Outbreak: The Zombie Chronicles

by Mark Clodi;Mike Keleman

  When she looked up into the windows of the tall office buildings that surrounded her Nancy could see bright patches of energy standing there, watching the spectacle unfold below.

  Nancy joined them and watched the action for several hours until her burning hunger finally forced her out of hiding. By this time, the number of dead walking the streets had significantly increased and she decided it was time for her to join them.

  Every where she looked abandoned cars littered the street. She switched over to her special vision. Two blocks away she could see several black figures surrounding two cars that had crashed head on. As the black figures moved around the cars Nancy could see flashes of bright red and orange energy trapped in one of the cars.

  "Yummy" she whispered.

  On her way to the fresh meal Nancy caught her reflection in the back window of a sports utility vehicle. She paused, taking in the sight. Her brown hair was still neatly pulled back into a pony tail and her face looked pale but not too unnatural. She had a few blue veins below her eyes but nothing too extreme. Surprisingly the only aspect of her face that sickened her was how Bob's blood around her mouth and nose contrasted against her pale skin. Nancy knew what she had done to Bob and yet the sight of his blood on her face caused her to feel nauseous. Perhaps there was still something left living inside of her, some small bit of humanity.

  Her hunger shook Nancy away from any philosophical thoughts she might have hand and took her back to reality. Hunger was stronger than guilt. Nancy looked past her reflection and inside the SUV she saw a tire iron. She opened the back tailgate and grabbed the weapon. Using the back of her sleeve she wiped as much of the drying blood from her face as she could. Nancy even released a few hairs from the pony tail and let them drape about her face the way she had done when she was one of the living.

  With her focus returned Nancy moved toward the two cars. There were three black figures slowly pawing at the windows of the Volkswagen Bug. The zombies, intent on the prize trapped in side, did not notice Nancy's approach. She strode up behind one of the figures and raised the heavy metal bar. With one quick downward motion she collapsed the zombie's skull and it fell motionless to the pavement. The other two zombies noticed their fallen comrade and looked at Nancy. They saw her blackness, confused they returned their attention to the person in vehicle. Nancy easily disposed of the other two figures the same way she had the first. Their skulls crumpling under the blows from the tire iron.

  "Thank you!" said a voice from inside the Volkswagen.

  Nancy could see a young woman. She was wearing jeans and a black tank top. On the seat next to her was a pink purse the shape and size of a small bowling bag and the familiar green apron that employees of a local coffee shop wore. The girl had apparently been on her way to work when her world collapsed around her. Nancy wondered how long the girl had been trapped inside the car.

  "Hurry, we've got to get out of here before more of those things show up." Nancy instructed the girl. Her voice sounded sluggish to her as spoke. Would the girl be suspicious?

  For a moment the young woman studied Nancy, she didn't look like the things that had attack her and yet she didn't look completely normal either. Her instincts yelled at her not to trust Nancy.

  Looking over the top of the bug Nancy told the girl, "Come on, I see some more coming, we've got to get out of here now!"

  Nancy's words apparently convinced the girl because she opened the door.

  "Thanks again, you saved my life." she said starting to step out of the bug.

  "Yeah, I suppose I did...so I guess it belongs to me now."

  Nancy violently pushed the girl back into the vehicle and pinned her face down on the front seat. With her hands on the girl's back and oblivious to the girls screams for mercy, Nancy paused for a second wondering if she would feel the same guilt for what she was about to do to as she had for Bob. But her hunger was stronger than any guilt she would ever have and she sunk her teeth into young woman's neck and began feeding on her beautiful flesh. As she ate Nancy felt her body fill with energy.

  When she had taken all that she could eat Nancy fell backwards out of the car and onto the road next to it. She lay there letting the girl's energy rip through her body like the most incredible orgasm she had ever felt.

  Nancy had taken the black and white photos that decorated her loft. She had been an amateur photographer. She remembered now. It was a loft too, not an apartment or house. Nancy thought it was located in downtown Denver not too far from the Coors Field baseball stadium but she couldn't be sure.

