Dead Pulse Read Free Page B

time.”
    They walked towards the gates together. “In my grandpa’s time most of the graves were reused, for space, they'd put the bodies in the bone house and the poor souls graves were reused. Many of the caskets of the day were found with scratch marks on the inside. Many were thought to have been buried alive. My grandpa used to do the ‘graveyard shift’ or the ‘death-watch’ as he called it.” The man looked through the keys searching for the correct one to secure the lock for this night as they walked out onto the lose stoned roadside.
    “Is that right?” Sam nodded, trying to look interested, humouring the old man.
    “Pap would sit out here all night; string was tied to the corpse’s wrists which lead out to a bell. He would sit there, waiting for the bell to ring. Of course that doesn’t happen these days but if it did, there are no bells to warn us anymore. No bells.”
    He closed the rusted black iron entrance, and gave them a securing shake, which rattled a chain that hung over the middle of one gate. Taking out a padlock he rested it on the protruding lock then thumbed through the keys on the ring.
    “Thanks.” Sam found himself saying.
    “You heard them, didn't you boy?” Sam gave him blank look. The man gripped his arm again, this time Sam could feel the cold from his bony fingers eat into his own flesh and bones. Holding it tightly he looked intently at Sam, his eyes darting around his face. “I've heard them a lot these past few days, louder and louder. You heard them too right? They want out!”
    Sam shook off the man’s hand as politely as he could manage. “Yeah, Yeah I heard them." Reaching his van he opened the squeaky door as the old man tugged at his shirt.
    “Be careful boy, these are the dead, not the living. Most have been down there too long. They want out . Pap said, the dead will repent, and the living shall likewise perish!”
    Sam drove off. Looking in his review mirror he caught a glimpse of the old man shuffling back to the gate before he disappeared on a bend.
    The old man looked down at his keys mumbling to himself. With a firm grip on one of the larger keys, he put it in the rusting gate lock. He glanced up, something had caught his eye, what seemed to have been a person moving, but on a second glance there was nothing there. Shaking his head, believing that he must have spooked himself with his own stories he looked back at the lock. There it was again, something moving in the graveyard, he looked back up in disbelief to see a suited corpse standing before him, his skin a grey-green colour, loose and peeling, exposing the jawbone and what were left of his teeth.
    It put its hand through gate poles and grabbing the caretaker by his jacket and yanked him forwards. The old man gave out a wheeze that was lost on the wind of the green-forested hills. His key s jangled in his hand as his body hit the ground, his throat torn open. The gate slowly creaked open, the chain slipped to the floor and the dead man ambled out of the opening, stepping over the body that he had just relinquished of its life.
    Within the fence surrounding the graveyard a mist enveloped the ground, swirling and rising as the graves stirred, the dead had awoken, as too did the old man. He stood up once again his keys still jangling and headed towards the direction where he’d seen Sam’s van disappear into the dusk.
     
    “The Vice President, Susan Crafton today issued this statement at a press conference.”
    The woman’s voice spoke on Sam’s radio. He turned it up, thinking of the old man’s lingering words ‘ the dead will repent, and the living shall likewise perish!’ They continued roll over in his head no matter how he tried to push them to the farthest corner of his mind. He shook his head vigorously as if to physically dislodge them from his brain and listened attentively to the news coming out of the radio.
    “... Yes, I can now confirm that this is a pandemic. These suicide pacts