The Forever Man: PULSE Read online

  They struck the Elvin ranks with a sound like hail hitting a cornfield. A thudding and tearing as they punctured flesh and bone. But still the horde ran on, climbing over their dead as they did so.

  Ammon waited until the foes were almost too close for the archers to safely fire at without risking hitting their own troops.

  ‘Archers – cease-fire. Trolls, prepare.’

  The six hundred Trolls stepped forward, each standing over twelve foot tall, weighing in at over nine hundred pounds, ten foot high shield of steel and twenty foot long pikes with massive broad blades. They locked their shields together with a massive clash of steel that reverberated around the valley. Pikes were held over the interlocked shields.

  ‘Trolls, advance.’

  Over five hundred tons of heavily armored muscle shambled forward. Trolls did not, could not, run. Instead they shuffled, feet never leaving the ground. As a result they were always solidly grounded. In an advance such as this, nothing could stand before them.

  A solid wall of sound rolled across the valley as the Trolls crashed into the lightweight Elves. Pikes rose and fell, slicing, cutting, destroying. And slowly, ever so slowly, the Elven hoard was pushed back.

  But not for long. The sheer weight of numbers eventually slowed the advance and then halted it.

  Ammon was ready for this.

  ‘Orcs, support the advance.’

  The twenty five thousand Orcs ran forward. Not unsheathing their battle-axes. Instead they simply ran into the Trolls, dropping their shoulders and pushing. The Trolls pikes continued to rise and fall, slashing a pathway through the horde. The extra power of the Orcs continued the advance, driving the Elves back, crushing them underfoot, compacting them together so tightly that they could no longer wield their weapons.

  Then, with the timing brought from years of experience, Ammon spoke his next command.

  ‘Orcs, unsheath your weapons. Trolls, unlock your shields. Orcs – attack.’

  Twenty five thousand Orc voices bayed their battle cry as they ran forward through the ranks of the Trolls and into the massed Elves, two-handed battle-swords swinging with abandon, the battle madness on them all.

  ‘Kamateh,’ they cried out their war cry as they hacked and killed.

  ‘Kamateh, kill, kill them all!’

  The Elven horde broke and ran. Darting away like a massive shoal of bait fish before a pack of sharks.

  And commander Ammon gave his last order. ‘Archers, harry them. Fire at will.’

  The Elves retreated under a rain of steel tipped death.

  Chapter 2

  His name was Kobus Pistorious. He was fifty-four years old and he had emigrated from South Africa to England some twenty years previously. For the bulk of his life Kobus had been a mercenary in Africa. From Angola to Zanzibar. He had fought in over seventeen conflicts and as a result he was rabid racist and anti-communist. He was also a very good soldier.

  Now he had semi-retired. He ran an online company that sold pet toys to the type of English person that talked to their pet and fed it at the table. Kobus was not that type of person. But one had to make a living.

  When the pulse hit he was driving home from a dentist appointment and was just outside the cathedral city of Canterbury. He was waiting at a level crossing when his car cut out. He tried to restart it but it was totally dead. Not a spark.

  He pulled the bonnet ratchet and stepped out of the car. The first thing that struck him was the silence. Not the silence of the grave but a comparative silence. The silence of the bush. Something that he had not heard since his days in Africa. The silence of a land without modern civilization. No cars, no radios, no horns honking.

  Kobus had worked with special force units before. British SAS, American Rangers. And they had discussed this exact scenario. So, his first assumption was very close to correct: an EMP.

  His second assumption was incorrect, but essentially it made little difference to his reaction.

  ‘The bloody communists,’ he said out loud. ‘They’ve just gone and bleeding nuked us.’

  He went to the rear of his car, opened the trunk, took out his double barrel shotgun and loaded it with buckshot. Then he stuffed a few extra rounds into his pockets, picked up an empty tog-bag and headed for the nearest drug store that happened to be just around the corner.

