The Regulators - 02 (6 page)

I hurriedly stuffed Michelle into the harness and told Adam
to hold on tight as the helicopter began to ascend once more. Georgie and Javie
succeeded in keeping the zombies off of me for a few moments, but those few
moments were over.

I waved a goodbye to Ivana and focused my attention back on
my surroundings. About fifteen or twenty rancid corpses charged in my
direction. I pulled out my machete while random pictures of Jaxon charging
headlong into masses of zombies fired around in my brain.

I glared at my oncoming attackers. For just a brief moment I
pictured the battle that was about to go down. Then I mumbled, ‘fuck it’ and
ran like hell.

I could hear the muffled thumps as Georgie and Javie fired
on my pursuers. I was worried that I was going to end up taking a bullet due to
Georgie’s shitty aim. Luckily it didn’t happen, but I was still worried.

My escape route was planned from the beginning. As soon as
Georgie saw me retreat, he would fire up the Jeep, pick up Javie and then come
around to pick up Kingsley and me. The only problem was that Kingsley might
have been hurt, or worse. Regardless, if he had been able, he would have
cleared me a path. My retreat was now lacking a safe exit, so I was hacking
every shambler that got in my way. I think I brought down at least five of
them. I just remember goo dripping down my blade and onto my gloved hands. I
squeezed the handle as tight as possible to keep from losing the weapon.

When I finally reached Kingsley’s hiding place, I couldn’t
even find him. I did a real quick search under and between the cars and was
about to give up due to my pursuers, when the door of one of the vehicles
opened and he stepped out.

His eyes were giant orbs of fear as he looked over my
shoulder.

“You led them right to us,” he managed to stammer.

I turned and followed his gaze. The parking lot was worse
than I had realized. It was flooded with the undead, and all of those zombies
were headed right for us.

“Move,” I shouted out.

I grabbed Kingsley by his weapon strap and began to run. At
first I had no idea where I was going to go, but then my brain began
functioning once again and I headed us towards Javie’s direction in the hopes
that after Georgie picked him up, we would be able to catch him on the way to
our appointed spot.

Of course, if I was wrong and they were somehow delayed, we
would probably be swamped and eaten. Not a great thought.

Behind us, the situation was pretty grave. The mass of
undead were rapidly gaining on us. Kingsley just wasn’t a fast runner. I could
hear him huffing and puffing behind me as I dragged him along.

I could have ditched him, but that’s not my style. I’m a
Regulator. If my fellow Regulator goes down, I’m going down with him, and I’m
going to fight until the bitter end. I could feel my mp7 bouncing about on my
chest. I wondered briefly if I should drop the machete and grab the rifle. I
had just enough time to consider how much ammo was left in the weapon when I
saw the lights of the Jeep turn a corner and head our way.

I poured on the speed.

“Let go of me,” Kingsley growled as he slapped my hand away
from him.

I dove into the back of the Jeep as Georgie came to a screeching
halt. Kingsley was suddenly on top of me. I felt the air leave my lungs as his
weight slammed against me. Kingsley is a big, big boy. My face was buried in
the fabric of the backseat and I had to fight to lift my head.

I wasn’t happy with the view.

Standing there in the glare of the headlights were the
snarling and decaying faces of a couple hundred zombies.

Georgie and Javie looked like they were about to piss
themselves. Kingsley and I already had. We knew this situation from before.
They might be temporarily confused, but it wasn’t going to last long and then
they were going to charge.

“Kingsley,” I said. “Get your legs inside the Jeep. Georgie
hit the top.”

Georgie was frozen solid. I can’t blame the guy. He wasn’t
exactly an old hat at this game. Especially since his candy ass never left the
Safe Zone.

I had only a few moments to act.

Slowly, just as slowly as possible, I leaned forward to
reach the lever on the floor of the Jeep next to the four wheel drive stick.

I couldn’t reach.

I shifted my legs just a little bit in order to get a better
angle. I was using Kingsley’s shoulder to hold myself steady. I ended up
over-reaching and my mp7 clattered on the floor of the Jeep just as I lowered
myself beneath the dash.

