My goal was to take a well-deserved break. The story of how the Regulators battled vampires in the Sun Bowl had just hit the bookstores, and it was moving like a runaway freight train. I had already done the press junkets, and the signings. I was tired. Yes, I knew the story wasn’t finished. There were still zombies in El Paso, and let’s not forget Dudley’s tease during his last interview. He warned me that if I thought vampires were wild, I needed to wait and hear about how they finally cleared the city.
I believed Dudley.
Please don’t think otherwise. I just wanted a vacation or three before I went after that story. Interviewing the Regulators is a lot of work. A person learns things they often wish they hadn’t.
I received a phone call in the middle of the night: a man begging for my help. He told me a tale I just couldn’t wait to investigate. I did some digging, based on what the man had told me, and compared his tale to three separate events that gave him credibility. The first of these events was an assassination attempt on the President of the United States. The second was the General’s famous stay at a hospital in Ruidoso, New Mexico. The third was a much-televised public threat that frightened the world, and led to the closing of the borders.
Now, these events alone were nothing new. All of them had been exhaustively televised, and I wasn’t much interested in what others had reported. No, I was only interested in what the midnight caller told me. I was interested in what went on behind the scenes, and I just had to know if what the man said was true.
My vacation was put on hold. Phone calls were made. Interviews were set up, and I was on my way to a small compound, near, but separate from Fort Bliss Army Base in El Paso, Texas.
As I waited for the General to appear, I realized for the first time, I wasn’t nervous. I had seen too much of the man. I was beginning to see him as a friend. In fact, I was beginning to enjoy the company of all the team members, with the possible exception of Nick.
When he walked into the conference room in full gear, and dropped his machine gun onto the wooden table between us, I damn near fell out of my seat. He noticed my reaction and the blush of embarrassment spreading over my cheeks. The General was about to say something (probably at my expense) when I was saved by the large, black, pit bull that bounded into the room after him before dropping the entire upper half of her body onto my lap.
“It’s nice to see you Merrick.”
She must have missed you.
I couldn’t help smiling as I scratched the dog behind the ears. The look of joy on her face was contagious. It was hard to believe she was capable of all the things I’d heard.
“I’ve missed her as well, and I never thought I’d say that about a pit bull.”
That’s how it goes for a lot of people. It’s easy to fear what you don’t know. It’s a shame, really. They make the best pets in the world.
As hard as it might be for me to believe Merrick was capable of violent actions, it was rather easy to believe it of the General. At just a shade under six feet, the man was wide, with large arms, big shoulders, and a thick neck. The tactical vest over his broad chest made him seem even larger, if that’s possible. He looked imposing as Hell, and the skull and crossed pistols boldly emblazoned on his tactical vest let everyone know he was serious.
His light brown hair was as short, as it always is, and his ever-present backwards Harley Davidson ball cap was beginning to look a little rough around the edges. The green eyes were the real draw of the show however. I couldn’t even begin to imagine the horrors they’d witnessed.
“How old is that hat?”
What are you getting at? It’s just starting to feel comfy.
There was the briefest moment of awkwardness as I pondered how to ask what I wanted to ask. The General beat me to the punch.
Dudley tells me you’re probably here to find out about what happened after all the survivors were cleared from the city. I guess he let slip some hints that we had ourselves some crazy times.
“That is exactly why I’m here. Will you tell me what happened?”
Sure. I warn you though; it’s not always a very pleasant tale. Some of the boys may be a little reluctant to relive some of what happened.
“Is it that bad?
Some of it was par for the course. There are things that definitely shouldn’t have happened, but I guess we’ll get to that. Where do you want to start?
“If you don’t mind, can you take me back to what happened after the last of the survivors were evacuated from the city? I’m not sure you are aware of this, but people really began to panic after the last group was evacuated. They feared that, without a food source, the zombies would eventually begin to drift towards the borders of the city.
That was a worry we had as well. If any zombies got out of the city, they could spread throughout the country in an unstoppable wave. It wouldn’t take very long either, not with the zombies we were dealing with. Maybe you know this, maybe you don’t, but there are different types of zombies. There are slow zombies, magically controlled zombies, and there are zombies created by idiot scientists…there are a bunch of different types. The ones that took over El Paso, as you may remember, were created by a nasty and powerful curse. They also happen to be the worst of the bunch.
“Why are they the worst of the bunch?”
They move fast and they maintain their speed despite how rotted out they become. Slow zombies are the easiest to deal with, especially if they decay at a normal rate. I’ll take slow, rotted out, zombies any day of the week over the ones we were dealing with in El Paso.
“So the public had a legitimate concern?”
Definitely. I mean: the military had done a fine job guarding the borders of the city, not a single zombie got by them. They were dealing with limited numbers of the undead, though. A great horde never made an attempt to leave the city. They didn’t have to: there were food sources that were much closer to anything outside the borders.
“So, what was the plan to keep this from happening?”
Well, we tripled the amount of soldiers guarding the borders. We also dropped speakers all around the city, and started blasting the sounds of people screaming to keep them interested in the area. This was a pretty neat idea. The screams would play out on a bunch of speakers for about five minutes and then shut off, while more screams played out on a bunch of different speakers at another location. It worked pretty well, but we weren’t going depend on it lasting forever. We didn’t know if the undead would grow immune to the sounds.
There was a fallback plan in place. It wasn’t a good one. In fact, we really wanted to avoid it. If all else failed, and the zombies moved towards the borders en masse, certain people wanted to level the entire city.
“That’s exactly what you had been trying to avoid from the beginning. Would the plan have worked?”
Probably not—mind you, that’s just my opinion—but I don’t see any sort of bomb or explosion as an end to the problem. I’m sure it would have taken out some of the undead, but what are the odds that it would destroy all of them?
“What if they used something bigger?”
Like nuclear?
