Dead Pulse Rising: A Zombie Novel

by K. Michael Gibson

  “One of the HEAT units. Good choice.”

  “Heat?” I said.

  “HEAT stands for High Enforcement Arrest Team. The cars were designed for high-speed pursuit and equipped with special antiroll suspension systems and a protective roll cage—like on a formula race car. However, not the best choice for seating room. How are you planning on getting your wife and kids out?” Richard asked, a puzzled look creasing his chiseled features.

  “In all honesty, man, I hope it doesn’t come down to that. If she’s gone where I think she has, then I may just be able to fortify and hold out there with them. If not . . .” I let the sentence trail off, considering my words. “If not, my wife has a pretty good-sized van. It will seat eight comfortably, but if I toss the seats out, we could probably cram about ten or even twelve in.” I paused for a moment. “Do me a favor, guys. When you get to Marvin’s place, give me a call on the radio, so long as I get to where I’m going. I’ll be certain to answer. I think the best bet for all of us would be to hook up there.

  Marvin”—I looked to my old friend—“I think she may have taken the kids to my mother’s. You remember the place?” It had been some time, but right after my divorce from my ex-wife, I was forced to bunk up there in the aftermath. There had been a few occasions when Marvin would have to swing by in the morning and fetch my hungover ass, me being too sick and woozy to drive out to the job. With everything I had suffered at that woman’s hand, it had been Marvin who pretty much pulled me out of the gutter, not to mention kept me from being fired.

  “Sure thing, bub. I remember.”

  He gave me a furtive glance, and I looked down at my feet somewhat ashamed. Marvin gave me a wink as if to say, No worries, your secret is safe with me. I walked over and gave the old man a hug and quickly released him as he gave me a disapproving look.

  “Keep safe, my friend,” I said, clasping him on the shoulder. I turned and looked over to Richard. “You too, man, and keep him out of trouble.”

  Richard nodded, and Marvin grunted as I poked a thumb in his direction.

  “We won’t be long. Get home to that family, kiddo,” Marvin said, then dug the file out of his backpack and handed it to me.

  I took it and decided to stuff it into the back of a dilapidated police cruiser that set on blocks at the other end of the lot, doubting that it would be going anywhere anytime soon.

  Marvin gave me a nod and began to head to the passenger door of the Ford. He opened the door and stepped inside.

  Richard closed his door and leaned out of the window. “Hey, one last thing.” Rich paused, and I looked at him expectantly. “Get the gate, would ya?” He pointed to the sliding chain-link exit directly ahead of the Explorer.

  I nodded and jogged off to do as I was asked. I reached the gate and studied the simple mechanism. The gate opened via a standard garage door opener that had been placed sideways; the gate would hold shut even if the power was off. I pulled on it, and as expected, the gate did not move. I looked down at the machine and found what I was looking for. Dangling beneath it was an emergency pull cord that would allow the motor to be disengaged in the event something or someone had been caught in it. I pulled the cord and released the motor’s hold. The gate slid open easily on well-oiled tracks.

  Richard slowly moved the Explorer forward and gave me a wave as he drove past. When the SUV had made it clear of the gate, I slid it shut and set about hiding the file that was still in my hand.

  Chapter 27

  Richard navigated the large canary-yellow Ford Explorer with practiced ease through the streets of Baltimore County. An hour had passed since they left Kyle at the police station. The streets leading away from the station were as predicted, insane. Normally, at least according to Marvin, the drive to his home in Dundalk would have only taken about twenty minutes from their previous location, but the way the roadways were clogged with cars, there was no way that was even possible. At times, Richard would have to pull the vehicle off to the side of the road or drive up onto the median to get beyond clusters of abandoned cars. Unfortunately, not all of the vehicles themselves were empty. Bodies could be seen slumped up against bloodied windows or hanging out of opened doors. Occasionally, they would pass by a car whose inhabitants still moved, the figures inside going insane and pounding on the windows, howling with silent rage behind glass as they passed by.

