The Regulators - 02 (44 page)

Jaxon predicted that the other vampires would only make an
appearance at the end of the fight, and he was correct. They didn’t want any
survivors, and they also weren’t about to pass up such a bountiful meal. He had
also foreseen that the vampires would come at us from high altitudes, so when
we weren’t helping Javie set up his makeshift watering system, we were rigging
the tops of the bleachers to blow.

We didn’t actually have enough semtex to take out all the
top bleachers, so we made a guess and rigged up each of the sides and left the
ends of the stadium alone. Fortunately for us, we guessed correctly.

The explosion was loud, but it wasn’t big enough to take out
the entire side of the stadium. It more or less just took out a few of the
rows. Before the dust even cleared, Nick and Georgie had burst free from their
respective mounds of snow and rushed to the debris field. I pulled free my
machete and joined them at the top of the bleachers. The three of us hacked and
chopped the damaged vampires.

It wasn’t exactly difficult. All but one of the vampires was
too dazed to put up a fight. As for the vampire that was still alert, it was
missing several vital pieces by the time we found him. It wasn’t much of a
problem to relieve him of a few more.

The survivors cheered and cheered. Everyone was patting one
another on the back. The water was still pouring down from above us. Jaxon was
alert, but in obvious pain as his body knitted itself back together. Several
people tried to approach him as he writhed about on the sodden fake grass, but
he yelled at them to leave him be.

I sat quietly by him as he healed. I didn’t try and help him
and I didn’t say a word. When it was over, Jaxon would once again become his
usual charming self. I had no problems waiting.

Father Monarez went over to the foot soldiers and began to
talk with them. I could occasionally pick up bits of the conversation. They
were relieved to be free of the vampires. Everything was going wonderfully.
Everyone was happy and safe. Each and every one of us had made a serious error.
We had forgotten that the city wasn’t safe.

It was Javie that alerted me.

“Dudley!” Javie shouted in my earpiece. “Are you there? Can
you hear me?”

“I’m right here,” I answered. “Come out and join us.”

“I’m on my way,” Javie said. “We need to get out of here
fast.”

“What?” I asked. “What are you talking about?”

“Can’t you hear them?”

I found that a rather odd question. It took a brief moment
or two before things clicked together and I began to understand. We had made a
hell of a lot of noise. First we had cheering, then we had an explosion and we
followed all of that with a loud ass celebration.

“EVERYONE BE QUIET!” I shouted. “RIGHT NOW! STOP SCREAMING!
STOP MAKING NOISE!”

It took just a few moments for everyone to quiet down. I
craned my neck in an effort to hear if anything was approaching. At first I
heard nothing, but that was just my ears playing tricks on me. As soon as I
began to relax I heard them. Unfortunately, so did everyone else.

The zombies were coming.

Everyone began to panic. The Regulators gathered around
Jaxon, just as Javie and Merrick burst through the entrance and came running
towards us. Javie was carrying a large bag of makeshift weapons. They were the
same weapons that the survivors had used in the church. We had taken all the
ones that couldn’t be concealed underneath their clothes just in case we needed
the survivors help in fighting the vampires.

“We gotta go,” Javie said. “There are a lot of them.”

I looked down at Jaxon. Merrick was standing over him
protectively and he seemed to have lost consciousness. I knew that it would
prove fatal if I removed him from the water. He was too fucked up, but I wasn’t
about to abandon him.

“Listen up everybody,” I announced. “I need everyone to grab
a weapon and make your way to the same exit. Stay together and be prepared to
fight. The Regulators will hold them off as long as possible.”

“You aren’t coming with us?” someone asked.

“I can’t move Jaxon. He’s not healed up yet and if I take
him from the water he probably won’t survive, but don’t worry about us. We’re
the Regulators. This is our job.”

“Tonight we’re all Regulators!” someone shouted and
everybody cheered.

“I will not abandon the man who risked his life to save all
of ours,” Father Monarez said as he picked his chainsaw out of the bag of
weapons.

