They were debating if they should take a peek when they heard talking.
"This is new."
"We didn't make this."
"This was where we had our trucks parked so that we could escape if things got out of hand. It was clear from here to the river."
"I'm surprised by how we managed to escape. That was such a mess."
Dave carefully peeked over the half-wall and saw two army men standing in front of the entrance to the shopping centre. They were looking about comparing the various changes that Dave and Josh had been working on through the last few days. The important point was that these were people. Living people.
Dave stood up. "Hi."
The two army men stopped their conversation and looked up at Dave. The younger army man started struggling with his rifle. Dave noticed that the young soldier was nervous and seemed to fumble with the rifle. Was the younger Army man a new recruit? pondered Dave to himself.
"Stop it," said the older Army man to the younger. The older man then looked up at Dave. "Sorry. We're not used to encountering people out here."
Dave noticed an assumption in the Army man's statement that Dave stored away for latter contemplation. "Do you have time to talk?"
The two Army men looked at each other and the older spoke: "Sure."
"Then it's best that we don't yell to each other. How about coming up here and we'll have a quiet chat?"
Although there was a clear tone of suspicion, the older Army man nodded. "Do we come through the supermarket?"
"Come in through the front door. I think it's unlocked at the moment. Remember to close the door once you're through. Then walk to the storage room at the back. We'll be waiting at the top of a ladder reaching up here."
"Got it."
Dave watched the two Army men walk to the front of the supermarket. He could hear a door being opened. Dave walked over to the hatch and opened it. Josh followed him over. Together they looked down the ladder and waited. It wasn't long before he saw the Army men climbing the ladder in turn. Dave and Josh made space for the Army men to get onto the roof. There was a moment of awkwardness.
"It's always like this," said Dave. "Whenever strangers meet there's an initial phase where everyone is tense."
The older Army man looked at Dave and Josh. "I guess people just need time to get acquainted."
Dave extended his right hand. "Let's get started then. I'm Dave, and this here is my friend Josh."
The older Army man reached out with his own hand and shook Dave's. "I'm Trevor and this is Holden."
For a moment people reached back and forth shaking hands.
"So," said Josh drawing out the trailing vowel. "No ranks?"
An annoyed expression flickered over Trevor's face. "We have no rank. Well not an officer rank. Before we were just ordinary infantry men. In fact Holden only just joined and is still going through his initial training. So far we've yet to find any officers of any sort who survived. We haven't even got any NCOs. At the moment we sort of use age as a rank."
Dave frowned. "So it's chaos?"
"Actually," said Trevor, "things aren't bad in our camp. We've got a few political types who cause some issues, but overall things are oddly calm. Which is probably odd when you consider what we've been through."
"The people that I've met," said Dave, "haven't so much been calm as suffering from shock. They could almost be in coma."
"We've got that too. Maybe once that wears off then people will get hard to manage, but for now our group isn't too bad."
"It sounds good for you but I suspect that things could still be better."
Trevor's grin appeared grim. "I'd take that as a given. But I'm curious, why you are here?"
"I needed a place to set up a lab."
"What do you mean?"
"Come over here and I'll show you."
Dave walked to the northern edge of the roof and pointed down at Charlie. Everyone else followed. The two Army men looked down at Charlie, and Josh watched the Army men's reaction.
"Fucking hell," blurted out Holden.
Trevor gave Holden an annoyed look, before looking back at Dave. "This is your lab?"
"This is Charlie, our test subject."
"You've completely lost the plot then," said Trevor simply.
Josh laughed. "You're not the only one that thinks that."
Dave looked straight at Trevor. "So what do you know about Charlie's kind?"
Trevor looked straight at Dave, a mix of frustrated emotions flickered over his face. "Not much."
"I'd say that no one knows anything and my goal is to change that."
Trevor understood the significance of Dave's words. "We need to talk."
* * *
"I hope you don't mind me being curious," said Dave to Trevor, "but I seemed to remember you saying something about this being new. What did you mean about that?"
Trevor pointed the four walls that formed a square in the intersection. "We made these walls. As you can see we parked some vehicles across the roads and filled up the gaps as best as possible. However, I can see that you've extended this defence by using more vehicles. Also I can see that you've added walkway linking some of the walls and ladders for getting over them. At least I'm guessing that you were the ones who did all the additions."
Dave nodded. "My intention was to set up a rough open air laboratory so that I could capture a few dead and then try to study them. Obviously I lack medical equipment in order to study at a cellular or chemical level, but I was hoping to build up some general data. I've luckily avoided having to fight the dead directly, but I wanted to see if I could spot some obvious weaknesses."
"And did you find any?" ask Trevor.
"None. In fact the opposite. Every injury we inflicted was healed. They seem completely
