Ragnarok Rising: The Awakening (Book One of The Ragnarok Rising Saga) (42 page)

Southard and Koob popped out of the other Humvee and took defensive positions, as well.
We’d pretty much eliminated all of the zombies in the immediate area, but that didn’t mean we were going to let our guard down. When Sanders stopped firing, we all looked at his handiwork. He’d turned the zombies into so much mangled flesh. I could see a few of them working their mouths, but nothing was moving beyond that. Very few arms or legs remained attached to torsos. As soon as he stopped firing, the door of the coffee shop opened. Two men came out, each holding a baseball bat.

“Who are you guys?” asked one of them.

“Sheriff’s office,” I called back.

“Oh, thank God,” he replied.
“We have women and children inside.”

“How many?” I asked.

“Six women, ten children and two other men, both wounded,” said the other man.

“Are they bitten?” asked Sully.

“No,” said the first man. “Just hurt.”

I went around to the back of the Humvee and opened it.
I took out the bag of weapons we’d confiscated from the meth-heads. Then I headed towards the men.

“Take these,” I said.
“This should be enough to protect you with. We don’t have the room to take you all with us. Do you have a vehicle?”

“We did,” he replied, taking the bag.
“Thanks for the guns.”

“No problem,” I said.
“What happened to your ride?”

“We crashed a couple of days ago when everything went to hell,” he replied.

I nodded, and started looking around. It didn’t take me long to spot what I was looking for. A FedEx truck was sitting in the parking lot of the Stop ‘n’ Rob, next door.

“Let’s get your people loaded into that FedEx truck, over there,” I said.
“We’ll cover you. Once you’re loaded up, you can follow us. Can any of you drive a truck?”

“I can,” said the first man.
“I drive, well, I
drove
for Hi-lo Dairy.”

“You’ve got the job, then,” I said.
“Let’s get your people loaded up and moving. All that gunfire will have attracted a lot of attention. We can formerly introduce ourselves later.”

The two men ran back inside to round up their people.
In less than a minute, a small crowd of people started coming out. It was mostly kids. Two of the women were helping the two injured men. They were having a hard time carrying their weight.

“Wilder,” I said.
“You drive. I’m going to follow them over to the truck and cover them. Sanders, Sully and Koob will come with me. You and Southard follow in the Humvees. Stay close in case we have to get out of here in a hurry.”

“Got it,” she said, and disappeared back inside.

Seconds later, she was in the driver’s seat and shutting the door. The two civilian men had gotten weapons out and were loading them. I took point and Sully, Koob and Sanders covered the area. I headed towards the truck, but had to keep my pace slow so everyone could keep up. Outside the Stop ‘n’ Rob were about a dozen zombies, most of them former gang thugs.

I almost smiled as I started taking them out.
Sanders and Sully followed my lead and we cleared them out in seconds. It seemed like an eternity but it couldn’t have been more than a minute later, we made it to the truck. I motioned for everyone to stay back while I swept the truck. I swung wide as I made my way towards the cab and I was glad I did.

Two zombies in FedEx uniforms lurched out as soon as they saw me.
I shot one in the forehead and Sully got the other one right through the ear. Cautiously, I looked inside. My heart almost stopped beating as I looked into the back. I sighed in relief when I saw it was clear.

“Clear,” I called out.

Sanders yanked open the back door. It was full of packages, but we quickly started tossing them out the door. We emptied it in no time. It didn’t take long to load everyone into the back of the truck. Once everyone was on board, Milkman (that’s what I nick-named the dairy guy) fired up the engine.

“How much gas does it have?”

“Almost three quarters of a tank,” he replied.

“Good,” I said.
“Follow us and stay close. In fact, I’ll take the lead, you follow me and we’ll have the other Humvee behind you. That way you’re covered from both sides.”

“God bless you guys,” he said.
“I don’t know what we’d have done if you hadn’t showed up.”

“I’m just glad we did,” I said.

“Are you taking us to the Evac-center?”

“No, it’s gone,” I said.
“We’ve been taking survivors to the jail. We’re pretty well dug in, there.”

“We’ll follow you,” he said.