The sound was rather loud.

I heard the scream, but I wasn’t sure if it was coming from
Georgie or one of the shamblers. All I knew was that I needed to hit that lever
or we were all going to end up a bowel movement from an undead stomach.

“
Lovely
.”

Not really.

I heard the first of them slam into the hood of the Jeep. I
couldn’t resist, I raised my head above the dashboard. Through the glass of the
windshield, I was face to face with a member of the undead club.

It’s actually a pretty horrible sight when you’re that close
to one of those things. Its eyes had gone a milky white. It was missing most of
its nose and part of its lips. The teeth were a scum colored brown and its hair
was a mass of dirt and tangles.

I hit the lever just as its hand smashed into the
windshield.

I shouldn’t have hesitated.

The face in the windshield wasn’t the only zombie that
charged us. It was just the only one I noticed in that brief second. It turns
out that all of them did and if I had been a second later on hitting that
lever, well, it would have been a pretty crappy evening.

I was able to hit the lever in time though, and believe me,
it was just in time. The armored top of the vehicle shot up through a bunch of
different slots at what seemed like warp speed. The pieces clicked, snapped,
and slammed together so fast it actually took the head off of one of the
shamblers just as it leaned forward to take a chomp out of Kingsley.

We were enclosed in an armored vehicle courtesy of some
military genius that figured an armored transformer-like top would probably come
in handy some day. I was gonna kiss that guy if I ever figured out who the
designer was.

Georgie was still screaming.

Kingsley was cussing up a storm.

Javie was still frozen stiff.

The inside of the Jeep was covered in gore. Apparently, some
other zombies also lost some limbs.

Georgie was still screaming.

With a smile on my face, I got to do something that I’ve
wanted to do many times since meeting Georgie; I bitch-slapped him. His scream
stopped immediately.

“Everybody calm down,” I said. “We’re safe in here.”

Georgie was quietly hyperventilating, and Kingsley had
stopped cursing. There was no change from Javie, though. He was still staring
out the window. All of the zombies were pounding away and scratching at the
Jeep in an effort to get to us. It was pretty loud.

“Georgie,” I said. “I need to switch seats with you. I’m
going to get us out of here.”

In acknowledgement that he actually heard me, Georgie bobbed
his head up and down. We both moved by each other at the same time. It
shouldn’t have been easy because Jeeps aren’t exactly roomy, but we were both
covered in slime and chunks which acted as a sort of lubricant and we just
kinda slid into our new seats.

Right then Javie came out of his stupor.

“MOTHER FUCKER!” he shouted.

It was unfortunate he chose to shout because it made the
zombies begin attacking the vehicle in a renewed frenzy and the Jeep began to
rock back and forth with their onslaught. At some point, I actually froze for a
second. I’m not sure if it was Javie’s exclamation that did it to me or when we
ended up on only two wheels.

Regardless, I felt it was prudent to get our asses out of
dodge. I cranked the starter. I can’t even remember when the Jeep had stalled
out. The engine roared to life as I revved it up. I slammed the shifter in reverse
and punched the accelerator.

I heard the nasty thumps and crunches as I backed up into
the mass of undead behind the vehicle. When I had created just a little bit of
space, I slammed the shifter into first and punched through the mass in front.

The Jeep bounced up and down as zombies were pulled under
the heavy duty front bumper. Yet still more shamblers pounded on our doors and
windows. I couldn’t even tell where I was going; the mass was that thick. I
suddenly jerked the wheel to the left and punched it once again. A few more
bumps and slams and suddenly, we were free. The way ahead of us was clear.
Behind us was pretty much a hornets’ nest, but we had a way out and believe you
me I took it.

It didn’t take very long to lose our new friends. I took the
first road I could find that led away from Mesa, and we soon lost our tail in
the maze of suburbia. We were all glad to be out of danger because the inside
of the Jeep really reeked with all those nasty zombie bits.

I pushed the lever to put the top back in its original
position, and we all breathed deeply of the cold night air.

“Where are we headed?” Kingsley asked.

“I say we find a carwash and spray this bitch out,” I
answered.

