Frank and the other four families with which Eve was supposed to have gone southeast to the California valley, to farm and raise cattle, were hidden in the woods in front near the car they just blew. They were only supposed to shoot to draw out the soldiers further if they didn’t come through the gate to investigate. The plan was to lure as many soldiers out of the gate as possible so Jeb, his sons, and Eve could come in the side unnoticed.
Originally, Jeb had assigned Eve to stay back with Frank and the other four couples and one toddler, since it was safer, but Eve’s reception by the four women had been ice cold. She had received a few tentatively welcoming smiles from two of the men. But the eight of them had been stuck there waiting outside the gate for the past three days, because Frank refused to leave without Eve, his wife to be, who was inside the power plant falling back in love with Sven and finally sleeping with him. They were all firmly on Frank’s side, who was still sulking. Eve had approached Jeb then and shook her head subtly ‘no’ when he tried to assign her to stay behind.
“But I’m going to need someone to keep an eye on our cache of weapons and food,” Jeb whispered to her. “Can’t have that stuff disappearing while we’re in there being good Samaritans, springing Sven and Jackie.”
“I want to come with you,” Eve pleaded quietly, with her back to Frank. “I can’t stay here with them.”
“Okay,” Jeb finally agreed. “But stay down and do exactly what I tell you, when I tell you to do it.” He then lent Eve the smallest camo pants and shirt he still had from his dead son. The shirt and pants were still at least three sizes too big, and instead of looking tough, Eve now looked like a young child playing dress up in her daddy’s army outfit.
The sprint to the cooling tower went off without a hitch, as all the attention was on the front gate as planned. Soldiers were running and massing to defend against an attack at the gate, leaving big holes in their defenses. Mack and Tiny went into the cooling tower, while Eve and Jeb kept watch at the outer door. Eve heard the POP, POP of gunfire inside. Jeb and Eve kept watch by cracking the door, and were glad that the small pops didn’t draw any attention. Finally there were four giant BOOMS, as Mack and Tiny detonated hand grenades, shutting down the water pumps and destroying the backup generators, simultaneously. The two big men came sprinting around the corner, nearly knocking into Eve and Jeb immediately after the booms. They both had huge smiles on their faces, and Tiny was having a silent belly laugh. “We had to down a couple of infected,” Mack explained, through the ringing in their ears.
“Code yellow,” the familiar recorded female voice intoned. “Reactor temperatures are rising to dangerous levels. Immediate action required. Code yellow. Reactor temperatures are rising…” The message repeated itself infinitely, never tiring.
There was no more time for celebration, as soldiers would be coming to investigate at any moment. Jeb turned to them and motioned for them to go out counting down with his fingers silently, three-two-one-go!
They sprinted out the door low and fast. Tiny was first, followed by Mack second, Eve third, and finally Jeb, who held the door open and called all the shots. The first shot came up high and wild from behind the tower before they even knew the soldier was there. He was running toward the gate when he saw them. Mack shouldered his rifle and put him down with one shot before he had a chance to fire a second time. Mack and Tiny quickly pulled the man into the shadows of the cooling tower, behind some dry shrubs ringing it. Jeb and Eve sprinted into the cover of Building 3, where they had a clear view of any threats approaching Mack and Tiny from the front, as well as a clear view of the guardhouse. The plan was to enter from the back somehow, get in to the basement cell areas and spring Sven and Jackie. There was a single door in the middle of the three story gate house, but it was solid metal and looked to be reinforced.
Jeb shook his head sadly. “We could blow it, but I don’t think we brought enough explosives, since we didn’t plan on this.” He turned to his sons, “Do you have any more grenades?” They shook their heads.
“Shoot the lock,” Eve said. She felt Sven slipping away from her. They were so close, they had to get in and rescue him.
Jeb was already looking at the windows, all of which were barred on the first level. The second and third story windows were not barred, but they would need a ladder or have to boost each other up to get there, and they would be exposed to fire should any of the enemy see them at it.
“Boost me up!” Eve said, reaching her hands toward Tiny’s thick neck. “I’m smaller. I’ll go in and unlock the door from the inside.”
Just then two men in black and white striped jump suits came barreling through the door, running into them. One had long blond dreadlocks, and the other man was dark-skinned and thickly built. Mack shouldered his rifle instantly. The two men were unarmed.
“Sven!” Eve cried.
“Shhhhh,” Jeb said.
Sven and Eve flung themselves into the other’s arms, hugging and kissing passionately. The feelings Eve felt at Sven’s appearance erased any lingering doubts that she had made the right decision to choose Sven over Frank.
“Boy, am I glad to see you,” Jackie said to quick man hugs and back slaps all around. “I knew those explosions had to come from you. How do we get out of here?”
“Follow us,” Jeb said. “Stay low.”
CHAPTER 54: November 10, 4 p.m.
