Dead Pulse Rising: A Zombie Novel

by K. Michael Gibson

  “Sir, you need to come with us. This site has been compromised,” the lead agent said as he walked over to Hammond and grasped him by the arm.

  Hammond shook him off. “Now wait just a damn minute. What do you mean, compromised? Compromised how?” His mind swirled in alcohol induced confusion. As if to punctuate his question, one of the agents in the hallway opened fire. He watched in horror as a female, one of the office workers, was gunned down upon entering the hallway. “What is the meaning of this?” Hammond growled as the woman, someone Hammond recognized as one of the mail room clerks, jumped back on her feet and charged one of the agents guarding the hallway.

  The agent screamed and let off a sporadic succession of rapid fire as the woman’s smallish form leaped on top of him and bit deep, sinking her snarling teeth into the agent’s exposed neck. Blood shot out, coating the door and the walls. More carnage followed as the agent’s stray rounds tore into his cohorts. Men clutched their arms and chests as bullets ripped through flesh and impacted body armor, sending screams of shock reverberating off the confined space of the hallway. The agent bled out in seconds and dropped to the floor under the little woman’s weight.

  The large man in the room with Hammond backed up against the director, taking aim with his assault rifle. He opened fire just as the woman arched her head back in a primal howl. The 5.56 mm round devastated the woman’s forehead, causing it to explode outward.

  Her corpse fell atop of the other agent, who lay twitching on the floor; red and orange blood pumped out of her grizzly head wound and mingled with the slain agent and pooled around the injured men. Orange tendrils seemed to seek out the fallen as they lay there on the drab gray tile.

  Hammond and the soldier in front of him both recoiled as one of their fallen brethren began to convulse violently on the floor, underneath of the near-decapitated form of his female attacker. Shortly after, the other agents seemed to follow suit; some of them let out cries of agony and fear; others convulsed in silence. Several moments passed, and as if in tandem the men, all the men in the hallway, ceased to move.

  “Sir, we need to get out of here, now!”

  Hammond stared at the carnage in the hallway in silence and disbelief.

  “Sir, we need to go. There’s a chopper waiting on the roof to evacuate you,” the big man said, grabbing Hammond by the arm once more.

  “I-I.” A shriek resounded from out in the hallway, causing Hammond and his protector to jump.

  One of the fallen agents had somehow regained his footing and was now standing there in the doorway, as if studying the two men. His face twisted in rage, and he took off straight for the two men in the office.

  Hammond retreated behind his desk, pointing the pistol he still held in his hands toward the oncoming man.

  The agent sent to lead Hammond to the extraction point on the roof was taken by surprise as one of his partner’s crashed headlong into him.

  Hammond shrunk back, not knowing what to do as he clutched the .45 caliber handgun in his trembling hands.

  The large agent lashed out at the infected, landing a glove-clad fist square in the man’s gnashing jaw. The sounds of jawbones cracking went off like fireworks in the office. The agent kicked out with his boot and managed to flip the infected over onto his back. He rolled jumped to his feet, and brought his boot down hard—slamming the man’s head into the plush carpeted floor. A sickening crunch followed as the agent repeated the maneuver, effectively grounding the infected man’s skull into a bloody pulp.

  Before Hammond could protest, the black-clad agent grabbed him one last time, pulling the balding director around the desk and shoving him toward the door.

  “Move!” the agent ordered as they stepped quickly into the hallway.

  Hammond noticed the other fallen agents beginning to writhe and twitch on the floor. “Christ almighty,” Hammond gasped as his protector picked up the pace and pushed him down the hall.

  The two men turned the corner just as a howl escaped from the corridor they had just occupied.

  “Go, run, get to the stairs!” the agent shouted as black armor-clad infected rounded the corner.

  The two men took off down the hallway.

  Hammond gasped as he moved, his heart hammered in his chest as his alcohol-thinned blood flowed through his aging veins. He feared he may have a heart attack before they even reached the stairway door.

  The two men ran through rows upon rows of cubicles, cubicles reserved for many of the agencies intelligence analysts whose job it is to decipher these threats.

  Hammond shrieked as one wayward hand shot out from behind one of the work spaces.

