Pulse (16 page)

After packing all his files, he reoriented. He needed to destroy anything Marla had developed on a potential vaccination. That meant backups, copies, and knowing who she spoke to about it. He didn’t know how far she was into developing it, so he had to act fast and put a stop to it. Marla was bright, very smart indeed; could she be useful in his own research?

A thought came to him. Infect Marla. Make her like him so she could help him. He’d admired how bright and clever she was in the lab recently.

Would semen pass the parasite onto her? He grinned. Probably.

Before he left, he searched the guard. He carried a nice handgun on his hip. Adam studied the gun. The brand was Glock. He didn’t know much about guns, but he knew that was a popular brand. He remembered what his brother always said: Glocks don’t have safeties. You’re the safety.

Rupert. He was going to kill Rupert when he got back to Seattle.

Adam tore down the curtains and tried toweling off as much of the sweat as he could. Now that he was infected himself, the smell wasn’t bad. It was almost sweet and earthy. He made a mental note to consider this further once he had time.

Gun stuffed in the waistband of his pants, he tried to steady his breathing and look normal as he walked about the halls. They were vacant. Perhaps it was too early in the morning? Or had everyone abandoned ship? How long was he asleep for?

He entered the elevator to the lab level and leaned against the wall. He was racing against the clock. Someone would come looking for the guard he killed—that was technically his third kill, he’d say—and then they’d be looking for him.

He found himself laughing. Little did they know he wasn’t the same Adam anymore. Not the demure little scientist who put his head down and worked. Not the Adam who let his bitch wife control him.

The new girl struggled harder than any of the others had. When he plucked her away from her idiotic boyfriend, she elbowed him in the nose and darted forward with every bit of strength she had. If she wanted to go with him, why was she being a little bitch? Putting up such a fight?

But it wasn't enough to stop Gary. No, he was determined to have her. Back in the coop, all but Heather were big-bellied and ready to burst. Heather awoke from her coma and was crazy, screaming about sawing his cock off with a nail file, so he had to kill her.
He’d barely have any girls left in his coop after the other ladies exploded.

He'd heard the guy call
his new girl Chelsea, but that wasn't a good name. He wanted to call her Christine Ruth. It sounded like a very fancy name for a very beautiful girl. It was the name of his first and last girl before he went to Greenwood.

Christine Ruth struggled, but not enough. He got his arm around her neck and held it tight until her little body sagged and she fell unconscious. They hadn't wandered far from the strip mall, so dragging her back didn't take long. Just as he was tying her up to one of the chairs, she woke.

Gary felt heat spreading across his groin. She really was beautiful. Even as she came to and started screaming, he noticed how delicate her pink tongue was. Her perfect white teeth.

She kicked at him wildly but he caught her legs and straddled them, leaning in close. "I've been watching you, pretty lady. I thought you would be a good fit in the coop. Join the rest of my hens."

Silence overtook her as she followed his gaze deeper into the salon where his other ladies laid in a row, their stomachs distended, ready to burst thousands of parasites into the world.

"Please let me go."

Gary frowned. "I can't do that."

"Why? Please just let me go!"

He crawled up her body, one hand sliding up her side. "Because you're mine now, pretty girl. Pretty Christine Ruth, so pretty—"

Something hard pressed against the back of his head.

"Get your fucking hands off her."

Gary got to his feet and slowly turned. It was Christine Ruth's boyfriend holding a shotgun to his head.

"Hey now," Gary said, putting on his regular person voice. "Nothing wrong here. Just keeping the girls, you know. These hens need a lot of maintenance."

Surely the boyfriend would understand he was just doing the best for them?
Gary was just a regular guy doing his thing. Gary was a nice guy.

"The fuck is wrong with you? You—"

Gary saw his chance. The boyfriend spotted the girls laying in the back and was distracted. He lunged forward, pushing the barrel of the gun upward as he knocked him back.

There wasn't room for another rooster in this nest.

When Dom realized Chelsea was no longer with him, his heart stopped. The world spun around him and he wasn't sure what to do. As he scanned the street behind him he didn't know where she could've gone or why she left him.

He took a few steps forward and felt his knees weaken. He set his hand against the alley wall for support and took deep breaths. Dom needed to focus. If he didn't, there was no way he could find Chelsea.

Outside was overwhelming him. In the apartment everything was slow, so much so that every decision they made was agonizing. Now he felt like he was moving in fast forward. The smell of smoke, blood, and sour rot was overpowering. The sight of complete devastation on street level disoriented him.

Sensory overload,
his mind kept repeating. 

One street over he heard a series of shrill screams and the popping of an automatic rifle. Dom decided backtracking was the best way to begin looking for her. As he neared the end of the alley, he caught sight of movement headed towards the strip mall. A man was dragging Chelsea's unconscious body across the street. He was obviously one of the infected crazies.

Although he was making good speed, he seemed to have no control of his limbs, which jerked as though being tugged. But what worried Dom the most was the shotgun he had slung across his back.

If he saw Dom he might kill Chelsea, or him. He needed to sneak up on him. Dom waited until the man dragged Chelsea into a salon then crept in after him,
working his way around dead bodies littering the street. It took all the willpower he had not to run screaming and guns blazing to her.

When he slipped into the salon, he feared he wouldn’t be able to take the man.
Fortunately he was distracted, his hands all over Chelsea, and it gave Dom ample time to get right behind him and point his own gun at his head.

