Free Dead Pulse by A. M. Esmonde

around. The majority of ‘soldiers’ carried a mix of guns, old Colts and Smith & Westerns, new type machine guns, Scar-Light’s, X-25’s and Corner shot Launchers. Some brandished the basic blades, machetes, knives and swords. This is an amnesty’s worst nightmare , he thought.
    Unlike its former use, the compound now had a threatening and dangerous atmosphere. It ’s occupants were as busy as a colony of ants as they moved with purpose, and despite the uncomfortable feeling Jack had as he sat there watching them all mill about, as crazy as they seemed, they had saved Jack’s life and for that he was grateful.
    They had mocked Jack earlier when he entered the shelter laughing and shouting abuse, “You screw stiffs.”
    Jack just nodded and smiled, muddy with his face full of congealed blood and his hair matted with it.
    A man with a scar on his face sat next to him on the creaky bench. “Any new comers have to prove themselves, it’s a bizarre ritual,” he whispered.
    “Ritual?” questioned Jack putting down his spoon.
    “The food doesn’t come free. They put you in a penned area blind folded and armed only with a machete. Into the pen, they release a drooling corpse.”
    He pointed over to a darkened unlit wooden pen at the far side of the compound. He looked around and cau tiously continued. “The idea is you chop off its head, without being bitten or killed. Then they take off the blindfold and you have to cut off all its limbs.” The man looked hard at Jack. Jack gulped. “If you get bitten, you’ll be executed along with your new dead friend. I’ve seen it happen many times now. I’m giving you a heads up ‘cos in the morning you’ll be expected to perform.”
    “This is insane.” Jack murmured.
    “Insane? Take a look around you, in this topsy-turvy world, anything goes,” stated the man taking a mouthful of food.
    Jack knew what the first light would bring. He needed the safety of the shelter and knew that he was safer with these nuts than with the things that raged around outside the compound. He laid his head on the table and drifted into a troubled sleep.
     
    It had become a drained, hopeless world and carnage was universal. The dead had risen. They walked the earth. A presidential underground bunker had been torn apart from the inside out. No matter where you hid, death would find you.
    There were only small pockets of people still alive. Some stayed in enclosures, others roamed from town to town. You couldn’t start afresh, the dead outnumbered you. International communication had ceased, whilst some people used battery-powered radios for local transmissions, countries could no longer communicate with each other. World leaders had acted hastily with missile strikes, which caused more death and further breakdown in communication. Had this catastrophe been brought it on by the human race? It seemed so. It seemed like the end.
     
    Jack woke with hands slapping his back wishing him good luck; the scarred man who had spoken with him the night before was nowhere to be seen. Sleepily, he faced the crowd. A man moved forward from the mob and in a quiet voice explained what was expected of him. He was offered some whiskey, straight from the bottle then someone thrust a machete into his hands. He was blindfolded with a Metallica puppet master T-shirt, before being positioned in the centre of the pen. The only sound he heard was the wooden metal meshed door as it slammed shut. There were shouts and jeers as the flesh-eater was dragged by a make shift collar into the pen. Jack listened to the taunting and heard the impact of a foot into bone as his opponent was kicked; he took note of its fall to the floor. Suddenly, Jack felt sorry for it, sorry for what he was about to do, it had after all once been human.
    The crowd fell silent. Jack could hear the thing moving around, holding the weapon with both hands, he stood still and listened intently. He could not yet pinpoint its position. Then without