Super Zombie Juice Mega Bomb

by MJ Ware

Chapter 11 – The Going Gets Tough

  "Emergency broadcast?" Misty asked.

  "Am I to understand that you have not been listening to the emergency broadcast station?" Kali replied.

  "We couldn't get anything on the TV."

  "And you did not search the frequency mod—I mean the FM or AM bands?"

  "Hold on, let's back up. What's this about an air strike?" I grabbed a giant bag of Skittles as we passed the candy aisle.

  "Unless the necro-sapien threat resolves itself within two point four days, the area will be extirpated."

  "Let's call'em zombies, no more of this necking-sapien stuff, okay? And there's no way in heck this is going to resolve itself."

  "I concur. Thus is it expedient that we vacate without delay."

  "No dice, Einstein. They've blown the bridges." I opened the security gate to the vision center for Misty and Kali.

  "If the bridges have been demolished, then our situation is more dire than I originally deduced." Kali wasn't looking at us; instead, he rummaged through our supplies like a teacher digging through desks for contraband.

  "I'd call that an understatement." I shoveled a huge handful of Skittles into my mouth.

  "I will have to formulate a new plan. In the meantime, I think it would be prudent for me to use the electronic equipment here to attempt to contact the authorities. If I can reach the proper party, they may rescind their plan, or at the very least initiate a rescue."

  "Fine. Electronics department, aisle three. Have fun with that," I mumbled with a full mouth.

  Kali marched away without another word.

  "What do you think?" Misty asked.

  "Shhh, wait a second." I put my finger to my lips, which ended up coated with a rainbow of fruit-flavored spittle. "Vulcans have extra-sensitive hearing."

  "What have I told you about Star Trek jokes?"

  "He seems fine, but more than a little weird. I mean, I don't think he even knows what half those words mean." I tipped the bag to Misty, who took two.

  "We can turn on a radio and listen to the emergency broadcast ourselves."

  "Yeah, unless he's set up his own transmitter and is sending out fake alerts."

  "Seriously, Nate? Why would he do something like that?"

  "I don't know, evil genius? Heck, maybe he even created the zombies. Some sort of modern Frankenstein experiment."

  Instantly, Misty's hands were in fists, pressed firmly against her hips. "Just shut up. That's the dumbest thing you've said. To blame all this on some little kid; don't you have any decency?"

  "Whoa, calm down—just thinking out loud." I took a step back. "I know there's no way he could have caused all this. All I'm saying is he seems a little off. We should keep an eye on him."

  Misty didn't reply. I figured we were both thinking about the best way to make our escape. With so many zombies around, we knew it wouldn't be easy.

  We walked over to the electronics department and found Kali sitting alone on the floor surrounded by a mound of torn-up packaging and cheap electronics.

  "Any luck?" His dark hair stuck up on the sides; it looked like his mom cut it.

  "None. Either these devices lack sufficient power, or the authorities believe the area to be completely evacuated. Perhaps both." He held what looked like a CB radio with its cover removed. A long wire snaked up a support column.

  "You must be the life of the party," I said as I walked over to the portable stereos.

  "I seldom receive invitations to parties."

  Who could have guessed, Kali not the most popular kid in school?

  "Hey, what channel is the emergency broadcast on?" I stepped over a spilled rack of movies; this place was starting to look as if it'd been looted.

  "AM sixteen-ten, but you will not receive radio reception in this structure without an antenna."

  He was right. I couldn't get a single station.

  "Perhaps our efforts would be better utilized if we focused our attention on the problem of extracting ourselves from the tri-city area."

  "The tri-city area?" asked Misty.

  "Yes, based on your actions while rescuing me, I assumed you knew?"

  "Knew what?"

  "About the source of the contaminate that has resulted in the re-animation of the deceased."

  "We saw zombies running around and kinda assumed they wanted to eat our brains or something," I said.

  "Actually it's flesh. The necro—um, zombies desire to consume flesh, not specifically brains. Although human cerebral matter is high in fatty—"

  "Ooo, stop, that's way too much," Misty said.

  "So, let's grill up some steaks and maybe they'll leave us alone," I suggested.

  "Unfortunately, when an animal expires, glycogen immediately starts to convert into acid, which lowers the pH and renders the meat inconsumable to the re-animated."

  "So we were right about the whole pH thing? See, Nate, I told you science class was important," Misty said smugly. Lifting her chin a little higher than is normally polite.

  "How did you manage to deduce that lowering the cranial pH would retard the cerebral re-animation?"

  "We sort of stumbled across it." I shook my bag of Skittles to see if any stragglers were hanging out in the bottom.

  "How so?"

  "Oh, it doesn't matter."