“Yes. What about nuclear?”
We have no clue how that would affect the zombies. It may not even hurt them at all, unless they actually get caught in the blast. Hardin was violently opposed to that idea, by the way. He didn’t want to take the chance of having irradiated zombies running around.
“That sounds pretty scary.”
Exactly, and I’m no expert on nuclear bombs, but I don’t even want to imagine the damage it would cause the surrounding areas.
“So you’ve told me what other people wanted to do. Now tell me what you wanted to do.”
I wanted to thin the herd. The more zombies we could destroy before they lost interest, and tried to leave, the better. Mind you, we didn’t have any great plans for this. Other teams tried different ideas, such as waiting by the speakers and shooting the zombies when they appeared. However, we favored a more direct approach.
“It sounds as if we are nearing the start of the story.”
Sounds that way to me.
“Before you begin: tell me about the weapons you used.”
Jaxon laughed about it; as if he was he was wondering when I was going to bring it up. I hate to be repetitive, but people seem to have a lot of interest in the tools he uses. That makes it important.
Well, the only thing that changed since the last time we spoke was my knife. The folder I was using was starting to look pretty nasty after all the use it received, so I decided to retire it with honors. I began carrying a Cold Steel Natchez Bowie as its replacement. This thing is a beast of a knife, with an 11 ¾” blade that’s sharp enough to shave with. I’d wanted to try one out after seeing Georgie’s Bowie.
“Did it meet your expectations?”
And then some. Other than that, I was still using the Sig Sauer P226 with a silencer, the MP7 rifle (also with a silencer), my Cold Steel Ti-Lite as a backup knife, and of course my tomahawk.
“Your trademark weapon?”
I guess so.
“Do you have it on you right now?”
I do.
“Can I see it?”
Jaxon smiled and reached behind his back. The tomahawk was nestled in a sideways holster on the back of his utility belt. It made a raspy sound as be pulled it free. He casually gave it a brief twirl in his hand before holding it out for me to grasp.
The edge of the blade looked frighteningly sharp. The bluing over the metal had faded to a dull grey from excessive use. The wooden handle was scarred and stained. My hand froze about an inch away. I couldn’t will myself to grab a hold of it.
Jaxon noticed my reluctance.
Don’t worry about it. It has that effect on a lot of people.
Another quick twirl and the tomahawk vanished out of sight, back on the utility belt.
“Sorry about that.”
Not a problem.
“Were you still using the bite suits and tactical vests?”
Yeah. Those are pretty much required uniforms when dealing with monsters.
“How soon after the last of the survivors were evacuated did you begin eliminating the zombies?”
The very next day.
“Okay, tell me how you did it”
Like I said before, we favored a more direct approach. Instead of just staying in a safe place near the speakers, we only started things out that way. We let the speakers call in the zombies, and then one of us would run through the area, and get the zombies to chase after him.
When zombies see prey, they shriek out those ugly screams they’re so fond of, and that attracts more zombies to the scene. So, we would run around for a while gathering up more and more zombies. When the group was big enough, we would lead them to a predetermined area, and make for safety, while the rest of the team unloaded on them with .50 caliber machine guns.
We had been doing this for a few days. Everything was getting relatively routine, and somewhat boring. The temperature was beginning to warm up, but the nights were still pretty cold. I was on top of a single-story roof in the early morning hours. I was waiting rather impatiently for the speakers to go off, and gather me up some playmates.
I had a new wristwatch. It was a Protrek 2500 from Casio; you can add that to the list of my gear. I was playing around with it, just passing time, when the screams started bellowing out of speakers hidden beneath a park bench across the street. It scared the Hell out of me and I almost fell off the roof in a panic.
“Give me a warning next time,” I barked into my earpiece after giving it a tap.
The only response I received was laughter from the control room in New Mexico. Hardin isn’t very big on practical jokes, but he seldom misses an opportunity to laugh at my misfortune.
Anyway, the screams were loud. It wasn’t long before a small group of shamblers showed up and began to look around for the source of the screams. Unfortunately, there weren’t enough of them. I happened to have a bet going on with Javie and only thirty or so shamblers weren’t going to be enough for me to win.
I waited a while. I even started to argue with Dudley over our ear radios while I waited. I can’t remember what started the argument, but we were arguing about whether or not Sasquatch actually existed. My reasoning was that if zombies and vampires could exist along with an untold number of other monsters, why couldn’t Bigfoot? Dudley, on the other hand, kept asking for a body.
“Perhaps Bigfoot dissolves in the sunlight like vampires do,” I said.
“Why would Bigfoot dissolve in the sunlight?”
“Because fuck you, that’s why,” I replied.
“How many showed up?” Dudley asked.
Abrupt subject changes are relatively common when speaking with Dudley.
“Looks to be about thirty,” I answered. I’m about to go for my run.”
“Are you sure you want to get started with only thirty? Javie is gonna beat you easy if you don’t pick up a lot more on the run.”
I was honestly getting a bit nervous about losing the bet, but I’m very impatient, and I wasn’t seeing any new arrivals. I just wasn’t going to admit my fear.
“Yeah, I’m getting pretty bored waiting around. I’ll make extra noise to make up for it.”
“Wait a minute: shouldn’t you know if Bigfoot truly exists or not?”
You would think so, but I have no idea.
“But you hunt monsters.”
Bigfoot isn’t really a monster. He’s a primate. Or at least that’s what people believe.
“What about Miriam? She’s the expert on monsters. What does she say?”
She won’t tell us. She thinks it’s pretty funny that everyone keeps arguing about it. I’m thinking the only way I will ever know for sure is if one of them steps out of the forest, and takes a bite out of some camper. Then I’ll get sent out to shoot it.
“Good point. Now, what was this about a bet?”
We had a bet over which one of us could lead more zombies to the machine guns.
