I met with Nick in the standard meeting room. I knew better than to meet him anywhere else. He arrived on time, and in full gear. His boyish face looked as young as ever but his large frame had slimmed down a bit. It seemed as if the man had been exercising.
He smiled as soon as he saw me. I smiled back, and we shook hands.
You’re looking good, girl.
“Thank you.”
When are we going to go out on a date? I’ll take you anywhere you wanna go. What do you think?
“I heard you had a girlfriend?”
Who told you that?
“Uh-huh, let’s just stick with the interview, how about that?”
Let’s just make out one time and see what happens. I bet you’ll like it.
“Nah, let’s just do the interview.”
Nick sighed heavily, and motioned me to begin with the questions. I had to laugh at his attempt. He obviously expected me to turn him down, nevertheless he felt obligated to try.
“You’ve been informed about the new subject matter, correct?”
Yup, shitty times.
“When I spoke with Jaxon, he took me all the way to the Abraham Chavez Theater. I believe it was you, Dudley, Snake Charmer, and Jaxon. The four of you were headed toward the stairwell in order to gain access to the roof when you were pinned between a mass of zombies and the Monster.”
Sounds accurate.
“Can you take things from there?”
Sure. We were in a bad, bad position. The shamblers had invaded the freakin’ stairwell before we’d gotten to it. Dudley, Snake Charmer, and I, kept them from advancing upon us as we retreated. That’s when the Monster entered the hallway behind us.
“Why didn’t any of the three of you engage the Monster along with Jaxon?”
We couldn’t. I mean, Dudley tried several times, but each time he tried to break away we started getting overwhelmed. Like I said: shitty times. Jaxon was in no shape to go and fight that guy. He’d taken too much damage the first time they mixed things up.
“Then why’d he do it?”
Because he’s the General, that’s what he does. By rights, someone else should have disengaged from the group and tried to deal with the Monster, but try telling that to Jaxon. I personally think he wanted to be the one to kill the fucker. He wasn’t exactly thinking straight at the time. I can’t blame him for that. I don’t want to even begin to imagine what he was going through. I’ve been married a couple times. If one of my wives had been shot, well, there’d be Hell to pay.
“Were you able to see the fight?”
I caught glimpses of it. It was a slaughter. Dudley was the one that really watched it, though. He kept getting distracted. Snake and I had to save his ass more than a few times. The zombies would grab a hold of him, and we’d have to yank them off.
I can’t blame him either. His uncle was being beaten to death right behind us. We needed to do something. Unfortunately, Jaxon was limp by the time an opening presented itself. Snake threw the last two of his grenades into the stairwell, and suddenly the tide of dead stopped flowing.
“I’ll buy us some time,” Snake Charmer said, as he took out the remainder of the shamblers still in the hallway with us.
Dudley was already rushing towards the Monster. He fired on that freak at point blank range. The Monster merely reached out and slapped the barrel of the weapon to the side. Then he swatted Dudley away like he was an annoying bug.
He was back to stomping on Jaxon’s body when I tried to tackle him. Putting all of my weight behind me barely made him move an inch backwards. The next thing I knew, he had me by the collar of my utility vest, and was lifting me into the air. The dude was so big: he made me look small.
That’s when Snake entered the picture.
He opened up on the Monster from the side. I was dropped roughly, as the Monster made an attempt to grab a hold of Snake. I struck out with my fire axe the second he let me go. The fire axe cleaved only a little bit into his back, before getting stuck.
I didn’t realize Snake was just a distraction until glass was breaking and flames were spreading. Dudley had thrown a Molotov cocktail, and he nailed the Monster right in the face. The bastard screamed as the flames spread all over his body.
It was the first time he’d been hurt.
Dudley immediately ran to Jaxon as the former Guardian thrashed and screamed away from us down the hallway. I picked up my fire axe from the ground, and started running after him when Snake grabbed me by the arm.
“There’s no time for that,” Snake Charmer shouted. “We need to boogie.”
I ran to Dudley and threw Jaxon’s limp form over my shoulder. The three of us then ran to the stairwell. We had problems. We had big, big problems.
Snake Charmer’s grenades didn’t finish off the mass of zombies in the stairwell. It only knocked them back a bit. After Snake had dealt with the shamblers in the hallway, he must have gone into the stairwell and set up a bunch of those black disks with the lasers.
There were piles of human shaped pieces below us, obviously the remains of the dead after charging through the lasers. The mass of zombies however, kept surging upwards. Eventually the lasers would burn out. We needed to move fast.
“How many of the disk lasers did Snake Charmer activate?”
Fifteen or twenty; he must have run a bit down the stairs, and started slapping them on the walls, before the zombies recovered from the grenade explosion. That was a gutsy move on his part. He could have easily gotten eaten, but it was help we desperately needed. Without him doing that, we would have been overrun.
“Why didn’t everyone use the air ducts to gain access to the roof, like they did the last time they were at the Abraham Chavez Theater?”
My way should have been easier, and quicker. Besides, have you seen the size of me? I’m not sure I would even fit through an air duct.
So anyway, we hauled ass up the stairs. Jaxon isn’t exactly a small guy, so I was beginning to have problems catching my breath by the time we got to the last flight of stairs.
“How many flights of stairs were there?”
Three or four, I forget.
I had to stifle a laugh at that point.
Oh, I see how you are. Well, trust me. Jaxon was out. I wasn’t even positive he was alive. So, I was carrying a big, heavy, sack of potatoes up the stairs. I wasn’t falling behind, and I still managed to hit the door to the roof with enough force to knock it off its hinges.
