Letter from the Narrator

Don’t forget Flake City

Chapter One

Chapter Two

Chapter Three

Chapter Four

Chapter Five

Chapter Six

 Chapter Seven 

Moria sipped on some cocoa she made and eyed the area outside, utilizing whatever pools of light were left after the first two days of a zombie breakout. The reports from the lab were not as helpful as she had been hoping, other than some basic information. Moria had noticed that a fair amount of information had been redacted, and plenty more omitted completely, based on the information she had. There were many mentions of accompanying notes, audio files, and photos, which Moria did not have. 

            The virus origin, or possible origins, for example, was very much discussed, but not in the notes Moria had. Moria had searched but hadn’t found anything, so she sent a message to Mark. Mark had promised to look into it, but swore he had sent her everything he had. 

            Taking Mark at his word had been hard for Moria, but the few people inside of Flake City who had been in communication with each other, minus the campus radio DJ who was communicating only within the city and refused to trust anyone outside, all agreed to trust Mark for the time being. Moria considered how much trust would play into the next few weeks, as she checked her door, yet again, to ensure it was secure. 

            Moria finished checking her door, looking out the window to ensure the doors to the stairwells stayed closed. Moria had been hoping to go out and gather any other food or water supplies for her little safe room, as well as anything that would help secure her office, from any zombies that may try and gain access as they got hungrier, so she had been keeping a vigilant eye on the hallway. Moria had a few windows in her office, which were her main concerns for the activity outside. The design of the building had allowed for some unique window shapes, however, so Moria was trying to hold onto hope. 

Two thin floor to ceiling windows ran on either side of her outer wall. These slender windows were too thin for any sized body, as they were barely enough to look out of, so Moria had taken to sitting in front of these windows to keep an eye on outside. Moria had hung tarp and blankets up, to keep any light from being seen, which she thought was wise, but now she worried that people may try and break in to steal supplies, as things got more desperate. Moria knew Chloe had friends making supply runs, what if other survivors tried stealing supplies from people? 

Moria took solace, for the first time, in the knowledge that the building was crawling with zombies, which would deter most people from raiding the building. Sure, there were medicines and such downstairs, but Moria’s floor was only offices, there would be little reason to raid this area for supplies, the hospital was, arguably, ground zero, and therefore a hotbed of activity. Moria kept her lights off, seeing instead by the glow of her laptop, her work computer, and two small desk lamps, depending on what she was doing. 

            Moria was making a list of supplies she could use, that may be on the floor, and make a list of offices that would be best to hit. Moria knew there were several doctors, as well as administrative professionals who had offices up there, so Moria was trying to sort out whose offices would have the best supplies. 

         “Blankets, pillows…” Moria wrote down, thinking out loud. “Soap, towels…Scrubs!” Moria thought about her increasingly questionable hygiene, and hoped to find an extra change of clothing too, but would be fine with some scrubs. Moria had an extra change of scrubs, and some blankets with a pillow, in her office already, but she was going into day three, and really needed a change of clothing. 

            Moria finally began to muster up the courage to think about raiding for supplies, when Chloe texted her in response to all the zombies moving inside. 

            “Are they moving because they know a storm is coming? I was hoping they would freeze.” Chloe asked, wondering if the science behind the bodies freezing would apply. 

            Moria considered this. “They seem to retain some information and knowledge from their living life, what if they have the ability to know to stay inside, or to at least preserve themselves…That means any warm buildings will become hot beds for zombie activity.”

            Moria eyed the plaza, and while she did see some zombies outside, most of the bodies she had seen earlier had moved inside, more so when the snowflakes began to fall. It hadn’t taken long for a zombie to figure out the elevator, and while Moria did have things stacked against the stair well doors, who knew if it would be enough to stop several zombies at once. 

            Moria also knew that if she moved quickly, and quietly, she could maybe move some furniture from offices, and reinforce the security of the floor, as well as her own office.

