Ragnarok Rising: The Awakening (Book One of The Ragnarok Rising Saga) (27 page)

All around the bus, I could hear people trying to contact the stranded officers.
I didn’t hear any replies, other than static. Suddenly, I heard a garbled reply.

“Who ever had that, turn up the volume,” I yelled.
“Everyone else, go silent.”

I heard
Burton key up his radio and say, “10-9 last traffic, please repeat.”

“Say again, this is Sergeant Daniels, Nathanael County Sheriff’s Office.
Can anyone hear me?”

Sergeant Daniels was my Sergeant, from my shift.
I moved to Burton’s side and he could see the look of excitement on my face. He handed me the radio mic and nodded at me, smiling.

“Sergeant Daniels,” I said. “This is Grant.
Where are you?”

“I’m with Corporal McDonald, Officer Rubin and Deputy Brewer from patrol,” he said. “God, it’s good to hear your voice, Wylie.”

“You too, sir.”

“We’re trapped inside the Main Library on the south end of town,” he said.
“McDonald, Rubin and I are fine, but Brewer’s been bitten. He’s in pretty bad shape.”

“Be careful.
Brewer will turn into one of them.”

“Yeah, we know,” said Sergeant Daniels.
“We saw it happen with Tom Prescott.”

Prescott was one of ours, from my shift.
He was a good kid. He was the third confirmed dead from our shift. Now we’ve lost Tom Prescott, Amy Gillespie, and Mike Boyett. I knew there would be more.

“Keep him isolated and don’t let him bite anyone,” I said.
“Do you copy?”

I could hear the sarcasm dripping from the Sarge’s voice.

“Yeah, no shit, Wylie,” he said. “We’ve got him isolated.”

“Can you hold until we can get there?”

“We’re dug in pretty good. I don’t think that they’ll get in, any time soon. But food’s in short supply.”

“We’re in the middle of a rescue, right now.
We’ll come for you as soon as we’re clear.”

“Copy that.
We’ll hold. We’re out of ammo, though. We can’t get out to you.”

“Understood,” I said. “Conserve your battery.
Check this frequency at the top of every hour for updates.”

“Can do.
Daniels, out.”

I looked up and smiled.
We’d found more officers. That’s when I noticed that we weren’t moving. I tossed the mic back to Burton and headed to the front of the bus.

“What’s the problem?” I asked Sanders.

“We’re pretty much surrounded,” said Sanders. “But that’s not the worst of it. There’s no way to get down the street to make it to the drugstore parking lot.”

“We could cross here,” I said.
“If you can make it into the parking lot of that strip mall, we should be able to go from parking lot to parking lot.”

“But it looks like they have big dividers between the parking lots,” said Sanders.
“I don’t think the suspension will take it.”

“Go to the back of the buildings.
There should be a connector alley back there. If not, we can always drive through the grass at the back.”

I began reloading my Mossberg while Sanders studied the road in front of us.
Then he found his mark, a green station wagon. He edged up to it, crushing four zombies between the two vehicles. Then he gunned the engine and started pushing. The zombies were pulverized as the bus started shoving the smaller vehicle into other cars. The bulldozer tactic was working, again. Sanders turned the wheels slightly to the left and mashed the accelerator.

“Way to go,
Cal,” I said, “Nice work.”

We began pushing the other vehicles at an angle, creating an opening that led to the lanes on the other side of the road.
Sanders stopped and backed up, then headed into the opening. He moved up to the rear of one vehicle and the front of another, centering our bumper on the gap between the two vehicles. Then he pushed. The two vehicles slid apart and away from us in a wedge, taking the vehicles in the next lane with them.

The opening was narrow, but Sanders went for it.
We could hear the scraping of metal on metal as we slid between the vehicles. It did shake off the zombies that were clinging to the front and sides of the bus. Then we were through and into the parking lot of the strip mall. Sanders was right about there being a large divider between the parking lot we were in and the next one closer to the drugstore. The next parking lot belonged to another Japanese restaurant.

With a nod to me, Sanders headed to the back of the strip mall.
Luckily, we found that the curb stopped at the back, allowing trash trucks to have access to the dumpsters behind the strip mall and the other businesses. It was clear all the way to the drugstore parking lot. Shockingly, there weren’t many zombies back there, either.

Sanders smiled in relief as we bounced down the rough area behind the buildings.
The back door of the Japanese restaurant was open and three zombies came running out as we approached. One was wearing a Japanese Sushi Chef’s attire. It was funny to see, since he looked Hispanic, not Oriental. Sanders snapped the wheel to the left and then back to center, running over all three of them in the process. I waited to hear the next in the series of one-liners from Cal, but he didn’t say anything.

“What?” I said
, shaking my head. “No funny line?”

“Hell, Wylie,” he said.
“He was dressed Japanese, but looked Mexican. I don’t know whether to yell ‘Banzai!’ or ‘Ole!’”

I couldn’t help but laugh, anyway.
Cal looked so serious, it was as funny as if he’d really meant it as a joke.

“
Cal,” I said, slapping him on the back. “You crack me up!”

As we were turned
into the back of the parking lot of the drugstore, I noticed that there were quite a few cars in the parking lot. The path to the front was mostly clear. Without any serious obstructions, we would be able to pull right up to the front of the building.

“We shouldn’t have any trouble getting to the front door,” said
Cal.

The window to the drive-thru pharmacy lane was completely covered.
We bounced over a half dozen zombies that were milling around the area. Then we continued on to the front of the store. Once we rounded the corner, we could see that the front was clear of vehicles. Unfortunately, there had about fifty zombies banging on the front doors. Sanders didn’t wait for instructions and lined up for a run.

