[HGB] Humanity Gone Bad: The Dead Chronicles

by Watkins, Charles

  “Who knows…the snow drifts are getting deeper and deeper and we can’t go on in these conditions—let’s go inside and see what we find.” I answered as I proceeded through the gates that were ironically hanging open.

  As we arrived outside of the front of the building we noticed that it looked like some sort of top secret development laboratory and it looked like it had been abandoned for a very long time.

  “This place could serve us as a temporary shelter—at least until spring and then we can continue along our route.” I stated into the CB as I knew that the others in the other vehicles were no doubt wondering what was going on.

  “We better watch our asses if we’re going inside—there’s no telling what could have taken up residence in there.” Hugo advised on the other end.

  I parked the RV and everyone gathered their weapons and gear before opening the doors of the vehicles and stepping out into the scarce snow that was here and there on the ground, after a few minutes of looking around the building it appeared that there were only three entrances—one main shutter door that looked to be out of commission due to a power outage and two smaller doors at the front and side of the building.

  “Let’s pull the vehicles up close to that shutter door—I’ll go inside and see what’s inside as well as try and find a generator.” I stated as I turned to the others.

  “We’re coming with you, baby.” Jennifer stated as she and Sheila stepped up beside of me with their weapons and gear ready.

  “I’ll watch the kids and make sure they don’t wander off.” My mom stated as she noticed my worried look.

  “Be careful…we don’t know what sort of place this was let alone what could be lurking inside.” Hugo advised as he patted my right shoulder.

  “We’ll go along with them too.” Billy stated as he and Kayla stepped up before us.

  “We’ll secure this area and see about getting those gates closed while you guys are gone.” Noah stated as he nodded at me.

  I led Jennifer and Sheila as well as Billy and Kayla to the main entrance and with some trouble I opened the door, once inside of the building we were met with a dank, musty smell and the only sounds were a dripping of liquid from somewhere inside of the compound.

  “This place looks like it was some sort of development facility…I wonder what they were doing here.” I stated as I looked around at the interior of the entrance hall.

  “It also looks like a tomb…I hope that there aren’t any surprises waiting to ambush us.” Billy answered as he flipped on his flashlight and shined it ahead at the blank room.

  “No kidding—let’s start looking for some sort of maintenance room, that’s where the generators will most likely be located.” I stated as I led the way to a door that was on my left.

  Opening it we found a medium sized room that was filled with all sorts of work equipment, things that looked like they were used to create weapons—the room was somewhat disheveled and ceiling debris was here and there from years of the building being abandoned; there weren’t any traces of bodies or dead-heads in this particular room which seemed a little strange to me.

  “I guess I’m so used to going into a place and having to kill off zombies and other mutations that I pretty much expect it no matter where we go.” I stated with a slight chuckle.

  “I was thinking the same thing—when you have to kill those fuckers for so long just to survive, it becomes an everyday occurrence.” Billy added as he glanced around at the work equipment.

  “I hope that the day will come soon when we don’t have to fight off those things just to try and survive.” Sheila stated as she and Jennifer clung to me.

  “Don’t we all?” Kayla asked as she followed after Billy.

  “This looks like where we need to go—this door is labeled Sublevel Elevator access.” Jennifer stated as she stepped up before a door off to the left of the room.

  “Elevators…damn it…those aren’t going to be working with this place being without power—I was hoping for stairs.” I stated with a dark look as I walked to the door and cautiously pushed it open.

  The others followed and once we were inside of the room with the elevators Billy tossed me a crow bar and took out one for himself and we worked to pry the doors of the nearest elevator open—after several seconds of work we got them open and noticed that the elevator itself had stopped on the level below us and we were looking directly down into the shaft.

  “That’s about twenty feet down—looks like we’re going to have to climb down there into the elevator and then pry those doors open just so we can get to the lower levels.” I stated as I turned and glanced at the others.

  “Yep, let’s get this over with.” Billy stated with a slight sigh.

  “This should help us see better.” Jennifer stated as she took out a flare from her bag and popped it dropping it down into the shaft where it made a clatter against the top of the elevator below.

  With the added light from the burning flare we were able to descend down the shaft and onto the top of the elevator and Billy and I removed the hatch of the elevator and I dropped down into it first before catching Jennifer in my arms first and then Sheila—Billy jumped down and done the same with Kayla and then we both pried the doors open and we stepped out into the elevator room of the sublevel; there were still no signs of anything being there and the place was as quiet as the grave.

  “I don’t like total silence…it gives me the creeps.” Sheila stated with a little shiver as she and Jennifer wrapped their arms around my waist while holding their weapons tightly.

  “Let’s try and hurry so we can get the power back on.” I stated as I kissed the both of them reassuringly.

  Once the door ahead of us was opened we passed through a moderately long corridor until we arrived at another door—once that one was opened we stepped into a large room that had a furnace as well as other large tanks that were connected to pipes and valves.