“And the loser had to what? Shave his head?”
No, they had to shave only the left side of their face for one month.
I couldn’t help but laugh out loud.
“Are you serious?”
Oh yeah.
“So did you go for your run or did you wait a bit longer?”
I went for my run. Like I said, I’m impatient, and the screams were starting to get on my nerves. I jumped off the roof and landed on the sidewalk as loudly as I could. A few of the zombies noticed me immediately, and rushed over to my position.
I used my Sig Sauer pistol without the silencer to bring them all down. I hated wasting a perfectly good zombie. I had a bet to win, and shooting all my playmates before I reached my destination wasn’t going to help me any, but I was hoping the loud gunshots would attract more company.
I was correct in that assumption.
Not only did the gunshots gather the attention of all the shamblers present, it also excited a group of shamblers that happened to be around the corner, and out of my line of vision. Someday, I’m gonna pay for my impatience. I realized they were there only after the speakers shut off, and I heard all the commotion they were making. They were probably attracted to the speakers, but the sound of my pistol really lit a fire under their asses. I could hear the thuds of their pounding feet hitting the asphalt. I could hear the echoes of their moans and screams. It was a large mob, and they came around the corner at full speed just as the previous thirty or so zombies by the speakers sprinted towards me.
Things never go according to plan when you’re dealing with monsters. My escape route was rendered temporarily useless, since the direction I wanted to go had a street full of zombies in the way. I could have tried charging through them, but the odds weren’t really in my favor.
Instead, after doing a pee-pee dance of indecision, I headed in the opposite direction.
Both groups merged together. I led them down one street, and up another, before making some right turns, and leading them all back to the place we started. It was a good workout. Not the greatest mind you, I couldn’t run full out. If I did, I would have lost my pursuers.
Keeping the ever-growing gang of zombies twenty feet behind me, I finally headed towards my escape route. That was a big relief, by the way. Being chased by zombies is nerve wracking no matter how tough I tend to act.
I led the growing pod of shamblers down a long, dead end, alley-way that was barely wide enough to fit one car. I turned on the speed when I hit the opening of the alley, and I mean I really turned on the speed. I left the shamblers in my dust, and damn near slammed into the brick wall of the dead end.
I grabbed the black rope hanging off the roof, and as soon as I shouted out that I was secure, Nick began to pull me up the side of the building. I was climbing over the edge when the first bunch of zombies arrived at the dead end.
“Looks like I won,” Javie said.
“What are you talking about?” I asked. “I have a ton of them.”
“You might want to check your math again boss,” Javie said.
I looked down the side of the building, and sure enough Javie was correct. Somewhere along the way I had lost about half of my pursuers. I was crestfallen. I lost the bet. I could already hear Nick laughing heartily as he positioned himself behind one of the two tripod mounted machine guns that covered the alley.
And then the rest of my pursuers rounded the corner and showed up to the party.
There were a lot of them, many more than I intended on attracting. All I really needed was to bring in about seventy, or so, to win. Javie only brought in around sixty when he ran. Somehow I had a couple hundred zombies jamming themselves into the alley.
“How’d you do that?” Javie asked.
“Beats me,” I answered. “I guess I’m just popular like that.”
“Or maybe there’s a small horde nearby that you didn’t see,” Dudley added.
“Nah,” I said. “I’m just popular.”
Nick and Georgie started spraying out a virtual wall of belt-fed lead into the zombies below as we were talking. Even with silencers, the big machine guns were still sorta loud, so Dudley, Javie, and I moved over to the opposite side of the building.
“Time to pay up,” I announced.
I was already laughing as I searched through Dudley’s backpack and retrieved the battery-powered razor.
“You really made him do this?”
You sound like Dudley, but a bet’s a bet, and Javie wouldn’t have shown me any mercy if the roles were reversed.
“How do you know?”
Because Dudley didn’t want him to go through with it, so I finally asked Javie if he would have let me out of the bet if he had won instead.
“Hell no,” Javie answered.
Even Dudley was laughing when the hair started falling off. I’m sure you’ve seen Javie. He’s a pretty hairy fellow. I think it takes him about three days to grow out a full beard, so as a result he normally walks around with fuzz in order to save time from shaving every day.
“Oh shit!” Nick shouted. “He’s freakin’ doing it. Check it out, Georgie.”
Georgie laughed the hardest. I tried making the bet with him in the beginning, but he adamantly refused to take me up on it. Still, he had no problems laughing at someone else’s expense.
“Watch your corner down there asshole,” Nick shouted to Georgie. “They’re beginning to pile up under that window.
I went to go see what Nick was getting all panty-wadded about. The building we were standing on was four stories tall, and made out of brick. There was one boarded up window slightly above street level that happened to be on the same side Georgie was covering.
Nick was covering the other half of the alley and his side seemed pretty good. He was able to cut into most of the zombies before they even reached the brick wall of our building. Georgie, however, was having difficulties.
He probably shouldn’t have taken his eyes off the alleyway. By doing that, he gave the zombies enough time to gather around the dead end and push up against the brick. Georgie corrected his mistake immediately, and directed his fire towards the base of the building in an attempt to cut down the shamblers below him.
The bullets shredded the bodies instantly, and then cut through the bodies of the next bunch of corpses that pushed forward in an attempt to take their place. This went on for some time, the pile of bodies was growing higher and higher.
Georgie’s gun went dry.
He looked at me with a panicked expression as his fingers fumbled through the reloading process. Dudley rushed forward to help him. Javie stood by Nick, and prepared to aid him in reloading when the time came.
As Georgie panicked, the zombies in the alley climbed over the shredded remains of Georgie’s targets and reached up for us. They were hungry. They hadn’t eaten in a long time. Then again, zombies are always hungry.
