Horror Short Stories

Nuketown

A small, quiet town with simple people, until it turned into a nuclear testing zone.

NUKETOWN

My name is Seth Kurt. I lived in a small town, Bedford, Wyoming. The population was only 358 residents. I lived on a small farm, walking distance to the town. The schools were petite, but that's what made it fun. You know everybody there, and are friends with everyone in the town. We didn't vandalize, because then we wouldn't be able to get free stuff from all the store owners. Everybody had a job here, and that's what kept the town alive. But after I graduate, I want to go big. I want to go to NYU and become a real estate agent. I can't here because there is only one college and it's um... Not the best. And barely anybody new moves to our town so... Not a lot of houses to sell. 

So here's where the real story begins. Our town mayor, Daryl Bill, had some "conflicts" with the US military about nuclear testing zones. Apparently our town is the perfect spot for bomb testing: open fields, no population, far, far away from any kind of other civilization, perfect. The military had offered to relocate us and offered us 3 billion dollars, but the mayor had turned down that offer too many times to count. 

After three months of getting those offers, the military suddenly stopped. They hadn't contacted us about anything for a good six months.

Until the sirens.

The incoming missile was like lightening, one blink and it hits.

Screams, blood curling screams.

"PLEASE REMAIN CALM AND TAKE REFUGE IN YOUR BASEMENTS." An announcer said on overhead speakers. It's too bad people wouldn't follow that first command.

"SETH!!! H- HELP ME!!!" I stopped dead in my tracks. My best friend since childhood. Mark.

I slowly turned around to see him holding in his arms, his, if not dead, soon to be dead, 6 year old sister covered in blood. It was close competition between the two of them who was covered in more blood. 

"Seth, please, if not me, take her. She's too young." I could see the desperation in his eyes, which was combined with sorrow and failure. 

I couldn't let it end this way. I had to do something.

I held his sister bridal-style in my arms while he clung onto my back. We all retreated to my basement which was luckily not that far from our standing point.

As I was running with the both of them, I looked around. The town was being absolutely demolished. But, that wasn't all...

Some of the missiles had directly hit the residents, an immediate death if hit.

Yet they were arising. 

I stopped to look closer, something in those missiles. Some kind of radiation that caused the brain to go into shock and start the heart in an extremely slow heartbeat. Which allowed the residents who got hit, to "live" again, but changed the brain stimulation, and how they act. 

I was running down the street when my other best friend, Theo, snarled and started quickly limping towards us. 

He got hit.

He was supposed to die.

But he didn't.

I started running faster, and as I looked around, more and more people started to arise. 

Finally, I made it to my home. I pounded on the door quickly, for what used to be Theo was about to reach us when the door swung open. The three of us got inside, and the door slammed shut.

"Kids? Is that you? Oh thank God you're okay!" My mom and her angelic voice immediately calmed me down.

"What the hell is going on?" I asked, with Mark's sister still in my arms, and he had made his way to our couch.