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

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   Zombie Nation
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   Zombieboy

Found

Chapter 20

Brian was dazed and shook his head groggily. He lay behind the kegs and struggled to get control of himself, while pulling himself up on his right wrist he winced, God, my fucking ribs are busted again! Fucking corn kegs, full of goddamn corn alcohol, instead of nice and empty. As if that would have made his landing any softer. There was no one else to get him out of this he realized, rolling to one side he felt in his jacket pocket for his cell phone. As he clutched it he felt the zombie grab the ankle of his bad leg, the thing then jerked him out and up from behind the kegs. Brian triumphantly pulled out his phone, only to look upon it in dismay, it was cracked and parts of it were shattered. He pressed the 'one' button anyway, hoping to see the screen come to life. The 'one' was a speed dial to dispatch. Nothing lit up, and the zombie shook him violently until the phone flew out of his hand to land on the floor by the kegs. Brian screamed again and clutched at his knee as it was re-injured, unbidden tears came to his eyes with the agony he was going through.

“You fucking bastard!”, he shouted somewhat impotently.

The thing laughed and twirled him around banging his upper body into the heavy shelves and cutting Brian's forehead open. The shelving unit was also damaged in the wild spin, it was now missing one metal support that had been broken off by the force of Brian hitting it. The zombie returned Brian to an upside down hanging position. From this vantage point near the center of the room Brian noticed something he had not seen before. one of the shelving units had been moved, revealing a clean hole cut through the concrete and a set of narrow steps leading downwards.

The super zombie carried Brian suspended before him down into the hole. In the narrow passage Brian saw several doors blur by in the darkness before being brought into a rather large room with old brick walls. The first thing Brian spotted was Matthew Donner, he was chained by his ankle to one wall. The rooms floor was painted an industrial gray, coated with a thick dirt that was spread around in a swirl pattern. Brians head thumped against the floor as he was dropped unceremoniously to the ground. Stunned it took him a second to realize the super zombie was chaining him to the wall next to Matthew. Blood was streaming into Brian's eyes, he tried to wipe it off and yelped in pain as he moved his wrist.

“Wrist hurting ya?”, the zombie asked him leaning close to Brian's face., “Want me to end your troubles?” Saying this he bared his teeth and put his mouth closer to Brian's arm.

Suddenly Brian's wrist didn't hurt so much anymore, he backpedaled away from the zombie as fast as he could. The zombie scuttled along on his hands and knees following until Brian was pressed up against the wall.

“One bite and you are one of us, one drop of my blood in your head wound and you become the monster Detective Brian. And guess what? You will be turned, I have plans for you.”

“How do you know anything about me?”

The zombie shrugged, 'Teddy was most forthcoming, Matthew filled in a few gaps too.” He made a quick lunge forward, as if to bite from Brian's arm, then laughed as Brian flinched away. “I'll be back for you later, I have one more loose end to gather up.”

“No! Don't!”, cried Brian as the zombie turned and left, knowing who the loose end was. Laughing again the zombie continued down the corridor and out of sight.

“Fuck!”, Brian yelled in frustration.

The room was old, lit by a single large light bulb hanging from the ceiling connected to some metal conduit which which led to a metal switch box with two switches, one off, one on. The floor had some water seepage, but no standing pools of water. There was a half rotted wooden frame where a door had once closed this room off from the corridoor, but now only rusted hinges remained. Stuck in the door frame inside the room about halfway up was a knife, Brian was sure if Kaylee saw it she would recognize it as the one Stacey used to carry. Finally his gaze came back to Matthew, who was chained beside him. Matthew looked pale. His eyes were gazing at Brian intently.

“He said I wouldn't be hurt. I had to come see him again, at least once more. He said he wouldn't hurt me.”

“What happened Matt?”, asked Brian, his voice came out ragged, as he tried to catch his breath, but just couldn't seem to do so.

“He bit me. He bit me!”, Matthew held out his arm so Brian could see the wound. It was fatal, Brian knew, no one recovered from a zombie bite, they might last days, but never a week and end the end they got up and started trying to feed on the living, there was no cure. Brian was talking to a dead man.

“Oh shit. I am sorry Matt, so sorry.”

Anger flared in Matthew's face, giving it some color, “No you're not, you aren't sorry Brian. Sorry you are here, sorry you're going to die, sorry Stacey is dead and her friend will be too. But sorry for me? I don't think so?”

