The
Zombie
Chronicles

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Finished works:
   Billions
    ---
   Outbreak
    ---
   Undead
     Advantage
    ---
   Found
    ---
   About a Woman
    ---
   Short Stories

Works in Progress:
   TZC2: Discovery

Works on hold:
   Zombie Nation
    ---
   Zombieboy

Found

Chapter 01

Kaylee and her friend Stacy tumbled out of Buzzard Bees in downtown Des Moines. The hour was late, far past two am. Not that either of the late twenty year olds were lucky enough to have jobs to go to in the morning, in the New Des Moines unemployment was running in the vicinity of 20 percent. Over the course of the last year and a half the population of this mid-sized had grown to almost twelve times its previous size. Everyone knew why, if they didn't the New Authority government was spouting it everywhere. In fact a poster celebrating the days events hung less than 12 feet from where the young women exited the bar. In large bold, golden letters the poster proclaimed "Not Here! Infected free forever! The hardworking state and national guard are saving lives and keeping the infected out. Work! Sacrifice! Diligence!" The picture on the poster was a photolytic work of art, depicting four men and two women of various colors firing guns into hordes of what the common lingo were referred to as 'Zombies'.

The women didn't notice, they were caught up in the evening of good times, one they had planned for weeks for: saving food coupons, ration tickets and doing as many odd jobs for extra income that they could to celebrate "ZF Day 1.5", which also corresponded with the old holiday of New Years Eve. For the area the weather was the mildest in years, during the afternoon, when the partying started it had hit fifty degrees Fahrenheit. Now the women were regretting their choice of dress jackets, years out of fashion and two sizes too big the jackets had seemed a good choice for the weather. Ten hours and almost twenty ounces of harsh corn liquor later the cold was infiltrating through their clothing to their flushed, warm skin. Both women had eaten, both were also very intoxicated a dangerous combination with the cold weather. Fortunately drunken driving was not a worry, no one had private cars anymore, the little fuel still reaching the remaining states was reserved almost strictly for military use. Iowa had one huge resource the other states envied: Ethanol. Not that many cars before the epidemic had been converted to operate on ethanol, now all civilian owned cars, what few of them there were, ran off the corn based fuel. Corn for fuel meant less corn for food, it was a fine balance to walk and the government did the job amazingly well. Well, that is, if you didn't mind corn bread, corn pancakes, corn mush, corn syrup and corn biscuits for every meal. At first the rations had been supplemented with bits of meat, milk and cheese, now with the collapse of animal vaccinations and treatment the cattle stocks had succumbed to the diseases mankind had long fought to a standstill. Even tonight the women had been forced to eat corn bread with the spicy peppers, tofu and jarred vegetables the bar had been able to provide, both girls also opted to pay for real butter and a scoop of sweetened ice cream for dessert, a real treat even if it had only corn syrup and no flavoring.

Most of the local bars were still open and still full of people, few were heading home yet, this gave the streets an almost deserted feel to them as Kaylee and Stacey headed off to find the nearest bus stop. Kaylee was a short woman, perhaps five foot five, with naturally light brown skin, brown hair done up in curls for the evening and dark brown eyes that Stacey said someone could fall into and lose themselves. Stacey was a contrast, she stood two inches higher than her friend and sported honey colored hair and skin as pale as her Nordic ancestors, it would only be right that she had blue eyes and the fact that her eyes were light brown was what Stacey regarded as her only genetic flaw. Both women's bodies were loose in their clothing, as with so many people since 'Zombie Day' they had lost a substantial amount of weight. With no income to purchase black market food or even the higher priced available foods the women were stuck on bland corn and soy based products and neither had thrived.

