Ragnarok Rising: The Awakening (Book One of The Ragnarok Rising Saga) (3 page)

There were four shifts of CO’s and we worked 12 hour rotating shifts.
Alpha and Charlie shift worked the same days but opposite hours. Bravo and Delta shift worked opposite days from Alpha and Charlie. I was on Alpha Shift and that meant I rarely saw the officers on “B” and “D” and I didn’t know most of them very well. But “C” shift was our “sister” shift. I knew most of them almost as well as the officers on my shift. We saw each other every day we worked.

I drew Bravo Pod, again.
I always wanted to be at the top of my game in Bravo Pod. This housing unit held all of the violent offenders. Murder, assault, rape, armed robbery, you name it. If it was violent, it was in Bravo Pod. I headed for the main slider doors with the cell roster, lost in my thoughts for the coming day. The main sliders were a double set of doors that operated like an air lock. Only one would open at a time. It was a security measure that helped prevent escape.

I pushed the events on the news to the back of my mind as I got my “game-face” on for the day.
I didn’t have time to ponder events in someplace as far away as L.A. For all that it mattered; it might as well have been on the moon. With a hundred and seven inmates in Bravo Pod and only little old me, I couldn’t afford to think about much of anything but going home in one piece. For some reason the name “Custer” kept coming to mind. If you’ve never walked a pod with direct supervision of the inmates, you‘d never know what it’s like. It takes a special kind of crazy to do this for a living.

I didn’t think about the rioting again for any length of time until I hit the parking lot that evening for our “unofficial” after-shift
BS
session. We met by our cars to vent about the day, and have a few laughs to get our minds off of the job. It was our way of not taking the job home to our families. Our on-staff mental health doctor said it was a “coping mechanism.” I don’t know about all that, but it did let me blow off steam before going home. I saw enough ugly in a day to make most grown men run screaming. The last thing I wanted to do was take it home to my family.

Corporal Winston handed me a six-pack of his most recent home-brew
ed beer. It looked to be a dark stout. He had his own micro-brewery set up in his garage and was always bringing me a sample of his most recent batch to try. I loved being his guinea pig. I got to try out a lot of beer, that way. After the day I had, I was already looking forward to having one of them on the back deck when I got home.

“Give this one a shot, Wylie,” he said, grinning. “
You look like you could use a good beer, anyway.”

“I won’t argue with that,” I replied, taking the beer
with a smile on my face.

We both had families to worry about, and the rioting was foremost on both of our minds.
Tonight, all anyone could talk about was that more reports were coming in from California, only this time they were from San Francisco. The eyewitness accounts were almost identical. At that point, we all started to get a little worried. If they couldn’t contain it in Los Angeles, how could they contain it at all?

“War is an ugly thing, but not the ugliest of things; the decayed and degraded state of moral and patriotic feeling which thinks nothing worth a war, is worse. A man who has nothing which he cares more about than he does about his personal safety is a miserable creature who has no chance at being free, unless made and kept so by the exertions of better men than himself.”

— John Stuart Mill

02 April

When I got up for work the next morning, I was feeling very uneasy. I had disturbing dreams about Vikings fighting against the same type of “rioters” that I’d been seeing on television.  The images were vivid, but already fading in my mind. It seemed like I’d lived it instead of merely watched it.  I shook off the thought and forced myself to get out of bed.

I
immediately turned on the TV to check for any updates. I hadn’t slept well, at all. I’d been worrying about this situation and I really wanted to hear some good news for a change. Unfortunately, I didn’t. Reports were now coming in from Denver. The reporter was saying that there were unconfirmed reports from Salt Lake City and Albuquerque.

I listened to News Radio all the way to work and
the riots were all they could talk about. One report said that Mexico City was burning. The riots had gotten so bad there that the entire city was ablaze. The thought was both terrifying and awe inspiring. It must have been one hell of a sight, seeing a city destroy itself. Then a more unsettling thought occurred to me. What if the fires had been ignited by the Mexican Government to try to contain it? I’m not sure what frightened me more, the thought of the riots or of the government destroying it all.