Of course, I had no choice but to keep moving. Right after we made it up one flight of stairs, the zombies broke through the disks.
“Nice job,” Dudley cried out as he tried to fit the door back on the frame.
I wasn’t listening to him. I was headed to the waiting helicopter. I ducked low and approached. There were four soldiers inside the chopper in addition to a pilot and co-pilot. The soldiers took Jaxon away from me, and I immediately spun back around to fire on the zombies that had already made it to the roof.
Dudley was down. The door was on top of him. Three zombies were on top of the door. Snake Charmer was firing into the doorway in an attempt to keep any more zombies from getting to the roof.
“I’ll grab Dudley,” I shouted.
Snake gave me a slight nod and continued firing.
I smacked the dead off Dudley and helped him to his feet. He was dazed. When the shamblers charged the door, he must have taken a hit on the head. He put his arm around me, and we made our way to the helicopter. As I passed Snake, I tapped him on the shoulder, and he retreated with us, never once taking his eyes off the doorway.
As soon as we were in the helicopter, we took to the air. I watched as the dead swarmed the roof. Some of them even fell off in their eagerness to jump up and grab the rising chopper.
After one last look at the Hell we had so narrowly avoided, I turned my attention back to Jaxon. One of the soldiers was working on his gunshot wound, and administering basic first aid. The other three soldiers were pointing their guns at Snake, Dudley, and me.
“What the fuck?” I asked.
“You assholes have a good time shooting our friends?” A soldier asked.
I didn’t recognize any of them. They weren’t our usual pilots.
“I take it you jack wagons are more of those government agents?” Dudley asked. “Shouldn’t you be wearing black suits?”
“Who we are isn’t important,” the soldier replied. “Just know that you’re expendable, and if you make any sudden moves, we’ll kill you.”
We were disarmed. They moved efficiently for such big guys. I waited for an opportunity to attack but they gave me none.
“So you fuckers attacked Mr. Hardin,” Dudley said. “You took over his base, and then you went after us.”
The men didn’t answer.
“I bet you had something to do with the shooting at the awards ceremony,” Dudley continued.
“Nope,” the most talkative of the soldiers answered. “We’re just the cleanup crew.”
The other soldiers laughed. I fumed. I was stuck, and I didn’t like it. On the floor of the chopper, Jax began to moan. I was relieved he was alive but he was too messed up to be of any use in our present situation.
“I don’t get how this guy is still alive,” the medic soldier said.
“He’s the Guardian,” the talkative soldier laughed. “Don’t you know anything?”
All of the soldiers began to laugh at that point. It pissed me off. I hate being laughed at. I hated for Jaxon to be laughed at. I began to shake I was so angry. Snake Charmer put a hand on my arm to calm me down.
“He needs water to heal,” Dudley said.
“We don’t want him to heal,” the talkative soldier said. “We just want him to survive.”
After that, nobody said a word.
The second we left the airspace above El Paso it was obvious where we were headed. It made sense: the rest of their unit was probably still in the area.
“I hope you assholes put some men on those fences,” I said. “When the real bad guys got in they killed everyone guarding the gates.”
“I think we have things under control, big guy,” the talkative soldier said. “Thanks for the advice, though.”
The fuckers began to laugh again.
Eventually we landed in Ruidoso. The airport was empty of everyone except those black-suited government jerks. There was a small army of them around the helicopter the minute we touched the ground.
All of us left the helicopter at gunpoint.
Jaxon was taken away in a black van. Dudley took a small step towards him when they started carrying him off, and they shot him in the leg. Snake and I couldn’t go to his aid for fear of being shot as well.
“How the Hell did all of them survive?” A middle aged, geeky-looking man asked as he shoved his way through the black suits.
“No clue,” the talkative soldier replied. “Your man must have failed his objective.”
“Is my man still alive?” The geek asked with a pissed off expression.
“No clue, sir,” the talkative soldier answered. “We never saw him.”
“Major Crass,” Dudley said as he tried to rise to his feet. “You motherfucker.”
Major Crass looked him up and down.
“Well,” Major Crass said, “things aren’t a total bust. We have the Guardian, and we have two of his men. It won’t be long before we get the other two.”
“What do you want to do with them, sir,” the talkative soldier asked.
“Kill them,” Major Crass answered. “All we need is the Guardian, and when you find the other two, kill them as well. In fact, put out a kill order on anyone connected to the Regulators. That includes Hardin, Miriam, and that lesbian girl.”
“What the fuck?” I asked to nobody in particular.
Snake Charmer was stoic. Dudley was still rolling around on the ground, and clutching his leg. I, on the other hand, had made up my mind. I was a Regulator. I was a warrior. I wasn’t going down without a fight.
I grabbed the closest man and wrapped my arm around his neck. The circle around us instantly raised their weapons. I was about to take a bullet in the back, but suddenly I felt Snake’s back pressing against mine. He had managed to grab a man as well.
After that we were sort of stuck.
“What are you waiting for?” Major Crass asked his men.
“I’ll break his neck!” I shouted.
They didn’t seem to care. Fortunately for us, right before the bullets started to fly, a bunch of the black-suited men burst into flames. The circle around us broke apart. Snake dropped his captive and went immediately to Dudley, helping him up.
Gunfire came out of the darkness. Our enemies were forced to retreat. Snake, Dudley, and I, grabbed our confiscated weapons and ran in the direction of the gunfire. I had no idea who was firing, but they weren’t trying to kill us, so I thought it was a safe bet to head that way.