  Marvin and Richard watched from behind the Explorer’s windows. Smoke was everywhere as they entered the town. Fires burned unchecked in homes and apartment buildings as far as the eye could see. Every so often, screams could be heard from within the smoke, followed by a glimpse of movement as a survivor fled for his or her lives from small groups of the human monsters. It seemed to usually end up the same way—they would disappear from view, and either the screams would become too distant to be heard or . . . well, neither one of them wanted to think of the alternative.

  Marvin gripped the shotgun in his hand, clenching and unclenching his grip around the stock as he wished he could do something to help these people. The people in this town were his friends, his neighbors, and all he could do was watch. Reason took hold of him every time he was about to protest their movement. Marvin knew if they stopped the vehicle to help, they themselves would most likely become casualties as well. Marvin stiffened in his seat and pointed as they approached his street.

  “Over there.” He motioned, and Richard headed in that direction, turning the big SUV into the direction that Marvin had indicated. As they approached Marvin’s home, Richard cursed.

  “Damn it,” Rich said, looking into the rearview mirror. “We’ve got company.” He shot a thumb behind him.

  Marvin turned around to get a glimpse at what he was talking about. Directly behind them wandering down the street were about two dozen or so infected, apparently drawn to the noise of the engine. The sound acting as a dinner bell to any who had occupied the surrounding area.

  “Great,” Marvin muttered. “Drive around the block. Maybe we can lead them away and double back on foot,” Marvin suggested.

  Richard nodded in agreement.

  Marvin gazed at his building as they drove past, thankful for the fact that his front door remained closed. His parking spot, however, had been occupied. “Damn punks.” He grumbled, and Rich looked over at him expectantly. “It’s nothing,” he said and motioned for him to pull over in an alleyway as they neared the opposite side of the block.

  Richard did as he was asked and pulled over, taking care to angle the Explorer in a way that it obscured the alley, not allowing any approaching vehicle to make it through. He also hoped that the infected would have a hard time navigating around the obstruction as well. He cut the engine and pocketed the keys.

  He and Marvin grabbed up their weapons and gear, keeping a close eye on the curious infected trailing behind them at several hundred yards. The duo stepped out of the SUV and readied their weapons, hoping they would be able to evade infected for fear of drawing more of them in with the noise of a gun blast.

  “Come on, this way!” Marvin whispered loudly and began to limp hurriedly down the alleyway toward the front of his building. Reaching the end of the expanse, Marvin stopped and pressed himself up against the wall, and began fishing around his pant pockets until he found a set of keys. The infected in the alley had taken notice of them and picked up speed, several of them already reaching the Ford Explorer. As expected, they began to pound on the vehicle in frustration, unable to figure a way around it. “Dumbasses,” Marvin muttered to Richard and grinned.

  “Yeah, thankfully,” Richard replied, taking a moment to gaze over his shoulder. “You ready or what?” Richard asked. “These things are starting to make a hell of a lot of noise, and I don’t think we want to be standing here when more start to show up.” As if on cue, the growls and moans began behind them.

  Marvin nodded his head up and down in agreement.

  “Let’s go,” he breathed and headed out into the smoke-filled street. Carefully and quietly, they mov
ed past several doors that occupied the same length of row homes on Marvin’s street.

  Each home was your basic cookie-cutter brick buildings with generic-colored pale-green siding atop the second-floor level. Small brick stairways led up to tin-covered porches, most of which were decorated in artificial plants or goofy Welcome Home signs. At the end of the row was Marvin’s particular dwelling, which, in only knowing the man for several hours, Richard was able to pick out. A large red U.S. Marine Corps flag hung from the tin roof and fluttered slightly in the breeze. Several potted plants hung over wrought iron railings that surrounded his porch, something his wife had obviously put there to add a woman’s touch to the home.

  Marvin and Richard approached and ascended the small stairway. Richard covered to the rear as Marvin fumbled around with the set of house keys. After what seemed like an agonizingly long second, Marv located the key he was searching for and slid it silently into the lock. To his surprise, as he began to turn the key, the door swung open. It had been unlocked.