  From her vantage point Nancy could see a few of the living still standing at the office windows surrounding the intersection. Nancy laughed and imagined that they had watched the whole event unfold like some sick reality television show. How long had they watched the trapped girl only to see Nancy devour her? Where they exchanging money right now? The ones who bet she would be rescued paying off those who took the odds that she would die?

  Nancy ran her hands up and down her body. It felt good. Her muscles still felt lethargic but they were getting firmer and stronger. Her thoughts were almost normal now, the molasses she had been thinking through before was almost gone. After a few moments of enjoying her new good feelings Nancy's enjoyment was interrupted. Standing above her was a black figure, the coffee girl she had just consumed.

  Nancy studied the girl for awhile. The once bright red and orange energy that flowed through the girl was now completely gone. Nancy didn't know how but she felt a connection with the young woman.

  "Help me up." she instructed the girl and stretched out her arm. The young woman did as she was told and pulled Nancy to her feet.

  "What is your name?" she asked the girl. The young woman just stood there blankly staring back at her.

  "Can't speak, eh, coffee girl? Just as well." Somehow understanding, the coffee girl slowly nodded exposing the terrible wound Nancy had inflicted.

  "Come with me, we've got to do something about that."

  Chapter 12

  Steve pushed the door open and stepped down the hallway towards Kirkpatrick's office, with Max, Stewart and Tom trailing him closely. Once everyone was in the hallway Steve stopped and pointed to the floor down near the end of the hall, there was blood on it.

  "Stewart, looks like you get to earn your pay now, ma'am."

  Officer Stewart scowled at Steve and stepped in front of him, while her back was turned a high pitched scream came from behind her. To her credit Stewart just turned, dropped into a lower profile and ducked to the right. Max did just the opposite. He jumped six inches into the air, pivoted to the left and almost dropped his trusty bat. It was all he could do not to become a babbling idiot. Steve, started in on the "Wha-wha-what", but quickly recovered and scowled at Max.

  Stewart immediately started a smooth glide towards the screaming, almost jogging, but checking every opening she went by with the coolness of a professional. Max followed as close as he could, but lacked her precision, he only hoped she found and took care of any 'problems' before he got there.

  'So much for my macho image.' he thought to himself, 'Long live the woman's rights movement!'

  The screaming started getting louder and more persistent, Stewart's pace increased to a quick jog. Max was the one who saw the woman dart out of a side passage on an intercept course. Without even thinking Max rushed the older blond haired woman getting ready to pounce on Stewart from behind. He let out a battle cry and threw himself forward swinging the bat as he went. He missed. Completely woofed. STE-rike one! However his momentum carried him into the woman and as he tripped and went down he landed on the back of her legs, which brought her down on top of Stewart's legs.

  Time seemed to slow way down for Max then, he dimly recalled hearing a gun go off, and heard Tom and Steve yelling, as if they were three feet under water. His vision was dominated by a half torn face of a woman who could have been his mother, her grimacing visage turned towards him as they fell together to the carpet. For one brief seco
nd in time everything seemed frozen, just stopped. Then, as if someone turned on a light switch, everything started again. Reality seemed to speed up to double that of normal, as if it was in a hurry to make up for the pause. Max, Stewart and the zombie woman went down in a heap. Max caught the butt end of the bat in his groin and was certain his entire body balanced upon that point for a good part of eternity, before he teetered over. Stewart managed to pull her legs out and to one side before Max landed hard on top of the zombie woman.

  'Funny' Max thought, 'Normally I would be moaning on the ground clutching at my racked balls crying like a baby, but here I am still in the fight despite the pain.' Which was immediately followed by, 'Stop thinking and kill this bitch!'

  It was par for the course that he lost hold of the bat in his fall, but his arms and legs still seemed to work okay, 'The head, the head, gotta control this bitch's head! With the bitey parts!' he thought. He would be damned if he would have his wife hear of how he was eaten by some zombie grandma. Max pinned the zombie down and started screaming incoherently, not sure of how to hold her down and hold her head in place at the same time.