Dudley caught another round before we cleared the lights of the airstrip. I heard him cry out. Snake Charmer dropped to the ground next to him, and placed his own body over Dudley’s.
“We have a man down,” I shouted into the darkness.
Shapes appeared. I saw Georgie step out of the dark woods. I saw him shooting down the men that were trying to kill us. Javie came next. They flanked us and provided an opportunity to retreat.
As soon as we stepped away from the lights and entered the woods, Ivana ran towards Dudley. She had bottles of water and began pouring them on his wounds. Miriam didn’t look right. She scared the crap out of me. There was something evil in her distorted features. Also, her damn hands were on fire.
“What the fuck is going on?” I asked.
No one paid me any attention. I watched as scary Miriam walked out of the woods. She went to the edges of the lights and began motioning with her hands. I looked back towards the airstrip; I saw a great ball of fire that seemed to be following her commands.
“Wow,” I said. “Didn’t know you had it in you.”
I had always heard that Miriam was a witch. That was nothing new to me. However, I had never seen her do anything even remotely witch-like. Seeing her there with her features all distorted and her pale green skin, it was nice to know she was on our side.
The government assholes eventually had enough. Every time they tried to return fire, Miriam would nail them with that great big ball of fire, and if it wasn’t Miriam, it was Georgie, or Javie shooting them.
They finally fled back towards the airport.
“Jaxon,” Dudley said. “They took Jaxon.”
All of us stood in silence and watched our enemy retreat. I wish we could have done something. I wish we could have chased after Jaxon to rescue him but we had no idea where they had taken him.
“We need to get out of here,” Georgie said.
Dudley tried to argue. He wanted to go after Jaxon. I didn’t blame him. Each and every one of us would have gone after our leader if only we had known where to go. Instead, we dragged Dudley behind us and made our way into the woods.
After a short hike, we came to a dirt road. We followed the road for about a mile until we got to a waiting car. Father Monarez was behind the wheel.
“Where’s the General?” he asked.
“They got him,” I answered.
No one said a word as we drove away.
We left Ruidoso. There were no longer any roadblocks. In fact, nobody even seemed to be looking for us. Miriam had fallen asleep next to me. Her features seemed to be relaxing as she slept. She was beginning to resemble the old lady everybody knew and loved.
Some hours later, in some old and forgotten town that had just a few stores and a single gas station, we pulled off onto yet another dirt road. We followed this road for about two hours, and eventually came to an old, rundown, church in the middle of the desert.
Mr. Hardin was waiting for us by the front door. Behind him were a few priests, and about ten soldiers.
“You better start talking!” I shouted, as I got out of the car. “We tried to radio you about a thousand times. If you have a problem picking up on your end, how about I surgically attach the radio to your face?”
“I was attacked,” Mr. Hardin said. “Most of the people in our base were killed. I never got your radio transmissions because I was on the run.”
“Well,” I said. “That sucks.”
“Dudley needs to finish healing,” Ivana interrupted.
“We have tubs of water waiting, just in case,” Mr. Hardin said.
The priests came forward and helped Dudley into the church.
“Is anyone else injured?” Mr. Hardin asked.
“They took Jaxon,” I said. “What’s going on?”
“We’ll talk soon,” Mr. Hardin said. “After Dudley has recovered.”
It took Dudley a long time to heal. While he was healing up, everyone traded information so that we’d all be on the same page when the meeting began. The sun was coming up when Dudley finally joined us. Everything looks different in the light of day. In this case, anger gave way to hopelessness. Every one of us looked defeated.
“We need to find my uncle,” Dudley said.
“Yes,” Mr. Hardin answered. “We do.”
Mr. Hardin led us behind the church to what appeared to be a couple of old wooden doors that looked like they would lead to a dirty cellar. He placed his hand upon a flat rock five feet away from them, and the doors slid open with the hiss of technology.
We went down the metal stairs to a state of the art control room. Beyond the control room were bedrooms, showers, and a living space.
“Get used to this place,” Mr. Hardin announced. “This will be your home for the next few weeks, because all of us are in danger. The worst has happened. Our very own government has turned against us.”
“Why have they done that?” Dudley asked.
“We’ve been framed,” Mr. Hardin answered. “Before I was forced to flee, I was able to discover some of the truth. Major Crass has framed us for an attempt on the President’s life.”
“How the shit did he do that?” I asked. “They weren’t even after the President: Skie was their target. The President wasn’t even there when the attack on the awards ceremony began.”
“He wasn’t there because Major Crass called him away,” Mr. Hardin answered. “My sources tell me that he planted evidence against us. Evidence showing that we snuck a large group of criminal Albanians into the country for the purpose of assassinating the President.”
“How is that even believable?” Ivana asked with a quiver in her voice.
“It’s believable because Major Crass has fabricated a significant amount of evidence that points to its authenticity,” Mr. Hardin answered. “Major Crass was very clever. They went after Skie, and gave us a formidable enemy in the President.”
“Why would we want to kill the President?” I asked.
“I have been arguing rather aggressively with the President against the use of nuclear weapons on El Paso,” Mr. Hardin said. “I believe we’ve all been painted as extremists, willing to kill certain officials that do not agree with our opinions.”
“Have there been any other attacks aside from the banquet hall?” Dudley asked.
“Apparently, a number of officials and military advisors that share the President’s views have been eliminated within the past forty-eight hours,” Mr. Hardin said with a sigh. “Things look very bad for us right now, gentlemen.”
“Why have the Men in Black gotten involved?” Miriam asked.