“Good,” I said, and walked back to my Humvee. “Stay close. Let us handle the fighting, if at all possible.”

Spec-4 was still in the driver’s seat, so I slid into the passenger seat and locked the door.
Sully climbed into the back seat.

“Which way?” asked Spec-4.

Keep going south,” I said. “We’re only a couple blocks from the motorcycle shop where the SPD officer is held up. Once we get him, it’s back to the jail.”

I keyed up my radio.

“Southard, you cover the back of this convoy. We’ll take lead. Keep the truck between us. It’s up to us to protect those kids.”

“Got it,” he replied.

Spec-4 pulled forward and the big FedEx truck slid in right behind us. The Humvee is a wide bodied vehicle and the truck would have no problem fitting through any hole that we could. Southard fell in line, driving tail-end Charlie. Traffic was still thinned out enough that we should make it all the way to the bike shop. We’d just have to go slowly, and not just because of the truck.

There weren’t a lot of zombies in the area, since most of it was businesses.
I expected to see a bunch of zombies gathered around the front of the bike shop, but there were only a few. We pulled into the parking lot and stopped. Koob, Sully and I popped out our doors and started dropping zombies. There weren’t all that many, so it didn’t take long. Then we started walking towards the front doors of the store.

It hadn’t been barricaded, but it was thick plexi-glass.
There hadn’t been enough zombies to break through it. Then I saw movement inside. It was the SPD officer and he was shuffling our way. We were too late. It was painfully clear that he was already a zombie.

“Aw, crap,” I said.
“He’s one of them.”

I drew my pistol and shot the lock out of the door.
Then I pulled it open and put one round into the head of the former officer. He fell to the floor, not moving.

“Well, I guess we leave,” said Koob.

“Not yet,” I replied. “Grab all the leather jackets you can carry and load them into the Humvees.”

“Why?” asked Sully. “This really isn’t the time to accessorize, is it?”

“It’s not for looks,” I replied. “The leather should be bite-proof, if it’s thick enough. A good leather jacket will work like armor.”

“Good call,” said Koob.

We took all of the leather they had. Not that they had a huge stock, but there’d be enough to outfit a few people with some kind of armor against bites. It would be better than nothing. I tossed Southard a pair of chaps that looked like they might be his size. He caught them and grinned back at me.

“Here,” I said, grinning at him. “Just wear pants beneath them.”

“What?” he said, chuckling. “You don’t want to see me in ass-less chaps?”

“Not even on a bet,” I replied.

“Eww,” said Spec-4, shaking her head.

Then I took the time to kneel next to the fallen officer and remove his badge.
There wasn’t really much I could do for him, but I would make sure that his badge would be remembered. I whispered a silent prayer for him, hoping that he would now find rest.

“Sorry we didn’t get here sooner,” I whispered.

I took his duty belt off of him. It held a radio and two sets of hand-cuffs. It also held his Asp and a can of pepper spray. His Glock was in the holster, but it was out of ammo. His extra magazines were missing. I tucked all of that under my arm and headed for the door. Once we were all back inside our vehicles and ready to roll, I took the driver’s seat back from Spec-4. Not because I was a better driver, but because she was better on the SAW.

We retraced our route back to the last stoplight.
Then I took our little caravan west without incident. That took us dangerously close to MSU, but it couldn’t be helped. The truck would never make it through the parking lots we’d bounced through on the way in. We needed a smooth ride back to the jail, because I was pretty sure that we’d pushed this particular Humvee about as far as we dared.

I took a right at the first stoplight we came to.
I knew the road was mostly clear and kept on it heading north until I came to a stop sign. The road ended there, with the only options being left or right. East of us were two apartment complexes, sure to be crawling with zombies. West was MSU and I knew for a fact it
was
crawling with zombies. I just hoped that the horde we’d seen near MSU were still father south. At least that’s where they’d been the last time we went through there. So west, it was.

I almost held my breath as we approached the intersection at National.
On our right was a pizza delivery place and across the street to our left was the taco place where Sanders blasted the Rasta-zombie. Or was that a Zombi-farian. If we could get a bus through here, then our little convoy should be no problem. Then it was just a matter of retracing the route we’d taken in the bus.

