Life Inside the Dead Zone

Chapter 4: Do Or Die

Chapter 4

Do Or Die

"Fuck!" Lily roars. I open one eye and peer at her, wondering what she's yelling about. Maybe she stubbed her toe? Kinda hard to do while her foot is encased in an armored boot, but I guess stranger things have happened. I frown and take another bite of slightly rotten dried meat, grimacing at the taste and fighting my gag reflex. When I get hungry, my mind wanders and thinks of strange things.

"What's wrong?" Ivy asks.

"My transponder is missing," Lily says. "So is my communicator. Without them, I can't let my superiors know my team is still alive. I can't request support or resupply."

"So?" I ask. "The fewer humans there are around here, the better it is for us. No offense."

"You don't understand," Todd says. "If we don't report back in the next, oh, twenty-four hours, they're gonna nuke this location. Our mission was to survey the area and see if the infestation was so bad that tactical nukes would have to be brought to bear. If the infestation could threaten the safety of our country. It isn't, but they don't know that. If we don't report back..."

"Boom," Carter says. "Three tac-nukes, right on top of Salt Lake, Provo and West Valley. Each one is specifically designed to inflict maximum devastation on the target and the surrounding area. Twenty megatons of destructive power, each. Nothing would be able to survive at Ground Zero."

"Would Farmington be far enough to avoid the blast?" Ivy asks.

"Not even close," Meagan says. "Everything up to Clearfield would be hit by enough thermal radiation to probably cause third degree burns. Painless only because your nerves have been killed almost instantly. Of course, I doubt dead flesh takes to heat well."

"How do you know that?" I ask.

"Dead flesh not liking heat?" Meagan asks. "I'm the team's medic. It's my job to know."

"No, about the heat radius," I say. "How do you know how far it will reach?"

"We've run simulations," Carter says.

"Okay," Ivy says, pacing. "How do we stop this? There has to be some way to get in contact."

"If you have a radio, we could try," Lily says. "But, that's useless without something to break through the interference. My radio could do it... But I think I dropped it when I fell."

"Didn't you bring a spare?" I ask.

"Yeah," Carter says. "But... Vincent had it when he was... You know."

"That's a problem," I say.

"Yeah," Lily says. "Someone's going to have to go back and get it." All of the humans turn and look at Ivy.

"What? Why me?" she asks.

"You're the one who's most likely to come back from this," Meagan says.

Ivy laughs. "Not true. X is."

"But his arm is messed up," Carter says. "He can't go out there."

"And I'm not going out there without him," Ivy says. "He's my partner. We do this together or not at all."

"Look at him," Todd says. "He can barely move his arm and we don't have time to wait for him to recover. We have twenty-four hours or less."

"X," Ivy says. "Care to show them just how much of your arm has recovered?"

I nod and pull my arm out of the sling that Ivy fashioned from my severed tendril. Slowly, with some discomfort, I move it around. It's nearly healed.