by R. J. Spears
“But two people dying together of natural causes. Isn’t that a stretch?”
“Any bullet wounds?”
“Not that I can see.”
“We’re on our way over.”
We didn’t expect to find any zombies inside, and I really thought the only thing we had to fear were folks who had holed up in the building. People ready to shoot anyone who entered, alive or dead. In truth, I hadn’t expected to find anyone alive inside, but I had to play it safe and enter as if we could be attacked.
The two bodies were slumped against a shelf, one male and one female, lying against each other. Because of the advanced state of decomposition, I couldn’t really tell their ages, but I thought they might have been elderly. It was something I took from their clothes and from the male having wisps of gray hair still hanging off his mummified skull. Their clothes were mostly covered in the brownish-red goo, and they had bloodstains around their noses and mouths.
“They’re really messed up,” Devin said in a combination of disgust and fear.
“I don’t see any gunshot wounds,” I said. “And there’s no bruising around the nose or mouth, so the blood doesn’t seem to be a result of an injury.”
“Are we playing CSI or what?” Brandon said.
I pulled my attention away from the bodies and started toward the front of the store, kicking or crunching animal feed that had been spilled. I dropped the pretense of being cautious. There was no immediate threat.
As I approached the checkout counter, I found the third body lying in front of the counter. It was a woman. Again, I couldn’t tell her age because of her condition. More of the brownish-red goo was around her, and she was face down in a partially dried puddle of it. The backseat of her pants was stained reddish black. I decided not to turn her over.
“There’s another guy back here,” Devin said, craning his neck to see over the checkout counter.
I side-stepped around him and made my way there. The body was a man, but that was the best I could do. He lay on his side and was in a similar state to the other bodies: blood stains and lots of brownish-red goo around him. On the floor beside him lay a child. Even in deep decomposition, I could tell the child had been shot in the head. That was enough for me, as I stepped back and looked away.
“Shit,” Devin said after taking a look.
My head felt light, and my vision swam for a moment. I had seen some seriously bad shit in the last year, but this caught me off balance. I walked unsteadily away from the counter and out of the showroom. I didn’t stop in the storage area but kept going until I was out of the building back into the clean air. The only reason I knew I was being followed was that I heard their footsteps.
“What happened to those people?” Travis asked.
I took in deep breaths of air, purposefully filling my lungs with its purity. I did this five times then felt my mental and emotional equilibrium return to somewhere close to normal.
“I’m not sure. It wasn’t zombies, I know….” I started, but Devin slapped my arm.
“Look, they’re coming,” Devin shouted.
When I looked up, I saw at least twenty zombies shambling through the thin line of dormant trees just in front of the railroad tracks.
“They must have heard the gunshots,” Travis said.
We knew that cold was a factor that slowed the zombies, and this group was making painfully slow progress towards us. Their steps were halting, and some fell with every third step but got back up on what looked like badly broken bones and maintained their charge. Albeit a slow one.
I knew we could leave and not have to bother with them, but some thought was coalescing in the back of my mind, trying to form through the mental fogginess and shock of our discovery.
“Shouldn’t we be leaving?” Devin asked.
“Let’s get our quiet weapons and take this group out,” I said.
“Are you crazy?” Devin asked.
“Just go with me on this,” I said, “they look slow and weak, and I want to know why.”
“Slow and weak…” Devin said.
“I know these are some of the first you’ve seen up this close,” I said, “but take my word for it, there’s something up with this group.”
I looked to each man, and everyone but Devin nodded. Brandon seemed to have an eager glint in his eyes. Devin followed reluctantly as we went to our vehicles and pulled out our hand-to-hand weapons. He was even more hesitant to return to the back of the building.
As usual, Brandon had his sword, and I had my trusty baseball bat. Travis had a long crowbar, and Devin had a long piece of metal pipe wrapped in the middle with duct tape. He used it like a martial arts fighter, swinging it from the middle, using the ends to bludgeon. At least that’s how he practiced with it. Like Travis, this would be his trial run in hand-to-hand combat with the undead.
By the time we made our way back to the side of the building, three of the more spry ones shambled around the back corner and headed our way.
“Space out,” I said, “we don’t want anyone getting bashed or cut by one of our own.”
The group complied, taking wide steps to broaden our coverage, but Devin was more behind than beside us.
As the lead zombie came within striking distance, I started to move forward, but Brandon jumped out and drove his sword forward, skewering the zombie through the throat. Brandon wrenched the sword to the left, and the zombie’s head fell to the left as if it were on a hinge; tendrils of muscle and tendons barely holding the head on. The zombie fell to the ground, quivered and then went still. I moved forward to take on the next one and easily dispatched it with one quick blow, its skull cracking like an eggshell.
Travis must have seen how easy it was and wanted in on the fun. He smacked the next one with a looping swing of his crowbar. His aim was off, and he struck the thing in the upper arm. The arm cracked in two at the place of impact, leaving two separate sets of bones encased in a sack of flesh. The impact knocked the zombie off balance, and it fell in a heap on the ground. He finished it off with a stabbing motion of the flat end of the crowbar to the back of the thing’s head.
