The Regulators - 02 (29 page)

“
How did Dudley find
the nest
?”

Well, they were seriously kicking ass on the extractions.
They had pretty much cleared out the remaining survivors while we were busy
fighting vampires. The calls for help had gotten pretty much non-existent, and
for lack of anything better to do while they waited for Hardin to find another
survivor they were just sort of heading down Mesa in order to shorten the
distance between us in case I needed that backup.

As they neared UTEP, Hardin finally found more survivors.
Luckily enough, the team was pretty close to their location and they went
immediately. The house was pretty old, but it was well maintained. A lot of the
area by Baltimore is part of the historic district.

Anyway, Dudley and company went inside and searched the
darkened house, but they didn’t find anything, not until Javie walked into the
dining room and almost fell through the floor when he stepped on a rug.

They moved the rug out of the way and saw that a hole had
been dug about ten feet into the ground. In this hole were seven survivors that
had been chained to the wall, four women and three men. The vampire had been
feeding on them. There were also about five corpses that she had drained
completely. The corpses were still chained to the wall.

From my understanding, one of the remaining survivors wormed
her hand free, and started going through the pockets of the corpses next to
her. She was lucky enough to find a cell phone that had internet access and
sent out a call for help.

Georgie was trying to break the chains as Dudley was telling
me the story. I ordered Georgie to stop trying to free the survivors.

“Why?” Dudley asked.

“Because the vampire is wounded, and she’s probably heading
your way. I want you and Georgie to jump down into the pit and pretend that you
are one of her captives. Have Javie and Merrick wait in one of the bedrooms.”

“What do we do if she shows up?”

“Fill her with holes,” I answered.

After I was done talking to Dudley, I reached into my
backpack and grabbed some duct tape. Then I used my tomahawk to chop up a
little end table from the lobby. I shoved my kneecap back into the correct
position, placed two pieces of the end table on either side and taped
everything up. It certainly wasn’t perfect, but it immobilized my knee just
enough to allow me to move.

“
You shoved your knee
cap into the correct position
?
Didn’t
that hurt
?”

It hurt like a bitch, but it takes time to heal, and time
was something we didn’t have. I didn’t want to leave the team to face an angry
vampire while I nursed a booboo. I still had a nasty limp, and my leg was
shooting out sparks of pain, but I made it all the way to the loose window
board and outside to the rear of the building.

The Jeep was parked across the street and down the road a
bit.

I was using Nick’s shoulder for support as we came around
the building and started to cross the street. There were zombies there. They
must have been attracted by all the noise but were unable to pinpoint exactly
where the noise had come from so they were just wandering around the street.

This is the same mistake I kept making. I got so caught up
in the vampires that I forgot about the zombies, and every time I did that, it
came around and tried to bite me on the ass. There weren’t enough zombies
coming towards us to normally freak me out, but I was far from top condition.

It was a little bit funny to see Nick’s eyes go wide as he
saw them rushing towards us. I would have laughed, but my knee was really
killing me and it sort of felt like it had once again slipped out of its
correct position.

Both of us began to fire on them as they came nearer and
nearer. I didn’t even think about using my knife or tomahawk. There was just no
way that I’d be able to go hand to hand with my leg being jacked up the way
that it was.

I fired and fired, but then the worst possible thing that
could have happened, did.

One of the zombies screamed.

It was a real nasty one too. For whatever reason, all of the
skin beneath its nose was missing and it seemed to have a permanent smile as it
looked at me and screamed. Both Nick and I stopped firing for just a moment as
we waited to see just how much trouble that scream was going to bring.

We heard answering screams echo around the city in response.

In fact, we heard a lot of answering screams. We needed to
get the hell out of there and we needed to do it fast. The current zombies were
bad enough, but if mobs of them showed up before we made ourselves scarce, we
would have to waste time losing them in the Jeep before we could meet up with
Dudley, or we’d end up trapping ourselves in the house.

