“Speaking of being a pussy, have you spoken to Kingsley today?”
“I haven’t,” I answered. “Why do you ask?”
“It just seemed like he was having a bad case of nerves. He’s been a grumpy bastard these last couple of days.”
“I don’t blame him if he is having a problem with his nerves. We gotta be crazy to be coming back here.”
“You’re the moron that announced to a room full of reporters that we were coming back to save everyone,” Dudley said very calmly and clearly.
“Well I’m regretting it now,” I answered in an equally calm voice. “Next time, tell me to shut up.”
All joking aside, he was right. It was kinda scary. For whatever reason, there aren’t many street lights in the Upper Valley area. Everything was dark and quiet. There were shadows everywhere. Every now and then, from somewhere off in the distance, we could hear glass breaking or other random and unknown sounds.
El Paso had become a nightmare town and we had no idea what was around the corner. We didn’t go down Mesa (a main street on the Westside). Instead, we turned immediately down the side streets and the winding roads of all the neighborhoods.
We were hoping to avoid any battles our first night back, we just wanted to get somewhere safe and get our bearings before things kicked off the next evening. Now, we had no reason to believe that these neighborhoods and side streets were any safer than Mesa. We were just hoping that if we picked up a large group of shamblers, we’d be able to lose them in the maze.
To be honest, I was beginning to wonder why we hadn’t yet run into any trouble. I knew we hadn’t blasted away enough zombies from the helicopters to make too much of a difference when we were on the ground.
Not that I was complaining. I just don’t like the anticipation. Halfway to our destination, I heard Hardin’s voice in my earpiece radio.
“What’s up?” I asked to let him know I was listening.
“We just got an SOS from a house in your immediate area,” Hardin said.
“What’s the address?”
“They don’t know the address, but the street is Oveja,” Hardin said. “They heard the sound of your engines as you passed them by.”
“I’m on it.”
The entire team heard the conversation; we all had the same ear piece radios. Kingsley wasn’t happy about it.
“I thought we were gonna start this shit tomorrow night?” Kingsley said in his radio.
“What do you suggest,” I asked. “Leave them here until we’re ready?”
His only answer was a heavy sigh and a small bit of grumbling. All of which had a somewhat negative tone. I could tell that even through my earpiece. He was right of course; we were supposed to begin the next evening. I just couldn’t leave them behind.
I gave my radio another tap.
“What’s up?” asked Hardin.
“Did they mention if there were any undead in the area?”
“I was just about to let you know. We lost contact with them. We don’t know the amount of survivors in that location and we don’t know if they are in any immediate danger.”
I heard Kingsley curse in my ear. We were idling in the middle of the road as everyone awaited my decision. It wasn’t exactly the safest place in the world to be. There were a few streetlamps around, but they only gave off a teeny bit of light and ended up casting everything in an eerie yellowish glow.
From the passenger seat, Merrick let out a soft whine.
I strained my ears listening for any sounds of the undead. I couldn’t hear anything. Everyone was staring at me.
I honestly didn’t know what to do.
Oveja is a decently sized street. There were houses on both sides. I had no idea where to even begin looking for any survivors.
The night air was rather cool. There wasn’t even the slightest bit of wind. I still couldn’t hear anything.
Merrick let out another whine.
I was just about to leave when someone threw a small rock onto the street in front of us.
“What the hell?” Dudley grumbled as he jumped about a mile in his seat.
I was out of the Jeep immediately and scanning the houses from where I thought the rock had been thrown.
Merrick was right behind me and suddenly so was Georgie.
“Georgie,” I whispered. “It’s not exactly brilliant when the driver leaves the vehicle. What if we need to get out of here quick?”
With that suggestion, Georgie tapped his ear and asked Javie to take his place as driver.
“Use your head, dumbass,” I said.
“Bite me,” Georgie replied. “Did you see where it came from?”
I motioned quickly with my weapon at my best guess.
“I’m thinking it was from one of these houses, but I can’t be sure.”
“So what do we do?”
“Hell if I know,” I answered. “I know what I don’t want to do. I don’t want to have to search five or six houses looking for a survivor, but I think that might be our only option.”
I could hear Kingsley let out another exasperated sigh all the way over to where we were standing. In return, I shot him as nasty a look as I could manage. Maybe Dudley was right. Maybe he was having a problem with his nerves. Regardless, I didn’t want any noise; even the soft engine rumble coming from the two Jeeps was beginning to make me feel uneasy.
I trotted over to Dudley and told him to kill the engine and keep a look out. I told Javie the same thing at his Jeep and informed Kingsley he would need to come with Georgie and me. He didn’t like that at all.
“Why don’t I stay?” Kingsley said. “I banged my leg on the drive over; I’m not sure how fast I can move.”
“Because you drive like an old lady. The zombies can crawl faster than you can motor.”
He was pissed, but he got out of the Jeep. Then he started limping around like a little girl with a thorn in her foot. I could hear Dudley laughing quietly from the other Jeep, and when I saw the look of anguish on Kingsley’s face, I couldn’t help but snicker right along with my nephew.
