Mark Clodi - Undead Advantage, a Zombie Chronicles Novel

The young woman took two quick steps backwards but managed to stay standing, she then pulled out a long dagger. Dave spat at her, "Oh Jesus fucking Christ! Don't you know when you are beat? look at 'em! All your friends are down bleeding, unconscious or dead and you wanna pull out another toad sticker and go mano-a-mano with me? I mean if you had ran I might have let you go. Now I changed my mind you stupid little cunt!"

Dave took a step forward and his back leg was swept out from under him, he spun around seeing sky then pavement then sky again. He did keep enough presence of mind to roll over and foil anyone's shot on him, when he finally stopped and sat up he was about fifteen feet away from the kid with the ax, the one he had shot, who was sitting up pointing his revolver at Dave's head.

The bow girl rushed to his side, trying to hold his armored bulk up. The kid had blood pouring out of his mouth, however the gun in his hand was rock steady. Dave noted that his foot had not made the journey with him, and was still standing upright not two paces in front of the kid.

"Dammit, I liked that foot!" he shouted, then twisted sideways as the first bullet tore into his body. Several confused seconds passed before Dave realized that he was still alive. He was on his belly crawling away from the ax guy, his arms were not moving right, not quite right, one of those bullets must have come close to taking him out, he awkwardly put his right hand on the ground and tried to push himself up, looking back over his shoulder he saw a grim faced bow girl striding towards him with the ax. She jumped and landed on his back, forcing him to the ground once again, Dave felt the strength draining out of him, he tried to scream that it was all a mistake, the last thing he felt was the blade of the ax entering the top of his head.

They were lucky they were so close when Dave jumped them, otherwise the kid would have died. That's what Hank thought anyway. Still, he reflected, the kids were lucky any of them had made it. He was surprised to see them alive and knew they would have a story to tell, he would get the rest of it after he finally figured out what the hell was going on at the Sky Ridge facility. The electronics still worked, which surprised Hank, he thought they would have been destroyed by the nuclear bomb, he seemed to recall that nuke's messed up electronic devices, destroyed batteries, that sort of thing. When the power went off, shortly after the bomb had burst, he was sure there would be no more television, cell phones, cars, anything. Doc said something about the EMP, electromagnetic pulse, only knocking out electronics close to ground zero. Doc also conjectured that the bomb had been a tactical nuclear bomb, designed to take out a small, compact force, not rain down destruction over a broad area. Doc seemed to know more about it than Hank, all Hank really cared about was the radiation, were they all going to die? Did they need to move? He was in the middle of these questions when Michael and his group trickled in and Doc had been called away to try and save them.

The answers Doc gave were heartening, no they probably were not going to die of radiation, Doc thought the zombies were far more likely to overwhelm them, as he doubted the bomb had got them all, and they made more where ever they went. Doc also said 'No' to moving too, at least until someone who knew about the weather patterns could them which way the winds blew. Doc thought the winds blew kind of south easterly, which should mean not directly at the club. The one thing Doc was really concerned with was radiated zombies, if some of them were exposed they could spread the contamination to whomever they contacted. This was something Hank was not going to worry too much about, if a zombie got close enough to give you radiation poisoning you probably had other, more important, things to be worrying about.

Picking up the phone the other board members had given him, Hank put call through to Juan. The phone rang a few times, then it clicked as someone picked up, "Amigo?" Hank asked, "You there Juan?"

"Si."

Ah just like old times, Hank thought, " How're things going? Ya'll see the blast this morning? Well of course you did, everybody okay?"

"Si, well sort of Hank. Don't know 'bout Mary, she is alive, but bitten. Charlie ain't letting visitors in, he seems worried. You okay at the Club?"

"Er, yeah mostly. Say Juan you remember those kids at the clinic right? The ones with the swords and the ax and stuff? All dressed up like knights? They said they would hook up with us here after checking on their parents?"

"Yeah, yeah, oh yeah! They come in?" asked Juan excitedly.

"Well yeah, but Juan, ah, they ran into Dave before they got here."

"Mother Mary! That guy almost killed you and you are the toughest guy I know, pretty stupid, but tough. What happened Hank?"

"Most of them made it through with bruises, you ain't gonna believe this amigo." pausing for a moment, Hank continued, "They got him Juan."

Silence on the other end of the line, then, tentatively, "They got him? They got Dave?"

"They seem to think so, Whitney split his head open with that ax Michael had. Everyone was hurt pretty bad, the least of 'em were bruised up, one kid looks to have a God damned broken testicle, Doc says they will pull through, they got an ass kicking they will never, ever, forget. You know how you said you felt all weird after killing that guy at the hospital?"

Warily, Juan answered, "Si."

"Whitney and you, you two are gonna have to have a little talk when you get the chance, she says, and her friends say, something happened to her too."

Juan was quiet for a moment, then said, "Okay, we will talk, maybe all three of us, anyone who killed a zombie up close and personal. Hank, we had something happen here too, you know? I gotta talk at you about it, try and get my head around it." said Juan.

"Shoot partner."

Juan proceeded to catch Hank up with the guardsmen, telling him as much as he knew, with help from a nearby Nanci, about how they had, Juan thought, been a spotter or something to guide the bomb towards its eventual detonation. He went on to say that he was in contact with the infantry and they wanted to send troop carriers up to get people from the hospital and the Mike's Club.

"Well, what do you think?" Juan asked after giving Hank a few minutes to digest the information.

"You talked to 'em, what do you think?" countered Hank.

"I don't think they mean any harm, I think they want to help. I say we meet with them and figure out how we are going to do things."

"So that is what we do then Juan, call 'em back up and tell 'em we'll see them later this morning if they can get up there to Sky Ridge, and I will get down there too, we'll get this shin dig going and see if we can actually get a good night's sleep for a change. Ask them about fallout and if it is safe for us to be outside, Doc is worried."

"Si, I will, probably I would worry about the zombies more than the radiation though, the zombie will get you first, huh?"

Chuckling ruefully Hank answered, "Exactly what I think Juan."

Juan hung up the phone, he was till on top of the building and was looking out over the distance towards the still visible smoke cloud to the north east. The wind looked to be carrying the smoke to the south east, not so far south, more east, the smoke would miss Sky Ridge and the Mike's Club, Juan was sure of that. He looked at Nanci and smiled. Talking in Spanish he said, "The military guys will be here, they will figure this stuff out. You will see we will be okay again."

Nanci frowned and replied, "Military are still under civilian control, not the other way around, we are still going to need you, Hank and the others as our voice. Plus if the military is dropping bombs on the zombies we are going to be in trouble, the bombs will be gone long before the zombies are."