It probably wasn’t the right time to bring it up. I just, for some reason, I blurted it out.
“I know you are,” Jax said. “I didn’t want to ask you about it. I figured you would come to me if you wanted to talk.”
“I don’t know that I want to talk about it,” I said. “I just wanted to tell you myself.”
“That’s fine,” Jax said. “I’m here if you need me and if you don’t, well, that’s okay too.”
I changed the subject again as we approached the tracks.
“What do you think?” I asked.
The tracks were obvious. In fact, they seemed a little bit too obvious. They even had an evident drag mark.
“Too early for me to tell,” Jaxon said. “We might as well follow them. Not much chance of anything sneaking up on us during the day in the open desert.”
We followed the tracks for about two hours. They led us in a straight path with no deviation. I was actually beginning to feel a bit warm under the sun when we finally came to a small scrub brush covered hill. The tracks went around the hill. We followed them and came upon a grisly scene once we reached the opposite side.
There were two different sets of tracks in the sand. One set of the tracks were the barefoot tracks that we had been following. The other set belonged to a very large combat boot. There was blood everywhere, along with massive amounts of disturbances in the sand. Kingsley had fought back.
There was a large mound of piled up sand off to one side that called our attention. Something had been buried there and it didn’t take a genius to figure out what. Jaxon knelt beside the grave and gently put his hand upon the sand. I was quiet; actually, we were both quiet. We had just found the grave of our friend and teammate.
Merrick gave a little bark in the distance. Jaxon went over to her. She had found Kingsley’s pistol. We didn’t look for the rest of his belongings.
The walk back to the Jeep was a long one. I didn’t want to break the silence. The look on Jaxon’s face was rather intimidating, but I couldn’t take the quiet any longer.
“Are we just going to leave him there?” I asked.
“For now,” Jax answered. “But we’ll be back for him someday. He needs a proper funeral in a proper place. I won’t leave him there forever.”
We continued on in silence for another half an hour when Jaxon suddenly stopped.
“I don’t get it,” Jaxon said. “I just don’t get it.”
“What don’t you get?”
“Why here?” Jaxon said. “She could have killed him anywhere. She could have killed him on your neighbor’s roof if she had wanted to. Why drag him all the way into the desert, and why bury him?”
“I don’t know,” I answered. “I guess when you think about it, it doesn’t make much sense. Maybe she just wanted to take her time with him.”
“She didn’t have to come out here to do that. No, I’m missing something. I don’t know what, but I’m missing something.”
“I don’t know man, maybe she’s just messed up in the head.”
“I’ll tell you one thing,” Jaxon said. “I’m going to kill her. I’m going to find her and I’m going to rip her into pieces.”
Jaxon wasn’t going to break down and fall apart. He’s just not that type of person. He’s the type of person that can actually push emotions aside and do what needs to be done. He would mourn the loss of his friend someday, but it wasn’t going to be any time soon.
“Has Jaxon always been like that?”
Yes, he’s never been a very emotional guy. He has emotions, of course. I realize that a lot of people out there say he’s pretty cold hearted, but he’s not. He was hurting, hurting very badly, but he wasn’t about to fall apart. There would be time for that after he got his revenge.
We walked in silence all the way to the road where we first saw the tracks. Merrick had gotten there ahead of us and she was staring down the road at the nearest house.
When the two of us reached her, Jaxon began to stare off towards the house as well. Merrick even gave a small little growl. I was completely clueless as to what they were doing.
“What’s going on?” I asked.
“I’m not sure, but something.”
“Is it that house?” I asked.
“Hold on a second,” Jax said.
I waited quietly as he stared and stared at the house. I was still at a complete loss.
“There,” Jax said. “Do you hear it?”
“Hear what?” I answered.
“There’s a pounding noise coming from that house.”
“Are you sure?”
“I’m pretty sure,” Jax said.
