Dead Pulse Rising: A Zombie Novel

by K. Michael Gibson

  I suddenly remembered the radio mounted to my shoulder. I could try to warn my driver, but that could end up with my ass being shot off. I nervously glanced over my shoulder and noticed the Homeland agent looking around the area for threats. I slid my hand as inconspicuously as I could manage and depressed the send button on my radio three times, resounding with three quick clicks on the receiving end, a code for danger if I had become compromised. Hopefully, my partner would remember that part of our training. The more I thought about it, the more worried I became. My partner could barely remember what he had for lunch that same day, let alone an hour’s worth of training in a brain-sucking fluorescent-lit concrete room with a trainer that had the personality of wet cardboard.

  “Shit,” I whispered to myself.

  “Keep walking,” said the agent. I sighed inwardly, trying to figure out what the hell I was going to do. What was this all about? Why was I being escorted to answer questions about something I knew absolutely nothing of? Then it dawned on me. The only strange thing that I could possibly think of on our rig was that odd case. Could that possibly have something to do with all this? At that moment, the microphone on my shoulder squelched loud in my ear.

  “Kyle! Where in the hell are you, and what the fuck is going on?” my partner shouted damn near, making me deaf. I could feel the Homeland agent’s eyes on me.

  “Well, what are you waiting for? Answer him.”

  I stopped and stared at the Agent, in confusion.

  The Agent scowled, and said, “Tell your man to rendezvous with us half a klick to the north at the roadblock, then the agent in charge can sort this shit out.”

  I hesitated for a moment, narrowing my eyes, and nodded. I clasped the microphone in my hand and positioned it to my mouth. “Marvin, I don’t know what the fuck is going on, but get your ass off this highway. These guys want something on our truck. I think it might be that damn case! Go, run . . .” I said in a frantic and hushed tone. Suddenly, something struck me in the back of the head—I saw flashes of bright light and fell sprawling to the damp earth. I heard the sound of an engine roar in the distance, tires squealed, and the horn blared. I raised my throbbing head up and glanced over my shoulder, seeing the large armored vehicle come barreling down the highway, knocking derelict cars askew. “Go Marv, go,” I said grinning weakly, face plastered in mud, everything faded to black as I was struck from behind once more.

  Chapter 8

  Marvin Winters sat in his Specter Armored car at the edge of the highway obscured by the rain and the haze of smoke. The warning from his partner’s microphone sounded clear within the truck’s confines and reverberated off the steel walls echoing in his ears. Marvin glanced behind him, looking directly at the cage that contained the strange case they had been given to safeguard. A dull red glow emanated from within the shadows of the compartment. Marvin realized there was nothing that he could do to retrieve the case, his partner having the only key. Marvin thought about his partner’s words; he knew that in the event of trouble, his orders were to leave the scene. However, he had misgivings about leaving his partner within this mess, but what could he do? Marvin wasn’t even certain where his partner had gone.

  Marvin glanced in his rearview mirror; and even among the specs of rain that obscured his vision, he could see armed agents closing in on his position.

  “What the fuck?” he grunted to himself. Marvin decided to heed his partner’s warning. Normally, he would not consider running from the authorities, but something about this was just all wrong. The agents, six of them as far as he could tell, approached the armored car, with weapons raised. Marvin chuckled to himself; they were shouting something unintelligible at him. They may as well of been speaking Chinese. The armored car, aside from being bulletproof, was also, for the most part, soundproof.

  The agents motioned to him to open the door.

  Marvin glanced at them, gave them the middle finger, mouthed the words fuck you, and smiled.

  One of the agents began pounding on the door. Shouting at him, he held up a federal ID.

  Marvin smiled and in turn pointed to his own federal ID that was pinned to his chest, and then shrugged. The agent seemed to get fairly pissed off at this.

  Marvin noticed movement off to his left-hand side; stumbling figures emerged from behind cars and seemed to materialize out of the smoke and gloom, from the looks of it, dozens of them. The figures made a beeline straight for the agents.

  The man who was pounding on the door saw Marvin’s expression.

  Marvin frantically raised his arms and pointed in the general direction of the advancing horde.

