Jaxon screamed back. He screamed out his challenge with everything that was left in his body.
Like I said, my man is no quitter.
She laughs at her own little joke, but I know she’s right. I’ve seen the footage. The entire world has seen the footage. Every now and then, you can still see it being played on the news. Every now and then, you can catch a one hour special on TV that analyzes the man and the footage.
“What happened next?”
His strength finally gave out. Jaxon fell and Georgie immediately helped him to his feet. The two of them, along with Merrick slowly walked back to the fence. Some of our friends went towards them to help Georgie with Jaxon; he was pretty out of it. Dead on his feet so to speak, I think he was even going in and out of consciousness.
When they neared the fence, the crowd parted to let him through. Everyone was reaching out to touch him. Some of the people even began to pray for what they thought was their fallen hero. They saw the bites. They saw the tears in his flesh. Any normal man would have turned inside of an hour.
Jaxon is far from being a normal man.
Miriam immediately went into action. She was barking orders at everyone. Jaxon was now completely unconscious as the poison spread throughout his body.
“It’s way too hot for him,” said Miriam. “He’s exhausted himself. I need to get to work immediately.”
When Miriam gives orders, people listen. In seconds, he was brought to the decontamination unit and stripped down. Georgie took his tomahawk and held it for him. Jaxon would be wanting that back.
Merrick snapped at anyone that tried to keep her away from my husband.
Miriam began hosing Jaxon off with a water hose like thing that was attached to the wall, kind of like one of those moveable shower heads. The wounds were already yellow and rimmed with puss. The water actually hissed when it hit the damaged areas, but the worst of the infection was literally being washed away right before my eyes.
After that, she had him placed in some sort of muddy bath. I was shocked at first. I couldn’t believe that that was all she or they or anyone was going to do for him.
“Mother earth will heal her chosen son,” said Miriam with a smile on her face. “It will work; your man is strong…very, very strong.”
All of our friends were watching through the glass wall. None of them would leave until they were sure Jaxon was going to be alright. When they heard the good news, their cheers were simply thunderous.
All in all, I think Jaxon was unconscious for about three days. Georgie, Lucy, Dudley, Kingsley, Ivana, Merrick and I never left his side until the moment he woke up. When that happened, the others went outside to give us some time.
He smiled at me. There was a billion dollars in that smile and I hugged and kissed him despite all the mud and muck.
He wasn’t about to stay there, he immediately got out of the mud bath, toweled off and dressed.
Nobody tried to stop him. I think they were all just baffled that he was moving around. Miriam waved the doctors and scientists away from him.
Together, along with Merrick, we stepped out of the decontamination unit and Jaxon stepped into fame.
Everyone was there and they were all saluting him. Jaxon was too stunned to really react; he just hugged me to him a little bit tighter.
I remember, that I was laughing. I was as happy as could be. My husband was safe and we were finally leaving this nightmare behind.
“You did it baby,” I said. “You saved everyone. You’re a hero now.”
He didn’t reply. He had seen Crass and despite the soldiers trying to usher us to the waiting helicopter, Jax rushed over to him to ask about the other caravan that was led by Tito.
Major Crass, being the asshole that he is refused to answer Jaxons question, instead he threatened to have my husband arrested if he didn’t leave immediately. I felt bad for Jaxon. He had no idea how much Crass hated him. He was dumbfounded at the animosity. Which was probably a good thing for Crass; Jaxon normally wouldn’t stand for being treated like that. I led him gently away to our friends and the waiting chopper.
He fell asleep the minute we were in the air.
Jaxon woke up when we began to descend. A clearing had been made in the thick pine forest of his parent’s front yard.
“Can you tell me where that is?”
New Mexico. Ruidoso to be exact, Jaxons parents own a big cabin up there. He likes to ride his bike around in the mountains, so we’re always going up there.
I saw his parents on the front porch waiting for the chopper to land. They looked worried and they also looked relieved. I wasn’t allowed to make any phone calls during this entire ordeal. In fact, I had only this very morning been able to contact my own parents. I wasn’t too worried, they live outside of El Paso and I therefore had no real reason to be worried, but man oh man were they worried about me.
My kids came running out of the woods. They had been taken to the cabin earlier in the day. To say the least, they were happy enough not too cramped inside a motel room any longer.
As we left the chopper, it immediately rose back into the air. It was then I noticed our many body guards. They had sent at least ten soldiers to the cabin to make sure we were safe and sound, or maybe they were here to make sure Jaxon didn’t leave.
No chance in that. My husband was exhausted. He barely said a word to anyone. He immediately went straight to the shower and spent over two hours scrubbing. When I finally went to check on him, he had just finished shaving and was in the process of dousing his body with cologne.
“I can’t get the smell out of my nose,” he told me.
He wasn’t right. Miriam had warned me about this. She said that he would eventually go through some kind of post traumatic stress. It’s the byproduct of all the killing he was involved in. As a matter of fact, she told me that most Guardians are eased into the violence. Jaxon was put in a sink or swim situation. There were bound to be some negative effects. Still, she told me that it wouldn’t last long.