  “This looks like the boiler room…that means that the generators can’t be too far off from here.” I stated with a relieved smile.

  “What the hell is this shit?” Billy bellowed all of a sudden.

  “What?” I asked as we all turned and glanced at him.

  He was holding his foot up off of the floor as a long trail of goop dropped off of his boot, a putrid smell radiated off of the substance and we had to cover our noses; I shined my light around at the room and noticed the remains of what had been a person—the remains were covered with the same foul-smelling filth and there wasn’t much left except bones and tattered pieces of clothing.

  “Fuck…there’s something down here…I just heard something moving back toward the other side of those tanks!” Billy shouted as he flashed his light around wildly.

  “Stay calm dude—fall back to the door to the elevators; it sounds like whatever it is that it’s coming right for us!” I shouted as we all put our backs against the door and wall.

  Sure enough one of the heavily mutated creatures that we had nicknamed Necronids came tearing around the pipes and tanks screaming the horrible scream that the undead hordes were known for—I opened fire as did the others and after several seconds the creature lay splattered against one of the coolant tanks; our bullets had torn through the metal of the tank and steam was hissing and spraying out.

  “Damn…that was close.” Kayla stated as she wrapped her left arm around Billy.

  “What’s going on in there?” Hugo’s voice asked as the CB radio came to life at my side.

  “We just encountered and killed a Necronid creature in the sublevel boiler room.” I answered as I picked up the radio and spoke into it.

  “Is everyone okay?” Hugo asked in a concerned tone.

  “Yeah—we dusted its ass.” Billy answered as he spoke into his own receiver.

  “Good—we’ve managed to close the parameter gates and get the vehicles up to th
e outside of that steel shutter door—by the sounds coming from the southwest it won’t be long before we’ll have company though; by the sounds coming from that direction it’s a mass of dead-heads—possibly other mutations mixed in.” Hugo reported on the other end.

  “Just give us a few more minutes and we should have the power restored.” I stated as I took the lead through the boiler room past the remains of the creature that we had just killed.

  We found a door on the northeastern side of the room and with some trouble it opened revealing another corridor and I cautiously led the way through it to the next door that was labeled with a High voltage sign, once the door was opened we stepped into a massive room that was relatively empty except for a large generator that was sitting in the center of the room—large steel conduits went up to the ceiling and across it through the ceiling and nearby walls as well as along the floor to a set of double doors that was on the southern side of the room; those doors sported a nuclear radiation symbol on the door.

  “This generator must be connected to some sort of nuclear reactor…what the hell was this place anyway?” I stated as I glanced at the others.

  “Could it have been some sort of power plant?” Jennifer asked as she looked around the area.

  “I don’t know…we’ll have to explore the upper levels once the power is on before we’ll know for sure.” I answered as I stepped forward toward the generator.

  The machinery had several sets of complicated devices on the top panel of it and there were technical instructions posted beside of them.

  “This says that we have to restart the reactor before the generator will work.” I stated as I read over the instructions.

  “What reactor?” Billy asked with a confused look.

  “I don’t know—there must be something through those doors with the radiation warning; come to think of it when we were coming upon this place from down the road I noticed some sort of large domed tank rising up out of the hill behind this building—it’s possible that the reactor is nuclear.” I answered in deep thought.

  “Damn…I hate being near shit like that—you never know when there’s gonna be a meltdown; especially since this place has been abandoned for so long…makes me think of the Chernobyl incident in 1986.” Billy stated with a troubled look as he and Kayla glanced toward the doorway.

  “Look—stay here and stand guard, I’m going to go see what needs to be done to get this thing going.” I answered as I swiftly kissed Jennifer and Sheila before heading for the double doors with the radiation symbol on them.

  Opening the doors took some effort and once I was inside of the new room I seen that the entrance was shielded by a containment area—thick glass windows that looked down on the interior of the reactor lined the area and in front of them were complex controls; as my eyes wandered over the area they came to the corpse of what looked like it had been a government scientist—he was long dead and his flesh was almost completely gone from his bones. I noticed that his skeletal hand was wrapped tightly around a control lever that after some extensive examination I learned controlled the whole reactor and would actually restore power to the generator outside once it was activated; I knew that we needed to find out what sort of a place this was so I grabbed a long pair of rubber gloves from a nearby shelf and slipped them on long enough to move the corpse away from the area, then I activated the lever and watched as the entire reactor in front of me came to life.

  “I don’t know much about this shit but it looks to me like the radiation levels are well within the safety level and from what these monitors are showing the generator should fire up.” I stated to myself as I looked over the gauges and computer screens before discarding the gloves and heading out the nearby door.

  Returning to where the others were waiting I instructed Billy to kick start the generator and after a few more seconds it came to life illuminating the entire room brightly.

  “That’s done it—the rest of this building should be up and running, let’s go back up and regroup with the others.” I stated as I took hold of Jennifer and Sheila’s hands.

