Ragnarok Rising: The Awakening (Book One of The Ragnarok Rising Saga) (50 page)

“Clear, we are in route to
Tablerock Lake,” he said. “ETA back to base is unknown.”

“Copy that,” said 700, “Godspeed.”

With that, I gave Matthews a nod and he started backing the gate open. As soon as it was open far enough for us to squeeze through, I punched the accelerator. My last view of the Intake area was of all of the officers covering us and waving with their free hands. Then the gate shut behind us and we were out.

I
sped south and headed for the intersection. There were already a lot more zombies on the road than I’d seen before. Then, I turned west and headed one street over. I knew it was clear enough for us to get through, at least to the square. From there, I was going to have to get creative.

I glanced at the fuel gage and was glad to see that I still had some.
Southard must have poured all the available gas cans into our tank. We had almost three quarters of a tank, which was good. In a pinch, I could get all the way to the lake and back on that. Well, I could if the roads were clear and I took the most direct route. I already knew that was pretty much impossible.

“Where’s our first stop?” asked Southard.

“We already cleared the square,” I said. “I’m thinking the gun shop out on Campbell.”

“What about the Catholic church?” he replied. “There was a ton of equipment left behind there.”

I shot a glance at Spec-4 and she just shrugged.

“We’ll check it out, but if it looks hot we’re not going anywhere near it,” I answered.

“Good enough for me,” said Southard. “If it looks good, there is plenty of gear there. More vehicles, ammo and weapons. Maybe even armor and food.”

“Maybe a sweeper team, too,” said Spec-4.

“Let’s hope not,” Southard replied. “I’m sure they won’t be happy with us for killing their Colonel.”

“What to you mean
WE
, paleface,” I replied. “You shot him, not me.”

“Yeah, sure,” he said, chuckling, “Saving your butt.”

I had to swerve to avoid a group of zombies that were coming out of the parking lot from the Springfield Police Headquarters. I missed most of them and narrowly avoided slamming into an over-turned mail truck. Once we cleared the intersection at the expressway, we were clear to go for a few blocks. There were more zombies milling around, but not enough to block off the road. We’d be fine if I kept up the speed.

“Don’t forget this street’s blocked on the other side of the square,” reminded Spec-4.

“Yeah,” I replied, “I was thinking about cutting through the square and trying my luck on the south side.”

“If it’s blocked to the south, we can keep going west next to the bus station,” said Southard.

“I’m going to try to avoid the bus station,” I said. “When we pulled Cal out of there, the place was swarming with zombies.”

“It’s probably worse, now,” said Spec-4.

“What about going farther west to the other expressway?” asked John.

“It’s pretty much blocked in every direction,” I said.
“I don’t think we could get down it with a tank.”

“Maybe a bulldozer,” said Southard.

I slid right and headed into the square, keeping my fingers crossed that it wasn’t a big mistake. There were a few abandoned cars on the street, but they were out of our way. Two cars couldn’t have passed each other here, but I could get through. As we hit the square, I turned left. The square was one-way for traffic and I was going the wrong way, but I’m pretty sure that traffic laws didn’t apply right now. At least no one was going to give me a ticket. The next street was the aptly named South Avenue, and it exited from the south side of the square.

It was mostly clear, but loaded with zombies.
It was packed on both sides with bars, restaurants and upscale shops. The city of Springfield had done it’s best to gentrify the area around the square. I don’t care how much polish you slapped on it, we still referred to it as Freak Central Square. Now that it was crawling with zombies, it really lived up to its name.

I saw a zombie wearing a multi-colored tie-died skirt with Birkenstock sandals.
The white blouse was covered with gore and an old acoustic guitar still hung around their neck. I shot past the street musician without slowing down, only giving them a quick glance.

“I think that was a dude,” said Southard, pointing at the street musician.

“What about the skirt?” I asked, smiling.

“What about the beard?” retorted Southard.

“I guess I missed that,” I replied, laughing. "That was either a genuine duck hunter beard or they were wearing a squirrel's nest."

I had to swerve around the odd spacing of cars all along the street, but managed to keep making progress.
As we neared the next intersection, I could see a horse-drawn carriage sitting at the side of the road. What was left of the horses was still fastened in the traces. Huge clouds of flies infested the entire area.

“Oh my God,” said Spec-4, “Those poor horses.”

"Not to mention everyone else," muttered Southard.

I kept my eyes on the road and focused on getting us out of here as fast as I could.
To our left and right I could see large crowds of zombies coming towards us, attracted by the movement of the Humvee and the noise of the engine. If we stopped, we’d never get going again.

“Looks like Grand is pretty much blocked,” said John, from the backseat.

“Way to go there, eagle-eyes,” I replied. “Yeah, it’s blocked. We’re going to try farther west on one of the side streets.”

I took a right onto the next street, heading west.
It was a primarily residential area and not all that many zombies were prowling the streets. That worked out great for us, since we were trying to avoid the crowds the same way I avoided the Mall at Christmas. Hell, I tried to avoid the Mall all the time. I never liked crowds, or malls for that matter.

We bounced across the next intersection, narrowly avoiding a roving mob of the undead.
I shot past the leaders of the mob with less than ten yards to spare. They seemed to be gathered around a small neighborhood market. I couldn’t help but wonder why. I suppose it was possible that there could be survivors inside. I didn’t have time to check it out, though. There were too many of the dead and too few of us to risk it. Besides that, my family had waited long enough.

