our mercy, just to lull us into a false sense of security? What if all this was designed to make us drop our guard?
What if they were preparing to strike?
On the morning of July Fourth 2019 we finally learned the truth.
΅
:::2:::
“COME ON, MATT, don’t smoke next to the fireworks. Safety first. Use your head.”
Jim Shepherd plucked the smoldering butt from between the kid’s fingers, dropped it and crushed it beneath his shoe, and it was only when he noticed the young man’s pained expression that he caught the pungent odor lingering in the air.
“Weed? Seriously, Matt? OK, hand it over.” He held out a hand and waited patiently as the young man visibly weighed up his options. Deny that he had any more and run the risk of arrest, or give it up and lose his precious stash? Shepherd already knew the answer. Even before he reluctantly reached for his cigarette case Shepherd knew which pocket it was in. You don’t spend six years as a Campbell County auxiliary police officer without learning how to read dumb kids like a book.
Matt handed the case to Shepherd with a scowl and watched sullenly as he crumbled two loose joints between his fingers, sending tobacco flakes and fragrant marijuana fluttering to the ground. “Now get on home. Next time I catch you with this stuff we’re gonna have to talk about it down at the station, with your mother in the room. We on the same page, son?”
Matt dropped his chin to his chest and mumbled, “Yes, sir. S’rry, sir,” before snatching back the empty case and trudging off towards the tree line, kicking the tall grass as he went. For a second Shepherd felt a little bad for the kid. If he’d known it’d cost him his stash he probably wouldn’t have volunteered to haul the fireworks out to the park at the break of dawn. No good deed goes unpunished.
Kid? Jeez, Jim. Shepherd caught himself almost as soon as the thought passed through his head, and he chuckled at the idea that he’d started thinking of people Matt’s age as ‘kids’. Matt was at least twenty three, not really all that much younger than Shepherd himself at thirty five, but that kind of thinking comes with the territory when you’re a cop, even a part time volunteer like Shepherd. Everyone older is ‘sir’ or ‘ma’am’. Everyone younger is just a punk, and probably up to no good.
He dropped to his haunches and flipped the lid on the crate of fireworks, feeling a little rush of excitement when he saw that the mayor had really gone all out on the hardware this year. The crate was overflowing with dozens of rockets, and Shepherd could tell just from the names printed on the glossy cardboard tubes that this year’s display was going to be better than ever. You can’t go wrong with anything called ‘The Bone Shaker’ and ‘Uncle Sam’s Revenge’.
The mayor didn’t have a permit for the display, of course. This entire crate was a class one misdemeanor punishable by up to a year in jail and a $2,500 fine, but nobody in Willow Falls gave so much as a wet mouse fart. Every year the mayor took his truck over to West Virginia and loaded it up with rockets, Roman candles and firecrackers at the roadside stores just across the state line, and he didn’t waste a drop of sweat on the drive home.
Everyone knew there wasn’t a cop between here and the border who’d write him up for breaking state law when it came to a fireworks display. Folks in these parts took the Fourth seriously, and they had no time for petty laws and pointless paperwork. If the stuffed shirts in Richmond didn’t like it they could walk east until they hit the ocean, and then just keep on walking.
The Fourth of July had always been Shepherd’s favorite holiday, and this one looked like it could go down in the history books. Willow Falls may just be a sleepy Virginia town of about eight hundred residents, but the local rivalry with Monroeville meant that every Fourth always went with a bang. The neighboring towns had been locked in a friendly but deadly serious arms race for the last thirty years when it came to staging the best Independence Day celebrations in Campbell County, and this year it looked like the mayor had blown pretty much the entire municipal budget to make damned sure Willow Falls came out on top.
Shepherd stood and took a deep draft of the warm, clean morning air, smiling to himself as he took in the view of the small but well maintained park at the edge of the town. A few hours from now every inch of grass would be covered with revelers. Burgers and hot dogs would sizzle away on a hundred barbecues, and the townsfolk would toss a football or sit in the shade and shoot the breeze until nightfall, when they’d rouse themselves from their blissful food comas to ooh and aah at the spectacular fireworks display.
Shepherd couldn’t help but break into a grin. This would be a perfect day. Every other day of the year the people of Willow Falls had to worry about all the usual baggage of a small rural town in flyover country. They had to deal with the struggling farms; the big box retailers killing off the mom and pop store
s on Main Street; good jobs outsourced to Asia, where folk survived on a buck a day and were happy for the opportunity; and worst of all the damned opioid epidemic stealing away the promise of the next generation.
Every day towns like Willow Falls struggled mightily with issues like these, but not today. Never today. This was a day when all those worries could be left behind. This was a day for… well, for pure and simple happiness. For just one day out of the year all those problems could sit on the back burner while everyone enjoyed a burger, caught up with their neighbors and watched the sky explode in color.
He left the crate sitting where it was – nobody would ever dare touch the hallowed fireworks even if they sat unguarded all day – and strolled across the grass back to his beat up old Jeep Cherokee in the empty parking lot at the edge of the park.
As he climbed in and gunned the engine a station wagon pulled into the lot, full to bursting with a horde of silver haired old ladies who sprang out of the car gabbing like overexcited teenagers. Shepherd gave them a friendly wave as he passed. This was the dreaded July Fourth committee, a gaggle of bored old spinsters and widows who waited the entire year for the chance to bark orders like a bunch of retired drill sergeants with beehives and perms. If a single string of bunting was out of place they’d have something to say about it. They’d make sure every table cloth was neatly pressed and every grill was polished to a high shine, and God help anyone who failed to honor the flag to their satisfaction.
Shepherd quickly pulled out of the lot before one of them waved him down to scold him for forgetting to wash his car for the special day. It wouldn’t be the first time, and these women were relentless. They’d have him by the side of the road with a bucket and sponge if he gave them an inch.
