"Yeah, not directly that was Kevin, he ran into an old man who got bit the same as the man's old lady, she died and turned, he did not. I was hoping you could keep an eye out maybe, see if any of the others don't turn?"
"I want to Hank, but it is a mess. For example a family comes in right, dad and son number one got bit getting them away from a mob somewhere, mom and the two other kids didn't get bit. I want to let them in, but only if dad and son go into the fence until we figure out how to stop them from dying. Mom and the kids don't want that, either they go into the fence with them or dad and son don't go into the fence or they all just leave and go elsewhere. What do I do? I send them elsewhere it is a death sentence for certain, I put the non-infected in with the infected and they are at risk. Who knows maybe you can get this shit by contact or breathing the same air? I know if I don't put the bitten into the holding area and we will have zombies in the building. Several of the ones in the holding have turned and I only set up this system this morning."
"So you enforce the rule then? Bitten in the pen, otherwise move on? That makes sense to me. No? What?", asked Hank.
"I sorta told some of them that the people leading us would decide what to do with the bitten."
"Yeah, who's leading us? What did they say?"
Jack burst out laughing and merely pointed at Hank, saying, "We nominated you!"
"What? Me? For Christ's sake why? I have never led anything in my life, I am just a worker!", turning to Juan, Hank asked him, "Did you know?"
"sì, it just happened.", Juan replied while shrugging his shoulders.
"Yeah, um, we know, most of us are just workers too, in our own way, ya know? Everybody thinks you are pretty fair and even tempered, plus you were not there at the meeting, everyone else we tried to nominate hollered and declined, you couldn't fight back."
Hank sputtered a bit, "Wha-wah-what? You nominated me because I was unconscious and could not say no?"
A half circle of women, a few men and a dozen kids was gathering around Hank.
Juan waved Jack quiet and answered, "Sì, it was easier, you know, your name came up first, then we batted around a bunch of others, we kept coming back to you, jefe. If it makes it any easier they pegged me as vice-jefe, Jack, Doc and old man Gonzales are on the 'board'. You make the big decisions, I can make smaller ones the board can overrule us by a two to one majority. Plus each board member has an area they are responsible for, Jack has security, Doc has, well, medical and sanitary stuff, Gonzales has 'resources', which is like food, clothing, anything not involving guns and medicines."
Hank looked at the hopeful faces in front of him, the silence lingered for a few seconds as he looked around, as he looked at the faces, he was thinking. Hank was not a leader, he knew it, he could barely lead his crew in fixing a car, he had no desire to lead a bunch of 'Mad Max' style refugees into the future. Thinking he wondered who would be better? Almost anyone, he had no plan, just to lay low at the warehouse and wait until the authorities showed up to save them. True, it had been his idea to come to the Mike's Club, he had told Juan. Juan told the whole damn neighborhood and they all ended up here, with their most prized possessions and families. He could understand why they had the wrong impression that he would make a good leader. This was not a job he wanted, someone else would have to take on the chief role if they ended up being stuck in this situation for very long. Still Hank was a talker, he could reason with most people, work out deals, maybe it would not be so bad, for a couple weeks. Finally he said, "Okay. I got a few problems, but okay I accept. I will do my best." The small crowd of people cheered and surged forward to shake his hand and pat him on the shoulders, after a few minutes Hank raised up his hands and called for everyone to be quiet, "Whoa! Whoa! Slow down a bit, let me get a word in here, I said I had a few problems and as you made me your 'Jefe', I need to get a few things out there on the floor. First off, you all elected me while I was out, I suppose that is okay, I can see a need to fill the position quickly. Then, you set up the board, but people there are not any women on it. I am not a genius or anything, but I think we need to have at least one womanly vote on the board from the get go, don't you?"
"Better to get two." said Juan, "We kind of think that having an odd number on the board is important, so we get a couple women on the board to serve. Dios knows we have enough other areas to cover, I am thinking Gonzales could use a hand, divide his stuff up a bit more?"
"Yeah this needs some thinkin' on. Me and you and maybe the rest of the board should spend five minutes working it out? I don't want no long-assed meetings and bureaucracy, if we are going to do things over again, we are going to do them better than before." Hank kind of wanted to get back to the bitten people in the parking lot, but was having a hard time thinking of a way to steer the conversation back that way so he just said, "Okay Jack, we still got to discuss the guys in the pen. What about the whole parking lot? How do we keep zombies from outside off the pen, I mean if they can see it the zoms will just head right to it, if we start firing guns to kill them, that will attract more zombies, then we will have an all out war."
The crowd slowly started disbursing, several people stayed around to see what their new leader would say, the kids all got back to being children, except Cage who clambered back up into Hank's chair with him.
"Hank we have moved the cars to the outer edges of the parking lot. Put them bumper to bumper so that the zombies have to crawl over or under them to get by. The lot is pretty big and we used the wrecker that Ted got from his work to move the cars into position. Now we have started closing off the main streets, putting cars right up to the buildings to expand our 'territory', by tonight I think we will have the walls far enough out to keep the slow zombies from being able to see the parking lot entirely. The fence is just outside the exit of the store, so the people cannot be seen by anything at the back. Plus we didn't have to use as much fencing because one long side is up against the building. The back of the store is a problem, there is a ravine behind it with two loading docks. There is enough room to line up cars, we just don't have enough of them yet to cover the whole back of the store. The ravine is not deep enough to keep the zombies from crossing it either. Some of the boys think that we can block the street off on the other side of the ravine, but that won't solve everything, there is a bike path on the other side too. We can block that off pretty easy, but it won't stop much either."
"So we maybe need to move? How many people are here now?" asked Hank.
"I don't know about moving Hank, the doc, he has opinions on the matter, wants us to move to the University of Colorado Hospital, up on Colorado Boulevard. Or maybe that newer facility further south, Sky Ridge. Me? I don't know it is like twelve miles to University and only four or so to Sky Ridge, but Doc says Sky ridge may not have everything we need medically, he thinks we will need and run out of the supplies they have in their emergency room pretty quickly. He didn't seem to want to go there, real negative on it and all. I think Sky Ridge is a better bet, from what he describes it is in suburbia, surrounded by landscaping and pretty big, there will be grocery stores not too far off to raid and stuff. As for the people, we have over two hundred now, but I can't say exactly how many. We have, well had ten minutes ago, twenty two people in the pen with bites too."
"Well probably you should have the doc come over here when he gets time, as I am not supposed to be moving around much. Go get a head count if you can. If people won't consent to penning if they got bit, then they have to move on, make it clear you think they are dumb asses for leaving. Try to get them to stay, we know, right now, that the bitten will turn, maybe not all of them, but lets make out like they all will. As for the penned, if the Doc ain't working them over with disinfectant and such, maybe we could assign his nurse, Beth, I think? To teach some of the boys to clean the wounds until they bleed again? At least it will look like we are trying, and maybe more won't turn, talk to Kevin, maybe he knows more about the guy who didn't turn after he was bit that he didn't tell me. Ask around if anyone else knows of people unaffected by the bites. Oh and Jack?"