Millions of damn zombies on the march
and me without a B-52.
A few well-placed nukes
and the human race is back in business.
Oh, don't talk to me about collateral damage.
The death of the few for the good of the many.
I know, I know.
I'm talking out of my ass again.
I'm not nuking anybody.
Not today anyhow.
But a man can dream, right?
Meanwhile, I guess it's up to Operation Bite Mark
to save humanity.
I'd feel a hell of a lot better if I knew
where they were.
Pretty good. Right, dog?
Aw, you don't know.
Is this entire state uphill?
Where are we anyway?
According to this map, we're in
the Black Hills of South Dakota.
I miss the truck.
At least we're out of that damn horde.
There's nothing to kill out here.
That's fine by me. Mmm.
We need to find a place to make camp soon.
My dogs is getting tired.
Well, there's supposed to be a little town
nearby called Edgemont.
I'll take a compass reading at this next ridge up here.
Can't we just take a break?
A quick one.
Oh, my God.
Look.
Now who in the hell did that?
Some daredevil with a sick sense of humor.
Is that Mount Rushmore?
This is why we can't have nice things.
Probably the same jackass that tagged the Liberty Bell.
I think it's awesome.
If I ever catch who did that,
they're gonna get a whoopin'.
Come on. Let's find that town.
It's gonna get dark soon.
I thought we were taking a break.
Break time's over.
We've been walking for hours.
Admit it, Columbus, you're lost.
Give it a rest, Murphy.
Warren knows where she's going.
You know where you're going, Warren?
Well, we should've hit the town by now.
And for the record,
Columbus was lost when he discovered America.
Yeah, and look how that turned out.
Hey, check this out.
That's not a town.
Well, now being Dr. Brightside for the moment,
maybe there's something useful inside.
Yeah.
Let's check it out.
Oh, just like home.
You know what, this actually might be a safe place
for us to get some rest and load up on some supplies.
I could use an hour of sleep.
Hey. Doc, get the door.
Why do they still lock doors?
Luckily, I have a skeleton key.
Well, being Dr. Darkside,
we are not gonna find much food or ammo in here.
Yeah. If we wanted industrial pipes,
this would be the place to be.
I don't like this.
Oh, look.
Hey, hey, hold on.
You can't just drink that.
What do you think this is, the local Piggly Wiggly?
That could be some kind of,
you know, industrial type water that'll rot your insides.
Spare me the details.
Shh. Over there.
Take cover. Come on.
Everybody sit quietly.
Sorry.
It got away from me.
If I die because you farted,
I am taking you with me.
Shh.
What in the livin' hell?
It's glowin'.
It's like a zombie ghost.
Why is he glowing?
He's got friends.
Shoot.
Don't touch them!
Back away from the Zs!
It's not safe!
No! Don't touch them!
Are they contagious?
Radioactive.
Radioactive? How is that possible?
I'll show you.
There you go.
This is gonna be one of them days, ain't it?
Yep.
If you don't mind my asking,
what were you folks doing wandering out there
near the reactor?
We were lost.
We weren't lost.
Our vehicle ran out of gas 20 miles from here.
We took a shortcut through the woods so
we could avoid the Zs.
You're not lost anymore.
Welcome to Edgemont, South Dakota.
Population three.
Not counting you.
Name's Wilbur Grady.
This is my daughter, Amelia.
Nice to meet you.
Nice meeting you. I'm Roberta Warren.
This is Murphy. And that's Cassandra.
And this is 10K in the back.
Is he okay?
No. Radiation poisoning.
I'm fine.
Let's get you folks checked out and get you some food.
Our place is just around here
down the road a little ways.
What are these?
Lodine.
Oh.
It'll keep the radiation from accumulating
in your thyroid.
Yeah, right.
Looks like you're still within safe levels.
But you're lucky we came along when we did.
Most of the Zs around here
are highly radioactive.
As if being
brain-eating zombies
wasn't bad enough.
Okay. Question.
Shouldn't we be in one of these suits, too?