  "Nate tried to drown a zombie in lemonade. It was great," Misty said, smiling.

  "Not drown; I wanted to get the bucket on its head so I could save your butt, remember?" I could feel my face getting warm. Misty never missed an opportunity to embarrass me.

  "Ahh, so it was idiot's luck, so to speak."

  Idiot's luck? It was idiot's luck Misty stepped between us before I could knock him silly.

  "So how did you figure it out?" she asked.

  "I'm a volunteer for the Western States Regional Water Monitoring Program. We've been monitoring the water in this area for several years." Kali pulled out a wallet and sure enough, he had a Western States Regional Water Monitoring card. I wondered if he also had a chess club or Young Geniuses of America membership card in there, too.

  "I noticed an alarming rise in both river and soil pH in recent months."

  "What's a nine-year-old doing with a wallet?" I asked.

  "How does a thing like this happen? Why didn't the government step in?" Misty gave me her best evil eye, which I thoroughly enjoyed.

  "We were working closely with the EPA. However, it is difficult to positively determine the source of the contaminate that caused the pH levels to rise."

  "This pH increase created the zombies?"

  "No, not by itself. I suspect the actual cause is a mutant virus or aggressive pathogen. Whatever the method of re-animation, I believe we can assume it is not the pH levels alone that are responsible. This area has been environmentally ravaged for decades." Kali shook his head slightly, obviously in disgust.

  "There are high levels of mercury from mining, formaldehyde from the plywood factory that closed eleven years ago, and now sodium hydroxide, which I suspect has been illegally dumped at the paper mill," he continued.

  "All these together created the zombies?" I asked.

  "Yes, I believe so. Or, more precisely, created an amalgam. Some sort of never before seen contaminate that has the ability to re-animate the cerebral cells of the dead." I found my head automatically shaking, too.

  "That's great, so my dad helped create the zombies." Misty's dad worked as a supervisor at the paper mill.

  "Misty, there's no way your dad was involved. He hasn't missed church since I've known you. He hasn't even let you miss church. The guy's practically a saint. If illegal dumping was going on, he's the last person who'd be in on it."

  "While I cannot comment on your father's candidacy for sainthood, I can concur with Nathan's conclusion. The mill has done an excellent job of keeping this quiet. I have been regularly inspecting their refuse for any documentation of illegal dumping."

  "You were digging through their trash?" Misty said
, wrinkling her noise.

  This kid was a little off. "Oh, never mind the trash. We all agree Misty's dad wasn't involved. The question is how do we get out before they blow the town to bits?"

  I waited for a reply, but no one spoke. "If Kali's right and Greenburg and Quincy are infected, too, there's no way we can just walk out of here. We couldn't carry enough zombie juice."

  "What if we killed all the zombies? Then the government wouldn't have any reason to bomb us in the first place," suggested Misty.

  "They'd probably still bomb us for target practice," I added.

  "No, wait. Misty, that is an excellent hypothesis. If all the zombies in the immediate area are neutralized, the government will be certain to send a team to investigate the cause." Kali bit his lower lip and looked up, deep in thought.

  "We could stand on the roof and spray them with zombie juice," Misty said.

  "I assume zombie juice is a highly acidic fluid you have been using to eliminate the zombies?"

  I nodded, then added, "But, we could never kill 'em all from the roof."

  "What if we drove the Mustang around and sprayed them?" asked Misty.

  "Negative. Even with modifications to your vehicle, we would not be able to carry enough zombie juice, as you call it, to eliminate them within the required period."

  "What if we got a big truck..." Now the wheels in my head started turning. "I got it. How about a fire truck? I remember we went to the fire station on a field trip. Those things hold thousands of gallons."

  "But we'd never get enough zombie juice, even if we mixed in all the containers of Kool-aid, Crystal Light, and everything else we could find," she said.

  "What we require is vast amounts of Sulfuric Acid."

  "The paper mill has tons of chemicals."

  "But they’re the ones raising the pH," I reminded her.

  "Misty, I think that may be the solution." Kali rubbed his chin, as if he expected to find a beard there. "The paper mill uses sodium hydroxide to raise the pH of the paper pulp, but I am positive they also have large quantities of sulfuric acid to lower it. The creation of paper requires a very precise chemical process." Kali waved his finger at us like a parent scolding a child. "If we could obtain a sufficient supply, it is possible we could mix enough solution to neutralize every zombie within the town borders."

  "So it's a plan?" I asked, resisting the urge to put his finger down for him.

  "There are a multitude of details we must work out. However, I think this proposal appears to be not only a plausible course of action, but at present, the most likely to succeed."

  "We're going to break into the paper mill, steal a fire truck, and soak the entire town in acid? Sounds like a great plan to me." Misty rolled her eyes.