Dead Pulse Rising: A Zombie Novel Read online

  Chapter 2

  My job at Specter Armored was roughly about forty-five minutes away, give or take with traffic. Somehow it always seemed on days I was running slightly late, there was traffic. Some jerk behind me leaned on the horn just as the light turned green, not even giving it a three count. I resisted the urge to flip him/her the bird and pressed on the accelerator.

  The sun was just peering overhead with red and gold jet streams of color, forcing their way through massing storm clouds.

  “It’s gonna get nasty today,” I said to myself. “Red sky at morning—sailor takes warning, red sky at night—sailor’s delight.” The old seaman’s adage flitted through my wayward thoughts.

  I took the entrance ramp to I-95 South toward Baltimore and merged into traffic at breakneck speed. The speed limit on this particular corridor was only fifty-five miles-per-hour; however, if you were to enter the highway at anything less than sixty-five, your ass was probably toast. As if to punctuate this point, a beat-up red SUV idled on the shoulder, with a green cavalier whose back end had been smashed in. A scrawny black woman with nappy hair exchanged, what I could only imagine were colorful words, heatedly with a large middle-aged balding white man in a stained wife-beater. I cruised by them doing seventy-five. The distinct sound of sirens reached my ears from the distance. Looking back at the fender-bender, I half wondered if the nappy-haired woman was going to pull out a neck brace.

  I reached my exit and veered off, cursing as a MTA bus damn near took my front end off by merging clearly into my lane.

  “I hate this town,” I said to myself with a sigh and meant it. I sometimes wished I were back in the rolling hills and mountains of West Virginia. Here in Maryland, at least in Baltimore, everyone was always impatient, and with no good reason. Didn’t matter if they were on their way to the emergency room or out to pick up antianxiety meds at Wal-Mart. The mentality seemed to be: Get the fuck out of my way, bitch. Like, How dare you for being on the road at the same time as the rest of them.

  Before I had entered into the Air Force, I was required for clearance reasons to provide my address and at least one reference to testify that I did indeed live there and was not some kind of crazy dick. I had lived in an apartment building in Middle River somewhere around three years. When I had gotten my packet, I realized I knew absolutely no one in the building. I went door-to-door in my small apartment building, two apartments per floor. Of course, there were only three floors, so that meant I had only six chances at finding some help. I figured someone has bound to have seen me in passing. I had received two main reactions. Either they answered and promptly slammed the door in my face or looked through the peephole and pretended not to be home. It wasn’t until I had reached the final apartment on the bottom floor that an elderly ex-Baltimore police officer, named Ed, opened the door, invited me in for coffee, and agreed to sign my affidavit. We sat around a small round table in his cozy apartment and talked about the job while his wife poured us steaming hot cups of brew. He told me a few of his old war stories. One I remembered in particular had to do with the introduction of crack cocaine on to Baltimore’s streets.

  He explained how the city seemed to take a complete downward spiral after that. Cases of homicide and robbery spiked into infinite levels previously unknown. He looked me in the eye and seemed to read me in a microsecond, and nodded in approval. He then told me he was happy to be retired and that the torch had been passed to the likes of me. He reached out, shook my hand, and then wished me luck. I appreciated his candor.

  Baltimore was extremely different from the town I grew up in. In my little town in West Virginia, everyone knows everyone. You can let your kids romp around outside and know that your neighbors have got an eye on them as well as you do. In Baltimore, I was afraid to let my children out of the yard.

  I pulled my attention back to the road and made a right into the industrial park that housed my employer. Specter Armored looked like any other nondescript business in the park. The only difference being the rows of concertina wire that surrounded the complex affixed to the top of chain-link fencing. I maneuvered my Hyundai into the parking lot and swung into a spot. Drawing my keys from the ignition, I clipped them to my already-heavy belt. The keys seemed to add another ten pounds as I stepped out of the vehicle and stared at the darkening sky. Wind had begun to blow in from the east, kicking up dust and grit in the parking lot. I shielded my eyes from the assault of dirt flying into my tired face. Surprisingly, the lot was relatively empty for this time of morning.