Radiation levels aren't too bad out here.
But you'll probably get cancer in 20 years.
Somehow that's way down on my list of worries.
Yeah, but our more immediate
problem is the reactor core melting down.
We don't fix it soon,
then everything within a 300-mile radius
will be glowing.
Not just the Zs.
Okay, well...
Been nice meeting you.
We have places to be.
Places at least 300 miles from here.
Good luck with that.
Every vehicle in town is gone,
or Can't be driven.
Then I guess we better start walking.
You won't make it.
We have less than 48 hours
before the core starts to melt down.
Why are you still here?
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.
Well, what about your daughter?
Did she sign up for this suicide mission, too?
I am sticking around to help my dad.
I told her I didn't need her help,
but she wouldn't listen.
I'm a pilot.
I'll fly us out of the hot zone.
Well, perfect.
We'll just hitch a ride.
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.
Mr. Grady...
Wilbur.
I know it doesn't look like it,
but this man...
This man is the only known
survivor of a zombie bite.
Thought there was something wrong with him.
His blood carries antibodies for the zombie virus.
He's our last best hope for humanity.
Yeah, right.
And I'm the Easter bunny.
Show him.
Oh, my God.
Now look, man. This dude here's the real deal.
And a lot of people got killed getting him this far.
So tell us what we need to do
to shut down that reactor
so we can be on our way.
Unless of course you have eggs to lay, Mr. Bunny.
Okay, here's the plan.
I need to get to the control room
to see if I can figure out why the fuel rods
aren't dropping down to the cooling pool to stop the reaction.
I haven't been able to get in there 'cause
of this gauntlet of zombies.
That's where I need your help.
Killing zombies, that's what we do.
Radiation levels are only slightly elevated outside
the containment building.
So you should be safe for at least two minutes.
Long enough to get me to the door,
before you have to retreat back here.
Use whatever you have to keep the Zs from getting too close.
They're very contaminated.
One hug and you'll be dead in a few hours.
Don't hug the zombies.
Got it.
You two stay here.
10K, you cover us from up there.
If we don't get back, you get him to California somehow.
Come on, kid.
You ready? Let's do this.
10K!
2,304.
Remember, two minutes!
No more!
Go!
Come on!
You got one more minute!
No hugging!
Come on, let's go!
Time for you to go.
You got to go.
Go!
Heads up!
I got it.
Get out of here.
You're out of time. You have to go.
Go!
They're back.
I'm almost to the control room.
Great. Keep going, Dad.
What do we do now?
We wait.
Operation Bite Mark,
this is Northern Light. Come in.
Operation Bite Mark, this is Northern Light. Do you copy?
Operation Bite Mark, this is Northern Light. Come in.
Operation Bite Mark, this is Northern Light. Do you copy?
Operation Bite Mark, this is Northern Light. Come in.
Operation Bite Mark, this is Northern Light. Do you copy?
Good boy.
Operation Bite Mark...
Hey, here he comes.
Dad.
Dad. Dad?
Dad, are you okay?
Look at me, Dad.
I didn't make it. Dad, no, no. No.
Hang on, hang on, hang on.
Dad. No! No!
No! Daddy, no! Wake up.
Please.
No!
No! No! No! Please, no.
Not you, Dad! No! No! No! No.
No...
Not you.
I'm sorry.
Let's bury him.
No.
So that thing is still ready to cook off.
Well, I'd like to know what we're supposed to do about it.
Can't run. We're still within the blast zone.
We go in.
And do what?
Grady was the one who knew how to shut that thing off.
I'm a doctor, damn it,
not a nuclear physicist.
He was so close.
Your dad gave it a good try.
Sometimes that's the best we can do.
It wasn't dying that he was afraid of.
He really didn't want to become a Z,
even for a few seconds.
Amelia, we need to know.
Can you shut this thing down by yourself if we protect you?
I know airplanes, not nukes.
Awesome.
I mean, there's one guy.
Here? Here in Edgemont?
Yeah. Homer Stubbins.