At the intersection, I looked south.
I couldn’t see the crowd of zombies but I knew they had to be in the area. Then I looked north. It looked clear, as well. With a sigh of relief, I turned and headed north. The truck and other Humvee followed suit and we passed the first street without a problem. When I slowed down at second one, I could see a huge crowd of zombies blocking the entire street. I’d forgotten about the crowd of zombies that had chased us after Sanders stalled the bus.

I had no choice but to continue on north.
Abandoned cars were getting thicker, the closer that we got to the big grocery store. A couple of times I heard our bumper scrape against another car as we squeezed through an opening. I had to knock a green sedan out of the way at the intersection, but we made it through. The zombies were still in small groups and I thought it best to just ignore them until we had no choice but to engage. We didn’t have the time or ammo for a prolonged fight.

I could tell that the next major intersection was going to be impassible, even though I was still blocks away.
At the stoplight where you turned off to go to the Springfield Cardinals stadium, I looked to the west. It looked clear, so I turned that way. If we could make it to the road that ran next to the square, we were home free. There’d be plenty of room for all of us to get through. Twenty minutes later, we were pulling up to the back gate of the jail.

We couldn’t fit the FedEx truck in the intake area, so we all went in the delivery gate.
There was plenty of room, back there. Medical was waiting for us with several officers providing cover. No zombies made it inside the perimeter. When the gate swung shut, I laid my head back against the seat and closed my eyes. This time, the shakes didn’t come.

“Theirs not to reason why, Theirs but to do & die,
Into the valley of Death, Rode the six hundred”.

-
        
The Charge of the Light Brigade

-
        
By Alfred, Lord Tennyson

It was early afternoon when we made it back to the jail. After introductions were made and everyone was unloaded, medical went to work checking them over. Then they were ushered inside for a hot meal. I was introduced to all of the new people, but I’m terrible with names. Milkman was named something like Phil or Dale, but in my head, he was Milkman. Spec-4 loved it, and took to calling him that as well.

We asked Milkman and the others to turn in their weapons, since they were inside the facility now.
They all complied, reluctantly. There was no sense in having them armed, unless we were going to be overrun. Besides, we weren’t going to be sending civilians out on runs any time soon. At least not without confirming that they knew what they were doing with a firearm.

We gave the crowd time to eat while we unloaded and organized our most recent haul of supplies.
I snagged a leather jacket that fit me, as did Southard, Sanders and Spec-4. Sully and Koob headed inside with medical. Lieutenant Murdock told me he was going to assign both of them to roof duty. With the loss of the main power, we were considering only running the generators at night. That meant that during the day, we would put people with rifles on the roof. While Southard and I helped put gear inside the supply room, Spec-4 and Sanders checked out the Humvees. Spec-4 didn’t look happy when I came walking back out.

“You did a number on our Humvee,” she said, her tone scolding.

“Sorry,” I said. “I didn’t have the luxury of taking clear streets. How bad is it?”

“Surprisingly, not
too
bad,” she said. “But the bumper and grill look like the floor of a toothpick factory. All in all, it’s in better shape than I expected it to be.”

“Is it still drivable?”

“I don’t see why not,” replied Sanders. “Most of the damage is cosmetic. But I’m pretty sure you knocked the front end out of alignment.”

“Well, it’ll be rough on tires,” I said.

“True, but don’t expect to go more than 55 or 60 without it getting the shakes,” said Spec-4.

“Well, we can always steal another one,” I said. “There are two or three on the square.”

“That might not be a bad idea,” said Spec-4. “There could be more damage than we can see.”

“I’ll try to be gentle, next time,” I said. “I’ll just tell the zombies to get their shit together and get those streets cleared.”

We all chuckled at that. About that time Southard came walking back out to us.

“Hey guys,” he said.
“The break-room is pretty much empty now. You ready to get a bite to eat?”

“Absolutely! I’m starving,” said Sanders.

“You’re always starving,
Sasquatch
,” said Southard.

“I’ll have to agree with Sanders,” I said. “I’m pretty hungry.”