Without another word, he and Merrick took off towards the house in question. I was left trying to catch up to them. It wasn’t a situation I was very comfortable with to be totally honest. Jaxon had the ability to survive in this environment indefinitely, but I didn’t. I didn’t even like leaving the vehicle if you want me to be totally truthful, whereas Jaxon thought nothing of it.
I was slightly out of breath when I caught up with them at the front door of the house. Everything was eerily quiet. Something in the air just didn’t feel right. I didn’t want to say anything and end up looking like a pussy, but something was wrong. I just knew it.
“Do you hear anything?” I asked.
“No, it’s completely quiet in there now.”
Jaxon was giving me a dirty look because I was still breathing heavy after my run to the house.
“What do you want to do?” I asked.
Jaxon didn’t answer me; he just clicked his earpiece.
“Hardin,” Jaxon said. “Are there any known survivors around our current location?”
“Negative,” Hardin said over the radio. “We haven’t received a single distress call in or around your current location. It’s a no man’s land out there.”
I completely agreed with Hardin. The neighborhood around the house had a very ghost town sort of look to it. All of the windows were boarded up, which is what normally happens when people are trying to survive a zombie invasion, but there was also sand all over the road and sidewalks. The area seemed very deserted.
“Thanks,” Jaxon said.
“Not a problem,” Hardin replied before clicking off.
Jaxon then backed up to the mailbox and gave the house a thorough scan. Apparently he arrived at the same conclusion that I had, because he shook his head and motioned for me to come over to him.
“I must be hearing things,” Jaxon said. “Maybe I was just hoping…”
He didn’t finish his thought. He didn’t have to.
“You wanna head back to the Jeep?” I asked.
“I guess so.”
Jaxon gave out a quick whistle to get Merrick’s attention. She was busy sniffing around the side of the house, but she bolted to Jaxon’s side immediately after the whistle and the three of us set off towards the Jeep.
I heard a thump.
Jaxon didn’t hear it. He was lost somewhere in his own thoughts, but I heard it. It was a dull and muffled thump, and it was indeed coming from inside the house. One thought raced through my mind. Could it be Kingsley that was somehow trapped somewhere inside, and he was banging on something in the hopes that someone would help him?
“Jax, I just heard it.”
“You heard what?”
“I just heard a thump.”
I was scanning the windows, but I couldn’t see anything since the shutters were all closed. Jaxon walked back to the house, and he too began to scan the windows, but he was much closer as he attempted to find an angle in which he could actually see inside.
“I can’t see anything,” Jax said.
“What do you want to do?” I asked. “Kingsley could be in there.”
“How do you figure that?”
“The scene in the desert was just a diversion,” I answered. “What if she actually trapped him inside this house somehow? You said yourself that what we saw in the desert didn’t make sense.”
/>
“That’s a pretty big stretch; I dunno.”
“We owe it to him to at least check out the house,” I said.
Jaxon nodded his head and the two of us walked over to the front door. Merrick began making weird little growls from the yard, but she came with us. I put my hand on the doorknob and gave it a turn. The door wasn’t locked, but it did vibrate a little, which I thought was sort of weird. I pushed it open, but after about five inches the door bumped into something soft and would move no farther. I pushed and I felt some give, but then the door pushed back, and the zombie screams started.
It was a trap. Again.
I vaguely remember hearing Jaxon begin to scream orders at me. I think he was telling me to close the door, but his voice was drowned out by all the zombie screams. It sounded like there were a lot of them in there, and they sounded very hungry.
I was trying to pull the door closed when I saw all the decaying hands grab through the space I had created and begin to pull against me. It was a tug-of-war. I was trying to close the door and they were trying to open it.
Jaxon was still screaming at me and I couldn’t figure out why he wasn’t helping me close the door. When I heard the muffled thumps of his mp7 from behind me, I wanted to turn around and see just what the hell he was shooting at, but I couldn’t. I was afraid to divide my attention.
