Read The Regulators - 02 for Free Online Page B

Tower,
which was located on Mesa.
    “ What’s the Coronado
tower ?”
    Oh yeah, you don’t live in El Paso. It’s just a tall
building on Mesa. It might actually be the tallest building on the West side,
but don’t quote me on that. At the moment however, I can’t seem to think of
anything taller. It also has a nice restaurant on the top floor. I heard it’s
pretty delectable, but I’ve never actually eaten there.
    Also, just in case you didn’t know, Mesa is one of the main
streets on the West side of El Paso.
    “ I actually remembered
that. Please continue .”
    Well apparently, the zombies that Jaxon had led away from
out location were all in the process of returning. It was evident the minute we
hit Mesa and random corpses starting charging the car and belting out those
nasty screams.
    It was almost a game between Kingsley and me as we tried to
pop off headshots before they could scream. It wasn’t an easy game by any
means. There were too many deserted cars and blocked routes on the street and
the shamblers were coming from all directions.
    I really don’t know how to accurately describe something
running out at you from behind an abandoned car. Their decaying yellowish
faces, their slimy bone-like hands. It’s nightmare material. Some of them were
limping, others just bolted towards us at a sudden dead run.
    Still, we did a decent job. We kept all of them from
approaching the Jeep. Unfortunately, we weren’t able to keep all of them from
screaming. More and more of them were attracted by the screams and headed our
way. My main concern was that they were going to mass around the Coronado Tower
once we made our way inside.
    “Hardin, there’s too many shamblers out here,” I said after
I gave my earpiece a tap.
    “I think you’re okay, Dudley,” Hardin replied. “The dead are
pretty spread out in your area. Just to be safe, instead of doing the
extraction at the top of the tower, let’s pull this off in the large parking
lot behind the building.”
    “That’ll work,” I replied.
    It was a relief to all of us. Nobody wanted to go to the top
of that building. We had no idea what we would encounter and didn’t want to get
stuck if the exits got surrounded.
    The parking lot behind the Coronado Tower also was a bit of
a challenge. It was an open area with pretty much zero cover. According to the
plans that Jaxon and Hardin came up with, we weren’t supposed to hang around
when a chopper came to pick up survivors, because a landing chopper is pretty
much a dinner bell for the undead. The idea was for us to leave the survivors
in a safe place, while we retreated to a decent cover where we could provide
protection in case the survivors needed it.
    There was no safe place for us to place Adam and Michelle
for extraction. We would need to be right next to them in order to provide
security, and that pretty much left us fucked when it came time to remove
ourselves after the extraction.
    I wanted to explain this to Hardin, but I didn’t want to
look like a pussy. Man-pride won out in the end. I said nothing.
    When we reached the location, I had already figured out a
plan. We parked the Jeep on one of the adjoining streets and left Georgie with
the Jeep. Then we pretty much covered the compass by using Coronado Towers as
south. Javie took north in an area where some construction was going on.
Kingsley and Georgie made up east and west. Georgie had the Jeep for cover, but
Kingsley found a group of cars in which to hide himself fairly well.
    Everything was far from ideal, but we made do. There were a
few zombies in the area. I popped off some shots to bring them down as I walked
Adam and Michelle to the center of the parking lot. Both of them were
terrified, but Michelle seemed to have more energy. She was walking without any
aid from Adam, only holding his hand.
    As soon as we hit the center, I tapped my earpiece for Hardin.
    “We’re in position and the position sucks, so get that
chopper here now.”
    I