The Book Of Riley A Zombie Tale ebook set 1-4 + bonus short

by Mark Tufo

  “When’s the last time a professor won the Noble prize?”

  “When’s the last time a professor threatened to rip the fabric of the time-space continuum?”

  “Well, there’s that. But that’s not what I wanted to show you. I think I may have fixed your bug problem.”

  “You’re still on that? I thought for sure you would have moved on to time travel or something.”

  “That’s tomorrow. Come on.” He grabbed a small two-foot tower.

  “What’s that?” Julie asked.

  “It’s a solution. Now, when I can have more time to work with it, I’ll be able to produce a version that works off a portable power pack,” Sam said as he plugged in a long extension cord.

  “Batteries? Are you saying a model that runs on batteries?”

  “Yes a portable power supply.”

  “Okay.”

  “You may want to step back a little,” Sam urged his wife as he placed the mechanism next to Julie’s garden and plugged it in.

  “Sam?” Julie asked nervously.

  “Further,” he told her.

  “I’m not going anywhere unless you are as well.”

  “Fine, fine…let me hit the power switch. It takes up to a minute until the capacitors hit full wattage anyway.”

  Same clicked the on/off toggle and quickly moved away; grabbing his wife as he did so. A large swarm of black flies hovered near the device, they were illuminated by the early morning sun. A minute clicked by, then two.

  “Does it kill them through sheer amount of elapsed time?” Julie asked with a smile.

  “You’re funny. I wonder what’s happening.” Sam took two steps towards the machine. “Wow did you feel that?” he asked.

  “No, but I saw a faint blue pulse of something come from the top of it. Sam, look!” Julie said excitedly.

  “At what? I don’t see anything.”

  “Look above your machine.”

  It took him a moment. “The black flies are gone.”

  “Not gone, Sam, they’re dead. I saw them fall to the ground in one massive heap.”

  Sam approached the device cautiously. He reached around; fumbling with the toggle switch until turning it off. “It’s okay now.” He motioned to his wife. “You’re right.” He was getting down onto his hands and knees. “They’re all dead.” He picked some up and was holding them out for his wife to see, but she had already moved past and into her garden.

  “Look!” she said. She was holding a Japanese beetle. “It’s dead too. I’ve been trying to get rid of them for a month!”

  They were both in awe as they found all manner of dead insects: spiders, ants, flies, and mosquitoes.

  “What about grubs?” Julie asked.

  “I…I honestly don’t know. Let’s find out.” He went over to his wife’s shed and grabbed a small handheld garden hoe. He turned over the soft earth until he found what he was looking for. He ran his finger over the thick white worm looking for any signs of life, there were none.

  “This…this is amazing!” Julie shrieked.

  Something niggled deeper in the back of Sam’s mind, but the excitement from his wife drowned it out. He barely noticed that the beneficial earthworm had perished alongside his more troublesome cousin.

  “You made this last night?”

  Sam nodded, smiling like an idiot.

  “You need to patent this. We’ll be fabulously rich! I’ll finally be able to afford the brand-name macaroni and cheese!”

  “You’re always living beyond your means, Julie, and now you’re just talking gibberish. Do you really think I should seek a patent?”

  “Are you kidding me? Home gardeners around the world will be groveling at your feet to get a hold of one of these,” she said as she lightly tapped the top. “Is it dangerous?” She pulled her hand away quickly.

  “I don’t think so,” he responded haltingly.

  “You don’t think so? Pretty sure the EPA is going to want something more than ‘I don’t think so.’ When I saw the flash, you asked me if I had felt something. What did you feel?”

  Sam thought about it for a second. “Well…the hair on my arms started to stand, and then I felt something like a mild electric shock travel over the surface of my skin. Which makes sense, every living being has a current of low voltage electricity running through it. I created a transmitter that will disrupt that signal. And you didn’t feel anything from where you where and I did, so that makes the effective range about twenty-five feet…give or take a foot.”

