The
Zombie
Chronicles

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

Works in Progress:
   TZC2: Discovery

Works on hold:
   Zombie Nation
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   Zombieboy

Found

Chapter 11

They had a longer than anticipated stay in Indianola. Brian's cell phone call brought a forensics team down from the police department to gather evidence. 'Team' might have been too strong a word though, there were two members of the team whom Brian introduced Walt and Florence “Flo”. Flo did the work on dusting the face stone for finger prints, while Walt used a small vacuum to pull up fibers and hairs from the dense. The two of them also took all the flowers and pulled the letter off of the face stone last. Most of the work would be done early next week in the lab.

Brian, after making the call found a caretaker, who agreed to let Kaylee sit in the warmth of an office instead of in the very cold mausoleum. A couple hours passed while the team drove down from Des Moines and gathered evidence. While sitting with the caretaker, an older gentleman named Jeff, Kaylee couldn't help playing detective herself. She asked about the funeral, which was held in the rooms attached to the mausoleum. She asked Jeff if he had seen anything abnormal on the day of the funeral.

“No, but Miss Kaylee, I seen all too many funerals these days, before it was maybe once a week or so, now, with so many people it is usually two or more a day. We had one this morning before you arrived, thankfully no one is due in this afternoon. With this ruckus it would make people nervous.”

Wondering how Jeff defined three people picking up old flowers and quietly vacuuming a corridor as a ruckus, Kaylee asked a follow up question, “Have there been many visitors to the mausoleum?”

“No, hardly every these days, people just come for the funerals and go home. You, I read about you online in the paper, have reason to come after the ceremony.”

“So you didn't see anyone visit Stacey?”

“And tape the note up there? No, I am 'fraid not.”, at Kaylee's dejected look he continued, “I do think I saw the fella that posted it though. About six foot, dark hair, nice coat, looked new and warm, came about, today is Saturday? It would have been a week ago Thursday, I had three funerals that day, I was very busy and what with the snow and all! I could hardly deal with all the fuss....but this guy he came between two of the services and just headed for the resting places. I didn't see a note or anything, just him. He had that nice coat, but no hat and his shoes weren't boots, so it was bad going for him in the snow. He looked like money. You know? Not like the rest of us J and K folk. Does that help at all?”

“I think so Jeff. Would you recognize the guy if you saw him again?”

“Oh surely so, my mind.”, he said, tapping his chest, “is still all here. That was joke honey. But I don't need to identify him, we have cameras, they record to hard drives, they keep photos for quite a while back, they are motion sensing, only snap shots of people going into and out of the crypts, I mean mausoleum. I can pull up that day, I doubt it has been overwritten yet.”

“You have cameras in the mausoleums?”

Nodding Jeff said, “State law, in case any more come back. Kinda pointless now with the mandatory cremation law, but it never went off the books.”, he shrugged his old shoulders, “So I still take the pictures and save them. You know if I didn't some state regulator would be giving me fines sooner or later. Anyway we had cameras before Z Day, helped curb vandalism.”

“Can you get the photos of this guy? I am going to tell Brian you might have a picture of this guy.”

Kaylee went and found Brian watching Flo and Walt, he looked up at her as she came into the corridor. She told him the caretaker might have pictures of the guy who left the note and Brian perked up.

“This day is getting better and better...for the case. Lets go take a look at the pictures.”

The pictures turned out to be better and worse than Brian had expected. He did not allow Kaylee to see them, there was a chance this was the man who had attacked them and if she were going to pick him out of a line up he didn't want to contaminate her as a witness. The cameras were decent quality, however they were positioned in above to one side of the automated doors of the mausoleum, the angle was good enough to run some pattern recognition software on them, however the man never looked directly into the camera and if Brian saw him on the street he would have a hard time recognizing him. Brian knew that the department had access to software which could identify the man just from the images that Jeff had in electronic storage. Brian took the images and forwarded them to his department email address, in addition to forwarding them to his ever present portal computer.

After interviewing Jeff the forensics team was ready to head home and agreed to drop them at Kaylee's apartment. Kaylee invited Brian up for coffee after they got out of the car. She also could not help but notice the looks Walt and Flo gave them as they got out of the car. Once she had the kettle on, she turned to Brian and asked, “So what were the looks they gave you all about?”

