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 21

Kaylee crept down the steps into the basement, which was light by old florescent bulbs casting an eerie white glow. As she cleared the lower doorway she saw she was entering a storage room, on one side was a storage elevator, which led up to the street, probably behind the club, that was not the only other exit. One of the storage shelves, which were big metal affairs with industrial gray paint and full of various supplies, had been moved aside revealing a narrow rectangular hole in the floor. Kaylee could just make out a set of narrow stairs leading to yet another level below this one. Her nose picked up a faint burning smell, like melted plastic, among all the other strong alcohol smells pervasive in the room. She heard noises from down below and quickly looked for a place to hide. there were plenty of shelves, and two stacks of kegs to hide behind as well, however Kaylee thought the best place to go would probably be back up towards the main room in the club. As she stopped surveying the area and started up the stairs she saw the cell phone lying on the ground near an unevenly stacked set of kegs. Brian's cell phone. She backed up the stairs quickly and moved out the doors back into the chaos of the room of the club.

Where to go? It has to be a super zombie and it grabbed Brian right at our table, so, not back to the table. The bar. Kaylee thought to herself. Making her way to the bar she crowded in and turned sideways to view the kitchen door. No one and nothing came out of it after her, she stared so long that the overworked bartender even had time to get around to asking her what she needed. Kaylee hesitated for a moment then ordered a triple shot of straight grain alcohol. At least this will burn, if it comes down to that. Carrying her drink in one hand with her other in her purse clutching Brian's gun she sauntered towards the kitchen door.

Once she was back by the doors she leaned up against the wall and tried to hear if anyone was in the hallway beyond the doors. Club Necrolagnia didn't have much in the way of breaks between songs, as one ended the next one would start, so the music never died and barely even dimmed in volume. This made it impossible for Kaylee to hear anything in the next room.

The doors to the hallway did have a window in them and Kaylee could see part of the hallway beyond, but not the stairway. Kaylee started to edge towards the door when she stopped herself, What the hell am I doing? She retreated to the woman's bathroom where the music was at least perceptibly lower and pulled out her cell phone. She called Flo first. A sleepy voice answered on the other end of the line.

“This better be good! Hello? Who is it?”, answered Flo.

“FLO! Its me Kaylee! It has Brian the zombie has Brian and I don't know what to do!”, yelled Kaylee.

“Kaylee? What do you mean? What zombie? Where are you?”

“I am at Club Necrolagnia downtown, Brian came in, but he disappeared, but I found his gun under the table and his cell phone is down in the basement, only its broken! I need help! It might kill him!”

Flo was not normally one to wake up quickly on short notice, however something in Brian's girlfriend's voice was sufficient to get the job done. She turned and jabbed Walt in the side, fortunately for everyone involved Walt was one of those people able to wake up (and drop off) in a moment's notice, something he claimed came from his time in the military serving in the Gulf War. He had heard Flo's side of the conversation and bits of Kaylee's and already had his cell phone in his hand. In moments he was talking with the dispatcher of the Greater Des Moines Police Department while Flo kept Kaylee on the line.

The dispatcher and Walt asked several times about the super zombie, making sure this was not just a drunken mistake before the special forces team was called out.

Flo continued talking to Kaylee, “Just stay where you are, okay? Don't move out of the bathroom. The good guys will be there within five minutes. Now you said there was a stairway going down below the cellar?”

Walt relayed this information to the dispatcher, who relayed it to the team leader who was already boarding their van to drive to the club.

“Yes! Yes! Some shelving was moved over and there were stairs going down underneath them. I gotta go get Brian Flo. I have to. If something happened to him...I could never forgive myself. I have to go.”

“No! Kaylee no! The officers will be there in a few minutes! Don't move. Brian would want you to stay right where you are!”, Flo said forcefully.

“I am sorry Flo. I'll leave my phone on, but I don't have enough hands to carry it, the gun and the drink too.” Tucking the phone into her jeans pants pockets she took her drink off the toilet paper rack and headed out of the bathroom towards the kitchen access doors.

Pausing only briefly to peek through the doors Kaylee pushed them open slightly and went into the hallway beyond. No one was there, Kaylee made her way to the other set of doors and peered in at the kitchen staff, they looked about the same, the nachos were gone and they were milling about laughing at some unknown joke. Turning brusquely Kaylee headed towards the stairs to the cellar, the lights were still on downstairs. Slowly Kaylee started down the stairs.

