The Regulators - 02 (17 page)

I was waiting for
Georgie in the same room I had previously been conducting interviews for this
piece. He was forty minutes late when the door finally opened. In walked a man
clad from head to toe in black padded leather. He had a helmet over his head as
well. The helmet had a black visor, so not even his face was visible.

He closed the door
behind him as quickly as possible, but I could hear the unmistakable sounds of
Jaxon’s cackle from the hallway. Slowly, he took off his gloves and then his
helmet which he placed on the table. He then offered me his hand
.

Hello, my name is Georgie.

“
It’s nice to finally
meet you, Georgie. I’ve heard a lot about you
.”

Yes, I’m sure you have. Where would you like to begin?

I was beginning to get
a little worried. Georgie actually sounded more like a robot than one of the
Regulators. Every other member of the team had a definite personality. Georgie
on the other hand seemed as if he had lost his in one of the battles
.

“
Jaxon took me to the
point in which you had just found out that you were dealing with a vampire.
Could you continue where he left off
?”

I’m not sure that you are authorized to receive that
information.

I was trying to think
of a response, or possibly just a way to remove myself from the room when
Dudley burst through the door, took one look at Georgie and started laughing. I
had no idea what he was laughing about, but Georgie looked more than a little
upset about it. A moment later, Jaxon joined Dudley and they were both laughing
at an angry looking Georgie.

It was when Jaxon and
Dudley began to poke and pull on his leather pants that I realized they were
making fun of the way he was dressed. I honestly tried not to laugh along with
them, but, in the end, I lost it. It started with a smile, but in moments I was
laughing hysterically along with them.

Apparently, anything
more than a helmet and a leather jacket when riding a motorcycle is some sort
of faux pas. In between chuckles, Dudley explained to me that Jaxon always
laughed about the way Georgie dressed when riding his motorcycle, but Dudley
had never actually seen it until that very moment.

Jaxon asked me if the
interview was going well. I said that Georgie wasn’t being cooperative. Dudley
then walked over to Georgie and pinched and twisted his nipple, all while
demanding that he whistle if he wanted to be released. Georgie was unable to
produce a whistle, but Dudley released him anyway after he promised to
cooperate fully and answer all my questions.

Dudley and Jaxon were
still laughing when they left the room
.

Okay, what was your last question?

“
I was wondering if
you could continue where Jaxon left off
.”

I can do that, yes.

“
Before we get into
that, I’m just wondering, do they act like that a lot
?”

Dudley and Jaxon?

“
Yes
.”

All the time. We all sort of act crazy and immature. I think
it comes with the job. The minute the stress is over we live it up. Because
sooner or later we are gonna be put back into those dangerous situations again.

Then again, those two have always been assholes. Just don’t
tell them that I said that.

We laughed for a
moment and suddenly a new person was starting to emerge. He was actually very
funny as he told me stories of the antics the team often got caught up in. It
was a fun time. Georgie is an excellent storyteller
.

When the laughter
finally stopped, Georgie became a little serious again
.

It was pretty rough. At the time, I didn’t know everything
that Jaxon had gone through, but it was rough on him. He looked worn out. I was
a little worried about him after I saw the damage on his arm with the torn
sleeve. Even through his tattoos, I could see the bruises.

You see, it’s the team’s job to worry about Jaxon because he
never worries about himself. He will often throw himself into the most
dangerous situation. It makes us pretty nervous to tell you the truth, but
that’s Jax. He’s the hero. If he didn’t act that way, I don’t think he would
have been chosen to be the Guardian.

If a vampire had been hunting me, I would have pissed myself.
Jax isn’t like that. He’s just wired differently. He took the news from Hardin
with barely a shrug of his shoulders.

“So how do we kill it?” Jaxon asked.

“Jaxon, you are not listening to me,” Hardin answered. “We
don’t know how to kill it. We don’t even try to kill it. We evacuate you from
the area until it goes away.”

“Yeah, yeah,” Jaxon replied. “I’ve heard it before. Weren’t
you the one that told me the last Guardian was going to kill me? What happened
there?”

