Shoshanna Evers: The Pulse

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.

Masonpushed 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 surehow 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.

Mason felt like crying. At this point he would settle for a fucking bottle of aspirin. Anything.

He screamed in frustration, the pain overwhelming his senses. Leaving the empty med room, he stormed down the corridor, kicking the gurneys as he went. His vision swarmed.

Something clattered to the ground. Mason froze and instinctually went to heft his rifle, forgetting that it was gone. He had no weapon for protection.

“Show yourself!” he yelled.

He heard a muffled gasp. Someone was crying. Soft, high-pitched sobs. A child?

“I’m not gonna hurt you,” Mason said in the general direction of the sound. “I just want to know who’s there.”

No one showed themselves. Mason groaned as it felt like a knife was cutting into his skull from the head wound. He’d pass out soon.

He couldn’t risk being so vulnerable while unconscious… Finding the source of the crying was his priority now, more important even than finding something for his pain.