The Regulators - 02 (35 page)

Then he hurled Georgie through the air as if he were nothing
more than a ragdoll. I did my best to catch him. I partially succeeded, but we
both sort of just collided into Nick and Dudley. When I turned back to have
another go at the vampire he was gone.

Merrick gave a soft whine and rushed over to cuddle up next
to me. I reached over and began to scratch her behind the ear. Nobody said a
word. I guess we were sort of shell-shocked.

“Well that fucking sucks,” Nick said, breaking the silence.

I had to chuckle at his ability to sum an entire situation
up with just four words. It wasn’t long before Dudley joined in on the laugh
and before I knew it, everybody was laughing heartily.

“I agree with Nick,” Dudley said.

“Well I agree with you agreeing with Nick,” I announced.

And we all laughed some more. I’m not sure why we were
laughing. I think it was because none of us knew what else to do.

“Why did you have to go and kill his daughter?” Nick asked.

“I didn’t like her haircut,” I answered.

Everyone laughed even harder.

“That mother fucker whooped all of us in a matter of
seconds,” Nick said.

“He sure did,” I agreed.

“And he was holding back,” Dudley added.

“He did take us by surprise,” Georgie said. “Next time we’ll
be ready for him.”

“Take it from me, Georgie,” Nick said. “If he can whip us
that easily, it won’t make much of a difference how ready we are. We could have
a month to prepare ourselves and he’d still kick our asses.”

“Then what are we supposed to do?” Georgie asked.

Everyone looked to me.

“We gotta get the fuck out of Dodge,” I answered. “The
Master is out of our league. Add in his followers to the mix and none of us
would even make it through the first round.”

“What about all the survivors?” Dudley asked.

“I think you guys cleared most of them out of the Westside,”
I answered. “I’m sure there’s still more, but they’ll have to hold on until we
can figure out a way to deal with these vampires. Maybe we can drop food and
supplies to their locations. Give them enough to hold out until we can come up
with a new game plan.”

“It’s a good idea,” Javie said. “We need to get out of this
alive so that we’re able to fight another day. If we hang around here any
longer, all of us are going to get ourselves killed.”

“We need better weapons,” Nick said. “More powerful bullets
might do the trick. Something that will put them on their ass with the first
shot.”

“I like the sound of that,” Georgie said.

I was smiling. The team was already thinking about
returning, and we hadn’t even left the area yet. It was good to see that they
were all aboard, but I was still pretty unhappy about retreating. I hate
running away from a fight. It’s embarrassing.

“Alright,” I said. “We’ll hang out here for the night
because I don’t want to endanger any more helicopters. Come sunrise, we’ll fly
out of here and figure out a better game plan before returning to deal with
these blood suckers. Everyone agree?”

Everyone agreed.

“Hardin,” I said after tapping my earpiece. “Hardin, are you
hearing all this?”

There was no response.

“Hardin?” I asked. “Are you there?”

I tapped and cursed for about ten minutes before giving up
and asking the others to try and see if they could get through. None of them
could, but we kept on trying. In fact, we were still trying to make contact
with Hardin when the sun finally rose up in the sky and the time for making
some choices was at hand.

“Well shit,” I said as I gazed out the boarded up window at
the empty street. “I’m not sure what’s wrong, but it looks like we’re on our
own. The suns up, so we won’t have any vampire problems. What do you say we
just hop in the Jeeps and drive the fuck out of here?”

“Can we get through the gates around the city?” Georgie
asked.

“I don’t have this little badge because it looks pretty,” I
answered. “Besides, if the guards give us any problems we’ll just kick their
asses.”

It didn’t take long for everyone to agree. The alternative
was to sit in the house and wait for the vampires to come back for us and
nobody wanted to go through that again.

It didn’t take but a second for us to load up our meager
supplies and head out the front door. The air was incredibly cold. So cold that
it actually made me shiver. The sky itself was a leaden grey. I guess if I
thought about it, the weather had been turning colder and colder. There was a
storm coming and it had been gathering its strength for a while now.

