Mark Clodi - Undead Advantage, a Zombie Chronicles Novel

"Watch it! On your left! Other left!" A shot rang out and Kevin jumped a foot into the air, the voice continued, "That 'sokay, I mighta missed that one myself."

Kevin looked around, eventually looking upward to discover a badly sunburned, Caucasian male standing next to an Hispanic man on the roof of an older Gas n' Go convenience store. The white guy was in his mid thirties, about six feet tall and maybe two-hundred and ten pounds, he had brown hair and blue eyes, where his skin wasn't sunburned it was a fair shade of white. The Hispanic guy was about the same age, he was shorter than his companion, maybe five-ten and a hundred and seventy pounds, he had black hair and brown, almost black eyes with a fair tan skin. Both men looked like they had not shaved in a few days.

"Hey I am Hank, this is Juan, he don't talk much, leaves it to me, lemme give ya a hand up here with us, okay?", the white guy reached down offering his hand to Kevin, in order to reach it Kevin had to climb up on the dumpster by the side of the building. Once on top of the building Kevin looked around, he quickly squatted down as 'Hank' and 'Juan' did.

The rooftop they were on had several pipes spearing upward out of it, along with a huge heater or air conditioner that blocked off the view of the rear of the building. In front there were two islands of gas pumps with a large covering over both of them to keep customers from getting rained or snowed during bad weather and kept the hot July sun off them in times like this. The roof itself was flat with some sort of beige gravel on it, a low wall separated the roof from the 12 foot fall to the ground below. The building stood alone and apart from the surrounding stores, in the back there was a loading door and a place for employee parking. On the east side of the building was a dumpster in the alley and the other side of the building had more parking, which ended in a side street. Beyond the pumps was a large four lane street with a turn lane. Across from the Gas n' Go was a strip mall, an upscale set of shops with several nice looking, if pricey businesses.

"Yeah" Hank said from his crouching position, " We don't want to advertise our presence much, ya know? So you gotta name?"

Kevin nodded and tried to speak, but all that came out was a murmured squeal, he tried again until Hank held up his hand, "No, don't worry about it partner, don't let it bother ya, seen it lots of times, hell Juan wasn't much of a conversationalist before this mess and he ain't good for shit around a campfire now. You know how to shoot a gun?" Kevin shook his head 'no'. Hank shrugged, "Well, ain't no time like the present to learn." Hank leaned over behind him and picked up a rifle sitting on the roof of the building. "Me and Juan, we got trapped here this afternoon, just trying to make our way back to the "Mike's Club" off of Platte Street. Fucken' 'A' but we ran into a bunch of the shit heads on the way there. This was supposed to be a milk run, get to the gun shop, get back loaded down with guns and ammo, simple. Then we ran into some people by this clinic, plus the doc his self an' his nurse. We loaded their car up with medical stuff and a few guns and stuff and told em how to get into 'our' store, no room for us in the car. Ya think Juan or I could at least hot wire a goddamn car, eh?"

"If we had the tools we could." said Juan in a heavily accented Hispanic voice.

"Hell yes we could, it don't mean nothing anyway anymore, right? We holed up at this giant discount store, "Mike's Club" off of Peoria, you know the one? No? Anyway we figured it would be a good place, full of food, blankets beds, even generators, right? Plus the place is huge and we wanted someplace the whole neighborhood could hole up in, by neighborhood I am talking a lot of people, over a hundred for sure. We made it to the Mike's, it was not close, by the way, several miles on these streets, we had a wrecker though, a tow truck and we had to clear a few cars and deal with zombies to get there. Once inside the place it was empty, doors still worked and all so people and zombies were coming in, but then Juan's niece? Or is she your cousin?"

"Mi sabrina." Juan answered in Spanish.

"His niece, she had worked there and knew how to turn the doors off, we did that and then me and Juan and some others cleared the place out, top to bottom. We had maybe half a dozen guns among all of us so mostly it was bat and hammer work. We got the zombies out, and the women folk started in on the clean up. The men got the generators up onto the roof and started filling up the pallets of empty gas cans out at the 'in lot' gas station the place runs, so we are pretty much set for power and stuff for awhile. The place even sold guns, but not ammo. So Juan and I looked up the nearest gun shop and headed off to get at least a few boxes of ammo. Anyway after seeing the Doc off in the car, we started back, no big deal. We kept a few guns for ourselves and hell we had walked to the gun store, so we could hump our sorry asses back. The Doc, we-ell hell me and Juan, we're grunts, the Doc is a Doctor, important, right? So we walk and he rides. End of story. Only we run into some goddamn zombie party, you seen it? About two blocks over on Ivy? Maybe you seen the mounds of dead bodies in the street? No? Well probably for the best anyway, you might not a made it if you had been by there. Say, can you write? Juan you got that pen?"

"Si", replied Juan, handing over a pen and a notepad to Kevin.

"Gimme your name, eh? Makes it easier than calling you that 'black kid' or something. No offense or nothing. Sometimes I don't think I talk so well, correct and all. I may be a southern transplant, but I ain't no racist, the feds they done burned that outta my family a couple generations ago." Hank took the paper from the young man, "Let's see, 'Kevin' then eh? Good name and I am pleased to meet 'cha Kevin.", Hank held out his beefy hand to Kevin, Kevin shook it with hardly a moment's hesitation then shook Juan's hand as well.

Turning back to the west Hank looked at the sun, which was just a small sliver above the distant mountains, the day was almost ended.

"Well Juan, it looks like we are in here for the night. You wanna go down into the store and rummage around for a blanket or sleeping bag?", Juan shook his head from side to side.,"No? Want me to go?"

"Si."

"Okay, sure I'll do it, next time you gotta go though, right? Really does that look like a camping store over there?", Hank gestured across the street from them. "What do you think Kevin?"

The black youth nodded yes at the same time Juan answered with his ever popular "Si". Hank sighed and said, "Okay then I am off, just you be watching my back and, here, you Kevin, you watch behind Juan. I don't know you from nothing yet, you might be a good shot or you might not shoot for shit, but Juan, he can peg the eye out of a sparrow at a hundred yards."

Juan protested with a "No!" pretty strongly, but Hank waved him off and continued, "Oh no need to be modest, you are a good shot buddy and it makes more sense for me to get down there, than you any day. Cover my ass bud!" With that Hank hopped off the side of the convenience store onto the dumpster below and ran across the street, the slow moving lumbering zombies followed him away from the store, but could not keep up with him.

Out of the corner of his eye Juan saw another, faster zombie, making his way down the street, taking cover behind cars so as not to be seen by Hank. This was perfect as it put him in full view of Juan, who was crouched down behind the low cinder block wall that went around the edges of the convenience store roof. This zombie was a middle aged Caucasian wearing a bloodied red and white cowboy shirt and had on soft leather boots to match. His blue jeans were partially torn near the ankles, a sure sign, Juan thought, that he had been bitten there, then got away, and died somewhere else. The only thing missing was a nice, white, ten gallon cowboy hat.