  Great, I thought sarcastically. Missing officers meant more work for me and my coworkers. I looked around the lot briefly and noted that my partner’s beat-up red-and-rust-colored pickup truck was there and smiled. At least my crew showed, I thought as I approached the gate.

  From the front, Specter Armored looked like your average warehouse-type building with offices in the front. To the random passerby, it was a simple nondescript brick and mirrored glass building; however, that was where the similarities ended.

  Gaining access to the structure was a multitier security system that required at least two people. You and a guard positioned within the complex. The first entrance was through the electrified chain-link fence. This housed a keypad and card scanner, as well as a speaker and microphone setup. Aside from swiping your card and entering a code, the guard on the other end of the speaker would have to verify your identity for you to gain access into the yard. The idea being if an officer happened to be compromised, someone with just a stolen key card and a code wouldn’t be able to just stroll on in and steal an armored car.

  I swiped my ID and keyed in my badge identification number; a few moments passed, and a tired, grumpy-sounding woman chimed in.

  “May I help you?” she said as if to say, What the hell do you want?

  “Yes, I’ll have a large fries, pie, and a coffee,” I said and smirked. Silence greeted me, and I could imagine Patty, the woman in the guard booth, simply staring at the monitor, frowning and tapping her fingers on the desk. “Fine, Walker, Kyle,” I said, rolling my eyes. The door to the gate buzzed and allowed me entrance.

  The yard was a sprawling area, rows upon rows of monstrous glossy black international armored cars lined parking spots. I scanned the area and noticed one particular car idling with the door open, waiting to be loaded.

  My vehicle was one of the older trucks in the fleet. The paint job was rusting in patches around the bumper and the back doors. The air-conditioning sucked ass, but it had an awesome turning radius and a reliable engine. The company, over the years, had added some of the more modern systems that were being built in to the newer vehicles; however, the engine and body remained the same old American-made truck I had come to love. Some of the newer foreign jobs seemed to break down every other day. One thing I didn’t care for with the new trucks was that they were longer with a lower profile; this made it easier on an officer’s knees as we traveled up and down the small stairs, in and out of the trucks all day long. Problem with this particular design was you couldn’t bust out a quick U-turn in the middle of the road if your life depended on it, and most of the time, it did.

  I made my way to the heavy steel door of the complex and pushed the door buzzer, activating a camera positioned in my face, and gave the assholes inside a big cheese-eating grin. The door clicked, and I entered the building. The smell of diesel and bad hygiene assaulted my olfactory senses, and I had to strain to keep myself from gagging.

  Smells, especially in the early morning, were my sworn enemy and always made my stomach do flip-flops for a few moments. I breathed out slowly, drew in a deep breath through my mouth, and blew it out. Composed and out of danger of retching, I made my way to the guard booth, skirting behind an armored vehicle waiting to be loaded. In stark contrast to the quiet outside, the inside of the complex was a whirlwind of activity. People raced back and forth through the large truck bay with bins full of numerous bags and boxes of jewels, currency, and whatever the hell else people thought was va
luable for one reason or another. Personally, I couldn’t care less what we were transporting so long as I got a paycheck at the end of the week.

  I reached the guard booth and tapped on the thick bullet-resistant glass. Visibility through the glass was less than clear, and the image of those behind it was marred and obscured. The window was smudged with oil and pockmarks left over years of constant abuse. I eyed the time clock impatiently. In less than a minute, I would be late again, and I had to wait on a mean-spirited bitch named Patty to give me my timecard. She was currently stuffing her round face with what looked like an exploded pig from this vantage. She peered up at me with irritation and popped open a small slot in the window and passed my timecard through. I turned and reached for the time clock and . . .