  “A twenty-five foot diameter bubble?”

  “To the sides and up yes, the signal is severely hampered by the ground. I’d have to run tests, but at this voltage and amperage I can’t imagine it going more than a foot or so down.”

  “And it won’t harm the plants?”

  “Can’t see why.”

  “What about using it in a home?”

  “I’m not sure, Julie. Why?”

  “Sam, if people didn’t have to use pesticides anymore, just think of the benefits in that alone.”

  Sam could see all the good that Julie spoke of, and coming from her, it made perfect sense; but then again, she didn’t have a mean bone in her body.

  “Alright, alright. I’ll draw up a schematic and a description of what it can do. We’ll get a lawyer and file a patent. Happy now?” he asked, but the way his wife was twirling around in her bug-free zone was proof enough.

  ***

  “Hi, Sam, Julie,” Arnie Bassenger Attorney-at-Law and family friend greeted his clients. He waited until he got them in his office before he gave them both hugs. “I don’t want everyone out there thinking I do this with all my clients,” he said with a smile. “Sit, sit, you guys want a soda or something? I’ll have my secretary grab you one.”

  Sam shook his head in the negative. “I’d love a water,” Julie said.

  “Jen, can you get a bottle of water please?” he asked into his intercom.

  Julie was halfway through with drink when Arnie looked up from the papers in front of him.

  “Um, I want to be as candid as possible.” He looked at the couple.

  “Go ahead,” Sam urged.

  “Does this do what you say it can?”

  “Without a doubt Arnie. I’ve built three working models and have tried them in a variety of locales on all manner of bugs, and to a one, it has killed them all.”

  “Sam, does anyone else know about this?” he asked in a hushed tone.

  “Just us three.”

  “Wow.” Arnie sat back. “This thing…this thing is gold, Sam. Maybe more so. What’s it cost to make?”

  “I’ve tinkered with a few of the designs, but each of the three has been under a hundred bucks.”

  “Under a hundred?” Arnie ran his hand through his hair. “What’s your target price?”

  “I haven’t really thought about it, Arnie.”

  “I have,” Julie said, “I figured we could sell them for around three hundred and fifty bucks a piece.”

  “What?” Arnie and Sam asked simultaneously and for differing reasons. Arnie thought the price too low, Sam too high.

  “Listen, both of you,” she explained. “I got the parts list from Sam’s diagrams and did some virtual bulk shopping for the parts. And I also got quotes for fabrication of some of the base and support structures.”

  “You’ve been busy,” Sam said to his wife in amazement.

  “Well now that I’m not fighting a Japanese beetle infestation I’ve found that I have way more time on my hands…and stop distracting me. So, with buying parts in bulk and outsourcing some of the fabrication, right now I figure the Pulsinator…” She got some quizzical looks with her name. “We can work on that. Anyway, I’ve got it to fifty-five seventy-two to build each one.”

  “And if we get a factory set-up, there will obviously be an additional start up fee, but eventually the cost per unit will go down significantly,” Arnie chimed in. “I want in on this, ground floor, Sam, I’ll invest everyt
hing I’ve got. You’ve discovered something revolutionary and I want to be a part of it. I’ve got a few questions.”

  “Go ahead.” Sam was fidgeting. It was not that he was adverse to making money, it had just never been his main priority in life, and the way Arnie was talking, people were going to start lining up to throw it at him.

  “How big can you make this thing? Sorry, sorry…let me clarify. Would a farmer in Kansas be able to use say a giant tower version of these?” Arnie was also excited, large end models could be the Cadillac of the line, earning huge bucks and even getting subsidized by the government so that Joe Farmer would be able to have larger yields of crops.

  “I don’t think so, Arnie, not without having a series of them. All of the tests I’ve done on this smaller model yield a sphere twenty-five feet across. It has to do with the pulse as it travels through the air and is met with resistance and gravity. I’ve done the math, no matter how large the tower gets or how much power is run through it, in theory the maximum it would be able to send a signal is a hundred yards, although I have not built one to those specifications. I didn’t figure there would be too many home gardeners with an area that large.”