            Emptying her large purse, and searching for more weapons, before adding to her list. “Check Dr. West’s office…He’s from Texas.” Moria made a note, wondering if Dr. West had been joking all the times he hinted at having snuck a gun into the offices, despite to no gun zone. Moria had always assumed Dr. West was trying to get a rise out of her, a notable non gun owner, but now Moria found herself wondering if it had all been talk. 

            Moria slowly, and quietly, moved her desk from her door, and grabbed her pipe again. Checking the window once more, Moria slowly left the security of her office. Moria made her way to the far left side of the floor, and entered the office closest to the stairwell, formerly occupied by the now zombiefied head nurse.

 Inside the office, Moria was greeted with several decent options for her survival, including a bat. Smiling, Moria remembered the head nurse was quite a sports fan, and while a bat still required much strength, it had a better hand grip then the pipe. Laying the pipe back in the hall way, so any shuffling zombies would trip on it, causing noise, Moria held onto her new weapon, and continued searching. The nurses desk was heavy, and covered in stuff, so Moria moved as quickly as she could while staying quiet, clearing off papers and various files, and lifting the computer and monitor off of the desk. The legs of the desk were padded, so while it didn’t slide as easily as Moria would have liked, the desk also didn’t make tons of noises, alerting zombies below to activity upstairs.  The first stairwell was soon blocked off with the head nurses desk, Moria was careful to leave the drawer side facing her, so she could go through the desk for any supplies later. Moria made off toward the other stairwell, and the office of one of the accounting people, who also had a very heavy desk, this one loaded down with stuff as well. Moria noticed a soda, unopened, on the desk top, and realized things must have went terribly wrong for the accountant, quite quickly, but that they may also have plenty of snacks they also didn’t have time to grab. Moria noticed a carrying bag near a mini fridge and smiled. 

            “Jackpot!” Moria said with relief as she began removing items from the heavy desk. Moria quickly had the desk cleared, and began trying to move it across the floor, out of the office, in front of the stair well. The desk was incredibly heavy, but as Moria pleasantly find out, was actually on wheels. Moria bent over and fidgeted with the locking mechanisms on the wheels, two of which were rusted in place. After some effort, and a few mumbled curse words, Moria was able to get the wheel locks loose and begin trying to quietly wheel the desk out. With a jump, Moria heard some scrapes, from the desk legs on the tile, so she quickly rolled it in front of the stairwell and relocked the locks, careful to keep the desk drawers accessible. 

            Moria’s heart was racing, so without searching for anything, she now quickly pushed a third desk, this one from an office near her own, towards the elevator doors. Moria ran behind the reception station and began to search for supplies while also hunting for any elevator turn off switch. Moria had heard of a way to stop the elevator from stopping on any floor, by switching some switch the main reception (or on the patient floors, the nurses) station, had, in case of lock down. Moria wasn’t having much luck, and her purse was quickly filled with the various supplies she had found in the cabinets and drawers of the station. Moria grabbed pens and notebooks, being low in her own office, ironically, but also found some basic first aid kids, several small stashes of snack bars, candy bars, sodas and a fire extinguisher. Moria carried her haul back to her office and emptied her bag, moving as quietly as she could, keeping her ears open and her eyes out for any zombies that were somehow left upstairs or snuck upstairs. 

            Moria wanted to get into Dr. West’s office, but it had a long string of windows, nearly floor to ceiling, and Moria knew her flashlight, or turning on the lights, would attract too much attention to be worth searching at night. Moria found several more blankets and pillows in a closet by the receptionist area, off of the waiting room area. The administration floors were still set up similarly to the other hospital floors, so this area was used for any guests of people in the office, and when anyone had a long night, but hadn’t invested in a comfy couch for their office, they could catch some sleep. From the closet, Moria also found lavender linen spray, which she grabbed for the sake of her nerves, which jumped at every noise, regardless if she made the noise or not. Moria knew the desks probably wouldn’t hold back against zombies, only blocking off the bottom half of the door ways, so she opted to try and build up the defenses against the three entry points on the floor, opting to kill whatever sleeping zombie may be on the floor, if it meant blocking the many hordes she had seen from accessing her floor. Moria searched for anything that would help seal the doors from entry, finding better supplies, Moria soon realized, would require natural lighting, as that stealth had to be key, so she wanted to secure the doors and return to the relative safety of her office. 

