The Regulators - 02 (11 page)

Dudley eyeballed the situation.

“Fuck it,” he said. “Show him how to use it and give him
some ammo.”

The gun was a pretty simple weapon to use. I just wished I
had taken a few moments to look it over myself before asking Georgie. I was
going to help my buddy Jax no matter what any of them said and I really didn’t
want to give them an opportunity to think otherwise.

It was pretty cold up in the watchtower. The slight bit of
wind had just enough bite to make me miserable without forcing me to go back to
the house. The others seemed comfortable enough with their olive drab colored
suits and gloves, but all I was wearing were a pair of jeans and a button-down
shirt.

I was in the same tower as Dudley. Georgie, Javie and
Kingsley had a tower to themselves. I was glad Georgie wasn’t here with me; I
might have been tempted to throw him off.

We sat for a while and watched the empty street with our
weapons held at the ready. I was a little nervous being on top of the tower. It
didn’t exactly seem very sturdy. I had time to think thoughts like this because
the wait was a long one.

“How far away was he?” I asked.

“Be quiet,” Dudley responded.

“Just answer the fucking question,” I replied.

“I don’t know, now shut up.”

Since he was being an ass, I stopped trying to talk to him
and focused my attention on the street. There were a couple of street lights,
so visibility wasn’t going to be a problem, but sitting there and waiting was
completely nerve racking. I felt like one of those little villagers waiting for
King Kong to show up after they tied that chick up as a sacrifice. You know
what I’m talking about?

“
I do
.”

Then we heard the engine. It was loud, so that meant that
Jaxon was hauling ass. Just a moment later, we saw the headlights and then the
Jeep was turning up the road and heading right towards us. I couldn’t see
beyond the glare of the headlights. I began to panic and started shouting at
him to turn off his lights.

Dudley smacked me on the arm.

“Shut up,” he growled.

The Jeep wasn’t slowing down. I began to worry that it was
going to collide with the gate. If that happened and the gate fell, the two
watchtowers would probably go with it.

“Dude, tell him to slow the fuck down.” I told Dudley.

“Nick,” he growled without taking his eyes off the road.
“You’re going to be in a fight very soon. If you can’t stop acting mental, then
just duck down out of sight and I will let you know when it’s over.”

With just enough room, Jaxon hit the brakes and squealed his
tires in a wicked slide that put the passenger door almost at our gate and
faced the driver’s side door down the open street. The Jeep had been beaten all
to hell. I was immediately thinking that he must have driven it through a big
bunch of zombies and I started wondering how many were going to show up hot on
his trail.

Jaxon stepped out of the vehicle with his pistol aimed down
the road. I could have recognized him even without the heads up from Dudley.
There’s just no mistaking those big ass shoulders of his or the usual scruff on
his chin. He was wearing the same olive drab fatigues that the other guys were
wearing, but his were a hell of a lot filthier and his left sleeve was
completely torn off. Accompanying all of this was the black Harley Davidson cap
over his light brown hair which as always, was turned backwards so that the
bill was over his neck. He was tense. I could tell that from his posture. He
was rapidly moving the gun from left to right as he desperately searched for
something to shoot.

I looked from Dudley to the morons in the other tower. They
were all watching Jax and looking pretty confused. I decided to watch the
street instead of Jax. I was hoping to find a target before anyone else, that
way I could give them hell later.

The nighttime air was deathly quiet. The only sound around
for miles was that of the crunching gravel under Jaxons shoes. It was a weird
silence. It didn’t feel right. I’m not really sure how describe it.

A young woman in a white dress climbed onto the rooftop about
six houses down. I knew she wasn’t a zombie just by looking at her. She just
didn’t move like a zombie. It was obvious that she also didn’t want Jax to see
her by the stealthy way in which she hid herself in the shadows of a chimney. I
wasn’t sure why she was being so sneaky, but her white dress was filthy and her
hair was shaggy enough to confuse a person. I was worried that Jaxon might take
a shot at her if she came out of her hiding place.

