The Regulators - 02

by Michael Clary

  We were enclosed in an armored vehicle courtesy of some military genius that figured an armored transformer-like top would probably come in handy some day. I was gonna kiss that guy if I ever figured out who the designer was.

  Georgie was still screaming.

  Kingsley was cussing up a storm.

  Javie was still frozen stiff.

  The inside of the Jeep was covered in gore. Apparently, some other zombies also lost some limbs.

  Georgie was still screaming.

  With a smile on my face, I got to do something that I’ve wanted to do many times since meeting Georgie; I bitch-slapped him. His scream stopped immediately.

  “Everybody calm down,” I said. “We’re safe in here.”

  Georgie was quietly hyperventilating, and Kingsley had stopped cursing. There was no change from Javie, though. He was still staring out the window. All of the zombies were pounding away and scratching at the Jeep in an effort to get to us. It was pretty loud.

  “Georgie,” I said. “I need to switch seats with you. I’m going to get us out of here.”

  In acknowledgement that he actually heard me, Georgie bobbed his head up and down. We both moved by each other at the same time. It shouldn’t have been easy because Jeeps aren’t exactly roomy, but we were both covered in slime and chunks which acted as a sort of lubricant and we just kinda slid into our new seats.

  Right then Javie came out of his stupor.

  “MOTHER FUCKER!” he shouted.

  It was unfortunate he chose to shout because it made the zombies begin attacking the vehicle in a renewed frenzy and the Jeep began to rock back and forth with their onslaught. At some point, I actually froze for a second. I’m not sure if it was Javie’s exclamation that did it to me or when we ended up on only two wheels.

  Regardless, I felt it was prudent to get our asses out of dodge. I cranked the starter. I can’t even remember when the Jeep had stalled out. The engine roared to life as I revved it up. I slammed the shifter in reverse and punched the accelerator.

  I heard the nasty thumps and crunches as I backed up into the mass of undead behind the vehicle. When I had created just a little bit of space, I slammed the shifter into first and punched through the mass in front.

  The Jeep bounced up and down as zombies were pulled under the heavy duty front bumper. Yet still more shamblers pounded on our doors and windows. I couldn’t even tell where I was going; the mass was that thick. I suddenly jerked the wheel to the left and punched it once again. A few more bumps and slams and suddenly, we were free. The way ahead of us was clear. Behind us was pretty much a hornets’ nest, but we had a way out and believe you me I took it.

  It didn’t take very long to lose our new friends. I took the first road I could find that led away from Mesa, and we soon lost our tail in the maze of suburbia. We were all glad to be out of danger because the inside of the Jeep really reeked with all those nasty zombie bits.

  I pushed the lever to put the top back in its original position, and we all breathed deeply of the cold night air.

  “Where are we headed?” Kingsley asked.

  “I say we find a carwash and spray this bitch out,” I answered.

  It didn’t take long to find one. Those self-serve carwashes are just about everywhere. As soon as I pulled up, all of us bailed out of the vehicle. Georgie did the cleaning and the rest of us took up defensive positions.

  When he was done, Georgie was in shock that there wasn’t a single dent on the Jeep. I started laughing.

  “What part of armored did you not understand?” I asked him.

  “I thought it was some sort of code word for you being an ass-hat, to be honest with you. I didn’t think it would actually work.”

  “I’m just glad you stopped screaming,” Kingsley added. “My ears are still ringing.”

  By this time, we were all laughing.

  “My favorite was Javie,” I added. “He’s all quiet and frozen then all of a sudden he belts out this loud MOTHER FUCKER.”

  “That’s so you bitches know I’m serious,” Javie said.

  I could barely breathe I was laughing so hard.

  Hardin must have thought we were having a little too much fun. He was suddenly in my ear once again.

  “You boys having a good time?” Hardin asked.

  “Hey nice job with the extraction,” I replied. “Could you have picked a worse fucking place? You almost got us all killed.”

  “My mistake,” Hardin said. “The area looked clear enough. I didn’t expect all of them to run out of the nearby buildings. It won’t happen again, and you guys all got through it. How’s Georgie? Has he stopped screaming?”

  “Barely,” I answered. “So what do you need? I think we might be done for the night.”

  “We found another survivor,” Hardin said. “I think you guys might want to take this one.”

  “Is he in any immediate danger? We still don’t have Jaxon with us, and since you haven’t brought him up, I’m assuming that he’s still missing.”

  “Yes, Dudley, we have not had any contact from Jaxon, and no, this survivor is not in any immediate danger. However, I was thinking that you might still want to jump on this now instead of tomorrow.”

  “Why is that?”

  “This guy is rather disagreeable so it might be that he’s telling the truth, but I have no way to tell since he won’t give us his name. Anyway, he says that he knows you guys and he’s stuck inside your old Safe Zone. According to him, he arrived not long after Jaxon led all the survivors out of the city, and he’s been there ever since.”

  We left for the Safe Zone immediately.

  Hardin said that the guy was disagreeable. That’s what got me thinking he might actually be a pal. Jaxon has a lot of friends that are sort of rough around the edges. Most of them don’t have criminal records that I know of, but I don’t keep up with all of them.