  “Help me,” a young man rasped.

  The agent simply nudged Hammond forward while at the same time batting the analyst’s hand away. The young man lay there, clutching a ragged wound in his side.

  “Keep moving, sir,” he said as they made their way toward the emergency door.

  “B-but he’s . . .” Hammond stammered.

  “We can’t help him now, sir. Mission priority is to get you topside and out of here,” the soldier replied.

  Hammond reached the door to the stairwell and flung it open. A scream resounded from the cubicles as the infected agents found the wounded analyst cowering on the floor of his office space. Several of the more persistent infected continued forward toward their prey.

  Hammond was shoved aside into the stairwell as his protector forced his way through, slamming the door shut, and then scanning the area for threats. Seeing none, he turned and flipped the door’s underpinning. It wasn’t going to do much, but it may just buy them some time.

  The agent faced Hammond as the first of the infected slammed into the door. “Listen carefully. We don’t have much time. That door is not going to hold for long. I need to clear these stairwells. You stay close. Don’t lag behind. Got it?”

  Hammond nodded his head nervously while salty sweat dripped into and stung his cobalt-blue eyes. He wiped the offending excretion away with the back of his hand.

  The infected wailed on the door, causing it to shudder and quake under their onslaught.

  The agent sent to guard Hammond glanced at the door. “Time to go, sir,” he said and started off up the stairs.

  Hammond glanced at the door, and then glanced at the four levels of stairs that he would have to ascend. He steeled himself and took off after the agent, not wanting to be left behind, although he was pretty certain the grunt would do no such thing. He was under orders to protect him with his very life. Hammond allowed himself a small measure of satisfaction with that thought. It was short lived, however, as he heard a loud bang from behind. The door, it was about to give. Hammond quickened the pace to catch up to the agent who now stood eyeing the next three levels.

  The agent briefly inspected the small window in the door looking for threats; he knew that none of the other doors were secure, and infected, if there were any, could come pouring through those doors at any time. He quickly moved to the next landing, Hammond following close behind; he paused only to kick the door props down as they moved past.

  “Clear,” the agent said and advanced to the next level, following the same process.

  Hammond kept close watch on their backs as they ascended. With one more floor to go, the door on the first level they had entered crashed open. Shrieks and howls filled the stairwell and echoed in their ears as footsteps pounded up the stairs below.

  “Move!” the agent yelled as he pushed Hammond behind him and up the stairs toward the final level.

  At the top lay a small ladder that led to the roof. Hammond moved as fast as he could manage. He nearly reached the top when the door adjoining the upper level quietly swung opened. Hammond gasped as a twitching shape emerged; the man standing in front of him drooled and growled in a low drone. Slowly, Hammond reached for his pistol, never taking his eyes off the snarling man in front of him.

  Shots from one level below distracted the infected momentarily as Hammond brought his pistol to
bear. He fired a round at the man, striking him in the temple. The man managed to turn his gaze toward Hammond as he pitched to the side and fell over the railing; he struck the bottom level with a thud.

  The agent came running up the stairs, shouting, “Up the ladder! Up the ladder!” He turned and fired another burst, the rounds striking one of the advancing infected just above the knee, cutting the appendage in twain, sending him sprawling into the group behind him, it did little to stall their advance but bought them a few precious seconds.

  Hammond climbed as quickly as his weathered body would allow; he emerged from the hatch. The day’s bright sun and heat blinding him as a group of awaiting soldiers grabbed him and pulled him up the rest of the way.

  The men ran with him toward an awaiting helicopter; the rotor wash bore down on him causing his gray wrinkled suit to ruffle and flap as they quickly ushered him inside.

  The agent that initially extracted Hammond from the building emerged through the portal. He quickly slammed the hatch shut as the other men stared at him in silence. He stood there breathing heavy, a look of grim shame etched across his blood-covered features. Another of the agents stepped forward to see if the large man needed any aid, and he shot him a fierce look.

  “Y-You okay, Sarge?” a younger man asked. “Where’s your team?” he added reluctantly, already knowing the answer.

