Undead Advantage, a Zombie Chronicles Novel (zombie chronicles novel)

by Mark Clodi

  Undead Advantage, a Zombie Chronicles Novel

  ( Zombie Chronicles Novel )

  Mark Clodi

  Mark Clodi. Undead Advantage

  A Zombie Chronicles Novel

  Chapter 1

  "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 ha
d been bitten there, then got away, and died somewhere else. The only thing missing was a nice, white, ten gallon cowboy hat.

  Kevin touched Juan's shoulder and pointed at the faster undead. Juan nodded and said in a soft, Hispanic accent, "Not today esse" before firing. The Talon II rifled bullet struck the cowboy zombie just below his Adam's apple. The impact from the bullet cause him to take a step back, the cowboy then lunged forward and hid behind a yellow Toyota. Not a bad shot considering the rifle was 'off the shelf' and not sighted in. However when fighting the undead 'not a bad shot' was fully equal to 'a bad shot'. Without a brain destroying bullet the zombie was just winged and not dead again, and now he knew they were there. Both Juan and Kevin could see the cowboy peering from the sidewalk through the Toyota's windows at the roof of the Gas n' Go.

  "Puta", Juan swore softly as he worked the bolt action rifle back and chambered another round.

  Kevin pointed at the cowboy indicating that Juan should try and shoot him through the glass.

  "No." Juan replied curtly.

  Kevin knew from the quickness of Juan's reply that he had better leave him alone to watch Hank's back, he returned to the back of the store and kept watch on the back parking lot and alley.

  When Hank heard the shot he immediately dodged left. For about the hundredth time since leaving the Mike's Club he wished he had radios like those soldiers out of the movies. "Always the dumb 'good ole boy' volunteering for this shit", he thought. He made the front door of the store to find it was locked and had a security gate. It was a newer style store and obviously it had to follow a builder's code of the area, which seemed to stipulate a lot of wood and earth tones. The door, while supporting painted brown metal bars running vertically up and down in front of the glass, was wood. Hank used the butt of his shotgun to smash the window, no alarms when off, despite the fact that the area still seemed to have electricity. Hank reached in passed the broken glass and pulled the fire safety bar down to open the door. 'Thank God for fire codes' he thought as he let himself in. Turning he scanned for major problems, and seeing nothing Juan could not handle he pulled the door shut. Looking around he spotted a box full of 'fold-a-chairs', on special right near the front door, he pulled one out and stuffed two of its legs between the safety bar and the security bars outside the broken window. It was not a permanent solution but anyone messing with it would make noise trying to get in.

  Sure enough the store did hold a variety of camping gear, for the most part it held overpriced, 'high-tech' clothing. Hank did a quick circuit of the entire place, going around the outside and looking for undead or other survivors. Finding nothing in the main room he chose to start looting immediately. First he grabbed a backpack, then went for the highest priced sleeping bags he could find, he torn them out of their boxes and stuffed the lightweight sacks down into the backpacks. The three bags filled the main compartment and Hank made sure to put the 'stuff sacks' they came within as well, though he kept one out to fill with other loot from the store. He grabbed a small stove, three sets of cookware, five bottles of stove fuel and just about every dehydrated food pouch he could find. On the way towards the front door he grabbed some pants and shirts he thought would fit Kevin. He topped this off with three boxes of power bars that were near the register and then turned to the small refrigerator next to it to clean it out of bottled water. He also grabbed two of every kind of soda they had and a couple extra pepsi colas, the stuff sack was fifty pounds now if it was an ounce so he returned to the backpacks and loaded it up into another another pack instead. Jackets. They would be nice, maybe if he made another trip… No time, Juan was already firing outside and Hank started to worry about the kind of crowd gunfire always drew. He put the pack with the sleeping bags on his back, carried the other in his left hand and cradled the shotgun with his right. Heavy, but there were only the slow zombies to deal with outside, he hoped.

  Juan saw Hank duck into the sporting goods store as he fired for a third time at the fast zombie on the street. Each time he fired he kept thinking, "Gotcha pendejo!", but each time the gun was just slightly too high or too low or too far to the right or left. After missing his last shot he threw the gun down in frustration and looked at the remaining weapons. They had brought four rifles and two shotguns with them all fully loaded and each with an extra box of ammo. In addition both Hank and Juan had pistols belted to their waists and metal baseball bats as last resort weapons. They had burned through most of their shotgun ammunition getting away from the Ivy street mob. Kevin now had one of the rifles, Hank had one of the shotguns with him. Debating for a second Juan selected the other shotgun, it was loaded with double ought buck and while the range was extreme for a shotgun, the burst should be more forgiving for Juan's near misses. Turning back to the street Juan saw that his recent firing had drawn plenty of other slow zombies back into the area.

