Don't Dare Call Them Zombies : Books 1-4 (33 page)

 The soldiers began to fire. They were very good shots, and almost every bullet fired found its way into one of the creature's heads.

“Look out,” I shouted, as a group of freaks approached us from our left.

Jennifer and I turned and fired at the small group. In an instant, they were motionless on the ground.

We turned and continued to follow the soldiers. In a couple of minutes we were at the fence and were making our way towards the gate. We continued to hear the popping of the soldiers’ rifles.

More of the freaks were being attracted by the noise we were making and there was a group of them behind us now.

“I'll take them out,” said Robert.

“Fire in the hole,” I heard one of the soldiers yell. “Get down!”

Without hesitation, I pulled Jennifer down to the ground with me.

I then heard a loud BOOM as the grenade exploded, blowing a group of freaks to bits. My ears were ringing as I stood up. Ahead of us body parts were strewn everywhere. Looking behind us, I saw Robert chopping the heads off a number of freaks. The sickle was working well, but we needed to keep moving.

“Come on, Robert!” I called out.

As he turned towards me, a freak lurched at him and bit his arm.

“Screw you!” he screamed at the freak.

He knocked the freak away, dropped the sickle, and ran towards us. I fired at the freaks that were coming from behind and they collapsed. We all continued to move forward towards the gate.

As another wave of freaks approached us, we formed a line and began to fire almost continuously; dropping them to the ground, but additional freaks would appear out of nowhere.

“It didn't seem like there were this many freaks near the fence,” I yelled.

“I know,” a soldier yelled back. “They must have come from the other sides of the plant.”

I reloaded my thirty round clip and continued to shoot.

Looking back towards the convoy that we had left behind, I could see flashes of gunfire. However, they were being surrounded by the freaks. Suddenly, I heard the sound of full automatic fire. They were mowing down the freaks.

“How much ammo do they have?” I yelled at a soldier.

“A lot,” he said.

“Why couldn't we have just taken these freaks out with the gun on our Humvee?” I asked, continuing to fire

“We can't risk damaging the nuclear plant,” he yelled back.

“But we’re shooting now,” I shouted.

“This is just small arms. The guns on the Humvees are high powered and could damage the plant.”

We continued to fire at the freaks, and they were thinning out now, finally. When I ran out of ammo for my pistol, I switched to my revolver. I fired six shots and then pulled out my butcher knife. Only a few additional creatures remained between us and the gate.

“Let’s keep moving,” I said.

As we moved forward I slashed into the necks of the freaks that were coming at us. I started to lead the group as I went into a rage. I was angry at the freaks, I was angry at the world, and I was angry that Jennifer had to wait until a zombie apocalypse before she’d consider me.

Heads and bodies of the freaks littered the ground as I moved forward.

Finally, we were at the gate.

“I'm going to get the tanker truck,” the female soldier said.

I looked between the gate and the truck and saw that the path was clear.

“Go and hurry up,” I said.

She ran off into the darkness to get the truck.

“Should we go get the van?” Jennifer asked.

“We better leave it where it is,” I said. “We’ve made it this far – who knows what we’d have to deal with if we went back.”

A soldier radioed the nuclear plant.

“We’re at the gate now, but it’s locked. Please open it,” he said.

“No,” a voice on the radio said.

“Why won’t you open up and let us through?” the soldier asked.

“There are still hundreds of them,” the voice on the radio said.

Quite abruptly the automatic gunfire we had been hearing in the distances stopped and for a moment there was silence.

Suddenly an explosion went off, then another. The other half of the convoy had run out of ammo and was now using grenades. For the next five minutes we heard dozens of explosions. Looking through a pair of night vision binoculars, I could see piles of body parts surrounding the Humvees in the distance. But still more freaks swarmed towards them.

Then all was quiet, except for the moans of the freaks in the distance.

“Keep your heads down and shut your eyes,” I heard a voice on the radio say.

I didn’t comply.

There was a flash of light and a loud blast from the direction of the Humvee. A giant bomb of some kind had gone off. I was partially blinded by the light, but looking through the night vision binoculars I could see the freaks had all been taken out.

“You can come in now,” a voice said over the radio.

The gates began to open, and I could hear the tanker truck in the distance.

We all rushed through the gates and proceeded to the first building we saw. A moment later, the tanker truck parked in front of the building and the gates closed.

“Could anyone have survived that?” I asked.

“No,” Jennifer said.

I turned to Robert who was still clutching onto his arm.

“Are you alright?” I asked.

“No, Hank, I'm dead. I am infected now,” he said.

Blood dripped down his arm, and I realized if the bleeding was not stopped he could die even sooner.

I turned and pounded on the door of the building we were standing next to.