“I can only speculate,” Mr. Hardin answered. “The Regulators represent the hope of the nation. In the eyes of the public, they are the force that keeps the outbreak from spreading outside of El Paso. If Major Crass kills the Regulators off quietly, he can keep their deaths a secret. As far as the world would know, the Regulators are hard at work fighting zombies, and the citizens of this country continue to feel safe.”
“That’s why the checkpoints have all been taken down,” I said. “That’s why our faces and names haven’t been posted all over the news. Major Crass wants to kill us off quietly. He wants everyone to think we’re still doing our thing. Eventually, if he ever figures out a way to end the zombie outbreak, he’ll probably release some story about how the entire team died in the line of duty.”
“I agree,” Georgie said. “Major Crass looks like a hero because he uncovered us traitors, and saved the President’s life. Meanwhile, we all get killed off quietly so that the world thinks we’re still out there protecting them. This is some fucked up shit.”
“Major Crass brought Max back to life somehow,” Dudley added. “He had him waiting for us in El Paso. Headquarters was attacked in an effort to kill off Mr. Hardin, and these so called Men in Black fuckers were sent to the hospital to take out everyone else. Wow, he really wanted all of us dead.”
“Let me interrupt, and see if I understand this correctly.”
Go ahead.
“Major Crass wants his revenge. So, he teams up with a resurrected former Guardian. He plots an assassination attempt on the General’s wife. He then masks that assassination attempt on Skie’s life as an attack upon the President, planned by Mr. Hardin and the Regulators?”
You got it.
“What about witnesses? People saw you fighting the Albanians. They saw you defending them?”
There weren’t many witnesses. A lot of people were killed at that banquet hall. It was, by all accounts, a massacre, and the ones that survived weren’t exactly paying attention to whom was shooting who. They were just trying to survive. In the end, it looked just like a botched assassination attempt. Hell, they even thought we turned on the Albanians, like that was all a part of our plan. Let them come in and do the dirty work, and then take them out so we look like heroes that failed to save the President, but still managed to rescue everyone else.
“But Major Crass never intended to kill the President?”
Nope. He wanted the President on his side. So, he comes in, and has the President removed from the banquet hall, like some kind of hero. Immediately after he pulls him out of there, and shows him a bunch of bogus evidence about us, the attack on the banquet hall happens. Pretty convincing if you ask me. After that, Major Crass immediately goes after Mr. Hardin and attacks his base, because he needs to make sure Mr. Hardin never gets a chance to talk.
“Major Crass also knew that Jaxon would track down the person responsible for shooting his wife and go after them.”
Exactly, and Jax, Dudley, and I, were supposed to die in El Paso, and the second the Monster failed to kill Jaxon, in came the backup plan with the fake soldiers sent to rescue us.
“His plan sounds perfect.”
It does, doesn’t it?
“Then what went wrong? He failed on all sides. All the Regulators survived; Mr. Hardin survived. The plan went to Hell.”
Did the plan go to Hell? I’m not sure it did. The asshole had Jaxon and the rest of us secretly branded as traitors. If we poked our heads out of the burrow, we were going to get a bullet in the brainpan courtesy of the Men in Black.
“But everyone survived. All of you were supposed to be dead. How did all of you survive?”
Luck. I don’t know what else to say. Mr. Hardin somehow got a warning that bad things were about to go down. He was ready when Major Crass’s people came for him. Dudley, Jax, and I, survived El Paso, but we may not have if Snake Charmer hadn’t turned up. The Men in Black attacked the hospital. They should have been successful, but no one expected Miriam to be such a badass. Maybe they underestimated us. Maybe it was just luck. Who can say?
“The Men in Black were the only people trying to kill you? Are they really deadly enough to be the only ones assigned to that task?”
I wondered the exact same thing. I mean, how many had we already mowed over? They didn’t impress me much at all. Eventually, I found out they were secret keepers, which was a nice way of saying they killed anyone that attempted to release information they didn’t want released.
It was Dudley who finally asked the question, though.
“Before you became a part of the Regulators,” Mr. Hardin answered, “did you ever hear about zombies, or vampires, or anything else that shouldn’t exist? They make a habit out of killing journalists and threatening family members.”
“That sounds pretty dangerous,” I said. “There go any attempts on our part to take things public.”
“That might be a good thing,” Georgie said. “We don’t have every law enforcement agency in the country hunting us down. We’ll be able to operate without a lot of interference and clear our name.”
“I think you’re underestimating the situation, Georgie,” Mr. Hardin said. “The Men in Black have been issued orders to kill all of us on sight. As we speak, they are tracking your relatives, your friends, and any other known sources you might turn to.”
“You think they could beat us?” I asked.
“You’ll never even see them coming,” Mr. Hardin answered. “There’s only one way to play this out. All of you need to stay in hiding while I go to Albania. I have connections there. Perhaps I can find a way to clear our names.”
“Why don’t we go with you?” I asked.
“Your faces are too famous,” Mr. Hardin answered. “I’d never be able to operate the way I need to operate with you boys with me.”
“What about Jaxon?” Dudley asked.
“I don’t know, Dudley,” Mr. Hardin answered. “I’m not sure why Major Crass took him alive; it certainly wasn’t a part of his original plan. I don’t even want to hazard a guess about his current intentions, but I think we can all be sure those intentions aren’t going to be anything good.”