Suddenly I felt Merrick’s teeth around my ankle, and it hurt like a son of a bitch. The shock of being bitten by Jaxon’s dog distracted me from the door, and I felt it being yanked from my hands.
The house was indeed jam packed with shamblers.
“Why weren’t you able to hear them before?”
If we had come by during the evening, we probably would have. As it was, they were probably in that lazy state they tend to get into when the sun is out and nothing is capturing their attention.
They all surged for the door and that’s the reason I’m still alive. They all surged towards the door at the same time. They got in each other’s way. I backtracked immediately. I didn’t even bother turning around; I just went as fast as I could in reverse.
I almost collided with Jax.
I turned to grab him and that’s when I realized the street had become filled with zombies. That’s why Merrick grabbed my ankle by the way. It wasn’t a bite. She was trying to lead me away. I froze at the sight of all the zombies, but Jaxon kept firing. I remember being completely impressed by how calm and cool he seemed to be as he fired off shot after shot. I remember thinking that if I had a gun I could probably help him out. Then I recalled I did have a gun. I also possessed an mp7, and it was currently hanging uselessly off the sling around my neck.
I grabbed the gun; oh wait, I’m sorry, it’s actually a rifle. I brought the rifle to my shoulder, and began to bring them down one at a time.
“To your right,” Jaxon snarled.
I had forgotten about the zombies still in the house. They were flooding out of the open door, right towards us. I swung the barrel in that direction and began to fire upon them. As soon as I had nailed all the shamblers outside the door, things became a little bit easier for me. The instant I saw them appear in the doorway, I brought them down. The bodies began to pile up around the door and that slowed them down even more.
I had to pause to reload. While doing that, I took a look over towards Jax. He was in trouble. Hell, we were both in trouble. There were zombies everywhere. They were literally just pouring out of the nearby homes. He was doing his best to hold them back, but it was obvious that we were going to be overwhelmed.
“Let’s make a run for it!” I shouted to be heard over the screams and moans.
“I’m right behind you,” Jaxon yelled back.
I took off as fast as I could move. I wasn’t going to win many races, but it was hopefully fast enough to stay ahead of the zombies. I heard Jaxon screaming something from behind me, but I couldn’t make out what it was.
Suddenly, Jaxon was right beside me, and then he was in front of me, reaching back to grab a hold of my arm and drag me along at an even faster rate. I couldn’t take it for long. I managed to round the corner of the road and get about another block or two before my breathing became loud enough to block out the sounds of our pursuers.
Jaxon was shouting at me to hurry up. It felt like he was going to yank my arm out of the socket, he was running so fast. I could hear them behind us. It was terrifying. I pushed and pushed myself, but my legs felt rubbery and weak. I couldn’t even remember the last time I had gone running.
I felt the pull on my arm rapidly change direction. I looked up and realized that Jaxon was cutting through a yard. We ran to a backyard gate and fortunately for me, Jaxon didn’t jump over it. He took the time to lift the latch, let me in and close the gate behind us.
Then he was breaking down the rear door of the house and shoving me through. After he closed it behind me, I was left alone and gasping in the shadows of an empty house. I stumbled to a window just in time to see all of the shamblers flood into the backyard.
It took me a moment to locate Jaxon. He was waiting for them on the edge of the rock wall farthest from the house. The zombies spotted him immediately and charged towards him. He waited until the last possible second and jumped the ten or twenty feet to the neighboring yard behind the house I was hiding in.
Jaxon was gone.
I was all alone in an extremely hostile environment. Something scraped against my leg and I almost screamed. It was only Merrick. She was pawing at me for attention. Jaxon had pushed her into the house as well.
The backyard was filled with zombies. Some of them were dropping off the wall in an effort to continue the chase, while others were just wandering around aimlessly.
Jaxon was gone.
I tapped my earpiece.
“Jaxon,” I whispered. “Where are you?”
“I’m not exactly sure,” Jaxon said with a little laugh.
“What do I do?” I asked.