Moria grabbed some phones from the main reception area and a couple of offices, and pulled the wires from the phones. Turning her attention to the stairwell door, Moria used the cord to tie the door shut, anchoring it to a nearby beam. Moria was careful to tie a knot she could remove will relative ease, but also took an axe from the fire closet back with her to her office. Moria wondered how to better protect the elevator doors, which she couldn’t tie off as it had sliding doors. 

“You wouldn’t think it was an issue but look what happened before…” Moria thought. Moria closed the door to her office, happy with her late night collection of supplies, and eager to rest her nerves from the mind bending terror that was being very alone, fairly unarmed, in a building full of zombies, trying to be dead quiet. 

Securing the door to her office once more, Moria checked her office again, being a very cautious person, and then checked the plaza through her window. 

A few zombies were shuffling outside a building across the way, but nothing major had changed other than the snow that had finally started to fall. Moria watched the gentle flakes dance down to the ground for a moment, before turning her attention to making a comfy bed.

Moria first washed herself off with some of the small toiletries she had rummaged from reception, changed into some scrubs, and washed her under garments in her bathroom sink. While her under things dried, Moria washed her tank top and shirt, leaving her bloodstained slacks soaking for washing the next day. Moria hung the clothing up around her bathroom, and returned to her office to tend to her sleeping area.

Moria had a fairly uncomfortable couch in her office, but a few sheets tucked into the couch, topped with a few blankets for extra padding, improved it immensely. Moria saved a few blankets for herself, finding it still pretty cold at the temperature that was recommended to prevent overwork on the system, due to her drafty office. Moria piled up a few pillows to sleep on, but saved several of the scavenged pillows and blankets. Mostly, Moria stashed them in the bathroom, in case her office was breached, and she had to retreat into it, and a few she placed in front of the window so she could sit and watch out either of the slender watching windows. 

            It was in one of these little windows that Moria sat and watched the snow fall down on the plaza, slowly making small piles. There was a storm stalled out in the mountains, and it made Moria wonder how bad the blizzard would be when it hit. It had been stuck in the mountains for a minute, building power, but the news, the only reliable news, in fact, had said that snow would be hitting soon, and it would most likely lock people into their shelters. Moria shuddered, hoping she had in fact safe guarded her floor, and of course her office, and wondering if snow would keep the zombies trapped.

            “If everyone is trapped, and hundreds of zombies are in this building, how hungry will they get, and how hard will they look?” Moria wondered, grateful, for the first time in two days, that the zombies had all recently fed on the flesh of innocent and not so innocent humans like. “They may stay full a day or two, before becoming more interested in food…” Moria turned to her notes, opting to search for any indicators as to how the zombies hunted, if she had any hopes of riding out a blizzard that would likely leave her trapped in the hospital with the zombies. 

            Moria shook her thoughts from her head for a moment and turned her attention back to her office. Overall, it was pretty safe. High up, realistically too high for anyone to really break into via the windows. Moria had, like all the offices had, thick doors with thick bolts, in case of lock downs, and all the glass had wire mesh running through it. Moria had joked before that the thick walls and doors, the secure locks and windows, all made the place feel like a prison, and now it was more true than ever.

            Moria was more grateful for the security, than worried about being locked in, for the time being anyways. Moria was scared about a couple of days from now, when zombies were hungrier and the snow blocked their exit of the building. Moria knew that she needed to keep quiet, noise being an important part of how they hunted, or so the reports had read, so Moria took a few of the reports and laid down on her comfortable makeshift bed.

            “So, do you think the blizzard will be bad?” Moria asked Chloe.

