Hank and Juan's Story

Juan looked out at the streets, it was about 10 am now, they had talked away most of the morning already. He said, “Si” softly though and that brought Hank out of his brief wool gathering, he too looked around at the mostly deserted streets, “Well I think your talking drove the zombies away Kevin, right there that makes you a valuable asset. We didn’t know they were so impatient, now we do. I think we should head back to the Mike’s club and maybe I will finish up Juan and my part in this, okay?”

“Yeah, sure, how far is it to the Mike’s anyway?”

Juan rolled his eyes a bit and Hank said, “Now Juan there you go, being all negative Nancy on us! Not far Kevin, maybe 2 miles? It is over on Dartmouth and Parker. Maybe a little over two miles from here, piece of cake after what you went through, plus we got the piece of shit of the clerk’s to drive, right? We could be there in 10 minutes. First part of a journey starts with one step, or something like that, I heard it anyway.”

Hank gestured Juan to take up a position at the front of the store on the roof, while he hopped down onto the top of the dumpster, “Kevin, you just watch the back and alleys, I am gonna go in and get the keys to that Fiesta and see if I can get it started. Cover me, okay?”

Kevin nodded and Hank jumped off the dumpster and headed around to the front of the store, the zoms were distant and not too interested in him, yet, something was wrong, Hank could not quite put his finger on it. He looked around carefully again, seeing nothing he decided to pay closer attention to his surroundings, these days it didn’t pay to ignore your gut instincts. He pulled open the door to the store and looked around for any hidden zombies which may have entered during the night. Nothing. With some hesitation Hank approached the guy with the clerk’s uniform on. The corpse was face down, grimacing Hank realized he would have to turn it over to get to the front pockets, he only hesitated a second before grabbing the body by one arm and heaving it over, a few flies flew up, they appeared angry at being disturbed from their work. Hank tried to keep his eyes focused on the body’s belt line and mostly succeeded. He pulled a set of keys out of the left pocket of the guys blue jeans, looking at them one had a thick black lump of plastic embossed with the word “Ford” on it, thinking about it Hank removed the key from the key ring. He thought there was little sense in keeping the guys house keys and stuff, just added weight. As he went by the counter he did grab a new key chain off of a rack, one with a long black strip of leather attached to it. It was not for use as a weapon, it would just make the key easier to find, if he should drop it.

Hank pushed out the front door and again was struck by the feeling that something unseen was watching him. He nodded up to Juan and headed around the side of the building to where the car was, all in all it was no worse than any car last sold ‘new’ in the United States in 1980 could be. Hank paused a moment, yeah, this was an old first model, part of him was reluctant to even take the car, anything this old would have to have been driven 350,000 miles by this time, unless it was an old lady car recently rediscovered and sold from her estate. Another part of Hank was oddly attracted to this marvel of engineering, just how many miles did this baby have on it? It should make two more miles easily enough. Hank approached the door and opened the latch. Or rather tried to, the owner had it locked. Letting out a little laugh Hank used the key to open it up, why would he bother locking this piece of crap? As Hank hopped in and adjusted the seat he checked the mileage, it said 89,002. Fiesta’s mile gauge only went to 99,999 and 9 tenths though, which Hank should have remembered. ‘Oh well’, he lamented, ‘what difference does it make? It’ll make another two miles.’

He turned the key and was rewarded with a sputtering cough of the engine turning over and a red light on the dash, indicating low fuel. “More like ‘no fuel’.”, Hank muttered to himself. How could this kid work at a gas station and leave his ride running on fumes? Shaking his head Hank put the car into reverse and then pulled around to the front of the gas station. A ringing sound caught his ear and after a moments fumbling he remembered the cell phone and grabbed it out of his breast pocket.

“Hello?”, he answered.

“Man where are you going? Me and Juan want to come too!”, said Kevin

“Oh, yeah, sorry Kevin, I shoulda maybe yelled out, this thing needs gas, only has fumes. Hey at least the cell phones work!”

“Oh okay, you fill it up and we will cover you. Bye.”

“Bye.”