Dudley said nothing. Then again, what could he say? We were screwed. We couldn’t move left, and we couldn’t move right. Major Crass had assumed Mr. Hardin’s job. If we went after him directly we’d have to fight our way through the military, and killing soldiers wouldn’t make a great case for our innocence. We had zero options left to us. Mr. Hardin going to Albania in an attempt to clear our names seemed like a long shot as well, but it was all we had left.
“What types of evidence did Major Crass have against you?”
We had no idea at the time, but we eventually found out that he had everything from cell phone recordings all the way to photographs and videos. All things that could be faked with the right equipment, but under those circumstances, nobody was questioning anything.
“Do you think Major Crass told anyone about Max?”
Hell no. Max was connected straight to the Albanians. Major Crass couldn’t be a part of that mess. The three of us running to El Paso for revenge probably looked like we were trying to regroup with our Albanian buddies and plan out our next steps.
“So what did you do after Mr. Hardin left?”
We waited.
I think we stayed in that location for about a month. After that, Father Monarez took us to Detroit. The church had places set up for us all over the country. We had to move every few months because the Men in Black were always right behind us.
I don’t know how they managed to track us down, but they just kept coming. It was frustrating. In the first six months alone, we had about five gunfights with them.
“Wait a minute. In the first six months alone? How long were you on the run?”
We were in hiding for a year and a half.
“Oh my God, I had no idea.”
That’s kind of the point, isn’t it? Everyone thought we were all in El Paso doing our thing, but nope; we were hiding the entire time. Georgie flirted with a girl at a gas station once during a transfer to another safe location. The next day she turned up dead. The Men in Black were probably worried he was passing information to her somehow. I still don’t know how they even knew he talked to her. I guess they probably saw his mug on a security camera or something.
“A year and six months after the attack on the awards ceremony is about the same time Jaxon was taken to a hospital in Ruidoso. Supposedly he was injured in El Paso. I always thought it was odd that they sent him to Ruidoso for medical attention but very little information was ever released about the incident.”
You’re jumping ahead.
“Am I?”
Yes. Jaxon was indeed taken to the hospital in Ruidoso. He was indeed very injured but he didn’t receive his injuries in El Paso.
“Where did he receive his injuries?”
I’ll get to that, but first, let me tell you what it was like to be in hiding for a year and a half. I’ll skip through the boring day-to-day repetitiveness. I know that’s not what you want to hear, but there are other things you need to know. Things that will maybe give you a better idea of what we were dealing with when things finally came to a close.
“I’m listening.”
It was rough. It was really rough. Mind you, Father Monarez took us to some pretty nice places. We weren’t roughing it by any means, but we had no contact with our family members. We couldn’t risk them being killed. We rarely received news from Mr. Hardin, and when we did, it wasn’t anything good. Life for us became very tedious, sprinkled with occasional bits of paranoia over being discovered.
Week after week went by at a snail’s pace. All of us were ready to fight. We were eager to get back into the game, but the game was over. Our lives were an endless road of boredom. We hoped for the best, but the light at the end of the tunnel grew dimmer with each long day.
At some point, the Men in Black realized Mr. Hardin wasn’t with us. So Snake Charmer left to go meet up with him and his small group of soldiers, in order to provide protection. Father Monarez, Miriam, Dudley, Ivana, Georgie, Javie, and I were the only ones left.
Father Monarez was the one that held everything together. He’s the one that kept us going. That man never gives up. He never gets defeated. He’s a very strong man. The church believed in destroying monsters. Father Monarez believed in us. Therefore, we continued to receive the aid of the church.
I think all of us were pretty worried the church would eventually get tired of hiding us, but Father Monarez is pretty well connected. Their support never wavered.
I think we were in Florida when things turned ugly. It was probably about six months after we went on the run. It was a nice place, if I remember correctly. At least it was on the inside. On the outside, it was just a rusted metal door in the middle of a swamp. I got out of bed sometime in the afternoon. My back was killing me, and I was trying to stretch it out.
Dudley started screaming.
Everyone came running. He was in the bathroom. We all got to the door at the same time. Apparently Dudley was shaving, and had somehow nicked his face. It was a pretty decent cut but nothing to get concerned about.
“It’s just a cut,” Georgie said. “It’s not that bad.”
Dudley ignored him, and started to rub water on the wound.
“Dudley,” Georgie said. “You need to calm down buddy. It’ll go away, just pour water on it.
That got Dudley’s attention.
“I’ve been pouring water on it!” Dudley shouted. “I keep washing it out. It’s still bleeding. It won’t stop bleeding.”
I couldn’t figure out what his problem was. I was more concerned with my aching back. I was in the middle of another stretch when everything clicked into place. I don’t get aches and pains. At least, I haven’t gotten them since I became a member of the Regulators. Something was wrong.
“How long have you been bleeding?” I asked.
“About five minutes,” Dudley answered.
“What’s going on?” Georgie asked.
I shoved everyone out of my way. I grabbed Dudley’s razor, and I slashed a slight cut into my hand. As soon as the blood started to flow, I put my hand under the water faucet. Despite the water, the wound continued to bleed.
“Oh shit,” I muttered. “What does this mean?”
Miriam’s hand went to her mouth.
“Miriam!” I shouted. “You need to answer me. What does this mean?”
Tears began to fall from her eyes.
“You stop that!” Dudley shouted. “You stop that right now. He can’t be dead. He can’t be dead. He’s my uncle. This is bullshit. We’re gonna find him. Mr. Hardin is gonna clear our names, and we’re gonna rescue my uncle.”
Everyone figured things out at about the same time.
Javie put his arm against the wall and buried his face. Georgie walked away. Ivana fell to the ground, and started sobbing. Miriam hadn’t moved an inch. I walked back to my room. I needed some privacy.
