by Mark Clodi
If he had beat up his wife at his parent's funeral for what he knew she had done, she probably would have sued him for every penny he owned. Instead he buried his parents, and spoke to several guests who recognized his ex-wife. He told them that she had told him she had killed his parents and if he didn't pay her seventy thousand dollars she was going to kill him too. A little white lie. He cried too. The rest was as easy as it was painful. First his ex had violated the restraining order, a fact seen by any number of attendees at the funeral, second the district attorney already had a history of his ex harassing him and knew the story of what she had put him through. The district attorney's investigation into the possible murder of Hank's parents was far more thorough than it might normally have been. Witnesses were found, alibis turned up to be false, his wife was in a lot of trouble.
The day his ex wife was charged with the homicide of his parents and the police went to her home to arrest her they found her incapacitated in her apartment. She had slit her wrists, after drowning her two children. She had also left a long, rambling note accusing Hank of abuse, and made up stories of harassment. Worse yet the bitch did not have the courtesy to die. They rushed her, barely alive, to the hospital and she recovered. The kids did not recover. His ex-wife was remanded to custody for her trial and had the great big, brass balls to send Hank a letter saying she still loved him and asking him to hire her an attorney to defend her. Hank had never answered her and her subsequent letters were less kind, in fact they were used by the district attorney at her sentencing hearing, the last Hank had heard anyway. By then he had left South Carolina to start a new life.
By this time Hank and Juan had given up all pretense at working on the Camaro and Nanci had started bring them beers, beer after beer after beer. Hank had ended his story well and truly drunk, he recalled. Coming back to the here and now, he looked out over the mostly deserted and still eerily light streets and says, "Ain't that about right Juan?"
"Sì. Yeah Hank."
"Of course after that, everyone knew about it. It was great that not everyone was talking about my sexual orientation anymore, but it took a few months before the pity came out of their eyes and that was pretty hard to take. Juan though, he was always there for me, so was Nanci. Nanci....", Hank stared off into the night some more.
Kevin heard the story and knew there was more to come, he doubted Hank or Juan would be up here on this roof, leaving Juan's wife behind.
Hank started a bit, as if he had half fallen asleep and then said, "Hey Kevin, you can take some of the extra water and wash up a bit around back of this furnace, I got all these cloths for you, I hope something fits anyway. We should probably be hitting the hay, you want first watch Juan?"
"Si."
"Okay, wake me when you start dozing off. Kevin you get a night's sleep, you need it more than Juan and I do right now."
Kevin nodded his thanks and moved over to the clothing Hank had picked up.
Hank drifted off to sleep thinking of the way things had been, might have been and how they were now, the last thing he heard that night was Kevin quietly cleaning up behind the furnace.
Chapter 3
Juan watched the dark areas between the street lights very closely. Kevin had long since gone to sleep and was snoring pretty loudly, the noise was making Juan nervous. Tomorrow he was going to try and find some of those sprays or metal nose clips to help keep Kevin from snoring, it could be the difference between life and death these days. Juan made every effort to stay very, very still as he watched the darkness, the slo-zoms had mostly wandered off, the few left in the street were wandering around aimlessly. Those were not the creatures Juan, or Hank, worried about. They both had seen faster, deadlier zombies over the last few days, zombies that made the one that had attacked Hank earlier today seem slow. Some of them were definitely super human in speed and strength. So far there was nothing. Juan lifted a set of light intensifier binoculars from his vest pocket and checked all the pockets of darkness again. One thing about the Mike's Club store was that it stocked a ton of camping gear this time of year and they had about two hundred pairs of these pocket sized 'see in the dark at four times your normal eye power' gizmos. They had both grabbed a pair before heading out. Unfortunately July was just a little too early for the Mike's Club to have started stocking firearms for the fall hunting season. While there were no guns out front they had found a pallet of shotguns in the back, which was better than nothing.