  "Damn." he swore softly in English.

  They had originally decided to hole up on top of the roof for awhile because there were simply so many of the slow zombies around, it made getting surrounded and mobbed a real possibility. They had been deciding on whether to go or leave when Kevin showed up. Kevin was beat, wearing a sweat drenched shirt and he looked like he had not slept in two days. Juan was pretty sure Kevin was not going to be up to traveling without at least a night's sleep and leaving him was not something that had crossed either Hank or Juan's mind. So when the zombies cleared out a little Hank made the dash to the store across the street for blankets and maybe, if they were lucky, supplies. Of course they were sitting on top of a convenience store. So Juan somehow knew they would not be going hungry tonight no matter what happened.

  Hank returned to the doorway and lifted his makeshift 'lock' out from the safety bar. 'Ugh', there were a lot more slow zombies out there now, plus Juan was firing at something, no doubt a speedy Gonzales, 'Well Speedy', Hank thought as he patted his shotgun, 'I got a little something for ya right here.'

  Hank thought that if this were a movie he would now chamber a round in his shotgun and rush blindly out into the parking lot. In real life he already had a round chambered, the safety was off and he had no desire to be hit on his blind side by a zombie waiting just out of sight on one side of the door.

  He pushed the door open and looked down the sidewalk. Nothing one way, turning he peered the other way. All clear. Looking across the street at Juan on the roof of the convenience store he waited for him to gesture go or no go. Juan was a bit busy sighting at something beyond Hank's vision. 'That's okay, I can get the door shut.' Hank turned around and picked up the chair from inside the door, holding it carefully he lifted it from the outside until it was above the locking bar, then eased the door shut. Once it was 'locked' again he pulled the chair legs back down into position, locking the door against the really stupid zombies. 'Or people.', he mused. Doing this had taken both hands and when he finished he quickly grabbed his shotgun and second backpack. Just in time, a slow zed was a little too close for comfort. This time, it was an old man wearing a hospital robe. The ties in the back had come loose and now the only thing holding the robe on was his outstretched arms. Hank shuffled forward, pointed the gun at his head. The discharge made mincemeat of the man's head and the body toppled backward.

  Hank aimed at the next closest target, but did not fire, thinking of the fact that he only had four more shots until he had to reload. Luckily this was a magazine operated shotgun, which meant Hank could reload as he fired. He snaked his arm up through the straps of the backpack to the pocket on his shirt and pulled out another shell, which he then loaded through the bottom of the gun. 'Excellent', he thought, 'back to five shots.'

  Juan kept the shotgun trained on the cowboy. Out of the corner of his eye he noticed Hank coming out of the front of the store, but he did not shift his view. That fast bastard needed to go down, otherwise it was going to be a long night. The slow ones were uncoordinated and unable to climb. The fast ones, well they were a different breed altogether, they could climb, they could drive cars,
heck Juan and Hank had even heard one talk. Juan would not put jumping to the top of the roof past some of them either.

  What made some come back as 'fast' and others as 'slow', they had not figured out yet. Juan's thought was maybe it was who they ate, maybe anyone with A positive blood gave the undead brains. He shrugged, it didn't mean anything. Sooner or later Juan was afraid they were going to run into a fast zombie with a gun, that would be bad, very bad.

  The cowboy rolled out of cover and broke for Hank without warning, "Sonofabitch!", Juan exclaimed trying to get a bead on the him. Just as Juan pulled the trigger the cowboy passed behind another, slow moving, zombie. Juan's shot completely destroyed the slower zombie's head and it fell to the ground. Even from the roof Juan would hear the heels from the cowboy's boots clopping on the hard concrete sidewalk.

  Hank turned towards the cowboy and brought his shotgun up, Juan watched in disbelief as Hank's hand got caught in a pack of some sort and saw that he was not going to get the gun up for a killing shot in time. Juan chambered another round and was just taking aim when Hank fired his gun. The cowboy took the shot in his lower torso and went down. His momentum allowed him to fall forward and drag Hank to the ground by his legs. Both men were out of view behind an abandoned car but, to Juan's relief, a second later Hank was up, one arm still wrapped in the backpack strap. As he came up his target was still unseen from Juan's angle, he had cover behind a car while on the ground. As his shot rang out Juan saw Hank flinch and pull his head back to avoid being sprayed with cowboy brains.

  Juan took a deep breath and relaxed only for a moment because several new zombies had been attracted by all the gun fire. Kevin had crept back to the front of the store roof next to Juan. He timidly pointed to a mailman slowly approaching from Hank's rear. He watched has the barrel of Juan's gun followed the mailman's path. Simultaneously Kevin heard the shot and saw the storefront glass of the camping supply store splattered with red and black matter.