Mark Clodi - Undead Advantage, a Zombie Chronicles Novel

Sam let that hang out there a minute before continuing, "Finally the leader he had had enough, the father was in there with about thirty patients and their families and while he didn't seem able to go into the chapel himself, he didn't seem to have any difficulty firing guns into the chapel, he ordered some of his brighter zombies up front and center, gave Father Donahue one last chance then fired into the chapel, it was a slaughter. From what this guy told me anyway, Father Donahue was kneeling in prayer before the alter, he was the last one shot, and get this, even after they were all dead the zombies still couldn't go into the chapel, couldn't or wouldn't."

"So Juan that answers you about the chaplain, now are you going to tell me how you managed to kill their leader's third biggest bad boy in about ten seconds? And tell me what the hell happened to you when you did. Because, Juan, something happened to you. We all saw it through the glass."

Juan looked at the doctor, cast his face down and turned away without a word, he walked about fifteen feet away and assumed a guard like stance in the hallway. The doctor started to go after him, but stopped when Juan looked him in the eye and shook his head slowly from side to side. Sighing Sam shrugged his shoulders and said, "Maybe later, huh?" and ducked back into the maternity ward, leaving Juan to answer an empty hallway, "No, not even later."

Jack and John got back a few minutes later to find Juan alone in the hallway, they looked at each other and then Jack said, "It is pretty clear, John says the zombie's leader cleared everybody out to hike after the radio dj yesterday. We found a few dead people, but no one alive or zombified."

"Sì. No problems here either, ready to go get the others and get the doors blocked up?"

Jack and Juan left John to guard the doctors and nurses and went down the hallway to load the corpses onto a gurney and take them down the elevator to the ER. As they passed the other zombie that Juan had killed one of the men, paused to kick him several times, explaining he had killed his wife, then they tossed the body on top of the other four and continued out into the ER. Once there they moved all the other bodies out of the way to make a path to the door, where they took their burdens outside to the corner of the building and dumped them. Several more trips and all the bodies in the ER were gone but the place was still a gory mess. A couple of the men got mops and did some clean up while the rest of the group figured out how to turn off the automatic doors. Outside the zombies were still trickling in, but they were all of the slow variety and easily dealt with. The crew from the club salvaged everything they could out of the trucks before they filled the foyer area between the inner and outer doors with furniture from the lobby, it was not fool proof, but nothing was going to get through there without a lot of effort and a lot of noise. Then they called back to the Mike's Club and heard that the other convoy was just getting underway, eight vans, cars and trucks filled with the first thirty people and some of the supplies was heading out and should be there within an hour. Among other things they were bringing about a thousand shells of shotgun ammunition.

The group in the ER went back upstairs to let them know what was going on and then they split into groups one headed down to the hospital cafeteria to clear it for the incoming food, and maybe get something to eat. The others stayed up in the maternity ward, including Charlie and Mary, whom they put into a room nearby, the Doctors were all over her when they heard she had been bitten. The others, including Terry and Jen, just kept watch on the hallways, in case there were some zombies running still around that they had missed in their quick sweep of the building. The group that went into the kitchen had an unpleasant surprise in the form of one of the cooks who had turned into a zombie. This woman jumped out at them from the shadows before they had the chance to turn the lights on. Luckily she was a typical slow zombie and other than the initial scare factor, she was easy to put down. They tossed her body out the back of the kitchen into the loading dock area for the cafeteria then quickly locked the doors against the three or four zombies that were drawn to their movement when they opened the door in the first place. Again the men from the maternity ward got out mops and cleaned the area, spraying disinfectant over all everything to make the decontamination complete.

Juan was curious so he asked one of the men, "Why are you always cleaning up everything? The mops in the maternity ward, yeah I get that, but to do the ER and now the kitchen, man that is a lot of work, we can get it later, right amigo?"

The man just looked at Juan and replied, "No, Juan, they might pass this by blood contact, you get an open wound you get infected, you die, you turn, you make them stronger and us weaker. The doc said to clean up and disinfect to the best of our ability, so that is what we do, and the kitchen, well I get the impression you are going to be moving in here with us and we are going to need this to be working. So cleaning it up is very important."

Juan left him at it and rummaged around for some food they could make quickly, he didn't find any. Didn't the hospital have any snacks? Apparently not. He found plenty of raw chicken, hamburger patties and other frozen meats, even steak and fish, but nothing that fell within his domain of cooking experience. Admittedly his abilities were very limited. Nanci took care of the cooking, unless it was on the grill. They were a very liberal 'traditional' family. Nanci still managed the household, Juan managed….to earn the money. Their system had worked out so far even if it hearkened back to the nineteen fifties.

Sighing Juan turned towards Jack, who was also sighing and turning towards Juan, their eyes locked and they both laughed.

"You thinking what I am thinking?" asked Jack.

"If you are thinking that I hope Nanci is coming with them, then yeah." answered Juan.

"Well I was thinking something along those lines, do we dare ask Jen, Terry or Mary for help in this or do we just say there was nothing we felt we could cook?"

"Uh, I think we just say we can't cook and let it go at that, if they volunteer good, if someone volunteers good. Not Mary though, she is hurt."

The other men were finishing up with the last of the pans that had been sprayed and after a quick question confirmed they were not much in the way of cooks either. They went into an adjoining hallway and blocked it off with furniture from the cafeteria to cut it off from the western wing, then headed up to the second floor to rejoin their friends and see how Mary was doing.

The first thing they saw was a group standing outside of the door where they had put Mary. Terry turned to Juan and approached him, saying in Spanish, "They don't know anything, they cut her up a bit, disinfected her more and started an IV, but they don't really know anything about stopping an infection like this. Hell Juan from looking at her wound I almost think it came from a chair leg, not from being bitten."

Shaking his head Juan replied in Spanish as well, "No, the zombie, he said he had her taste, I don't think he was lying, maybe he was." Shrugging Juan, went on, "Can you cook? We can't, all the stuff down there needs to be made, like chicken or beef or whatever. I could warm up some green beans. Like a gallon of green beans. Not a very good dinner though."

It was Terry's turn to shake her head, "Never was much good for industrial cooking, I can help, or we can wait, I think these folks are hungry though, didn't they have any fruit or anything to tide the mom's over?"

"Uh I didn't see any, do you want to come help me look again, maybe I missed it."