  "Duck!" He heard, then WHAM!, he got hit right on the shoulder.

  "Steve you asshole! Stop hitting me!" Max screamed.

  "Get off the bitch you stupid shit! Move your fucking ass off of her! Duck! Duck!"

  Max rolled off of the zombie barely in time and Steve's driver hit the woman's wrist. It broke with a loud crunching sound. This freed up his hand and Max moved it to try and control the woman's head. This was a mistake, as he soon learned; the woman started punching him in the chest with her broken wrist and it hurt. She was forcing him underneath her and Max heard Steve yelling, "Yeah, yeah line her up for me buddy!", so he continued the roll and let the woman on top of him. Two gun shots went off, but the zombie on Max was not hit, a second later, Steve's club stove in the side of the zombie's head, sticking there, like a nail in a piece of wood. The zombie twitched once, then twice, then started moving again.

  Steve yelled, "Die bitch, Die! Fucking die! Die! Die!" and pulled his club back, the zombie, stuck as it was on the end of his club went with his pull and this freed Max to get to his hands and knees and look around for his bat. By the time he recovered his feet, bat in hand, Steve and Tom had battered the old woman zombie into the next life, again. Max looked for Stewart and did not see her anywhere, he moved down the hallway into Kirkpatrick's office area and spotted Stewart behind the secretary's desk, ass end out, she was talking to someone under the desk. Kirkpatrick lay nearby, he had taken a gunshot to the head.

  "C'mon, lady, it's okay now, I put him down, we are all normal out here. It will be alright, come out of there."

  Slowly Stewart and the young secretary came out from under the desk and stood up, Stewart did not stop moving until they stood next to the office door with the desk between them and the body, motioning for Max to stand in between them and the corpse's feet. Max moved over as Steve and Tom came down the hallway.

  "Shit you didn't have to leave us there! What the hell was that all about? Team work people, no 'I' and all that?" said Steve.

  "You had it under control, three on one? Three men in the prime of their lives versus one old lady? I think she," Stewart motioned with her eyes towards the secretary, "needed more help to deal with her problem. What's your name miss?"

  "Amelia, my name is Amelia, officer. Thank you, thank you! I don't know what happened to him, he was so nice before, he never did anything like that. I mean he was hurt and had blood on his arm, I don't know what he was doing!"

  "He was a zombie Amelia, old man 'Patrick joined the living dead and was gonna get himself a bite of his secretary for breakfast."

  "Steve!" said Max and Stewart together, Max continued, "That ain't helping!"

  Stewart asked if anyone was in Kirkpatrick's office, Amelia nodded her head no and they all went inside. One of the benefits of having an executive's office was a lock on the door, Max twisted it as soon as Tom had made his way in. Stewart sat Amelia in one of the guest chairs and went over and got a cup of water for her from the sink.

  "Drink this, take a breath and try not to think too hard, we have to explain what is going on and it is a lot to swallow."

  Amelia nodded and Stewart began with the start of her day and how she had ended up at MAC co rescuing Max. She went on to summarize what she thought was going on, people were turning into zombies, like in a B horror flick and were trying to eat anyone alive that they caught, which brought them to Kirkpatrick's office.

  "We want you to use the PA on the phones to call everyone here, so maybe we can rescue more people, then come up with a plan on what we want to do."

  Amelia let out a bitter laugh, "Use the PA? That is why you came up here? You could have used it from any phone in the building."

  Max and Steve looked a bit sheepish and shrugging his good shoulder Tom said, "We don't know how. Who would any of us ever page?"

  Amelia looked at him for a second, then nodded and went over to the office phone and picked it up. "What do you want me to say?"

  "How about: 'If you are still alive come to Kirkpatrick's office.'?" suggested Max.

  "Good enough." Amelia pressed a couple buttons on the phone and said, "Attention all MAC Co. personnel, this is a state of emergency, we are all gathering at Kirkpatrick's office. Please stop whatever you are doing and come to Kirkpatrick's office on the second floor immediately. His extension is forty three forty two if you need to call. Repeat gather at Kirkpatrick's office right now on the second floor. A-One." Amelia hung up the phone.