“You are wrong Matt, anyone they get, no matter what my opinion of them, is a victory for the zombies and a loss for humanity. I don't like you, I think you are a spoiled rich punk with a drug addiction, but I would have died to keep you from dying, to keep you safe.” Brian stated this coldly.

“Looks like you get to die anyway, for nothing. Ironic, huh? You and me being here, dying together?”

“We are not dead yet.”

Holding up his arm Mathew said, “I am.”

Brian just nodded his assent, “We'll think of something, we'll at least take him with us, we gotta fight him, right?”

Looking away Matthew said, “No, probably not. We are chained to a wall, you are hurt real bad, I probably only have hours left anyway. I already feel strange.”

“Look, what happened? What were you and Teddy doing with this guy?”

“You know about the drugs?”, Brian nodded, “Well after the fall lets just say supply got real low, treatment was non-existent and a lot of users committed suicide or died, some made it through withdrawal. Some of us had small supplies we started rationing to keep the beast on our backs from consuming us. I was one of the lucky ones, I used and dealt. So I had a good stash to tide me through a few months, while everyone else was turning to alcohol or weed to take the edge off I had a supply of heroin to work with. Heroin was not my original drug, but you gotta make do with what you have, right? I had one steady buyer of heroin in town.”

“Teddy.”, Brian interrupted.

Nodding, Matthew continued, “Yeah Teddy, he was a steady buyer, so I always kept a supply on hand, I got a great deal on it, bought a lot 'cause I knew he would always pay. I doled it out to Teddy this last year in small amounts, he could barely afford it, but that is what always drove the drug trade, right? I was about out of everything myself when I found Jake. Or rather he found me. I had taken a bus to Kansas City and was poking around for pharmacies in what was technically zombie land. I was alone too. Stupid I know, but things worked out okay for me. I was going through a looted pharmacy and found the mother load, a wall safe that was not looted, or I didn't think it had been, it was still locked. But it had all the warnings on it, like 'Federal crime to break into' and stuff. I had a welding torch and a crowbar, in addition to an old revolver I had gotten from Teddy, I thought I was safe. I should have known its not like the raider shows you see on television. I first tried to break through the walls around the safe, you know, I thought the door would be tough, but maybe the safe walls were just drywall. No luck there was drywall, but the sides were poured cement. I could have chiseled through them, with enough time, but I had a torch, not a chisel or sledge hammer.”

Clearing his throat Matthew continued, “I wasn't smart, you know? I was worried someone else would come by and snag my find, so I kept up with the torch trying to get through the front door with the blow torch. I drew the attention of some zombies over the course of the day, I put them away with the revolver easily enough, but I stayed too long, they congregated around the outside of the pharmacy and in the afternoon when I was checking to see if it were clear there was a pack of them around the place. You ever been to the K.C. burbs?”

Brian shook his head 'no'.

“I thought, maybe you were military before being a cop.”

“Oh I was just further east, my unit never went to Kansas.”

“But you fought in the city, right?”

“Sure, most of the time in fact, you have to fight where the zombies are. Tell me about Jake.”

“Oh, yeah, right. Well when you raid into the 'burbs they tell you that no one is going to send a rescue party after you. They also say that if you get corned to barricade and hold the zoms off. A large crowd of zombies will eventually draw the army's attention and maybe, just maybe a bunch of guys with rifles will show up to kill some or all of the mob surrounding you. Or they might just call in an air strike, which is better than being eaten alive. I lost it though, I had barricaded the doors after the first couple of zoms came in, the pack couldn't get into the store, but I couldn't get out. I shot off almost all of the ammo I had for the revolver, I was going to save the last bullet for me, right? Like in the movies, but couldn't do it. Really I talked myself out of it, as I had only been there an hour or so, I told myself I could always do it later, right? I know me though, no chance in hell of me putting a bullet in my brain, I just couldn't do it. I thought I lacked the mentality.

“So the barricade was holding them off, there were a few bodies outside the doors, but the zombies didn't seem like they were going to break through the windows or anything. I hunkered down and waited. The store had pretty much been looted, I found some bottled water and a full case of crushed sports drink under one of the turned over shelving units. I kept looking around for food, I had only brought a couple of sandwiches with me to eat and they were long gone. I found some canned food eventually, hidden back where all the shampoo and hair care stuff was, enough for a day or two. I was there four days. The second day I decided if I was stuck I might as well get into the safe, you know? I used up the rest of my torch gas in less than an hour and I still didn't have a hole in the damn thing. Day three was spent searching the place for more crumbs and keeping an eye on the zombies out front. There seemed to be less of them, not enough less to make me feel hopeful that they would all go away, but less.”

