There were four doctors in our safe zone. Two of them volunteered. They took turns watching over them. Over the next couple of weeks each time one of them turned, they called in Jaxon and Kingsley.
I heard the gunshots. I heard all five of them. I never asked who did it, so I don’t know if it was Jaxon or Kingsley that pulled the trigger. They never talk about it.
What I do know, is that they did the right thing. They made everyone safe by confining the victims and they didn’t take a life, they only destroyed monsters.
“So you approve of the way Jaxon handled things?”
Yeah, very much so…he tries very hard to do the right thing.
“What happened afterwards?”
Jaxon didn’t sit still. He was on to the next problem. Tito was still out there.
“Just to rehash, Tito is Jaxons friend right?”
Yeah, Tito is his oldest friend. He was the one on EPUA asking for help.
“Jaxon wanted to leave the safe zone and go after him?”
Yeah.
“How did you feel about this?”
I didn’t want him to go. I mean, look at all he’s done. The weight of the city should not rest on his shoulders. He needed a break. It was all too much for one man.
Chapter 3
Dudley
Dudley is indeed a quiet person. Once he gets talking though, it’s very clear how intelligent he is. There’s only one problem, once he gets talking he doesn’t seem to stop. It takes me about twenty minutes to get him to quiet down about some invisible dimension he’s recently read about online. Apparently, he and Jaxon have been arguing about it. He’s in his early twenties by the look of him, but he stubbornly refuses to discuss his age and seems to enjoy my attempts at guessing, even though he never tells me whether or not I’m right or wrong.
He’s muscular, but still somewhat thin. His voice has a very arrogant quality to it, which is somewhat similar to Jaxons. He’s almost as big a smart ass as Jaxon is as well. He’s wearing dark jeans, a skin tight t-shirt, cowboy boots and Elvis style sunglasses.
Ready when you are little lady.
“Okay, I’ve heard about the beginning from Jaxon and Ivana. I’d now like to start after the five infected people were confined to the house.”
Kinda obvious isn’t it?
“No, I was told all about that. I want to know what happened afterwards.”
Ah, you want to know what Jaxon did next.
“Exactly.”
No problem. You just have to understand that my uncle is one of the world’s greatest troublemakers. That should probably be somewhat obvious at this point, but for the sake of clarification, he follows his own agenda and he makes his own rules. He’s also very difficult to deter once he’s made his mind up about something.
“And he’s made up his mind about something?”
Yep. The two problems on his mind at that time were the many, many survivors not in our safety zone and Tito. He had an answer for Tito.
“So he decided to rescue his friend?”
Yep, and nobody was going to talk him out of it.
I was hanging over his shoulder while he watched the computer screen flash on by with all the ‘help us’ messages one night. I knew it was time to keep my eye on him. He’s a man of action. He isn’t one of those people that can sit around and wait. Something was going to happen soon. He just happened to figure out a solution for Tito first.
“I’m going out for Tito tonight.”
“How are you going to do this?” I asked
“I saw a couple of quads sitting in one of the driveways. I’m going to use a quad to get to the desert, then I’m going to off road it around all the neighborhoods until I hit Thunderbird.
“What’s Thunderbird?”
That’s the street Tito’s apartment complex is on. If he could make it to the desert, he could easily go around the entire Westside in a sort of half circle close to the Franklin Mountains and come back down when he got close to Thunderbird.
“Why are you going that way?” I asked.
“I’m hoping that the zombies are staying in the city.” He answered. “They don’t seem to like the sun and heat. So, maybe I can avoid them a little bit if I go through the desert.”
“What happens when you hit Thunderbird? Ivana’s apartment is very close to Tito’s. She said that whole area is teeming with the undead.”
“I’ll leave the quad in the desert. I’ll sneak in, grab Tito and sneak back to the quad.”
“You think it’ll be that easy?”
“Not really asshole. I’m sure I’ll run into a number of problems, but it’s a decent idea for a rescue mission.”
“How many quads did you see?”
“At least three and no you’re not going.”
There was a tinge of irritation in his voice. I could always irritate my uncle and he knew exactly what I was getting at. What he didn’t know was that I wasn’t giving him a choice.
“Well, you can’t blame him for trying. He didn’t want to endanger you.”
Yeah, fuck all that.
“I’m going.”
“No. You’re staying here.”
“How about I kick you in the nuts and go by myself.” I said.
“How about you try it and I knock your dick in the dirt.” He answered.
“How bout I beat you like the bitch you are.”
“How bout I make you my bitch.” He answered.
“Dude, you aren’t the boss. I can do what I want.” I replied. He sometimes forgets that I’m not a kid anymore.
“Look around numb nuts.” He answered. “I am the boss and you sound like a whining twelve year old.”
“What’s everyone going to say when you tell them that you’re going out to rescue Tito?”
“I’m not going to tell them,” said Jaxon. “They’d freak. I’m gonna sneak out before daybreak and be back before they start too really panic.”