As for the rifles they carried, well they had gotten them from the gun store. Hank had originally suggested they head for the Mike's because he thought they would have guns and ammo in stock by now. The group that had gotten into the Mike's had not found any firearms on display only the one pallet in the very small backroom inventory of the club, hence they had to make the trip out to one of the very few 'local' gun stores to better equip their group. They left most their neighbors back at the club with what few weapons they had, mostly old thirty eight revolvers, hunting rifles and a couple of shotguns, except for the shotguns, none of the firearms had more than fifty rounds of ammunition.
Even though the place didn't have the guns they were hoping for, it did have literally tons of food, enough to feed everyone there for weeks or maybe even months with careful rationing. Hank had been worried about more and more people showing up, however the refugee rate had been pretty small, most people were holed up in their houses or at work. Better yet the store had six generators that ran on unleaded fuel and there was a gas station associated with the club in the parking lot.
Juan had enough family that had worked in blue collar positions to know what to do to get the pumps working, so long as they could get a power supply, which they could so long as they had a little gas. It was a self feeding circle. Hopefully, when everything died down a little, his family and neighbors (which were the same in many cases) would be able to restart their community. Juan was thinking of the future constantly, he thought that with the grace of God his family and friends might come through this horror okay. Hank had been putting on a bit of a show for Kevin, making like Juan was not able to speak for some trauma or something, like Kevin had gone through. The truth of the matter was Juan just did not feel a need to speak out that much. Hank and Juan had known each other long enough to almost be able to read each others minds.
After Juan had finally succumbed to his family's subtle pressure to ask Hank point blank about his sexuality, they had grown far closer, for the last five years, not only every day working together, but most nights socializing. Hell Juan could not even remember a time in the past five years when they hadn't gone on vacation together. Hank just asked if it was okay if he went with Juan and his family and tagged along with them wherever they went. California one year, the Black hills another, Gaudelupe to visit Juan's great grandmother, that had been a vacation worth remembering! Why Hank had actually, almost, gotten romantically involved with one of Juan's distant cousins! It had been Nanci's dream to marry Hank into the family five years ago, now the entire neighborhood was working on it.
Hank didn't even know it yet, but he was doomed. His family and customs allowed a man only so long to mourn before they slowly and steadily started working on the individual to succumb to the social norm. In this case, marriage. After all Juan and Hank were already like brothers, why not make it official? Juan would be honored to count Hank among his family and Juan's father, Juan senior, had already told Juan that when that happened he would probably let Juan and Hank take over the business, which he owned.
Now, well now, who knew what tomorrow would bring? Juan half expected to see golden ladders reaching down out of the clouds that people could climb into heaven like the bible said. Or perhaps if zombies were running around, maybe they would see people flying around on broomsticks, like those movies his children loved so much. One thing was certain, the business was no longer going to be needed the way it was. Probably they would switch to domestic vehicle work, as opposed to high end European vehicles. That made sense to Juan, kee
p both lines open. He was not looking forward to working on the Asian cars, but there were bound to be a few mechanics left who could. Shaking his head slightly Juan laughed at himself, here he was thinking of the future again!
"What's so funny Juan?", Hank whispered softly.
"Manana.", Juan replied.
"Oh? Yeah you are planning again, huh? Hard to plan for when this is over, when we are going right through it, huh? It is like we are in a war, I guess we are. I wonder if the people in Berlin in nineteen forty five planned for things like we do too? Anyway I am awake now, you let me sleep too long, ya shouldn't do that brother, you gotta be sharp tomorrow too. Any bad guys running around spying on us?"
"No." Juan nodded towards the dark alleyways with pools of shadows littering the streets and pointedly held up his light intensifier binoculars.
Sighing, Hank said with good humor, "Okay, okay you were right, it was a good idea to bring them along, another eight ounces of gear I thought we could live without has proven invaluable. Turn in partner, I'll take your spot, seeings how you got it all warmed up for me."
Juan laughed as Hank got out of his sleeping bag and moved behind the furnace to urinate before settling into his position.