            The response took a minute, in which Moria read a dictated recount from an audio file of someone hiding from the zombies. Moria made notes in the margins, wondering where the audio file itself was, to maybe listen in on the “Unintelligible” parts or, better yet, the [redacted] parts, but continued reading until Chloe texted her back. 

            “Sorry for the delay- we have another survivor here! Yeah, Charlie thinks the storm will be really bad, and we are right by the mountains, its already snowing pretty hard here,” came Chloe’s response.

            “They came back!” Moria cheered. “So that makes our total survivor count up to a firm five.” Moria quipped before asking if they had noticed anything that the zombies hunt by. Moria was, of course, omitting her friend Krista and Krista’s dog, Jasper, hidden away in the mountains, arguably closer to Chloe than Moria was. Moria had promised Krista she wouldn’t reveal her location to keep her safe. 

            Chloe explained that the guys hadn’t decompressed fully before all opting for sleep, being quite tired.

            “I get it, the two old men, they are old, and storms bother them, long trip, but stay up and tell me stuff!” Chloe texted. “Damian’s still in the bathroom, I’ll let you know if he tells me anything, or I will ask them tomorrow. Why?”

            Moria explained her fear of being locked in the hospital with the zombies, and Chloe felt a pang of pity for her new friend.

            “I will think on it, and I will demand full reports from the guys first thing when they wake up. Maybe we can work with Mark to make it a report, in case anyone else is like you, on other floors or in other buildings.” Chloe replied, terrified for Moria.

            Moria considered this, wondering if anyone could be,alive. There hasIt was silent, still, but it was also late. “Maybe. We need Mark to start finding out if we have survivors. But I guess we shouldn’t give locations, for risk of safety.” Moria added this, thinking of Krista, smartly concealed, and worried for the radio DJ Sam, broadcasting and secure in a very easy to find spot, and all the survivors she knew of who she was smartly protecting by not revealing their locations. Moria had been thinking more and more about safety with each passing moment, and part of that included safety from other humans. 

            “True” Came Chloe’s response, as she had seen already how real the threat was from fellow humans. “But if you stay silent and alive from zombies, I bet the evil humans can’t find you, much less even get to you, through the wall of hungry zombies.” 

            Moria thanked Chloe and wished her a good night, before tucking into her own makeshift bed. It was pretty comfortable, and, as it turned out, one of the safest spots in all of the city. Moria wasn’t tired, yet she soon fell into a light sleep, listening for any sounds of any approaching zombies. The night passed without event, however, for Moria. 

Not everyone in Flake City had a peaceful night, and not everyone left alive in Flake City was safe. The five survivors in contact with Mark, were not in fact the only survivors in the city, but in fact, quite a few small groups or even individual people, had managed to survive the first two days of the zombie rise in Flake City. Nearly a thousand or so people, at least, were still alive, and truth be told, the numbers could even be higher than that, if you accounted for people who simply never TV or Radio for news, or were too paranoid to reveal that they were even alive. Flake City was, as Martin has presumed, very special, and for many reasons, it was of interest to F Class, but what made it special wasn’t just the mountains and mysterious town, but the people in it. Many had fallen, but over a thousand were alive and many were well. 

The next few days however would change all of that, for everyone. 

            Chloe slept fitfully, the idea of how unsafe Moria was had gotten into her own head. Chloe was safe, Chloe was, as only a narrator or writer could know, in one of the safest places in the entire city, minus the mountains, and the survivors hunkered down there. Chloe knew they had control of the building, and while the bottom floor or two were covered in zombies, and plenty of random zombies were on other floors that had never left their apartment or floor, but the elevator was not working and the stairwells had been locked and blocked off. They had back up power they could access, they had tons of food, a fire place just in case, access to outside that was still protected, and, they also had weaponry. Not just a baseball bat or a pipe, but guns, a myriad of guns, as well as melee weapons like machete, ax, etc. 

Chloe had spent much of her previous day cooking and storing food, because they had so many supplies of good quality food. The bulk of zombies were many floors from the apartment they were in, and even with the addition of another mouth would not take away from their supplies, and wouldn’t spell certain doom for them if they were snowed in for weeks. The building was secure enough for them to be able to defend against the couple hundred zombies that were in the building. Moria was by herself, with three entrance points on her floor alone, for zombies. 

