Author's Note

You enter a dark room, barely illuminated by the light bulb plainly hanging from the ceiling by an ordinary chain. Closing the door behind you, you walk forward to a small desk where a walkie-talkie is sitting, waiting for you. You go to pick it up, but suddenly, strong hands grab your shoulders and pull you back. Struggling, you manage to toss the attacker backwards, and turn to face them. Horrified, you realize you just survived a zombie attack, but the corpse is still alive, and attempting to get up. In a combination of fury and self-preservation, you stomp on the body until it ceases moving. Just then, as if on cue, the walkie-talkie begins beeping. You pick it up, flicking the switch, and hold it to your ear as a familiar voice echoes over it.

"Heya! It's me, Phoenix! Now I bet you're wondering why I chose to do this for the author's note. Well it all came to me two weeks ago. I was in Barbados, hanging a picture on the wall when I" Aggravated, you shut off the walkie-talkie and place it back on the table, but just as you go to leave, it rings again. Of course, out of curiosity, you pick it up again.

"HEY! Don't hang up on me! It's rude! Anyway, like I was saying, the Egyptian monk told me exactly what to do for the perfect pumpkin soup! And that's why I decided to change studios for today's story, it's in the next one over! Oh, but be careful, I think I left a zombie in there somewhere…."

You stare at the walkie-talkie half-heartedly, and calmly place it on the ground, take a step back, and stomp it into a fine dust before exiting the room. Back in the long hallway, you walk to the next door over and find a sticky note attached to the door. It reads

"Kick back, relax, and enjoy…"

Disco Rising

Disco, back in the heart on the Happy Tree Mall, should have been much more surprised when he walked into a mall filled with zombies. But Disco, realizing that screaming and flailing around would probably get him killed, remained calm. Suddenly, the walkie-talkie rang. He clicked it on and waited for Mole to answer. "Hello? Disco? I just wanted to tell ya, you're in the "Paradise Plaza". There's a movie theater, and a few shops, but Flaky told me you're headed toward the food court. Just head north through the park nearby and you're right there!" But Disco honestly didn't care, and was quite quick to hang up.

He used the lead pipe to swing his way through a crowd of undead, when he noticed the second floor of the mall had a coffee shop. "Hmm, I could use a little pick me up…" He thought and calmly ascended the stairs whilst knocking away any random zombies that approached.

Inside the shop, the Columbian Roastmasters Coffee House to be exact, Disco was relieved to find it was devoid of zombies. Unfortunately, it was also devoid of employees, leaving him to make his coffee himself. He found something called "Coffee Creamer" and mixed a couple of them up in the blender. It was tasty, but made him a little jittery. Still nonchalant as ever, Disco walked over to the edge of the shop, overlooking the first floor, and thought a bit about what he had just done. "I just stole a drink, and no one cares." He thought looking down onto the awnings of a shop below him "I could do anything I want and no one will care, even…" and then it hit him. Taking a couple paces back, he ran at the railing and leaped, landing on the awning and bouncing off into a pool of water that surrounded the shop below. He landed harder than he would have liked, and needed a moment to adjust, feeling around to grasp onto something and pull himself up. But, he grabbed the handle of something instead, and lifted it up to examine it.

"A… Katana? What the fu-" Then, he realized something. "Oh shit! That bear, he's uh, pinned down in the, umm where was it, food court! The food court!" He pulled out the map Mole had given him and looked at the area around the food court. "Right, I've just gotta head through the park."

And with that he stowed his katana along with the lead pipe, and broke into a sprint. He had made it through the paradise plaza and halfway into the park when he stopped, and took a second to think "Am I running, faster than usual?" He said aloud, but shrugged it off and took another swig of his coffee.

Not seconds before he entered the food court, Disco saw Flippy taking cover behind a counter. But before he could call his name, bullets whizzed by his head, just clipping part of his afro. Looking up at the food court, he saw Russell, the bizarre otter, holding a small machine gun, standing on top of a welcome sign. The sign had been done over to give it a cowboy theme, and resembled the second floor of a wooden building in a cowboy shoot out. Russell had spotted Disco early, but only had a few bullets left in the clip when he arrived. He got ready to reload when, panicked, Disco ducked down next to Flippy. "What the hell are you doing here?" He asked, furious.

"Flaky sent me as back up." Disco said, holding up the pistol.

"Well, fine. I'm gonna need you to get behind him, into the food court itself," he said pointing "I'm gonna cover you, and he'll be busy reloading, ready?"

"What? You mean now?"

"Yes, NOW!" Flippy said, and popped up over the barricade firing. Disco ran wildly, and surprisingly wasn't fired on. Now behind him, Disco had a much better shot at Russell without the welcome sign blocking his body. Firing at the otter, he landed several hits, causing Russell to turn and return fire. "You! You shouldn't get involved with something you can't handle, Disco!" He yelled to the bear.

The machine gun rattled off several shots, but Disco was too quick, and knocked over a nearby table to shield himself. The bullets merely dug into the table, aggravating Russell to no end. But Disco wasn't as well shielded as he would hope and Russell spied his bright orange afro sticking up over the barricade and fired into it. The bullets could only muss his hairspray-laden afro, and found no solid parts to hit in the exposed hair. "Dammit! There's no brain in the freakin' fro!" Russell finally shouted, causing Disco to realize what was going on.