“On the fourth night I was convinced I was starving to death, I drank and drank the sports drink, which gave me the shits, so I was feeling pretty bad that night when Jake showed up. The first I heard of him was him pushing my barricade over. I had hidden in the back room, no windows, no doors. I had pushed the desk up against the wall and piled everything up against the door except a bunch of ratty clothing I had taken to sleep on and keep me warm. Of course Jake punched through the wall instead. I didn't have a flashlight, but I heard him coming through the wall and pulled out my revolver and fired at the noise. I had saved three shots and they were gone before he even made it into the room. I did turn the gun on myself at that moment and even pulled the trigger, but there were no more shots, it clicked and Jake was on me.”

“He didn't say anything, just grabbed me and pulled me through the wall into the main store. He didn't hurt me much but he didn't let me go either. We stood in the ruined store alone, the other zombies were gone or at least not coming in and he stared at me in the very dim light from the moon outside. Then he told me to not run and let go of my arm. I stood there while he pulled a flashlight out of his pocket and turned it on. Looking me over he asked if I had been bit. I hadn't and said so. He asked if I wanted to live, I replied very much so, in fact I may have begged. On my knees. You have to understand the super zombies were only rumors then, no one thought they were real, it is almost as bad now, right? Anyway he told me he was looking for a way to feed himself without killing the hosts, he said there were too many zombies already and if they ate all the food, what would the rest of them do? So he wanted to drain some blood out of me, like a vampire. Only he knew by this time that if he did it he might infect me. As he said this he was pulling other stuff out of his pockets, he had on an old ratty army jacket and he seemed to have a lot of pockets.”

“The last thing he took out was a bottle of rubbing alcohol and a syringe, still in its packaging. He told me if I drew some blood for him he would let me go. I drew the blood, you think hitting a vein is easy when you are a junkie coming down from an adrenaline high and have gone three days without food? normally I could hit a vein, but no luck that night in the end I just cut my arm open and drained the blood into a disposable plastic bowl. Jake had thought whomever he encountered might have a problem getting blood, so he had brought along razor blades too. The bowl we salvaged from the pharmacy.”

“It seemed like a lot of blood, probably it was more like the amount you would give if you donated, what? A pint maybe? He drank it, he licked the bowl. He said he would keep the zombies away from the building the rest of the night and shadow me back to the nearest outpost in the morning, keeping the other zombies at bay. He never told me how he would do this, only that he would. I believed him. As he turned to leave the store I told him to wait, stop.”

“To my surprise he did. While we were going through getting the blood and stuff I had come up with a plan. You can probably guess it, right? I bounced it off of him and he agreed readily enough. The next morning I walked out of there with all the drugs I could carry and Jake and me now had an alliance. Drugs for blood. Both of us got as much as we wanted, not all my blood, but I never had a problem finding passed out users to draw from or even willing donors who didn't ask questions. I discovered that any blood born toxins passed on to Jake, if the user was high when I took the blood, Jake felt it. Tasted it he said. Usually it wasn't enough to make a difference, I mean he wasn't drinking gallons at a time from the same user or anything. Still it was kind of interesting to see how he would react based on the blood I had gotten him. Eventually he told me to only take blood from users doped up as a last resort. Business was good. Suddenly I was a big man again in Des Moines. I could get things people wanted, not just drugs, and if my prices were unusual the product was always top notch.“

“It got so that Jake had to expand and get a few helpers, he still has them. Now he negotiates with us from safety here, brings the product and his next list of things to acquire down to his contacts and brings the previous lists goods back to us. Size is a factor, so we mostly deal in drugs or light weight easy to carry items. Jake can pass for human if he has to, but people remember him, he is too tall, too pale, too intense. Everything was working out fine, I was becoming a rich man.”

Brian interrupted, “Then Stacey came along?”

Mathew nodded.

Bewildered, Brian asked, “How? I am still not seeing a connection here. And why did Jake bite you? What happened?”

“Well its kind of complicated. You know she and Teddy broke up pretty much the same time this shit hit the fan right?”

“I thought it was before z-day?”

