Don't Dare Call Them Zombies : Books 1-4 (28 page)

I insisted that person be me.

Jennifer didn’t like my decision very much, but there were tough calls I had to make. I honestly felt that I was the best person in our group for the task. Also, my trust in Robert and Meredith had become much stronger. I knew they wouldn’t hurt Jennifer, and if they needed to they would fight to defend her.

Parking in the back of an old, abandoned city works I stepped out of the van. I saw a couple freaks in the area, but they too seemed slow moving and sluggish.

I peered into Robert's window and asked him to take out the freaks, very quietly, with his sickle. In addition, I told him that if I was not back by nightfall to head back to the homestead where we had lunch earlier in the day. If I didn’t make it there by noon of the next day, he should head back to the church. But no matter what, he was not to put the group in danger.

Walking back towards the van I motioned for Jennifer to roll down her window.

“I'll be back soon. Don't worry about me,” I said. “Just stay alert and don't let any freaks get too close. Robert is going to use his sickle to take out those freaks in the distance, but don't get out of the van unless you absolutely must do so.”

“I'm going to worry about you, because you’re my friend, Hank,” she said.

“Thank you,” I said. “I'll be back.”

I proceeded towards the relocation camp. The road to the camp was filled with pot holes and the sides of the road had bits of litter, cups and aluminum cans, strewn about. However, I continued walking down the road until I saw two soldiers in the distance.

“Halt,” one shouted at me with a megaphone. “Stay where you are. We will come to you.”

A minute later, a Humvee was approaching. Three soldiers with US Army insignias on their shirts approached me with a dog.

“Just stay still,” they said. “Let the dog smell you.”

The dog approached me and started to sniff my pants.

I worried he might smell the Chihuahua on me and go nuts.

Instead of going crazy, the dog sat before me and seemed to smile.

“You’re not infected, at least according to Tybalt,” the soldier said. “Now what’s your business here?”

“I'm trying to find my mother. I'm Hank Harper. Her name is Arlene Harper,” I said. “I was told she evacuated from the library in Sandy Hills. It was used as a relief station before it was evacuated.”

“Let me look her up,” the soldier said.

He pulled out an electronic gizmo that looked like a bulky electronic tablet. I saw him type in her name on the touch screen.

“She was here as of last night,” he said. “But we’re evacuating everyone to other relocation centers further inland. I'm sorry to tell you that she was put on a bus last night. To be honest, I'm not sure which site they’re going to send her to.”

“Can you radio the bus and find out where she’s headed?” I asked.

“No, I'm sorry. It’s out of range by now,” he said.

“Do you want to come inside and get some food?” he asked.

“No thank you,” I said. “I'm actually with a group and we’re trying to find our family members and friends.”

I gave the soldier the full names of Jennifer's sister and Ms. Suzy to the soldier. He informed me that Jennifer sister was alive, and had been bused out two days previously. However, Ms. Suzy and her family were still in the relocation center. Once cleared by the sniffer dog, we would be free to either enter the compound to talk to her, or they could come out and speak to us – if they were supervised, of course. They couldn’t risk a cleared person becoming infected.

I suddenly realized I hadn’t been told why the relocation center was being moved.

“Why do you have to bus everyone out?” I asked.

“That's classified,” the soldier said.

“Please, I know it may be classified but the world is falling apart, and there is probably not much of a government remaining. Can you please just tell me what is going on? There are large groups of survivors not too far from here. What's happening?” I asked.

“I'm not supposed to say anything,” he said. “But the Robert E. Lee Memorial nuclear power plant, along with a few others in this part of the country is having some problems.”

“What?” I asked.

“The power grid is down so there is no way to keep pumping the water to keep the fuel rods cool,” he said. “The power plants have been using their diesel generators ever since the outbreak started, but there is a fuel shortage.”

“We expect multiple meltdowns in twenty four hours or less,” he added.

“What does that mean?” I asked. “Is this whole area going to become the next Fukushima?”

“Yes, I’m afraid that’s what it means,” he said.

He then walked away

Suddenly, I realized how bad the situation had become not only for us, but for the people back at the church.

I ran as fast as I could back to the van.

There were no freaks around, so huffing and puffing for air I waved for Jennifer, Robert, and Meredith to get out of their vehicles.

Once they were around me, I tried to catch my breath.

“What's wrong,” Jennifer asked.

“We have a problem, a big one,” I said. “We have to send someone to the church to warn them.”

“What is the issue,” Meredith asked.

“Did you ever take a class in nuclear physics?” I asked.

“No,” she answered.

"Well, here is what you need to know in a nutshell. A whole lot of radioactive, nuclear material is about to have a criticality, or go boom," I said.

“What are you talking about?” she asked.

“There’s going to be a meltdown,” I answered.