Everything was going fine until
the infected stood and lunged at Dom. Dom did his best to push the guy away, but he was bigger. His shotgun went upward, but he didn't lose grip of it. He sidestepped and let the man's momentum ram him into a rack of beauty products. They tumbled around him as he fell.

Dom brought the shotgun back up and aimed.

"Shoot him! Kill him!"

He stopped thinking. He squeezed the trigger. The infected man's head exploded in a burst of gore that splattered everything behind him, mixing with burst shampoo bottles as it dripped. Dom watched in rapt horror as tiny white worms, no bigger than his pinky nail, squirmed about in the mess.

"Help." Her voice was faint. Dom spun and dropped to his knees, pulling out a knife from his pocket to cut Chelsea free.

"Are you okay?" Dom said, trying to still his shaking hands as he cut through. "Did he hurt you?"

"No. I'm okay."

As the ties came free he saw her raw, scraped wrists. Her neck looked bruised. But she was putting her strong face on and right then, Dom needed her to be strong for the both of them. He helped her to her feet.

She stared at the motionless body of the crazy man and stepped back. "Dom, those worms are crawling towards us," she whispered.

They were. Slowly, since they were so small, the worms were migrating towards them. Dom took Chelsea's hand and gave it a squeeze. "It's fine. We're out of here, back on our way to Nina’s. We've still got hours left. We're good."

"Where you going?"

Chelsea and Dom turned towards a voice from the back of the salon. A naked woman stepped forward. Her stomach was so far distended she had to lean backward to support its weight. Though dark, Dom spotted other women behind her, all of them infected with the parasite
and ready to explode.

"Don't you want to have a good time with us?"

Dom spotted the scissors in her hand. He remembered what he'd read about and seen. Hosts wanted to spread the parasite. Before the word
run
even slipped his mouth, the woman pierced the scissors into the middle of her stomach. It split like an overfilled water balloon, the wave of bloody, eager parasites within bursting forward.

These worms were bigger. They were faster. And as the other women tore their infected bodies open, there were more of them.

Dom turned and ran for the door, dragging Chelsea behind him. He felt debris pelting his back then he realized one of the women exploded close by. It was worms hitting him.

Outside even the overcast sky blinded them after the dimness of the salon. He was disoriented for a moment before deciding to resume the original plan. Only now they were being pursued and it wasn't going to be easy.

Behind them a mass of worms slithered towards them. Two women who hadn't burst themselves followed, their bodies moving disturbingly quick considering their size. Drawn by the commotion, a handful of people came from the sports store next door, men wearing what appeared to be human flesh as loincloths. They each carried pipes and baseball bats.

Dom took it all in with once glance. He aimed his shotgun and took out the nearest th
reat—one of the salon women—whose stomach exploded upon impact against the cement.

They booked it towards the apartment, taking a sharp turn as they entered the alley.

"He took my gun!" Chelsea shouted, almost breathless, as they ran.

Dom reached into his holster and gave her his sidearm, a feeling of hopelessness overcoming him. Not
thirty minutes out of the apartment and they were already fucked.

But there were maybe five of the flesh-wearers and one woman left. If they made a stand…

His ears rang as he lost his hearing from the shot Chelsea fired without warning by his side. She'd hit the host in the shoulder. She took aim again and fired, the round hitting her in the middle of the chest. Dom watched in horror as the woman kept coming, a tear in the bullet hole traveling downward until her stomach finally split open, a gush of parasites falling onto the ground and joining the ranks of the others.

The people they could kill. The parasites?  He took aim at the mass and fired. The buckshot was absorbed into the parasites. They bled, but kept coming.

They were at the point where Dom lost Chelsea before. When they first left the apartment it seemed doable to walk down the back alleys until they reached Chelsea's friend's apartment. His hearing was jacked from the gunshots; everything sounded like he was underwater. His hands trembled, the reality of killing people threatening to shut him down.

Stop. Stop doubting yourself. You
have
to do this
.

Dom stopped, turned, and fired at the oncoming infected instead of the parasites. He hit one of them square in the chest. He crumpled to the ground. There were four left, the parasites moving quickly across the cement ten yards away.

Dom cocked the gun, aimed, and fired again. Another hit. Chelsea joined, hitting one in the leg, effectively bringing him down.

The remaining two veered behind a building. Whether they were trying to cut them off or had given up, Dom wasn't sure. But they were gone. Without a word they kept going down the alley, darting across a side street as they reentered on the other side.

His chest was on fire. Phlegm was thick in his throat from running so hard after being sedentary for so long. Though the parasites were fast moving—and horrifying in close quarters—out in the open they were slowed down by debris, wrecked cars, and dead bodies. As they turned a corner and Dom checked again, he realized the mass of parasites was nowhere to be seen.

"How close are we?"

Chelsea studied her surroundings. "One block. We're behind the Thai place Nina and I usually eat at."

Eventually they arrived at the back of a small apartment building
, very similar to Dom’s. It was six stories and only one building. Giant dumpsters reeked of old garbage. Dom breathed through his mouth but the smell still got him.

Chelsea flicked out her cell phone and gave Nina a call. No one answered.
Dom tried the backdoor. Locked. There was a security pad by the door, but Chelsea didn’t know the number to get in.

“Do we break in?” he whispered.

“We have to. We either go on foot or try to get the keys to her truck.”

Dom knew he’d seen people do techniques in the movies to make glass breaking less loud, but every one of them escaped him. Really, it was just his mind being overactive. He focused and took the butt of his gun and broke the panel closest to the doorknob. The sound sent panic coursing through his body. He reached through and opened the door.