  He opened the door and walked in. It was dark, especially near the back where the prescriptions were filled out. He strode down to the rear and threw the tog-bag onto the counter.

  ‘Fill that up with broad-spectrum antibiotics, oral and intravenous. Also one hundred 25-gauge needles and one hundred ten mil disposable syringes. If there’s any space left fill it with painkillers. Real ones with codeine, not aspirin or crap like that.’

  The pharmacist stared at Kobus, his mouth open.

  ‘I’m sorry, sir, but that’s impossible. You’ll need some sort of prescription or…’

  The South African raised the shotgun up and pulled the trigger. The light fitting above the pharmacist head exploded into a thousand tiny shards.

  ‘There’s my bloody prescription. Now fill it.’

  The pharmacist, face as pale as death, started to stuff boxes into the tog-bag with shaking hands. His assistant, a middle aged lady who had been standing behind him now lay on the floor, her hands covering her head, whimpering.

  Kobus replaced the used shotgun cartridge, his hands moving quickly and assuredly. Doing something that they did well.

  As soon as the bag was full Kobus ran from the drugstore, heading for the local cash and carry food store that was on his way home.

  He slung the bag over his shoulder as he barreled into the food store, grabbing a large shopping trolley as he did.

  A young colored man behind the till called out.

  ‘Hey, man, sorry but the power’s out. Till’s not working so we can’t allow any shopping. Sorry, mate. Should be back on soon if you’d like to wait.’

  Kobus turned to face the man, bringing the shotgun to bear as he did so. The young man shrank back.

  ‘Listen, Sambo,’ said Kobus. ‘Firstly, the lights are never coming back on and secondly, I’m not shopping, I’m helping myself. Now keep your cheeky black African face out of mine and maybe I won’t kill you.’

  The young man, whose name was actually Charles, born and bred in Kent, England and never having been within six thousand miles of Africa, simply said nothing. His face a blank mask.

  Kobus ran down the aisles filling the trolley with tins of meat, vegetables and bottled water. When it was full he walked out the front door, pushing the squeaking trolley in front of him.

  He was feeling good. Exultant even. For once he was truly ahead of the game. Drugs, food, a weapon. Happy days.

  He didn’t even hear Charles walk up behind him but, at the very last moment some sixth sense flashed a warning and he started to turn.

  It was too late. The Niblick wedge golf club with the steel shaft and the dual reinforced bar at the back, struck the South African directly on the temple, smashing the skull and killing him before he struck the ground. He collapsed in an untidy heap on the sidewalk.

  Charles stared at the body, aghast at what he had just done. Frantically he scrabbled for his cell phone to dial 999. But there was no signal. And there never would be. Ever again.

  Kobus Pistorious was the first person, post pulse, to have been killed for looting. But his name would not go down in history. In fact no one would remember him. Not even Charles who died three days later defending his shop from a mob of looters.

  A new history had begun.

  Chapter 3

  PULSE Plus 10 minutes 28th August 2022

  United States of America

  Airline crashes – 400 000 dead

  Collateral damage from crashes – 180 000 dead

  Patients in operating theatres – 25 000 dead

  Patients on life support – 1 400 dead

  Vehicle and train accidents – 18 000 dead

  Other – 1
2 000 dead

  TOTAL DEATHS USA – 636 400

  United Kingdom

  Airline crashes – 80 000 dead

  Collateral damage from crashes – 120 000 dead

  Patients in operating theatres – 5 000 dead

  Patients on life support – 300 dead

  Vehicle and train accidents – 8 000 dead

  Other – 2 000 dead

  TOTAL DEATHS UK – 215 300

  Chapter 3

  Kamua Johnson had turned nine last week. He lived on the twenty-second floor of the Lambeth Towers development. A Thirty-story, horseshoe shaped tenement block that overlooked the sprawl of Brixton. Designed in the sixties as part of England’s Brave New World policy. Blue plywood window surrounds, bare concrete. Planters on the ground floor complete with stringy trees, withered from pollution and lack of nutrients.