I was about to warn everybody not to shoot at her when I
realized that she was looking right at me. I’m not sure how she managed to find
me, the streets weren’t bright enough to provide that kind of visibility, but I
was positive that she was looking right at me.

Then, she placed her finger to her lips and gave me the
‘shush’ gesture as if I were about to ruin a big surprise.

“JAXON,” I shouted. “DON’T SHOOT THAT CHICK ON THE ROOF.”

Jax turned at the sound of my voice.

Everything began to happen all at once.

The woman in the white dress ran freakishly fast towards the
edge of the roof. Jaxon spotted her immediately and began firing off shots.
When the chick reached the edge, she leapt out into the darkened sky. I was
worried that she was going to kill herself when she landed, but instead, she
sailed through the air this incredible distance and landed lightly on her bare
feet.

Jaxon kept shooting at her. I could see the little flashes
of light from the barrel of his gun and I could hear the muffled thumps even
with the silencer. She hit the ground running and rapidly began to close the
mere twenty feet that separated her from Jaxon.

She ran in a zigzagging manner, as if she were trying to
avoid all the bullets Jaxon’s pistol was spitting out in her direction. When
she reached him, she swung out her fist and knocked him from his feet and into
the side of the Jeep so hard, the Jeep actually shifted about a foot from where
it was parked.

That was enough for Dudley; he drilled her right in the
chest with about five rapid fire shots. I actually saw the bullets make little
puckers in the skin around her collar bone, and I saw the black ooze of what
must have been blood mingle with the other stains of her dress.

She took a few backwards, stumbling steps from the impact.
Then, she lifted her head towards Dudley, opened her mouth and roared at him.

“
She roared at him
?”

I don’t know how else to describe it. The sound was
earsplitting. It wasn’t a scream; it was more like a sound of fury, almost like
she was telling us to mind our own business.

“
What happened next
?”

Jaxon was on his feet again. He rose up right in front of
her. At the time, I was shocked. I mean, that bitch hit him hard. The impact
with the Jeep alone should have broken some ribs, but he just stood right back
up as if the punch and the slam against the Jeep didn’t bother him at all.

He had his tomahawk in his hand.

I saw the thing’s eyes go wide.

She barely had enough time to lift up her arm in a defensive
gesture. The blow was intended for her head, but instead the tomahawk buried
itself deep into her forearm. I heard the crunch as the blade met bone. Yet,
the arm didn’t sever. I saw more of that black ooze as Jaxon yanked his blade
out of her arm and pulled back to swing again.

The woman just about vanished from the street.

“
She ran away
?”

It was more than that. She moved fast, almost too fast to be
real. She also ran straight up the side of the nearest house and disappeared
over the rooftop.

All of us stood there in a sort of stunned silence for a
moment before Georgie started babbling.

“Did you guys see that shit with her mouth when she shrieked
at Dudley?”

“See what with her mouth?” I asked.

Of course I knew what he was talking about. I was just
trying to pretend that I didn’t. It’s kind of funny, but I was hoping that by
acting like I didn’t see it, then maybe I wouldn’t have to be worried about it,
but Georgie is a dick.

“Her mouth was filled with fangs,” Georgie said.

Jaxon

My second meeting with
Jaxon started out very differently than the last one. Both of us were having
trouble focusing through our laughter.

I had told him about
Nick’s reaction to be called a ‘wanton man whore with no quality control’.
Jaxon didn’t really think I’d be brave enough to repeat his words. I proved him
wrong. It also turns out that Nick went and asked him about the incident. In
front of the other Regulators. All of which began to laugh like crazy when Nick
told them what had happened.

It’s a strange feeling
to be joking around with this man. Every time he walks into a room with me, I
feel just a little bit intimidated, every single time.

Eventually, we laughed
ourselves out, and I was able to continue the interview
.

“
So tell me, what took
you two days to rejoin the other members of your team? I’ve been dying to know
.”