  Chapter 28

  After I stashed the documents into the damaged police cruiser, taking care to hide them in the vehicle’s tire well in the trunk, I made my way over to the Mustang and fired up the engine. I pulled the car over to the gate and went back through the ritual of opening the chain-link portal. I toyed with the idea of just leaving it open as I left, but if the need arose for me to retrieve said file, I didn’t want to have to battle my way back through the parking lot to do it, so I took a moment to resecure the gate back into place.

  I was anxious to get on the move and get to my wife, but with my current inventory of weaponry, I didn’t think I would make it very far if it came down to a fight, so I wanted to make a quick pit stop at my home along the way. At present, I had the shotgun loaded with about an additional ten spare rounds and the forty-caliber pistol. The pistol had one full magazine with about fifteen rounds and a partial stored in one of my pant pockets. Good under normal circumstances, but in this situation, if I was caught in a firefight or hit by a horde of these things, I was pretty much screwed. I tapped the Smith & Wesson in the holster on my side. For that weapon I had a whopping three rounds left, so I made the decision that my trusty .357 would be my absolute last resort.

  My home in Harford County was along the way to my parents’ house, and in my closet was a virtual armory hidden away. I hoped like hell, however, that my wife managed to grab a few supplies for herself before she bugged out, if she bugged out . . . I shook my head, letting the thought drop. Of course she bugged out, I told myself. We had been through too much for her not to have done so. No, she was a strong woman, and I had faith that she would have made the right decision even though I knew she abhorred fire arms. At any rate, I needed to stop there if for no other reason than to make certain she wasn’t there. The weapons and ammo were actually secondary to that objective. I had to be sure.

  Chapter 29

  Marvin entered his home first. He held his shotgun at port arms as not to startle his wife of the last forty-six years. The scent of candle wax permeated the air as they entered. A homey scent of apples and cinnamon wafted up and lingered in their nostrils. The lights were off, and candles illuminated the living room area, casting the cozily decorated room in flickering shadows of orange and yellow.

  Richard took notice of old photographs that hung above a fireplace off to his left. Candles set atop the mantle, casting light on the black-and-white images. One picture stood out among the rest; it was an image of a young Marvin Winters in full formal military dress holding on to what he had to assume was his lifelong love and companion. The woman in the photograph stood wrapped in his arms, her slender face pressed against his metal-adorned chest. Her hair had been styled up into a bun consistent with the style back in the 1960s. She wore a plain white or cream colored dress. In black and white, and in this lighting, it was impossible to tell.

  Another photograph set below and to the right, this one a bit more modern. It was your standard 5" x 7" digital photo that people were accustomed to seeing these days and portrayed a fortieth anniversary party shot. Once again, the photo was of Marvin and his wife. This one showed the couple as they were now. Age had been kind to his wife. She still had slender delicate features, although her hair had gone white, and fine wrinkles creased her face. She had a sweet mom-looking quality about her that made Richard smile inwardly.

  Breaking his attention away from the display, Richard cast a glance outside of the doorway once more to see if they had been followed. It was difficult to see out into the smoke, but from what he could make out, the coast was still clear. He stepped off to the side and closed the door softly, hoping not to alert any of the nearby infected to their location.

  Marvin stepped farther into the living room. Everything seemed to look fairly normal to the old man. The room was as clean as it was when he had left this morning, and save for the dozen or so candles that burned around the room, nothing was out of place.

  “Baby,” Marvin called out expectantly. His nerves beginning to frazzle as his call went unreciprocated. Marvin breathed in deeply and peered around the couch in the middle of the living room. The couch was empty, a ruffled quilt lying across its patchwork surface. An ancient-looking tube television stared blankly back at them. Marvin smiled when he gazed upon the open pages of a romance novel lying on an end table.

  “She’s always loved her smut books,” Marvin quipped to Richard, who took notice of the book as they passed.

