The Pulse (2 page)

“I’m going to see if I can scrounge anything up,” Emily said. “I need to get off the Tracks for a while. Clear my head.”

She stepped onto the cold concrete platform and walked briskly past the subway cars, keeping her gaze focused straight ahead to give the other women some semblance of privacy.

The entrance to the main terminal loomed before her, people milling about. But those weren’t the voices she heard.

Emily trembled in the dark, trying to breathe as quietly as possible. She could hear two soldiers in a closed room off to her left talking, but more importantly, she could hear… a radio.

A radio—
after a year of zero communication with anyone outside of the city.

How had it not been destroyed when the EMP hit?

She looked around furtively. The wide hallway was empty, although she could see the main terminal ahead. Pressing her ear to the thin wooden door, she held her breath, trying to be as still as humanly possible.

American troops overseas…
Static blocked out the next words coming from the radio. Shit. Something about rebuilding.
Help is available on the federal level…
Even the soldiers who must be stationed by the radio were silent now. She imagined they were like her, trying to hear the tinny voice from the radio. She hadn’t heard anything electronic in over a year, but how long had this been kept a secret? How long had the higher-ups known about this, and kept it from the people living in Grand Central?

The first notes of
The
Star-Spangled Banner
burst through the radio’s speakers, sounding like a scratched old-fashioned record or something. If whoever was on the other side of that transmission wanted her to feel patriotic, then mission accomplished. She was filled with anger at whatever country had brought America to its knees with its damned Pulse. She wanted to scream at them, the invisible enemy, and tell them they couldn’t keep her country down, that America would fight back.

But it wasn’t true. As far she could tell, there had been no counterstrikes—at least none the military cared to tell anyone about. Everyone struggled to survive and nothing else got done. Survival took every second of time and ounce of energy.

But how could they hide a radio? A fucking
radio
. Communication was all anyone wanted—just to know what the hell was going on.

She wanted to bust into the locked room and tell those soldiers she knew the truth, that despite what Colonel Lanche had told everyone… there was news from the outside.

To think there might be a place outside the city where she could be safe. She needed to hear more, to learn more. How exactly was America rebuilding? What did that mean? If she could escape and find a better life for herself, for her friends, and for everyone suffering at the camp, it would be worth it. Any cost was worth it.

Fear had kept her in place for too long. They had broken her. But this… this news would cause a revolution amongst the women on the Tracks.

Which is why Colonel Lanche would want to silence her if he found out she knew about the radio. A radio that wasn’t supposed to exist.

Her only hope was to get that radio in her possession and escape the military camp. Without getting caught.

Emily awoke hours
later, curled up across the hard plastic subway seats, with her mouth covered.
Her scream of surprise was muffled by the large, calloused hand.

The darkness kept her from being able to see anything, but she could feel the man’s erection hard against her leg as he lay on top of her.

She bit down hard, tasting blood, and the man yowled, reaching his hand back and slapping Emily’s face.

“What’s wrong?” her roommate Jenna cried out in the dark.

“Shut up, Jenna,” the man growled. It was the Colonel with his hand over her mouth. Emily moaned in recognition.

“Don’t bother with her, come to me,” Jenna purred. Bless her. Emily held her breath, wondering what would happen.

The Colonel didn’t even respond to Jenna’s words. “You cunt, you bit me,” he said, his voice a low growl. He jerked Emily upward until she was standing.

“Come with me,” Colonel Lanche spat, tugging her out of the subway car. He leaned into her ear, his voice low and menacing. “This is what happens when you snoop around.”

He knows.
Emily shrieked and kicked at him in mindless fear, earning herself another slap. He threw her down onto the cold concrete subway platform.

How could she convince him she didn’t know about the radio?

A garbage fire burned brightly, and the women standing around it suddenly quieted. Another soldier stepped out of the neighboring car, straightening his clothes. “Sir?” he asked, looking at Lanche’s bleeding hand. A third soldier joined him.

“This bitch attacked me,” he said.

Emily jumped up, scraping her palms as she stumbled again. His words made her tremble. “I wasn’t snooping around, Colonel, I swear. You got bad information—whoever told you differently is a liar.”

As soon as the words flew from her mouth she wished she could take them back. She shouldn’t have said that—not to him, and certainly not in front of his men.

“I’m sorry, I just—” she said, taking a step backward.

A cry escaped her throat as Lanche nodded to one of the other soldiers. “Restrain her.”

A broad-shouldered man in camouflage took her by both arms, effectively holding her in place. Panicked, Emily tried to bolt out of his arms, but he held firm despite a few well-landed kicks to his shins.

“Bring her to the main terminal for punishment,” Lanche ordered.

Emily shrieked as the soldier half-dragged, half-carried her up the ramp to the broken clock by the information booth where disciplinary action was traditionally carried out.

It seemed to take forever to reach the clock and still they were there too soon. Dawn was breaking now and light streamed in through the huge dirty glass windowpanes.

“Get the cane,” Lanche said.

Emily’s throat went dry. She started crying before the cane ever came near her, hating herself for being a blubbering fool. What happened to the strong Emily she’d been before the Pulse? Where had that girl gone?

Lanche’s loud voice and her shameless protests had gathered an audience. “For the crime of insubordination, ten strokes.”

The soldier holding her lifted the back of her shirt roughly, exposing her bare back. The cane was actually the plastic rod from a window blind, she had seen it used on others before. They kept it in the information booth for easy access.

The cane whistled down, hitting her skin with fiery pain.