Shaking his head Mathew said, “No, they were still a thing during the start, but Teddy he was hit hard with the whole supply thing and while he was semi-functional when he could get drugs, he pretty much lost it when the supply became erratic. Stacey didn't hang around much longer, most people would have, it was that whole 'Last Night on Earth' thing, you know? Stacey though, no, she had already been through a few of his 'episodes' and I think she was tired of putting up with his shit by that point. “

“So what connects her to Jake? Teddy want her dead for dumping her?”

“What?”, Mathew asked surprised, “No way, the guy was in total love with her! He kept coming round and seeing her in the circle of friends they both ran with, that made it hard for her. Then one day, well, I am not saying I run with a bunch of idiot friends or anything, but Stacey wised up and saw where most of us were going, the drug girls doing ANYTHING to stay fixed, the guys too, a few suicides, a few court ordered military enlistments, maybe half the crowd was dead by the time she knew she needed to get out. One day she just stopped hanging out with us. She got a new cell phone and after a few bus rides to her new place only to be shot down, we left her alone. Except Teddy. He still wanted things to go back to how they were.”

“He was almost skinny by then, the day Jake and Stacey met each other. I had hooked him up with Jake a couple weeks before, and Teddy was rolling in drugs, just like old times, right? So he figures if he can go back to 'normal', maybe Stacey will take him back, this was like October of last year maybe? Not sure, at the time, I was uh,” Mathew held up his arm and looked at it before going on, “Fuck, what does it matter now? I was higher than a kite myself. For most of the month in fact, its is good to be king. Somehow Teddy had talked Stacey into coming down to the club. I don't know what he was thinking. Stacey had quit everything cold turkey, not that she ever used much, I mean she wasn't against it, but she was never what I would call addicted either. So Teddy gets her down there and I remember him repeating on how things can go back to normal and how he had found a source and begging, begging, begging her to take him back.”

I was sick of it man, totally tired of hearing his whiney assed voice, I told him to lay off it, Stacey wasn't into the scene anymore and he needed to move on. Teddy got mad, said the only reason Stacey was there was because she still cared about him and that now that we were hooked up Stacey could go back to the life she really wanted and had been forced to give up.”

“Teddy was talking bullshit though, anyone looking at Stacey could tell she was out, not just fasting, but completely off drugs and out of the scene. It was over but Teddy just wouldn't see it. I got pissed; told him off and told him I was going to get him a new girlfriend and stormed off.”

“Did you?”

“Sure, sure, the man to woman ratio was well in place by then, only too many young women willing to come with me and give my 'main man' a quick lay, whatever I wanted. I took some time interviewing and when I got back to the table they were gone. I knew they hadn't left, a gut feeling told me Teddy had just done something really stupid. I ditched the bitch and headed for the basement. Sure a goddam-nough The door was open and Teddy, Stacey and Jake were standing in this very room. It doesn't take a genius to see what Jake is, talk to him five minutes and you KNOW. Well they had been talking longer than that. Jake thought I had sent them. I didn't want any trouble and made like it was the case, however Jake seemed wise to me. He nodded, but when donation time came Stacey was....reluctant. With Jake, and Teddy holding her I managed to get a pint, I tried to make like she was just nervous and would be better after I gave her something to take the edge off. Jake seemed to buy that, sort of, it wasn't until later I knew he saw right through me. We finished the deal, I 'paid' Stacey off and she and Teddy left.”

“Yeah, I bet Jake was pleased, huh?”, asked Brian, wincing as he tried to ease his jacket off of his broken wrist.

“Oh yeah, as punch. The only reason he didn't kill Stacey was because he probably would have had to kill all of us, he could have started over, but we were a good thing. He wasn't so bloodthirsty then either, not like now. I don't know what happened to him, but lately he is always pissed off. After Teddy got Stacey out of there he confronted me and asked if she was going to ruin everything. I told him not to worry about it Stacey knew how to keep her mouth shut. He told me if he ever saw her in the club again he would kill her. And if I ever, ever brought an unwilling donor to him again they had better be drugged out of their minds so they wouldn't know what was going on. After that he disappeared for a month. Almost enough to ruin my street cred, I ran out of supply, Teddy was going crazy, he had thought the source was good, so he used up all the drugs he had in less than a week. Things were worse for me than for Teddy, if you would believe it. It took me a month to set up an empire and it crashed down in about a week, some of the people I was dealing to were not pleased to be cut off again. Some of them were military guys, even cops. I lost quite a bit of business, so many people had gone cold turkey once that it had taken a little persuasion to convince them to use again, which I did, then my supply ran out. I headed down to K.C. again, did some poking, but couldn't bring myself to go into the 'burbs again. I guess I am a coward at heart really.”