Pulling a small hand mirror from his pocket, he noticed his ruined afro and gasped. In a blind rage, Disco rolled from his barrier and fired several shots at Russell, staggering him. Then, lighting quick, he darted to a ladder leading up to his attacker's perch and soon enough was face to face with Russell. The otter attempted to fire, but a few shots from Flippy below distracted him long enough to allow Disco to simply kick the gun right out of his hand. Whipping the Katana out from concealment, Disco held the razor-edged blade to Russell's neck and spoke quietly and calmly.

"Now, pal, you're gonna tell me what the hell's going on here. Normally I'd kill anyone who'd shoot my afro, but here's what I'm gonna do. You're gonna answer every question I've got and maybe, just maybe I won't slit your throat." Russell, went slowly to grab something out of his pockets, but his hands didn't escape the bear's quick eyes. "Hands up! Think I'm stupid, do you? Raise 'em!"

Russell brought his hands up slowly still clenched in fists, making no mistakes to aggravate the photographer. "That's it, good now open up, don't want you hiding anything."

Russell opened his hands, and out of his palms dropped two metal canisters. Realizing they were grenades, Disco leapt to another end of the platform, while Russell took advantage of the moment to flee. When the explosion passed, Disco was by himself, and Russell had escaped. His own fits of cursing were broken by a call from below. "Hey! Where is he?" Flippy shouted from the food court floor.

"He escaped, but not before he tried blowing me up!" said Disco, and leapt down to his level, "why didn't you tell me he had grenades?"

"He never tried using them on me." Flippy said plainly, "Now if you excuse me.."

"Actually, there are a few things I'd like to know, now that I saved your ass. Who is this guy, and what connection does he have to all this?" Disco asked, pulling out his camera and displaying the image of the older bear.

"Where, here did you take that?"

"Ah, ah, ah. My question first, who is this and what connection does he have to all this?" Disco asked smugly.

"God, you're serious aren't you? Fine, this is Dr. P Barnaby. He was involved in an incident a few years back that we believe is linked to this 'infection'. Now, tell me where you took this!" Flippy was clearly getting aggravated.

"One more thing, I come along to meet the good doctor, 'k Cool Cat?" Disco said, clearly enjoying testing his patience.

"ARGH! Fine! whatever, I don't care. Now if you would please?"

"Took it near the entrance plaza, he couldn't have gone too far, y'know?"

"Wonderful, let's go."

The two bears were able to easily fight their way to the entrance plaza. The zombies were numerous, but no match for two armed men. Finally reaching the entrance plaza, Flippy told Disco to stay by the entrance. "You're not really a 'people' person, and I don't need you aggravating Dr. Barnaby.

"Sure, whatever, have fun with the old coot." Disco said and began to brush his ruined afro

Flippy walked calmly over to a bookstore, the metal security grate closed around it and Dr. Barnaby seated inside. He tapped on the glass to get his attention. The old bear set aside the book he was reading and walked over to the glass door.

"What? What do you want? Leave me alone!" He said, waving his cane at Flippy.

"Pop, Pop Barnaby?" Flippy asked

"Yes, that's me. Why do you need to know?"

"My name is Flippy, I'm with the government. We need to ask you a few questions."

"No! I'm staying here where it's safe! Like hell I'm going this out late with these zombies roaming around! Thank you and goodbye!" He said, and promptly turned around.

Flippy, admitting defeat, turned back to Disco. "So? How'd it go with the old geezer?" asked Disco

"He's not coming until we can guarantee safe passage through the mall. And unfortunately, we can't provide such a promise until tomorrow morning. It is getting late and we can't risk traveling around at night." And with that, Flippy turned to exit the entrance plaza.

"Where are you going?"

"Back to the security room. You'd do best to join me."

But Disco didn't follow. He stood right where Flippy left him for a good few minutes, and decided to himself exactly what he would do. "If there are other survivors, maybe they'll know about this, or maybe I'll be famous when this story hits the headlines if I rescue them. Yeah! I'm gonna make the news baby" He laughed aloud and held the walkie-talkie to his ear, "Hello, Mole?"

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Hah! Yet another excellent chapter is shipping out! Now for some explanations. I bet most of you are wondering where that katana came from. Well, in the game Dead Rising, there's a katana hidden for who knows why on an awning outside the Columbian Roastmaster's shop. When Disco leaped onto the awning, he knocked the katana off. Also, the drink Disco mixed up actually did make him run faster. You can blend different items together in the coffee shop and 2 "Coffee Creamers" make a speed-boosting quickstep drink. The next few chapters are going to be based around rescuing survivors, but I won't include any OC's yet. However, if anyone would like to volunteer an OC now so I know what to work with, please go ahead. I'm going to need: a cult leader, a crazed Female, about 6 or seven damsels in distress, four or five guys to be rescued, a long haired punk, two Japanese tourists, and a boyfriend and girlfriend. Just don't invent a character to fill any of these roles. In fact, don't suggest what the character should be, just let me choose, I'll tell you, and feel free to object. So go ahead and start PMing(Or reviewing) me, world. PHOENIX OUT!