Hank and Juan's Story

Back at the Mike’s Club warehouse Hank was not happy. The doc told him he was going to have to lay low for a couple weeks, take it easy and concentrate on mental tasks while his body repaired itself, however with his best friend out running around clearing zombies from a hospital he could not ‘rest easy’. One thing Hank had learned in his years was that good friends, truly good friends, could never be replaced. It had taken Juan and his family a long while to convince Hank that just because he had been through hell once, not everyone was like that. The funny thing to Hank was he didn’t think people were bad, or evil, only that a very small percentage of people were, maybe one in ten thousand. No the problem with Hank was not that he believed most people were good, his problem was he no longer trusted implicitly his ability to tell who was good. When he was a young pup he was more than happy to choose and stand by any of his friends and family, until death if need be, he was that sure of himself and that sure that he was bullet proof. Then came his ex-wife, after that mess it was a wonder he didn’t spend some time in a sanitarium somewhere. Not that Hank ever would have admitted anything in so many words, hurting was not something he had been raised to share around. Now when he was more concerned than he had been in a good long while, he was stuck sitting in a lazy boy discussing shifts of the workers with Doc, or reading the kids stories, or snoozing like he was supposed to be.

When he woke from his nap and found that Juan had gone without him, well that made him feel…lost, almost. He and Juan had been together for a long time almost inseparable for the past 3-4 years and now Juan was gone, and Hank might not ever see him again. Nancy was on edge too, and Evaine was trying to keep both of them sane, but really only made matters worse. Hank had to give her credit, because she then did the only thing that could have helped, she backed off and left them stew alone. Cage and Sylvia came by, Sylvia had their shoes, Cage wouldn’t put his on, he said the other boys weren’t wearing them and he liked the way the concrete kept his feet cool in the hot warehouse. Hank held on to both of them for awhile, shoes or no, but they only stayed with him for a little while before being caught back up into the pack of tweens running wild through the warehouse. Well, not quite true, they were still being shadowed by a group of older girls, who were quick to step up when any of the littler kids tried to do anything the adults wouldn’t like.

This left Hank alone to stew, old man Gonzales was handling most of the current moment to moment things, everyone could tell Hank was in a funk, heck, Hank figured they could even have handled the rotating shift problem without his input, but they wanted to make Hank feel a little better, like they needed him right now, which Hank pretty much knew they didn’t. Feeling useless was not the way Hank wanted to feel. Worse his side itched, under the bandages, itched something fierce, but every time he moved around to scratch, he came away with pain, pain, pain.

Finally Kevin stopped by. He plopped into the seat next to Hank and said, “I think we feel the same way. You stuck on your chair, not out bashing heads with Juan, me not able to do much outside, Doc ordered me inside, said to rest. So I have to rest, but Juan can go shoot zoms? What is up with that? I mean, we all three came in together and only you were really busted up a bit. I was just tired and slept most of the morning away. Been playing video games with some of the other teens.”

“Winning?”, asked Hank.

“Sure, I schooled em good, an old timer like me, that surprised ‘em too.”, Kevin snorted, “Me! An ‘old timer’! Still I got their respect at video games. Probably the last generation of games out now, huh? I mean we ain’t gonna be seeing a Playstation 4 anytime soon now are we?”

Hank slowly shook his head, “Even if I knew what you were talking about I would have to say, ‘No, I guess not’. So you even beat old man Gonzales’s grandson? I heard he was pretty good.”

It was Kevin’s turn to shake his head, “No. And yeah the dude’s practically a legend, the older boys all talk about it and want me to play him, to see who is better, we are gonna do five matches tonight, ten minute rounds, go three out of five, but they have some system worked out, like, so if I own him most of one match it counts as more or something. I don’t care, I play the game, I win the game, plus this Al, he is like old, 20 or something, his reflexes gotta be giving out by now, right?”

“Twent..twenty or some…Old!”, Hank sputtered.

Kevin started laughing, “Gotcha! See your girl, she is good for something, told me to come over and wind you up a bit, take your mind off Juan being gone.”

Hank laughed, “Oh, okay, I get it now.”