We all headed inside and down to the break room. The kitchen crew had laid out hamburgers and French fries. Sanders loaded up enough food to feed a small country, and Southard and I each made a couple double cheese burgers and fries. We all snagged some sweet tea and grabbed a table.

I had a burger about halfway to my lips when the lights went out.
I hesitated for a second. When the power came back on, I shrugged and took a big bite. Sanders didn’t seem to notice that the lights went out. He ate a lot, but he burned a lot of calories. We all ate in silence for a few minutes, enjoying the food and the company.

“Enjoy it while it lasts,” said Southard. “When the generator runs out of gas, we’re out of luck.
That means no more hot food.”

“We passed a parking lot full of propane trucks,” said Spec-4.
“If we start snagging those, we can keep the generator going for a long time.”

“Mmmmhmmm,” I agreed through a mouth full of burger.

“We have to bring those trucks in,” said Sanders. “I lived on MRE’s for too damned long to go back on them, now.”

“Yeah, Meals Ready to Excrete,” I said.

“Wow,” said Spec-4. “You guys called them that way back in the stone age? That’s what
we
called them.”

I started to respond when the radio came to life.

“700 to Grant,” said the voice.

I sighed heavily before I sat down my burger and keyed up my mic.

“Go ahead,” I said, with more than a little annoyance in my voice.

700 didn’t seem to notice.

“Sir, can you come up to Master Control?”

“In route,” I said.

“Here we go, again,” said Spec-4.

“Better take your chow with you,” said Sanders.

“Yeah, or Cal will eat it,” said Southard through a mouthful of cheeseburger.

“You’re not the only ex-soldier here,
Cal,” I said, already lifting the tray.

“Oh yeah,” said Sanders. “I forgot you served back during the Civil War.
Did you get to meet President Lincoln?”

“Sorry, wrong side.
I do have a nice photo of me and Bob E. Lee, though,” I said, flipping him off.

They all were laughing as I headed for the door, tray in hand.
I was falling back into old Army habits. My wife would smack me if she saw me, but I had most of the food wolfed down by the time I reached Master Control. Lieutenant Murdock was waiting for me when I got there.

“Sorry to interrupt your meal,” he said.
“I thought you’d want to hear this.”

I nodded affirmative as I shoved the last of the fries in my mouth.
The L.T. waited a second while I sort of chewed. It drives my wife insane when I do it. Then I sat the empty tray on the table behind me and turned back to him.

“Sorry about that, sir.
I figured that I’d better eat while I had the chance. I kind of got the feeling that I might not get the opportunity for a while.”

“Hmm…,” said the L.T.
“You’re probably right about that. We received word on another group of survivors.”

“How many, this time?”

“There are two of ours, Blanchard and Woodrow,” he said, “plus two Highway Patrol Officers.”

“Where are they?”

“They’re inside a restaurant on the south side of town.”

“Which one?”

“The Golden Corral,” he replied. “But there’s a catch. You’ll have to fight your way in to get them. They’re barricaded inside the cooler.”

“Now that the power’s out, it’ll get nasty in there pretty fast.”

“The place is supposedly crawling with zombies,” said the L.T.

“Any idea how many?”

“I believe the exact phrase was a ‘whole shit-load’,” he said, smiling. “They didn’t know exactly how many. Do you think you can get to them?”

“It won’t be easy, sir.
That’s right down the street from the Mall. You can bet the farm that place is zombie central, right now. There could easily be a thousand or more.”

“I see,” said the L.T.
“In that case, maybe we won’t be able to get to them.”

“I won’t rule it out just yet.
Not without at least trying. If we have to abort, we will.”

“You’re going to need both Humvees, again.”

“We might be going through the square and grabbing another one. My last little foray did a pretty good number on the one I was driving.”

“Well, at least it’s on the way,” said the L.T.

“It’s worth a shot, sir. We’ll have to move quickly, though. If they’re held up in a cooler, they might not have a lot of time left. Plus, I’m going to have to do some careful navigation to avoid the mall and the hospitals.”

“Go ahead and put your team together.
I’ll get someone downstairs to help you load gear and ammunition.”

“Thanks,” I said, and headed out of Master Control.