            Chloe tossed and turned, trying to think of how to barricade the doors she had seen in the videos and pictures Moria had sent her via text. The biggest obstacle she saw was the elevator door, which by design was hardest to barricade. Chloe knew that Moria had to be as quiet as possible, so using an ax to destroy some desks to re-purpose the wood for barricades wouldn’t be wise, the noise would draw the very zombies they were trying to defend against. 

            Chloe didn’t want to text Moria, on the chance that she was actually getting some sleep in her make shift safety shelter, but at the same time, did not foresee herself getting any sleep, more so after drifting off, just to have a terrifying nightmare of zombies breaking down barricade doors. Chloe opted to get back up after a few hours, and grabbed her laptop from the living room. Chloe eyed her sleeping companions, and grabbed a soda from the fridge for caffeine, in lieu of making too much noise by making tea or coffee. 

            Back in her room, Chloe opened up a video streaming site, and began searching for information about zombies. Moria had mentioned not wanting to watch zombie movies for tips, because “I am already living one, I don’t need cheap jump scares.” So Chloe opted to search for clues for her, not having as much of a problem watching the fictionalized similarities of their current realities. Chloe took notes in her notebook she had begun keeping with zombie ideas, to make a list of tips for everyone to follow. 

            “At this rate, I will have Mark’s next report written for him.” Chloe joked with herself as she drank some of her soda. Chloe considered sending Mark a text informing him of such, but opted to let him sleep, and see what she discovered before getting him excited about potential help.

            Thankfully for Chloe and the rest of the Flake City survivors, the internet was full of information from supposed zombie experts, not to mention the many movies and books that had been created. Chloe took all of the information and compared it against what she was seeing from the popular movies, books, or theories, and began trying to see what mattered to them. 

            Chloe was deep into season two of a reasonably well done and popular series on YouTube about zombies, when the guys began to wake up. Chev woke up with coughs, Charlie with a groan, and Damian with an eye roll for the old man sounds that woke him up. Damian groggily crossed into Chloe’s kitchen and found a small post it note on the coffee pot explaining it was set up and all he had to do was press “on”, so Damian did that, and eyed the outside. He didn’t notice any falling snow at the moment, which confused Damian, who fully expected to see a wall of snow falling down on the city. 

            Damian smelled the coffee brewing, and his stomach growled. Damian was surprised at his stomachs reaction, normally not being a big coffee drinker, or a morning breakfast eater, but with the past two days events, the schedule was pretty wrecked, so he began to roll a joint for him and Chloe to smoke. He peaked down the hallway and saw Chloe on her bed watching something on her laptop, so he waved. Chloe looked up and smiled, and began getting up off her bed. 

“All it took was a zombie outbreak, and now you get to spend the night and see her all the time.” Damian told himself. 

            Chloe was dressed in PJ’s still, with a blanket wrapped around her shoulders. Carrying her notebook and laptop, Chloe came into the main living area while Chev went to the restroom. “Better beat Charlie in there….” He said with a childish grin that reminded Chloe why she preferred to live alone. 

            Damian rolled his eyes again, never a fan of literal toilet humor, but removed coffee mugs for everyone, and got sugar and milk out, while asking Chloe what she had been doing all night. 

            “Well, Moria pointed out to me that with the storm, these zombies may move inside, and also will not have access to food, so they may get hungry, which means if you are alone and trapped several floors up in the hospital district, you want to make sure you have everything protected…So I stayed up watching zombie videos on YouTube to try and get information.”

            “I always thought making zombie stuff was weird for these content creators, but what do I know, I sell weed and work a job I hate to make a living.”

            “I think the weed selling serves a vital lifesaving service, but okay.” Chloe said with a smile as Damian lit his joint. Chloe cracked the balcony door, using a case of water to hold the door from swinging too far open, and looked outside. Snow covered the ground, beautiful fresh blanket of snow, but the snow had surprisingly stopped for the moment. 