The problem with taking time to lose any large mobs of
zombies following us was that my nephew and the rest of the team were waiting
to ambush a hungry vampire, and they were going to need our backup.

Over the moans and screams, I told Nick to go get the Jeep
while I handled our noisy followers. I figured we would be able to leave the
area faster if I stopped slowing him down and allowed him to bring the Jeep to
me instead.

“Dude,” Nick said. “Are you serious? How are you going to
fight with your leg all fucked up?”

“It’s not a debate,” I replied.

Reluctantly, he left me. Thankfully, he could move really,
really fast for such a big guy which was good for him since the zombies were
only about fifteen feet away. I was shooting and shooting, but I just wasn’t
fast enough to take them all out before they closed the distance.

When the fist one reached me, I smacked it away with the
barrel of my weapon just as the second zombie to reach me grabbed a hold of my
shoulders and attempted to bite through the bite proof collar of my vest.

I responded instantly by dropping my mp7 that was stuck
between our bodies and reaching for the Sig on my side. I pulled the pistol
quickly, shoved the barrel under the zombies chin and popped off a shot
straight to its brain.

As that zombie fell, the first zombie that I had smacked
away dove for my legs and wrenched my bad knee. The pain was incredible, and I
think I even screamed out as I fell to the ground. Somehow I managed to work my
left hand under its cold and clammy chin and pushed its head back and away from
my neck. After that, it was easy enough to pop off a bullet through its
forehead.

The next zombie literally dove from about five feet away and
landed on my chest. He was trying to bite into my stomach, but my bite suit
prevented penetration, and I was able to fire a round through its temple.

After that, there were more zombies trying to pile on top of
me. The situation royally sucked for me because my wounded leg made getting
back to my feet extremely difficult, and every time I tried, another zombie
dove on top of me.

I think there were about four of them smothering me when I
heard the sweet rumble of the Jeep and the muffled shots of Nick’s mp7. After
pushing the corpses off of me and using the Jeep to get back to my feet, I
became aware of Nick screaming at me to hurry.

I really didn’t want to look back down the road and see what
he was so upset about, but damned if I couldn’t help myself. One glance was all
I needed. The road was filled with zombies, and the mass was getting bigger and
bigger.

I dove into the Jeep as Nick hit the gas pedal.

The zombies were so close that a bunch of them were actually
able to grab a hold of the Jeep and begin to pull their decaying bodies inside
before I managed to sit up in the passenger seat and fire off a bunch of
headshots.

The worst had happened. We had a horde of hundreds of
zombies following us, and we’d need to waste precious time losing them before
we could meet up with the rest of the team. Nick was laughing.

“What the hell are you laughing about?” I asked.

“I totally saved your ass back there.”

“As opposed to all the times I saved your ass?” I retorted.

“When did you save my ass?” Nick asked. “I’d like to hear
when you saved my ass, because that’s news to me. Maybe you’re just upset that
you actually had to rely on someone other than yourself. You saved my ass,
bitch please. I’m the hero in this vehicle.”

I was actually ignoring him. Somewhere in the middle of his
rant I unfortunately looked down at my leg and realized that everything below
the kneecap was twisted and bent at the wrong angle. I had no idea where the
pieces of wood that I was using to keep my leg immobilized had fallen, but they
certainly weren’t stuck to my leg anymore. All that remained was a wad of
stretched out duct tape.

The worst thing about it was it didn’t hurt.

I simply couldn’t feel a thing from my kneecap all the way
down to the tips of my toes. I wasn’t sure which was worse, my seriously fucked
up leg or the mass of zombies twenty feet behind us.

“Can you heal that leg?” Nick asked when he saw how bad the
damage was.

“Yeah, but it will take time, and I need water or something
natural,” I replied.

“What do you mean something natural?”

“Something living, like a plant or grass,” I answered.

“Does it hurt?”

“No, I think I might be going into shock or something. I’m
not sure.”