Hank pulled up alongside the second set of pumps and tried to fuel up the car. Nothing. Yeah that’s right he had to go inside the store again to authorize the sale and turn the pumps on. He headed back into the store with his shotgun and looked around behind the counter for a button to press so he could fill up. It was not hard, there was a beeping noise to go along with the flashing light and after the simple press of a button Hank had the pump working. He also spotted an old 2 and a half gallon plastic ‘station tank’ for loaning out to people who had run out of gas, it looked like it had only been used a couple of times, Hank grabbed it and a pop out of the cooler before he headed back to the car. He sat his pop down on the hood while he bent over the gas can, taking off the lid he filled it up before jamming the nozzle into the car’s gas tank. As he grabbed his pop and went to take a drink he became aware of a man leaning up against the outside of the Gas ‘n Go building. Hank would swear the guy was not there a second before, now he was. The stranger was wearing a gray shirt, dirty jeans and black work boots. Hank knew it was the same ‘Dave’ Kevin had run into even before he read the lettering stitched into the shirts breast.

Everything seemed to slow way down for Hank then, he saw ‘Dave’ start to say something, then something about his demeanor changed as he saw Hank’s reaction to him and he started forward faster than Hank would have thought possible. Hank had originally thought he would play it cool by sitting his drink back on the car, then reach down and pull up his shotgun to get a shot off while the son of a bitch was still smirking up against the wall of the store. However by the time he had his hands on the barrel of the shotgun to pull it up for use Dave barreled into him, he heard a shot ring out from the top of the building, but all it did was puff up some dust and concrete from behind his legs. Then Hank was pushed back into the car with enough force to break the side window and maybe a couple ribs!

Twisting sideways Hank used Dave’s hit to propel the zombie over the roof of the car. As Dave was sliding over the roof his hand smashed out and made a grab for Hank. Somehow Hank got his face out of the way of that grasping claw and Dave hit the pavement on the other side yelling. Hank’s shotgun had fallen to the ground, requiring him to bend over to pick it up, as he did so a sharp pain spiked through his back from the damage hitting the car had done to him. He ended up on his knees with one arm holding him off the ground and the other grabbing at his back. Hank knew he had to ignore the pain or he would die, looking under the car he could see Dave’s booted feet heading around the back end. Hank reached out and grabbed the shotgun and which was grabbed by the other end by Dave. Fortunately Hank had the trigger end and as Dave hauled the gun, and Hank, upwards he pulled the trigger, releasing a round of buckshot at point blank range into Dave’s abdomen. The son of a bitch jerked back, but did not let go of the gun, which was ripped out of Hank’s weakened grip, half falling Dave caught himself on one hand while Hank stood there gaping at him.

Hank had no illusions that a gut shot would kill Dave, he was hoping for severing the spinal cord, which he thought might turn the zombie into a crawler. Instead he watched in fascination while Dave’s torn apart stomach pulled in on itself and mended over the wound Hank had inflicted. Dave stood up slowly grinning like a Cheshire cat.

“You ain’t seen one like me have you? There are more of us too, super humans, or super zombies, we can do amazing things, just amazing.”, Dave said, when he finished he flipped the gun around and started to point it at Hank. That is when Juan’s shotgun shell hit him in the hands and gun. Dave’s hand simply disappeared in an explosion of congealed black blood, white bones and various fingernails. The gun fared little better taking a hit to the stock which blew it in half and triggered it off at the same time, the second blast caught the fiesta full in side, shattering the rear passenger’s window and carrying through to star up the front windshield from the inside.

Juan’s second shot hit Dave in the shoulder, literally blowing chunks of his shoulder blade across the top of the fiesta, Dave had rebounded into the car with the first hit and was hit while falling down by the second blast, knocking his upper torso into the back of the car. Juan pumped a third and fourth round into the body hitting the things legs and buttocks with rounds that were tearing it apart. Then he ran out of ammo, Hank backed up steadily towards Juan, while Kevin ran up from the side alley. The randomly wandering undead were now headed their way in a slow shambling rush.

“Hank! You okay Hank?”, asked a worried Juan.

Hank nodded towards Dave who was not moving, not really, but his body was pulling itself together in some sort of parody of healing.

“It ain’t dead Juan, try not to hit the tire. Aw shit Juan, don’t shoot, we gotta get outta here.”, Hank pointed at the gas hose on the ground pumping fuel all over the ground in a growing puddle.

“Mierdas. Esta pendejo, esta malcreado, man he is bad Hank, I gotta get close for a head shot, will the gun set off a spark? Blow the place up?”