“I’ll go tell all of them right now what you’re planning if you don’t quit acting like a girl.”
This one caught his attention. Georgie can throw a tremendous fit when he puts his mind to it. Just ask his wife. It was something that at the very least would cause a delay for Jaxon.
“That’s blackmail.” He said.
“Kind of.”
Then he stood up and knocked over my chair with me on it before darting off down the stairs. “Get your crap ready and meet me by the lower gate.”
“So there it was. You were going back into the lion’s den so to speak.”
Pretty much.
“Were you scared? I mean, you’ve been through the danger before, but after being safe for a while, what were you feeling?”
I was feeling pretty shitty about the whole thing to be honest with you. This is the real world, man. People were getting eaten out there. By Georgie’s calculations, there were around seventy thousand survivors not in our safety zone. That’s only seventy thousand people that were still alive. That meant there were a whole bunch of nasty decaying corpses running around the city that would just love to take a bite out of my happy ass.
Family should stick together.
“Yes, I agree with you.”
There was also no way in hell that he’d let me go alone if it was me going after a friend of mine. Besides, I kinda like Tito. I grew up around that angry skank.
“I can imagine. Your entire group seems to be very close to one another.”
Ain’t that the truth.
“So you met at the gates?”
Yeah. We met at the gates. Are you rushing me?
“I’m sorry. I didn’t mean to.”
He laughs at this and points his finger at me.
Gotcha.
He did indeed and I begin to laugh along with him.
Seriously though…be patient. I excel at storytelling.
“I’ll do my best.”
Lay off the caffeine maybe.
Anyway, we met at the gate, talked to the guards in the tower
and explained that we were going to a little reconnoitering. It’s not like anyone was going to argue with the General at this point.
Then he went and talked to the owner of the quads. It wasn’t like they were going to argue with him either. I put a gas tank on the back of the quad I was using in case we ran low on fuel. Jaxon took the faster quad, which was somewhat irritating considering my superior driving skills. Yet, he then added that Tito would be riding with him and I couldn’t really complain.
As the sun began to rise on the horizon, we set off.
It was difficult or maybe just repulsive negotiating the quads through the dead bodies that started to accumulate beyond the gates.
“These were the zombies that were shot by the guards?”
Yep. All day and all night they came for us. The tower guards shot them on sight. Sometimes they came in huge groups, and tried to climb the gates. The tower guards nailed all of them. We just didn’t know what to do with all the bodies.
I’m not even going to talk about the smell. It was rowdy as hell.
It took awhile, but soon we were through and hauling ass down the road. A few zigs and a few zags and we hit the open desert.
We only had about ten zombies chasing after us. We didn’t bother to shoot at them. The noise would have attracted even more and they weren’t likely to catch up anyway.
The desert ride was actually fun. We found a trail and followed it. Got lost, went off the trail back towards the direction we needed to go, found another trail and set off down that one.
I guess we took most of the morning. It was getting pretty hot, but it wasn’t like we had a map or anything. Jax just had an idea that the top of Thunderbird could be reached from the desert and away we went.
Finally, Jax slowed to a stop and pulled out some binoculars from his backpack. Hell, I didn’t know he even kept anything else besides ammo in there. He stood on the quads seat and looked around.
“You see anything Skywalker?” I asked.
“Skywalker?”
I guess you don’t watch a lot of movies. It’s a somewhat comical reference to Star Wars. You know…the scene where Luke is looking through the binoculars for the missing R2D2?
Never mind.
Anyway, he was looking through the binoculars.
“Yeah,” he answered. “I see some houses over there. I think we’re getting close.”
“Any dead guys walking around?”
“There’s some movement in one of the houses. I can’t tell if they’re alive or dead.”
“What do you want to do?”
“Let’s get closer, but we’ll take it slow so the quads don’t make a lot of noise.”
“I’ll have my gun ready.” I had brought one of Georgie’s favorite pistols. He was gonna be pissed when he found out I took it. It was a Kimber 45 cal if I’m remembering correctly, which I am because I still have the damn thing.
After this last statement, Dudley pulls a somewhat battered pistol from the back of his pants and proudly sets it upon the table.
“What happened to it?”
It’s seen a lot of abuse. It’s seen a lot of action as well. It may not be pretty, but it’s still wicked accurate.
Anyway, we started cruising closer to the homes. From our angle, we mainly saw only the backyards at first, but occasionally we saw some movement from inside the houses. Many of the homes in El Paso have large windows or sliding glass doors in the back. We just couldn’t tell if these occupants were alive or dead.
“Did you go investigate?”
We couldn’t, this little adventure was supposed to be somewhat sneaky. If we went and checked out one of these houses and it turned out to be filled with zombies, we’d have to fight. If we had to fight, we’d make a lot of noise and if we made a lot of noise, we’d have a ton of zombies trying to catch and eat us. We’d never make it to Tito.
We finally found where Thunderbird hit the desert. There was one of those metal guard rails with a dead end sign marking the end of the street. We parked the quads right next to it. As soon as Jaxon was off his quad, he began checking his weapons.