Chapter 1

Jennifer, Robert and Meredith looked at me with shock as I continued to share the bad news In the middle of trying to survive the zombie apocalypse the last threat we would expect to have to deal with was a nuclear disaster. Multiple nuclear reactors racing towards a meltdown was a terrible card to have been dealt, but thinking over, it was not really too surprising.

“How does that happen?” Jennifer asked me. ”Can it be stopped?”

Keeping watch on our surroundings to make sure the area was clear of freaks, my mind raced as I tried to figure out how to explain the situation. Thankfully, I had a basic understanding of how nuclear power worked due to the excessive quantities of arcane knowledge I had acquired over the years. All those coffee fueled, sleepless nights browsing the internet – before another day of work at Grocery World – could pay off somehow now.

“There are a few nuclear power plants in the area,” I said. “To control the nuclear reactions and the amount of heat produced, the plant must have a constant source of electricity to keep
water flowing through the reactor core. Without the electricity, the fuel rods can overheat and if they get too hot, explosions can occur.”

“But a power plant is supposed to generate electricity,” Meredith stated. “Why can't the plant just power itself wit
h some of the electricity it produces? I don't get it.”

“It just doesn't work that way. I'm not an engineer, but the plants are not designed to self-power themselves like that,” I said.

I kept looking around the streets where we stood. Apart from soldiers near the relocation center there was no one around, not even freaks. I could see our dog looking through the van window. Jennifer must have let it out of the crate.

“Can't they just shut the plant down somehow?” Jennifer asked. “Surely they have a cutoff s
witch somewhere.”

“It can take weeks or months for a nuclear plant to fully stabilize after a shutdown,” Robert stated. “At least that is what they said on the news after the Tsunami in Japan.”

“That's right,” I said. “And to keep the process going they need fuel to run their backup generators. From what I was just told by the soldiers, they’re running low on fuel.”

“So is a meltdown definitely going to happen?” Meredith asked. “And what would that do to us?”

I didn't want to give her an answer, because the truth was not something anyone would want to hear.

“I'm pretty sure every nuclear power plant in the world will melt down at some point, in the current situation,” I told her. “Of course we don't know if every other nation was hit so hard by the infection
.”

In the distance I heard a noise. A decaying, fly ridden corpse was limping across the road towards us

“Follow me,” I said. “This will only take a second.”

Robert signaled us to stay put as he ran over towards the freak with his sickle and sliced into i
ts head. The sight of the freak's brain oozing out of its skull would have made us nauseated a few days ago, but we had quickly become unfazed by the sight as we had started to adapt to the daily struggle for survival. Robert came back to us without any of us mentioning the incident.

“So basically, I don't know how bad the situation will become on a global level,” I continued, “But to get away from the radiation that will spread after a meltdown, everyone in this part of Georgia will have to evacuate, I'm p
retty sure.”

“What will happen if we stay here,” asked Meredith?

 “If the worst happens and the meltdowns breach the reactor containment buildings, radiation poisoning could kill everyone in the area,” I said. “One of us should go back and warn everyone at the church.”

“It's my church,” Robert stated. “I've been a member for the last six years, and if anyone should go, it should be me. I owe it to them. But where would I tell them to evacuate? Should I tell them to all try and make it here?”

“I don't know,” I responded. “I want to go and talk with whoever is in charge here.”

“Wait a second,” Meredith said. “You
haven’t even told us if your people were here. Did you ask?”

I looked at Jennifer. Even though I
didn’t want to give her more bad news, I had to be blunt.

“Your sister
isn’t here. She was sent out on a bus to another relocation center two days ago. My mom was sent out last night,” I said. “However, Ms. Suzy and her family are still here.”

“Did they tell you where they were sent to?” Jennifer asked.
She looked terribly disappointed.

“No, they don't know,” I answered.

“What? They don't know?” Jennifer's voice started to grow louder.

“They said the buses were out of radio range,” I said.

““They have to have some idea of where they were heading! I want to go talk to Ms. Suzy,” Jennifer stated insistently. “Let’s head up there.”

“Alright,” I said. “But let’s be careful. They seem to be pretty serious about security. They had a dog sniff me
to find out if I was infected or not. I think we will all be okay, but I'm not sure what would happen if one of us were found to be infected.”

Meredith started to
unwrap the bandage on her arm. Previously, her scratch seemed to be healing and responding well to the antibiotics we had found. We all watched as she held out her arm.

“How does it look?” she asked.

“I think it is healing,” I said. “The red streaks are fading.”

“How do you feel?” Robert asked her.

“I don't feel bad,” she said. “I can't say I feel great, but I am not running a fever or anything.”

“Do you mind?” I asked as I reached my hand towards her forehead.

“No,” she answered.

Placing my hand on her forehead, she
didn’t feel as if she was running a temperature.

“You don't feel hot,” I said. “I
really don't think you’re infected.”

“What if the dog can't tell the difference between someone with a staph infection and someone with the zombie plague?” Meredith asked. “Do you think they would just grab me, take me away, and shoot me in the head?”