  Marvin stepped through the living room and entered the kitchen. The room itself once again was empty. Ambient light diffused through a sliding glass door covered with flower-patterned vertical blinds and spilled forth into the smallish kitchen area. Immediately, Marvin took notice of the syringe and an empty bottle of insulin sitting in the middle of their small, round dining room table. What struck Marvin as odd was the absence of his wife’s blood glucose test kit that was usually sitting in the middle of the dining room table. If she’d injected insulin recently, there would have been at least one test strip lying about in the room. A quick glance at the nearby waste basket confirmed that none were present. He shook his head in confusion, and thought, Perhaps she’d taken a dose at lunch and simply forgot to throw out the vial. The testing equipment was odd, though. In the past fifteen years after she’d been diagnosed with the disease, the kit practically never left its resting spot in the center of the table.

  Richard stepped lightly into the kitchen as Marvin moved over to the sliding glass door. Using his fingertips, he nudged the vertical blinds open slightly and peered outside. His tiny yard was empty, save for overgrown grass and the usual rusted lawn equipment. Marvin normally had some neighborhood kids tend to his lawn, but it had been several weeks since they’d been around. He could see several figures lumbering out in the haze of smoke beyond his open fence.

  “Goddamn it,” Marvin grunted, noticing the gate hanging ajar. He must have forgotten to latch it the last time he’d been out there, which, truth be told, he couldn’t even remember when that was.

  Richard gave Marvin a worried glance.

  “It’s nothing. gates open, so we just need to be extra careful we don’t draw any attention to ourselves, yeah,” Marvin said, allowing the blinds to fall back into place.

  Richard nodded in agreement.

  Marvin led Rich over to a small door that set directly next to the refrigerator, partially obscured by the large appliance. He pulled the old door open and peered up the stairs. The staircase, just like the living room, was cast into darkness.

  “Honey, you up there?” Marvin asked and listened intently. When no reply came forth, Marvin began to carefully ascend the staircase. The old wooden steps creaked and groaned under the weight of the two men as they made their way up to the top landing. “Honey,” he repeated and still was only greeted with silence. A deep sense of worry boiled in the old man’s stomach and ebbed out into his skin, causing every wayward hair on his body to stand on end. Marvin peered down the short hallway lea
ding to his bedroom. He hoped like hell his wife was just taking a nap and perhaps didn’t even have any idea of what was even going on outside.

  Richard removed the flashlight from his belt and flipped it on. The light cast and ominous glow through the hallway, throwing Marvin’s shadow against the door to his bedroom. The two men approached the door.

  Marvin held his breath as he turned the knob. The door swung open with a creak, something Marvin had been meaning to fix for some time. Marvin stepped in the room and froze.

  Richard entered behind him and shined the light around the room.

  Marvin stood there stuck still as the light came to rest on the figure lying in the center of the bed. Marvin gasped and dropped his shotgun to the floor as he stared at the unmoving form of his wife.

  His wife lay in the bed wrapped in a powder-blue night gown adorned with small white and yellow flowers. The first thing he noticed was the stream of frothy-looking blood that ran from her mouth and pooled on the bedspread. Her skin was pale, and blue veins stood out in stark contrast to her alabaster skin. They wove a spidery-looking tapestry along her arms, face, and bare legs. Marvin’s eyes flicked to the nightstand. Another three vials of insulin stood empty atop its surface. Recognition hit him like a ton of bricks. She had overdosed. Something caused her to inject every bit of insulin she had. From the looks of her, the way her face was contorted and twisted in pain, and the fact that blood and drool ran from her open mouth, she must have had some sort of seizure, ultimately, a seizure that proved to be fatal.

  Marvin ran forward and fell to his knees at the edge of the bed, the pain from shock to his aching knee not even registering in his mind as he broke into uncontrollable tears. He gathered his wife’s hand in his own, held it to his lips, and began to whisper frantically to her, “Why, baby? Why? Why would you do this?” he asked to God or the Devil or anyone that would listen to his pleas. “No, sweetie, no. This can’t be how it ends, not like this,” Marvin cried, laying his head down beside her.