“How can you not be sure if you are going into shock?” Nick
asked.

“I’m not sure because I never went into shock before, you
douche bag. Have you ever gone into shock?”

“No, but if I was going into shock, you can bet that I’d
know it,” he snarled back at me.

“Whatever, just figure out a way to lose that mass of
zombies. We don’t have time for this shit. We need to meet up with the team.”

Once again, Nick started to laugh.

“What?” I asked.

“You just sit back and rest your pretty little head. I got
this shit covered. I know where to go, maybe you’d know as well if you ever
left the Westside. “

I honestly didn’t have the energy to waste arguing with him.
I didn’t have much energy to do anything other than attempt to keep my limp
body from sliding off the seat onto the floorboards of the Jeep, and the stars
that were starting to dance around in my eyes told me that very soon I was
going fail at that attempt as well.

In retrospect, I’m glad I passed out as Nick flew around the
city because what I actually managed to see of his driving was nothing short of
terrifying. He would charge straight at a car parked on the side of the road
and wait until the very last second before he veered around it. I couldn’t
count how many times he bounced over a curb. If I hadn’t buckled myself into
the Jeep, I’m pretty sure I would have eventually bounced out.

I’m not exactly sure what he did, but I came to when we
began to slow down and realized that he had somehow gotten behind the great
mass of zombies. I watched with heavy eyes as they ran up the street and away
from us.

I wanted to ask what was going on, but Nick motioned for me
to be quiet as he reversed the Jeep into some sort of enclosed area. After
that, he got out of the Jeep and closed some sort of metal door on a track, and
we were hidden from the street.

“You got any quarters?” he asked when he finally came back.

When I didn’t answer, he snorted through his nose and
vanished. Less than five minutes later, I felt hot water spraying down on me
from above. The water was invigorating. Instantly the dancing stars in my
vision vanished, and I was able to sit up straight.

“I used to work at one of these places,” Nick said. “I
managed to jam it on spray so you can fix your leg. You look like hell.”

I ignored Nick as I pulled up the leg of my pants and
exposed my purple and black knee to the spraying water. It hurt even worse than
the first time, but once again shoved my kneecap into the correct position as I
straightened out my leg under the water.

I’m pretty sure my kneecap would have placed itself in the
correct position if I’d simply waited, but I was in a rush to speed things
along. Still, the pain of the slow healing process was making me grit my teeth.

“Is that shit working?” Nick asked.

“Nick,” I growled through clenched teeth, “one more word and
I’m going to shoot you.”

I waited only a few moments. I wanted to get a grip on the
pain before I collected my thoughts.

“How long were we driving around?” I asked.

Nick did not answer.

“NICK!” I shouted. “How long were we driving around?”

“You told me not to talk asshole,” Nick said.

“What are you, twelve?” I asked while he started laughing.

“Damn, you’re a moody bastard,” Nick said. “We were only
driving around for like five minutes. I told you not to worry.”

He’d lost them in five minutes. I could barely believe it,
but the lack of light coming through the open spaces around the door confirmed
that it was indeed not yet daylight outside.

There was still time to meet up with Dudley before the
vampire got there first. I mean seriously, how fast could an injured vampire
move?

Actually, don’t answer that question. It’s not really
important. What is important is how fast we tore out of that carwash the second
after I pulled some metal brackets off the wall and attempted to tape them
against my leg. I was hoping that they’d last a bit longer than the wooden
table pieces, but I wouldn’t have bet any money on it.

“Your leg isn’t fixed yet?” Nick asked.

“Do you think that my kneecap is normally the size of a
grapefruit?”

“How bad is it?”

“It’s pretty fucking bad, dumbass,” I answered. “Not as bad
as it was, but that’s sort of relative I think.”

“Will you be able to walk on it?”

“I think I will be able to limp on it. Everything seems to
be in the correct place, but I doubt the connective tissue has gotten a real
firm grip. Then again, I’m not exactly a doctor, so how should I know?”