Read Dawn of the Planet of the Apes: The Official Movie Novelization for Free Online Page B

started. “We checked it over from the outside first, then went in and found a way to access the control room. There wasn’t any damage, just ten years of rust. Assuming we can replace corroded wiring and run it from the generators at first, it ought to be functional. Most of the transmission wiring is intact, but until we try to get power throughput, we won’t know if there are problems there. Oh, and we’ll have to clear the logjam at the intake, but that’s just labor. So yeah, I think—”
    “You didn’t bring me on your tour so you could give me a report I could have heard back at the Colony,” Dreyfus said. “What are you avoiding?”
    Malcolm slowed and navigated around a block of storefronts that had collapsed in the earthquake that had struck a couple of years after the plague. By then, too many people were dead for there to be any kind of restoration effort. They’d abandoned most of San Francisco, leaving it to fall into ruin, and that’s exactly what had happened. Everything was overgrown, parks turned to pockets of wilderness and gardens spreading out to take over sidewalks and streets. It had happened with incredible speed, Malcolm thought. Without a million people making daily efforts to hold it back, nature took over.
    “Apes,” he said. “We saw apes.”
    He could feel Dreyfus’s gaze as he skirted another spill of bricks and masonry that was blocking part of the intersection at Lombard and Van Ness. He turned south.
    “Apes,” Dreyfus repeated.
    “On our way back after we inspected the dam. Carver went down to the river to fill his canteen, and two of them were there. He shot one of them.”
    Dreyfus looked back at Carver.
    “Damn right I did,” Carver said. “If either one of ‘em had taken another step, I’d’ve shot ‘em both.”
    Malcolm was accustomed to Carver’s coarse bravado. So, he saw, was Dreyfus, who looked at the man a moment longer before turning to face forward.
    “Go on,” he said. He was already thinking, planning.
    “We heard the shot, and we came running,” Malcolm said. “One of the chimps was trying to take care of the one Carver shot. Then…” He took a deep breath, and let it out. “Then a lot more of them showed up. All at once. They had weapons they’d made themselves. Spears, clubs…” Malcolm trailed off, remembering the sight.
    Dreyfus let him think for a moment, then prompted him.
    “How many were there?”
    “I don’t know,” Malcolm said. “Eighty? Ninety?”
    Dreyfus shifted in his seat to focus on Ellie.
    “Is there a risk of contagion?”
    She shook her head. “For one thing, we’re all immune, or we wouldn’t be here. For another, we’re not sure the apes spread it.”
    “Sure,” Kemp said. “It’s a total coincidence that the flu hit right after all those apes broke out. And for all you know, we could be infected again right now. You weren’t a doctor, you’re a nurse.”
    Ellie bridled at the insult, but tried to keep her cool.
    “I worked with the CDC,” she reminded him. “Before… everything collapsed… we were isolating the disease vectors. The flu started in a lab, that much we know. But the lab was working with a number of strains of different microorganisms. One of them could well have started the flu.”
    “I don’t want to argue about the flu,” Dreyfus said. “Ellie, if you say we’re immune, I believe it. Malcolm, finish the story. Tell me everything.”
    “Not much more to tell,” Malcolm said. “The apes showed up—mostly chimps, but there were some gorillas and orangutans, too. They looked at us. We looked at them. Then one of them, the leader, told us to get the hell out. They were… they were organized, Dreyfus. They looked to their leader, they took their cues from him, they…”
    He stopped the truck so he could look at Dreyfus.
    “They were intelligent,” he said. “You could see it in their eyes.”
    Dreyfus stayed silent. Outside the truck, three coyotes loped across Van Ness in