Radioactive

"The blood has turned black and the dark side of the moon is shown..."

---

Matt stayed true to his word, and he hovered around Harper the entire day. But that also meant that he wouldn't let her walk off, and he spent most of his time in the lab. It was the first time she got to see what a nerd he really was. Somehow it was facinating watching him follow Brown around and help him with whatever he could. His eyes would light up as Brown would explain things to him, and he couldn't seem to keep still.

Harper basically sat in the swivel chair until she finally dragged it over to the table they were working on. Papers were spread out across it, and Matt was looking them over, his eyebrows furrowed together. She couldn't help but watch him. Eventually, he glanced up at her, and smiled. She pointed at the paper he was mulling over, "what is all this?"

She'd mostly been listening to the radio and drawing on a sketch pad that Brown had let her use, so she hadn't listened to them talk much. Matt put down his pencil. "Brown has some ideas about ways the world should work now that the apocalypse is happening."

"Like what?" She asked curiously.

His gaze scanned over the papers, "He thinks people shouldn't be allowed to reproduce."

She raised her eyebrows at him in surprise. "He thinks what?"

He sighed, glancing at the door to make sure Brown wasn't returning with their sandwhiches anytime soon. "Obviously the government wouldn't be doing anything, so it's not like they can make it illegal. But apparently he thinks that all women should be made infertile."

"How is that possible?"

"He's trying to creat some kind of serum for it. But he thinks that the zombie infection can spread through babies...concieved during this time."

She leaned back in her seat, her hands covering her stomach, her eyes wide with alarm. "And you believe that?"

He roughly shook his head, "of course not, Harper."

"Then what are you doing helping him? And learning from him?"

"I'm trying to get information out of him. I have to make sure it's not true. I mean, Brown definitely is a bit crazy, but he is a scientist. There might be some kind of truth to what he's saying."

Harper stared down at her hands, "so, you mean there might be something wrong with our baby?"

Matt reached over to stack some of the papers into a neat stack. "I don't know, Harp." He admitted with a sigh, suddenly looking extremely stressed. "But i'm going to find out, okay?" He waited until she looked up at him to continue. "Whatever it takes to make sure our baby is safe."

Harper motioned towards the vial of clear liquid on the other table, "Brown was working on that this morning. What is it?"

"He hasn't really said. I think it's something to do with all of this. Either something to cause infedelity, or something to cause immunity."

"Immunity?"

"Yeah, before the infection spread, they were working on immunity. Apparently it was supposed to make people practically invisible to zombies."

"That's possible?"

"Apparently. I mentioned that maybe if they figured out the immunity thing, they wouldn't have to worry about keeping people from reproducing, and he went on some rant about how the wold has practically come to an end, and people have kids will only make it worse."

"So he technically wants humans to die off?"

Matt nodded, "he thinks some other species will inherit the earth."

Harper rubbed her hand across her stomach, resting her elbow on the table, and her cheek on her palm. "Do you believe me now? About Brown?"

"He doesn't seem to be weird about you or anything, even though you are pregnant." He admitted, but he sounded a bit unsure.

"Amaryllis and Taniss didn't believe me either, you're not the only one."

"It's not that I don't believe you. I mean, he's weird about all of this, but he just doesn't seem...too obsessed with it. I mean, it's just a belief he has." He looked like he wanted to say more, but Brown could be seen out of the glass door, so he turned his attention back to the papers he was reading before.

Brown handed the sandwiches out, and handed Harper a glass of water. "Need anything else?"

Harper shook her head, taking a sip of the water. "I'm fine."

"I've got to ask you, as part of my research, has anything weird happened to you during your pregnancy? You're not far along, so nothing may have happened yet--"

"I told you she's fine." Matt snapped with surprising ferocity.

Brown didn't seem at all bothered. "I know it's a bit hard to accept that something may be wrong, but--"

"I told you that I don't mind helping you here until we leave, but i'm gonna have to ask that you leave Harper out of your studies." Matt told him, tapping his pencil against the table. She stayed quiet, clutching the glass of water.

Brown adjusted his glasses, picking up his pencil and notepad. "I'm assuming it's only a natural reaction for the father to defend both his baby and the woman carrying his child." Before he could continued with his assessment of the situation, Matt got to his feet.

"Come on, Harp." He demanded, and she knew she had no choice in the matter. They were halfway to the door before Taniss and Amaryllis came busting through.

"Walkers, literally tons of them are coming this way. They're nearing the gate and we only just spotted them. They must've been hiding out in the fields and only just got to this place." He sounded out of breath.

Brown jumped into action, tossing his notepad onto the table. "There's a control room on the first floor. We can shut the gate from there."

Matt looked like he wanted to tell Harper to stay where she was, but he ended up grabbing her hand and dragging her after them. They flew down the stairwell and through the main hallway, following Brown as he veered off into another room. It would've been huge if it hadn't been filled and completely cluttered with equipment. Brown pulled up the safety glass above the panel of buttons, and he pressed his hand down on one of the many buttons.