“The Guardian has fallen,” Miriam said as I slammed the door shut.
Father Monarez was out picking up supplies when all of this happened. He returned to a rather gloomy house. In the six months we spent together, all of us had gotten pretty tight. I mean, we were close before, but now, I don’t know. We needed each other. We relied on each other. We had to, how else could we get through all the bad shit?
There were a lot of tears, and there were a lot of hugs as we explained to Father Monarez that Jaxon had died. Later on that evening we all traded stories about him. Everyone but Miriam and Father Monarez had known Jax for a pretty long time. Jaxon was, without a doubt, a funny individual. I mean, the shit that boy got into.
It was a fun time. It was a sad time as well. One of us would be in the middle of a story, and just lose it. The person next to them would hug them tightly, until they regained their composure. Dudley never said a word. He sat in a chair the entire time with his legs folded up under his chin.
The next day we had a funeral.
Father Monarez led the services. We had no body, but that didn’t matter to us. We wanted to pay our respects to our leader. We wanted to honor our friend. Jaxon was an incredible human being. He was one of a kind.
Dudley went before everyone to say a few words.
“You all know my uncle,” Dudley said with tears in his eyes, and a tremble in his voice. “He was the best of all of us. He threw himself into harm’s way more times than I can count. He was a hero. He didn’t deserve…he didn’t deserve…I’m going to kill them. I’m going to kill every single one of them. The man was a hero. He saved everyone. He risked his life so many times. I used to get so worried about him. When he fought that stupid vampire, I thought we were going to lose him but we didn’t. He actually won that fight. I couldn’t believe it. After that, I thought he was invincible. He should have been invincible. All of those fuckers are going to die. Everyone that did this to him is going to die. I don’t care how long it takes. I won’t give up. They’ll have to kill me.”
After that, Georgie led him away. There was no way we were going to be able to avenge Jaxon’s death. We had all lost our power. We were normal human beings. We were no longer durable, we no longer healed, and we weren’t super strong anymore. We were just regular human beings, and we could die just as easily as everyone else.
For the next month or so, we all moped around. At that point Father Monarez began to talk to us about leaving the country. There were places in the world that were protected by the church. We would no longer need to run. The Men in Black would never dare chase us to the places Father Monarez had in mind.
None of us took him up on his offer.
We wanted our revenge. We began to ignore the fact that we were no longer empowered by the Guardian. We refused to accept our defeat. Six long months on the run with all of us desperately clinging to a failing shred of hope, only to discover that our friend and leader had been killed. No, scratch that, I misspoke. We were more than friends. We were family: we were bound by blood we had shed in defense of others. It was a brother we had lost.
Due to treachery and deceit, my brother had fallen. We began to plan. We had long discussions about how we could take down Major Crass, and the Monster. Unfortunately, the obstacles against us were too damn insurmountable. Attacking him outright wasn’t going to work. Without our powers, we would’ve been killed instantly. Our ideas were more like suicide missions, and we were okay with that.
Ivana tried to talk us down. She didn’t want us to die.
“We’ve lost so much,” Ivana cried. “I can’t stand to lose anymore. Let’s go away. Let’s go somewhere safe. Please, I’m begging you. I don’t want to lose anyone else.”
She broke my heart, but I never gave in to her pleas. Neither did Dudley, nor Georgie, or Javie. The latter two were quieter in their thoughts, but you could see the hatred boiling right beneath the surface of their calm expressions.
A few months later, Dudley began to behave erratically.
Something wasn’t right with him. He began talking to himself at night. He began drinking profusely. We were all worried. He kept his pistol with him at all times, and he began cleaning it every four hours.
One night, after he had downed an entire bottle of whiskey, he snuck out and assaulted a police officer. By the time we tracked him down, he had the cop on the ground. He had his pistol in the back of the man’s head and was demanding to know where the vampires were hidden.
It took both Miriam and Ivana to calm him down.
It was Father Monarez that explained he was exhibiting the symptoms of Post-Traumatic Stress Disorder.
Miriam eventually explained that the Guardian power protected us from such things. Well, we were no longer protected. We moved to the next location a day later.
Georgie was the next to have problems.
He was no longer able to sleep at night. Instead, he would pace back and forth in front of his bed. He would also slap himself on the forehead and curse himself for whatever mistakes he blamed himself for making.
I started getting nightmares. They were horrible dreams. All the people I lost. All the people I saw die. It was rough. After that, I dreamed about zombies. They were chasing me. They were cornering me. Every night in my dreams I would be ripped apart and devoured. I started taking pills in order to stay awake. I started hallucinating from lack of sleep but that was preferable to the nightmares.
Georgie tried to kill himself.
We should have seen it coming but we were all too busy dealing with our own private Hells. The things we’d seen were just too much. All the violence we’d committed was coming back to haunt us.
It was Ivana that stopped poor Georgie.
She bandaged up his wrist. She stopped the bleeding. He cried for an entire day, and she held him tightly the entire time.
“Don’t you leave me, Georgie,” Ivana cried. “Don’t you dare leave me.”
I started bawling when that happened, because honestly, I’d been giving some serious thought about doing the same thing. That’s not easy for me to admit, mind you, but it’s true. I was in bad shape. There was no joy in my life, and all the things I’d been through were haunting me.
Dudley was the worst.
He began to seclude himself from the rest of us. Where Georgie sought our help, Dudley kept his pain to himself. His mental health began to deteriorate rapidly. He no longer bathed. He no longer spoke to the rest of us. He just sat in his room cleaning his pistol every four hours.