“This is different, Jaxon. Even the last Guardian was
evacuated if we thought there were vampires in the area. It’s just not safe.”

“I’m not running. So why don’t you figure out a way for me
to kill that thing and get back to me. Also, I need some new gear. Javie will
give you a list.”

With that, the conversation with Hardin was over.

After Jaxon told Javie everything that he needed, Javie
vanished into another room in order to relay Jaxons request in relative
quietness. The kitchen was getting rather loud as Jaxon relayed his story of
the last couple evenings. Nick’s new friends Katie and Jason even joined in on
the fun. It probably wasn’t the type of story that the kid should have heard,
but he stared up at Jaxon with a vast amount of hero worship.

Jaxon pretty much ignored the kid.

When the tale was told, we all sort of sat around in
amazement. Things had just become even more difficult. It was one thing to
rescue people from zombies, but what the hell were we supposed to do about the
vampire that was trying to kill us?

“
I imagine that it must
have been more than a little upsetting
.”

It was, but Jaxon tried to break the tension. At least, I
think that’s what he was doing. For all I know, he might have been serious.
It’s often hard to tell with him.

“So Nick,” Jaxon said. “Why are you here and how do I get
rid of you?”

Nick sort of just looked at him for a moment as if he wasn’t
sure how to respond. That, by the way, is a normal reaction when people aren’t
sure if he’s joking or not. Nick eventually decided to laugh it off and even
threw in a few expletives for revenge. Jaxon just kept looking at him as if he
were some sort of weird insect never before classified.

I relaxed just a bit when Javie returned with the news that
Jaxon’s gear would be parachuted in within the next half hour. That was when
Kingsley began to question Jaxon.

“Are you sure about this, Jax? Should we be continuing this?
I mean, a vampire? What the hell do we know about vampires? I think you’re in
over your head.”

“What did we know about zombies until we were stuck in the
middle of an outbreak?” Dudley asked. “It’s not like we can choose which
battles we want to fight. What do you expect us to do, turn tail and run every
time something wants to kill us? If we plan on killing evil monsters for a
living, we had better get used to evil monsters wanting us dead.”

“I agree with Dudley,” Nick said. “That bitch ain’t got shit
on us. We can take her out easy. All we need is to do is fill her up with
bullets whenever she comes around looking for Jaxon.”

“I’m still wondering why you’re even here,” Jaxon said to
Nick. “And Dudley is right. Regulators do not run. We didn’t come back to El
Paso just to run away when things get rough. There are people out there that
need us, and nothing out there is going to stop me from helping them. Anyone that
wants out, feel free to catch the next chopper out of here.”

“Here, here,” I added. “Only pussies run from sparkly
vampires.”

“Shouldn’t you be long gone then?” Nick said.

“Jax was wondering why you’re still here,” I replied.

“How about I hit you with another bottle?” Nick asked.

“Jax,” I said. “Will Nick be leaving when we extract Katie
and Jason?”

“Yes,” answered Jaxon.

“What the fuck?” Nick roared. “Are you off your rocker? You
would really want a pussy like Georgie and a candy ass like Kingsley fighting
next to you instead of me? Look at Kingsley, he’s terrified. He doesn’t even
want to be here and Georgie has always been a wimp.”

“I’m not a pussy when I have a gun in my hand,” I replied.

Jaxon had also taught me some hand to hand. It wasn’t
something I wanted to rely on when facing either zombies or vampires, but I
really wasn’t that big of a wimp.

“What the hell do you want to be a part of this for?” Jaxon
asked.

“I don’t know,” Nick answered. “I spent so much time just
being terrified and so much time trying to survive, I guess I feel bad for
anyone else going through what I went through. It just feels like something
that I need to do.”

Nick was actually getting a little teary-eyed. Jaxon just
looked at him for a long moment and then shrugged his big ole shoulders once
again.

“Whatever,” Jaxon said.

“
What did that mean
?”

