While waiting for the soup to warm up, Dave went to the roof's edge to look around. When he looked into the intersection he noted two walkers, their skin colour grey with yellow patches, staggering about. Dave watched then for a few minutes in order to affirm that they just seemed to be acting in a confused manner and seemed to be completely unaware of his existence. As he watched, another two walked into the intersection area. Dave was a little surprised that the rattling of the ladder had brought so much attention to himself. They didn't seem to even notice Dave watching them, so Dave felt safe staying on the roof.
Dave turned from his observing and returned to the barbecue. He was interested to notice that both cans were slowly simmering. They were clearly warm, but not so hot that they bubbled over and spilled his soup. It was an improvised cooking session but this was turning out better than he thought.
He used a set of tongs from the box to push the soup cans to the edge of the grill plate in the hope that they were far enough from the flame to not heat up. Dave held his hand close to the soup cans, being careful not to touch them, and could tell that the cans were too warm to hold.
Dave decided to let his soup cool down while checking on his guests in the intersection area. He was a bit surprised to see that there were now ten walkers. But they didn't seem too interested in Dave or Dave's location. Instead they just seemed to be passing through the intersection as if following the road on their own journey. Dave looked up the road in the direction that the walkers were staggering and wondered why the walkers were heading in that way. Dave squinted his eyes and strained his ears but couldn't detect anything.
Giving up on trying to make sense of what was going on, Dave went to his backpack and dug out a clean spoon. He went to the the barbecue and held his hand close to one of the soup cans. He then quickly tapped one of the cans with his little finger. Since he didn't feel enough heat to burn, Dave picked up the can and held it under his nose. It wasn't much, but just giving the soup a little bit of a heating was enough to make the soup smell glorious.
Dave returned to the roof's edge and leaned on the half wall. He began spooning soup into his mouth as he watched the walkers staggering down the road towards the west. He had never seen anything like this. Maybe he should have been alarmed by the unusual behaviour, but instead found himself rather fascinated.
Dave looked up the sky. There was clearly still a lot of the day to go. This was far too early for the walkers to come out for their nightly gatherings.
Dave scraped the inside of his soup can with his spoon, before walking back to the barbecue. Dave placed the empty can on the grill and picked up the second soup can. He then returned to the roof's edge so that he could continue watching the strange behaviours of the walkers. He couldn't figure out any reason for their actions.
It did creep Dave out that he had been walking around in this. Dave was now convinced that something else had caused this and that his rattling of the ladder wasn't what got the attention of all these dead. As a rough guess, Dave estimated that the walkers had most likely started moving along the street about the same time Dave was getting supplies from the store below.
To have not noticed the walkers showed just how distracted Dave had been. For the walkers to not notice Dave showed Dave just how much the walkers were distracted. But what had the walkers so distracted?
By now Dave was a bit frustrated. Something was up. Something that the dull senses of the walkers could discern, but were yet invisible to Dave and his senses. As a sign of his frustration, Dave took the now empty soup can that he was holding and tossed it towards a walker that was on the road nearest to Dave. The can clattered noisily on the road for a few moments. The nearby walkers stopped moving and started rolling their heads. But barely five seconds passed before the walkers lost interested and returned to walking towards the west.
Curious, Dave walked to the barbecue, picked up the can that he had first eaten from, walked back to the side of the roof and lobbed the can as far as he could out onto the road. Again, only the nearest walkers stopped moving. They appeared confused for a few seconds and then they started walking again.
Dave suddenly looked up from the walkers and stared intently to the west. About a kilometre away Dave could hear gun fire. Not just the sound of a single firearm but it sounded like a lot. Dave wasn't familiar with firearms so he found himself annoyed that he couldn't determine any more information from the sounds than he could.
He looked back down at the walkers. They were still shuffling along, but now they were just slightly faster. They were moving at a decent walking pace. It seemed that when they heard the gun fire, they had gone from a slow shuffle to a decently fast walking
