Necropolis: Part Two: Zombie Outbreak Noir

By Max Kielsmeier

A zombie outbreak has taken down a major city, but the quarantine has been successful. Still, there are those that might not call it a success; for example, those living within the city...
Here's the epic that will line your stomach with steel. Dare to enter Necropolis-- the dystopian adventure of the 21st century. Guns, zombies and the human psyche collide like never before in this thriller.

• Language: English
• Publisher: Max Kielsmeier
• Release date: Jan 25, 2015
• ISBN: 9781310521690

Max Kielsmeier

Max Kielsmeier attended film school in Denver, Colorado and then spent years brushing shoulders with both the famous and the hoi polloi in Los Angeles as a screenwriter. With dream film projects being difficult to realize in Hollywood, he returned home to Colorado and has been turning screenplays into novels for years. Spurred on by a lifelong fixation with mythology, folklore and the Hero's Journey, he's the most satisfied when he's completed a new story. These days, he's perfectly happy penning novels and has sent screenwriting back into the wild.

Book preview

Necropolis

Zombie Outbreak Noir

By

Max Kielsmeier

Cave Grown Publications, LLC

Copyright © 2014, 2015, 2017

Max Kielsmeier

All Rights Reserved

ISBN 9781310521690

Cover Illustration

by

Charlie Bowater

Necropolis:

Part Two

——

A Zombie

Noir Saga

Table of Contents: Necropolis Part Two

Fifteen — ...Of War

Sixteen — Haunt

Seventeen — Smoking Ruins

Eighteen — Taking it to the Streets. Or not

Nineteen — Sometimes You Win, Sometimes You Get Screwed by a Dead White Man

Twenty — Tradition is Passé for the Survivor on the Go

Twenty-One — Beyond the Archway

Twenty-Two — The Returned

Twenty-Three — Of Hindsight and Foresight

Twenty-Four — Hot Zone

Twenty-Five — Plans Within Plans

Twenty-Six — Suburban Warfare

Twenty-Seven — Dogs of War

Twenty-Eight — The Twilight Zone

Fifteen — ...Of War

The promise of a new day in the form of ghostly light lay on surfaces throughout the factory. If the witching hour had recently wisped through the corridors, then this was the passed-out-drunk-hour, or several.

Just about all of the men who lived under the draconian order established by Derrick had gotten boozed-up the evening before. It had been Christmas Day in the quarantined city.

Bloody battles had been fought, people had lost friends and loved ones, new acquisitions had been made. Jadyn was considered to be an acquisition herself as she lay on the floor of her prison cell.

And then there was Travis, he was there. Travis was a grunt in the pecking order of Derrick's gang. Though that didn't mean his sights weren't set higher. He was capable of evil, as all of the men in the gang were, but his taste for the grandiose was rivaled only by Derrick himself. Travis thought, why not him as the one who made the decisions about the rations and raiding excursions, the one in charge of the doling out of certain human property, the one whose jokes people laughed at because it was expected.

So he had lain low all night, nursing a small bottle of scotch, never quite getting drunk, and determined to outlast everyone around him. Caffeinated drinks had helped him endure through the evening while men and women around him drifted off to pillows and sleeping bags.

It was known by all that Derrick had had Jadyn in mind for himself. Travis then would not risk an all out dogfight over her, but he thought that while everyone else was passed out, he may as well have her to himself if he pleased. After all, wasn't that what this new marauding lifestyle was about? In Travis's opinion, yes. Why join an outfit that encouraged banditry if he couldn't enjoy the perks? Instead, the only crazy idea was that Derrick ever thought he could be untouchable as the top benefactor of some Rape and Pillage, Inc.

As Jadyn was being held for Derrick, she was kept separate from everyone else. Derrick didn't want to force her. He was more interested in trying to win her. He sensed leadership qualities in her. Therefore, she would of course look right at his side. All this had occurred to him, and to others.

So just before dawn, Travis made his move.

It isn't that hard to believe the would-be usurper imagined himself as the next leader as he skulked toward Jadyn's makeshift prison cell. He would first domineer her and then cajole her into allying with him against Derrick. This was, in any case, how it went in his head. He'd work out the details along the way, he supposed.

Jadyn lay still on the cool of her cell's floor, but no longer shivering. Her thoughts had gone deep into strange territory throughout the night, but something at last broke her reverie.

When she saw two shadows appear at the crack under her door at this hour, then heard a bolt sliding with a cautious slowness out of its housing, she knew what to expect.

She could feel the psychic presence of the moment better than he did. Travis peered through the dark, held up a yellow, battery-powered lantern and saw the boot for milliseconds as his light was kicked out of his hand. While still reeling from the pain in his broken fingers, a second blow came, this time into his diaphragm. He barely even registered the pain before he was unconscious. A pistol fell from his left hand and clattered benignly on the floor, a Ruger SR9, Jadyn noticed with fondness, and laser sighted.

She picked up the light and the gun, peering up and down the halls to see if he'd had any accomplices. She saw no one.

Her friends would be somewhere around the area, she hadn't seen exactly which rooms. They weren't locked away by any normal means as nobody had the keys to an abandoned factory recently repossessed by bandits. She found that chains running across closed metal doors were how her friends had been locked away.

She felt a flush of anxiety. She didn't need a key, but she did have some work ahead of her. Unchaining these doors looked like loud business even with all the bastards passed out somewhere.

She crept up to the first of three rooms. She had only two friends locked away, so one of these doors would contain a surprise prisoner. She began to unwrap the chains which were run through the door handles and configured to hooks framing the doors. Recent additions, apparently.

Yes, Derrick and his men were some ingenuitive sons-of-bitches. Handy around the house, or fort and in the garage too, it seemed.

That's when it occurred to Jadyn that they would want to steal one of Derrick's death cars on the escape.

In the dim light, she couldn't get a good look at how the chains were entangled, so the unwrapping was going poorly. She looked behind her to see that her unintentional liberator was still asleep. She didn't strangle him, but the thought crossed her mind.

She looked back to the chains; a major irritation, but she continued looking for the way to untangle them. Sleep deprivation muddled her ability to think.

She had to do this. Her friends were all she had here, but they might also come in handy. This might turn into a battle.

At least she'd hear the idiots who'd captured her stumbling about if they headed in her direction due to the fact that they were all shit-faced.

Deep breath. This was going to happen. She closed her eyes for a second and let her mind go calm. I am going to do this.

Huhnnnn... came a low moan from behind her.

It felt like her heart leapt into her mouth and she had a brief mental image of the frothing mouth of a rabid dog. Then she calmed.

She thought a zombie had come from behind her for a second, but it was the guy who had unintentionally liberated her— slowly coming around. This irritated her and she found herself compelled to approach the semi-conscious man and boot him in the head to put him back to sleep.

She did so, and with that being done, a bit more light seemed all at once to come creeping through the windows.

Jadyn got back to the business at hand. By Christ the chain was getting on her nerves, but the light would help.

She let her eyes focus. Now a faint glimmer was coming off of them.

She set down the lantern on nearby floor. She nestled it so that it aimed at the knot and screwed her mind back into the moment. Then she cracked her knuckles and began