Basically it meant that Jaxon wasn’t happy about it, but he
was still going to give Nick a chance. Javie then announced the gear was being
dropped, and we all rushed to the front of the house to see how this was going
to go.

The helicopter was already headed home when I looked out my
front door. I was impressed with how quickly they were able to deliver the new
gear, but I had no idea where it was.

It was Dudley that first noticed it. He pointed his finger
up into the nighttime sky and after a brief moment, I located what he was
pointing at. There were three large canisters silently floating down towards
the street beneath black parachutes that weren’t big enough for a person but
suited the canisters perfectly.

The only problem was that they landed in the middle of the
street.

All of us sort of looked at each other and then as one, we
gazed down the road towards the fence. There were about a hundred or so zombies
wandering aimlessly at the gate. They hadn’t seen us, so they weren’t trying to
break in, but the noise we made from the brief fight with the vampire girl had
attracted them.

Left alone, these zombies would probably just wander off
eventually, but if they happened to see a living person inside the safe zone,
they weren’t going to go anywhere and their screams would only attract more of
them.

“Oops,” Dudley said.

“Send Georgie out to go get them,” Nick said.

“How bout no, bitch,” I responded.

“Sounds like a job for the new guy if you ask me,” Jaxon
said.

“I agree,” Dudley said. “Go get those canisters, tough guy.”

“What the hell?” Nick sputtered. “There are zombies out
there.”

“There sure are,” Jaxon said. “But a big, tough guy like you
isn’t afraid of a bunch of shamblers. Hell, you should have seen all the
zombies Dudley and I had to deal with back when we blew up Tito’s apartment
complex.”

“Good times,” Dudley said.

“Pussy,” Jaxon whispered.

Everyone was starting to snicker at Nick’s expense.

“Here pussy, pussy, pussy,” Dudley whispered while tapping
his legs as if Nick were a dog, and Dudley was trying to call him forward.

“Oh, you guys are funny,” Nick said.

Even the little kid was starting to laugh.

“Let’s just wait until that crowd wanders off,” Kingsley
said. “They won’t stick around if they don’t see any people.”

“Well duh,” Jaxon said. “But where’s the fun in that?”

Everyone began to laugh, but the funniest part was the look
of relief in Nick’s face when he felt confident that Jaxon didn’t really want
to send him out to retrieve the canisters.

“It wasn’t so much the zombies that were making me nervous,”
Nick said. “I just didn’t want to run into that vampire all by myself out
there.”

“Regulators are never by themselves,” Dudley said. “We have
each other’s backs or we don’t survive.”

“What about when Jaxon charges a horde of zombies and then
disappears for two days?” I replied.

“Jaxon’s special,” Dudley answered.

“You trying to say that I’m short bus special?” Jaxon asked.

“Of course not,” Dudley said.

“Because you had a definite tone,” Jaxon added.

“I’m not sure what you are referring to,” Dudley said.

“Well maybe if you removed your head out of your ass, you
would understand things a bit better.”

“Keeping my head in my ass is the only place I have to get
away from you.”

“Well maybe I should…“

“Would you guys stop fucking around,” Kingsley shouted.
“There are zombies at the fence and a freaking vampire somewhere out there, and
you guys are still joking around like our lives aren’t in serious danger.”

“Now who’s a pussy?” Nick asked. “It’s not me.”

Kingsley became angry at the comment and stormed off up the
stairs to the bedroom he always used when he crashed at my house.

It was the last time I saw him alive.

Javie was the one that went to go check on him. The rest of
us were eating in the kitchen. I remember the look on his face when he told all
of us that Kingsley wasn’t in the room. He looked like he already knew that we
had lost a teammate. I also remember getting angry at the look on his face. I
wasn’t ready to write off one of our guys until I saw the body.

All of us ran to the bedroom.

The window was wide open. Cold air was gently blowing into
the room. There were blood spots on the window sill. Jaxon approached
cautiously and peered outside.

“There are broken shingles on your neighbor’s roof,” Jaxon
said. “She must have grabbed him and carried him off.”

“How do you know it was the vampire?” Nick asked.