  “Dead,” the sergeant replied, “all for this sniveling little pinhead.” He motioned toward the helicopter. “Come on. Let’s get the fuck out of here.”

  The men boarded the flying machine and ascended out into the din.

  Chapter 18

  Marvin Winters sat atop the cell phone tower, thumbing through the contents of the case that he had managed to crack open. So far, none of it made any sense to him—charts, graphs, the occasional medical jargon that you would either have to be a medical doctor or fluent in Latin to even begin to comprehend.

  The only part in the file that seemed to make any sense to the old war vet was a single photo. It was titled “Kuru Variant stage 5.” The image was a close-up of a man’s face; the man himself really didn’t seem to be anything special, other than the fact that he was strapped down to a table, and quite frankly, looked pissed as all hell.

  Marvin stared at the image for a few moments and then looked down at the gathering figures at the bottom of the cell tower. He looked back at the photograph, and then as if out of thin air, the image seemed to click. It was the look on the man’s face. Not just a look of anger, it was a look of primal rage. The same look that he got from the groaning figures below.

  “Son-of-a-bitch,” Marvin breathed. “These bastards knew about this shit,” he spat in disgust.

  Marvin closed the file folder and wound the tie string back in place, keeping the documents secure in the folder. He gazed upward as the sun reached its peak in the sky. Its ray’s bore down on him like a heat lamp causing his delicate paper-like skin to break out in small welts. He retrieved his backpack, which he had set off to one side of the landing and stuffed the file back inside.

  He looked down at the mass of infected below and sighed. Up here he was fucked, and he knew it. There had to be at least twenty of them amassed at the base of the tower, and from this height, there was not a snowball’s chance in hell he could take them out with scattershot. He could probably pepper a few of them with the bird shot and maybe get lucky, but he didn’t think he’d be able to take them all out. Even if he did, by the time he climbed down, the noise would most certainly draw more of them to his location.

  Marvin unzipped the front pocket of his backpack and fished around until he found what he looked for. In his pack, along with essential survival gear, a habit left over from his days in the service. He withdrew a pack of good old Swisher Sweets cigars. He would have preferred a good Arturo Fuente, but at the moment, he would take what he could get. He slipped the slender box out of the unzipped pocket and withdrew one from its interior. After replacing it back into the pocket, he grasped the tab and unwrapped the cellophane that protected the sweet-flavored cigar. He scrounged around his backpack until he found the small waterproof container that housed his limited supply of matches. Normally he would chastise rookie survivalists for doing such things, being fire in the wilderness could potentially mean the difference between life and death, but fuck it. He was a seventy-three-year-old man stuck on a cell tower above something like twenty crazy assholes. Not to mention he was far from the wilderness at this point.

  Marvin popped the cigar into his mouth; the sweet aromatic tobacco wafted into his nostrils and flavored his lips as he struck a match and lit it. He took a long satisfying draw on the cigar, held it for a moment, and then exhaled with a slight cough. If his wife knew that he was smoking again, she would most likely whip his ass from here to Nantucket. For a small wrinkled old biddy, she could still throw him for a loop. He inhaled another drag and released it slowly. The smoke swirled around his head and drifted up into the heavens where it hung briefly and dissipated. He still loved his wife even after all these years that they had spent together. It never waned over time. Sure she could get on his damn nerves like no other, but he even learned to love her little ticks, her anal compulsions toward the cleanliness of the home that they had shared for the past forty years. He hoped she was all right; she had dealt with type-one diabetes for the latter part of her golden years. She was nearing an age where she would plum forget to check her blood sugar, and he would then have to remind her, not to mention help her with her insulin shots.

  He looked up into the clouds as they drifted along toward the blazing sun. Feeling the warmth on his face, he was reminded of his younger days when he had first met his wife, Madelyn. Maddie, as he liked to call her, lived the next town over just across the river. He remembered in their early days; he was sixteen to her fourteen, and her father was a mean overprotective son-of-a-bitch. When Marvin first came sniffing around, the lanky old man pretty much threatened to cut his balls off and feed them to him if he so much as laid a hand on his Madelyn. Marvin stifled a laugh; he was fairly certain it was her father’s overprotective nature that had caused her to end up running into his arms in the first place. Marvin couldn’t really blame the man upon reflection; the old man had lost his wife shortly after Madelyn was born due to complications from pneumonia.

