Mark Clodi - Undead Advantage, a Zombie Chronicles Novel

"Yeah pretty funny these dumb stupid ones, huh friend?"

I kinda jumped at that, then turned to look and found myself staring at a guy in a mechanic shirt, he was a large man, maybe pushing two hundred and fifty pounds, he had on black steel toed boots, oil stained jeans and on the left breast of his shirt was a name "Dave" printed off in red letters. I smiled back and said, "Yeah thank God for the dumb ones."

'Dave' let out a hearty laugh at that and said, "Yeah, friend, thank God for the dumb ones!"

He helped me get out of the car, the door was wedged shut, and I could not push it open, but Dave grabbed and pulled while I was shoving the door and between us we got the door open. As he gave me a hand out, he pointed back into the car, "Don't forget your bat." I didn't know what he was talking about, but when I looked back in I saw a bloody bat on the seat, it must have belonged to the guy who had the car before me. I reached in for it and pulled it out with me. Turning in time to catch a fist to the face, it about knocked me out, only the fact that I was kind of moving up saved me from taking the blow full force on. Still it knocked me back into the car and then on my ass. 'Dave' reached down, grabbed my right ankle and started pulling me across the street. I was groggy, a bit, but I heard him say, "Yeah, buddy, thank God for the dumb ones."

Only I didn't let go of the bat, that mother fucker, dragging me across the street, he thought he had knocked me out, ya know, and he mostly had, only I was not going down without a fight. He pulled me up over the curb and across the parking lot of the local Safeway. I kept thinking, "No way, this is not happening." As we got closer to the front door I could see a mob of zombies and the door, it had a chain around the handles, so they could not get out, I was just thinking, I knew! That this bastard was going to feed me to this mob. Why? Why!?

I gripped the bat and when the guy paused for a rest, I swung it up and around, hitting him in the knee, he went down pretty quick and rolled away, now any other guy you hit em in the knee like that, even half as hard as I did and they would be grabbing at it, cussing me out. Ole Dave, he just rolled away and onto his hands and knees and he sat there like that for a second, looking over at me, then he smiled, something in his eyes man, his eyes were like red, and I saw then, he was one of them. He started getting up, I scrambled to my feet, still a little woozy and we ended up on our feet about the same time, I shouted at him, "WHY? Why you dumb mother fucker? What are you doing?"

He kinda looked at me again and said, "Man, the kids. It's the kids. They are hungry and the more I feed them the better they behave."

Then he moved, he moved so fast! He came at me from the right, then he was there on the left, hitting me in the ribs and pushing me backwards. I almost fell, if I had, I wouldn't be here right now, he would have got me. When I flailed around I managed to hit him with the bat pretty hard, glanced off his shoulder and into his head, not a killing blow, but it spun him around, he kept right on going and backhanded me. I turned it into a running start and took off, no way I could go hand to hand with him, he was tough, but maybe with him a bit lamed up, I could out run him. I looked back after running about half a block, and he was pacing me, sure enough limping a little, not much for a guy with a broken leg though.

I turned and started running again, south, south, south as far and as fast as I could go, I would run a ways, then try and rest, then run more. I kept an eye out for cars or bikes, and of course for any zombies, I had to make a few detours too, then those faster zoms got on my tail, they dogged me for a long way, until I ran into you guys, in fact. You pulled me up and I was so tired, so tired. Couldn't talk, couldn't say, 'Thanks'."

"Aw now…", started Hank.

"No really, thank you! I mean you guys saved my life and I owe you, I will help you out from here on out, forever really, if you don't mind me coming along?" here Kevin looked up anxiously.

Hank looked at him real hard and after Kevin swallowed he said, "No doubt about that Kevin, you can stick with us as long as you want to or forever for that matter. Safety in numbers."

Juan looked out at the streets, it was about ten am now, they had talked away most of the morning already. He said, "Si" softly though and that brought Hank out of his brief wool gathering, he too looked around at the mostly deserted streets, "Well I think your talking drove the zombies away Kevin, right there that makes you a valuable asset. We didn't know they were so impatient, now we do. I think we should head back to the Mike's club and maybe I will finish up Juan and my part in this, okay?"

"Yeah, sure, how far is it to the Mike's anyway?"

Juan rolled his eyes a bit and Hank said, "Now Juan there you go, being all negative Nancy on us! Not far Kevin, maybe two miles? It is over on Dartmouth and Parker. Maybe more than two miles from here, piece of cake after what you went through, plus we got the piece of shit of the clerk's to drive, right? We could be there in ten minutes. First part of a journey starts with one step, or something like that."

Hank gestured Juan to take up a position at the front of the store on the roof, while he hopped down onto the top of the dumpster, "Kevin, you just watch the back and alleys, I am gonna go in and get the keys to that Fiesta and see if I can get it started. Cover me, okay?"

Kevin nodded and Hank jumped off the dumpster and headed around to the front of the store, the zombies were distant and not too interested in him, yet, something was wrong, Hank could not quite put his finger on it. He looked around carefully again, seeing nothing he decided to pay closer attention to his surroundings, these days it didn't pay to ignore your gut instincts. He pulled open the door to the store and looked around for any hidden zombies which may have entered during the night. Nothing. With some hesitation Hank approached the guy with the clerk's uniform on. The corpse was face down, grimacing Hank realized he would have to turn it over to get to the front pockets, he only hesitated a second before grabbing the body by one arm and heaving it over, some flies flew up, they appeared angry at being disturbed from their work. Hank tried to keep his eyes focused on the body's belt line and mostly succeeded. He pulled a set of keys out of the left pocket of the guys blue jeans, looking at them one had a thick black lump of plastic embossed with the word "Ford" on it, thinking about it Hank removed the key from the key ring. He thought there was little sense in keeping the guys house keys. As he went by the counter he did grab a new key chain off of a rack, one with a long black strip of leather attached to it. It was not for use as a weapon, it would just make the key easier to find, if he should drop it.

Hank pushed out the front door and again was struck by the feeling that something unseen was watching him. He nodded up to Juan and headed around the side of the building to where the car was. All in all it was no worse than any car last sold 'new' in the United States in nineteen eighty could be. Hank paused a moment, yeah, this was an old first model, part of him was reluctant to even take the car, anything this old would have to have been driven three hundred thousand miles by this time, unless it was an old lady car recently rediscovered and sold from her estate. Another part of Hank was oddly attracted to this marvel of engineering, just how many miles did this baby have on it? It should make two more miles easily enough. Hank approached the door and opened the latch. Or rather tried to, the owner had it locked. Letting out a little laugh Hank used the key to open it up, why would he bother locking this piece of crap? As Hank hopped in and adjusted the seat he checked the mileage, it said eighty nine thousand and two miles. The Fiesta's mile gauge only went to ninety nine thousand, nine hundred and ninety nine and nine tenths, which Hank should have remembered. 'Oh well', he lamented, 'what difference does it make? It'll make another two miles.'