  “Okay, we’ll revisit that one.”

  “Arnie, I’m not sure what you want to revisit. Physics isn’t going to change because you want to sell to farmers.”

  Arnie’s expression downturned for a moment until he realized the opportunity for hundreds of millions was staring him in the face. Damn shame it wasn’t going to be billions though, he thought. “Okay, what about the power supply.”

  “What about it?”

  “It says here your first two prototypes used hundred and twenty volt home power and the third used a car battery. Will there be a possibility for a model that does not need an extension cord or a forty pound battery? Having a hard time seeing seventy-two-year-old Gloria-the-gardener lugging a cord or a battery around.”

  “It’s possible, Arnie, but we’re not talking about an LED light here. This thing needs a fair amount of juice to operate properly. I mean, it will send out a pulse with a nine volt battery…although only about a foot or so.”

  “Portable models for hiking! Oh, my God, I’m a genius!”

  “I’m not sure that’s feasible,” Sam started.

  “I actually think it’s genius,” Julie stated. “A smaller model, maybe mounted to a backpack, running off a couple of cell phone or tablet batteries…I would think that’d be enough. Even if it only went out ten feet or so, time it so it goes off every couple of seconds so that the way is always clear for the hiker.”

  “I…I guess that’s possible, but I’d have to do studies on if it’s harmful to people in the long term.”

  “That was my last question. Is Chester Chipmunk or Billy Blue Jay going to be affected by this? PETA will be down our throats in less time than it takes to cash our first check if so much as a sparrow falls from the sky.”

  “With the current circuitry, I can’t imagine one burst, or even two hurting anything bigger than a field mouse.” A lone sentence reverberated in his subconscious and was quickly buried over. ‘With the current circuitry’.

  “This is incredible!” Arnie stated. “I’ll get on this right away. I’ll even have a real estate friend of mine look into some warehouse space.

  Sam was beginning to blanch as Arnie talked.

  “That would be fabulous. This is so exciting!” Julie exclaimed. “Sam, are you alright?”

  “He’s fine,” Arnie interjected. “Anybody faced with this type of success can be overwhelmed…I know I am. Now go celebrate, I’ll take care of everything.”

  Julie was slightly concerned as she led her husband out of the posh office.

  Department of Homeland Security - Washington D.C.

  “Corporal Kables, the Department of Defense just pulled this off of the new patent list and sent it over. Do you want me to do anything with it, or should I file it away?” PFC Coffers asked his non-commissioned officer in charge.

  “Let me at least take a look at it. They thought enough of it to send it our way,” she replied.

  “Not sure if that signifies anything important, Corporal. Just last week they sent us an electronic pooper scooper.” The PFC dropped the file on her desk.

  The sun was getting ready to set when the corporal finally looked back up. She grabbed the file and her notes and headed to her superior officer’s office. She knocked on the doorframe and waited for him to wave her in.

  “You’re still here, Corporal? I thought I was the only one that stayed late. You do know that the Air Force doesn’t pay overtime?”

  “Sir, I need to show you something that came in this morning,” she said with all seriousness.

  “What the hell is this?” Colonel George Elders asked as he put his glasses on. “The Pulsinator—zaps bugs dead? The DoD sent over a pending patent for a bug zapper? Why?”

  “It’s something with the way it works, sir. They thought it could be important, but they just didn’t have the time to look into it.”

  “Oh? And we do? For Christ Sakes, just last week we intercepted a dirty bomb off the coast of the Florida Keys and they want me to look into a damned bug killer? What are they afraid of? That Raid will sue for copyright infringement?”

  “Sir, it’s not technically a bug zapper.”

  “Continue, Corporal, you’ve apparently already looked into it.”