When Hank came back he found Juan snuggled down in Hank's sleeping bag and laughed too, "Yeah, okay, you got more warmth out of that deal too, ya bastard! Still you are welcome to it and I ain't gonna wake you guys until one or the other of ya wake up Maybe you will get a nights rest anyway. Sleep well amigo."
Juan fell asleep watching Hank check the pools of darkness with his pair of binoculars.
Hank lowered the binoculars and checked his watch, a gift from Juan and his family on his last birthday, two am. A very tiring time of night. Hank had not meant to go on and on last night telling his life's story, but somehow getting to where they were now he felt a need to complete the picture. Kevin snorted loudly in his sleep, rolled over and then started to snore more loudly, there had to be something wrong with that kid, his snoring was terrible. Of course he might have just been tired. Hank had no idea what his story was, probably it was typical of the day though. He started living a normal day, about three days ago then everything went to hell.
Juan and Hank had ran into enough stragglers over the past day to know the basics. At the clinic where they had found the doctor holed up they had run into a whole slew of people. Hank had tried to tell them to all meet at the Mike's Club, but only the doctor and one of the nurses who worked for him had agreed. There were three distinct groups, four including Hank and Juan, the groups were the Doctor and his staff, a group led by a female police officer and a group of teenagers with their younger siblings. The doctor was the only one that had any sense so far as Hank was concerned. The cop would not even talk to the teens and tell them to go with Hank or the doc. Hank still shook his head at the memory. She, officer Jane Stewart, had said the kids had lived for three days on their own and were entitled to make their own choice of what to do. Pretty goddamn liberal for a police officer. It had infuriated Hank the way the decision makers from all four parties involved had gotten together and then pretty much went their separate ways. The kids wanted to find their loved ones, Jane was going along with a guy, Max, who was unconscious and shot for God's sake! They were heading out to find his family in the western suburb of Arvada. Max and Juan had argued long and quietly with Jane to come with them, they could use her help, hell they needed her help and she was the first person with 'authority' they had run into since this mess started. Jane was determined; she said they would make every effort to hook up with Hank at the Mike's club after they checked on Max's family, one way or the other they had to do that first. As for the kids, they were led by a guy named Michael and he said he would meet up at the Mike's, but only after they had hiked halfway around the goddamn city trying to find their parents.
While Hank had been mad about the decision to split the four groups back up instead of traveling together he was also very pragmatic. He spoke to them about what the areas they had come from were like and asked about how the zombies they encountered acted. All three of the groups that had been outside had encountered the smarter, faster zombies to a varying degree. No one understood where they came from, everyone had an idea or two about it. Hank and Juan thought that some of them just revived smarter and better than others, just like some people grew up to become nobel prize winners and other worked contently at fast food joints their entire lives. Jane thought maybe it was the amount of time it took for them to revive, so if they came back right away they retained more of their memories and abilities. She didn't have the opinion that they were stronger or faster than a normal human, only that they no longer feared anything and that just made them uninhibited so they acted stronger and faster than ordinary humans. The kid Michael thought that they grew more powerful and even super human by killing and devouring the living. Of all the theories Hank liked Michaels' the least. If it were true, well they could start driving again and use weapons or even...guns. A zombie sniper was something Hank never wanted to encounter. Plus what if they kept eating more and more and more, would they start to fly around like a super hero and become completely unstoppable?
Hank lifted the binoculars and slowly checked all the dark areas again. Nothing. He could see almost all of the front and sides of the building from where he sat crouched in the nest Juan had made of his sleeping bag, but he could not see directly behind him, where the huge roof mounted furnace was at. The back of the building was a wide alleyway with a couple of parking areas, in one of which sat the beat up car Hank thought belonged to the store clerk downstairs. There were no easy ways to climb onto the roof from the back. The best way to get up was the dumpster Juan and him had used yesterday and that approach was clearly visible to Hank from where he sat.