  The original artist’s impressions had shown lithe figures pushing buggies, playing ball, skipping rope. White, Asian, African. Shaded by tall Plane trees, the ground covered in freshly mown green lawn. The figures were smiling. All of them.

  The reality was a crumbling urban nightmare of damp and decay. Disintegrating concrete, bare earth, puddles of rank water that never drained away. A pile of broken shopping trolleys. Without wheels. Twisted and crippled. Teenagers in hoodies. Hands in pockets. No one smiled. None of them.

  Kamua shared the apartment with his parents and his grandmother, Gramma Higgins. His parents in one room, Gramma in the other. He slept in the sitting room.

  Gramma suffered from Dementia or Alzheimer’s disease. She was also a type 1 diabetes sufferer. But as long as she took her pills and her insulin injections she was manageable.

  The problem was that Kamua’s mother administered Gramma’s drugs and neither she nor her husband had come home last night. Kamua had tried to phone her work, using the emergency number that she had left, scrawled on the yellow post-it and stuck to the mirror in the hallway. But the phones were dead. Both the landline and the cell.

  So Kamua had waited, staring out of his window. He had seen the planes come down and the fires starting. But they were not close enough to worry him. And he was not yet old enough to appreciate what was happening. He didn’t like the fact that the lights would not work. He was scared of the dark. Monsters lived in the dark. And by the time the sun was fully set he could see nothing in the stygian darkness of the streets below. It was as if he were floating on a raft above a calm black sea of emptiness. Silent. Blind.

  Gramma had kept asking for water but, after one glass, the taps no longer worked. The miracle of running water ceased as the pipes ran dry and the pumps at the water towers functioned no more.

  So Gramma had pleaded with him. Imploring him for water as her body tried desperately to flush the sugar out of her system. As the night progressed. Her lack of memantine pills had allowed her dementia full rein and she started to scream and swear at Kamua, flashing her withered genitals at him, licking her lips lasciviously, calling him son of Satan and begging him to defile her.

  Finally the little boy had locked her in her room. By morning she had stopped banging on the door.

  Kamua decided that he needed some help. Adult help. He knew that his mother always filled Gramma’s prescription for her meds at the drugstore on the corner. The man behind the counter always smiled at them and greeted mother like a friend. Kamua would go to him and ask for help.

  He took the keys, closed the front door, went to the elevators and pressed the call button. But nothing happened. No lights. Nothing. So, with a child’s acceptance, he started down the stairs.

  It took him fifteen minutes to reach the ground floor. He left via the front of the building. Immediately he saw that things were not right. Cars were stopped in random positions all over the road. The glass fronts to the shops were all broken or the steel shutters were pulled down and padlocked with massive brass locks. The street was littered with smashed consumer goods. A radio, half out of its retail package, a broken TV, splintered beer bottles, the pavement still damp from the spilt contents. Kamua didn’t know what looting was. He had never been taught the concept. All that he could see was that the dark had made bad things happen.

  The drug store was shut. The steel doors had been pulled down and locked. There were bright shiny scars on the doors where people had tried to smash their way in. But the doors had held.

  Kamua stood in front of the store for a while. Some people walked by. Mainly teenagers. Some single adults. No one even looked at the little boy. They did not know him. He was not their responsibility. Eventually Kamua turned and walked back to his apartment block, went in the front and started the laborious climb back up.

  On the twelfth floor he came across a fat man lying on the stairs. His hands were curled in front of his chest and his face was bright red. He was making strange grunting noises. Kamua was scared but his politeness won out and he greeted the man.

  But the fat man just stared at the little boy and grunted, his breath rasping in and out like he was drowning. Kamua stood with him for a while and then continued his upward travel.

  He unlocked his front door, closed it behind him and went and sat on the sofa. He stared at the TV. Blank. Lifeless.

  He would wait for his mommy.

  And then everything would be all right.