In less than a second everyone was shouting different things
at me.

“I won’t leave the General!”

“Let’s fight!”

“Protect the General!”

“I’m staying!”

“I won’t leave him behind!”

In the end, I lost total control. There was a large group of
survivors trapped inside the Sun Bowl and not a single one of them would
abandon my uncle. I began to pace back and forth as my adrenaline flowed into
my veins. They wanted to fight. They probably wouldn’t make it very far if they
chose to run. They wanted to fight.

“REGULATORS!” I shouted at the tops of my lungs. “WHAT DO
YOU WANT TO DO?”

“WE WANT TO FIGHT!” hundreds of voices screamed back at me.

“WHAT DO YOU WANT TO DO?” I shouted again.

“FIGHT!” they answered in unison.

“WHAT?”

“FIGHT!” they screamed.

“REGULATORS!” I screamed a final time. “KILL ‘EM ALL!”

When the zombies came, they came by the hundreds. They
poured through the different entrances of the Sun Bowl and charged us on the
field.

I’m proud of each and every one of those people. They formed
a protective circle around Jaxon and defended him. Not a single man, woman or
child hesitated to put themselves in harm’s way. They fought and fought and
fought.

The battle was brutal. The ammo ran out all too quickly, and
the team quickly resorted to blades. Not a single shambler broke through our
protective circle. Not a single person abandoned the man that fought so hard to
protect them. They fought with everything they had. They protected my uncle.

We lost a lot of people in the opening moments of the
attack, but still we fought on. A half an hour after the battle began, I heard
a voice in my ear.

“Dudley,” Hardin asked. “Are you okay?”

“Not really,” I answered. “We could use some helicopters
with some serious fire power.”

“I’m on my way,” Hardin said. “Where are you?”

“Inside the Sun Bowl,” I answered. “We also have about four
hundred or so survivors that are ready for an extraction if you have enough of
those choppers.”

“
Wait a minute. How
did Hardin escape the vampires
?
Where
were Miriam, Ivana and the others that were being held as well
?”

The vampires holding them left the area as soon as their
Master was killed. I’m guessing that they somehow sensed his death and decided
they didn’t want to stick around any longer. Anyway, Hardin is a pretty
resourceful kind of guy. As soon as he realized that there were no longer any
vampires around, he escaped rather easily.

It took another thirty minutes for the helicopters to show
up. The sight of three choppers flying over the bleachers was an extremely
welcome one, but I think we enjoyed it even more when the helicopters began to
open fire on all the zombies.

In no time at all the stadium was relatively secure. More
helicopters were brought in for extractions and by that time Jaxon was more or
less himself, the Westside of El Paso had been cleared of survivors.

It was a battle that I will never forget as long as I live.
In his one moment of need, it was the people that Jaxon fought so heroically to
save that ended up saving him. It was a terrible battle, but the people
supported one another. They stood side by side and faced the horde. In the
midst of combat, I saw humanity, and let me tell ya, humanity is something
worth fighting for.

In the end,
eighty-four people lost their lives in the Battle of the Sun Bowl. The number
was considered low considering the odds that the people faced
.

“
Were the Regulators
the last ones to leave the stadium
?”

Yes, we were.

“
Where did you go
after you were extracted
?”

Extracted? Sweetheart, the Regulators never left El Paso.
There were still survivors waiting for help in different parts of the city. We
had a job to do, and dammit we were gonna get it done. Jaxon made a promise. He
told the entire world that help was coming to those in need. We weren’t about
to leave until we made good on that promise.

“
So you planned on
leaving after all the survivors in the city had been extracted
?”

I wouldn’t say that. Even after all the survivors were
extracted, there would still be zombies in our city.

“
Then you planned on
completely eliminating the undead threat
?”

You got that right, and if you thought vampires were pretty
wild, wait until you hear that story.

Jaxon

I had honestly thought
that the tale had been told. I had just sent off my collection of interviews to
my publisher when I happened to catch the news. Georgie’s ex-wife had been
murdered in her home in Santa Fe, New Mexico.