She crept to within two steps of the bottom when she saw the tall man down on the floor. He was more narrow than skinny, all angles and roughness, like a tall old man who hadn't aged well. His jeans, in like new condition, left a four inch gap between where they left off and the tops of his shoes, revealing a narrow band of pale, parchment like skin above the tops of his black socks. For a shirt he had on a red, almost cowboy like western shirt with ornate white stitching, The back of his shirt was stained a darker color with a ragged hole in it. Thats blood, Kaylee though, Brian wounded it! The man's back was to her, he was on the ground looking at Brian's cell phone, poking it with one finger as it lay smoking on the ground. He stiffened slightly and Kaylee knew that he knew someone was behind him. Quick as a cat he flipped over and up onto his feet. The movement was sudden, like a preying mantis, it was unnatural and inhuman. For the briefest of seconds Kaylee wanted to recognize him, she could imagine him as being the one who had killed Stacey, indeed, she was absolutely sure she was looking at the man, the zombie, who had killed her friend. On the other side of the coin was the knowledge that she could never have picked this man out of a police line up, she just hadn't gotten a good look at the guy on the night of the attack. She knew her attacker had been tall and this zombie was taller than anyone Kaylee had ever seen.

Here I am thinking I couldn't pick him out of a line up and I should be killing it., Kaylee thought, the zombie finished rising up to his full height and looked right at her.

“Kaylee..”, Jake started to say, only to have his sentence cut off by a gunshot.

Before Jake could move out Kaylee shot him four times, the bullets stitched a line from Jake's right shoulder and worked their way diagonally down his body towards his right hip, the last bullet Kaylee fired missed him entirely and struck one of the corn kegs behind him. The keg let out a low gurgle as the golden contents held within it started to weep onto the cellar floor.

Jake just stood there, Kaylee stood staring at him, He didn't fall! Why didn't he fall? Oh I have to shoot him in the head, everyone knows that! She shifted the gun, trying to remember the basics of aiming the gun. Jake, however was not content to allow Kaylee a clean shot, after the initial fusillade he moved and moved fast. Kaylee tried to keep the gun pointed at him as he move, but Jake ducking behind some of the metal shelving units and she did not take another shot. Unlike Brian she did not know how many shots she had, she could be out of bullets already and she did not have any spare ammunition for the gun when she ran out.

“I should have killed you when I had the chance. This is how you repay my mercy?”

“Murderer!”, Kaylee shouted, “The police are already coming, if you leave now you might get away.”

“I don't need to leave, the police don't scare me anymore Kaylee, not even your gun scares me anymore. I can still let you go, it doesn't have to end like this.”

“No, it does, you took Brian! Why did you take Brian instead of just leaving?”, Kaylee moved down the last two steps to stand just inside the cellar doorway, trying to get a bead on Jake.

Jake's voice floated to Kaylee from behind several rows of shelving, “I don't....I have been having some problems lately Kaylee, things haven't been going well, I am not thinking too clearly. Impulsive, I've become impulsive. Unable to control my knee jerk reactions. I didn't want to take Brian, but when I spotted him there I just got so angry, I only saw red and before I knew it I had him.”

“You had him? WHAT DOES THAT MEAN?”, Kaylee shouted.

Jake didn't reply right away, Kaylee could hear him moving around behind the shelving, when he answered he was off to the side of the door, hidden by the shelves entirely and not where Kaylee had expected him to be based on the noises she had heard. Softly he said, “He'll live, he should live. Maybe. You can go to him, he is down the stairs. If you go now I won't follow you. Just go.”

Kaylee smelled smoke, not smoldering plastic, but fire, turning she looked to the cell phone, forgotten on the floor the high proof corn alcohol had finally pooled up enough to reach it and a fire had started. As she watched the flame spread across the pool, down the steps and flowed around the other kegs, it couldn't climb up the flowing liquid to get to the source of the liquor, but it was trying. At that moment the shelving unit next to Kaylee crashed down towards her. Startled she fired through the shelves at where she hoped Jake would be as the shelf lean onto her, the glass of alcohol she had been carrying from the bathroom fell out of her hand to shatter on the floor near the end of the shelving unit and caught fire immediately when it joined the larger pool near the center of the floor. As the shelves fell they smashed into the shelving on the opposite side of the walkway, creating a narrow, triangular tunnel. Kaylee ducked down to avoid the top of the shelves and then found herself rapidly confined into an ever smaller space as the second set of shelves slowly groaned over. Throwing herself forward onto her stomach she managed to avoid being injured as the other shelving collapsed by being in the small space where the top of one shelf was resting on the side of the other. The shelving supplies rained down upon her , bruising, but not seriously injuring her. Through the various boxes, cans and other industrial supplies she though she had just enough room to crawl forward into the main area of the cellar, the problem was the burning pool of alcohol was resting just at the end of the 'tunnel' she was trapped in. Looking backwards Kaylee realized she should have just stepped back onto the stairs when the shelves started to go. Looking up the area she was in had a long rectangular box wedged between the former shelves, effectively acting as a ceiling.

Jake took this moment to jump onto the shelving brackets above Kaylee. He landed hard and heavy, trying to collapse the shelves onto Kaylee. The whole frame shuddered with his impact, but held. The box immediately above her shifted and then wedged itself once again into place. Kaylee started crawling forward, pushing debris out of her way as she went.

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