Mark Clodi - Undead Advantage, a Zombie Chronicles Novel

She stood by while he finished off his jug of juice, though he did cheat by letting Sylvia have a few gulps too. Then he handed her the empty and she sat the full one down on a tray by the side of his chair. She pulled a couple of medicine bottles out of a fanny pack she was wearing and held them up in her hand.

"Doc also said to sleep as much as you can, and take one of these four times a day until they are all gone and to take these as you need for the pain, but the more you take, the less other people can take later. Got it?"

Hank nodded 'yes' sleepily and watched as Evaine gathered up Juan's plates and several other that had been set down by the children watching the movie. Juan was not in the chair by Hanks side, but he walked up as Evaine walked off, he watched Hank watch the woman leave.

"You are doomed you know. Why did you not date her more? Or call her even?" asked Jaun.

"Naw, me? She is just a kid, what? 24? Thirteen years younger than me, too young, we got nothing in common, though she is easy on the eyes."

"Nothing in common, isn't that good? Gives you more to talk about….late at night."

Shrugging his shoulders, Hank responded, "Well maybe, but things have changed now, there won't be time for stuff like that anymore. I don't even know, you know, how to do that stuff anymore, like dating and all, the other parts I still get."

Shrugging back Juan said, "Too old for love, huh? Still life goes on amigo. This is a mess and I am not talking of making a family right here and now, we're gonna beat these things and people like you and me, workers who know how to put broken things back together, we are gonna do well."

"Ha! Look around Juan! You see any useless bodies around here. Hell even our former drug pushers are productive these days, sure we are all wondering what the future will bring, but these people. " Hank paused and waved his arm around at all the people in the Mike's Club, "These people, know there is going to be a future and that we are going to be a part of it."

Jack walked up to the men in the recliners, "You talking about me again Hank? I suppose I am not gonna see much in the way of drug demand for awhile am I? Well no worries man, I have seeds stashed and the market it going to be wide open, who's gonna worry about a little happy plant when you have blood sucking zombies chasing you down? Doc said you might want to talk to me about the bitten we are keeping in the parking lot."

"Well yeah, how are you keeping them there?"

"We got a chain link fence roll from across the street and set it up with posts on the concrete. We welded the posts together out of angle irons and other fencing, it is not zombie proof, not really, but when they turn we try to get to them before they gnaw on anyone else. That wasn't what doc said that had me curious though, he said something about you running into a guy who got bit, but didn't turn?"

"Yeah, not directly that was Kevin, he ran into an old man who got bit the same as the man's old lady, she died and turned, he did not. I was hoping you could keep an eye out maybe, see if any of the others don't turn?"

"I want to Hank, but it is a mess. For example a family comes in right, dad and son number one got bit getting them away from a mob somewhere, mom and the two other kids didn't get bit. I want to let them in, but only if dad and son go into the fence until we figure out how to stop them from dying. Mom and the kids don't want that, either they go into the fence with them or dad and son don't go into the fence or they all just leave and go elsewhere. What do I do? I send them elsewhere it is a death sentence for certain, I put the non-infected in with the infected and they are at risk. Who knows maybe you can get this shit by contact or breathing the same air? I know if I don't put the bitten into the holding area and we will have zombies in the building. Several of the ones in the holding have turned and I only set up this system this morning."

"So you enforce the rule then? Bitten in the pen, otherwise move on? That makes sense to me. No? What?", asked Hank.

"I sorta told some of them that the people leading us would decide what to do with the bitten."

"Yeah, who's leading us? What did they say?"

Jack burst out laughing and merely pointed at Hank, saying, "We nominated you!"

"What? Me? For Christ's sake why? I have never led anything in my life, I am just a worker!", turning to Juan, Hank asked him, "Did you know?"

"sì, it just happened.", Juan replied while shrugging his shoulders.

"Yeah, um, we know, most of us are just workers too, in our own way, ya know? Everybody thinks you are pretty fair and even tempered, plus you were not there at the meeting, everyone else we tried to nominate hollered and declined, you couldn't fight back."

Hank sputtered a bit, "Wha-wah-what? You nominated me because I was unconscious and could not say no?"

A half circle of women, a few men and a dozen kids was gathering around Hank.

Juan waved Jack quiet and answered, "Sì, it was easier, you know, your name came up first, then we batted around a bunch of others, we kept coming back to you, jefe. If it makes it any easier they pegged me as vice-jefe, Jack, Doc and old man Gonzales are on the 'board'. You make the big decisions, I can make smaller ones the board can overrule us by a two to one majority. Plus each board member has an area they are responsible for, Jack has security, Doc has, well, medical and sanitary stuff, Gonzales has 'resources', which is like food, clothing, anything not involving guns and medicines."

Hank looked at the hopeful faces in front of him, the silence lingered for a few seconds as he looked around, as he looked at the faces, he was thinking. Hank was not a leader, he knew it, he could barely lead his crew in fixing a car, he had no desire to lead a bunch of 'Mad Max' style refugees into the future. Thinking he wondered who would be better? Almost anyone, he had no plan, just to lay low at the warehouse and wait until the authorities showed up to save them. True, it had been his idea to come to the Mike's Club, he had told Juan. Juan told the whole damn neighborhood and they all ended up here, with their most prized possessions and families. He could understand why they had the wrong impression that he would make a good leader. This was not a job he wanted, someone else would have to take on the chief role if they ended up being stuck in this situation for very long. Still Hank was a talker, he could reason with most people, work out deals, maybe it would not be so bad, for a couple weeks. Finally he said, "Okay. I got a few problems, but okay I accept. I will do my best." The small crowd of people cheered and surged forward to shake his hand and pat him on the shoulders, after a few minutes Hank raised up his hands and called for everyone to be quiet, "Whoa! Whoa! Slow down a bit, let me get a word in here, I said I had a few problems and as you made me your 'Jefe', I need to get a few things out there on the floor. First off, you all elected me while I was out, I suppose that is okay, I can see a need to fill the position quickly. Then, you set up the board, but people there are not any women on it. I am not a genius or anything, but I think we need to have at least one womanly vote on the board from the get go, don't you?"

"Better to get two." said Juan, "We kind of think that having an odd number on the board is important, so we get a couple women on the board to serve. Dios knows we have enough other areas to cover, I am thinking Gonzales could use a hand, divide his stuff up a bit more?"

"Yeah this needs some thinkin' on. Me and you and maybe the rest of the board should spend five minutes working it out? I don't want no long-assed meetings and bureaucracy, if we are going to do things over again, we are going to do them better than before." Hank kind of wanted to get back to the bitten people in the parking lot, but was having a hard time thinking of a way to steer the conversation back that way so he just said, "Okay Jack, we still got to discuss the guys in the pen. What about the whole parking lot? How do we keep zombies from outside off the pen, I mean if they can see it the zoms will just head right to it, if we start firing guns to kill them, that will attract more zombies, then we will have an all out war."