True to his word Hank let the other men sleep in until well after sunrise. As soon as Juan started moving around Hank got up and started the stove, warming up some eggs and making pancakes and some corned beef hash from the camping store packs he had looted the night before. Four days ago this stuff would have been inedible, today all three of them were glad to have it. Kevin had gotten up pretty quickly after Juan and started his day with a subdued, "Good morning.", surprising them by speaking.
Chapter 4
The men sat around eating off their new mess kits before Hank started talking.
"Well I think we can get back today, there are only a few slow zoms down there, not the mob like yesterday. You think you are up to moving Kevin? We gotta go about two, maybe three miles."
Kevin smiled softly and asked, "Where are we?"
"Ah, south Denver, like maybe five miles south of E-470 and three east of I-70."
"I think I can do three miles. I pretty much ran from north Denver yesterday. It's a mad house. There were a lot of them and more every minute."
Hank just nodded and said, "Yeah?"
Kevin went on, "Okay I will tell you a little about it, you did a little last night, but I won't talk like that, so long and all."
"Sì. Good." said Juan, laughing a little around his eyes at Hank. Hank scowled at him briefly and said, "Yeah, not everybody is a story teller like me, do the best you can though, any information you give us helps, ya know?"
Kevin nodded yes to that and started talking, "It started about three days ago, it probably started for other people earlier than that but you see on Sunday I had lost my job. It was a shitty job, loading trucks at what they call a 'hub' not too far from my house. I had a car a sweet ride, man it was everything to me. My friends and I would take it out, pick up the ladies, go clubbing, all that flash makes for good times. I supported it by humping my ass off five nights a week loading trucks. Hell I live, in my mom's place, you know how it is. I am only twenty. Tried college, still thinking, was thinking, of going back, but now, no. I got this job loading trucks when I started at Red Rocks Community college, class during the day, boxes every night until eleven. Get up, do the homework, go to class, do it again. Only I wa
nted this car, so bad man. I have money saved up for tuition, thought I could get more, blew it on a down payment and come time to pay for school I didn't have the money. I was doing okay too, ya know? Not straight A's, but close enough to get a partial scholarship, but when the money was not enough, they said I couldn't go anymore. My fault, I had to have this stupid car. My mom was so pissed, she beat me, I mean not a yellin' at or 'you are dumb ass', or even , 'take that goddamn car back right now and get into school', a physical beating, with a goddamn cast iron skillet. You ever been hit by a goddamn cast iron skillet? It hurts, probably she would have killed me, maybe by accident, but my old man was around and after about half a dozen whacks he got the pan away from my mom. Then, to make it clear where he stood on the matter he whacked me once too and told me I was a dumbass and said 'Dumbass is what dumbass does.' What the fuck does that even mean? Anyway I had to spend a few nights out at a friends before my mom let me come back home. That was three months ago, since then I just worked the package factory and tried to keep up with the car payments and insurance. You know what full coverage on a new car costs in North Denver? The insurance was more each month than the car payment, it pretty much ate up eighty percent of my cash every month, the rest went to gas and going out, no progress in getting back to school this fall. I filled out loan applications, my mom scraped, my dad saved. I was going back in a month. I had worked a little after high school, missed a year otherwise I would have graduated from Red Rocks this past spring. Now I am thinking an associate degree in computer science ain't going to be worth much anyway. So I have been working and working, but I missed a few nights here and there, one of them was last Friday, it was an 'extra night' of work, we have been having a lot of those, good money but when you have to work Saturday through Wednesday, you have to have Friday off, I mean working both of the best nights of the weekend? So I called in sick, went out had a good time and when I showed up on Saturday I was talking with my co-workers on my shift about the good time I had been having, while they were all working. My supervisor heard me in the break room. Sunday I showed up for work and was handed a last paycheck and let go. Fucking bastard, people like him never went out when they were young, never had a good time. I mean I am a good worker, but I need a night off. Didn't matter. I couldn't go home, my mom would know right away, so I called up my friends and did another dumbass thing, we started drinking at a friend's house, older guys had gotten a keg and were having a little party.