Juan thought about it, he didn't recall getting cut up or injured in the last couple of days, he had been living pretty rough and could remember the doc putting hydrogen peroxide on some cuts he hadn't noticed after they had arrived at the Mike's Club. Look himself over he didn't see any cuts, scraps or even half healed scabs where he thought there had been minor wounds. Nothing. He stared at them for a moment. Then said, "Well maybe…" he shook his head, then said, "Madre de Dios, what does this mean?"
No one answered him right away, then Jack spoke, "Keep your mind open partner, lets go see how our zombie friends like you?"
Still shaking his head Juan followed the three to the ER exit and went towards the cars acting as a wall. The zombies were definitely more active now, they had started pressing around the cars trying to get in at the three humans defending the area.
Jack pointed to one side of the cars, "You move over there Juan and the rest of us will get over on this side, don't do anything if you don't have to, okay, this is a test. Then again don't let them get too close either."
Juan took up a position in front of a zombie that was clambering over one of the trucks, the zombie turned his head up and looked at him, or through him, and just slowed down, the effect was immediate and everyone noticed it. On the other side the group of five people was agitating the zombies even more, the monsters made haste in their efforts to get past the vehicles before any of their brethren. Of course fast is relative and the group was easily able to cut down any who led the pack. Meanwhile Juan's zombie just stopped in the bed of the truck. On his knees the middled aged man with bald head and green pants just waited, looking at Juan. Juan looked at him. A staring contest of sorts came about, the others put five zombies down while 'farmer green' just stood staring with Juan. Jack called out from where he was, "Hey Juan, maybe get closer to him and see what he does?"
Juan stepped forward, the zombie did not move, but he did cock his head sideways, as if looking at Juan for the first time. His head remained at that odd angle when Juan took two steps back. The zombie stayed in the truck bed. Juan started talking to the zombie, "Go away, leave us alone, get out of here."
The zombie rolled over the other side of the truck's pickup bed wall and started shambling away. Charlie let out a whoop of delight, "He is a zombie whisperer!" This brought a laugh from the others.
"Hey man, try it from there on the ones coming over the car on this side." called Jack.
Juan turned towards the zombies and said "Go away! Don't ever come back!"
Most of the zombies reversed course, one, just looked at Juan and hissed angrily in his direction. While it was distracted, Nanci took a step up and clubbed it with a round house swing that connected to the back of the thing's head. Juan took up a more central position along the wall and the zombies on the other side stopped actively coming towards the ER, they resumed their listless wandering and milling about.
The doors to the ER slide open and Ted came out followed by Sanchez and Thompson. Ted said, "Good morning." curtly and he and his men made their way out to the Humvee, killing a few zombies that were milling about as they went.
"Uh, good morning, ah Ted?" said Jack, "What are you doing?"
"We are going to take the fifty caliber machine gun and set it up on the roof, we will get a good field of fire from there, practically unbeatable, plus we'll take the radio, I am not sure I want to turn it on, but if I do it will get better reception up there than down here surround by the hospital's walls."
Jack moved forward to grab a box of ammo from one of the men, "So are you staying then? Need a hand to lug this stuff up to the roof?"
"Staying?" Ted paused, then nodded, "We aren't going anywhere, we decided that last night. We were just too dog tired to move the gun and stuff then. If you want to help us, I would appreciate it, plus I want someone else to learn how to fire the fifty and to take a look at our rifles, just in case we can get more guns sent down here. So if you and a couple other guys want to help us, sure. Choose who you want to learn the guns."
"I can stay here, and watch the ER, take the other guys, alright?" said Juan. Nanci immediately chipped in that she would be staying down with Juan too, in case he got tired.
Agreeing Charlie organized Jack and the other three relief guards into pairs with the military men and they set off, each pair carrying a part of the gun, a box or two of ammo, or some other boxes and crates that Ted pointed out. During the process of unloading Juan just thought 'Stay Away' as hard as he could out at the zombies, it seemed to work and Ted noticed.
"Why're they acting like this? Normally they attack when we get this close, they are just milling about."
Charlie answered, "We don't know, Juan was out here this morning and he said they have been acting weird all night. Part of me is paranoid about it, like something is holding them back, trying to get a force up here before it attacks. So, like, we better move this gun up to the roof quick, huh?"
Nodding agreement, Ted hustled them along faster. Soon Juan and Nanci were left alone in front of the ER, every once in awhile people would come through, bring them coffee or ask if they needed a break. Juan politely refused. Jack and Charlie came back through with Sanchez and Thompson, to get another few boxes of equipment and to warn Juan and Nanci that they were going to fire off a few rounds of the machine gun and probably take a few shots with the soldier's AR-3 rifles as well. As they left Juan and Nanci watched the sky turn from light blue to pink in the pre-dawn light.
The crash of the machine gun shattered the quiet morning and made Nanci jump about six inches, though Juan barely stirred at the noise. The gun stopped for a few minutes then another series of shots rang out. Juan didn't know what they were aiming at, apparently the gun was not facing towards the ER. It would make more sense to put it around on the other side of the building to over look the highway which was far more likely to bring zombies to the hospital than the scrub covered hills that the ER faced.
The rifle fire sounded far less intimidating than the machine gun and went on for a shorter period of time. Just after sun rise Charlie and the three other original day guards were back to grab more ammunition for the guns, they were loaded up and heading back into the building when Juan heard Jack's voice yelling from the roof, five stories above, he was screaming and at first they could not understand what he was saying, then they understood him to be yelling for Juan and Charlie to come up to the roof right away. He yelled harder when they did not move right away. As he was yelling a flash of light brighter than anything any of them had ever seen before back lit Jack's body, it was like someone had set off the largest photo flash ever invented behind the man. A few seconds later they all heard a distant rumbling, like a stampede of cattle, the sound was from the other side of the hospital and washed by the ER leaving behind a weird echoing that bounced off the scrub hills back at them.
Chapter 22
By dawn most of the people involved in the racket out in the parking lot of the Mike's Club a few hours before had calmed down and gone back to bed. Kevin was sleeping, after Doc had looked his shoulder over and pronounced him a lucky son of a bitch. He had cleaned the wound and stitched it up as best he could, then bandaged it and forced some pain killers down Kevin's throat with orders for him to get some sleep. Doc even warranted that Kevin rated one of the few mattresses to sleep on.
'Funny thing', Doc thought, 'when I first showed up the mattresses looked like enough for a small army, turns out that eighteen mattresses aren't nearly enough. Ah well, soon enough we will all be used to sleeping on the floor.'