“I even paid some people to go in for me, professionals, they said, but they never came back, maybe they took the money and ran, maybe they were killed.“, Mathew shrugged his shoulders. “I got back to Des Moines and Jake had returned, loaded with loot, of course. He said he was willing to let bygones be bygones, but he repeated what he said about Stacey and bringing him unwilling donors. I'd already passed the warnings on to Teddy, he said Stacey wasn't talking to him, but that he had sent her an email and left her a message on her phone. Good enough for me, I was back in business. I was far more cautious this time around not even bringing new donors to the club anymore I just took the blood and brought it in quick for Jake. It had to be warm so that usually gave me forty five minutes or so with a hot pad to keep things warm, even in the winter.“

“So you gave a motive, for Jake to kill Stacey, but she didn't come out here on New Year's eve, do you know what happened?”

Mathew hesitated, “Not directly no, Jake was tight lipped about things. Everyone was partying hard, it was the New Year, and we were all still alive, except for Jake. Jake had been going through some changes, the blood was....doing something to him, he could fucking levitate, like off the floor, he said he wanted enough blood to enable him to fly, so while business was going great he was sucking down all we could bring him, he even went free-lance a couple of times, I think he may have killed a few people by staging accidents, bloody accidents where no one would miss a few pints of blood, you know? I don't have proof, just that he seemed like he was getting some blood on the side. I was more worried that he had cut a deal with someone else, to bring them smuggled goods than I was about him killing people. I know he abducted a few humans, he had his own people to 'pay', but I think the guys he took were all from Kansas.”

“Anyway, New Year's comes and we, Teddy and I, thought he could use a little chilling out too, so that night we got a few people really loaded up, drew the blood out and gave it to him fresh and ready to go. Teddy was a big donor that night, he was incapacitated, I was worrying we took too much out of him, so I started a line to add fluid back in, it seemed to work, I mean Teddy didn't die, right? So I get the blood in this big gold chalice, I think it was a trophy of some sort and mixed in a little something extra, just in case that would work and then presented the whole mess to Jake. A first I thought he wasn't going to drink it, he looked at it and said it looked different, then he shrugged and swallowed it down, disgusting to watch, really. I mean you read in books and see in movies vampires drinking blood and they make it look at erotic, and it aint' like that. Blood starts coagulating when it hits air, that is what it is supposed to do, right? So watching him suck down that clotted mass of thick, oil consistency fluid was just...gross. Still I wanted to see what would happen so I stayed with him. At first nothing, then he starts kind of vibrating, then he looks at me and asked what the hell was in the blood.”

“I was backing off, not so amused now, but he caught me anyway, help me up against the wall and was yelling at me. I told him I had taken blood from the party goers, that, you know, it was New Years and he deserved a little break too, a good time. His face lost track of me then, like he was seeing double or triple or something, and trying to figure out which me to talk too. Then he smashed his hand into the wall behind my head, his hand went into the bricks, like to his wrist. When he pulled it out, I watched as his body just...fixed it...there wasn't even that much damage to begin with. The scary part for me was I think he was aiming for my head and only missed because of the drugs. He let me drop, went out the cellar door and that was the last I saw of him that night.”

“I read about Stacey and Kay-lynn a few days later.”

“Kaylee, the other woman's name is Kaylee.”

“What, oh, yeah, right. Kaylee. Innocent bystander.”

“They were BOTH innocent bystanders. What did Jake say about it?”

“I didn't ask. He made a comment about wrapping up a loose end, but I think he was embarrassed about it, he seems big on control and losing it was not like him at all. When it was obvious that Kay-lynn was going to live, he started getting nervous. And Teddy was involved too, he was so mad, he threatened Jake, threatened him! Jake told him it was over and if he wanted to keep doing business he was going to have to deal with it. He asked us to find someone to finish Kay...lee off in the hospital after a week. We wouldn't and he didn't seek outside help or even do it himself. I think he could have too, without much effort at all. Something about him though, he just seems reluctant to kill, a weird habit in a bloodthirsty zombie, right?”

“Yeah, Jake is a mystery, no doubt about it. I heard zombies get stronger with more blood and by eating, do you know if that is true?”

“Well, he was, is, getting stranger. He thinks if he gets powerful enough that when he bites people they won't come back as dumb zombies, but they'll come back almost like they were.” Mathew held up his wrist, “I am not sure, but I think he is testing his theory on me.”