  ***

  There were three of them. Two of them had spent the bulk of their adult lives fighting their way up the corporate ladder until they had achieved the level of success that was measured by the position and square footage of your office. The higher up, the more senior. The bigger the footage the more valuable. Both of them, Mary Blithe and Conran Fisher, had offices on the same floor. The 63rd floor of the London Shard. However, Conran’s office measured out at six square foot more than Mary’s. Hence, he was senior. Just.

  The third person was Winston Dube. He was the cleaner for the observation deck of the Shard situated on the 72nd floor and measuring around 8000 square feet or roughly ten times the size of Conran’s office.

  So, according to the logic used by Conran and Mary – Winston was the most senior of the three. By quite a long stretch.

  However, none of this mattered. All that mattered to the three of them was the fact that they had been trapped in the elevator around the 50th floor. It was pitch black. They had been there all night.

  And they were now starting, quite understandably, to panic.

  ‘I need to pee,’ said Mary. Her voice less of a statement and more a whimper.

  ‘Hold it,’ retorted Conran. ‘Help will be here soon.’

  ‘What makes you think that?’ Asked Winston. ‘I mean, we’ve been here all night. I’m not sure what the time is but I guess that it’s late morning. Something’s wrong, man. Something is seriously wrong.’

  ‘Well what do you suggest?’

  ‘Nothing to suggest, dude. All that we can do is wait.’

  ‘Exactly.’

  ‘Yeah,’ answered Winston. ‘Exactly.’

  The smell of urine enveloped them. Acrid and pungent. Like distilled fear.

  ‘Sorry,’ whispered May.

  She started to cry.

  And they waited.

  ***

  HM Belmarsh prison, or Hellmarsh as the inmates call it, is a category A prison situated in the South East of London.

  The prison service manual states that Category A prisoners are: “Those whose escape would be highly dangerous to the public or national security. Offences that may result in consideration for Category A or Restricted Status include: Attempted murder, Manslaughter, Wounding with intent, Rape, Indecent assault, Robbery or conspiracy to rob (with firearms), Firearms offences, Importing or supplying Class A controlled drugs, Possessing or supplying explosives, Offences connected with terrorism and Offences under the Official Secrets Act.”

  In other words, Belmarsh prison is filled with some very bad people.

  But there is nothing to worry about. Belmarsh is a state of the art facility. High walls, well traine
d guards and a system of electronically controlled Mag-locks that secure every door on every cell. Even in the event of an EMP or similar power outage there is a hardened back up battery that keeps the cells secure. The batteries last for sixteen hours.

  Or until 10.00 am in the morning.

  It is now 10.01 am.

  Belmarsh houses approximately 880 inmates.

  Or, to put it more correctly - Belmarsh used to hold 880 inmates.

  Chapter 4

  Hogan had managed to snatch a couple of hours of intermittent sleep but he was still feeling strong. Unusually so. His vision crystal clear, his body humming with energy. Alert. Ready.

  The water was no longer running so the indoor plumbing could no longer be used. The marines had erected three chemical toilets behind the embassy. They had also taken stock of all of the bottled water, sodas and food, worked out the necessary requirements for everyone and concluded that they had enough food for seven days. Ten if they severely restricted rations. The bottled water would only last another four days.

  But water shouldn’t be a problem. After all, they were a mere stones throw from the river Thames and a couple of Aquatabs in a drum of river water would purify it to a potable stage.

  Liz had asked that one of his marines go outside the embassy and conduct a recce. Hogan had decided to do it himself. And after thinking about it for a while, he had furthermore decided to conduct the recce in full combat gear as opposed to civvies. He wasn’t sure exactly what was going on out there and a marine never wants to be outgunned.

  His men rolled back the gate and he slipped out. There was no one on the street. It wasn’t a residential area. He walked down Nine Elms road and turned right before the boating lake into Chelsea Bridge road. He crossed the bridge over the Thames and walked into Chelsea.