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 09

The next day the storm had eased and Kaylee had a busy morning of easing her neighbor's minds that she was okay and of slowly sorting through Stacey's belongings. Most of the stuff she was just looking through to give herself something to do, she had no intention of giving anything away so soon after arriving home. She was expecting another neighbor when she answered the knock at her door in the mid afternoon. Kaylee was surprised when it was Detective Nelson at the door. He was wearing a long padded coat and a woolen hat with ear muffs. He had a pair of over sized gloves under one hand, the kind you would wear when driving a snowmobile.

“Oh! Its you! Come in, come in.”, she told him.

“I didn't come at a bad time did I?”, Brian said as he came through her door and took off his coat.

“No, no of course not. I had forgotten that you might drop by today. Do you want some coffee? Or Tea?”

“Something warm yes, it isn't snowing, but it is cold enough outside to freeze the devils...arm.”

“Arm?”, Kaylee parroted, “C'mon detective I've heard the expression before.” Laughing she turned away and put the kettle on in the kitchen while he finished taking off his coat and hat. “Did you drive out in this or take a bus?”

“Bus. These interviews are not considered high enough priority for me to get a car all the time. When I do it is usually the one without heat in the winter or without air conditioning in the summer. I heard you had a decent ride home from the hospital at least.”

“Oh?”, Kaylee asked arching one eyebrow, “You checking up on me?”

“Not particularly, just part of my nature I guess. I wanted to make sure you got home okay. “

“Please sit.”, Kaylee said while gesturing to the chairs around her table.

“Okay, thanks, it really eases the leg. Do you have enough food? Rations are delivered in next week, can you make it until then?”

As a response she opened her refrigerator door and said, “Feast your eyes on this. Yeah, all my neighbors have been dropping food by all day. I thought you were another of them. Casseroles, traditional funeral fair and I know they want me to get better, so...the dropped by with food. I have enough for two weeks really. I hope you are hungry!”

“No, no, I didn't come over to eat!”, Brian protested.

“I insist, the very least I can do and I have too much as it is. I don't dare give any of it back and when I spoke to Mrs Harrison about inviting everyone up for dinner, she turned two shades whiter and told me that wasn't proper manners. She said to freeze it.”, opening her freezer Kaylee demonstrated that it too was chock full of food, giggling she shut her fridge and turned to make the coffee.

“That is good to hear, you laughing, I like that.”

Kaylee turned to smile at the detective, “I even have real milk for the coffee, the lawyer brought it by before he dropped me off.”

“I don't know what to say, thank you for your hospitality and I will be happy to take half a casserole home in my belly.”

“Half? I will hold you to that!”, moving slowly Kaylee picked one of the better looking casseroles out of her refrigerator and popped it into the oven to heat up. “So, any news?”

“Yes actually, I know this isn't supposed to be a social visit, I did get used to our talks while you were in the hospital, I think I will miss them once I solve this case and get this guy arrested.”

Kaylee stopped, “This guy? You mean you know who it is?”

Raising his hand up Brian said, “No, no sorry, I meant it as 'whomever did this', not anyone in particular. I do have more information. First, I have heard back from all the unit commanders who had men in town for New Year's Eve. None of them came back with unexpected injuries, no knife wounds for certain. That is sort of good news. I trust them to be telling the truth, not because their man might have murdered someone, but because i also pulled the medical treatments for all wounded soldiers for the first week in January. The casualty reports are all online and I have access, the data is de-identified, so I wouldn't be able to tell who had a knife wound, but after going through all the wounds it appears that no one had a knife wound like you describe during that time period. The local hospitals do not report any wounds like you describe either and that data comes with ids, the stab wounds we had were suffered by women, not men.”

“Does this help? It sound even more like a lost cause.”

“No, no, it helps, I like to think that the guy is holed up somewhere recovering in agony from his wound. Anyway, my next point is that forensics went through the blood at the crime scene and he found a third blood type, this is the best news yet. He has an isolated sample taken from Stacey's clothing and that gives us a clear DNA tag. If the guy has a criminal record or gave a DNA sample for other reasons we should be able to find out who it is by searching the database.” The national legislature had passed a law requiring all criminals to provide DNA upon arrest, many jobs had the same requirements these days, such as soldiers, police and anyone leaving the country, Kaylee recalled anyone admitted to a hospital was also required by law to provide a DNA sample. So far the requirement had not been challenged successfully in court, it was a 'National Security' issue.

“How long with a search take?”

“The search is the easy part, it will only take a few minutes to go through our local database for it, if it comes back with nothing we will send it on to the other states for checking, we don't have a national database yet, it is supposed to be nationalized this year. The delay is getting the DNA sequence, the labs says it will be another two days before that is done. So we are looking at this weekend before we know anything more.” the detective was visibly happy at this pronouncement, so Kaylee took it to be very good news indeed.

“Do you think the person might show up in the database? I mean what portion of the population has their DNA on file?”, Kaylee asked.

“Higher for men than for women, we are getting hurt in larger percentages than women, plus there are more of us in the military and police forces and even more in politics. The state workforce is about evenly split, I would say we have data on maybe 40 percent of the population right now. It will go up to 100% within a generation, every mother who gives birth in a hospital, plus her kids, is sampled.”, he shrugged his shoulders noncommittally, “I can't say if that is a good or bad thing. On the one hand it is a gross invasion of privacy, on the other it only comes up if you do something wrong, right?”

Kaylee made them coffee and they chatted about how she was settling in while the casserole heated up. They ate while talking about the state of the world and the impeding storm, which led to a discussion on how long they thought the satellites would stay functioning, which in turned brought them to a talk about the the space station, the astronauts who were stuck on the moon building the lunar base and a wide variety of other non-related topics. Before either of them knew it, the sun had set and Brian had eaten about half of the casserole.

“I feel stuffed.”, he remarked as he got up to get his coat, “Thank you for the hospitality, I do appreciate it.”

“Anytime Brian, I didn't realize it was so late. You had better get home before your wife gets worried.”, Kaylee had noticed a wedding ring on Brian's finger during their conversation and didn't anticipate the look that came over Brian's face when she spoke.

His face turned sad and he said, “This?”, while holding up his hand, “This is pre-Z Day, I have not seen my wife in about 19 months.”

“Oh God! I am sorry Brian! I am sorry!”

He shook his head, “Look Kaylee, it is no big deal, my fault for wearing the ring, if anything. I know plenty of people who still hold out hope. I don't anymore, this is just a way of remembering her.” Brian paused standing with his hands on the back of the chair he had been sitting on, “Isn't it strange though? We have talked the afternoon away and not once did I ask you about where you came from or what had happened to you before the attack and you didn't mention my past either. Its a social phenomenon; no one talks about their past much anymore. I guess after hearing so many hard luck stories no one wants to know. Its like we can all just look at each other and assume 'He lost all his family' or 'Her boyfriend died, along with all her friends'. Pretty cold in a way, huh?”

Kaylee didn't know how to respond to that, so she stood thinking about it while he pulled on his coat. Finally she responded, “I think you are right, that is so sad though. How will the next generation grow up? Here let me bundle one of these up for you to take home.”, she said indicating another casserole, “I have six left and think I could only finish off....four, so if you take one and help me finish off another one in a couple of days none will go to waste.”

His pause was minute, then he said, “Okay, okay, I will do that, and I will be back in two days too, to give you an update and to just...talk, okay?”

“Its a date then!”, she answered smiling.

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