He was the chief engineer
at the plant for 20 years.
He was Dad's boss.
He's been holed up in the woods since the apocalypse.
He's armed and dangerous.
He became a recluse after the death of his son.
How do we find Homer?
He won't talk to you.
We have to try.
We have to stop here.
We're still 50 yards away.
My dad said the place was booby-trapped.
I told you, Homer's crazy.
Have we completely dismissed the idea of a phone call?
Just sayin'.
Hey.
This is your kind of set-up.
How do we get in?
Without us getting killed.
I do like to keep that in mind.
Uh, well, one thing.
Homer's set-up is aimed at stopping Zs, not a team.
So if we keep a sharp eye out for
landmines, trip wires...
We'll be fine?
Okay.
The three of you guys stay here.
Give us a 40-second head start.
We'll flank him and come up from behind.
Okay, watch for mines.
Watching them.
Don't move!
You have three seconds to tell me what you're doing here.
One.
Two.
Don't do that, sir.
Go ahead.
Do me a solid.
Just don't leave me a Z.
I'd never do that, Mr. Stubbins.
We just need your help.
Hello to you, too.
Grady was a good man.
If anyone could SCRAM that reactor
it was him.
SCRAM?
Safety Control Rod Ax Man.
Goes back to the first reactors.
The only safety system they had was literally
a man with an ax,
whose whole job in the event of a meltdown
was to cut the rope holding fuel rods over the cooling pool.
That's what Dad was trying to do.
How much time do you have?
How much time do we have?
You're in the soup with us, Homer.
You've confused me with someone who gives a damn.
According to Grady, less than 40 hours.
And we do give a damn.
Now are you gonna help us,
or are you gonna sit here and let us all die?
Well, there's one thing we might try.
I'm gonna have to show you.
We're gonna need weapons, equipment.
Come on. Load up.
It's not as if I'm gonna be needing this stuff.
Hello, nurse.
Vitamin V.
The elixir of the Zombie Apocalypse.
Mmm.
You know, you're looking at the original building plans for this reactor.
I was part of the design team.
You're pretty handy with that knife for a kid.
My son...
He had one like it,
but with a longer blade.
Yeah, older model.
Got to be good to make it work.
Oh, Max was good.
Okay, let's go, let's do it.
I heard about your son.
I'm sorry.
There's nothing worse than outliving your own child.
Nothing.
There sure is a whole lot of nothing in South Dakota, huh, boy?
Damn it.
What the hell?
A satellite phone?
Is it my team?
Oh, rats.
Northern Light, come in.
I don't know what you want with that old piece ofjunk.
Nobody to call.
We got somebody that might pick up.
Northern Light, come in.
Something wrong, Homer?
I knew her, that's all.
Her son was one of Max's buddies.
Did you ever go back to the house you grew up in
only to see it's falling apart and in a bad neighborhood?
That's what this feels like.
Times 10.
Well, where I grew up, the Zombie Apocalypse only improved things.
All right, back to business.
From here on the area's hot, right?
You got two clean rad suits in there.
One for me and...
I need somebody to back me up.
No. I'll go.
Well, you can't go.
Who's gonna get him to California
if something goes wrong?
Don't look at me.
Okay. All right.
Just remember, you have ammo now.
But not an infinite supply.
Let's do this.
We made it to the control room.
And there's our problem.
Cooling pool three.
Can you SCRAM it or not?
According to the controls,
all the rods are enabled,
but something is physically blocking the insertion.
We need to remove it.
By hand?
Not by our hand.
This is Robbie.
He will roll into the core and do a manual SCRAM.
He can cut through anything.
This little darlin' can vaporize steel.
I get it.
He's like a drone.
Only he never leaves the ground.
There's too many Zs.
Back it up, Homer.
I'll do the driving.
We need to go forward.
Damn Zs got us.
You're an ugly one.
Damn Z.
I don't have time for this.
Get him out of there.
Damn Z. Leave.
We lost Robbie.
So what now?
Plan B? Or is it C?