“Let us in,” I shouted.

The door opened. Two men in white coats and a security guard were standing there.

“Hurry up and come inside,” one of the men in white coats ordered. “
We’re about to have a radiation release.”

We all rushed in and were hurried into an elevator.

“This is the command and control building,” a man with a computer tablet said, looking at Robert. “We have a medic on staff who can stitch him up.”

The elevator stopped
on level four. When the door opened I saw a room that looked like a medical clinic. A young red-headed woman was writing at a desk.

“Medic, stitch his wound and then dose him,” the man ordered.

 “What are you going to dose me with?” Robert asked.

“The cu
re,” he said.

The woman stepped forward and extended her arm to Robert. “Let me help you take care of this.”

Robert stepped out of the elevator and the door closed.

“There is a cure?” I asked.

“Yes,” the man with the tablet said.

“What is it?” I asked.

“Gamma radiation,” he said. “The extraterrestrial organism is very sensitive to gamma radiation. What is a safe dose for a human is a deadly dose for the pathogen.”

“So you know that the plague is extraterrestrial?” I asked.

“Yes,” he said. “You may not be aware, but the government has been in communication with an extraterrestrial species for the last six months. Negotiations broke down and then this happened.”

“This fits with what the demon told me,” I said.

“Demon?” he asked.

“It is a long story, but a d
emon spoke through one of the freaks and told me that an extraterrestrial species was involved,” I said.

The soldiers looked at me like I was crazy.

“One of the freaks spoke to you?” he asked.

“Yes,” I said.

“I witnessed it,” Jennifer added.

“What else did
he say?” he asked.

“That some of the extraterrestrials are humans and they might be able to help,” I answered.

“I want you to write down everything you know,” he said. “But first I need to update all of you on what is happening.”

“
We’re running low on fuel and one of the generators is having problems. Even with the fuel you brought we’ll possibly have a meltdown within twelve hours or less. However, if we don’t vent some radioactive gas from the containment building where the reactors are, there could be an explosion much sooner,” he said.

The door to the elevator then opened. We were on level ten. The room we walked into was filled with computer screens. There were panels with all sorts of controls and levers. In the middle of the room there was a large t
able on which was a screen showing a map of the area.

“Samantha, please update these people on the situation in regards to the radiation release,” he said, turning to a woman sitting at a computer.

We were ushered to seats at the table and Samantha, a woman of about thirty with short dark hair came over.

“Thank you for bringing the fuel for the generators,” she said. “Your efforts will buy us time. As we speak, the fuel you brought is being transferred into our fuel reserves.”

“However, we have an immediate concern. Due to overheating of the fuel rods, pressure and radioactive gas has built up in the containment building. To prevent an explosion, we need to vent a fraction of the gas. This will release radioactivity into the environment. However, we have discovered that the pathogen that has infected the population is sensitive to radioactivity. By releasing this radioactivity, we hope to eliminate the threat that surrounds the facility.

“We eliminated that threat,” I said.

“Yes, you did,” she said. “And we appreciate it. But more of them will be heading this way. When we release the radiation into the atmosphere we hope it may kill all the freaks in a two mile radius.”

“Won't that poison any survivors in the area?” Jennifer asked.

“Without protection, the level of radiation could cause mild radiation sickness after a few hours of exposure,” she said. “However, we don’t think there are any more survivors in the area around the plant.”

“And once the plant melts down this whole area will be like Fukushima,” I sai
d.

“Maybe,” she answered. “However, even if there is a meltdown the containment barriers may hold.”

“But we may have to continue releasing radioactive gas,” she said.

“If the melted nuclear fuel hits ground water this whole place could blow up,” I said.

“You’re right. That’s possible. But we’re going to try and make sure that does not happen,” she said.

“So when are you going to release the gas?” Jennifer asked.

“We’re doing so now,” she said. “You’re safe in here, but I would suggest you stay inside for at least a half hour to let some of the radiation diffuse.”

We continued to discuss the situation. She said we were safe in the building, because it was shielded and airtight. When I told her about how we were going to try and to evacuate the people from
the church, she showed us a map on the screen. In a worst case meltdown, the church would be in an area of lethal radiation exposure. However, if the meltdown was controlled, the radiation exposure would only be moderate.

One of the other scientists told us how the plant had been mostly abandoned during the first days of the apocalypse. They were working with a skeleton crew. Almost everyone left to go seek out their family members.

Samantha and the security guard led us to another room down a hallway. In the room we saw a radiation suits hanging from a wall and various devices on tables.

“Each of you needs to put on a radiation suit before you leave,” she said. “There will still be significant radiation in the area around t
he plant.”

“What are all these things on the table?” I asked.

“Radiation measuring devices,” she said.