  “Fuck!” I said as I noticed the clock was now two minutes past my objective time. Scowling, I swiped the card and handed it back to a now-closed window. I crammed the card into a tiny crease between the window and the flap, and watched in disgust. Patty had gone back to cramming her meal into her face. Sighing, I tapped on the window again. Patty frowned and stared blankly at me through thick glasses. She reopened the window and snatched the timecard out of my hand, slapping the window shut again without so much as a Good morning, sunshine.

  The phone inside the room rang, muffled by the bullet-resistant glass, and Patty answered it sourly. I chose to take that particular moment to beat a hasty retreat from the evil she-bitch before she could infect me with her disdain. I never could quite understand why, if you hated your job so much, that not only would you sit there and wallow in self-pity, but force everyone else around you to suffer. Why don’t you just quit the damn job? There were plenty of them for those who were looking and not complete idiots. After doing this job for the last ten years, most of the time, I pretty much found it tolerable; other times I thought I may be better off working for a urinal cake factory. At least it would smell better, I mused.

  After looking around for a terse moment, I found my partner leaning up against a plain concrete wall at the far side of the truck bay, arms crossed and eyes closed. Probably asleep, I thought. I couldn’t count on two hands how many times throughout the course of a day I would have to pound on the door of the truck to wake him up so he would open the door. He would then swear up and down that he was just resting his eyes. I approached the old ex-Marine whose once muscular form had since turned to flab from lack of use. Not completely his fault, he was in his seventies and had his leg amputated from the knee down after a wound in Vietnam. He told me the story once. He had stepped into a pit, and bamboo skewers had shredded up through his foot and into his calf muscle. The wounds were not serious, at least not at first. The Vietcong had apparently coated the bamboo skewers in piss and animal feces, and infection was ultimately what took his leg. His handlebar mustache twitched as I approached him. One eye popped open.

  “I thought I smelled you coming,” he said gruffly, and adding a smirk.

  I slapped him on the shoulder. “Watch it, old man. I might have to break your hip,” I jabbed.

  “Bring it, whippersnapper.” Marvin Winters laughed.

  “So what’s the sitrep?” I said, eyeing my partner.

  “Same ol’ bullshit. We’re stuck here waiting for these piss-ants while they figure out what to do with their dicks.” Marvin frowned.

  “Call outs,” I ventured assumingly.

  “Yeah, what else. More than usual, though. Seems like half this joint is at home in bed.”

  “That sucks,” I said, knowing that not only were we going to be delayed at hitting the street, but now we also were going to have an even larger workload. Banks still need money whether people showed up or not; if there weren’t enough officers to cover the routes, then the rest would have to be divided between the ones that showed. Got to love it, maximum work for minimum pay, I mused. Marvin glanced over at me with an ear-to-ear grin.

  “Got a surprise for ya,” he said.

  “Oh, you mean better than all this.” I gave a wide sweeping motion with my right hand.

  “Definitely better.” Marvin chuckled with a snort. “Follow me,” he said as he started walking toward the guardroom. He opened the door and beckoned me in.

  We stepped through the door, and noise immediately assaulted my ears as our coworkers talked and joked noisily around the break-room table.

  Marvin headed past them toward the armory and waved me along excitedly. “Yer gonna wanna see this,” Marvin said as he opened a locker. “Here, try this on fer size,” he said as he pulled out a brand-spanking-new Mossberg model 500 tactical shotgun and handed it over to me.

  I cocked and eyebrow and hefted it into my arms, holding it up across my shoulders. “Damn!” I exclaimed. “I’ve got this same model at home. Mine is a bit older, but this is nice,” I added, observing the weapon.

  “Yeah,” Marvin said in agreement. “Just got ’em in.”

  We had only recently been granted the ability to carry shotguns on the trucks, used to be common practice until some dumbass rookie had been playing with one, and it discharged. It sent scattershot, ricocheting all around the interior of the truck, striking him in the legs and arms. Lucky for him he was wearing body armor, and he survived. After that, they were banned on the trucks and were only used in the vaults. Recently, we had acquired a new chief of operations who had authorized their use with extensive training. Up until now, we had used a standard generic pump-action shotgun. Nothing like this, though. The Mossberg, I knew, was a serious weapon.