I pulled my MP7 around, and placed the red dot inside the holographic sight onto the forehead of a very rotten looking individual in a plaid shirt. I squeezed the trigger smoothly and watched as his head jerked backwards, and a red spray splashed out onto the five zombies that replaced him.
“Now would be a good time to start shooting, Georgie,” I shouted.
“I’m trying,” Georgie replied, “but there’s a jam.”
The zombies were getting closer and closer to the boarded up window. I shot any of them that could reach out and touch it, but it was getting more and more difficult as their numbers increased.
I chanced a brief glimpse down the alley. It was filled with the dead, and more of them were coming. They pushed and shoved against each other as they fought to reach us. The smell was nasty, but fortunately the wind was picking up, and making a valiant effort to carry the smell away from us.
“It’s looking pretty bad, Jax,” Nick shouted. “I’m almost out.”
“Javie is backing you up. He’ll shoot his MP7 while you reload. Just stay calm and stay focused.”
It looked as if Dudley had been correct. I had attracted a small horde to our location. Unfortunately, it didn’t end with that pack. The screams and the assorted gunfire were attracting even greater numbers.
We had never attracted a mass this size before. We weren’t expecting it. In retrospect, I’m guessing with the lack of people to eat, the zombies were becoming more, and more, ravenous. As a result, it was becoming increasingly easy to attract lots of unwanted attention.
We were quickly sinking in over our heads. Dudley and Georgie were taking too long to clear the gun, and even on full auto my MP7 wasn’t bringing enough of them down. It didn’t take the zombies long at all to reach the boarded up window.
“Here we go,” I muttered. “Never gets easy.”
“It’s worse than that,” Dudley shouted. “I think the machine gun is damaged.”
“Are you sure?”
“It’s busted,” Georgie agreed.
“Then forget about it and use your rifles,” I ordered.
We had lost that battle. I quickly left that edge of the roof and went around checking the other sides of the building. I was looking for an escape route. Unfortunately for all of us, our egos had gotten too big, and we never imagined we might need to make a run for it. Then again, why run when we could fly.
“Hardin,” I called out after tapping my earpiece.
“I’m here, Jax. What do you need?”
“I need a lift off of this roof,” I answered.
“I can see that,” Hardin said. “All the choppers are on the other side of the city assisting one of the other teams. It will take a little bit of time for them to reach you.”
“They’re in the building,” Georgie shouted out from the opposite side of the roof.
“I’m running low on ammo,” Dudley announced.
“How long?” I asked Hardin.
“Under ten minutes.”
“Do what you can,” I replied.
I ran back to the team. Zombies were now flooding into the building as they climbed up the ladder of corpses brought down by machine gun fire. I looked at the flimsy wooden door that marked the entrance to the roof we were all standing on. The shamblers would go through it in seconds.
I ran to the other three edges once again. The distance to the rooftops of nearby buildings was too great a distance to jump. I thought about throwing a grappling hook, but there didn’t seem to be any place for it to grab onto on any of the other rooftops.
I walked back to the team once again. They were still firing away at the zombies in the alleyway.
“I’m going inside,” I said. “I’ll try to bottleneck them at the window until the chopper gets here to pick us up.”
“I’ll go with you,” Dudley said.
“Take a few mags from Nick,” I told him.
“They’re in the back pouches of my belt,” Nick said as Dudley approached him. He was too busy with firing the big machine gun to get them so Dudley had to tug them free himself.
Together we crossed the roof and headed for the door that led down into the building.
“You ready for this?” I asked.
“Why wouldn’t I be?” Dudley replied as he slapped a new magazine into his rifle.
“Because you’re a pussy,” I answered him flatly.
“I really don’t think I’m a pussy. I certainly don’t feel like a pussy. I fact, I’ve been feeling pretty heroic ever since I defeated that Master Vampire.”
He caught me by surprise.
“That’s pretty funny,” I said. “I didn’t know you were such a funny guy. I don’t remember you fighting the Master Vampire. In fact, as I recall, you were hiding under a pile of snow while I took care of the situation.”
“Too bad for you there are not many people privy to that information. If I start the rumors now, I’m pretty sure I can take all the credit.”
“You’re welcome to it. If that Master had any vampire buddies that are gonna show up one day looking for revenge, they’ll knock on your door instead of mine.”
“Would Dudley really do something like that?
No, but it’s funny for him to say that to me. Not as funny as the look on his face when I told him about vampire buddies looking for revenge, but it was still pretty funny.
I kicked in the door, and our world got serious.
We could hear the shamblers down on the first floor. They were pretty riled up and making a lot of noise. With our rifles held at the ready, we charged in.
“I’ve got some bad news for you,” Dudley announced.
“What?”
“We didn’t clear this building.”
“Why didn’t you clear the building?” I asked.
“When we got inside, we didn’t hear anything and most of the doors were closed. We just figured it would be easier to quietly make our way to the roof.”
“Well, I guess you figured wrong,” I said.
“What do you want to do?”
“We don’t have time to clear the building now. There are like ten doors down every hall. We need to get our asses down to that window and stop the flow of zombies that are getting inside. Let’s just hope the building’s empty and we don’t get surrounded.”
As soon as I said that, the pounding started.
At first it was a casual knocking on a door we happened to pass. Then it got louder. Then it sounded as if other hands were joining in and before we knew it, other doors started sounding off as well.
“Maybe the doors will hold them,” Dudley said.
“Maybe,” I replied.
I took off down the hall at a sprint. As I reached a T-intersection, Dudley told me to hang a left. When I rounded the corner, I had to duck out of the way of a zombie.
My moving out of his way didn’t seem to faze him in the slightest. Instead of pursuing me, he made a beeline right for Dudley, who was just a few feet behind me. So, after ducking his outstretched arms, I turned around, grabbed him by the back of his collar, and slammed him into the opposite wall.