  The agent turned abruptly, shouted something, and opened fire. The bullets tore into the crowd. Red and orange blood began to fly in all directions. Some of the advancing figures took rounds in the legs and fell to the ground; however, it only managed to slow them down a little. The ones that fell kept coming, pulling themselves along the ground with their fingertips; most of the oncoming figures had taken bullets directly center mass. The onslaught of lead they sent their way, unfortunately, was about as effective as giving them a vitamin shot. They surrounded the truck and slammed into the agents. Their ragged fingertips tearing and clawing at body armor.

  Marvin saw one of the ghouls sink his teeth into an agent’s neck, sending arterial spray toward the truck, and coating the windows. “Fuck me!” Marvin exclaimed and he threw the truck in gear and floored it. The engine roared, and the truck barreled forward, smashing derelict cars in its path. He watched as blood oozed down the windows and mingled with rain water. He flipped on the windshield wipers, trying to clear his view, but the little dime-store wiper blades didn’t do jack-shit for the size of the heavy window. He tried to maneuver the hulking vehicle in and out of cars, and other people. At least he thought they were people. At this point, he wasn’t sure who was a friend or who was foe.

  Marvin’s mind drifted back to his days stationed in Vietnam, reminded of the bloody conflict amid all the carnage. He was a demolitions expert during the war. The enemy built a bridge; he took it down. He recalled one particular engagement where he and his squad had been given orders to clear out a system of tunnels that had been discovered days previous by a recon team dispatched into the jungle. They stumbled upon an entrance and sent a lone tunnel rat inside; upon his return, he reported back that a massive underground command post occupied just a half mile or so in. Rather than risk the lives of his men trying to clear out a bug hole underground, with rifles in blind close combat, Sergeant Michaels of force recon called in the boom squad.

  Marvin’s unit responded to the call. They were to place demo charges in and around the tunnels, and blow the piss out of them. Shit went wrong. One of Marvin’s squad members, upon placing his charge, fell into a trap while working his way back to the rendezvous point. He crashed through a well-hidden hole in the ground right into a cluster of sharpened bamboo. As the shafts pierced through his chest cavity, the soldier depressed the trigger of his detonator, causing it to blow before the rest of his squad’s charges were in place. As a result, Charlie swarmed out of the tunnels with the knowledge that they were under attack. In the end, the tunnels and the command center housed within were destroyed, but at a price. When the smoke cleared, seven Americans lay dead or bleeding out on the jungle floor. Marvin survived that conflict, and by God, he was going to survive this.

  Marvin sped across the rain-soaked asphalt, crashing through cars and bodies alike, trying his best not to enter full on panic mode. His eyes focused on the ongoing carnage in his rearview. Too late, he noticed, the roadblock of white SUVs that lay directly in his path. Marvin had a choice to make: slam on the brakes and risk skidding into the roadblock and more than likely flipping the metal beast over due to the trucks top heavy nature, or put the pedal to the metal, and ram the bitch. Marvin had a split second to make his choice.

  “Ramming speed!” Marvin shouted to himself, following with a smirk. He flipped on the siren and blared the truck’s horn, try
ing his best to warn the Homeland agents of his intentions, hoping to cause as little collateral damage as possible.

  The agents took the hint and ran scattering in all directions, diving for cover as the armored car slammed into the roadblock, sending metal and fiberglass debris flying about. Some of the Homeland agents opened fire on the truck as it roared past in a futile attempt to slow him down. Sparks rained off the hull of the armored car as he sped by. Marvin felt the truck jolt as bullets slammed into the run-flat tires; no matter, the truck was designed to take that kind of abuse and could operate at speeds of up to fifty miles-per-hour even if all six tires had been shot out.

  Marvin throttled the armored car toward the open expanse of highway in an attempt to put as much distance between himself, his cargo, and his would-be pursuers. At that moment, Marvin heard the loud whirr of an engine overhead. A Black Hawk helicopter emerged out of the rain and smoke, and positioned itself directly in front of the armored car.

  “Fuck!” Marvin shouted, not sure of what he should do. He could outrun SUVs and cars all damn day but not a freaking gunship; there was just no way in hell. Marvin suddenly remembered an overpass on a side street that was just up the road. It was narrow enough to accommodate only one vehicle at a time. Marvin just hoped that the truck would not become lodged underneath the small train bridge.