  The other thing that had me jumping was that he was at our old Safe Zone. That place has a special meaning to those of us that were fortunate enough to have been there. If this guy went looking for us and somehow wasn’t able to make it in time for our departure, he deserved our help, and he deserved it immediately. Also, it would give us a pretty decent place to spend the day if it was still secure.

  We were there inside of about ten minutes. I let Georgie drive after he promised not to start screaming again if he saw a zombie. The front gate was locked up tight. I took that as a positive sign and leaned out of the Jeep with my mp7 and started taking shots at the ten shamblers gathered around it.

  It didn’t take long to bring them all down, but we made noise. It wasn’t a lot of noise, but it was noise nonetheless. I was worried that we were going to have more company so I wanted to get inside as fast as possible.

  “Georgie, go hop the fence and open the gate.”

  “But I’m driving,” Georgie said.

  “I’ll drive, just go do it. I never paid attention to how you guys rigged everything up.”

  Watching Georgie climb over the fence would have been pretty damn amusing if I hadn’t had to divide my time between laughing at him and being paranoid about an attack. It seemed to take him forever to slide open the gate and when he did, he made a lot of noise.

  I drove through as soon as he had the gate open far enough. I almost ran over his foot in the process, but better that than have another massive fight in the same night.

  I tapped my earpiece for Hardin.

  “Which house is it?” I asked.

  “He’s in Georgie’s old house,” Hardin answered.

  That was good news; I was beginning to hear screams echoing around in the nearby neighborhoods, and Georgie’s house was right in front of us on the left hand side of the street.

  “Georgie,” I said. “Use your keypad to open the garage door. I’m going to back in the Jeep to keep it out of sight. Everyone else follows Georgie to keep him covered.”

  We were all safely in the garage by the time the screams got louder. I wasn’t t
oo worried about the zombies massing around the gate. There were plenty of elevated stands to shoot from if it came to that, and they’d probably drift off by themselves anyway if they didn’t see anyone outside.

  From the garage, we entered Georgie’s house. All the lights were off except the one in the kitchen. I was leading the way with Georgie right behind me. We held our weapons at the ready in case the place was occupied by anything nasty.

  We were entering the kitchen when something came hurtling from the darkness beyond the bright kitchen light. It narrowly missed my left ear, but it nailed Georgie right in the forehead, bounced off and shattered on the floor.

  All of us immediately ducked for cover. Except for Georgie, he just sort of sat down after he got hit.

  For about thirty seconds nobody moved.

  Then we heard the laughter coming from the shadows. I looked back towards Georgie and the broken glass all around his still form. The fucker had nailed him with a beer bottle, and by the sound of our attacker, he thought that was pretty damn amusing.

  “If I had a gun, I could have shot all you pussies,” a voice said that I immediately recognized.

  I wasn’t happy. I was not happy at all. He was gonna be a pain in the ass. The guy was a habitual line-stepper.

  “Well, we weren’t exactly expecting you to start chunking beer bottles at us, now were we?” I said as I stood up and motioned everyone else to do the same.

  Our attacker followed my example and stepped out from the shadows and into the kitchen light. He was grinning from ear to ear. I heard Georgie moan and Kingsley groan as they realized who it was.

  “What the hell are you pussies doing here?” Nick said. “And where in the Hell is Jaxon?”

  Chapter 3

  Nick

  Nick is a very large man. I realized just how large the minute he walked into the room. I’ve seen him in photos before, but photos simply do not do his size justice. He makes all the other team members look rather small. According to Dudley, he’s even taller than Kingsley who tops out close to 6’2. His arms were massive and his legs were just shy of tree trunks. He had black hair and a somewhat boyish face that carried a ready smile.

  He offered me his hand immediately. His skin was soft and somewhat clammy.

  It’s about time you decided to interview me. You should have talked to me last time.

  “I was doing a story about the General and how he came to be.”

  Came to be?

  “I was doing a story about his origins and how things started in El Paso.”

  Yeah, yeah, I knew what you meant. I’ve seen you before ya know? When you went and interviewed Jax the first time. You were looking all nervous. It’s a pretty good look on you. I tried to get him to introduce us, but he never did.

  “Uh huh, well I’ve certainly heard about you. Make no mistake about that.”

  Really, what have you heard?

  “I probably shouldn’t say.”

  Go ahead.

  “Well, I heard about you from Jaxon.”

  Never mind, I don’t wanna hear it.

  “He said that you’re a wanton man whore with no quality control. Shall I go on?”

  He’s an asshole sometimes.

  “He told me that you’d say that. He also told me to start off my interview by mentioning your quality control problems. He thought it might help you focus.”

  Well I guess when we are all finished here I’ll have a few things to bring up with him.

  “He said you would go there as well. Would you like to hear his response?”

  He actually took a moment to think about his options before he decided to ignore my question completely and changed the subject.

  So what did you want to ask me?

  “I’ve been speaking with Dudley; he took me all the way to the moment he met up with you at Georgie’s house. Do you think you could lead me up to that moment as well?”