“And, Wylie?” said the L.T. “Be careful. You’ve been pushing yourself awfully hard these past few days. I don’t want you to push too hard. We can’t afford for you to burn yourself out.”

“Desperate times, sir.
I’ll sleep when I’m dead.”

With that, I walked out of Master Control and headed for the stairs.
I met Sergeant Daniels at the landing about halfway up the stairs and stopped.

“Hey, Sarge,” I said.
“You got a sec?”

“Sure, what’s up?”

“I’ve been thinking about this,” I said, pulling the Sheriff’s badge off of my vest.

“What about it?”

“Sheriff Hawkins was right,” I said. “It is heavier than I expected.”

“It always is, Wylie.”

“Sarge, I’m not a Sheriff. I’m just a CO. I feel honored just to have carried this, but I don’t deserve it. I think you should take it.”

“Me?” he asked, surprised.
“Why me?”

“Well, we already saw the reaction we got out of Wright.
She won’t follow a CO. Hell, sir, I’m not even POST.”

“Screw her!
You’re ten times the officer she’ll ever be.”

“Thanks for saying, sir.
That’s not all of it, though. I think that the more officers we rescue from other agencies, the more it’ll come up. You’re a road cop. You’re POST certified and you’re a good leader. I think you should take it. You can get respect from everyone. I can’t, no matter what I do.”

“I think your actions are more than worthy of respect.”

I noticed he was still looking at the badge.

“I appreciate that, sir.
But you know as well as I do that there won’t be many from the road who will respect a CO.”

He didn’t say anything.
He didn’t have to, and we both knew it. Just because I didn’t have the certification that they had, I was automatically a lesser being. Not worthy of the name Law Enforcement. It didn’t matter that Corrections Officers had the second highest mortality rate of any job in the US.

“I want you to take it,” I said, holding it out.
“Give me a regular badge, if you want, but not this one.”

Gingerly, he took the offered badge like I was offering the Holy Grail.
He held it in his hand with reverence and more than a touch of awe. I was glad to see he didn’t accept it, lightly.

“When Hawkins died, he said something to me.
I think I should share it with you,” I said. “He told me, ‘You’ve got to keep it going. Don’t let it fall. Pass it on when you can’t carry it anymore. It’s more than a badge. It’s an ideal.’”

He held it in his hand for a long moment, turning it slowly.

“Wylie,” he said, softly.

“Take it, sir.
It’s yours. I think it was, all along. I just carried it for a while.”

He took his badge off of his belt and replaced it with the badge of the Sheriff of Nathanael County.
Then he handed me his badge.

“If I’m going to be Sheriff, then I’m making you Sergeant.
You’ve earned it. I’d put you in for a commendation, but I don’t think there’s anyone left to send it to.”

I pinned the Sergeant’s badge on my vest.
Somehow, it felt lighter. Daniels was looking at the badge on his belt, a look of surprise mixed with awe on his face.

“I think you’ll be a much better sheriff than I ever could have been.”

“That doesn’t mean you get to just fade away,” he said. “We need you. You’re saving lives, Wylie. A lot of people look to you for strength and leadership.”

“I won’t let you down, sir,” I said.
“Now if you’ll excuse me, I have to round up my team and go after more officers.”

“Wylie, no one’s going to make you go back out there.
You’ve done more than enough.”

“I know I don’t have to, sir.
That doesn’t change the fact that it has to be done. I won’t leave them out there to die. Not so long as I can do something about it.”

“And that’s what people like Wright will never understand.
You’re a good man, Wylie Grant.”

“Thanks,” I said, and turned and headed down the stairs.

I left
Sheriff
Daniels standing in silence on the stairs and I didn’t look back. When I hit the bottom of the stairs, I could see the Main Sliders were already open. We’d never have done that when there were inmates in the building, but it made sense to leave them open, now. It used less energy. We could always secure both of them, in an emergency. I hoped that it wouldn’t come to that. I headed through the sliders and back into the break room. I found Spec-4 sitting with Sanders, Southard and the Fair Grove guys. Even the officer that had been shot was there. They were all laughing.

“What’d I miss?” I asked, sliding into a chair.