Frank and three of the four other men were being marched at gunpoint back toward the power plant by thirty soldiers. Frank cried out when he saw all four women in his group marched at gunpoint from the woods by another group of soldiers. Sven was too far away to hear. Eve stood beside him, tears silently running down her face.
Frank’s outburst got him a kick in the stomach from one of the soldiers that dropped him painfully to his knees in the dirt. That was followed up immediately by a rifle butt strike to the back of the head by another soldier which left him punch drunk. Jeb was leading them off to the right as far away from the road as possible and into the thickest woods. Sven could see another man in Frank’s group motioning with his arms. He seemed to be describing the explosions.
Another group of twenty soldiers was now bringing forward Jeb’s cache of weapons and food that had been secreted not far off the road.
“So much for the weapons and food,” Jeb said.
They threaded their way through the tall trees all the way to the right, until they hit water. The problem was that the power plant was built at the end of a thin peninsula. The land itself was essentially a bottle neck with only the one small ribbon of road leading to and from the gate. Soldiers were combing the woods everywhere they went.
“I have the feeling Frank is giving us up right about now,” Jackie said. “I’m not sure we have much more time before they find us. Any ideas for getting out of here quick?”
“Working on it,” Jeb said, chewing a toothpick and fingering his rifle. Darkness was quickly falling and all around them, rose the savage sounds of the infected attacking the exposed soldiers, and sporadic gunfire. “Retreat!” was heard and the sounds of boots running through the forest. They followed a cliff north, keeping the inlet on their right and the road beyond the trees further and further off to their left. They moved silently, stopping whenever Jeb or Jackie heard or saw something. As they crested the final ridge connecting the small peninsula to the larger body of land, Sven could see a pitched battle occurring between the soldiers who had retreated behind the gates of the plant and a massive horde of the ravening infected. A few small emergency lights still burned at the plant. A tank lay stranded outside the blocked gate, along with several of the adopted cars with “US Army” scrawled on them in green spray paint. Infected jumped freely in and out of the tank port. The fighting was clearly inside the gates now, and the infected were among the soldiers. There was no more line, and the soldiers looked to be panicking. A large ring of military vehicles quickly made a circle inside the gate and lit up a large area with huge spot lights. The beleaguered sol
diers stood within the ring, firing out at the infected. Sven could see survivors waving from the top of the control tower, where they were cut off from the protection of the lights and the soldiers.
Off in the distance, the calm electronic female voice intoned to newly flashing red lights, “Code red. Code red. Reactor core meltdown imminent. Reactor temperatures have reached critical levels. Take immediate corrective action. Reactor core meltdown imminent. Code red. Code red. Reactor core meltdown imminent…”
“The soldiers are going to make it until the dawn with their lights, but most or even all of the survivors are screwed,” Jackie observed.
From their hillside vantage point, Sven could see infected attacking and tearing apart survivors on the tower catwalk, who moments before had been waving for help from the soldiers. Survivors were jumping from the catwalk to their death rather than be bitten by the infected, who were swarming onto the catwalk to get them. Some of the infected, after biting and savaging their victims, copied the behavior by throwing survivors from the catwalk to the concrete below, howling with evil glee.
“They took their weapons too,” Sven said. “Only the soldiers have weapons.”
The soldiers began shooting up at the tower catwalk, downing survivors and infected alike without discrimination.
“The soldiers are just shooting them,” Eve said, incredulous.
“Do you think they have the know-how to stop the code red before meltdown?” Sven asked.
“They have Dennis and Brit and lots of manpower and equipment, so I’m going to have to say they’ll be able to stop it,” Jackie answered.
Sven ducked pulling Eve with him down to the ground, as a heavy rumbling sound like a freight train coming straight at them caught his attention. It was an earthquake. In his many years living in California he had never before felt one like it. They all ended up flat to the ground as it shook, and the giant trees swayed terrifyingly all around them. There were ear-splitting cracks as trees and limbs broke and crashed to the ground. A great crack opened in the earth, running along the road far below them for some distance, and lead right up into the power plant. A large plume of steam began rising from one of the cooling towers, which appeared to be cracked in half even from here.
“I watched as he opened the sixth seal.” Sven had a distant look in his eyes. “There was a great earthquake. The sun turned black like sackcloth made of goat hair, the whole moon turned blood red, and the stars in the sky fell to earth, as late figs drop from a fig tree when shaken by a strong wind.”
“How do you know the words like that?” Eve asked, still holding Sven’s hand.
“I don’t know,” Sven said.
“What happens now?”
“They hunt us,” Sven was matter of fact. “By the end, our kind shall be rarer than pure gold. And if God had not shortened the days of mankind’s trial, every son of Adam on the earth would have perished.”
“We better keep moving,” Jackie said.
“Where to?”
“Look at all the shooting stars,” Mack pointed as the sky nearly lit up with bright lights that went streaking across the dark sky.
“Zawatenejo,” Eve said.
“Mexico,” Jackie said.
"Tagged The Apocalypse" is Joseph M Chiron's first novel.
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