The zombie wasn’t bothered by the slam either. He spun around on me immediately, but it was too late for him. The way was clear and I could take a shot without hitting Dudley. I aimed above his shattered nose, and blew out his brains.
I didn’t have time to rub it in to Dudley that I had just saved his ass. The muffled sounds of his silenced MP7 began before I even turned around. Behind me was the stairwell, and shamblers were rushing up it.
At this point, our enemy was beginning to look pretty gross. Their clothes were all nasty and stained with dark fluids. Their scalps were missing clumps of hair, and their faces were beginning to show an advanced stage of rot. Their skin was a dark sort of gray mixed with a sickly yellow, and their fingernails seemed to have continued growing, long after they died. What I’m getting at is how very unpleasant it was to turn around, and see a bunch of those rotted monsters charging my way.
“How many were there?”
I’m thinking around ten, at least in the first wave. It’s really hard to say, because I began firing immediately. We found a target, brought it down and searched for another: all the while continuing to advance forward.
It wouldn’t do us any good in the long run if we simply held our position. At least, I didn’t think so. I was still hoping to bottleneck them at the window, and make my life a bit easier.
When we reached the stairs, the first wave was down and we managed to reach the third floor. After that, the attacks became sporadic. A wave of zombies would rush us, and we’d begin firing. When the wave was down, we’d make some progress only to have another wave of zombies rush up the stairs towards us.
At one point, things got pretty hairy, and a wave of zombies came at us from behind while we were busy engaging in a frontal assault. I’m not sure if they had been there all along and just got excited from the noise, or if they came from the window and somehow found a way to sneak up on us. For a moment, though, we were pinned in the stairwell.
Dudley continued shooting down the attackers in front of us, and I spun around and started taking out the ones coming from behind. Like I said, it was a pretty hairy situation. The stairwell itself often made finding targets pretty difficult. We had to wait until they were right up in our faces before we had a decent angle to shoot them.
As soon as I had taken out our followers, I joined Dudley, and the two of us cleared out all the immediate threats before continuing down the stairwell.
“Jax!” Georgie shouted into my earpiece. “There are a bunch of them getting in now. We can’t keep up. You guys need to get out of there.”
“Let me know when you see the helicopter, Georgie,” I replied. “That’s when we will retreat.”
Like I said before, a bottleneck at the window was our easiest bet. I didn’t want to use the stairwell, or a hallway, because the window was a smaller area that the shamblers had to squeeze through. They would be struggling against each other in an effort to get inside before I even started shooting them.
Also, Georgie tends to get nervous around one zombie. I don’t really start to get excited until about twenty or so show up. Despite what I had seen from the roof, I was hoping Georgie was exaggerating.
Turns out he wasn’t.
The biggest wave yet came up at us just as we reached the second floor. It was bad. It was real bad. Fortunately, the confined space and the corners of the stairwell finally worked in our favor. Despite their numbers, the stairwell was too thin to allow more than a few to reach us at a time, and the corners slowed them down even more.
Our ducks were in a row. We fired and fired until our trigger fingers went numb, and then we fired some more. The stairwell was pretty disgusting when we were finished. The gore and blood painted the concrete walls. Bodies were everywhere.
We picked our way gently through the mess, and continued our journey to the first floor. I gave another magazine of ammo to Dudley and told him to pull on his big boy pants, and carry more spare ammo in the future.
Despite taking out that big wave of zombies, things didn’t slow down too much. We were still being rushed every few seconds or so. It was just two or three shamblers, instead of a whole mess of them.
In retrospect, the bigger groups were a bit easier to deal with, since they slowed each other down, and tripped each other up. Alone, a zombie is pretty fast. A fast attack is much more dangerous than a slow and ponderous one, at least as far as a stairwell goes.
Finally, we made it to the first floor. The stairwell continued downward, but we weren’t interested in going any farther. We could already hear the sounds of multiple zombies coming from beyond the metal door at the bottom of the stairwell.
I slammed the door open, expecting trouble, and trouble was what we got. There were about ten shamblers in the hallway. We brought them all down, and continued to push our way forward, only to have another bunch spring up at us around the first corner.
This new attack was way too close for comfort.
Before I knew it, a large zombie wearing a black hoodie, blue jeans, and hiking boots, was up in my face, reaching out for me. His nose had rotted away and little crispy flaps of skin still hung over the vacant hole. His hands were dry and cracking as they sought out something on my body they could grab a hold of. I reacted out of instinct and belted out a front kick that caught him under the chin and jerked his head back. His hair was so dirty it didn’t even move with his head.
I followed up the front kick with another kick. This time, however, instead of striking, I placed my boot on his chest and pushed him away from me. The shambler fell to the floor but was instantly replaced.
That was fine by me. I only needed enough room to bring my MP7 into play. I rapidly lined up shots, and set about clearing the hallway. In the midst of all the shooting, I saw the once boarded up window the zombies were using to enter the building.
“Dudley,” I shouted to be heard over all the zombie screams. “I’ll handle the ones inside, you secure the window.”
I didn’t wait for a reply. Instead, I continued picking my targets. Usually, it was the zombie closest to me. Dudley was trying to secure the window, but every time he took out a zombie clawing its way inside, another one rose up to take its place.
As soon as I finished clearing out the hallway, I joined him at the window. Even with both of us firing, we were barely able to hold back the tide, but that wasn’t too big of a deal. The goal wasn’t to wipe all of them out. Dudley and I were merely trying to buy us some time for the chopper to pick us up.
“I don’t have the ammo for this,” Dudley said as he dropped his MP7 on its sling and reached for his 1911 Kimber.
“Fall behind me and shoot over my head,” I said. “I have a few new tricks I want to try out.”
Dudley did as I asked. I dropped to my knees and took off my backpack. To be honest, it was a little nerve wracking to have Dudley shooting right over my head. But seeing as we didn’t have a lot of choices, I did my best to focus on the task at hand.