Give me a D, E, F. Hey, hey, hey, hey, hey.
Not helpful.
All right. Robbie failed.
But I can still do a manual SCRAM.
How?
That place is filled with Zs.
We'll go in heavier.
Take us along this time.
We probably only got one more shot at a SCRAM.
But we'll need heavier suits to reach the control room.
Where do we find them?
In the lab, not far from where we lost Robbie.
Four can go in, two in these suits.
Me and the kid in the heavies.
Okay. But what happens if plan C doesn't work
and we wind up with our very own
Fukushima-Chernobyl whatever?
You mean what happens to you?
Hey, I didn't ask for the job of saving the human race.
Amelia.
Would you be willing to fly him out of the radiation zone?
To be honest,
I don't have enough fuel.
I lied to my dad or else he never would have let me stay behind.
Oh, great.
If I had a few gallons,
I might be able to get myself and one other person
outside the blast zone,
if we are lucky.
Okay.
A buddy and I once converted a Dodge Dart to run on alcohol.
A light plane engine isn't that different.
You had a serious supply of vodka.
You're welcome to it.
Okay.
Doc and Cassandra, go with 10K,
and, Homer, you cover them.
Murphy and Amelia, come with me.
Given we have no other choices,
I shall embrace the inevitable.
If this works,
we'll meet back here to celebrate.
That's not good.
We have 30 minutes till boom.
Brave little dude.
Too bad we have to leave him here like this.
Sentiment is a fatal flaw in this ugly world.
We should let Warren know where we are
in case we need backup, right?
Warren, this is Doc.
Please be advised we have entered
the tunnel to the reactor core.
Over and out.
Let's see what's going on with this baby.
So, Amelia, my dear.
Where exactly might we be headed in
this fine piece of aeronautical hardware?
Considering it's only my life and the human race at stake.
Sheridan, Wyoming.
It's to the northwest,
and the fallout will be to the southeast.
Far enough away and
my dad and I heard there's some real humans.
I just hope it works.
Piece of cake. All I need is some tools.
Murphy, could you quit drinking your fuel and fill up the damn tank?
I don't know where the tank is.
Well, it's not in your mouth.
Let me get a screwdriver.
Okay,
so that was 22 gallons.
Sheridan is 250 miles as the crow flies.
Here's a couple more.
Is that gonna be far enough to clear the blast zone?
Lt'll have to be.
Well, this is vodka, not avgas.
So the mileage may vary.
Listen, I, uh...
Oh, shit.
You're not gonna try and say goodbye, are you?
I was going to say,
be grateful for all the sacrifices everyone has made.
Hey!
Back at you.
Are we there yet?
We've been in the air for five minutes.
You know, I kind of like this.
You can't see any zombies.
They're down there,
bet on it.
Hey, if we find more fuel in Billings,
we could take off again and head to California.
If we find vodka.
I don't know how to change this
carburetor back to a gas-burner.
Doc, this is Warren, back at the plant, coming in the same way.
Doc, Warren.
Hello, Roberta. Welcome back.
Please be advised we're now entering the reactor core
on the other side of the facility.
Is there something I can do?
Oh, just the usual prayer.
What's the status of that precious cargo?
Has the mouthy package taken off?
Yeah, he's in the air.
Then we'll fix our little problem.
And see you on the way out.
Will you miss your friends?
They're not my friends.
More like foxhole buddies.
But, yeah.
What's going on? Wait.
I... I got it. What is that?
Just a little turbulence.
Oh, God!
Hang on.
Shut up and hang on!
Oh, God!
Oh, no, no, no, no.
Amelia!
Oh, God, no.
Mercy. Mercy.
Mercy.
That's weird.
This is too weird.
All right, which one of you fine vehicles
is our ride out of here?
Hello, Delta-X-Ray.
This is Delta-X-Ray, copy.
I need a little information on glowing zombies.
Checking zombie-pedia.
Are you kidding?
For now, but it's not a bad idea.
Okay. It's called Angel's Glow.