“Just go back to the Jeep,” I said before heading back towards Georgie.
The situation sucked. We could have used another guy to help us search the houses. I had no idea what was going on with him.
“I remember from before that Kingsley was a big help when you went on previous missions. Were there problems that you didn’t mention during those interviews?”
Not really. I mean, he drank a lot. He was prone to panic during some of the meetings, but he was always ready to go. His behavior was a bit of a shock. At that moment, though, I just didn’t have the time to give it a lot of thought.
Georgie gave a weird look towards Kingsley and rolled his eyes.
“So where do we start?” Georgie asked.
“Let’s take it like a book and go from left to right,” I answered.
If Kingsley had joined us, I would have teamed him up with Georgie and searched one end of the houses while they searched the other, but this was the first time Georgie had ever really been in the thick of things. I didn’t want him to panic if something came running out at him. So, we were sticking together.
“Wasn’t it Georgie that ran to help you after the bridge blew up and you made your escape out of El Paso?”
Yeah, it was, but a one-time moment of bravery only makes a temporary hero. I had no idea what he’d do if the shit hit the fan and I wasn’t going to risk his or my life finding out.
We carefully and quietly made our way to the first house. We avoided walking over the rock and gravel yard and instead stuck to the paved driveway and walkway that led to the front door.
I tried the knob. No luck, the door was locked. I gave it a soft tap with my knuckles and waited to see if anyone would answer. No luck again.
“You want to go inside?” Georgie asked.
“No, I don’t.”
The other homes gave us the same results. The doors were all locked and nobody was answering.
Merrick gave another whine and I left the front porch of the final house and sniffed the air. I could smell rot. It didn’t smell too close, and I didn’t know if it was there before or not.
I didn’t like the situation. In fact, the situation was pissing me off. It didn’t make any sense, somebody chunks a rock at us and then they hide while we are trying to save them. We aren’t back in the city for thirty minutes and strange happenings were already afoot.
“Fuck this.” I said.
I walked off back towards the Jeeps. Georgie was right behind me, just as confused as I was. I hated leaving, but now wasn’t the time to go kicking in the doors. I didn’t know what was around, and I didn’t want to find out. I figured that the best bet would be to wait until they made contact again.
We were ten feet from the Jeeps when the guy screamed out.
“Don’t leave us! Don’t leave us! We need help!”
Everyone turned and looked at the same time. Georgie reacted to the noise the quickest. He started motioning for the guy to shut up. In fact, he was motioning like a madman for the guy to be quiet, but of course, it was too late.
We heard the first zombie scream come from inside one of the houses across the street. It was soon followed by others. The dead were in the houses. I wasn’t sure how many, but from the noise level it seemed like there were a lot of them.
“Here we go,” I muttered as I flicked off the safety on my mp7.
Dudley, Javie and Kingsley tumbled out of the vehicles as a wave of zombies exited the houses and rushed towards them. I began to fire into the horde as my teammates regrouped behind me. I didn’t panic. I aimed and fired calmly, but rapidly. I did not miss. I dropped shambler after shambler.
One of them actually got to within three feet before I brought it down with a shot between the eyes. I had to stop its tumbling body with my combat boot or it would have slid right into me.
Georgie finally began to fire as well. Dudley and Javie were right behind him. Kingsley had set his mp7 down as Georgie and I walked back towards the Jeep. He didn’t have time to grab it again before he bailed out of the Jeep with the others. He pulled out a Glock and started shooting rapidly. The problem was he forgot to put the silencer on the damn thing.
“Shut the fuck up,” I growled in his direction. “Fall back and kick the damn doors open on that house.”
Because our weapons were silenced, we were able to hear one another despite the growls, snarls and screams of the zombies moving in on us.
“Back up towards the house,” I ordered everyone else.
We began to back up immediately, but the wall of lead we were dishing out to keep the zombies at bay wasn’t going to buy us enough time to get secured inside the house.
So, I did what I had to do to save my buddies. I waited till I heard the crunch of a door being broken down and I ran straight for the shamblers. I let go of my rifle in mid-run and yanked my tomahawk out of my belt.
I heard Dudley shouting my name, but it would have been too late for me to turn around even if I had wanted to. The zombies were just too close.
My actions had the desired effect. Our attackers stopped charging immediately. They didn’t know quite what to make of my attack. Before they could figure it out, I was on top of them and hacking my way through.
“How many zombies were coming towards your team?”
I didn’t exactly have time to count, but I’m guessing that there were more than a hundred. They were literally pouring out from all the houses across the street. We just had the misfortune to stumble upon a seriously nasty nest of vipers.
Kinda typical for us if you really stop and think about it.
Chapter 2
Dudley
I waited for Dudley in the same conference room I met the General in. He arrived twenty minutes late with a salad in one hand and a protein shake in the other. He was still wearing the tight t-shirts, but he seemed to be a lot more muscular.
He didn’t say a word when he walked in the room; he was too busy setting down his meal and answering a text on his phone, both at the same time. When all was finished, he pushed his Elvis style sunglasses up on top of his head and smiled at me.
