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, keep 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.