“What? How would he know? How was he stranger?”

Mathew's voice dropped to a whisper, “He could do things, mess with our minds, some of the time, it was like we were high and couldn't tell if he was really doing things or if we were just imagining them. I think....I think he was really doing some of the stuff, like...”

“What?”

“He...you aren't going to believe me, but he could levitate, hover above the ground, over water, or land or air, he could climb the air to get up places without ladders. He could make us see things that weren't there, hear things that no one else heard. The more blood he drank the more he could do.”

Nervously Brian said “But the powers went away after awhile though, right?”

Shaking his head Mathew said, “No, no man you got it all wrong, he just got progressively stronger and he never got weaker. He said that's how he got avoided the patrols near the borders and ducked out on the police when they came across him, its like he was a blurry spot they would overlook. He said he muddled with Kaylee's mind too, so she wouldn't recognize him again. He never got weaker. Lately he has been complaining about hearing things himself, hearing voices, calling out to him. I think its the people he killed, but get this, Jake says he doesn't remember killing anyone before Stacey and only killed Teddy after her. Oh he know he must have killed someone at least to regain part of his mental abilities, but before z-day he was like, a pacifist. 'Killing doesn't solve anything' and all that crap. God I'm tired. I want to sleep, you know? Think I'm dying?”

Looking Mathew over Brian grimly came to that conclusion, he had seen a few people die in the field from bites and even a couple at the forward medical unit after he had been hurt. He answered, “You've looked better.”

Mathew laughed, “Heh, good one detective. A strung out junkie and I've 'looked better'. You have never even seen me 'better', I haven't been well in years. How much time do you suppose I have?”

Blaring music poured down the passageway, briefly, interrupting Brian's reply, as if the door from the club had been opened, a few moments later several shots were fired, Brian recognized the sound of a 9mm handgun firing, his gun was 9mm, so it was his or hopefully the guns of several dozen police officers. After five or six shots, the gunfire ceased, the dull throbbing of the club music never wavered. Through the open door, at the end of the long corridor Brian could hear something strange, it took him a minute to recognize it as liquid pouring down the steps.

Mathew had subsided against the brick walls, eyes closed.

“Hey, Mathew which one of those doors leads to the cellar access door outside?”

Mathew cracked his eyes narrowly and looked at him dully for a moment, seemingly to try and understand what it was that Brian was asking, comprehension dawned and he replied, “First door on the right, that will get us to the storm sewer under the street, then just lift up a manhole cover and we are free. Or follow it out to the river, there isn't any grate or anything on the spillway. Why?” Mathew jerked on the chain binding him to the wall to emphasize his point, then looked at Brian.

Brian smiled a little and said, “I am just optimistic; good to know which way to go, if we get the chance.” Grimacing in pain, Brian rolled onto his good hand and knee, slowly he pulled himself up on one leg, wrapping his hand around the chain he pulled it tight and tried to pull it away from the wall.

Matthew paused, “The second door on the right is where he, Jake, keeps his stuff, its not locked right now, he was just in there before he went up into the club. Sometimes there are weapons in there. Usually just drugs and stuff. I think he has a backpack full of stuff, like for when he leaves.”

“Good to know, now if I can just get this chain off...”

Voices filtered down from the main basement, Brian thought he heard Kaylee's voice, and Jakes'. Mathew got to his feet and instead of trying to tug on his chain he reached over and put his hands behind Brian's, so they were both gripping the chain that held Brian to the wall.

“On three?”, Brian said, Mathew nodded. “One, two, three!” They pulled together and the chain gave, it didn't pull from the wall, but it did seem loose. Unfortunately the jarring motion of the tugging had hurt Brian, he almost passed out from the pain in his leg and especially his wrist. Oh yeah, its broken. Fuck that hurts! I will not pass out, I will not pass out!, he fell to his knees and Mathew looked down at him as the voices upstairs grew louder.

“C'mon man, get up! The chain in the wall can't hold both our weight, its giving! Another tug or two and we'll have it!”, he lowered his wounded hand down to help Brian up.

Brian hesitated for only a second before grabbing the offered hand an pulling himself up. It took three more pulls before the chain came out of the wall. They started working on Matthew's next, it loosed admirably on the first pull, as they were getting ready for pull number two Brian heard Kaylee scream, he looked at Matthew, who yelled at him, “Just go! I can get it from here.”

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