I removed multiple sets of black disks from my backpack and crawled to the side of the window. After removing the thin sheet of plastic over the adhesive strip, I placed one of the disks on the wall at about knee height. I crawled to the opposite wall and repeated the procedure. I made sure the new disk was exactly opposite the first disk I put up. I knew I was on the money when I heard a soft beep. I pressed the power button and saw a thin red laser stretch across the hall to the other disk.
I used ten sets of disks placing them all at different heights along the walls. When I was finished and once again standing next to Dudley, I had about ten feet of hallway covered with lasers.
“Were they really lasers?”
Oh yeah, they were lasers. They would cut through just about anything that passed in front of the beam. Being a Regulator has its perks. We get to be the first to play with all the new gadgets that come down the pipeline.
The disks are a great booby trap, but they do have some serious limitations. The battery life is only about forty-five minutes. The disks were only good for about ten or fifteen cuts before they burned out. Also, absent direct sunlight, the lasers themselves were very visible. An enemy would be able to spot the trap easily from a pretty big distance.
“The zombies wouldn’t spot them though, would they?”
Well, I’m sure the zombies saw the lasers. They’re just too stupid to try and avoid them. Regardless, the disk lasers would slow them down when it came time to make a run for it.
“Jax,” Nick said over my earpiece. “I can see the helicopter. Get your ass up here.”
I looked over at Dudley, who gave me a nod and stopped firing. We should have taken off immediately, but both of us were a little too curious to see how well the disks would work.
The first zombie crawled through the window, followed by another, and another one after that. She locked eyes with us for a brief moment, screamed and charged us. The laser took both her legs off at the knee. She then took to crawling after us and screamed out in rage, and frustration, only to run headfirst into the next laser and drop lifelessly, to the ground in a heap; the top part of her skull had been sliced off in a perfectly straight line.
“I’m glad I invented those,” Dudley whispered.
I gave a brief laugh and watched as the other zombies charged towards, us only to fall to pieces when they met the lasers.
“Let’s go,” I said.
We ran back the way we had come, but as soon as we had entered the stairwell, we heard a cacophony of screams coming from above us. I silently planned on having words with my team about clearing buildings if I survived long enough to do so.
“How many?” Dudley asked.
“Too many, and not enough ammo,” I answered.
“We’re about to get boxed in.”
“No shit,” I answered.
I popped my head out of the stairwell, and looked around frantically. The hallways on the first floor were filled with those flimsy fake-wood doors. If the zombies saw us enter them, or managed to locate us later, those things would shatter in a heartbeat.
The screams above us were becoming louder and louder. I was also beginning to hear the sounds of many, many, different pairs of feet scrape against the concrete steps. I reached into one of the pouches on my utility belt , and brought out a handful of marble-sized steel balls. I quickly placed the balls all over the first flight of the stairs.
“Looks like down is our only option,” I said.
I led the way. After two flights of stairs, we arrived at another metal door. The door was unlocked, and we entered the darkness inside just as we heard the loud pops of the steel balls I had placed on the stairs.
“They were another booby trap?”
Yeah, they were pretty nasty. Essentially, they made a small explosion whenever they were squished. However, the explosion was small enough that it wasn’t fatal to whoever was unlucky enough to step on one. Still, the little explosion is enough to break the person’s leg or ankle, and I’m talking about a real break: one you can’t walk away from.
Just for goofs once, Dudley and I bought a bag of marbles, spray painted them silver and scattered them all around Georgie’s bed while he was asleep. You should have heard him scream when he woke up and started stepping on them. Ever since then, we started calling them Georgie’s “boom balls.”
Anyway, the room we entered was pitch black. I took a step forward and went tumbling down a bunch of stairs before I managed to grab a hold of the railing. A soft growl answered the noise I made.
My MP7 had gotten twisted around behind me on its sling, so I frantically yanked out the Sig Sauer from my side holster only to realize that I couldn’t see a damn thing. I was pulling off my backpack, in order to retrieve my flashlight, when the large room flooded with a dim light.
Dudley was still at the top of the stairs. He had somehow managed to find the light switch.
“Are you okay?” he asked.
“All except my ego,” I replied. “Lock the door behind you.”
I looked around the room as soon as I heard the click of the lock. We were in a flooded basement. I couldn’t tell how deep the water was, but it seemed to be pretty deep, and the water line reached up to just a few steps below me. There was an earthy, moldy, smell in the air, and that was joined together with the all too familiar smell of rot and decay.
The basement was rather large. It easily spanned the length and width of the building, without all the doors and hallways to make it appear smaller. It was just one big open area. Floating on the water were pieces of wood and soaked papers. I also saw the upper halves of filing cabinets and boilers. Apparently, the space had been used for storage.
None of that really concerned me, though.
Something had growled at me and it didn’t sound like a zombie. I wasn’t sure what it was, but I wanted to find out before it swam up and took a bite out of me.
“What are you looking for?” asked Dudley.
“Something growled before you hit the lights.”
“What was it?” asked Dudley.
“If I knew that I would have told you,” I answered.
“Over there!” Dudley shouted with a point of his finger.
I trained my eyes over to the darkened corner he was pointing at. Whatever he saw was no longer there, but the water was still rippling in that area.
“What did you see?” I asked.
“I’m not sure what it was, but I’m pretty sure it was humanoid. It had a really weird color, sort of pinkish. It went into the water.”
The area we were looking at was the darkest place in the entire room. I used my flashlight to get a better view, and I really didn’t like what I saw.
The ground was built up in that area with mud. It created a small island above the water line. Above the muddy island were five corpses hanging upside down from the ceiling. We had stumbled upon something’s lair.
“Jaxon,” Georgie said through my earpiece. “Where are you? The helicopter is here.”
“We’re trapped in the basement,” I answered. “You assholes didn’t clear the building and we got surrounded.”