“Use your machete as much as possible.” He told me. “We want to keep things as quiet as we can.”
“Then wouldn’t it be preferable to just avoid any trouble?”
“Yes, it would.”
“You just don’t think it’s possible?” I asked.
“It hasn’t been possible so far.”
He pulled the gas can off of my quad and filled both of the tanks. Each had made it all the way over here without a refill. This was fortunate; it meant we could make it all the way back to the safety zone. I was more than a little worried we’d end of huffing it at some point.
The next thing I knew, we were walking down an empty street. It was scary as hell. At any moment hordes of zombie cannibals could have started pouring out of the houses after us.
“It’s strange how neither you nor Jaxon has any problems admitting when a situation is frightening.”
If anybody told you differently, they’d be lying. This shit is scary. There are no ands, ifs or buts about it. What’s really funny is that we all tend to make light of these fucked up moments after they’re over.
“What do you mean?”
We make fun of each other. Talk smack when somebody gets freaked. I guess it’s just a way of dealing with all the tension. It’s works though. I can’t explain it, but it works.
One of them came running out of a house at us.
Before I even unsheathed the machete, Jaxons tomahawk went flying through the air and deep into the zombies head.
“When did you learn how to do that?” I asked as he calmly pulled the weapon out of the corpses head.
“Do what?”
“Learn how to throw the damn ax, man.” I said.
“I dunno.” He answered. “Just kinda feels natural.”
Screams began to come from inside the house. There were obviously others in there getting ready to rush us and if they were still making all that noise when they got out, they were gonna bring the entire street down on us.
“Aw fuck it,” said Jaxon as he looked from the front door, back towards me. “Stay here and keep a look out. I don’t want trapped in another fucking house.”
He then, calmly walked into the house as I watched the street. I didn’t even think about following him. I was still a little shell shocked. It was the way he was getting so good at dealing out this casual violence. He was getting deadlier with every encounter.
I crouched behind some bushes and kept my watch. The street remained calm. The inside of the house did not.
“Were you worried?”
Not at all, Jaxon was kicking ass. I’d hear the start of a scream, a nasty crunch and then another scream would try to start from another room. Jaxon was so efficient, that you’d literally have to be right by the front door to hear anything. But, if you happened to be by that front door, like I was...it sounded like hell erupting. Eventually I began to hear glass breaking and wood cracking. I never once heard a gun.
“How long did this last?”
Probably about five or ten minutes, it felt like a lot longer. Then, suddenly it was quiet. Dead quiet. That’s when I got worried.
The quiet lasted a few minutes. I was just about to go inside, when Jaxon casually strolled out wiping down his knife and tomahawk with what looked like a dish towel.
“There were more of them than I thought.” He said. “Let’s keep going.”
I didn’t say anything. I never even asked how many. I just followed him back down the street.
“It weird how they normally come in packs,” I said in an effort break the silence.
“Is this the only conversation you have prepared for me?” replied Jaxon.
“Yeah, this is my A game.” I answered.
“Well, I guess it’s better than you coming out of the closet. I’ve been dreading that eventuality.”
“Really, because if I did come out of the closet, I�
�d think you’d be somewhat proud.”
“Why would I be proud?” asked Jax.
“You would be proud, because if I were gay and coming out of the closet, I’d be following in your footsteps.”
“Are you for real?”
Not at all, we both have gay friends. We were just fucking around.
“Not about that, I’ve met Ivana. Are you for real that in the middle of enemy territory so to speak, the two of you were joking around?”
Oh hell yeah. That’s what we do. That’s just the way things go.
“I would be scared to death. I wouldn’t be in any kind of mood to be joking around.”
Who said we weren’t. Hell man, we were walking down the middle of the street in broad daylight. We knew some of the houses were occupied with zombie cannibals. As far as I was concerned, it was just a matter of time before we one of them saw us and a bunch of them rushed us. We were definitely feeling the nerves.
“Then why were you joking around?”
What else could we do?
Yeah, I guess he was right. What else could you do, but have a good sense of humor about things?
Jaxon went inside every house that seemed to get louder as we passed by. Maybe they saw us, maybe they didn’t. He wasn’t taking any chances; getting rushed out here would probably be fatal. All in all, I guess he cleaned out about five homes. On the last one, he came out with a deep laceration in his head, claw marks all over one of his arms and zombie blood all over his clothes.
“Fell through a glass table.” He said.
He was trying to staunch the blood pouring from his head with a dirty rag.
“Maybe we should go inside until you stop bleeding.” I suggested.
“Why?”
“These things may be able to smell blood.”
“They probably can. That’s why I don’t want to be inside a house when they do. If we’re outside, we can at least make a run for it. Besides, I’m covered in zombie blood as well; maybe it’ll mask the scent of my blood.”
“But you’re injured.” I almost shouted. This was getting ridiculous. “You’re bleeding all over the place.”
“We don’t have time to stop the bleeding. So keep walking.”
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