Chapter 5
Juan looked out at the streets, it was about ten 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 two miles? It is over on Dartmouth and Parker. Maybe more than 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 ten minutes. First part of a journey starts with one step, or something like that."
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 zombies 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, some 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. 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 nineteen eighty 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 three hundred thousand 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 eighty nine thousand and two miles. The Fiesta's mile gauge only went to ninety nine thousand, nine hundred and ninety nine and nine tenths, 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. At least there was still power. 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 a bright red two and a half gallon plastic 'station gas can' for loaning out to people who had run out of fuel, it looked like it had only been used a couple of times, Hank grabbed it and a yellow coke out of the cooler before he headed back to the car. He sat his soda 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 had slammed 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 of his ribs.
Twisting sideways Hank used Dave's momentum 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 he had taken from being shoved into the car. 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 but Dave had gotten a grip on the other end. 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.