I tried to talk to him.
“Dudley,” I said. “We’re getting worried about you. All of us are going through the same thing. You need to talk to somebody. Will you come out of your room?”
He ignored me.
Soon after that, Father Monarez moved us to another location.
I’m not sure where we moved that time either; for some reason I’m thinking it was California. There were so many places. I do remember it was in the woods. We were staying in yet another underground hideout. This one happened to be near a cliff overlooking the ocean.
Father Monarez once again tried to talk us into moving out of the country. He wanted us to be safe. He could see that we needed help. Javie began to agree with him. Javie, out of all of us, seemed the least affected by PTSD.
“At that point, how long had you been on the run?”
We had been on the run about a year and a half. I missed my kids. I would never have let them see me in the state I was in, but I missed them terribly. Father Monarez, Miriam, and Ivana, did their very best to hold us together, but it was tough. They had three mental cases on their hands, and we weren’t getting any better.
Dudley began to scream out bloodcurdling screams in the middle of the night. He yelled about taking revenge, but the rest of us no longer shared his thoughts. We knew we were broken. We were but mere shadows of what we used to be.
I was in the deepest wave of depression yet, when Father Monarez came to me a final time.
“We need to leave this place,” Father Monarez said. “You need help. I can get that for you. I can protect you. I can give you back your life. All you have to do is come with me.”
The thought of suicide sounded pretty good at that point. Still, I heard his words. I began to wonder if there was a way out. I wanted a way out. I wanted the depression to end. I wanted the nightmares to stop.
I agreed.
Georgie was probably worse off than I was, and it took a while to convince him to leave. He felt that by agreeing to move away, he was turning his back on Jaxon. But Jaxon was gone, and the rest of us were wasting away.
Ivana was the one that talked him into it in the end. She was the one with the patience needed to get through to him.
Dudley was next. He punched me in the face the first time I tried to talk to him. He called me a traitor. He swore he’d kill me along with everyone else on his hit list if I ever brought it up again. He wanted to wait. Something would happen. Our time was not over.
Miriam and Ivana talked to him. Jaxon wasn’t coming back. Never again would any of us be touched by the power of the Guardian. Jaxon wouldn’t want the rest of us to waste away and die. He’d want us to grab our chance at a new life and take it.
“What about Skie?” Dudley asked with tears in his eyes. “Who’s going to rescue her? I feel like such a fuck up. I feel like I should be doing something other than hiding.”
The guilt was killing him. He was blaming himself for Jaxon’s death. I searched for something to say to him. I came up empty.
“Come with us,” Ivana said. “We need you. We need your protection. We need you to get back on your feet. Without you, all of us will die.”
Those were the words that needed to be spoken. Despite all his pain, despite all the suffering Dudley was going through, he would never allow Ivana to come to harm. He would protect her with his dying breath.
It was decided. We were leaving the country. We were headed for greener pastures under the protection of the church. We would all get the help we needed. We would be safe for the rest of our lives.
The Men in Black had other ideas.
Javie and I were packing up the car with our meager belongings when the bullets started flying. I immediately ducked behind our vehicle after getting nicked in the shoulder. Javie began shooting back at them. It had been a long time since they had last found us. I guess we had gotten a little too comfortable, or maybe we simply didn’t care as much anymore. Regardless, we were in it big time.
It figures that things would come down on our heads like that. We had fought them off easily in the past. I mean, there were a few scary moments, but we always got away. Now, on the eve of our journey to a better life, they found us again.
Dudley came out of the underground bunker.
He wasn’t using cover. He wasn’t trying to keep himself safe. He stood there lining up his shots, and shooting our attackers. His shots were perfect. Every time he squeezed his trigger, a man died.
I began to yell at him to get down. Eventually, a bullet was going to find him. Eventually, he was going to get killed. It was a matter of time.
Georgie came out as well. He tried to grab hold of Dudley, but Dudley wouldn’t go with him. Georgie ended up sliding through the dirt, and taking up a position next to me.
The shootout was in full rage by the time the helicopters started circling overhead. We were doing pretty well in my opinion. Dudley hadn’t gotten himself killed yet. We had brought down at least ten of our enemies. Of course, we had no idea how many were lurking in the woods. It seemed like an entire battalion from where I was standing.
One of the helicopters had a large machine gun.
I had long since made peace with death. The end was upon us. We were trapped, and we weren’t getting out. I stood up and joined Dudley. Javie was right behind me.
Georgie began screaming at us. We ignored him and fought on. We were Regulators. We were going to die with a weapon in our hands. We were going to die fighting.
Georgie joined us.
The helicopter finally found the right position in the sky. I lifted up my pistol and began shooting at it. In a few seconds all of it would be over. I had a Hell of a good run. I can’t even tell you how many women fell victim to my charms, or how many zombies I managed to destroy. I was smiling as I pulled the trigger.
The strangest thing happened. The helicopter fired upon the Men in Black instead of us.
The machine gun lit up the woods. It rained down so much Hell that trees actually began to fall over. I immediately stopped shooting at the helicopter. I looked towards my teammates. They were as dumbfounded as I was.
Finally, the shooting stopped, and the helicopters began to land in the clearing around our bunker. Snake Charmer stepped out of a helicopter and ran towards us. He wasn’t alone. He had four other men with him that radiated combat experience the same way he did.
Mr. Hardin stepped out of the helicopter behind them. He was wearing a grey suit, and he was smiling from ear to ear.