“I did want to go with them though, the doc told me to stay here and get some rest, he said I was beat down hard and needed a break to recover, at least a day, maybe too. You know what the worst thing is Hank?”

“No, what?”

“The stupid doctor is right. My legs are sore, my back is sore, my mind is still running at 100 miles an hour, I can’t stop thinking about my mom. My family. I don’t know that I ever will. You’re lucky you know, you got your best friend and your neighbors, who care about you a lot. No, no I ain’t going down pity road or telling you to ‘man up’ or anything, I just think you are lucky and I am happy to know you. And thanks, really, thanks for giving me a hand up with I was just spent. I wouldn’t have made it without you and Juan.”

“Aw, well, you seemed like a pretty nice guy. I mean there we were on top of the gas station, there you were running in the alley away from a few fast zombies, heading right towards the pack that had us treed. I said to myself, ‘I could just let him run into the pack, distract them so me and Juan could get away.’ But then Juan, that old softy, said, ‘Give him a hand up Hank’. So what could I do? I didn’t want to look bad in front of Juan.”

Kevin snorted, “Yeah right old man, I don’t believe that for a second!”

Hank smiled, “Oh no? You don’t think I can be ruthless?” “Oh no Hank, you can, but not to anyone younger than you are, which is most of the population now.”, that brought another laugh to Hank and after awhile they started chatting about what they were going to do if the hospital was clear and what they would do if it wasn’t. Eventually word reached them that the scouting party had found survivors in the form of doctors and nurses and new mothers, and there were babies who could not move from the hospital.

The doc, old man Gonzales and Beth came over to talk to Hank about it. Kevin stayed in his lazy boy, so he could add his two cents in and Evaine was shadowing the group, keeping one ear on them while both eyes were on the toddlers in their makeshift pen.

Doc started the conversation off, saying, “They found eleven survivors in the hospital, and an unspecified number of babies, we have to decide what we are going to do. It took them about an hour to go the four miles and lead a pack of slow zoms away from the emergency room entrance. I think we could send a relief force to them with some of the able bodied men and women, plus all of our walking wounded, food and ammo. No kids or anything yet, just people to clean out Sky Ridge and hold off any hordes of zombies. The rest of us lay low here, even if we send out 50 people there will be over 250 of us left, and at the rate survivors are trickling in we’ll replace the 50 by sundown. Those are my thoughts, anyone else got an opinion?”

“You were thinking 50 then? We got enough cars for that?”, asked Hank.

Gonzales answered, “Not without taking some off the line, giving up a little space, we got drivable vehicles, but that would take, what? A dozen cars?”

“Okay then, how many free vehicles do we have?”

“We-ell”, Gonzales began in his Spanish accented drawl, “I got nine I could spare pretty easily, plus we got the semi and trailer, but we need a bus, you know?”

“But if we send all the cars to the hospital, how long will it take to get, say another 10 cars ready to go? If we need to caravan to another place.”

Gonzales thought about it for a minute, his wrinkled forehead flexing while he thought, bringing his grey white eyebrows almost together, “About forty minutes, is all. For the good ones, I mean we are putting a lot of em into the wall, but we try to hold back the better vehicles.”

Kevin volunteered an idea, “So send 8 cars, while Gonzales starts pulling ten from the line, send em in 20 minutes so at least half the cars are ready in case of an emergency and get the truck ready to roll in case we have to bail out of here.”

“That is a pretty good idea, anyone see anything wrong with it?”, asked Hank again.

“No, well, we won’t be able to send 50 though, not in 8 vehicles, figure four each, 32 people, I can ask for volunteers, but probably half should be the worst hurt, we have a lot of broken bones and that guy who got electrocuted trying to hook his generator up, he should go now, they probably can’t do anything for him, but they can do more than I can.”, said Doc.

“Good, good, that all sounds good to me. Do I qualify as one of the most wounded?”, asked Hank.

“No!”, the others said in unison. Doc continued, “You are stable, probably a second tripper, unless you start going all pale and pissing out blood. Yeah I want to get you checked out better, but we have bones that need to be set, they take precedent. You stay. For now.”