I helped him find some lotions and hair products that smelled pretty. It wasn’t enough. He jumped back into the shower and began scrubbing furiously. Afterwards, he slept for two solid days.
I would check on him every few hours or so, but he never stirred. Nobody could tell me when the last time he slept had been. Merrick for her part was perfectly happy being with Jaxons parents. She loved his mom, but she would sneak into his room and check on him almost as much as I did.
When Jaxon finally woke up, he had a glass of Pepsi and went right back to his room for another shower. I was worried that he hadn’t eaten. His entire body looked different. Not only slimmer, but somehow stronger, it’s hard to explain, but my husband had changed.
Five days after we had come to the cabin, Georgie dragged Jax out of the bedroom to watch something on the TV. The rest of us had known since our first night at the cabin about the fifteen minutes of footage, but this was the first time Jaxon had seen it.
He watched it for about 3 minutes and then left the room with a dull expression. Georgie felt pretty bad and began to worry that he caused even more harm on Jaxons psyche.
That evening, when we went to bed Jaxon began to have the nightmares. Miriam had warned me about this as well. All the Guardians went through this. It was pretty much where they learned to fight and they learned about the kinds of things they would have to fight. Jaxon would wake up in a cold sweat.
Another evening, he heard a noise outside the cabin and tore off into the woods with his tomahawk. It was just a deer, but he almost killed it anyway. He couldn’t sleep for the rest of the evening. I had no idea how to help him. He sat looking out the window until the sun rose in the sky.
Another week went by and everyone was worried about him. He rarely left the bedroom. His mother wanted to take him to a shrink. This definitely wasn’t the Jaxon we all knew and loved. All of us were careful about even talking to him. The slightest thing could set him off. The look of anger that would come in
to his eyes was frightening.
When Miriam finally arrived at the cabin one morning, I almost cried I was so relieved.
“You warned me that he would have a difficult time, but I’m really worried. He’s not acting right, he can barely sleep, he barely eats and he won’t talk to anybody about it.”
“Well how would you act if you went through the things he went through?” she answered with a motherly pat on my head. “It’s time that he learns about his destiny.”
I called Jaxon into the kitchen and gave him a cup of coffee as I introduced him to Miriam. He shook her hand politely and settled in to drink his coffee and ignore her. Miriam wasn’t about to put up with the silent treatment.
“Having a rough time of things Jaxon?” she asked.
“Are you a shrink?”
“Not really, but I have had to listen to enough problems over the years. Actually, I’m sort of your guide.”
Jaxon immediately turned to me.
“What’s she talking about?” he asked.
“If you have questions about me, I would appreciate it if you asked me yourself young man.”
The look Jaxon gave her as he turned his head was terrible. It should have come with a snarl.
“Alright, who the hell are you and what the hell do you want?” he asked in a low voice. His friends and family (who were scattered about the living room) all turned to see what was happening between the two of them, they were certainly more than a little worried when they heard his voice.
“First of all, I don’t like the attitude, so drop it,” she answered rather bravely. “Second of all, you are the chosen Guardian. It happens, deal with it. If the world can harbor and create things like zombies, it makes a certain sense to believe that the world can in turn create something to combat the zombies. That would be you.”
“Really?” asked Jaxon. The sarcasm was practically dripping from his tongue.
“Yes really and you better get used to it. Because there are a lot worse than zombies in your future and you need to be prepared. So stop feeling sorry for yourself and get ready to be the hero everybody thinks you are.”
It was the wrong thing to say and Jaxon was certainly in the wrong mood to hear it. Obviously, Miriam had no idea how much my husband was willing to put up with and she was definitely pushing her luck with the disrespect.
“Are you fucking serious lady?” asked Jaxon. “You really want to come into my home and run your mouth off at me?”
“Well, it obviously needs to be done by someone,” answered Miriam. “Because that’s what seems to be needed to get you to stop acting like a coward.”
Jaxons fist hit the table so hard his cup jumped into the air. I’m actually quite surprised that the granite of the counter didn’t crack. I tried to stop him, but he was too fast and too strong. He grabbed Miriam roughly by the arm and dragged her to the front door. He unceremoniously shoved her out the door and slammed it in her face.
After all that, Jaxon simply went back to his room and slammed that door as well. I went outside after Miriam who was straightening her rumpled clothes.
“What the hell is the matter with you?” I asked. “Why would you speak to him like that?”
“Relax dear. He needed that to get his motor running. You’ll have your husband back in a few days and then I’ll come and talk to him again.”
“What are you talking about?” I asked. To be honest, I was furious with her. I expected her to help him, not piss him off and belittle him.
“He needed someone to vent on; I let him vent on me. Didn’t take very long though, he has a bit of a temper. Well, no matter. Now that he got it out of his system, he should be right as rain in a few days. It’s how they all work.”
“What are you talking about?” I asked once again.
“Dear, he went through a horrible ordeal. He’s hurting inside, but all the Guardians tend to freak out so to speak in the beginning. They need something to vent on, something to get them over the shock. I gave him that something. Now it’s out of his system and the healing will begin to take place. After that, we need to work on getting him to believe that he really is the Guardian and that there really are people out there who need him.”