Four more zombies stumbled around the corner. Something was different about these zombies. Their skin was blistered and ulcerated in places. Their movements were almost in slow motion, and their broken steps were exaggeratedly herky-jerky. I know that description seems strange to say about zombies, but they moved as if they were sick.
“Come on, Devin, you want some of this?” Brandon yelled almost gleefully as he moved forward, bringing his sword back over his head, and readying himself to deliver a death blow. His sword whistled through the brisk air and expertly cut through the next zombie’s neck, sending its head in one direction and the rest of the body in another.
“Don’t get too far out in front, Brandon; they could surround you,” I shouted.
He ignored me and hacked into another zombie that came around the corner. Because he was so aggressive, I felt the need to close the gap between us in case he got in over his head. I stepped up into the group coming around the corner. I swung for the first one’s head and connected. Its skull exploded as if it was made of wet cardboard, and the thing went down in an instant. Brandon hacked off the next one’s head and laughed. Travis knocked a zombie back ten feet with a blow from his crowbar, its head nearly cut in two from the impact.
We were making easy work of these zombies. I checked Devin and saw that he stood locked in place about twenty feet behind us. I started to say something but noticed that his face was pale and his eyes were open wide. Even though the weather was cold, sweat poured down his forehead, yet he wasn’t moving at all.
He clutched at the pocket of his coat for a moment, then pulled out an inhaler. He brought it to his mouth and gave himself two quick puffs, then returned it to his pocket.
Since Brandon was enjoying himself and Travis seemed more than able when it came to dispatching zombies, I back stepped until I got near Devin. “You okay?” I asked.
He remaine
d mute, and I could see that he was shaking all over. His hands gripped and re-gripped the metal pipe he was holding, but he seemed entirely lost in a trance.
“Devin?” I asked.
“I can’t do this,” he said, his voice as quiet as a small child’s.
Brandon whooped, and Travis joined in as they laid into two more zombies that went down in short order.
“Do what?” I asked.
“What they’re doing. I’m…my body won’t move. I feel like I’m about to shake apart.” Tears rolled down his cheeks.
“You have asthma, right?” He nodded his head. “Is it that?”
“No,” he said. “I’m…I’m…I’m just scared shitless.”
“Hey, hey,” I said, moving beside him and placing a hand on his shoulder. “We can get by without you this time. It’s okay to hang back and observe.”
“I don’t think I ever could take on a zombie like that.”
When I went out on my first foraging mission, I nearly pissed my pants in terror. Facing down that first zombie in a hand-to-hand situation nearly caused me to break and run, but I stayed, by no will of my own. If I had left, someone around me might have been hurt or killed; that thought kept me there. That didn’t mean everybody could, though, and we didn’t need someone that couldn’t handle it. Forcing someone to do something beyond what he could manage was a good way to get him and someone else killed.
“It’s okay,” I said, “there are plenty of ways to help out. You’ve been great today. I’ll talk to Greg, and we’ll find something for you.”
His body noticeably relaxed. “You won’t tell the others, will you?”
“No. We’ll keep it to ourselves.”
Ahead of us, Brandon shouted out a war cry and let into another zombie. He was having the time of his life. There are few that could say that when facing down a small herd of zombies.
“You okay with my going up and helping the guys?”
Devin nodded.
“Watch behind just in case any start at us from the road.”
His head jerked around, and his tension level rose again.
“Okay, follow me, but hang back.”
We moved forward with him two steps behind me. By the time we made it to the back corner of the building, only four zombies were left. Brandon waded into the midst of two of them, swinging his sword in a broad arc. It sliced through the neck on the lead zombie, cleaving its head off, and the blade sailed on, chunking into the shoulder of the second one, severing its arm and sending the zombie sprawling into the snow. Brandon followed it down and used his sword in a thrusting motion, sending the blade into the base of the zombie’s skull. Travis used an overhead swing to bring down the closest zombie, leaving one for me.
The last zombie shambled towards me. It was a wretched looking thing, covered with blisters that oozed a bloody viscous fluid over nearly every inch of exposed flesh, despite the frigid air. It could barely raise its arms to reach for me as I closed on it. I took no pity on it and caved in its skull with a single blow, sending it face first into the snow. Its skull cratered from the impact of the bat.
“Something’s not right here,” I said.
“Like we just had to fight a bunch of zombies to the death,” Brandon said.
“No. There’s something about these zombies that just isn’t right.”
“What is ever right about zombies?”
“Brandon, you’re not getting it,” I said, sending him a withering stare, then caught myself. I was acting like the adult, and that might have been a first for me. The realization was a bit disconcerting, but I pushed past the feeling.
“Look at their bodies,” I said as I walked among the zombie corpses. “They have blisters all over. When I hit them with my bat, their bones broke way too easily.”
“And that’s something to complain about? Brandon asked with his all too frequent wise-ass tone.
“Yes, if we don’t know what it really means.”
“Could it be the cold breaking them down?” Travis asked.
“Maybe, but I don’t think so. The ones we had to take down last week were fairly hearty.”