Sighing, Hank conceded with bad grace, “Fine. You get me to stay here, any ideas on who else should go?”

“You better send Nanci!”, Evaine called over, then returned to watching the toddlers.

Hank thought about it and nodded once, “Yeah, we better do that. Gonzales you and doc get the people worked out, you know who is who and who we still need here better than I do, then you work on getting some basic supplies sent over, maybe some of the shotgun ammo, I bet they could use it. Kevin why don’t you help him by either pulling the cars or the supplies, you volunteered an idea, so now you get to do some of the work.”

Kevin smiled to show his willingness and soon the three men moved off discussing what to do and how they were going to get it done, leaving Beth to check Hank’s bandages and smile at him, “Trying to weasel out of here huh? What you don’t like us?”, she held up a silencing finger, “Don’t deny it! Oh I know you just want to be reunited with Juan, we all want to cover our friend’s backs, so I get it. You really should have time to rest though; you have done your part, right? Killed a 100 zombies with your bare hands, fought Dave to a standstill inside the Quick Trip. You are like a living legend already!”

“Aw now, don’t you start in, people are not really saying that are they?”

“Well, no really the kids though, you rescued Cage and Sylvia, well they are talking you up a lot. The stories get back to the adults who are taking care of them and then get talked about more, so you are practically a living legend. Not quite there yet. You mind if I ask you another question?”

“Sure, shoot.”, said Hank a little puzzled.

“How many zombies did you kill since you left the clinic anyway?”

“You’re pulling my leg right? I mean, you think I kept track? Juan and I shot a lot of them, I had a lot of head bashing to do, probably a couple dozen shots and a eighteen or twenty head bashes. Does it matter? There are surely a lotta guys out there that have taken down more than that. Juan, for one.”

“I suppose it doesn’t matter, but I can at least tell everyone the rumors are wrong. Yeah, you killed more than we all gave you credit for. Hmm, how’s your ribs feel?”

“Well better, now that you have tightened the bandages. It’s the fact that I can hardly breath that bothers me now.”

“Deal with it, hero. I will be back to check up on you before you hit the hay. Unless I am wrong your lady friend wants to talk to you without me around.” Beth glanced briefly at Evaine, who was still standing close by, near the children. “I will leave you two to it, no rough activity though, got it?”

Hank’s face turned a bit red and he nodded, “Nothing like that, she is just a friend I dated a couple times.”

“Sure, Hank, sure.”, Beth nodded and walked away.

It took about five minutes, then Evaine managed to find her way over to Hank’s chair. Hank had picked up the latest and probably the last ‘Field and Stream’ magazine someone had left nearby with his juice and was reading an article on Bass fishing in Michigan. Evaine stood near the foot rest, put her hands on her hips and said, “So, you know that woman?”

“Beth? Yeah, sure Doc’s nurse, we rescued her and doc out of the clinic, gave em our car and directions on how to get here. Why?”

“I think she is too old for you.”

“Oh?”, Hank didn’t really know what to say to Evaine. Sure, they had dated, but that was about it. Hank liked her, thought she was great, and had no intention of saddling her down with a man 13 years older than she was. Not even if it would make Nanci happy. “Ah, what makes you think I am interested in her anyway?”

Evaine made a slightly rude noise and said, “Maybe not you so much as her, but every man has needs Hank, even cold stone men like you, I just don’t want you suckered in by the first thing that comes along.”

Hank made a look that suggested ‘who? Me?’ and laughed, “No need to worry about that darling, plus I got you looking out for me right? I’ll be okay.”

“Sure Hank, you’ll be better than okay when you finally get over our age difference, then you will be mighty fine indeed!”

Continuing in Spanish Hank said, “Oh yeah the old ‘Spanish Culture’ thing, huh? Funny how you always see young girls marrying old goats and never young boys doing the same thing. Makes you wonder which is the smarter sex?”

A rather uncomplimentary word spilled out of Evaine’s mouth, along with a good natured smile and she turned back towards the children.

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This section was last updated on 30 Jul 2008

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