His angle couldn’t have been better as he slammed into the crowd, crushing several and scattering the rest.
We came to a stop, right up against the doors with our door centered on theirs. Cal had lined us up perfectly. All it cost us was the passenger side-mount mirror. It was a small price to pay, all things considered. I pulled out the locking board and Cal pulled the door open. Then, I stepped down to the door and knocked.

“Pizza delivery
!” I called.

Instantly, boxes began to move away from the glass door and a face appeared.
I couldn’t make out who it was through all the cracks in the glass. When he grinned and pulled open the door, I recognized him instantly. It was Alex Parker from Patrol, formerly from C-Shift. We’d gone to the academy together.

“You’re late,” he said, smiling from ear to ear.
“You can forget the tip.”

“Fine,” I said.
“I spat on your pepperoni anyway.”

With that, Alex grabbed me in a bear hug and pulled me inside the store.
He picked me up and nearly crushed my ribs.

“Damn, it’s g
ood to see you, Wylie!” he said, excitedly.

“Yeah, you too,” I groaned.

With a chuckle, he dropped me and stepped back. Then I got my first look into the store. The place had been thoroughly ransacked. They had pulled out shelves and anything they could find that was heavy to put against the door.

“How many people do you have in here?”

“Sixteen,” he replied, with a frown. “It would have been more, but we lost three before we got the door barricaded. It was me and Tom Gibson from patrol plus Michelle Campbell and Corporal Gary Haggard from the jail in here with the survivors. Gary got dragged out the door when we were trying to barricade.”

That made four confirmed, now.
Gary and Michelle were from my shift, as well.

“Where’s Campbell and Gibson?” I asked.

“Campbell got bit on the way in. We had to lock her in a bathroom. I didn’t have the heart to shoot her. Gibson’s back there, guarding the door just in case.”

That made five confirmed dead from my
crew.

“Well then,” I said.
“Let’s get everyone loaded up and bug the hell out of here. Grab any supplies that we can use.”

“What do you need?”

“Food, water, batteries, anything we can feasibly use,” I said. “First aid kits, flashlights, you name it. Oh yeah. Grab coffee, too.”

“What about Medical supplies?” asked EMT, stepping inside.

“Grab Southard and head back to the pharmacy,” I replied. “Take whatever you think we’ll need, but make it fast.”

“On it,” said EMT, heading off.

We put everyone to work that was able to walk. It seemed to take forever, but in reality it couldn’t have been more than five minutes. We filled every seat that wasn’t occupied, and stuffed the aisles full, too. When we all got back on the bus, we noticed that the crowd of zombies around us had grown, considerably. In the time it took for us to ransack the store, more of the dead had converged on us from all directions.

There had to be close to a hundred of them banging on the sides.
Several were on the hood, banging on the glass. I knew it wasn’t bullet-proof and it would just be a matter of time before it broke and they got inside. So far, it was holding but I knew that it wouldn’t hold out forever.

“
Cal, get this thing moving!” I yelled as Sanders slid back into the driver’s seat.

Cal fired up the engine and shut the door.
I dropped the lock back into place as Cal took a look around us.

“Ca
n you get through?” I asked him, suddenly nervous.

In the excitement of grabbing supplies, I forgot to watch the zombies gathering around us.
If Cal couldn’t get us moving, again, we were done. We’d all be trapped inside that drug store.

“Probably not,” he said.
“Not without picking up some momentum, first. We’re really heavy, now.”

“There aren’t as many behind us,” yelled
Burton, from the back of the bus. “Looks like only ten or so, back here.”

“I can’t see for shit behind us,” said
Cal. “We’ve lost both side mirrors and without them, I’ll hit something for sure. If the rear of the bus rolls up on top of a car, we’re stuck.”

“How about tossing a grenade out the front,” said Spec-4.

“No way,” said Sanders. “If you take out the radiator or a tire, we’re boned.”

“He’s right,” I said.
“We can’t risk it.”

“Well whatever you decide to do, you’d better make it quick,” said Spec-4, pointing.
“We’ve got more in-bound coming at us from the east.”

I looked where she was pointing and saw a crowd of at least a couple hundred coming our way.
It wouldn’t take long for them to get here. We had about five minutes, at the most. It was probably less than that.

“Damn it,” I cursed.
“Parker! Where’s your Charger?”

“Across the street in that burger shack’s parking lot,” he said.
“Why?

“Is it drivable?”

“Last time I checked it,” he replied. “What have you got in mind?”

I grabbed my backpack, Mossberg, M-16 and a spare radio battery.

“Sanders,’ I said. “Get ready to move. I’m going to clear you a path. Parker, give me your keys.”

Parker tossed me his keys and looked at me like I’d gone insane.
I yanked out the door block and pulled open the door.

“Once I’m inside the drug store, you back up about fifty feet.
You’re clear at least that far. Once you clear the door, I’ll make you a hole big enough to drive through.”

“How’re you going to get out?” asked Sanders.

“Once you’re through, I’ll haul ass over to Parker’s Charger. I’ll follow you back to the jail,” I said. “Easy as pie.”

Sanders looked at me hard for a second, and then nodded slowly.

“You’ll never make it,” he whispered, his eyes wide.

“Don’t count me out of this, yet,” I said.
“Just do it. Once I clear you a hole, don’t stop for anything. Got it?”

“I won’t leave you behind,” he said, matter-of-factly.

“Look behind you, Cal,” I said, pointing. “There are women and children on this bus. You’ve got to get them to safety, no matter what. We don’t have time to argue.”

With that, I jumped back into the store.
Spec-4, Southard and Parker followed me.