  “I have, sir. I’ve spent the entire day looking at. Sir, it sends out a signal that apparently is able to interfere with an insect’s own electric current…thus rendering it inert.”

  “Do you mean dead?”

  The colonel looked at his subordinate with a crinkling in his eyes. She was a great soldier and he was going to have her promoted to sergeant next week, he just hoped at some point she would use less obtuse wording; he needed a thesaurus every time he read her reports.

  “Still sounds like a damned bug zapper to me. What of it? We both know ninety-nine percent of what is submitted to the patent office is pure crap.”

  “Sir, you know that I am an electronics enthusiast,”

  “Yes, you like to build things as a hobby. How many times do I have to tell you how jealous I am of your working, full-scale R2-D2 astromech. I do believe my grandchildren love you more than me every time you bring it over.”

  “Sir,” she smiled back, “I’ve studied this schematic. This is the one percent. I believe it will work.”

  “Great for him, sounds like he’ll be the next Bill Gates.”

  “Sir, the invention as it stands would be a great boon for his target clientele, local co-op growers and home gardeners.”

  “Corporal, I’m still not understanding your concern. I’m sure there’s more.”

  “There is, sir. This device can be made more powerful.”

  A light began to brighten in the colonel’s head. “How powerful, Corporal?”

  “It’s impossible to say without actually building a model, but with some minor changes and additions…this zapper could kill a human.”

  “What’s the range?” the colonel asked, standing up. His heart was racing a little faster than his doctor would want it to.

  “The current model says it has a twenty-five foot sphere as its ‘kill’ zone. But with modifications, it could be brought up to as much as a football field.”

  “From a grenade blast zone to a Sidewinder missile.”

  “Sir, there’s more.”

  “Of course there is.”

  “Anyone with a little know-how and availability to three hundred bucks will be able to make one.”

  “You’re telling me that any sick-o with a soldering gun will be able to make a device that could wipe out a city block in the beat of a heart?”

  “I am, sir.”

  “Get the DoD back on the line. Actually…screw them, we’ll take care of this. I want you to give me a list of everyone that is involved on this project. Addresses as well.”

  “Then what, sir?”

/>   The colonel stared at his subordinate; the decision he was about to make was not to be taken lightly. “Corporal Kables, are you absolutely sure about your hypothesis?”

  “I am, sir,” she told him confidently.

  “I don’t see what my choices are, Corporal, but to implement executive order 241.5. I will give this list to Tonney Emery.”

  Corporal Kables swallowed hard. She had just handed down a death sentence to everyone involved in the Pulsinator project all in the name of national security. She’d never met a person in her life with eyes as flat as Emery’s. It seemed to her that death was always within a hand-span of the mercenary.

  “Go home, Corporal, have a drink. Hell, have a couple. This will all be over by tomorrow at this time. You’ve done your country a great service here tonight.”

  “It doesn’t feel that way, sir.”

  Tonney

  Tonney Emery was a hard man; he’d been forged in the deserts of Iraq, the mountains of Afghanistan and the jungles of Mozambique. There was very little he had not seen or done during his tours of duty. Every time his country had called, he’d done above and beyond what was required of him. Not because he was a patriot, but rather because he despised the enemy, and an enemy in his mind was anyone that stood in the way of him and the completion of his mission. It mattered little if they were women, children, or American citizens; an obstacle was meant to be overcome, plain and simple.

  He sat outside Arnie Bassenger’s office dressed in a three-piece suit, posing as a Mr. Pauling who was patiently awaiting his appointment. Arnie’s secretary Jen Carroll did all in her power to not look in his direction; something about the man stirred a deep-seated fear within her. He’d been amicable enough when she’d greeted him, but she’d felt like a gazelle looking into the mouth of a crocodile. His eyes had shown no warmth and his smile could freeze water.

  “Jen, I’ll see Mr. Pauling now,” Arnie said over the phone.

  “Thank God,” Jen breathed quietly. She turned to tell the man, but he had already arisen and was heading for the door.