They all glanced up at the screens, finding the monitor that showed the gate, but they didn't close. Brown slammed his hand on the button a few times. "It's jammed," he said in alarm, "the gates will have to be shut manually."

"Matt and I will go, you girls stay here."

Amaryllis hardly let Taniss finish that sentence before she was furiously on her feet, "no, I'll go with Matt."

"I'll go with Matt!" Harepr put in, raising her hand into the air. Everyone turned to glare at her, so she slowly let her hand fall back to her side.

"There's a weaponry on this floor. Go down the hallway, turn left, and it's the first room on the right." He tossed Harper his set of keys, and she snatched them out of the air, happy to have something to do.

They followed her down the hall. The key ring had atleast fifty keys on them, and he hadn't told her which one was which. Everyone sat around impatiently as she tried them all. Eventually, right before Amaryllis was sure she was going to kill her, she got the door open. The weaponry was huge, and they all paused in the doorway for a moment, their mouths agape.

Matt was the first to snap out of it. "It looks like they invent these stuff, so some of these probably don't work so great." He grabbed a large gun off the shelf, turning and lifting it up to look through the scope. He pulled the trigger three times to make sure it was working before he starting stocking up on ammo.

Everyone except for Harper got a big gun. She was obviously mad when Amaryllis handed her a smaller gun, so she'd atleast have something in case anything happened. "We're not planning on letting them inside, so you probably won't have to use it."

They all went back to the control room to check the monitors. The zombies were slowly making their way towards the gate, and they were closing in. Amaryllis and Taniss were the first out the door. Matt gave Harper an apologetic smile before leaving the room, leaving her alone with Brown.

The fact that she had a gun with her made her feel a lot better. She sat down on the swivel chair beside him, keeping her eyes glued on the monitor.

-*-*-*-*-

Taniss threw open the front doors of the huge compound, and they fled into the yard, flocking towards the gate. Matt and Taniss slung the guns over their shoulders, both taking on side of the fence while Amaryllis began shooting at the zombies that were getting closer and closer.

They fence was heavy, and they only had it halfway closed when Amaryllis spotted something bobbing above the tall grass. "Are those...horses?" She lowered her gun for a second to get a better look. Sure enough, the horses came bolting out onto the road only seconds later. In their zombie-like state, they became faster instead of slower.

"This is a strange turn of events!" Matt yelled, pushing against the gate even harder.

She trained her gun on the horses, the human zombies forgotten. The animals weren't dying quite as easy, and it was taking two bullets for each horse. "I'm out of ammo!"

Taniss slung his gun towards her, and she tossed hers to the side. The horses were nearing the fence, dropping like flies as she pelted them with bullets. She shot the nearest one twice in the neck, it's head bopping too much for her to get a clear shot. It had an impressive lead on the other horses. Taniss yelled in alarm as it broke through the gate, only seconds before Matts side of the gate clicked closed.

Amaryllis dove to the side, out of the horses path. It turned in a wide ark as she struggled to reach for her gun. It started towards her as someone stepped in front of her. Matt only took two shots before it slumped to the ground, convulsing. He turned to offer her a hand as she shot a glance at Taniss, who was locking the gate. "Will this be enough to hold them?" She asked as he hauled her to her feet.

"Doubt it." Taniss answered honestly as one of the horses threw itself against the gate. Suddenly, a buzzing sound erupted from the gate. He leaned closer to it to listen to the low humming sound. Before he could voice what he was thinking, one of the zombies got close enough to the gate. His hand barely brushed it before he started convulsing, electricity causing his matted hair to stand on end.

Taniss jumped away from the gate, throwing an arm up to block Amaryllis from getting any closer. "It's an electric fence. Smart. Let's go inside."

Matt shot a few zombies through the fence as they walked inside. More out of anger for what they were than anything else.

-*-*-*-*-

Harper slumped back in her chair, holding her hands over her eyes. Watching her friends almost get eaten by zombie horses was a bit much for her. She definitely never though she'd be in a situation like that.

She felt Browns hand on her shoulder. "Are you alright?"

She flinched under his touch. "Yeah, i'm fine. We should go meet them by the door." Anything to not be alone with him.

"Not yet. We need to make completely sure it's safe." He told her seriously, a grim look on his face.

"What do you mean?"

He ran a hand over his face, looking stressed. "The C wing is filled with walkers. The noise from all of these might attract them. We should barricade them in."

"You haven't done that yet?" She asked, alarmed.

He shook his head roughly, his greying hair falling in his eyes. "The doors locked, but if the other walkers get them riled up enough, i'm sure they could break it right down."

"Okay, yeah, we should go." She got up to leave, making sure her gun was fully loaded. While busying herself, she failed to notice that he pressed a couple buttons to turn off every security camera in the C wing.