“You’ve been through this before?” I asked.
“A few times yes,” she answered somewhat sadly.
“So he’ll be okay now?”
“He might rant and rave for a few hours, but yes, he’ll soon be okay. It’s how the Guardians work. It’s in their genetic makeup. They simply cannot be stressed out, depressed or bothered by anything for long periods of time.”
She was right of course. After she left and I went back inside to check on Jaxon, he did indeed rant and rave for about three hours. After that, he told me to leave him alone and gently ushered me out the door of our bedroom.
That evening, he finally came out of our bedroom and watched a movie with us. He didn’t talk and he didn’t eat, but he actually spent time around us.
A day or so later, Harley Davidson sent him a new motorcycle since his old one was still in El Paso. They apparently found out he was a Harley lover and wanted to do something nice for him. He was still rather quiet; the old Jax would have been jumping up and down with excitement. However, I could tell that he loved it. Fortunately for Georgie, who also enjoys riding motorcycles, they had a spare and let him keep that as well. The two of them began to spend their afternoons riding the hills of Ruidoso. It was a start, a start on the road to recovery.
“Were you more optimistic about him returning to normal?”
I’m a wife and a wife worries about her husband. I had obviously noticed the improvement, but I also knew that he just wasn’t the same. The laughter and the orneriness weren’t there. That’s a big part of Jaxons personality. He’s always causing trouble and getting away with it.
He began running again. That was good; he was always running before the zombies. He’d wake up early in the morning and just go at it. He was also taking walks in the woods with Merrick. Another improvement, because Jax if anything is extremely curious, he loves an adventure.
I’m not sure how it happened. Somehow, they had all gathered on the porch of the cabin one morning drinking coffee and enjoying the view (the cabin has a wonderful view of the hills and valleys around it). I was watching out the window. I had taken to doing that kind of thing. I was always keeping my eye on him. Anyway, he wasn’t saying anything, but of course Georgie was talking a mile a minute. I think Georgie is the only person that I’ve ever met that can talk as much as me.
“It’s a good thing those zombies never actually made it to the safe zone,” said Georgie. “At least for them it is. I would have brought them all down with my superior fire power.”
“Let me see if I get what you’re telling me here,” said Dudley. “You actually think that you could bring down thousands of zombies all by your lonesome with one of your rifles.”
“Yeah, that’s what I’m saying,” said Georgie after contemplating it for awhile.
That’s when I saw it. Jaxon smiled.
“Well, it’s too bad you were too chicken shit to leave the safe zone until the very end,” added Dudley. “We could have used your mad skills all those times we risked our lives.”
“Well, fortunately I was able to show everybody my skills at the very end when I saved Jaxon.”
“What the hell are you talking about?” said Kingsley. “You can’t hide while everything that went on went on and then act like a bad ass at the end because you were the only one with a gun.”
In answer, Georgie lifted his leg and farted.
Everyone started laughing, even I was laughing. Most importantly, Jaxon was laughing and he was laughing pretty hard. I started jumping up and down I was so happy. Jaxons mother came over to see what I was so excited about. When she saw her son laughing, she started jumping up and down with me.
And just like that, Jaxon was better.
That evening, with a full security detail, we went into t
own and had dinner at a Chinese restaurant. It was a buffet and Jaxon did it some serious damage. His appetite was back with a vengeance. The boys laughed and joked all through our meal. It was great. I had a blast. My husband was back.
“I have a question. When did he hear about what happened with the other caravan, the one that Tito was leading?”
Oh, I forgot about that. Actually, I kind of try not to think about it. Jaxon heard about that early on. It was all over the news. I think it was his father who told him.
“What did he say when he found out?”
I don’t know if he said anything at all to his father, but later that night when we were alone he said something to me.
“I don’t understand why he didn’t listen to me.”
I had no response. I had no idea at the time what it was that Tito ignored. Jaxon never brought it up again. I’m not sure how he feels about it now; I’ve never heard him speak about it to anyone. I have heard the others speak about it. I’ve heard them speak in great detail.
“What did they say?”
It wasn’t good, but I don’t think I’ll repeat it here. Whatever choices Tito has made are choices that I truly hope he can find peace with.
“Now that Jaxon was back to normal, what were things like?”
Things were great. Things were back to normal. We laughed, we played, we went for rides on the motorcycles and all of us would explore the woods.
“Were you aware of what was going on inside of El Paso?”
Yes. Every night we would all gather and watch the news. The situation had not changed in the slightest bit. The gates were closed immediately after the caravans went through and nobody had dared to approach them. The survivors still trapped in the city were still asking for help and the military was still doing nothing but containing the zombies.
“How did Jaxon feel about this?”
It made him angry. He had a strong dislike for major Crass. He thought the man should be taken out and shot for incompetence. It really bothered him when the people still stuck in the city asked for the General to come and save them. He normally left the room when something like that happened and that happened a lot. He never even tried to look at the EPUA website. The news was bad enough just mentioning it and I could only imagine how many people were asking for his help there.
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