Undead Era

-41-

It had been 3 months since D-Day, and a lot had changed in Seattle. A wall had been put up around the city, and around 200,000 humans had left in fear. "Hey, Jess, I'm off to hunt down Chase. You coming?" Blaine called, and I looked up from the bar.
"Sure, let me grab my jacket." He nodded and I moved into the office to grab the black leather. We went upstairs and began the walk towards the wall, where Chase patrolled at the start of most weeks. The deal he currently had with us, is we feed him information from the streets, and he'd let us stay open for another week. "How are you feeling this morning?" Blaine asked, taking my hand as we walked. Over the past couple weeks I'd been feeling frequently nauseous, and suffering with fatigue and headaches. As a zombie, this shouldn't happen. Zombies don't get sick. "Same as yesterday, minus the fatigue." I informed, as we turned another corner, the wall coming into view in the distance.
"There he is, come on." Blaine sped up, obviously having spotted Chase on his walk and not wanting to miss him. I had to admit, as annoying as this was, it was amusing to watch Blaine run around after somebody else for a change.

"Blaine. Jess." Was all we got from Chase to start talking as we reached him, he didn't even look over at us.
"Let's see what we've got for you this time. Two of your officers enjoy playing high-stakes poker. Croslin and Carney are their names. And they are in deep to a bookie they call 'The Barber'." Blaine began, getting cut off by Chase's orders.
"Sinclair! Look alive. What else?" He turned the corner and Blaine rolled his eyes, as we followed.
"Well, word is that watered down brain tubes are being sold for 40 bucks a pop in the back alleys of Seattle. You've got a leak in your food chain, someone's getting rich." I continued.
"Commander! It's here." At the shout Chase looked over, instantly changing our direction.
"What else?"
"All right, here's a riddle for you. I own a cemetery. One of my backhoes goes down, and I'm finding it very hard to rent digging equipment. Why do you think that is? Where might one want to dig to?"

As Blaine proposed the question, Chase stopped and turned to face us. "All right, you can stay open another week." He gave in.
"Look, it's not like I don't enjoy our strolls. You've really started opening up to us. But having to bring you these little nuggets of information like we're your stool pigeons, isn't exactly our style." Blaine informed.
"I could just close down your businesses." Chases reminded, only earning a scoff in return as we followed him again, "All right, well, This will have to remain our arrangement."
"Hey, man, do you even use the information that we...what the cuss?" We froze as we turned the corner, stood before us was an anvil being raised above a melon. "Is that a guillotine?" Blaine asked, looking at Chase with pure confusion.
"Of sorts. It's a guillotine for zombies." He replied.
"But why? We're zombies." Blaine took my hand in his, holding it tight and moving closer, protectively.
"Zero tolerance. That's our message." And with a swift gesture from Chase, the anvil dropped, bursting the melon into oblivion. "Message received." Blaine swallowed.

Suddenly, I felt a wave a nausea rush over me, and I looked around for a toilet. I found one, rushing over and mentally sighing as up came the rest this morning's brains. "Jess! Babe, you alright?" I sighed as Blaine ran over covering the doorway so I wasn't exposed to the public eye. I stood up, accepting the handkerchief he held out and wiping my mouth. "That's the second time today." He reminded, wrapping an arm around my waist.
"I'll be fine, I'll just have to get something else to eat." I said, forcing a smile at him.
"Here. Brain tube, don't want starving zombies on the streets." I jumped as Chase appeared, holding out a tube to me, which I was forced to accept due to the fuzziness beginning in my mind. "Oh really? Then how come there are? What? They don't give you information like us, not valuable enough?" It didn't stop me from snapping at him though, a sudden burst of anger flooding my body.
"Let's get you out of here." Blaine suggested, lightly tugging on my hand.
"That'd be wise." Chase nodded in agreement and Blaine lead me away from the situation.