“Should we come and get you?”
“No. Use the machine guns on the chopper to take out the shamblers still outside the building. After that, replenish what supplies you need, and head over to the next building we picked out, and continue the job. Just make sure you clear the new building before you start attracting any zombies to your area.”
“You want us to leave you guys there?” Georgie asked.
“Yeah,” I answered. “We’ll figure a way out.”
“Jax,” Georgie said. “There are thousands of zombies trying to get inside the building right now. Are you sure you want us to leave you?”
“There isn’t much you can do right now anyway,” I answered. “We may have to hide out until they get bored and leave. I’ll radio you if we run into anything we can’t handle.”
“All right,” Georgie said before signing off.
We sat quietly for about five minutes listening to the ruckus coming from above us. Things had certainly picked up while we were inside the building.
“I can’t believe there are thousands of zombies above us,” Dudley said dejectedly.
“I can’t believe none of them tracked us down here,” I replied.
I really wasn’t too worried about the zombies at the moment. I was much more concerned about what was swimming around in the dark water below me. Every now and then I would see a ripple of movement across the still surface.
“Do you think it was a zombie?” I asked.
“Zombies don’t normally hang their victims upside down,” Dudley answered. “So no, I don’t think it was a zombie that I saw.”
“You think it was a vampire?” I asked.
“I fucking hope not,” Dudley answered. “I’ve had enough of those bastards.”
“I don’t think it was a vampire,” I said. “Vampires like fresh blood. They keep their victims alive, and in pits, like that one you found.”
“Just shut up about vampires,” Dudley grumbled. “I don’t want to talk about vampires. You’re freaking me out.”
“How am I freaking you out?” I asked.
“Dude, we’re in a dark cellar that’s filled with water. There is a rotting food source in the darkest corner, and something is swimming around underneath us. I want to get the Hell out of here.”
“I want you to know that I listened to everything you said,” I answered. “However, you failed to explain to me what I did to freak you out.”
“Now you’re just fucking with me.”
“I’m not,” I answered. “I’m just wondering why you want to blame me for freaking you out, when, in fact, you are to blame for our current predicament.”
“How am I to blame?” Dudley demanded.
“Because you morons didn’t clear the building,” I answered.
“We probably should have cleared the building,” Dudley agreed.
I was trying hard not to laugh, and I just couldn’t resist one more jab.
“So what do you think is in that water?” I asked.
“Would you shut the Hell up?” Dudley snapped.
“Fine,” I answered. “I really don’t feel like talking to you anymore anyway.”
“Good,” Dudley said. “Let’s just sit here quietly until enough of the shamblers leave, and then we’ll make a break for it.”
I couldn’t pick on him anymore. Dudley was obviously freaked out. I mean: I knew he was a little edgy, but I had no idea he was as worried as he was. He’s normally a pretty steady guy.
“What do you think was causing him to be so unnerved?”
I can only guess. It’s not like he’d ever tell me, but I’m guessing the thousands of zombies thundering around and screaming their heads off above us, combined with the new and unknown threat below us, was the cause. Also, the new threat was intelligent. It’s never good to have something intelligent trying to eat you.
“How do you know it was intelligent?”
Because it tied its victims to the ceiling: tying something up takes intelligence. That meant there was a pinkish-hued creature with an unknown degree of intelligence swimming below us, and it had an appetite for human flesh.
“Why were you so calm?”
Who said I was calm? I wasn’t anywhere near calm. I was just channeling my energy into picking on Dudley, so I wouldn’t freak out with him. Anyway, back to the basement.
I tapped my earpiece.
“I’m here,” Hardin asked.
“What do you think we’re dealing with?” I asked.
“No idea,” Hardin replied. “The video I’m looking at isn’t very clear. I sent it over to Miriam, and she isn’t sure either. Maybe you could work your way closer to the den so I could have a better look.”
I looked over at Dudley and he was mouthing the words, ‘Hell no’ at me.
“I’ll see what I can do,” I answered before signing off.
I really didn’t want to sit around and wait for whatever it was to attack me. That’s certainly not my idea of a good time. I would much rather have the deck stacked in my favor, and go on the offensive. So, I pulled the grappling hook and rope out of my backpack.
My target was a very large filing cabinet about eight feet away. Now the movies always make it look rather easy, but I can assure you that trying to cast a grappling hook over to another object, and actually make it stick, is a very difficult thing to do. I missed my first try, and didn’t fail to notice the smirk on Dudley’s face.
Around thirty attempts later, my grappling hook finally found a purchase. I took my end of the line and tied it tightly to the railing of the staircase.
“Are you seriously going to do this?” Dudley asked.
I didn’t answer him at first, because I felt the answer was rather obvious. Also, the entire time I was attempting to make my grappling hook stick on to the filing cabinet he hadn’t said a word. Aside from his smirk, he had no reaction at all. He probably never thought I’d get the grappling hook to stick. Plus, I was little shocked that he was actually speaking to me again.
“Yeah,” I finally answered, after he began cursing under his breath.
“Whatever’s in that water is going to wait until you’re halfway across, and then it’s going to jump out at you.”
“That only happens in horror films numb-nuts.”
“You wait,” Dudley replied.
There was no chance in Hell I was going to be able to use the line as a tightrope. I don’t have that kind of balance. Instead, I hung from the rope with my hands and feet, and pulled myself towards the filing cabinet.
When I reached the halfway mark, I must admit I got a little nervous. I started looking over my shoulder towards the water beneath me. I was half expecting a giant shark-thing to burst from the water.
“Any second now,” Dudley announced as he lifted up his pistol and pointed it towards the water.
“I never really liked you,” I told him.
Finally, I reached the filing cabinet and pulled myself on top of it. The top of the metal was wet and slippery. When the pounding on the basement door began, I jumped so high I almost lost my balance and fell into the water.