            “Looks like it stalled out for a minute.” Charlie said as he made his way to the kitchen area. 

            “That’s not a good thing, if it picks up much more power in the mountains…” Damian’s voice trailed off.

            “We have supplies.” Charlie said grimly. “But we may want to prepare for a long stay indoors, while we can….” 

            Damian nodded, wondering what Charlie had in mind. 

            “You said you spent the night researching barricades and such for Moria, right?” Charlie asked of Chloe, eying her notebook. 

            “Yeah, trying to think of very quiet ways someone could barricade doors, alone. She can’t really lift big furniture alone on top of other things for barricades.”

            Charlie nodded, knowing they didn’t have this problem with their little group of people, but looked over her notes. “I think it would be wise for us to clear our floor. All the apartments, get them cleared and locked down, and barricade the stairwells below and above us, and the elevator, just really make sure no zombies get up here, or worse.”

            “What is worse than hungry zombies?” As Chloe.

            “Hungry Humans” replied both Charlie and Damian, in unison. Chloe shuddered, remembering the evening before, when she had been alone, and shook these thoughts from her head. Charlie and Damian did the same, recalling their own run ins with humans. 

            “Okay, so we need to barricade up the floor, keep us safe. Couldn’t hurt to get some more space, too, in another apartment.” Charlie explained. “Chev and I could stay next door, Damian you can stay with Chloe to make sure she stays safe, at least one fighter per apartment, and we will use some walkie talkies, in case the phones go down.”

            “Once the floor is locked down, we can use that space and move between apartments, too, right? “Asked Chloe. 

            “I would still exercise caution, but yeah.” Charlie said carefully. “We can’t get comfortable. If any apartment door is open, everyone needs to have weapons ready. Some of these zombies seem smarter than others, don’t they?”

            Chloe nodded, mentioning that Moria had observed the zombies seemed to have the skills they had in life, including speed and the ability to think out problems. 

            “We need her to get as much research done as she can.” Damian said as he poured coffee into each of the coffee mugs, and Chev left the bathroom to join them in the kitchen. 

            “She needs to secure herself first, or else the only trained medical personnel we know to be alive in the city, won’t be.” Chloe said calmly, scrolling through another video. 

            Damian looked to Chloe, realizing what she was saying. “We don’t know who lived, but she may be the only person who studied viral outbreaks and medicine.”

            “And she works in the morgue, so she can help with some of the zombie stuff, saw things when they were happening, and she has all the medical files they would let us have for the moment.” Chloe replied.

            “What do you mean, for the moment?” Chev asked, accepting the cup of coffee that was offered to him by Damian. 

            “Well, it seems that information is a bit…redacted, to say the least. Mark told Moria he had sent her everything he had, and she is inclined to believe him…”

            “Sure, of course.” Charlie said. 

            “You trust Mark?” Chloe asked

            “Well, trust is a big word, Chloe.” Charlie said worth a smile. “But, the government lies to the media all the time. And we know they just let Mark into “the know”, as it were, right?”

            Damian nodded. “Yeah, I actually found his conspiracy site last night, he is obsessed with some government program called F class, which handles-“

            “Magic!” Chev said standing. “Mark is obsessed with F class no wonder they sent him redacted files!” Chev said with a wicked smile. 

            “Makes sense.” Charlie said. “Remember that contract they tried to make the mountain folk sign?”

            Chev laughed, remembering a day, a long time ago, years before Chloe even arrived in Flake City, when some people in suits tried to get the mountain people to sign away their rights to “anything pertaining to magic.” 

            “That isn’t a real story though, is it?” Chloe laughed. 

            “Real as the heart attack I had last year.” Charlie said 

            Chloe considered this for a minute before cocking her head. “But, you uh…Didn’t have a heart attack, as I recall? The machines at the hospital thought you were having one, but you were talking to us all plain as day, so you were obviously not having one?” Chloe smiled.

