Mark Clodi - Undead Advantage, a Zombie Chronicles Novel

Looking over at the smoke cloud Juan thought that maybe Nanci was right about this. He took her hand and stared at the horizon for a few minutes wondering, what, exactly they could do about anything. Slowly he let go of Nanci's hand and approached the radio, picking up the headset he said, "Hello? Is Ed Stanson there?"

A reply was almost immediate, "Yes sir, is this John?"

"Yes." a moment later Ed's voice came back at him.

"Juan this is Ed. What is up?"

"Hello Ed, we have been talking a little bit and think we should meet up as soon as we can to figure out what we are going to do. When can you get here? Or do you want us to come to you?"

"No, you stay put, I will fly out to you in say, a half an hour? Will that be okay? If you have any badly injured, I am talking the worst couple of cases, not a whole bunch of people, we can take them with us when we leave. We pulled up a map of your location and should not have any trouble finding it, there is a helipad on the roof of the hospital right?"

"Oh yeah sure, I am almost standing on it now, I will wait here for you, okay?"

"Yes, that is perfect son, I'll see you soon!"

Nanci mumbled something about getting them coffee and Juan decided to stay up on the roof, he walked over to look down at the emergency room entrance and was not surprised to find the zombies had gotten closer. Concentrating he urged them to move away from the ER. As one the small crowd of them looked up at him, when they looked, the guards on the entrance also looked up, seeing him looking down they waved and said something that was lost in the distance. Juan waved back and nodded trying to convey an 'Everything is alright' sort of look. By now though the rumors of the soldier's death had traveled through their small community and the door behind Juan opened up much too soon to be Nanci coming back with coffee.

Seeing Jack and Charlie over by the ropes that led to the bodies dangling over the side of the building Juan started to walk in that direction, he was joined by a few of the people from inside the building. Jack explained what had happened as best he could, pointing to the smoke cloud was was now just a steady stream rising into the sky.

One of the men, he looked like a medical intern, said, "That doesn't look like a nuke, at least not what I thought one would be like. Is it true the Army guys killed themselves?"

Nodding yes, Juan announced loud enough for everyone to hear, "The Army guys hung themselves, they called in a nuclear strike on the radio station, barricaded the roof access door from the outside and hung themselves right here."

The group of men and woman babbled a bit hearing this news, one of the women actually got sick, vomiting onto the gravel rooftop, the acidic smell caused Juan to wrinkle his nose.

"Please people, stop for a minute here, that is not all." Juan held out his hands, gesturing at everyone to quiet down. One of the men helped the sick woman away from her pool of vomit and handed her a dishtowel he had draped over his shoulder to wipe her face off with. "First." Juan held up on finger, "We are not in any danger from fallout here at the hospital." One of the men called out asking how Juan knew, the others became more agitated, "Okay, let me start again. First, I just got off the radio behind me," Juan used his finger to point at the army radio sitting on an ammo crate behind him and then continued, "The army guy, I think he is a Major or something, he said we should be far enough from where the bomb went off at that we should be okay. Plus the winds should push what limited fallout there is to the south east of the explosion, but we are not in that range. That is the second thing I guess, we are not in any danger from the fallout from the bomb. Plus we didn't get hit by a pulse or anything that destroyed our electronics, another sign that we were far enough away. Third," Juan held up a third finger, "The army guys did hang themselves and are dead, I think we should pull them up and try to take care of them we I get done. The last thing, number three? Four? Okay number four is that this Ed guy, the Major I spoke to on the radio, he is coming here by helicopter, he is going to be here in fifteen minutes or so to look over our situation and see what he can do to help us out, maybe even move us to the south to the National guard base where they are at. He wants to see our set up first, then talk to us a bit. So, well so we need to get organized, I think some of us should pull the bodies up and get them into the…morgue? Is there a morgue here?" One of the people dressed in green scrubs called out 'yes!' and several people nodded.

Juan went on, "So we get the bodies into storage. I think we should do a quick count of inventory, list all the cars and trucks we have keys too, the number of phones we have working, how much food we have and how much space we have cleared here. Think we can do that in twenty minutes. I am not saying to count every packet of sugar or anything just more like how many days we could go without food, how long the generators could last before they run out of power, that sort of thing." Juan was not sure how he was going to get people to volunteer for these jobs, however Jack jumped in and just started pointing at people and telling them what to do, adding several things that Juan had not thought of before turning back to a few men, including Charlie and Juan on the roof and saying, "We get to pull up the bodies." He sent three men down to the ER for gurneys and then the three men left went to work hauling up the ropes with their grisly remains on the end.

Leaning out over the edge of the building Juan pulled on a rope with one hand and was surprised to find he could pull it up quite easily, bracing his feet against the side of the building he started hand over handing the body up. Charlie and Jack shared a disbelieving look, Juan was a hundred and sixty pounds soaking wet, though he was wiry and strong, the men below were all muscular and probably weighed in at over a hundred and ninety pounds each. Juan was not even breaking a sweat in the cool morning air. The door opened up just as Juan got the first body to the rooftop, Jack and Charlie hurriedly pulled it over the edge, Juan glanced over and saw Nanci standing with a large thermos and a plastic bag that looked to hold many coffee mugs, she was standing there with a slight 'o' on her lips, when she made eye contact with Juan her lips pursed into a grimace and she nodded slightly and continued forward.

"I saw a lot of people running down the stairs, not panicking, just with a purpose, you guys do that?" Nanci asked.

"Kind of a group effort. I told 'em what needed to be done, Jack assigned them tasks." Juan answered.

Holding up his finger and pointed up into the air Jacked nodded at his hand, "Yeah this is a powerful tool. Just point and say, 'You! Do this! You! Do that!', it seems to work. I think I should have pointed at someone else to do this job though." Jack frowned.

Shaking her head, Nanci said, "No Jack, they jumped and did what you said because, you gave yourself the worst job, they know you guys lead from the front and that makes them respect you and want to help you."

"Yeah, probably. I am too smart for my own good. Juan here though, he is doing most of the work himself, me and Charlie are just gawkers."

Juan flushed a bit and shrugged his shoulders.

"You think these military guys know what might have happened to you Juan?" asked Jack.

"I don't know, maybe, maybe not, I don't think the guys at their base were really out yet, you know? They might have seen a lot of stuff though and some of their guys had to make it back, right? Do I tell them anything? Could be risky, I don't want to end up in a room somewhere with doctors prodding me all day long."

Nanci had a fearful look come over her face, "Maybe we shouldn't say anything?" she looked at Jack and Charlie's faces expectantly.