“Maybe they’re changing, evolving into something less than they were?”
“That’s a possibility, but I think there’s something else going on. Maybe something environmental.”
“Could it have to do with all the dead birds?” Devin asked.
Then it hit me. Sort of like being rolled over by a steamroller. And that steamroller was on fire and was being operated by Lucifer himself.
“Everybody, get in the trucks,” I said. “We need to take a little detour.”
Chapter 12
Detour
If I were right, the situation came down to two outcomes for us: we either had a little more time or had been in the area too long and we were dead already, but just didn’t know it. A little more time wouldn’t matter, regardless.
We backtracked down the highway, taking the northbound lane in the wrong direction for about a quarter of a mile. It was worth the risk since the likelihood of seeing another car on the road was somewhere in the same chance of seeing Big Foot.
Brandon started bugging me for what I was thinking about as soon as we got back into the SUV, but I remained tight lipped. We’d know soon enough.
We ended up on Big Run Road. It was a two-lane road with lines of forest on either side for the first half-mile that then broke up to open fields. A few houses were spaced out on each side of the road. All the homes looked abandoned. We passed a deforested area with most of the trees gone, but a few stripped trunks lay in the open area. We continued along and passed a fallow farm pasture, which sat off to our right. The field was wild with brown and lifeless weeds.
Then came the great reveal. It was what the older locals called the A Plant. The A was short for Atomic. The plant had gone through several name changes throughout the years. The latest two were the Ohio Uranium Enrichment facility and the Portsmouth Gaseous Diffusion Plant. I never really knew what the scientists did back there, but I knew it had to do with radioactive elements. At one point, my dad said they made uranium for the bomb. The situation was a mystery to me. Maybe they’d have to kill me if I really knew?
The facility spanned several hundred acres with operations in over twenty large industrial buildings. From our vantage point, I could see that at least three of the buildings were nothing but blackened rubble. Two more of the buildings had been ravaged by fire, and a third showed signs of fire damage.
“What is this place?” Devin asked.
“It’s a uranium enrichment plant,” Travis said.
“Like for nuclear stuff?” Devin asked.
“Yes,” Travis said.
“What do you think happened?” Brandon asked.
“Who knows,” I said, “maybe the place was left abandoned to run on its own and something went wrong. Maybe someone thought that he could use something here to destroy the zombies. Maybe the zombies overran the place. Whatever happened here is trouble for us.”
I could tell from Devin’s expression that he wasn’t catching on.
“The zombies we had just put down had something wrong with them. I’m thinking it was radiation sickness.”
“Radio-fucking-active zombies,” Brandon said and followed it with a whistle. “You know it’s not bad enough that we have to face the living dead. No. Now, they have to be radioactive.”
“Chill out, Brandon,” I said.
“But how does it work? They don’t feel pain, so how can radiation hurt them?”
“That doesn’t mean their bodies aren’t affected by external forces,” I said. “The radiation breaks down their bodies just like it would do to us, but it looks like at a slower rate. I’m thinking the people we found back in the store were trapped inside the building by a horde of zombies. Maybe they passed by the plant when it went up and were exposed to a high dosage. They stayed in the area so long that they died of radiation sickness. They showed all the classic signs. The
zombies aren’t smart enough to know about radiation, so they just stayed around and were exposed over and over again.”
“Then why are we standing here?” Devin asked. “Shouldn’t we be driving out of here as fast as we can?”
“I’m not a scientist, but I’m figuring if the radiation levels are dangerously high, we’ve already been exposed, so a few more minutes shouldn’t make a difference.”
“What now?” Brandon asked.
“We head back home,” I said. “We have to find a way to assess the radiation levels and find out what we’ve been exposed to. Until we find out those things, there’s no use even considering taking anything out of the area.”
We were back at The Manor in less than a half an hour. Doc Wilson suggested that we take off our clothes, and we were forced to shower off at a maintenance shed. Nothing like an ice cold shower to make my day.
I despise cold showers. After shivering for a few minutes, I wondered if I would have preferred facing down a zombie horde than have to do that again.
Chapter 13
Field Trip
“Yes, it’s possible that a radioactive cloud could have been released and that’s what could have killed the birds and those people,” Doc Wilson told us as we sat in his makeshift infirmary. We were still warming up. Doc had pressed, palpated, and probed us for a good hour, checking our breathing, looking in our eyes, and monitoring our vital signs.
Greg, Kara, and Hub came in after the Doc’s tests, too. All of them wore worried looks.
“But what about the effect on us?” Devin asked, his fidgeting now in overdrive with the fear of radiation poisoning.
“I’m not a radiation expert,” Doc Wilson replied. “An intense release could have been in that area. Maybe a heavy rain came and brought most of the cloud down to ground level. If those people you talked about were caught up in that, then they could have gotten heavy doses, along with the birds in the area and the other animals you mentioned.”
“That’s a hell of a lot of “ifs” and “maybes,” Brandon said.
“If the cloud had spread to here or nearby, we would have seen the same animal killed off,” Doc Wilson replied.