  Before he was finally accepted into the family household, Marvin could remember sneaking out for their little midnight rendezvous. Marvin would slip out of his home, which was easy enough, being his father was an incessant drunk and normally passed out by ten; and his mother, well, she just didn’t care. He would follow the game trails through the forest until he reached the edge of the river, where he would strip naked, and stuff his clothing into a small backpack. He would then tread across the river, doing his best to hold the pack up and out of the sluggish water. When he emerged on the other bank, he would dry off, redress, and go meet his girl at the train tracks that led away from the coal mines. A low series of moans from below broke him from his internal ministrations.

  Marvin took another drag, inhaling deeply; he gazed down at the writhing mass of people, and well, people being a loose term, being they seemed to act more like wild animals. He stared at them for a long moment, as if debating his options. As his cigar began to burn down to a nub in his fingertips, he eyed the glowing cherry, and smiled. Leaning forward, he flicked the burning ember downward into the mass of infected. The hot projectile bounced off the forehead of a young woman in yoga pants and a brightly colored pink shirt, and caused her to pause slightly and look down at the cigar butt, seemingly studying it for a moment in confusion.

  “Dumb fuckers, aren’t ya?” Marvin smirked. He eyed the distance to the infected, and reached down to his waist, unsnapping his Glock .45. He slid it from its holster and racked the slide, making certain there was a round in the chamber. He stood and peered over the side, taking care not to lose his footing on the tall tower. How much would that suck? To run your ass off, climb a tower only to tumble
down right into the clutches of the enemy? It would be a perfect end to a perfect day, he thought sarcastically.

  “Pssst! Hey! Hey, shit heads!” He waited and watched as the infected below predictably tilted their heads upward. Marvin took aim at the woman he had marked with the cigar and squeezed the trigger. The .45 caliber round struck the woman just under her right eye, blowing the brain stem out of the rear of her skull. He watched as she collapsed, cursing at the fact that he’d been aiming for her forehead. No matter, at least the shot had found its mark and effectively did its job. He would have to take care; he had a total of fourteen rounds left in this magazine and another two full mags strapped to his belt. If he could manage to clear these assholes away from the tower, he may be able to manage with the shotgun on the ground. Bird shot was great for hunting; however, it’s lethality on a human was limited to close range, hence why scattershot was the prime choice for close quarters combat. He also knew from this range it would most likely do nothing more than irritate them like a swarm of mosquitoes.

  He took aim again, this time at a man dressed head to toe in what looked like tweed, like he’d just stepped out of a J.Crew store. He never did like those preppy naturalist types. He pulled the trigger, ending his miserable existence. He scanned along the next contestants and selected yet another target. He pulled the trigger, and nothing happened.

  “Shit,” Marvin spat as he realized the gun had jammed. He racked the slide and tapped the magazine to clear the jam as he heard the familiar sound of an engine heading in his direction. “I’m saved,” he said to himself as a white SUV rounded the corner. Marvin’s eyes widened as he realized whom the vehicle belonged to. A familiar logo that he had spied almost daily now for the better part of ten or so years was painted on the door of the SUV.

  “Fuck, oh fuck, oh fuck,” Marvin whispered, feeling his stomach acids roil in his gut and sting his esophagus. As quickly as he could manage, Marvin crouched as low as he could go, trying his best to remain still and unnoticed by the approaching Homeland Security vehicle. He glanced around nervously as if looking for some avenue of escape, but what could he do? He was trapped. At least he knew that perhaps they would take notice of him, kill the infected below, and then . . . what? They blew up the entire fucking road for Christ’s sake. They would probably capture him and lock him away for the rest of his remaining years, perhaps after they tortured him for whatever information he possessed, which, of course, was absolutely nothing. Marvin quickly slung his backpack over his shoulders, wondering why they were here. Was it merely a coincidence or . . . The realization dawned on him as he noticed them pull into the gas station below. The case, they were tracking it. Marvin had hoped he had disabled the damn thing when he managed to fry the circuitry and force it open.