  Did he tell you how I pegged Georgie in the head with the beer bottle?

  “Yes, he did.”

  That was pretty fucking funny. I didn’t mean to actually hit the dumbass, but it was still pretty funny.

  “So what were you doing in El Paso? I understand that you don’t actually live there.”

  I went to visit a friend of mine.

  “I’m curious as to why Jaxon didn’t come and rescue you like he rescued Tito from his apartment.”

  That would be because I don’t need someone to come and rescue me, and also because none of them even knew I was in town. I was visiting a lady friend.

  “Did she make it out?”

  No clue, I really don’t know her that well.

  “I see.”

  No, no, don’t look at me like that. It’s not like I ditched her or anything. She went to work the day things started to go bad. I was in my motel room because she didn’t want her husband or kids to find out about me. Whatever. The point is, I was nowhere near her. If she had been with me when the shamblers came, I would have protected her. Unless she slowed me down, then I would have just pillow snuffed her.

  I was completely floored that he actually admitted that and said it so casually.

  He started laughing at the expression on my face.

  Gotcha.

  “You were making fun of me?”

  I was. The reason I did that is because after talking to Jaxon you have some preconceived notion that I’m this dumb asshole. I could tell by the looks you were giving me, and I don’t think that’s very fair. I may be rough around the edges, and I may have some personality conflicts with certain people, but I’m still a Regulator. I still go out and save people with the rest of the team. Besides that, have you ever even seen Jaxon in polite society? He’s rude. He’s like the rudest person I’ve ever met. I’m at least nice to people when I meet them. All in all, I’m a pretty good guy.

  I was a little shocked by all that he said. I was indeed thinking of him as a sort of dumb brute. It was surprising that he seemed rather intelligent.

  “You’re right; I wasn’t being very fair to you. Let’s start over please.”

  Much better. Now what kind of panties are you wearing and how do I get them off?

  Once again, I was completely floored and speechless.

  So anyway, I was in my motel room when the fucking zombies came. I was staying at the Camino Real. Jaxon would probably call that pretentious, but I like to stay in nice places. If he wants to slum it, he’s more than welcome.

  It’s a pretty tall building. I forget what floor I was on, but I was up there pretty high and I was able to see all the mayhem on the streets below from my window when it finally came my way. It wasn’t a pretty sight. It wasn’t a pretty sight at all. People were attacking and eating other people.

  The idea of fighting back didn’t even cross my mind. I was concerned with self-preservation. At that moment, nobody was thinking about fighting back. Everyone was running. They were even trampling each other in their haste to get away.

  I was safe in my room when it started, but I knew I wouldn’t be able to stay there forever. I ran into the hallway towards the vending machine. I used a well placed kick to break the glass and snagged every single food item it held.

  After that, I went to another machine that held bottled water and sodas. It took a few trips from there and back to my room, but I was able to empty it out. There were a few other people hiding out on my floor as well. I shared with the ones I met in the hallway.

  After I was back in my room, I pushed a large wooden dresser in front of the door to make sure I was safe.

  I guess I ended up staying in that room for a few days. It was pretty lonely. I had no contact with the outside world; then again, that was kind of the point. The outside world had gone to shit. I could see that much from my window, and I had no intention of getting any closer.

  My truck was waiting for me in the parking garage if I ever decided to leave, but where would I go? For all I knew, the entire world was overrun by those things. I watch movies, I kn
ow about zombies. They multiply pretty fast and, from what I had seen out of my window, El Paso was overrun with zombies.

  The only problem I had was food. After those few days of being locked up in that room, I was almost out of it. I still had plenty of fluids, and the water in the bathroom still ran, but I was going to need a new food source. I didn’t relish the idea of leaving the safety of my room, but I figured that the hotel kitchen would have enough canned goods to last me a pretty long time.

  I left my room the day after I ate the last bit of crackers. My stomach was grumbling as I pushed the heavy dresser away from the door.

  I opened it just enough to peek out.

  I looked from left to right. The hallway was deserted. I wondered what had happened to the people I saw when I raided the vending machines; whether they were still somewhere on my floor perhaps hiding behind a locked door.

  I’m a hunter. I own a variety of different types of firearms from pistols all the way to rifles. I’m also a pretty damn good shot, unlike Georgie. However, I had no weapon. All of them were back at my home in Laredo. I didn’t even keep a pistol in the glove box of my truck.

  That was the worst part, knowing that I could defend myself really well and not having the means to do so. I hate that useless feeling. When you are dealing with zombies, you need a weapon. That’s pretty much all there is to it. I mean, I’ve been in plenty of street fights, I was no stranger to beating people up, but you can’t punch out a zombie. You can’t even hurt those damn things unless you destroy the brain. As hard as I can hit, I can’t hit that hard.

  When I left the safety of my room, I was completely defenseless.

  I actually thought about Jax at that moment. He always has a knife on him. I would have loved a knife in my hand. It wouldn’t be much and I wasn’t exactly a knife fighter, but it would have been better than nothing.

  I chose the elevator instead of the stairs. I had no idea what the doors would open up on, but I didn’t want to be all tired from taking the stairs.