            Chev and Charlie now laughed loudly. “They were serious” Chev said, wiping away a tear of laughter from his weathered face. “As was Charlie’s heart attack, but he was fine, just like we will be. This is all a part of what is to come.” 

            Chloe considered everything that was just said to her and opted to ignore all of it for a cup of coffee. “So, Damian, you were saying before Chev and Charlie got the giggles?” 

            “I found his site. He has been begging for F class access. He put his site on read only mode two days ago, as he was put on assignment, and then he shows up here. All that tells me is they just let him into the “club” that is F Class, he may not have all the privileges that we need him to have to get all the information.

            “We need someone who knows everything, and we need them to talk to Chloe.” Charlie said. Chloe blushed, deeply. Charlie had hinted before that he knew the special “power” that Chloe possessed, but she never thought that Charlie would just freely talk about it out loud in front of people. “There is no shame in it, Chloe, we need to use that skill of yours to get Moria information.” Charlie said.

            Chloe nodded. “But we need someone who knows…everything…” Chloe said slowly, a plan dawning on her. “I know who, I just need to figure out how…”

            Chloe called the phone that Mark had been using, and let it ring until Mark answered.

“Chloe?” He answered into the phone.

            “Yes. We need the other information, the stuff they didn’t get you. We can’t risk Moria’s life, she’s our only known doctor, and she’s at risk. Information will help. Plus we need to use her science mind before anything happens, arm her while she can observe them.”

            “I know, but I can’t access it, I don’t have a way to access it.”

            “But I know a way to. I just need you to cooperate.”

            “You are going to do something morally ambiguous, aren’t you?” Mark said, Chloe was certain she could hear a grin in his voice.

            “Technically, some would call it that.” Chloe wondered if he was able to guess accurately because he could not lie to her, and wondered if that was a passive effect of her weird little skill of only getting truth from people. 

            “What do you need?” Mark asked.

            “I need to talk to your little friend, the one I talked to yesterday, Martin.”

            “Martin?” Asked Mark curiously.

            “Yes. Martin.” Chloe said calmly, flicking her pen around her thumb while she waited. 

            “Can I give you a call back? He isn’t even awake yet.” 

            Chloe pursed her lips, irritated by the delay, but finally said with cheerfulness, “sure, sounds great!” Before bidding Mark goodbye and hanging up her phone. Chloe’s brow furrowed deeply as she read through another article for office security, this one addressing how to shut down the elevator. 

            “Any luck?” Asked Charlie curiously. 

            “None yet.” Chloe sighed. “He wasn’t up. Hopefully Mark doesn’t ruin it. This article also isn’t great.”

            “About what?” Charlie asked slipping on his jacket and fishing for his cigarettes. 

            “About surviving a zombie apocalypse in an office building.” Chloe said grumpily slamming her laptop down and putting on a jacket to join Charlie outside for his cigarette. 

            “People probably don’t generally think they would try and ride it out, think they would be able to leave?”

            “Exactly.” Chloe said with irritation, once they got out onto the patio. “All of these articles assume they will be able to get out of their building, not realizing that some people don’t get that option. Moria didn’t, hell she was lucky to even get to a safe part of the building, apparently.”

            Charlie sipped his coffee and smoked his cigarette, letting the smooth taste of the tobacco dance on his tongue with his morning coffee. “You work on getting Moria safe. We will get this top floor safe. Maybe we can talk about a rescue mission after the storm winds down and stuff starts melting.”

            Chloe thought about this, and wondered how long Moria would have to hold up before they, or anyone, could get her somewhere else. “Yeah, we can talk about it.” Chloe thought, as she returned to her worrying, Chloe opted to text Moria and see if she was awake. 

The day had begun, in Flake City.

Thank you so much for reading, be sure you have notifications turned on for my blog… the next chapter is a doozie and just may come as a surprise drop this evening.

Happy October, Ladies and Gentlemen!

Thanks for reading!

❤

Abbi

Chapter Eight