She squealed without meaning to, then bit her tongue as the cane came down again. The soldier holding her was counting off. She could hear his deep voice reverberating through her body as the Colonel struck her over and over again.

The thought flashed through her mind that she shouldn’t have fought Lanche, but damn it, what else could she do? He couldn’t do that to her.

Of course he could. He was proving it right now.

“Ten.” The final strike felt like it cut her skin. She wailed, exhausted and utterly humiliated as the emaciated faces of the onlookers watched her.

The soldier who was holding her hauled her up onto her feet, letting her shirt fall back over her stinging flesh.

She had to escape—and if she got out of there, the radio was coming with her.

Mason
pushed open the warehouse door in downtown Manhattan carefully. The rats crawled all over themselves, their tiny squeaks and scuffling feet filling the atmosphere. A pile of little pink rat puppies formed a squirming ball in the corner.
Nice.

“Here, ratties,” he said, refilling several bowls with dry dog food and treated water. Returning his attention to the task at hand, Mason hefted the metal pail up and leaned over the barricade. The clanking caused most of the rats to clamber away, but there were too many for them all to escape.

He quickly scooped two thick black rats into his pail. The sound of their frantic little feet scratching against the side of the bucket didn’t faze him like it used to. They were food, not pets.

The hair on the back of his arms raised and he stopped himself before stepping out the door. Something was off. He thought he hadn’t been followed, but the rats were squeaking more than usual.

Men’s voices. Laughter.

Fuck.

Mason grabbed his AR-15 and aimed it at the door, ready to take out whoever the hell wanted to steal his crop of meat.

“Drop it.” The voice came from behind him, followed by the cold barrel of a gun pressed against the back of his neck.

“Fuck.” Mason dropped his weapon, but it still hung around his chest in its sling.
How did they do that?

A soldier came up to take his gun and Mason head-butted him. “Don’t take my gun, asshole,” Mason said, ignoring the bloom of pain in his own thick skull from the impact. The guy backed up, holding his nose, blood dripping over his fingers.

There were a bunch of them.
Oh, fuck.
This kept getting worse and worse. Mason scanned the room quickly.

Five soldiers, armed to the teeth. Gathering up his rats.

“This is private property,” Mason said. “And get your fucking gun off my neck. I promise not to shoot anyone. I know I wouldn’t make it out of here alive if I tried.”

“Smart man,” the voice behind him said.

He felt the pressure of the gun barrel go away. His neck tingled where the barrel had been.

“We’re commandeering these rats as food for the United States Army,” one of the soldiers said. “It’s no longer private property.”

“Wrap ’em up, men,” a soldier said.

“Like hell,” Mason said, lifting his gun.

Then something hit him, and he blacked out.

Mason wasn’t sure
how much time had passed before he gained consciousness.

The floor was cool against his cheek. He listened carefully, not hearing any squeaking. His rats were all gone. Moaning, he reached up and touched his head. His hand came away bloody.

Fuck, his head hurt. They’d left him for dead, he realized, struggling to sit up. Did they know who he was? Did they know he was an escaped convict?

Mason gasped and lay back down on the cold hard floor. His eyes drifted shut and he wanted to nod off, to escape the pain that overwhelmed his senses.

But he didn’t have time to sleep this off. He had to get up, had to keep going. If he stopped for too long, they’d find him, and there was no way in hell he was going to let himself get executed by the soldiers. He’d come too far to let it all fall apart now because of a little head trauma.

Mason stood up on shaky knees and let himself back out into the sunlight, pausing to scan the area. The soldiers were gone. So was his gun.
Fuck.

Without his gun, he was as good as dead. Well, if he didn’t die from whatever the assholes had done to his head first. He kept his head up, squinting in the sun, blood pounding in his ears as he walked.

He realized he was walking to the emergency room at Roosevelt Hospital. He laughed, then stopped abruptly when the pain washed over him again.

There would be no one to help him at the ER. It would be abandoned. When martial law was put in place after the EMP strike, the army took all the supplies in the city to the main FEMA camp at Grand Central—at least that was what it had looked like from his position on an upper floor of the Grand Hyatt, peering out the window at the movement below.

They shot convicts. He couldn’t be found.

Mason arrived at the entrance to the hospital and tentatively tried the door, surprised when it opened easily. Stepping inside, he looked around in dismay at the mess.

Med carts overturned, emptied out, windows broken, beds stripped of bedding. Mason wandered through the litter. There had to be a supply room somewhere.

Another wave of pain washed over him and he groaned.
Gotta keep moving.
A small plaque on a painted metal door said
MEDICATION ROOM
. He gripped the doorknob like a drowning man grabbing a life preserver. Locked.

Mason kicked it hard, but the door didn’t budge. Damn it, he had to get something for the pain before he passed out again. He kicked it once more. Nothing.

He’d need keys, but where would they be? Mason remembered the overturned med cart. He walked over to it, his temple feeling like a cracked egg, and righted the huge, heavy cart.

Keys on a lanyard stuck out of the door on the side of the cart. Mason knew from his trips to the prison infirmary that the keys usually hung around the nurse’s neck, but there were no nurses to be found. Probably lucky for them, Mason mused, considering his state of mind.

But the keys… He picked them up, looking once again at the med cart. It had been cleaned out.

How about the med room? The third key he tried worked and Mason gave a shout of jubilation. It echoed in the empty halls and made his headache worse.

He needed one pill. Just one.

But the med room had been cleaned out, too. The army must’ve taken everything. Cabinets were flung open and lay barren.