Chapter 12
432words
Crickets burned to charcoal between the neodymium magnets, their electromagnetic pulse extinguishing all lights. As Amy crashed into the magnet wall, the mycelium inside her body receded like an ebbing tide. The girl collapsed limply.
"The inhibitor works!" Lila cradled Amy. The girl's body burned with fever.
Buck, however, writhed on the floor, his prosthetic limb engulfed in mycelium. "Give me... the magnet..." His nails scraped the metal floor, leaving bloody trails.
Kay scooped up charred cricket remains and shoved them into Buck's mouth. "Chew, damn it!"
Buck swallowed desperately. Seconds later, the fungal spread on his prosthetic halted, but golden threads beneath his skin continued their sinister dance.
"Only suppresses... can't eliminate..." He coughed black blood onto the floor. "Drive... to the reactor..."
The "Ark" burst from the armory. In the plaza, the corpse horde moved in perfect unison, all turning toward the northwest—where the reactor stood.
"They're protecting something," Kay floored the accelerator. The vehicle plowed through blocking corpses, rotting flesh leaving viscous streaks on the graphene coating.
The reactor building was encased in a massive fungal tumor that pulsated like a grotesque heart. At its entrance, mycelium had woven an impenetrable web.
"We're out of ethylene oxide!" Lila frantically searched through empty canisters.
Buck suddenly ripped off his prosthetic limb. "Use this." He revealed his alloy stump covered with circuit interfaces. "52nd Division tech... can interface with the reactor controls."
He locked eyes with Kay. "Get me there. I'll blow this hellhole sky-high."
"You'll die," Kay said flatly.
"Should've died seven years ago." Buck grinned, bloody foam bubbling from his lips. "We thought we were creating antibodies... instead we created hosts like Amy..."
He pointed at the reactor. "Inside that... is the mother host."
Corpses surrounded the "Ark," hurling themselves against it. The windshield splintered into a web of cracks.
"Take Lila and the seed bank. Go." Buck pried the circuit board from his prosthetic and thrust it into Kay's hand. "It contains... the fungus's weaknesses..."
He yanked the door open and hurled himself into the tide of corpses!
"NO!" Lila screamed.
Buck rolled through fungal filaments, jamming his severed limb into the reactor's security system. Through flying sparks, his final words barely reached them:
"It fears the cold! Absolute zero—"
BOOM!!!
The reactor core detonated. White light consumed everything. In that blinding instant, Kay wrenched the wheel, and the "Ark" smashed through the perimeter wall into the snow-covered wilderness.
In the rearview mirror, Zone 36 collapsed beneath a mushroom cloud. The shock wave caught the vehicle's rear, launching the "Ark" skyward!