I prayed in the shower. I don’t pray a lot, but when I do I prefer to do it alone. I glanced down at the triple horn tattoo on my left pectoral and then at the volknut on
each bicep. They symbolized my dedication to Odin and the Aesir. I kept the prayer simple and thought of the things I wanted.  Then I closed my eyes and cleared my thoughts, letting the hot water run down my face and chest.

“
Odin, far wanderer, grant me wisdom, courage, and victory,”
I whispered. “
Friend Thor, grant me your strength, and both be with me.”

By the time I got to work, the radio news was saying that
Amarillo, Texas was experiencing rioting in the streets. This was spreading wicked fast, and nothing anyone did was even slowing it down. I was beginning to think it might
actually
be some kind of Old Gods Plague or possibly the end of the world, or
Ragnarok
as it is referred to by the Asatruar.

By the time I made it to the briefing room, Andrews was telling everyone that
Dallas was reporting rioting. Briefing was cut short so that the Lieutenant could tell us about a memo from the Sheriff. He called an alert status for the county as well as a recall to active duty of all of our reserve officers and recent retirees.

All vacations were cancelled for the duration of the alert.
There was also a warning to all officers that we should start making preparations for our families, just in case. It suggested laying in a supply of bottled water and extra canned goods. I made a mental note to pick up more ammo on the way home. At the end of the note was a heavy-handed warning that in an emergency situation, we were expected to report for duty until the alert was cancelled.

The rioting was all we could talk about that day.
Every time someone went out for a break, they would call in an update over the radio. We didn’t tie up radio traffic with big reports. We’d just say the name of any new city on the list. Santa Fe and Corpus Christi were the first two to come over the radio. They were quickly followed by Austin and Houston. When I went to lunch, I heard radio reports about New Orleans and relayed it. Later, they were followed by Oklahoma City, Tulsa and Wichita. That’s when we all started getting really nervous.

The Lieutenant made the decision to secure the facility to prevent a riot of our own.
The inmates had been watching the news on TV and were starting to get restless. Sure, some of them were worried about their families, but most of them were only worried about themselves. When I called “lockdown” for Bravo Pod, I really didn’t think they were going to do it. It was the first time I’d ever felt like I might lose the pod. I breathed a sigh of relief when the last door slammed shut.

When we hit the parking lot that night, we were all abuzz with conversation about the latest rioting reports.
Everyone was saying what they’d do if the riots started here. Most said that they’d get their families to safety and then return to duty. A few said that since no one had been able to stop the rioters so far, that they didn’t see what any of us could do except be killed. Better to just get your family and get away from the riots, completely.

But everyone agreed we needed to start planning escape routes out of the city and safe-houses for our families.
The only thing that no one could agree on was where it would be safe. Matthews and I both thought that the jail would be the safest place in the city. It was a modern day castle of steel-reinforced concrete. Steel doors and thick shatterproof glass surrounded all exits. It was a fortress. The kitchen had more than enough food to last a month, even longer without the inmates.

Now, don’t get your panties in a bunch.
I wasn’t talking anything crazy. There were a bunch of them that were only in on misdemeanor stuff. Reasons like traffic tickets, DWI, non-payment of fines and other minor offenses. With society collapsing as it was, why not just let them go. They weren’t a threat to society. It was quite the opposite, really. If we were really seeing the beginning of the end here, then society was more of a threat to them.

That didn’t deal with the violent ones or the sex offenders.
You couldn’t just turn them loose, and anything else was unethical. That didn’t mean we didn’t think it, though. The building could hold over 600 people and the generators would keep the power on for a couple weeks after the power-grid failed. It was a moot point anyway. The decision to release the inmates had to come from
way
above my pay grade. A lowly CO like me never made decisions like that.