We crossed the street and headed into the park towards the
Jeeps at a slow jog. It didn’t take but a second of looking at the vehicles to
realize they were trashed.

The armored hoods were tweaked and bent from being forced
open. I knew it was going to be hopeless, but I looked at the engines anyway.
They were torn to pieces. The metal was bent and twisted. Some parts were
crushed and others had been ripped away.

We had no vehicles.

The team had spread out in a circle around the Jeeps to give
me some time to check things out. The survivors were next to me inside the
protective ring. I didn’t know what to say to them as they all looked at me
imploringly. Fortunately, Dudley came to my rescue.

“We have company.”

“How many?” I asked without bothering to look up from the
demolished engines.

“There are two of them,” Dudley said.

“I’ll take care of it,” I announced as I rested my hand upon
my tomahawk.

“They aren’t zombies,” Dudley said. “Not unless zombies have
started carrying hunting rifles.”

That got my attention immediately.

I went over to Dudley and the two of us began to walk
towards the armed newcomers. I allowed Merrick to come along as well. Odds were
that they were good people, but I wasn’t about to take any chances. My mp7 was
twisted around on its strap so that it was pretty much hanging on my back in a
nonthreatening manner, but the Sig on my right side could be drawn and fired
faster than most people could blink.

If one of them made a move, I was going to shoot both of
them dead.

Both parties stopped about ten feet from one another in the
middle of the park. Dudley seemed relatively calm. He’d seen me shoot before.
I, on the other hand, was tense. I didn’t like them being armed. I didn’t like
how they were the only survivors that I’d seen walking around outside instead
of hiding in a house and boarding up the windows.

The woman was the first to speak.

“Are you guys the Regulators?” she asked.

“That would be us,” Dudley said. “What are the two of you
doing outside?”

“We were gathering supplies yesterday, but when we opened a
door on this one house, the street suddenly began to fill up with zombies. We
were able to get out and hide in a house up the road, but the entire area was
way too hot for us to try and leave.”

“At least until you guys started clearing them out,” the man
added. “How the hell did you manage all that?”

“That wasn’t us,” Dudley said. “And trust me, you don’t want
to know about it. I wish I didn’t.”

The conversation was interrupted by pounding footsteps. The
man tensed up and raised his rifle just a little bit higher. I responded by
inching my hand closer to my pistol. Merrick sounded off with a low growl. I
didn’t turn around to see who was running up behind us. I wasn’t about to take
my eyes off the man and woman. Dudley however had no problems checking it out
for me, and since he seemed unconcerned, I assumed that it was probably one of
my teammates.

“Joe? Claudia?” Javie asked. “Is that you?”

“Javie?” the woman asked. “You’re a Regulator?”

“Yes,” Javie said with a smile. “I can’t believe you guys
made it. This is freakin’ awesome. Dudley and Jaxon, allow me to introduce Joe
and Claudia. I know them from college and a school trip to England.”

Everyone instantly relaxed. Javie was a pretty good judge of
people. If these two were friends of his then they certainly weren’t a threat
to me and mine. I immediately offered my hand along with Dudley.

“So if it wasn’t you guys that took out all the zombies,”
Joe asked. “Who was it?”

“Vampires,” Javie said. “Jaxon and Dudley killed a Master
vampire’s daughter and now he wants to fight Jax and give him a slow death.”

“Are you kidding me?” Joe asked.

“What?” Claudia laughed. “You can accept zombies, but
vampires give you pause?”

We all sort of chuckled at that. It was sort of funny how
easily I accepted that I was being hunted by a vampire. Before I became the
Guardian, I probably would have thought anyone believing in zombies and
vampires was out of their minds. Now it seemed that even vampires were easily
believed in.

“Are they the scary kind or the teenage love story kind?”
Claudia asked.

“Definitely the scary kind,” Dudley answered. “They drool
this black slime and everything.”

“But they killed all the zombies?” Joe asked.