Do you want me to start from the moment I charged into the
horde?

“
Yes, please
.”

Well, there really didn’t seem to be any other option. We
weren’t going to shoot down enough of them to make it inside the house so I
charged into them. Unfortunately, they were so close that I wasn’t able to
build up as much momentum as I would have liked and ended up having to hack and
slash my way through.

It wasn’t pretty.

“
Now, the entire world
saw you fight an even larger mass when you and the other survivors left the
city. Why didn’t you stand your ground and fight
?”

Well, for starters, when I fought that large mass of the
undead that was caught on those fifteen minutes of footage, I had no other
choice. They wouldn’t open the gates and allow us to get to safety. Also, those
zombies had just gone through a pretty decent sized explosion. They weren’t
exactly in top condition, and it still almost killed me.

The mass of shamblers I was charging into were in as good a
shape as zombies can hope to be, and by that I mean that they were all
functioning at high levels.

“
So they were all
trying to eat you
?”

Exactly, but before they could eat me, they had to catch me.
That was the trick to the whole thing as far as I could figure. If I let any of
them grab on to me and slow me down, I was a goner. I mentioned last time that
I dropped my rifle. Well, it was still connected to me by the shoulder strap.
The zombies grabbed it almost immediately. There I was, hauling as much ass as
I could, right through the middle of them and all of a sudden I felt the yank
around my neck. I had to cut the strap with my Cold Steel Recon 1 knife.

After that, I began to hack and slash my way through them
once again. Yet the damage was already done. They had managed to slow me down
too much and I couldn’t build up any more speed.

The next thing I knew, they had grabbed a hold of my
backpack which was attached to my tactical vest. I didn’t want to lose my
tactical vest, especially under those circumstances; it had that wonderful
little bite collar to protect my neck. I just didn’t really have much of a
choice. I undid all the buckles in rapid fire and let the dirty bastards yank
it off of me.

All during this, I never once stopped moving forward. They
may have slowed me down considerably, but they were never able to stop me.
Those cold dead fingers kept on reaching and grabbing, but I kept on moving.
Somehow, I even retained my hat.

When things got bad enough, when the zombies were so thick
that I was no longer able to push forward, I abruptly changed direction. I
stopped charging into them and instead, after ducking low and taking out the
legs of the few shamblers on my left, I headed up the road instead of across.
It was a brilliant move on my part. I wish I could say that I planned on doing
it from the get go.

Regardless, it worked. The way ahead cleared up almost immediately.
The mass was also so determined to run me down that they completely forgot
about my teammates. I ran for all I was worth up the road. I had plenty of
cardio to give this group the chase of their lives and then leave them in the
dust when they were far enough away from my buddies.

And then I just about froze in my tracks.

I felt the icy grip of true fear crawling up my spine. I had
left Merrick behind. She was right behind me when I charged the mob, but as
soon as I was free I couldn’t find her.

I had gained about half a block when I realized this. The
zombies were closing the distance rapidly as I stood there like a jackass and
wondered what to do.

I was just getting ready to charge back into them when I
heard her bark.

“
You were going to
charge back into them for your dog
?”

Wouldn’t you?

Anyway, I didn’t have to. I heard her bark and then I saw
her emerge right through the middle of the mass. She must have gotten confused
like they did when I changed directions. I started to run again, and she was
able to catch up to me easily.

Together, we rounded a corner and made an immediate left on
the first street available. I was doing my damndest to shake them off our tail,
but for some reason I was suddenly not feeling very well. I kind of felt like
how a person feels when they start catching the flu, everything began to ache
and my entire body felt sort of weaker.

In any case, I figured I had given the boys more than enough
time to load up the survivors into the Jeeps so I reached up to tap my
earpiece. I wanted to let the team know I was going to head back after I lost
the zombies. The earpiece wasn’t there. I must have lost it when they were all
trying to grab a hold of me. To make matters worse, my hand came away bloody.