“Gentlemen,” Mr. Hardin said when he was close enough. “What do you say we go back down in that bunker and catch up a bit?”
Inside the bunker, we all sat around a metal table. Dudley kept his distance, choosing a spot far away from Mr. Hardin.
“We’re all in the clear,” Mr. Hardin said.
“What are you saying?” Javie asked.
“Major Crass came forward, and confessed everything,” Mr. Hardin said. “He confessed to aiding in the orchestration of an assassination attempt upon the General’s wife. He admitted to disguising that same attempt on her life as a hit on the President. He admitted to resurrecting the former Guardian. He even admitted to smuggling a number of criminal Albanians into the country. Our names have all been cleared.”
Everyone at the table cheered.
“Why would he do that?” Dudley asked. “And where the fuck have you been? We haven’t heard from you in months.”
“I apologize for that Dudley,” Mr. Hardin said. “It couldn’t be helped. The Men in Black were closing in on me. I was in Albania and was getting close to capturing a high-ranking member of the Albanian Mafia that knew the truth about Major Crass. If I had made an attempt to contact you boys, the Men in Black would’ve been on me in a heartbeat. I couldn’t risk it.”
“You didn’t answer all of my questions,” Dudley said.
“I was not able to catch the man I was after,” Mr. Hardin said. “That particular fellow died as we attempted to apprehend him. Things were looking bleak. Our numbers were small, and we simply didn’t have the manpower to bring down an entire Mafia; which is what it would have taken in order to get to the truth. My plan had failed miserably. The Albanians were on to us.”
“I’m sure you did your best,” Georgie said.
“I did indeed,” Mr. Hardin said. “Yet, my best wasn’t good enough. All the time spent tracking him down, and I let him get killed. I contacted some of my associates in the government after that. I wanted to arrange my surrender, and see if I could somehow offer something up in exchange for the freedom of the Regulators. I didn’t have high hopes, but it was worth a try. Imagine my surprise when I was told that Major Crass wanted to meet with me.”
“What?” I asked.
“He needed my help,” Mr. Hardin laughed. “I flew back to the States immediately. We were all arrested the second we exited the plane. For a moment there, I thought I’d been played. I thought my associates had been turned against me. Instead, I was flown to New Mexico, to our old base of operations. Major Crass was there, waiting for me.”
“You’ve got to be kidding me,” Georgie said.
“I’m glad I’m not kidding you,” Mr. Hardin chuckled. “It seems that Major Crass resurrected Max, not only to kill off Jaxon, but to pick up where Jaxon left off. You see: Major Crass wanted to finish up what all of us had started. He wanted to be the man responsible for cleaning up El Paso. Unfortunately for him, Max had other ideas. Their relationship began to deteriorate immediately after Jaxon escaped the city. Max has his own agenda. We just aren’t sure what that agenda is at the moment.”
“I doubt it’s anything beneficial,” I said.
“You’re right about that,” Mr. Hardin said. “At the moment he seems content to merely inhabit El Paso, but he doesn’t allow any intruders. Whenever Major Crass sent forces into the city in order to cut down the zombie population, Max would attack them and kill them off.”
“So Max is the ruler of a city of corpses,” I said.
“He is indeed,” Mr. Hardin said. “Major Crass has lost all control over the situation. Max is running wild. The last time he ran wild, he created the outbreak in El Paso. Major Crass fears his new scheme is to release the zombies from the city.”
“Wait a second,” I said. “What do you mean release the zombies from the city?”
“That’s what Major Crass believes,” Mr. Hardin said. “I’ve had no contact with Max, so at this point it’s all just speculation.”
“Holy shit,” Javie said.
“Holy shit is right,” Mr. Hardin agreed. “Major Crass had no other choice. The zombie outbreak is an extinction-level emergency. Major Crass wanted his revenge on us, and he certainly wanted my job, but he never wanted to end the world. The man has four children he loves greatly. He doesn’t want them living in a world full of zombies. He was forced to do the right thing. He confessed everything, and begged me to clean up his mess so his children wouldn’t have to face a world of shit.”
“So we’re free?” Ivana asked.
“We are much more than free, darling,” Mr. Hardin laughed. “The Regulators are back in business.”
We all just stared at him.
Mr. Hardin stared back at us.
“This isn’t exactly the reaction I was expecting,” Mr. Hardin said.
“There are some things you should know,” Father Monarez said. “The team has lost…”
“My uncle is dead,” Dudley interrupted. “My uncle is dead, and we lost our powers. Go tell Crass he’s too late. Go tell him that his kids are fucked because he killed off the one man that could have saved the day.”
Mr. Hardin looked at Dudley. Then, he looked at the rest of us. Finally, he could see it. He could tell by our appearances that we were broken.
“You boys have had a rough time,” Mr. Hardin said. “That’s horrible, and I’m truly sorry for all that you have suffered. I can’t even imagine what things were like for you. However, it’s time to pick up the pieces. We have a world to save.”
“Are you not listening to me?” Dudley asked. “Jaxon is dead. We can’t help you.”
“I’m not sure where you came by that information, son,” Mr. Hardin said. “But Jaxon is very much alive according to Major Crass. In fact, I think it’s about time we went and freed him.”
Dudley stood up from the table.
Everyone except Mr. Hardin tensed up. We weren’t sure what Dudley was going to do. We weren’t sure of what he was capable of doing.
“Where is he?” Dudley asked.
“He’s in prison,” Mr. Hardin answered. “Would you like to come with me to bust him out?”
The entire fucking table stood up.