Comes from nematode bacteria.
Somehow the radiation affects zombie skin
and lets bacteria grow there.
The bacteria glows when exposed to
high levels of radiation.
First observed at Fukushima.
I just need an answer. Are they hot or not?
Don't let them
spatter you.
Still there?
Yeah. I got no other place to be.
How are you feeling?
Like a baked potato in this thing.
Reactor core is right down this corridor.
Then why are we standing here?
Because it's highly radioactive in there.
I'm going into the core to manually insert those rods.
By yourself?
Out of my way, sonny.
I'm sorry. You need backup.
Suit yourself.
You guys go. I've got it.
Take this.
And we need to hear everything!
All right! Go on! Move it!
Come on!
That guy came out of nowhere.
I couldn't move fast enough.
It's one of those good news, really, really bad news things.
The suit is breached.
Can I tape it up?
Son, I've accumulated so many rads in my life,
I was probably a dead man
the moment I walked through the gate.
There's got to be something I can do.
Aren't you gonna add to your count?
2,316.
You know,
you're a good kid.
Strong, smart, like my son Max.
I just hope to God you have better luck.
You're a lot like my dad, too.
With the same bad luck.
You need to go on for all of us.
Promise me that.
Live the life
my son never had.
We need to get up there.
Time really is a wasting.
Let's get to it.
There's our problem.
Two rods didn't go down.
I'm gonna have to go out there and
unstick those rods.
Be careful not to drop me into the reactor pool.
I'll be cooked instantly.
We shouldn't have left them alone.
Got it.
We couldn't stay. We were at our limits.
That thing goes off and limits won't matter.
Homer knows what he's doing.
And the kid is awesome.
Here I go.
Can you get me closer?
Yeah, sorry.
I thought everybody your age
was a whiz with a remote.
Not me.
Lower me a little more.
Can you get me a little closer?
Okay.
Now hit the switch that says claw release.
One down.
Once this is fixed,
shoot me and get out.
I don't want to become one of them.
If I haven't said anything lately,
thank you so much, universe,
for the Zombie Apocalypse!
And for Dr. Merch and my whole situation!
And for... Well, I don't know. Let's see, what else?
The Badlands Nuclear Power Plant!
And, yes!
Points to you, universe!
Points to you for dragging my ass
all the way to South Dakota to die!
That was sarcasm.
I am not like other boys.
I do not give mercy.
Go home!
I don't have anything for you!
Can't you find somebody to munch on?
Oh, God.
It really is puppies and kittens.
Two more inches.
Now hit the claw release again.
Almost there.
Homer, it worked.
How about that?
We did good.
All right, now let me get you out of there.
Shoot me now.
I already killed my father. I don't want to kill you.
You don't make it easy.
No, no, no! No, no, no!
No!
Here he comes.
Hey, kid! Wait!
Wait up!
Homer saved us!
That's right. He saved the whole town!
It's not that!
I couldn't save him.
I know, I know. We heard.
You did everything you could.
You gave him mercy.
You remind me of my ex-wife, back from Costco.
Who'd marry you?
Several women, I'll have you know.
None with very good taste.
Radiation levels falling.
Or staying power.
So it all worked.
We're safe.
From the meltdown.
Nothing else.
Is this a battery charger?
Yeah. I couldn't find a truck that I could fix,
so that'll keep us going.
All right, so we can get back on the trail. But where to?
Given the fact that we've lost Patient Zero.
Great news!
The vodka made perfect fuel for 10 minutes.
What happened?
Crash landing
about 100 miles out of town.
Wow, you covered a lot of ground. Did you hitchhike?
10 miles, whatever.
It felt like 100 miles when you're walking.
So what happened to Amelia?
Oh, no.
You didn't give her mercy?
It didn't feel right somehow.
So you just let her follow you?
That felt right somehow.
Okay, what do you want us to do?
No, no! No, no, no, no, no!
No!
She is not hurting us!
I don't know.
Maybe it's time for a different kind of mercy.
Okay.
Climb aboard.