We were pretty sure that society was collapsing.
Some thought it was biblical and others claimed it was some secret government program that got out of control. Still others blamed it on the 2012, end of the world Mayan thing. I was hoping that it wasn’t Ragnarok. The only thing I knew for certain was that once rioting got going in a city, we lost all contact with it. No television, no radio, no internet, no nothing. Once contact was lost, the Government quarantined the area. Nothing was supposed to go in or out of there. CNN was using phrases like the
“California Containment Zone”
and the
“New Mexico Buffer Zone.”

To me, that truly was the end of the world.
When our own government was sealing off parts of our country, it was the stuff of nightmares. Part of me wanted to go home, load up the family and head off into the woods. I knew I could feed my family off of what we could hunt and grow. The problem was where could we go that would be far enough away not to be found? If these things were truly what we were beginning to suspect, nothing would stop them. They would just keep coming until there was nothing left.

“Out of every one hundred men, ten shouldn't even be there,

eighty are just targets, nine are the real fighters,

and we are lucky to have them, for they make the battle.

Ah, but the one, one is a warrior, and he will bring the others back.
”

- Heraclitus

03 April

I awoke to the sound of my phone ringing beside me. I glanced at the clock and grumbled about it only being 0300 hours and thought that it better
damn
well be important. Turns out, it was. The caller ID said “
County Government
”, so I knew it had to be someone from the department. They don’t call at three a.m. to ask me how I’m doing.

“Mmmm, hello
?” I managed to croak, barely managing to hold the phone to my ear.

“Grant?” said a familiar voice on the line.

It took a second or two for me to remember that was actually my name and another second or so for me to recognize the voice of Sergeant Connors from C-Shift. I sat up and turned on the lamp on my bedside table.

“Yeah, Sarge,” I replied, yawning
and blinking the sleep from my eyes. “What’s going on?”

“The Sheriff wants everyone here and in uniform by 0600.”

“Why? We’re not due in for briefing until 0645.”

“It’s not just your shift he’s calling in, Grant.
It’s everyone. It’s all four shifts.”

That thought struck me like a mallet.
I’d never seen that happen in all the time I’d been with the department. Not even when tornadoes ripped a big chunk out of the county a few years back. This was big. The implications were not good, if they were calling all of us in at the same time.

“It’s the riots.
Isn’t it?”

“Yeah, I’m pretty sure it ain’t a social call. We’ve lost contact with
St. Louis and Kansas City. There’ve been riots reported as close as Rolla and Joplin. SPD is already responding to calls of looting on the north side of town.”

“Oh,
shit,” I groaned, rubbing the bridge of my nose.

“Honey,” my wife said, sitting up in bed, “what’s going on?”

“I gotta go, Sarge. I’ll see you at 0600.”

Hanging up the phone, I turned to my wife and shook my head, not knowing what to say to her.

“Better put on some coffee, babe,” I said. “I gotta go in early.”

“What for?” she asked, tossing back the covers.

“I don’t know for sure, but I think it has something to do with the riots.”

She headed for the kitchen and I hit the shower.
By the time I emerged from the bathroom with face and head freshly shaved, the coffee was ready and waiting for me. I was still buckling on my duty belt and fastening my belt-keepers as I slid into a chair. Then I slipped my Thor’s Hammer around my neck and tucked it beneath my shirt.

While
my wife poured the coffee, I closed my eyes and silently prayed a short prayer for the coming day. I knew from the early call that it couldn’t be good. So, I prayed the soldier’s prayer.

“I am going to war, leaving loved ones behind. I am leaving what is precious, but I´m not going alone. The Gods are with me, in all the dark places.”

I opened my eyes as she was returning to the table. Then I gratefully took a cup from her and began to sip. My wife makes the best coffee. She poured herself a cup and we sat in silence for a few minutes, savoring the flavor. Well, I savored the flavor. She ruined hers with milk and sugar.

“I think you should take the kids and go to your sister’s place at the lake,”
I said, frowning.

“What about school?”
she asked, scowling at me.

“The boys never miss school.
It’ll be fine to take them out for a couple of days.”

“But why go to my sister’s place?”