Brian was fiddling with some paper Kaylee had on her table, staring at it intently. Embarrassed Kaylee lurched forward and gathered up the papers, making a 'tsk-tsk' disapproving sound. Brian had successfully snatched one page off her table in a playful manner and held it away from her still trying to read it.

“What is this?”, he mock-demanded, “A job application?”

The paper Brian was holding looked like a traditional job application it had Kaylee's information filled out on it and Brian was trying not to laugh too much at the horrified look on Kaylee's face as he held it up, gently fought her off and tried to read it all at once.

“Brian! This isn't funny!”

“Sorry, sorry!”, he handed the paper back to her.

Mollified she pouted a bit and said, “It was a joke really, I didn't mean anything by it.”

“By what? Really I didn't see much only that you are applying for a job somewhere. What position are you applying for? With who? With the market so tight I am amazed anyone is even handing out applications, let alone paper applications you fill out at home.”

“I...”, Kaylee stammered out, then a devilish look came into her eye and she said, “Well I just heard about this opening recently and thought I had better spring on the opportunity while it was still available. The market is very tight.”

“Oh?”, he asked eyebrow raising above one eye, “What are you going to be doing if you get hired?”

“This and that, really it is a general position. I think there may be some specific job duties that might be difficult for me until I am fully recovered, mostly it would be cooking, making coffee, maybe some social events from time to time in the evenings. I am not sure entirely, the job posting was a little vague.”

“Well I didn't mean to pry or anything. I have only known you for a couple of weeks, it is not like we are dating or any.....”, he paused slightly, wet his lips with his tongue nervously as if a thought had just occurred to him, “Ah, its none of my business, but, um, who are you applying with?”

Kaylee looked at him seriously and then flipped through the papers, pulled out what looked like a cover letter buried within them and thrust it at him. Brian took it and read it quietly while Kaylee studied his face intently.

Brian's face flushed red and he glanced up at her, “Kaylee...”

She thrust her hand out and put a raised finger against his lips, “Its only an application.” Kaylee took the rest of the papers sorted them into the correct order and straightened them on the table, gesturing for Brian to sit down, she took the cover letter from him and placed it on top of the pile and then set the documents in front of him. As she turned back to make the coffee she said, “You said there was an opening. I just wanted to be considered as early as possible.”

Brian, not knowing what to do, shuffled through the cover letter and job application, as he read he appreciated the humor and effort Kaylee had made in her application to be his girlfriend. By the time she turned back to him he had his pda out and when she sat the coffee down and joined him at the table he was poised for action.

“In light of our current affiliation I think I can dispense with the normal screening process and just proceed straight to the interview. If that would be okay with you Miss.....”, he feigned looking through her application for her last name, “...Simmers.”

“You!”, Kaylee accused, “What?”

“No, really it is out of normal procedure, however I am flexible. Now there are a few questions which have come up regarding your past experience in these types of positions, if we can get those out of the way I am sure we can proceed to the next.....”

Kaylee leaned over and kissed him while he was talking. It surprised them both, turning from a nervous peck into a more passionate kiss before Kaylee pulled away. Brian recovered and said, “Yes. Well. Okay I think that covers that section. I see you left out some of the more physical aspects.....”

The warning look Kaylee gave him stopped any further progression down that line of inquiry. Kaylee spoke, her voice serious, “Look Brian, I wasn't planning on springing this on you today, especially not after what we went through today. I thought maybe when we got through with this, this....”, she waved her hand in the air around them, “you know, everything. Maybe we could, go out?”, Brian went to speak, Kaylee held up her hand, “Except I don't want to wait. I like you. I like being with you, I like drinking coffee with you, I even liked investigating at the cemetery with you today. I just, want, to be around you? Is that so bad?”

Brian shook his head, “No, not in my opinion.”, he laughed, “Here I was trying to make excuses to be around you. I should have just asked. This was good, by the way, pretty funny, I liked the part where you listed education attained so far.”

Kaylee smiled, “I liked that part too, I just made up the names for previous experience though, you think three boyfriends was enough?”

“Oh about right, I'd say, all pre- Z-Day though, like me.”

They paused in an awkward silence, Kaylee eventually broke it, “Dinner?”, she asked.

Nodding he said, “Yes, I am famished.”

Kaylee had eaten all the casseroles she could not fit into her freezer, so she made them bean and cheese wrapped in corn tortilla with some canned salsa and chips.

