Don't Be Scared

S.1 E.10 ~ GN (Ch. 57)

"I'm fine." The oldest Grady took a moment to breathe before straightening up from the coughing fit, "Let's get you folks checked out and get you some food. Our place is just around here, down the road; a little ways."

In fifteen minutes, we reached their white warehouse, close to the reactors. Inside the large warehouse, that the two had made feel a bit more homey, was an airplane. Maybe two or three people could fit inside.

Hard to determine the room from the angle I've got.

"What are these?" Doc questioned, staring at the pill the youngest Grady handed him.

Wilbur was grabbing a water bottle to down his own pill. What are these?

"Iodine." She informed all of us.

"Oh." Doc didn't sound amused by the weak drug he had received.

Not amused one bit. He wants the good old forget-the-apocalypse stuff.

"It'll keep the radiation from accumulating in your thyroid." She continued to go in depth about the pill's reason for making.

Yet, Doc didn't seem to care all that much.

I smiled as Doc looked into the far distance, begging for more drugs to escape this Hell, "Yeah, right."

Next was Cassandra's turn to receive a pill, Murphy, Warren, 10K, then me.

"Looks like you're still within safe levels." Wilbur noted after finishing up Warren's body examination with the radiation scanner.

I was the first person he had examined; 10K kept staring at us so I'm guessing he wanted to go first. Very smart of him, though; keeping himself above all of us. Speaking of the sharp shooter, I looked up at him as he took the pill with ease.

Maybe it is safe to take the pill..? Noticing my staring gaze, he looked down at me. The raven haired boy handed me his drink to share, only offering so I'd take my medicine. As long as he says it's okay.

I downed the pill, using the offering water right after it.

"But you're lucky we came along when we did. Most of the Zs around here are highly radioactive." Wilbur, who's scratching the back of his neck, analyzed all of us.

"As if being brain-eating zombies wasn't enough." Murphy scoffed, rolling his grey-blue eyes.

Our experimental package was growing tired of the apocalypse with each passing day.

"Uh, hi, yes." I raised my hand only to lower it once I had everyone's attention, "Question. Shouldn't we be in one of those suits as well?"

We all looked at their yellow protection suits, now wondering the same thing as me. Greedy people, hmm.

"Radiation levels aren't too bad out here." Wilbur reassured so we wouldn't start a riot about not having hazmat suits, "But you'll probably get cancer in twenty years."

Warren rose to her feet, standing in front of Wilbur, who was sitting in front of the airplane's wings with his arms crossed over his chest. You could see his shoulders visibly tense when Warren stepped up to the plate.

"Somehow that's way down on my list of worries."

And she was right. Compared to the zombie virus, cancer was at the very bottom of everyone's list. Survival was our main focus, daily.

"Yeah, but our more immediate problem is the reactor core melting down." Wilbur admitted in a sigh, "We don't fix it soon, then everything within a 300-mile radius will be glowing. Not just the Zs."

"Okay, well it's been nice meeting you." Murphy picked up the pink spiky backpack off of the cemented ground to strap it around his left shoulder, "We have places to be, places at least 300-miles from here."

"Good luck with that." Wilbur scoffed, clearly not agreeing with Murphy's attitude about the whole situation.

When he saw our questionable expressions, he looked around before focusing on Warren's face.

"Every vehicle in town is gone or can't be driven."

"Then, I guess we better start walking." Murphy huffed out, shuffling around to get away from the people we've just met.

He needs to start being patient and consider every scenario. Radiation is dangerous and it's even more dangerous if it explodes into the wind.

"You won't make it. We have less than 48-hours before the core starts to melt down." Wilbur chuckled dryly as he promised our death.

Great. Death by nuclear meltdown.

"Why are you still here, then?" Murphy motioned towards both the Grady's.

"Because there's still a chance to shut this thing down and save a big chunk of God's country from being irradiated for the next 10,000 years. Besides I'm already a goner." Wilbur shrugged at his own misfortune.

Knew it. I crossed my arms over my chest, the shotgun against the valley between my breasts. The barrel of the gun was pointed downward at my toes for safety precautions. Safety first in the apocalypse.

I'm tired of holding a gun, though. I'd prefer my knife or any knife really.

"Well, what about your daughter?" Murphy now brought the spotlight onto the youngest remaining Grady, "Did she sign up for this suicide mission too?"

"I'm sticking around to help my dad." She stood her ground firmly, to both men.

The way she held her body as her arms were tightly crossed against her chest proved that she was a stubborn woman; a stubborn lady that didn't go down so willingly, especially to men.

"I told her I didn't need her help, but she wouldn't listen to me."

"I'm a pilot. I'll fly us out of the hot zone."

So, Amelia is a valuable item in this after all. They thought they'd be able to smoothly shut down the meltdown, Amelia would fly them out of here, and they could move on to step three. Wilbur probably got sick, ruining their beautiful plan.

Amelia probably ran out of gas for the airplane as well. The way her eyes shifted to the left of her gave me a sign that something is not right, or something isn't true. Maybe they couldn't even fix the reactor!

So many options and scenarios.

"Well perfect. We'll just hitch a ride." Murphy swung back around to stare at the small family.

His face expressed that he was content, but his body was still tense as he awaited their answer. Not everything is that easy, Murphy, you should know this by now.

"Yeah. As you can see there's only room for one passenger and I have enough bullets for all of you. So, don't go getting any ideas."

The dying man waved his fully loaded gun in the air, reminding all of us why we're being so obedient to them. We definitely don't have any properly working guns and knives. Oh! We also don't have a sharp shooter, a lieutenant, a crazy asshole, and a doctor.

We'd die for sure.

"Mister Grady--."

"Wilbur."

"I know it doesn't look like it, but this man--." Warren motioned towards our Murphy, "--this man is the only known survivor of a zombie bite."

I tensed my shoulders, not knowing how the two will handle the news. It's a lot to take in on such an important day like this.

|| People do bad things to survive ||