“It’s in the middle of nowhere, babe. If the riots start here, you’ll be safer there. I’d feel better if you guys were away from here.”

“What if they come there?
You said it’s happening everywhere.”

“Good point,” I said. “Go to the lake and load up the boat.
Take it out to deep water and drop the anchor. You should have enough supplies to last a week or more. Longer if the boys catch any fish. I’ll come for you as soon as I get off work.”

She thought about that for a moment before agreeing, frowning.

“Alright,” she said, giving me
the look
. “But I hope all this isn’t really necessary.”

“I do too, babe,” I said, softly.

I helped her get the kids up and dressed. Then I loaded all the camping gear and most of the food we had in the cabinets into the back of the Blazer. We even loaded up our two dogs, Odin and Thor. I kissed them all and told them that I’d see them soon. The two youngest boys went right back to sleep. Erik was my middle son and Evan was my youngest. My oldest was Elliott, and he just sat there with a worried look on his face.

“What’s going on, Dad?” asked Elliot.

“Hopefully, nothing,” I said, but he could see right through me.

“The riots.”

I noted it wasn’t a question.

“Yeah, son, I’m pretty sure it is.”

“You’re afraid they’ll get us,” he said, his eyes locked on mine.

“Yes, I am.
I’m worried about you guys. That’s my job.”

There was no sense lying to him.
He was smarter than me and very mature for his age. Sometimes it felt like he was fifteen going on thirty. He could carry on very mature conversations on a variety of complex subjects. Other times, he was very much a teenaged kid. Like when he fought with his brothers or got excited about a video game.

“Hang on a sec,” I said, and ran back into the house.

I came out with my Mossberg 12 gauge shotgun with the Mossy Oak camo pattern and my 9mm Taurus. I handed the pistol to my wife and the shotgun to my son. Then I handed him a large duffle bag.

“That’s all the ammo I have for both of those.
The nine is loaded with hollow points and the twelve is loaded with buckshot.”

Before my wife could argue, I shook my head.

“I know, honey,” I said. “Gods know, I hope I’m wrong. He’s as good a shot as I am with the shotgun and you’re pretty damned good with the 9mm. That leaves me the .45. My deer rifle’s in the bag, too. It’s loaded.”

“But, hon…”

“I know, babe,” I interrupted. “Just go to the lake and take the boat out. Let the boys catch fish. If this all turns out to be nothing, you can be mad at me later.”

We kissed and said our
see-you-laters
. I refuse to say “good bye” to the people I care about. Those were the last words I said to my mother before she died, and it still haunts me. Then I watched them drive away. I had a sick feeling in my stomach that I should be going with them, but I couldn’t think about that. I had a job to do. Like it or not, my duty was clear. With my family heading for safety, it was time to suit up and get to work.

I went back in
side long enough to grab my bug-out-bag. It was a backpack that held extra ammunition and gear, as well as emergency supplies I might need. Checking to be certain that a round was in the chamber, I slid my .45 into its holster and headed out the.  I stopped at the front door and glanced around the living room before I shut off the light. I let the image sink into my brain because I had the feeling I might not be seeing it again, any time soon.  Then I locked the door and walked away.

I climbed into my old beat-up Ford pick-up truck and headed for work.
I stopped only long enough to fill up the gas tank and hit a fast food drive-thru. It was odd, but I couldn’t find any of my usual radio stations on the air. There was nothing but static on everything in the FM band. I could only find a couple low-power AM stations still broadcasting. It took the entire drive into work just to find something on the air.

It was 0503
hours when I pulled into the parking lot and saw all the cars. I saw people in uniform from every shift heading inside. There were quite a few faces that I didn’t know. The parking lot was more crowded than I had ever seen it. I almost never found a parking spot. Grabbing my bug-out-bag, I slung it across my shoulder and downed the last of my drive-thru coffee. As I got out of the truck Kris Newberry came up to me, looking worried. Kris was a single mom with a teenage daughter.