Two weeks later, the
book was well on its way to being printed when I learned about some sort of
fight in Las Vegas, Nevada involving the Regulators. I thought and thought
about it, and I finally called my publisher and told her that I didn’t believe
the story was finished. I needed one last interview to be sure.

My publisher agreed
immediately, and I began the process of arranging one final interview with
Jaxon in regards to the story published in this novel.

He smiled when he
walked into the room, but he definitely had a wary look in his eye
.

What brings you to my door this time?

“
I was wondering if
you could tell me about Lucy’s murder
.”

I had a feeling you were going to ask about that. The minute
they told me you wanted another interview. Man, you move fast when you need to,
don’t you?

“
It was a hunch that I
had. I was thinking that there might be a connection between Lucy’s murder and
what happened in Vegas
.”

There is, and I can tell you about it because I went ahead
and asked permission from Georgie. I felt that that was only right considering
that it was his ex that was murdered. Anyway, he gave me permission. He thought
it might be a good idea to let everyone know what happens when someone messes
with our families.

It was Hardin that called me. I was actually on a different
assignment when I got the call. He said that Lucy had been murdered the
previous evening and her body had just been discovered. How he found out so
quickly I have no idea. Hardin just seems to be a wealth of information, but I
bet he probably keeps tabs on everyone’s family just in case.

The team was in Santa Fe in less than three hours. We
actually landed the helicopter right on the street outside Lucy’s house. The
police were everywhere, but I used my badge to get by everyone. Georgie wanted
to come, but I wouldn’t allow him to leave the helicopter. He was taking things
pretty badly, and I can’t say I blamed him. Fortunately, his daughter wasn’t with
Lucy at the time. She had been visiting with Georgie’s parents.

As soon as I walked into the overly clean house I smelled
the scent of blood and something else. I went past all the cops and all the
crime scene investigators straight up to the upstairs bedroom.

Some rookie cop tried to stand in my way and I sent him
tumbling down the stairs. After that, everyone kept their distance. The room
was a mess. The nightstand had been overturned. A lamp had been broken. The
sheets on the bed had been ripped to shreds. The thin metal shutters over one
window had been bent and torn. The carpets and walls were smeared with blood.

At some point she must have tried to make a run for it.
There were bloody footprints leading from the bed to the master bathroom. I
followed the footprints and there I found Lucy’s body. She was partially in the
bathtub, but most of her was dangling over the edge of the tub onto the cold
tile floor.

The body had been savaged. Worse than that, he took his time
with her. He gave her little tastes of pain as he built up for the final
strike. There probably wasn’t much blood left in her body when he drank her
dry.

Immediately I radioed in to Hardin.

“Is this as bad as I think it is?” Hardin asked.

“Probably worse,” I answered. “Where’s my wife?”

“She’s still in Ruidoso doing some shopping. I can have her
picked up immediately and moved to a safe location.”

“No, I’ll pick her up myself.”

I clicked off with Hardin and dashed down the stairs just in
time to grab a hold of Georgie as he tried to force his way into the house.
There was no way I was going to let him see the body. He’d never get that image
out of his head.

I told him I was sorry. I told him that he couldn’t go
inside. He didn’t take it very well. He even put up a pretty decent fight, but
in the end I passed him off to Nick. He sort of looks up to Nick in a weird
“don’t beat me up” kind of way.

The helicopter took off and we left a bunch of cops
scratching their heads. We even managed to get out of there before the
reporters showed up.

The helicopter landed at the airport outside of Ruidoso. I
wasn’t in a particular hurry. It was only mid-afternoon. I found Skie in one of
the shops located on Ruidoso’s main strip. She gave me her big smile and jumped
into my arms.

“What’s going on?” she asked. “Why are you back so soon and
why are you still in your uniform?”

I kissed her twice just because she was safe and sound and
then I gathered up my parents and her kids and off we all went to Vegas. Of
course she was terrified when I told her what had happened, but she put on her
brave face almost immediately.