That they were alone, instead of hooking up with one of the available men was par for the course. Most of the able bodied men and more than half of the women in good shape were fighting at the various fronts, the fighting never-ever stopped. It just got harder. The Mississippi was a great natural barrier, but the remaining bit of the country held onto parts of Illinois that they didn't want to let go of, to the south east the controlled territory ended at Memphis and headed west all the way to a small town in New Mexico know as Santa Rosa. At Santa Rosa things were always up and down, back and forth. Colorado had been hit particularly hard by the plague, Pueblo had been lost after fierce fighting, now Trinidad was the largest city still belonging to the living from that state. From there the border went up to the north east towards La Hunta and then veered even further east away from the heavily populated front range, keeping a thin slice of the Colorado plains out of enemy hands. The North West corner of the domain was anchored by North Platte, from there you could practically draw a line to Sioux Falls and Minneapolis, both heavily contested cities. The New Order had pushed hard to try and take Milwaukee back this past summer, an offensive that had ended in dismal failure. The country still lacked access to a body of water, they still had no way of getting to the other pockets of humanity that the radio said were out there. Why were mindless infected so hard to kill? That was a common question and misconception many people had; first some of them were not mindless, some people came back with all or even more than the mental power they had died with, not many came back this way, a small fraction of a percent. However the ones that did possessed supernatural strength and an uncanny natural ability to manipulate and control the other more mindless undead. These zombies were known as 'Super Zombies' or just 'Supers', most of the people who ran into them did not live to tell about it. The regular, mundane zombies still required a lot of damage to put down, destroying their heads worked quite well, otherwise you practically had to grind their bodies up into mince meat to put them down. And they healed, if you could call it that. Over time their injuries just got better, for the Supers it was a fast, even visible process, for the mindless hordes it took more time. Whenever humanity and the zombies encountered each other it was always a tough fight. That the girls were alone was because they could not attract the attention of any of the few men in the bar where they had sat all night, there were a dozen men, discounting the bar tender, a very high number, but there were at least five times that many women. Some of the women were willing to go to great lengths to share the men's company, Stacey had on a few occasions, Kaylee had yet to sink that far. Tonight though Stacey had promised to stay by Kaylee's side for the duration, no slutty flirting. Stacey would back off only if one of the men showed an interest Kaylee, something Stacy didn't think would happen. It was not that Kaylee wasn't cute, even with the weight loss she was still adorable, not a skeleton like some of the poor beggars in the bar.

'No', thought Stacey, 'Kaylee is old fashioned and the guys in the bar just want to get laid.'

Not that Kaylee was a virgin, she had been with men before, she just didn't like sex with no strings. Kaylee was a ball of string and she wanted a husband, just like so many of her competitors. Kaylee believed that being a slut was not a good way to win a man over to marital bliss, so on a night like tonight Stacey had taken it as a forgone conclusion that neither of them would be getting any action. One of the men had been mildly interested in threesome with both the women, Kaylee had blushed prettily and decline the invitation, Stacey saw it as a missed opportunity, a little flirting and playing along and maybe he would have just been interested in Kaylee alone by the end of the night, doubtful, but that angle had been ruined by Kaylee's flat refusal. Stacey shrugged the loss off, she had agreed to stick with Kaylee and meant to do so, most of the men seemed more interested in the younger women anyway, that and drinking as many shots of the harsh corn alcohol that the women would buy them. Stacey giggled, Kaylee looked over at her sharply.

“What?”, the woman demanded with a voice only slightly slurred.

“Not you friend of mine, not you lover. Just...I gotta go.”

“Right now? We are only half a block from the bus stop, I don't wanna go back to the bar!”, protested Kaylee, looking around for a closer bar to use the facilities at.

“Bar-smar!”, said Stacey defiantly, grabbing Kaylee's arm and dragging her down into the alley they were passing. Scuttling past several dumpsters Stacey continued until she found a spot of almost complete darkness where she turned to Kaylee and demanded, “Kiss me bitch!” in a husky voice.

“Stacey!”, Kaylee squealed, pushing her friend away laughing.

“Oh fine, be a party pooper! If you can't walk on the wild side, maybe you could at least look over the fence a little once in awhile?”, Stacey laughed at her friend while hiking up her too thin coat and dress, before dragging down her panties she looked at Kaylee and said, “Hey, no kiss, no peep show, I brought you here to have my way with you, but if I can't have that the least you can do is keep a look out bitch! Turn around and cover me from all the bad zombies waiting to eat my brains.”

Kaylee said nothing, but even in the darkness Stacey could see her fierce blush. Laughing louder as her friend turned around she pulled down her pants and proceeded to urinate in the alleyway.

..home.. next...