The Regulators - 02 (23 page)

“
So you didn’t believe
what you were told about the General being a chosen Guardian
?”

Did I believe that some random man was chosen to defend
humanity against the forces of darkness and that he was gifted with special
abilities in order to combat supernatural threats? Hell no. Nobody was ready to
believe that shit.

“
Well, obviously
somebody believed it
.”

Not the troopers. The people that believed in that crap
certainly weren’t in our warehouse. I had heard a few rumors over the years,
but it was never anything I paid much attention to.

“
What kind of rumors
?”

I know that I had heard rumors about a Mr. Hardin.
Supposedly, everything about the man was black ops and classified. It was said
that he was associated with a team that dealt with monsters. In other words, he
eliminated non-human threats. Like I said, it was mainly nonsense stuff. I
never saw the man and neither had anyone else as far as I knew.

“
Mr. Hardin wasn’t at
the warehouse
?”

No, he wasn’t there. And let me tell you, the guys in
charge. They didn’t believe in the General either.

“
At what point did you
realize that Mr. Hardin was actually in charge of the operation
?”

Take off.

“
What do you mean
?”

He spoke to us through our earpieces en route to El Paso. I
think it was sort of getting around that the men in the warehouse weren’t too
convinced with all that we’d been hearing. He came on the radio to let us know
differently.

“
What did he say
?”

He basically told us that if we underestimated our
adversary, we weren’t going to make it out alive. I’m not sure it was
completely necessary. I mean, we were literally the best in the business,
whether we were believers in the Guardian or not, we weren’t exactly going to
go easy on the zombies. I think he just wanted us to know that the shit was
about to hit the fan.

“
Did his words have
any effect
?”

Any man that would tell you he wasn’t nervous before he
entered a city full of zombies is a bold faced liar. It doesn’t matter how easy
you believe those suckers will go down, you are about to fight something that
shouldn’t exist, something that has already taken over a city. So, his words
didn’t make us take our mission any more serious, but it did let us know that
he was in fact a real person and that he’d been facing threats like this for a
very long time.

“
How did you get into
the city
?”

We took a plane to our designated drop zone and parachuted
from high altitude. Once we touched down, we were supposed to secure our own
transportation and radio in for the first extraction.

“
How did that go
?”

It went fine. We all touched down and regrouped behind an
old building without any problems or zombie sightings.

“
How many were on your
team
?”

There were five of us. I was team leader. Scalp Hunter was
there as well as a guy named Voodoo, a guy named Fox and a guy named Pitt.

“
Okay, take me through
the next few hours
.”

After regrouping, we immediately set out for a truck that
Pitt had spotted as he was coming in. We figured that it would handle anything
we needed. There were still no signs of anything hostile even as we hotwired
the vehicle and removed the two corpses from inside of it.

“
There were corpses in
the truck
?”

Yes ma’am. It was a mother and her son.

“
How did that affect
you
?”

It didn’t. I’ve seen far worse things than that. It’s
unfortunately a part of my job. In order to function and still do a job like
mine, you have to really deaden the parts of you that will break up when you
view an atrocity.

“
I understand. What
happened after you got the truck running
?”

We radioed in to find our first target. It wasn’t very far.
We ended up leaving the truck. We figured that the engine sound might be too
loud, and it would be safer to hoof it.

We found the family in an empty clothing store. There were
four of them in total, a father, a mother and two young boys. They were
half-starved and the mother had a twisted ankle. Fortunately, none of them were
infected.

Scalp was at the door covering us as we assessed how
difficult it would be to move the family. Voodoo radioed in for our extraction
point while Pitt rendered aid to the mother’s ankle. The situation was rather
calm when Scalp gave out a low whistle.

I went over to him immediately and took the opposite side of
the window that he was looking out from. He pointed a finger in the direction
he wanted me to look and I saw the enemy for the very first time.

It’s a lot different when you aren’t seeing them on a video
feed. There’s just something evil about them. It actually made the hairs on the
back of my neck stand up straight. I tried to repress a shiver, but I must have
failed, because Scalp noticed my discomfort.

“I had that exact same reaction,” Scalp said.

I didn’t respond. I didn’t have the words. We both just
stood and watched the zombie make its way along the street. It was a woman. She
was wearing a business suit and missing one of her shoes. Her hair was matted
into a gory clump and stuck to the side of her face. Her face was rotted and it
seemed as if the skin had actually constricted tighter over the bones. Her walk
was what really freaked me out. She walked slow, but not slow enough, despite
missing a shoe. It seemed as if she was more than capable of a sudden burst of
speed if the occasion required it.

Mr. Hardin’s words started to echo through my mind. These
weren’t slow moving corpses. They weren’t hindered by death or decay. It was
quite the opposite. These things were in better than prime condition when you
include the fact that they don’t slow down or get tired.

“Take her out,” I said to Scalp.

He gave a nod of understanding and went to the entrance. He
cracked the door just enough to poke his mp7 out, took sight and popped off a
muffled round into the zombies brain. The dead woman went down with an almost
noiseless thump.

Unfortunately, she wasn’t alone.

There was a pack of them around the corner. They must have
been pretty far away because we never heard them. We would have never even of
known that they were there, but one of them ran over to investigate the fallen
corpse.

It was the weirdest thing. They really have a very low
intelligence, but seeing the zombie woman collapse must have piqued his
curiosity in some way. I guess they are capable of being curious when something
different than their norm occurs.

Regardless, the new zombie came running over to investigate.
It had probably been a young man judging from his clothing which consisted of a
t-shirt and jeans. His hair had been cut rather short before he was turned, and
I could see a tremendous laceration across his scalp. I’m not actually sure
what happened to his nose, but it wasn’t there.