“Kevin, don’t shoot! There are gas fumes everywhere, we gotta back off or take the car and get outta here.”, yelled Hank. As he said this he ran around to the front of the car and hopped in. He had left the key in the ignition, but the car was not running, he started it, hoping that the mere act of starting the car would not set off an explosion. A second later he was still there with no big boom, for which he was very thankful. As he started the car forward he heard something behind him, turning he saw Dave trying to crawl into the car, but unable to get his arms in through the window.

“I am gonna so fuck you up, so bad, so bad you will beg me to kill you, then I am gonna let you come back and torture you some more ‘Hank’ and I will get your little buddy too. Fucking roof sniper. I am gonna shove that shotgun up his ass and pull the trigger, but only after I bite him too.”

Hank spun the car faster around the parking lot, out onto the street in an attempt to keep Dave from being able to gain any leverage and crawl in and to use the momentum to force him out of the car altogether. It worked and with a cry of “I will find you fuck head, you are so dead…..!”, Dave disappeared out the window onto the street. As Hank sped off he heard the sounds of Juan and Kevin firing. He pulled back into the Gas ‘n Go, behind Juan and Kevin, who were busy firing at the body in the street, which was actively dodging on broken legs. A few of their shots hit it and sent it staggering, however neither of them could manage a head shot and Dave kept moving until they ran out of ammo. Then he turned, straightened himself up and looked at them, really looked at them, as if trying to memorize their faces. When Kevin pulled his gun back to his shoulder Dave flinched and ducked sideways, Kevin laughed and Juan told him, “Get in Back Kevin, get in amigo. We gotta go!”

Kevin piled his long lean form into the back seat of the car, appropriately enough Juan rode shotgun.

“Kevin, keep an eye on him with the rifle take a shot if you can, but I want to know if he follows us.”

Juan reloaded his shotgun with shells from his front shirt pocket. “Ammo’s on the roof in the backpacks.”

Hank hit the steering wheel with his hand, “SHIT!” He raised his hand as if to hit it again, paused and just grabbed the steering wheel instead. Shifting the Fiesta into gear he then used that hand to rummage through his pockets dumping the shotgun shells he had into Juan’s lap. “Well I got these, how many rounds is that?”

“Enough, cinco in the shotgun, 12 in my pockets, little over two reloads. Kevin, amigo, how many bullets to you have?”, asked Juan.

“Ah, how many are in the gun?”

“Only cinco, five amigo, you shoot them all?”

“I think so, how can I tell?”, replied Kevin.

“Gimme the gun hombre, you take the shotgun for now, you got bullets in your pockets right? A few? Any?”, prompted Juan.

“Ah Juan I put them in my pack, I might have a couple in my pockets.”, at this point Kevin stretched out on the back seat and fumbled through his pockets, “Yeah man, yeah, I got a few bullets, four, no six! Here ya go Juan.”, he said as he handed the shells up to the front seat.

Hank and Juan looked at each other with worried expressions, then Hank started to laugh, Juan joined him and Kevin sat looking at them puzzled. “No big deal Kevin, how many guns did you start with? Yeah, unless you were lying you didn’t have any and you survived for three days without them, neither me or Juan had guns to start with either, I kept my guns at Juan’s place in his gun safe, which is where Juan’s were, which is where they all are right now. It’s a long story, the short version is we don’t have a key to get in right now, Juan’s uncle Mike borrowed a rifle to go shoot rabbits with last weekend, he swung by the shop for the key and well, he is not back yet so our guns are all locked up. Safe and sound. Anyway we lived for awhile without guns either, they are just a crutch man, nothing more, we’ll get by. Guns just make it easier. We will be more careful, unless you would all like to swing around to the Gas ‘n Go again? Yeah me either. Besides the Mike’s Club is just up here.”

“Hank.”, said Kevin in a way that made Hank know they were in trouble, “Check your rearview.”

Hank glanced instinctively up, but the blast that had shattered the front windshield had also taken off the rearview mirror, using his driver’s side mirror Hank was able to see well enough. “Shit, it ain’t our lucky day is it? And here I was thinking the day was gonna go smoothly.”

Behind them in the distance Hank could see a lone guy on a motorcycle, a hog it looked like. It suit him, Dave being the current incarnate of pure evil and all. After a few blocks it was apparent that it was Dave and he was following them. However he stayed well back from them, not that Kevin, who now had his reloaded rifle back, or Juan with the shotgun would waste a shot on him yet.

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This section was last updated on 30 Jul 2008

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