  No time to think about it. Marvin shifted gears and gunned the engine. Steam rose off the engine hood from droplets of water that evaporated almost instantly as they pelted its black exterior. The gunship fired a volley of warning shots at the ground in front of the vehicle, sending broken shards of concrete and asphalt raining down on the windshield. Marvin flinched and reflexively swerved to avoid the gunshots. The damaged tires caused the truck to slide and fishtail for a moment, nearly causing Marvin to lose control and go spinning off the road and into nearby trees. Marvin turned into the skid and regained traction; he then took a sharp right onto an exit ramp and headed for the side street that would take him to the train bridge.

  The loudspeaker of the helicopter shouted at him to stop, audible even within the nearly soundproof confines of the armored car.

  “I hope this works,” Marvin prayed to himself and any god that would listen as he began to bear off to the left. Marvin turned the wheel, and suddenly, the truck shook with such violence it caused him to slam face first into the ballistic glass. An explosion rocked the truck, causing it to flip end over end. Fire encapsulated the entire vehicle, metal began to creak and groan. Marvin hung upside down from his seat belt, his head throbbing with pain. He noticed blood dripped from his eyebrow and sizzled as it landed on the truck’s ceiling.

  “Fuck me,” Marvin gasped, coughing and choking on smoke that arose in feathery tendrils from the currency that lay strewn around the interior of the truck being systematically burned into charcoal.

  “What the hell just happened?” Marvin groaned. It was then he noticed the smoke drifting up from underneath him. “Ah crap, I think it’s time to go,” Marvin said to no one in particular, realizing that if he sat in the oven-like vehicle for too long, he was going to be cooked alive. Not wanting to become the first human pot roast, Marvin fumbled around with the seat belt clasp and depressed the button. It held fast. Shit, Marvin thought and frantically looked around for something he could use to cut his way out of the restraint. The truck was starting to heat up, sweat beaded on his face and mingled with his blood, and stung his eyes.

  Marvin remembered that he carried a pocket knife on his duty rig. He stretched his shaking hand toward his waist and found the pouch that contained it. He undid the clasp, and the knife slid out and went clattering to the inverted ceiling. “Shit!” Marvin shouted and stretched his arm out, trying desperately to grab the knife that he was only able to just touch with his fingertips. Marvin pushed up with his good leg, straining against his restraint. Just a bit farther, he thought. His fingers burned as he touched the ceiling area around the knife. He ignored the pain and grasped hold of it, with a grunt. Marvin raised his arm in midair and flipped the blade open, light from the flames outside bounced off the blade and flickered in the interior of the truck, casting an array of dancing shadows. Marvin began to steadily saw at the orange nylon belt. It frayed with each passing stroke until it gave way under the old man’s weight. Marvin fell to the floor, or ceiling rather, in a heap.

  He hurried and scrambled to his feet, trying to avoid being pan fried. Marvin stood, feeling his bones creak and pop as he did so, I hate getting old he mused. Marvin tried to listen to hear if the helicopter was still in the area, but it was useless between the foggy ringing in his ears and the distortion sounds the truck’s metal hull made as it was heated.

  Marvin glanced around the truck, looking for anything useful. He noticed the strange metal case lying on the floor, the truck’s cage door hanging open, the framework distorted from the impact of the truck flipping over. Marvin reached down and picked up the case and looked it over. It was scratched, dented, and warm to the touch, but otherwise, it was no worse for the wear.

  Marvin set the case on the floor and bent over to peer through the truck’s back door windows. It was hard to see anything through the dirt-encrusted glass, but for what Marvin could tell, the coast looked clear. Marvin reached for the door’s latch and tapped at it to check for heat; it was warm but not burning like the area in which Marvin stood. He could tell there was something burning underneath the truck due to the fact that the soles of his boots were starting to melt. Guess the shoes they make us buy for work aren’t fire resistant, he mused, chuckling slightly.

  He needed to make a hasty retreat, and he needed to do it now. Marvin grasped hold of the door’s latch and pulled up, releasing the thick metal bolt that held the doors secure. He pushed and felt a little give; however, the door would not open. “God damn it,” Marvin cursed as he figured at the angle the truck laid; the doors must be lodged into the earth. Marvin pushed with all his strength and managed to open a gap, with just enough space to squeeze through.