The zombies had located our hiding spot.
“This could be a problem, Jax,” Dudley said.
“Yeah,” I answered.
I was doing my best to ignore the pounding on the door. My attention was focused on the task at hand, and I didn’t welcome the interruption. Besides, the door looked to be extremely sturdy. I had a bit of time.
From the filing cabinet, I jumped close to six feet, and landed on a slightly smaller cabinet. This cabinet was just as slippery as the last one, and I slid right to the side with the bottom half of my body hanging over the edge. I rapidly pulled myself up while visions of a shark-man filled my mind. Once I was on top of the cabinet, I looked down below me at the water and noticed it was rippling.
“Did you see anything,” I asked Dudley.
“Why? What’s happened?”
I didn’t bother to answer him. All he was really concerned about were the zombies piling up outside the door to the basement.
From the second filing cabinet, I hopped to the side of a boiler. I shimmied my way to the opposite side of the bulbous hunk of machinery, and launched myself towards a third filing cabinet. I had another game of slip and slide there before I was able to get myself secure.
The pounding on the basement door was becoming louder.
“How’s it going over there?” I asked.
“The door is holding but I’m not sure for how long.”
“How many are out there?” I asked.
“What do you want me to do?” Dudley snarled back at me, “Open the door and count them?”
“Testy little girl, aren’t you?” I retorted.
From the final filing cabinet, I was able to jump towards the ceiling, and grab an exposed pipe. From there I went hand-over-hand until I reached the muddy island. I let go of the pipe and landed on the gooey surface. I briefly wondered where the mud came from, but as it wasn’t immediately important, I let the thought drop.
On one corner of the small island, I saw what must have been a nest. It was a mass of shredded foam, and fabric, piled up on the sides and flattened in the middle. I took out my flashlight and started searching for clues. There weren’t any to be found in the nest. So, I shined the light towards the mud and found footprints. Judging by the size and shape of them, they were all created by the same creature.
The moment I had seen the hanging bodies, I was certain we weren’t dealing with zombies. When I saw the footprints, I knew we weren’t dealing with a vampire either. I still had had doubts up until I saw the footprints, but upon seeing them I was positive it wasn’t a vampire. The creature responsible only had three toes, and each toe had a ridiculously long claw.
The pounding on the door increased to the point where the door was shaking on its hinges. Dudley had repositioned himself farther down the stairs, with his pistol trained on the wobbling door.
I went over to the hanging bodies. I found a bite mark on the first one I looked at. It was pretty difficult to miss; a huge chunk was missing from the side of its neck. It didn’t take long to find the bite mark on the second corpse either. It was located on its dangling arm, and by the looks of it, it was rather severe.
“Are you seeing this?” I asked Hardin after tapping my earpiece.
“Those are zombie bites. It looks like all the victims were infected,” Hardin answered.
“Any ideas?” I asked.
“Miriam thinks it could be a few things, but she isn’t positive on any of them. Get a closer look at the body in the far back if you can.”
I grumbled some sort of response and went to the corpse farthest from my position. This body was missing pieces. In fact, it was missing a lot of pieces. Something had been eating it and the wounds looked rather fresh.
Then I noticed the most shocking thing of all.
The body was riddled with bullet holes. Closer inspection of the other bodies showed me that all of the corpses had bullet wounds. In three of them alone, the only wounds aside from the zombie bite was a single bullet hole in the forehead.
I heard gurgling in the water just a few feet from the bank of the small island I was standing on.
“Hardin,” I said after tapping my earpiece. “Whatever this thing is, it’s feeding on dead zombies.”
“Well, a dead zombie is just a corpse,” Hardin replied. “These zombies were caused by a curse. I believe that once the brain is destroyed, the zombie becomes just a regular dead body.”
“So what is it then?” I asked.
“No clue.”
A loud, hair-raising growl sounded out from the darkness of the water. I immediately drew my pistol and fired off a shot in the direction it came from. I’m positive I missed, but the water began to churn.
“Jaxon,” Hardin said. “I’m thinking that whatever it is you’re dealing with isn’t too happy about you being so close to its food source. Perhaps you should move away.”
“No arguments here,” I answered.
Dudley was screaming something at me. I think he wanted to know what was going on. I didn’t have time to answer him. Instead, I jumped into the air and once again grabbed a hold of the exposed pipe.
I went hand-over-hand towards the nearest filing cabinet. I swung my body, and released my hold. My aim was good. I slid when I hit the wet surface, but I still managed to grasp a hold of the edge before I went over the side.
I looked over at Dudley.
Things weren’t looking too great for him. The door was beginning to buckle and warp. I was shocked that the hinges were holding, but the door itself was in pretty bad shape.
“Jax!” Shouted Dudley. “What do you want me to do here?”
The corner of the door began to bend inward. I saw rotted hands reaching through and grasping for prey. I futilely looked around the basement for something he could use to reinforce the failing door but there was nothing to be seen.
Worst of all, I was too far away from him to help and something was lurking in the water between us.
The water churned and frothed once again. This time it happened right next to the filing cabinet with the grappling hook still attached to it. The cabinet wobbled in the whirling water, and then tipped over onto its side.
Needless to say, I was panicking.
I looked towards Dudley. Dudley looked towards me, and the door bent even further. I saw the upper half of a zombie shredding its own skin as it pushed itself through the too-small opening. It used to be a teenager but now he was missing an eye, along with most of the orbital bones in that area. He was wearing a t-shirt that was so dirty I could no longer read the logo. His shorts were stained with blood, and other juices, that had oozed from the wounds in his hip where he had been attacked.
Dudley took aim and brought him down with one shot. His brain matter sprayed through the exit wound, and the gunk landed upon the many, many, shamblers desperately trying to take its place.
“Jump in the water!” I shouted.