During dinner they discussed a little bit of their pasts, without going into gritty details Brian described what had happened after he lost his wife, they were from Des Moines originally and some of the zombies actually had gotten to the city, in one of the worst incidents a group of them had made it into a shopping mall, Brian's wife had been going out for groceries.

“As near as I can tell, she must have stopped at the mall for something, nothing specific, but just to shop. They found her car in the parking lot, but they never found her, not her body and not her...wandering around in the cleanup afterwards. I'm not the only one in this position, there are hundreds if not thousands of locals who never recovered any remains.”

Kaylee too shared some of her story with Brian, “Me and my dad arrived after being driven out of Kansas. We hold that part of the state again now, but my mom just disappeared. Leaving was hard, but we could not stay, I don't know anyone else who got away, maybe they resettled in Kansas City or somewhere else. Probably they didn't make it. My dad he knew farming from when he was a kid, so he got on pretty quickly when we got here, had a job again and was working. Then he got in that accident. I still have a hard time accepting that we made it all this way through....a lot, a lot of stuff and he dies in a farming accident, of all the stupid things.”

Brian reached out and took Kaylee's hand. “You know after my wife was gone I joined up with the military, they were pressing anyone into service that they could find, this was before the conscription law and the governor opened the armory to issue weapons to everyone. I wasn't strictly a part of the military at that time, we were just civilian volunteers. They sent me south, you know when we were still fighting for Arkansas, that was a mess, a huge mess, worse than the drive for the lake this past fall. Lawlessness, looting, and zombies everywhere.”, Brian paused for a minute, looking into Kaylee's face, then continued, “I ran into a 'super' I wasn't alone, I had been formed into a 'squad', which was led by regular guardsman, he....well he was not very competent, probably I had more squad based leadership training in the police academy then he did in the army.”

Again Brian stopped speaking and Kaylee squeezed his hand, she senses he wanted to tell her what happened, but that he was reluctant to share the store with her right now. After another moment he started in again, “Well Roy, he was actually sergeant Roy, but officially we were not in the military, like I said things were a little different then. Anyway we were down in some small shithole town in northern Arkansas, right along the highway, Roy was convinced there was a super across from us. And Roy wanted to kill it. You heard the rumors, right?”, Kaylee shook her head 'no', unsure of what Brian was referring too. “No? The ones about where if you killed a super you somehow become stronger, more than human yourself?”

Kaylee nodded as comprehension dawned on her, “Yeah, yes, I have heard those, wasn't there a tv show on about that too? Really badly done, it got pulled pretty quick.”

“I hadn't heard that, maybe. Roy was sure killing that super would make him stronger and faster, so he wanted our group to surround the thing and take it out, the idea being that he capped it once we got it down. We were not even sure there was a super over there, the zombies were not too likely to mass rush us, they were not acting quite as mindless as they could have been, but they were not that organized either. So Roy has this idea that we will scout in 'force' which for him meant the entire squad went out together. We loved that really, the town was a small little shithole, but when we scouted in force we could loot and get better food than we normally got, maybe pick up a few small valuable items along the way. Morale was high when we went out that morning. “

“The first thing we did was head towards the Walmart in town, sometimes survivors would hold up inside the stores, it was worth checking. Even if no one was alive there, we could probably pick up some batteries for our flashlights and some canned food, this was months after Z-day, so bagged goods and perishables were pretty much spoiled or gone by then. Along the way we shot a couple of zombies and Roy got razzed a bit as we asked him if he had wanted to do it, in case one of them was the super he was talking about. You have to understand something else too, we had never seen a super before, or even any of the extra fast zombies, the worst we had, had to deal with were some that were maybe as cunning as a six year old, which is pretty smart, when you think about it, and those were pretty tough too, they seemed to take more punishment to put down. So we got into the walmart and I was suspicious. I could not put my finger on it, but something was out of place, the doors were shut, so maybe there were survivors, the doors were not broken either. “

“Roy called out that it looked like survivors had barricaded themselves into the building, but that we needed to use caution, plenty of survivors had been destroyed when their wounded family members died and came back after being bitten. The doors were set up with a weather foyer, a double set of doors the outer ones were closed, but no barricaded, the inner ones were closed and had tons of stuff piled up behind them, shelving units, bags of fertilizer, even a pallet of coffee, man what that would bring today! Something still wasn't clicking in my brain, something was off, I told Roy something seemed out of kilter here, when I couldn't say what exactly, he waved me on to point and to proceed into the foyer.”