“Just wait there,” Jaxon said. “After I lose them, I’ll be back to get you.”
He clicked off after that. I tried to ask a few more questions, but he continued to ignore me. I sat on the floor of the kitchen for around thirty minutes. It actually took that long before I was breathing normally.
I drank some water out of my backpack. I wiped the cold sweat from my forehead and finally got to my feet. My legs were still shaky. It wasn’t a good feeling at all.
I heard a noise from somewhere in the house.
I was afraid to use my mp7. Even though it has a silencer, it still makes a muffled thump. I didn’t want any of the zombies outside the house to hear it so I pulled out my large bowie knife. Jaxon insisted that all of us carry some sort of non-firing backup weapon. I chose the bowie knife just because it looked mean as hell. It was a Cold Steel knife so Jaxon had actually approved of my choice since he believes they are probably the best fighting knives available.
I had to laugh at this. Jaxon was definitely the man to seek approval from when it came to edged weapons. He might even be considered a bit of a knife snob, but then again, he needed the best. His life often depended on his weapons.
I crept into the next room as quietly as I could. I was once again breathing heavily, and the noise made me worry. Jaxon began jabbering in my ear, but he wasn’t talking to me. He was asking Hardin to send a chopper over his location. The radio chatter made me nervous as well. It seemed to be way too loud. I tried to find the volume on my ear, but I couldn’t so I ended up shutting the earpiece off.
I was terrified. That may come as a shock to you, but I didn’t exactly have a lot of experience in those sorts of situations. When everything went down before, I was in the safe zone right up until we left the area.
“Weren’t you the one that went out to help Jaxon during those fifteen minutes of footage?”
Yeah, that was me, but that doesn’t really count. Things just happened, and I just sort of reacted. Besides, Jaxon had already done all the hard stuff. I just kinda helped b
ring things to a finish.
“Later on you went with them to rescue Skie, correct?”
And my involvement in that little operation consisted of sniping out targets while I was safe and sound on a rooftop. To be honest, I think Jaxon knew I was pretty worried. It’s hard to say with him. He often takes care of people without really telling them that he’s taking care of them.
There was nothing in the next room, just a darkened living room. There was a sofa, a nice TV, a recliner but nothing out of the ordinary. I was hoping that I was hearing things. I was hoping that the house was empty. I was hoping for a lot of things actually.
I heard the noise again.
I followed the sound. It sounded like someone rattling a doorknob. I went down a darkened hallway. I wanted to use my flashlight, but I was afraid that it could somehow be seen from outside and the area around the house was infested with shamblers.
At the end of the hallway was a sturdy wooden door. I didn’t want to open it. I really, really did not want to open that door. Under normal circumstances, I wouldn’t have turned that knob for all the tequila in Mexico, but if there was a zombie in the house with me, it would be better if I took it out quickly. If I tried to ignore the problem and it got out of the room and found me, I might not be able to kill it before it let out a scream. A scream would be fatal to me. There were just too many of them outside.
I turned the knob and opened the door.
It was a suicide. Dudley was correct in saying that those are often the worst things to come upon. It was a middle aged woman that had hanged herself. On a side note, I said hanged. I did not say hung, because that would be incorrect. Way too many people would make the mistake of telling you that the woman hung herself. When, in fact, the woman had hanged herself from some pull up bars that were attached above the door frame of the bathroom. It was a sad sight to see.
My guess is that she chose to end her life after she had been bitten. She probably didn’t realize that she would come back as a zombie. She should have destroyed her brain. Anyway, it was her twitching foot that made the noise as it occasionally bumped against the doorknob of the open bathroom door.
I began to relax somewhat when I realized I wasn’t in any immediate danger. Unfortunately, my eyes drifted to the bed. There was something under the covers. I needed to make sure whatever it was wasn’t going to jump up and try to eat me so Merrick and I entered the room and quietly closed the door behind us. Then, I pulled back the covers with the point of my knife.
The Regulators - 02 Page 14