  "A-One? What was that for? Steak?" asked Steve, edging out Max by maybe half a second.

  "It is the security code for an emergency. You didn't know? Didn't you go to training? The codes are there to let everyone know if it is an emergency or not. You really don't remember hearing them? Oh, by the way, I wouldn't sit in that chair, that's where Kirkpatrick was when I found him."

  Steve jumped out of the chair as if it were on fire and then tried to regain his composure by saying, "So now what? Sit and wait? Should one of us go make coffee?"

  Stewart looked him in the eye and said, "Why thanks Steve, what a good idea! Why don't you bring the whole pot in when it is done? Move the old man's body into another office while you are at it too, would you?"

  "Say I wasn't of.. Sure, sure thing. Any helpers? Max?"

  "Fine, no problem, we are keeping this door open though, okay?"

  While Max and Steve made coffee people started to trickle to Kirkpatrick's office and office area. They made more coffee while they listened to the survivor's stories and gathered intelligence on where the last zombies were seen, putting them up on Kirkpatrick's white board. After thirty minutes the office was downright crowded with seventeen people, there were various ages and both genders were represented. Steve had started to classify them as they came in, some were hiders, some were defenders, some where offenders. These categories had been worked out by Steve as he started hearing similarities in the stories, all of the people had one thing in common: they were survivors. When Max pointed this out, Steve said, "Duh, Sherlock. What next great obvious fact will you point out? I think we fall into the 'defender' category, we did not hide out, did not go looking for zombies to kill, we just dealt with the hand God tossed us, eh?"

  "Uh, why is it important?"

  "I dunno, just an observation of my own, I always liked to think I would not cower and hide if the shit ever hit the fan, you know Max? Turns out I did okay when push came to shove. I mean I killed a lady to save your ass. Killed her dead man. You owe me."

  "You killed a zombie, not a lady, lets not start making them human. Yeah you did okay Steve, better than I did. I am not sure why I sucked so bad at bashing her head in. In fact I am like, zero for three man, backed out on Nancy, got saved in the men's room and you had to drag that last one off of me. Fuck." Guilt once again washed over him as he thought about how easily he had been convinced to stay and not try for his wi
fe and kids. Maybe he was a hider?

  "Ah, maybe you are a 'hider' at heart, just trying to follow my example so you don't lose face?"Steve said casually.

  "Jah, fuck you too, loser. I did not exactly run away when I saw the old bitch jumping for Stewart, did I? So you can take your 'hider' classifi.."

  "Sorry to intrude," officer Stewart interrupted, who didn't sound sorry at all, "You mentioned my name girls? Bring that fresh pot of coffee along and come into the office. I don't think any more people are going to come up here now."

  With a little grumbling Max and Steve followed Stewart into the office. Stewart glanced at Kirkpatrick's chair and then opted to sit on his desk, facing the small crowd. She asked if anyone could think of a plan of action, a dozen voices spoke up, most involving stuff like, "I need to go and get my wife or husband or kids, then we can go...somewhere."

  "Hold on, hold on there, we first have to decide if that is at all feasible? Are we going to work as a team? Go around to each person's house or school or other job site and find everyone we care about? Who doesn't have family or friends to go check on? Anyone?"

  Only Tom raised his hand, "Uh, I just have roommates, my folks live in North Platte."

  Steve mumbled softly, "No shit?"

  Max elbowed him to keep quiet, then said, "Why didn't you raise your hand? You're divorced, eh?"

  Steve glared at Max, "So, divorce means my parents live in North Platte too? C'mon I got a sister, nieces and a nephew in town too.

  "Okay, okay, just I never hear you talk about em and the only pictures you have on your desk are of your current lay and sports heroes. Lighten up Steve."

  "Listen up ladies, gentlemen." Here Stewart looked at Max and Steve, "If we can be quiet for a minute and toss out ideas one at a time it might be more productive. Max?"