“When I went in I saw a small pane of glass near the bottom of the entry way that didn't have a bunch of stuff behind it, it looked like an oversight at the time. I could not see into the building anywhere else, the stuff behind the glass doors was piled too high and the inside of the building was dark too. Then I noticed what was wrong. No way to see out. We had encountered a few dozen barricades in various stores, and without exception they all had ways to look outside, this little window near the ground was pretty inconvenient to be looking outside all the time. I had to get on my hands and knees to see in, the way was clear, if only because the shelving unit had been tipped over and creating a small tunnel through the barricade between the angle of the base and the top shelf. I told Roy what I thought, the guys were all in the foyer now, except two we had left outside to keep an eye on our backs. Roy did look over the barricaded and nodded at my words, however he said that they probably died from inside before they got around to making a port hole, so I was going to have to be extra careful when I went in. I knocked the pane of glass out with the base of a gum ball machine that was still in the foyer.”

“The noise hadn't attracted any attention, which gave me a bad feeling. I took a flashlight and shined it into the hole, cleared the glass out of the way and started through. Everything was quiet, very quiet when I pulled through I was able to stand up and look around, there was dried blood in a few places and no one alive or dead to be seen. I made it maybe three steps into the building when the firing started outside, I turned to look and yelled back asking what was going on, then heard a noise behind me. I whirled around quickly and there was this guy there, just there. I mean before the space was empty, then he was just behind me, no one is that fast. I tried to raise the shotgun, even though he looked normal I knew he wasn't. He looked like someone's grandfather really, he was maybe fifty years old, had a pretty good sized beer gut and a comb over. I will never forget that, I mean it combed its hair over its bald spot. As I raised the shotgun and yelled out for help the thing swatted the gun and me away in the blink of an eye. I was thrown into the car return area and heard something break as I landed, my shotgun had gone sailing off into the distance, I had let go of my flashlight too, but the strap holding it to my wrist held so I at least had that. I also had my service pistol from my policeman days, so I started to draw that as the zombie started towards me. He took a couple fast steps when his legs were shot out from under him. Roy had come through the hole at my shout for help and shot the things feet. The zombie did not slow down, but it did change directions and went off in the direction of the check out stands. I tried getting up, then gave that up and started to crawl towards Roy. Roy made it out of the hole with his rifle and was shouting at me asking where the thing went. I pointed, and told him I couldn't walk, he asked me if it was a super, and I said yes, then Roy's eyes went all big with fear and he started firing his gun, I saw where he shot and it was not the same guy, I yelled it wasn't the one and he immediately swiveled a bit and fired into the darkness at something I could not see. I still don't think there was actually anything there. Meanwhile on the other side of the barricade the guys were yelling, seeing if everything was alright and for us to get our asses out of there as zombies were swarming the front of the building.”

“I started crawling through the hole with Roy swearing at me to get moving faster. He crouched behind me, with his back to the hole keeping watch. I was maybe halfway through when the shotgun went off. My shotgun, it was loaded with double aught buckshot, which was standard issue, the shotgun blasted again, the second time my feet and legs were peppered with shot. Roy took the brunt of the blows and sagged behind me, his body armor didn't look like it caught everything. I was screaming and twisted around with the light to see if Roy was okay, his gun was in two pieces, one of his arms was coated with blood and he was trying to move, but his legs were not working right. His mouth was and he looked at me for a second and screamed for me to get out, that second was all it took for the super to get him from behind and drag him off a few feet from the crawlspace hole. My light played on the scene as the old man took Roy and held him off the ground shaking him like a rag doll, somehow Roy got his combat knife out and with a flash of steel the blade impaled the thing's neck. The blow was a miss though, sometimes if you hit one in the neck it will flop over and not be able to move, this thing just screamed and gave Roy another hard shake that either killed him or knocked him out. The zombie turned towards me, I was hold a goddamn light on him, so no doubt he saw me. With one hand he kept Roy up in the air, with the other he reached up and pulled the knife out of his throat. I still had my pistol out and it was even pointed in the right direction by this point, I squeezed off a few rounds in rapid succession. I don't think I got the zombie, but I am pretty sure I put Roy out of his misery. The zombie had disappeared from my view after my quick fusillade, but he was not gone to enjoy his meal yet. I could hear him scrambling around on the junk pile. I crawled as fast as I could, but it wasn't fast enough, my hand were just grabbed by some of my squad mates when the shelfing unit collapsed on me. I passed out from the pain, I am still not sure how they got me out, they said they used the base of the candy machine as a lever to get the shelving unit off me and then pulled until I popped out like a cork coming out of a bottle of wine. I did wake up for bits of the journey back to our defensive line. Once I even remember firing my pistol as two of my squad mates dragged me through the street. In all four of us, out of ten made it back. The other three were unwounded.”