Your hair is different little lady.
“Do you like it?”
Pretty nice.
“Did Jaxon tell you why I was here?”
He said you’re fishing, but I’m thinking that what you are really interested in is a spin off story all about me. I’m sure everybody would love to hear tales of me wrestling with gorillas and slaying dragons and stuff.
I had to laugh at this. Dudley didn’t really join in, so I cut it off quickly. He was more interested in stirring his protein shake.
“Well, why don’t we just start off like we did the last time. Jaxon was telling me about how you were all attacked on a street named Oveja shortly after your arrival.”
Yeah, that was a fucking blast. I knew something was wrong from the get-go. What kind of asshole throws a rock to get our attention and then hides? It was bogus, but there you have it. We tend to meet some seriously deranged individuals in our line of work, but back then…we had no idea how badly fear can jack somebody up.
“Is that what happened? Was the man afraid?”
He was terrified. He saw movement in the windows earlier in the day, that’s why he dragged his family to the roof. He wanted to be out of the way in case they came over to pay him a visit.
We didn’t know that at the time of course. All we knew was that we were under attack and the enemy was just flowing towards us like a giant wave from hell. I could smell the barest hint of rot in the air when we stopped, but it was nothing like the smell that assaulted our nostrils when they all came running out at us.
We were firing like hell to keep them back, but those things know no fear. They just kept coming. I was afraid we were gonna run out of ammo, and the shamblers just kept getting closer and closer as they climbed over the dead and down.
“That reminds me, where did you get the name shambler?”
If you look at them, they’re a freaking mess. They are literally in shambles…but for whatever reason, the decay doesn’t seem to slow them down any.
“Okay, I get it…Please continue.”
Muffled shots were popping off, and zombie screams were sounding out. It wasn’t a very long moment, probably less than a couple minutes. Jaxon was quick to act. He probably saw the outcome of that situation way before the rest of us.
The next thing I knew, he was barking out orders and I heard a door break from behind me. This all happened from somewhere far away. All my attention was concentrated on the mass of undead rapidly approaching.
Jaxon charged right into them.
He gave no warning, he just attacked. I saw the tomahawk come out. I saw dark blood and skull fragments flying in the air as he carved his way right through the center of them.
And then he was gone.
They closed in around him. I called out his name. In shock, I took a step forward and then another. I felt arms close around me. They were pulling me backwards towards the house. I tried to explain. They must not have seen what happened. We had to get to my uncle. My uncle was in the middle of that shit storm.
Next thing I knew, I was inside the house.
Kingsley had slammed the door shut. I don’t know why he bothered. The mass lost interest in chasing us as soon as Jaxon charged them. We were safe. Javie was peering through the curtains. It was the only source of light in the room.
Georgie was still holding me. I could have pulled away. I’m a lot stronger than Georgie. Instead, I collapsed. I was exhausted, or maybe it was shock. I couldn’t believe what had just happened. I had just lost my uncle.
“Jaxon’s running,” Javie said.
“What?” Georgie asked.
“He made it through. He’s leading them away from us. Merrick is with him.”
I tapped my ear piece.
“Jax,” I said. “Are you there?”
No answer.
>
“Give him time to lead them away,” Georgie said. “That’s what he’s doing: he’s leading them away from us.”
I began to calm down. My breathing became more regular. It was then that it finally dawned on me that we were in a dark house and we had no idea if it was safe or not.
“Get ready,” I ordered.
Everybody jumped and brought their weapons up. I was on my feet and reaching in my backpack for a flashlight.
“We have no idea what’s in this house,” I said. “So don’t drop your guard.”
It took a bit, but I finally found my light. I attached it to the front of my weapon and waited for the rest of the team to follow my example.
“Room by room then,” Georgie said.
“Georgie and I in front,” I added. “Kingsley and Javie will cover the rear.”
Nobody said anything, they just moved into position and we searched the house as quietly as possible. We quickly realized that the back door was wide open, but other than that there were no threats. The only sound I heard was Kingsley’s labored breathing.
Do you smoke, little lady?
“Not since college.”
Good, it’s a bad habit and if the downstairs wasn’t empty, you could be sure that his dirty mouth air would have alerted whatever was lurking in the dark to our presence.
If it wasn’t for my uncle’s idiot move of charging a horde of the living dead, I would have laughed a lot sooner than I did. I held it in for a long time, but when we all paused at the foot of the stairs…I let out a little chuckle.
“You let out a chuckle?”
Yeah, I couldn’t help it. I think it was all the tension. Everything was quiet except for Kingsley’s Darth Vader breathing. I kind of lost it…so did Georgie…so did Javie.
Kingsley was pissed.
I was about to apologize, but suddenly there was a figure at the foot of the stairs. It was what appeared to be a teenage girl in a summer dress. One minute there was nothing and in the next minute…she was just there.
I slowly moved my light up her body to her face. She charged us when my light got about halfway.
The Regulators - 02 Page 2