It didn’t take long to find one. Those self-serve carwashes
are just about everywhere. As soon as I pulled up, all of us bailed out of the
vehicle. Georgie did the cleaning and the rest of us took up defensive
positions.

When he was done, Georgie was in shock that there wasn’t a
single dent on the Jeep. I started laughing.

“What part of armored did you not understand?” I asked him.

“I thought it was some sort of code word for you being an
ass-hat, to be honest with you. I didn’t think it would actually work.”

“I’m just glad you stopped screaming,” Kingsley added. “My
ears are still ringing.”

By this time, we were all laughing.

“My favorite was Javie,” I added. “He’s all quiet and frozen
then all of a sudden he belts out this loud MOTHER FUCKER.”

“That’s so you bitches know I’m serious,” Javie said.

I could barely breathe I was laughing so hard.

Hardin must have thought we were having a little too much
fun. He was suddenly in my ear once again.

“You boys having a good time?” Hardin asked.

“Hey nice job with the extraction,” I replied. “Could you
have picked a worse fucking place? You almost got us all killed.”

“My mistake,” Hardin said. “The area looked clear enough. I
didn’t expect all of them to run out of the nearby buildings. It won’t happen
again, and you guys all got through it. How’s Georgie? Has he stopped
screaming?”

“Barely,” I answered. “So what do you need? I think we might
be done for the night.”

“We found another survivor,” Hardin said. “I think you guys
might want to take this one.”

“Is he in any immediate danger? We still don’t have Jaxon
with us, and since you haven’t brought him up, I’m assuming that he’s still
missing.”

“Yes, Dudley, we have not had any contact from Jaxon, and
no, this survivor is not in any immediate danger. However, I was thinking that
you might still want to jump on this now instead of tomorrow.”

“Why is that?”

“This guy is rather disagreeable so it might be that he’s
telling the truth, but I have no way to tell since he won’t give us his name.
Anyway, he says that he knows you guys and he’s stuck inside your old Safe
Zone. According to him, he arrived not long after Jaxon led all the survivors
out of the city, and he’s been there ever since.”

We left for the Safe Zone immediately.

Hardin said that the guy was disagreeable. That’s what got
me thinking he might actually be a pal. Jaxon has a lot of friends that are
sort of rough around the edges. Most of them don’t have criminal records that I
know of, but I don’t keep up with all of them.

The other thing that had me jumping was that he was at our
old Safe Zone. That place has a special meaning to those of us that were
fortunate enough to have been there. If this guy went looking for us and
somehow wasn’t able to make it in time for our departure, he deserved our help,
and he deserved it immediately. Also, it would give us a pretty decent place to
spend the day if it was still secure.

We were there inside of about ten minutes. I let Georgie
drive after he promised not to start screaming again if he saw a zombie. The
front gate was locked up tight. I took that as a positive sign and leaned out
of the Jeep with my mp7 and started taking shots at the ten shamblers gathered
around it.

It didn’t take long to bring them all down, but we made
noise. It wasn’t a lot of noise, but it was noise nonetheless. I was worried
that we were going to have more company so I wanted to get inside as fast as
possible.

“Georgie, go hop the fence and open the gate.”

“But I’m driving,” Georgie said.

“I’ll drive, just go do it. I never paid attention to how
you guys rigged everything up.”

Watching Georgie climb over the fence would have been pretty
damn amusing if I hadn’t had to divide my time between laughing at him and
being paranoid about an attack. It seemed to take him forever to slide open the
gate and when he did, he made a lot of noise.

I drove through as soon as he had the gate open far enough.
I almost ran over his foot in the process, but better that than have another
massive fight in the same night.

I tapped my earpiece for Hardin.

“Which house is it?” I asked.

“He’s in Georgie’s old house,” Hardin answered.

That was good news; I was beginning to hear screams echoing
around in the nearby neighborhoods, and Georgie’s house was right in front of
us on the left hand side of the street.

“Georgie,” I said. “Use your keypad to open the garage door.
I’m going to back in the Jeep to keep it out of sight. Everyone else follows
Georgie to keep him covered.”