“Yeah,” I answered. “They only did that to get them out of
the way. After the zombies, they brought down one of our helicopters when we
tried to extract some survivors.”

“You guys are rescuing survivors still?” Claudia asked.

“That and killing vampires,” Dudley said. “You two can join
up with us and as soon as we find a ride we’ll get you out of here.”

“We can’t leave,” Joe said. “There are too many people in
this city that need our help, but I bet we can hook you up with a car, and we
can certainly make room for your survivors if you want to follow us back to the
church. It’s on Mesa, not very far from here.”

“What exactly are you guys up to?” Dudley asked.

“Not us,” Claudia said. “We just work for the Priest. We
gather supplies and look for survivors, but it’s the Priest that arranges
everything. He’s the man in charge.”

“Do you have other survivors at this church?” I asked.

“About five hundred,” Joe answered. “It’s a tight fit, but
we manage.”

“That explains why the team and I weren’t super busy while
you were at the hotel,” said Dudley.

“I guess so,” I replied. “It also means that we won’t be
leaving the city unless we can get a hold of Hardin. I’m not leaving any
survivors behind while the rest of us run for the hills.”

“You think the vampires would attack the church?” Dudley
asked.

“Don’t you?”

“Probably,” Dudley answered after considering it for a bit.
“That’d be an easy way to make good on the Master’s revenge. I’m sure they
already know that there are survivors there. I guess it’s best that we don’t
take any chances. Maybe we can fortify this church and defend it.”

“That’s what I was thinking,” I answered. I turned to Joe
and Claudia. “So, who’s this Priest you mentioned? And how long has he been
rescuing people?”

“He’s been rescuing people since this all started,” said
Claudia. “And his name is Father Miguel Monarez, but everybody just calls him
the Chainsaw Priest.”

Father
Miguel Monarez

Aka

The
Chainsaw Priest

I met with Father
Miguel on a bright and sunny afternoon at a pleasant, quiet park. He was
strolling along near a duck pond when I came upon him and introduced myself.
Fortunately for me, he had read my book and had no problems speaking to me.

The man seemed to be
in his early thirties with a jet black head of hair far receded from his
forehead. The most noticeable thing about him is his height. Or maybe it would
be more accurate to say his lack of height. Father Miguel stands a mere 5’5
inches. He’s a slight man with a warm, contagious smile. As I watched him
walking along the banks of the pond, strangers would come up to him at almost
regular intervals and speak with him. He welcomed all of them with his smile.

I wondered how a man
like that would fit in with the Regulators
.

Tell me, my dear. What would you like to chat with me about?
I doubt I have anything to say nearly as entertaining as the others you’ve
spoken with.

“
I think I would like
to hear your opinion of the General.”

The Priest gave me a
somewhat confused look before he smiled shyly and slowly shook his head
.

You came all this way to hear my opinion of the General?

“
That and some other
things. I’m also curious about vampires
.”

Ah, now we get to the meat of your story. I’m just a little
bit surprised that the story got out. I was under the impression that certain
important people were not too keen on releasing that sort of information.

I’m sure there were a
lot of people that didn’t want the world to know about vampires, but that
doesn’t seem to concern the General. I have his ‘go ahead’ to pursue the story
.

No, I don’t guess that it would concern the General. He
seems to follow his own path.

“
He does indeed,
Father. He does indeed
.”

You know, I’ve never given an in-depth interview about what
happened in El Paso. I’m not sure where to begin. Shall I start with my
schooling? I went to some very prestigious schools, you know?

“
I’m sure that is all
very fascinating Father, but I’m wondering if we could possibly skip ahead and
discuss why they call you the Chainsaw Priest
?”

Ah, now there’s a nickname that will haunt me for the rest
of my life. Just recently I’ve been told that some company has begun selling
t-shirts over the internet that have an image of a priest holding a chainsaw. A
few years ago, I never would have believed you if you came out and told me that
I would be popular with the teenagers wearing them.

“
You were there from
day one Father. Tell me what you saw. Tell me what happened
.”