“I got back to the lines, medics came and evacuated me right away. I was put in a temporary medical tent then transferred back to Des Moines a few days after that. Eleven surgeries later and I can stumble along and even bend my back a bit without too much pain. With therapy I should recover to about sixty percent of what I was before I was wounded. The police were always looking for experienced men to handle the detective work, so in a way I got a promotion, I was just a beat cop before I went in, I was promoted to Detective when I went back to my civilian job. I could still be called up to serve again, it is unlikely unless something really goes bad, I am just too beat up to do the job anymore.”

“Did you ever see the guys who got you out again?”, Kaylee asked.

“Them? Oh sure, they came and saw me off from the army hospital, one of them was offered and accepted a position in the army as a sergeant, a field promotion, if he went into the army. As no one was being released from service he decided he would rather lead a squad then follow someone else leading it, so he stayed. They others did well too, I still get email from them too, they are all alive as of sometime last week. They know they saved me and that I would have done the same for them, had the situation been reversed. It is still hard to be saved by someone else, it makes you feel....”, Brian trailed off uncomfortably.

Kaylee, shushed him, “Yeah, I know, I know. I don't even know the people who found me or got me out of the alley.”, she hugged her arms around herself in a childish manner. Brian stood up from the table, stepped towards her and drew her into a hug. For some reason she could not understand Kaylee started to cry, Brian just continued hugging her and brushed one hand through her hair. After a minute of sitting they settled onto the couch, neither of them saying a word. Who started the kiss was lost in the frenzy as grief and uncertainty turned into passion. Kaylee had pulled open Brian's belt and had his pants unzipped and was just getting ready to ask if he had some sort of protection when Brian's cell phone rang.

Brian sat up and reached for his phone, “Its from work.” he whispered apologetically breaking their embrace. Kaylee pouted and continued to stroke her hand inside his underwear as he took the call.

“Hell-ooh?”, Brian answered his phone, “Walt? What is it?”

“We got him, we know who it is that left the note, the prints matched and we got a photo that matches....”, Walt's voice trailed off, “Hey Brian, where are you? Is this a bad time?”

Brian laughed, “If you only knew! Your timing is great.”, he said with amused sarcasm.

“I can call back?”, Walt offered.

Look at Kaylee eying his groin Brian sighed, “No you better give it to me now, I want to know.”

Kaylee had decided the phone call had taken too long and that simple solutions to avoid pregnancy were available to her, Brian accommodated her readily enough by lying back on the couch and providing full access to what she needed.

“Look Walt, I uh, just tell me okay?”

“Sure, sure thing. Where are you anyway? Do I want to know?”

“I will tell you tomorrow.”, Brian offered.

“You kidding, I wasted my Saturday on this I ain't coming in on a Sunday too. They guy is Theodore Roderson, we got a partial match off his old motor vehicle picture.”

“What?!”, Brian cried out, started, he sat up and dislodged Kaylee's mouth from what she had been doing. She started to pout, saw his look and rocked back on her knees, all thoughts of continuing gone.

“You know him?”, asked Walt.

“Yes, well, no, not KNOW him personally, but he was at the funeral, he is an ex.”

“It looks like he gained some weight, it is him though, or his evil twin, he hasn't changed that much from when this was taken.”

“Did you get an arrest warrant?”

“Me? That sounds like a detective's job.”, groused Walt, “I am just a lowly forensic specialist. Yeah, yeah I moved it over to they guys in homicide, they ran it before a judge and some of the boys in blue are out looking for dearest Teddy now. Hopefully his address is currently, a rich part of town too.”

“Okay, thank you Walt, thank Flo for me too, would you?”

“Just doing my job buddy, we can't let you people in detective uniforms have all the fun. I hope I didn't blow your night. Tell her hello from me, whomever she is.”

“No, no this is good news, I think. And its not like that with my girlfriend, we'll get over an interruption. Bye man.”

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