Dead Pulse Read Online Free PDF Page B

CRUNCH. Broken test tubes that Sam had scattered as an extra security measure the previous night startled him. Now he was wide-awake. The sound of crunching glass alarmed him, the noise obviously meant that someone was in the school , someone or something had found a way in , he thought.
    He picked up his machete; its bla de glinted in the fading candlelight. Even though the electrics were still working, somewhat intermittently, he preferred the softer more soothing and less eye-catching candlelight, whilst his supplies still lasted.
    Slowly he stood up and quietly walked to the door. With his ear close to the grimy glass, he listened intently. From the footsteps moving outside in the corridor he could tell that the intruder was light-footed, well balanced and obviously not dead. His palms began to sweat and his heart raced. Killing an already dead bag of pus didn’t bother him too much, but killing a living, still-breathing person did. He had been lucky so far, not to cross anyone’s path or have anyone cross his. Riotous thieves were widespread in the early days but the dead appeared to have at least cured the cities of crime and corruption.
    He bowed his head and looked at his tightly gripped hand around the handle of the blade. This is no life. Enough is enough. I’ve had enough of hiding, I hope this fucker gets the edge and kills me, now would be a good moment to meet my maker . “Come on.” he murmured, firmly gripping the door handle, ready to wrench it open.
     
    In the flickering light coming from the door Jayne could see a shadow on the corridor wall. Without hesitation, she aimed and fired!
    The door’s glass shattered and the force burst it open, “Is that the best you can d o, you crazy ass?” Sam yelled waving the blade in what he hoped looked like a menacing manner.
    “Come out with your hands up.” Jayne shouted with her finger firmly on the trigger.
    A woman Sam was both trusting and somewhat naïve, without nearing the voice of other humans for so long he couldn’t resist her voice. He shuffled out into the corridor with his arms raised in the air, recognising her instantly. The girl in the car, he recalled , it wouldn’t be that bad to be killed by her... His thoughts were interrupted and his attention was brought back to the present situation as at that point he almost did die.
    Jayne shot at him again, the machete spun from his hand with a chink into the darkness, nearly taking off his fingers with it.
     
    I t was a chance meeting of a lonely needy man and woman. A sexually frustrated, sick, desperate thought of rape snaked in his mind, but he was better than that, better than ‘them’, those rapist and paedophiles, that took advantage of the vulnerable in these lawless and torturous times.
    The encounter was far from the amorous evening he had first envisaged. Gone were the days of a slap up meal in Swizzles, the cinema and then back to his place for coffee and a cheap chat up line was the last thing on his mind. Those days were long gone. Now he was just glad of the company, they were both glad of the company, of each other, of finding another human being that was compassionate and capable of breathing.
    Within a week, they had both cl eaned and tidied up room 12. Over the smell of detergent they clinked champagne glasses looted from the local shop on one of their trips to get more supplies.
    With everything that was happening outside the school gates, they still managed to keep their spirits, playing board games that they had found in one of the other classrooms. At one point they set up an electronic game station but with the electric supply so unreliable the game kept cutting out and Jayne in frustration smashed it into pieces with the butt of her gun.
     
    One night, Sam returned from his supermarket haul with three bottles of wine, some bland tinned food and biscuits. They ate and talked about life, death and marriage in the warm coloured dancing light of the candles against the