He stood over the fallen zombie woman and just sort of
stared at her. Then he lifted his head and began to look up and down the road.
Going with my best guess, I would say that this zombie had probably seen other
zombies get shot and drop. Possibly he learned to associate zombies dropping
with humans shooting guns. It’s just a guess, mind you. I really don’t have a
clue as to why a zombie does anything.

Scalp began to move towards the door once again. I motioned
for him to stand down. If there was another zombie, there could be even more. I
felt the hairs on the back of my neck begin to stand up again. I didn’t like
the feeling.

I went over to the father of the family.

“How many of them are in this area?” I asked.

“There are a lot of them. That’s why we couldn’t leave the
store. Every time I look out the window, I see them out there. If they see you,
it’s all over.”

I had heard about how dangerous the zombie screams were. I
had no desire to bring down a bunch of them on top of us, but I also didn’t
want to be stuck in that store. Reluctantly I gave the order.

“Take him out Scalp,” I said.

Scalp obliged me and stepped to the door. The door
unfortunately made a creaking sound and alerted the curious zombie to his
presence. The scream echoed up and down the road. It was answered almost
immediately and suddenly the area became a hot zone.

All in all, I think there were about fifty or sixty that
rushed towards us. It was a valuable lesson. Strictly speaking, we had never
before faced anything like that. Most of the time when I shoot at someone, they
don’t want to be shot. These things don’t care if they get shot. Also, two in
the chest doesn’t work. We had to adjust our aim for headshots. Anything less
than a headshot and we’d be lucky if we even knocked them off their feet. It
was a different way of fighting. Of course, we were informed about all that.
It’s just a bit of a challenge when we’re used to putting holes in center mass.

It got pretty close, but we made it through. It’s a real
test to actually remain calm and stay on target when they keep getting closer
and closer. After the dust settled, so to speak, things got a lot easier. We
hoofed it to the truck, radioed in, and located our extraction point.

We were lucky to be Downtown. We kept our extraction points
on the rooftops of tall buildings. Two of us would lead them to the top, while
the rest of us set up shop on a nearby rooftop in order to snipe out anything
stupid enough to come up after the survivors after our two team members left.

It worked for us pretty well; we just made sure to choose
extractions points as far away as possible from the ones we’d previously used.

“
So you figured out a
pretty good routine while you were there
?”

Yes, I was satisfied with the results. We were highly
successful in our extractions. That’s why it came as a surprise when our
Colonel radioed in that we were being pulled out of the area.

“
It wasn’t Mr. Hardin
that told you
?”

No each team had their own set of advisors working behind
the lines. Mr. Hardin oversaw everything, but he only personally dealt with the
Regulators. To be honest, I’ve never even seen the man, and, after he radioed
in when we lifted off, I’ve never again heard his voice.

“
Were you told why you
were being pulled out
?”

We were told that a new player had taken the field, and
there were too many unknowns for us to remain. We really didn’t know what that
meant, but our extraction was scheduled for the following evening.

“
When did you hear
about the other teams
?”

The following evening on our way to our extraction point we
were told that the Eastside team had been attacked. Halfway to our destination
we got a call involving children at an old hotel. They left the extraction up
to our discretion, but informed us that the Northeast team had been overrun on
an extraction they tried to handle on their way out. They also said that it
might have been a trap set up by the mysterious new player.

I put it to a vote. We opted to at least check the situation
out. None of us wanted to leave any kids behind. The hotel in question was only
a few blocks away so we got there pretty quickly. The building was a brownish,
dirty color. The windows were all boarded up on the first floor. The front door
was completely missing, and a large piece of plywood had been nailed up in an
effort to keep out any trespassers.

It would have been easy enough to knock down the plywood
door, but we were worried about the noise levels. Instead, we went around to
the back of the building and discovered a loose board on one of the windows.

I was the last one in.

Once inside, we brought out our NVG’s, that’s night vision
goggles. The room was some sort of dining room. The place seemed to have been
classy at one point, but it was obvious that nobody had been there in a very
long time.

Some of the tables still had tablecloths draping over them.
There were dusty wine glasses on a few other tables. My team spread out
immediately in order to make sure the room was clear. I went to a light switch
and gave it a flick. The chandelier above the center of the room sparked and
flickered a few times before eventually bathing everything in a soft glow.

I was pretty shocked that the place had power, but there was
still some sort of problem judging by the weak amount of light.

“
Weren’t you worried
about the light attracting zombies
?”

That really wasn’t a concern. Like I said earlier, the
windows were all boarded up. Not much light was going to be able to escape the
interior of the building. Also, we were looking for a group of children. I was
hoping that the light might make them feel safer and possibly come out to
investigate rather than run and hide when they heard us moving around.

After the dining room was a long hallway with a tan and
paisley carpet. There was dust everywhere. The hallway lights worked as well,
but it was still the soft glow instead of a bright light. I would have
preferred the bright light, but the soft glow was better than nothing, and we
no longer needed our NVG’s.

We weren’t too worried about being rushed by any zombies
lurking around inside the hotel, the boarded up windows should have kept them
out easily enough. Still, we proceeded with caution. Scalp had taken point, and
I was bringing up the rear.

The hallway eventually opened up onto the lobby.

My team spread out to clear the room. It was empty, but Voodoo
found a place where the dirty carpet met a wooden staircase. There were dusty
footprints on the staircase, and judging by the size of the prints, they were
made by a child. None of us even noticed that the child wasn’t wearing any
shoes until Pitt pointed it out.