  The trip back up to the ground level was uneventful and took much less time than it had taken us to go down due to the power being restored and the elevators working, we met up with the rest of the group in the main hall and it looked like they were pleased to see that we had succeeded.

  “I see that you were able to restore power.” Noah stated with a smile as he patted my back.

  “Yeah—I had to reactivate the nuclear reactor and then Billy restarted the generator.” I answered smiling.

  “From what little we have been able to examine of this place it looks like it was some sort of a top secret weapons development and research facility—several of the doors further into the complex are electronically locked with numeral keypads requiring keycards that range from levels 1 to 4…getting through those doors is going to prove to be a pain in the ass.” Hugo stated as everyone got into a circle.

  “Hmm…I have the feeling that we should at least try to get the steel shutter nearby open so we can bring our vehicles inside—then we’ll figure out what to do about the security.” I answered in deep thought.

  “Chaz, guys—I found something in one of the rooms off to the southwestern side of the complex.” Richard reported as he and Morgana appeared from the nearby doorway.

  We all followed after them and soon came to what looked like it had been a security monitoring station—bodies of long dead guards who looked like they had actually been military police were here and there around the room and Richard pointed to three keycards that he had found which were sitting on one of the nearby consoles.

  “It looks like these will get us into levels 1-3…we’ll still need to find the 4th one if we want to have total access to this place.” Beau stated as he examined the keycards.

  “Let’s check on the door leading toward the steel shutter—we need to get our vehicles inside in case we run into trouble and have to leave in a hurry.” I answered as I turned and led the way back out to the main entrance hall and to the door on the eastern side of the room.

  I opened the door with no trouble and we stepped into a well-lit area where there were safety suits and equipment here and there and then we saw a large set of double doors in front of us—there was a numeral keypad beside of the door and Richard handed me the level 1 keycard and I swiped it through the card reader causing it to beep loudly before the doors slide open making a sound like they were pressurized. Upon entering the large room that was behind the steel shutters from outside I seen that the place was some sort of storage and for a few split seconds I couldn’t seem to figure out what could possibly be stored inside of this massive room until my eyes stopped on a large object that was sitting in one of the corners of the room—it was covered up by a large olive green colored tarp and after a few seconds it was uncovered revealing a strange looking battle chassis that stood up on two legs; the upper part of the chassis was heavily armored and an armored glass canopy stretched over a small cockpit—two massive arms were attached to it and controlled by ball-joint hydraulics. These arms were attached to parts that were still covered by the tarp and Richard and Beau grabbed the tarp and pulled it away from the machine until it was completely off and I stared with astonishment at the things on the arms of the armored chassis—on the left arm there was a missile pod that looked to be capable of firing at least eight Antitank Missiles and there was a pod attached to the left shoulder of the chassis that contained three long range surface-to-air missiles; on the right arm there was a mounted Gau-8 30mm Avenger Gatlin Gun that looked like it was capable of firing over 500 rounds a minute.

  “Shit…what the hell is this—some sort of battle suit or something?” Noah exclaimed as he and Christina stared at it in amazement.

  “This thing could come in handy against Bowman and the armies of mutations that he has created—this thing has some serious firepower
attached to it and we should take it with us.” I stated as I glanced around at the others.

  “Yeah…but how the hell are we going to haul this thing?”

  “It’s at least fifteen feet tall and it has to weigh the better part of two tons.” Billy stated as he motioned to the chassis.

  “There’s a large semi transport over here that has a specially designed trailer that looks like it was built for this thing—we’ll just have to walk it up onto the transport platform.” Amy stated as she and Hugo went over to a large nearby semi that was parked off to my left.

  “I’ll see if I can’t figure out how to pilot it so we can take it with us.” Beau stated as he walked over to the front of the chassis and used the various parts of the leg gears and hydraulics to climb up to the canopy where it surprisingly popped open with a press of a small button that was somewhat hidden near the latch.

  Once inside of the cockpit, Beau took hold of two levers that looked to control the movements of the chassis and he fired up the engines that were on the back of the thing and soon after put one of the feet forward and started walking around the area.

  “This is weird…it’s almost like it’s controlled by the mental waves of the pilot…” Jennifer stated as she clung to me while holding tight to Xavier.

  “This seems like it’s some sort of prototype—I doubt that there’s anything else like it anywhere in the world.” I stated as I placed the strap to my M16 around my shoulder before wrapping my arms around Jennifer and Sheila.

  “I wonder what the government was going to use this thing for…” Noah stated as he stared up at the chassis as Beau clanked along toward the truck transport trailer.

  “Who knows—some of the scientists and engineers may have even survived the zombie apocalypse in this place for a few years and developed it up to this stage before those Necronids got them.” I answered as I watched Beau’s movements closely.

  After a few more seconds Beau had the battle chassis securely locked onto the transport platform on the semi-truck trailer and he climbed down out of the cockpit and rejoined the group.