  Marvin reached into the locker and produced a box of ammo, and cocked an eyebrow. “Breach rounds,” he said, holding up the box as if it were an idol to be worshiped. Teflon-coated steel core slugs were a force to be reckoned with, not to mention extremely hard to come by. Marvin pulled out a box of scattershot rounds as well. “Brought these from home,” he said and smirked.

  “Christ, Marvin! You expecting an army?” I said.

  “Dunno. Personally, I’d rather deal with twelve peers in a room than six carrying my casket,” he said, spouting off the standard law enforcement motto for better safe than sorry.

  The radio clipped to Marvin’s shoulder squelched to life, and Patty’s gravelly voice chimed in.

  “Beta team, you’re up in one,” she snarled.

  “Your wife’s calling you,” Marvin said, and chuckled.

  “Fuck you,” I replied and flipped him the bird as I headed out of the door to the vault.

  We wandered past the bay full of armored cars, avoiding an oil spill in the middle of the floor. We stepped over it and approached the heavy gray steel vault doors located on the opposite side of the room. I reached the door handle as Marvin made his way out toward the yard to grab our vehicle. I pulled on the door, and it held fast. I cocked my head in the direction of the guard booth, and shouted, “Pop it!”

  A moment passed, and an audible clank sounded as the magnetic lock allowed the heavy door to spring forward from its mount. I entered into a small gray brick room with another heavy steel door directly in front of me. A set of fluorescent lights buzzed and flickered above, casting an almost eerie bright and unkind light around me; it seemed to sap the energy from my being and caused me to struggle momentarily to keep from yawning. The top of the steel door clanked as a guard on the other side disengaged the locking mechanism and swung the top half of the door open, revealing the interior of the vault.

  Behind the door, a scowling figure, Josh, I believe was the man’s name. In all honesty, it might very well have been John or Jake or Bob for all I knew. I never had much use for our vault personnel other than to check my shit out and get us the hell out of there. Josh was a skinny kid with close-cropped hair, a hook nose, and thick glasses. He wore a baby-blue lab coat with only one pocket large enough to accommodate a small pad of paper and a pen or two. The idea being the less pockets, the less of a chance they had shoving wads of hundred dollar bills in them.

  “Trust no one, Mr. Mulder,” rolled through my brain, thinking of th
e old X-Files shows.

  Josh yanked a large rolling cart over to the window, with a grunt.

  “Damn things will never just . . .” Josh gave a hard pull, causing the cart to scrape across the concrete floor. “Roll!” Josh shouted the last part as he slammed the cart against the lower half of the steel door. “Sup, man,” Josh hissed in his high-pitched voice, causing me to wonder if this boy had even hit puberty yet, although I knew you had to be at least twenty-one to work for Specter. Josh must have just turned the qualifying age, and turned it very recently. I personally was only thirty-five, but looking at the young man made me feel slightly old. I nodded at Josh, and Josh handed me a small dark gray PDA.

  I tapped the power button on the PDA and awoke it from sleep mode, and then keyed in my personal identification number to log into the system. The PDA was basically our entire business on the street. It held all pertinent information about the day’s job. From addresses, maps, GPS location as well as all delivery information, we could operate without it, on the off chance the system went down, with a packet of paperwork that was handed to us in the morning.

  Josh then handed me a large ring of keys, spare batteries for the PDA, a clipboard full of paperwork, and extra ammunition for the shotgun and my .357 revolver. I took a moment and used the PDA to scan everything into my truck’s inventory. When I returned from our route in the afternoon, a guard would then scan everything back into the vault. If anything was missing, there were mounds upon mounds of paperwork to be done, and you avoided that situation like the plague.

  After all of my tools were scanned into the system, Josh began handing over bags of currency slated for today’s delivery. I frowned inwardly when I noticed the amount of packages that were listed in my PDA.