“Hey Kris,” I said, trying to sound cheerful. “Are you ready for another
great
day at the Justice Center?”

I thought she was going to break down right then.
Her eyes welled up with tears and she stifled a sob. Quickly, I reached out and put my hand on her shoulder.

“Hey.
It’s ok, Kris,” I said. “This’ll all work out.”

“I’m worried about Amanda,” she said, nearly sobbing. “If this gets bad, I’ll be stuck here and can’t get to her.
She’ll have nowhere to go.”

“I sent Karen and the boys to the lake. Want me to call her and have her pick Amanda up on the way?”

Kris looked up at me and smiled with a sudden look of elation on her face, “Yeah, if that isn’t a problem. That would be great!”

“No, it’s not a problem at all.
You call Amanda and tell her to get ready. I’ll call Karen and have her swing by and pick her up. She can stay with Karen and the boys until this all blows over.”

I quickly called my wife while Kris called her daughter and set the plan in motion.
With all of that settled, Kris looked a little more calm and collected. When Marty Cooper joined us, we all headed inside and went to our lockers to store our pistols, bags and jackets. Once we arrived in the briefing room, we saw the note on the dry erase board that said to meet in Booking. Booking had two large sunken areas called “pits” where people waiting to be booked were seated. It was the largest area for a meeting in the jail.

It was 0515
hours when we cleared the main sliders and headed for Booking. Both pits had been emptied and there were black and gray uniforms everywhere. Even the Sheriff, both Majors and all four Captains were already there. I noted that they were all in uniform. That was rare for the Majors and the Sheriff. Mostly, they wore civilian clothes with their badge and gun on their belts. If they were in uniform, they were expecting trouble.

I wandered over and got a cup of the dark black sludge that passed for coffee in Booking.
It was always a toss-up whether or not you drank it or if it marched down your throat under its own power. It was so thick you could stand a spoon up in it. It wasn’t coffee, so much as hot black caffeinated pudding. You could measure the age of it by how long it took to eat through the Styrofoam cup. No amount of sugar could cut the bitterness.

I looked over at Marty and Kris, then held up a cup and wiggled it from side to side, silently asking if they wanted one.
Kris reluctantly nodded affirmative and Marty flipped me off with a disgusted look on his face, rapidly shaking his head no. I poured a cup for Kris and brought it to her. She made a sour face when she tasted it, but took another sip anyway. Then we all headed over to where the crew of eight-balls from my shift was grouping together.

All four Jail Shift Lieutenants were there, counting heads and checking off names on their clipboards.
By 0530 hours, everyone that they could reach was there. The place was so full you could barely walk. Between Corrections Staff, Patrol Staff, Detectives, Civil and support staff, there were nearly 300 of us there. It was standing room only, with many officers lined up down the hall towards the elevators.

Major Wilson called us all to order and told everyone to quiet down.
We barely heard him over the crowd. The murmuring of that many of us in such a small area was really loud and the noise didn’t immediately subside. When he bellowed out “Quiet Down,” we quickly fell silent. Major Wilson wasn’t very intimidating, but his temper was legendary. He was almost six feet tall and weighed about one sixty five, in body armor. He was in his mid forties, but looked ten years younger.

Then the sheriff took over.
Sheriff Rick Hawkins wasn’t a large man. He was in his early forties and stood about five feet eight in boots. He had thinning dark hair that he kept closely cut. But he could command a room with the sound of his voice. He was a good cop, but a consummate politician. His eyes are what really caught your attention. They were almost the exact same color as gun-metal and could stab into you like ice-picks.

“I want to thank everyone for coming in on such short notice,” he began. “I wish it were better circumstances that brought us
all together, but the situation is as bad as it gets. As you all know there’ve been riots going on for the past few weeks. Reports have been coming in from all over the place. Most recently, we’ve had reports from St. Louis, Kansas City and Chicago. There have even been unconfirmed reports of rioting in London, Moscow, Berlin, Tokyo, Hong Kong, Johannesburg, Dubai and Sydney.”