  Marvin turned around and headed back to the front of the truck and retrieved his backpack, remembering that his wife had packed him some sandwiches and cans of Ensure. He would need food if this shit lasted longer than just a few days, in these types of situations you never knew. He also kept some other bare essentials within the bag for just-in-case purposes, a habit left over from his old military days. It contained things such as a lighter, map, compass, extra ammunition, as well as some water purification tablets.

  Marvin slung the backpack over his shoulders when he heard a noise coming from outside. The sound reminded him of a juicy steak sizzling on his old charcoal grill at home. Curious, he made his way over to the back door and peered out.

  Marvin jumped back, nearly slamming into the upended passenger seat as a snapping, snarling face appeared in the door’s opening. The beast was disgusting. Marvin realized the sizzling noise he had heard was the sound of the flesh on this man roasting in the fire that still surrounded the armored car. The creature reached toward him and let out a groan. Marvin frantically fumbled for his sidearm and unsnapped it just as the figure started to force itself through the opening. Pieces of putrid burnt human flesh tore free from bone in sheets and fell to the vehicle’s floor, with a wet slap. Marvin had to force back the bile and vomit that threatened to overtake him as he brought his weapon to bear. His hands shook with fear and revulsion as he took aim. Marvin squeezed the trigger of his Glock .45, sending a round straight through the figure’s eye socket.

  The thing’s head snapped back and slammed against the open door. The round exited the skull and struck the armored door, causing it to ricochet and reenter the man-thing’s head. Its forehead burst outward, sending blackish orange blood spewing Marvin’s way.

  Marvin involuntarily ducked as he felt the bullet whiz past his head only millimeters from his ear. Marvin reached up and touched the side of his head and felt around to make certain the bullet hadn’t struck him. Satisfied that it did not, he slow
ly approached the rear of the truck, dizzied a bit from the loud reverberation of the gunshot. He nudged at the still form on the floor, with his still-melting boots. It did not seem to be moving any longer. Relaxing slightly, Marvin pushed the corpse back out into the burnt grass.

  Carefully, he stuck his head outside and scanned around the area. “Holy fucking shit!” He let escape as he noticed about a dozen or so figures heading his way. Quickly, Marvin reached down and grabbed the metal case that still lay on the floor. He glanced at it for a moment, wondering what the hell was in it to make the Department of Homeland Security damn near blow up his truck for it. Well, whatever it was, he was going to make certain they answered some questions about it before they got their grubby little hands on it.

  Marvin sucked in his seventy-three-year-old beer gut and squeezed through the rear door’s opening, feeling the heat from the fire that still raged on around the truck. Marvin crouched, trying his best not to be seen by the approaching forms in the distance. Through the smoke, rain, and steaming haze, he could not tell if the figures heading his way were normal or the infected. Marvin searched around the area for a path of escape. He remembered the train tracks and, more importantly, the forest surrounding them. Marvin stepped carefully over the remains of the ruined man at his feet and made his way toward the side of the road, doing his best to conceal his movements.

  Hurriedly, Marvin jogged toward the train bridge that he was trying to make it to before his truck had been struck with what he could only imagine was some kind of missile. Judging by the small crater that was left in the road where Marvin had been driving, he could only assume that they had missed, or perhaps they were only trying to stop his truck rather than destroy it. He wasn’t quite sure, and there was really no point in dwelling on it at the moment.

  Marvin made his way over to the embankment at the bottom of the stone, train bridge and started to climb his way up to the top. He had to work slower than he would have liked, but the fact of it was he was an old man. He was in relatively good shape for his age but still old nonetheless. Taking his time to avoid slipping in the wet grass that covered the hill, Marvin ascended to the top of the bridge. He went into a crouch, feeling his bad knees groan in protest, and headed toward the forest, taking care to gingerly step over the train tracks and rocks surrounding them. He eyed the heavy case held in his left hand, a small LED light blinked silently in the shadows of the forest entryway. This thing is like a God damn beacon, he thought. Reaching down, he snatched up a clump of wet earth and smeared it across the LED’s surface, effectively obscuring the light. That ought to do, he mused. He took a moment and peered out at the flaming wreckage, surprised at the fact he actually made it out of there alive. He ducked down low as Homeland agents descended on the broken truck. He angrily spied on them for a moment, and then silently slipped away into the trees.