“Holy Crap!” exclaimed Southard, “There had to be a couple hundred of those things.”

“I saw them,” I replied. “Are they following us?”

“Looks like a crowd of
Sprinters
is trying,” he said, looking behind us.

“If the road stays clear we should be fine,” said Spec-4.

Fortunately for us, our luck was holding at the moment. We cleared more side streets that I didn’t catch the name of. I was looking for main roads. I knew we’d have to pass Grant and then on to Fort. I was shooting for Fort. I remembered that Sanders had taken it to get the bus home from the run we made to the drug store. If he could get the bus through on it, then I knew we could get through in a Humvee.

We managed to clear our way past with minimal problems.
I had to slow down enough to push an overturned hatchback out of the way to clear the intersection. A half-dozen or so zombies swarmed the vehicle while I was pushing our way through. John started looking pretty worried, but I knew that half a dozen wasn’t nearly enough to stop us. Once we moved the obstruction, I mashed the pedal to the floor and crunched through them.

Fort was clear enough for us to get through, just as I had hoped.
I turned left and headed south as fast as I could safely push it. I knew the road was mostly clear all the way to Battlefield and I didn’t plan on slowing down until then. I had to power our way through the intersection by shoving several vehicles out of the way. There were too many cars to allow the zombies to approach in large groups, but there were still plenty of zombies around. I was happy to leave them in our wake.

The residential area we passed through was clear and that brought us right up next to the apartment complex where we’d rescued Big Red and Double-D.
This side of the complex was crawling with zombies. It was a good thing we didn’t try a rescue from this side. In fact, had I known that there were this many zombies in the area…we might not have risked trying to rescue them at all.

“Hey, Chuck,” I said, grinning, “Recognize this place?”

“Sure,” he replied, “this is where we picked up those two bimbos.”

“Did you ever get the chance to sleep with them?” asked Spec-4.

“No,” he said, in mock sadness. “We’ve been too busy.”

I knew that Chuck was really too worried about his family.
The not knowing was killing him. I knew exactly how he felt. I was clinging to the hope that my family was still safe. For all I knew we would find them all turned to zombies. I prayed that I was wrong about that. I prayed for good fortune for both myself and for Chuck, as well.

Instead of continuing south, I
headed west on the road that ran next to the apartment complex. I had to slow down when we crossed the expressway, due to all of the abandoned cars. There was enough room to get through, but it was a close call on a couple of occasions. At least there weren’t all that many zombies in the area. To the north of us, I could see lingering black smoke. It had to be from that explosion we saw earlier.

“Chuck, what do you make of that?” I asked, pointing at the smoke.

“I think that was the source of the explosion.”

“I’m thinking it was, too,” I said.
“That had to be the fuel tank farm behind the old belt plant.”

“What kind of fuel?” asked Spec-4.

“Unfortunately, not the kind we could use. It’s fuel oil for their boilers. It’s pretty much the same consistency as tar.”

“Nasty,” said Spec-4.

“Yeah, and it smells really bad, too,” I added. "I think it was mixed with animal fat or something. It's pretty rank."

“I wonder what set it off?” asked Southard.

“I have no idea,” I said. “It could be almost anything. Maybe a zombie wandered into the control equipment and shorted it out.”

“I thought the power was out?” said Spec-4.

“Well, there is that,” I replied. “Maybe someone ran into it with a car or something.”

“Or it was done deliberately,” said Southard.
“Maybe that group we ran into at the restaurant.”

“I don’t know,” I said
, frowning. “But we don’t really have time to go investigate. Let’s take care of the task at hand, and then we’ll get curious.”

“Good plan,” said Southard.
“What exactly is the current plan?”

“I’m circling around to get a look at that Catholic Church,” I said. “I want to get a look at it from a safe distance before we try another run on it.”

We continued on in silence for a few minutes as I made my way through another residential area. At the next four way stop, we headed south again and drove until we crossed the freeway. The freeway was clogged with traffic, but we were on an overpass and avoided that problem. The overpass was thankfully clear of traffic. The entire area was pretty well clear and there weren’t many zombies around.

My guess was that since we were closer to the edge of town, that it was easier for people to get out before the roads became impassable.
Closer to the center of town, it would have been murder trying to get out in a hurry. From where we were, I knew of at least four ways out of town that would easily avoid the big arteries in Springfield. More if you didn’t mind gravel roads.

Once we crossed the overpass, I turned into a little park on the left.
I drove through the parking lot and pulled up right next to the pavilion with the picnic tables. I kept the Humvee behind the pavilion so no one could see it from farther down the road. Then I did a quick scan of the area and nodded at Spec-4. Grabbing my binoculars, I opened the door climbed out.

Spec-4, Southard and John all piled out with me.
John immediately strung his longbow and knocked an arrow. I scrambled up onto the hood and then onto the roof. From there it was easy to jump over onto the roof of the pavilion. Then I crouched and inched my way towards the apex of the roof. I kept my M-16 in my hands and let the binocs dangle around my neck.

I crawled the last few feet and peeked over the top.
I couldn’t see any movement with the naked eye. Slowly I lay my M-16 down on the roof and brought the binocs up to my eyes. Although I couldn’t see the east side of the building from this vantage point, I could easily see inside the fence that surrounded the church. There didn’t seem to be any movement at all.

Then I started scanning the fence.
I found another gate on the north entrance to the church, but no zombies along the north wall. I didn’t see any along the west wall, either. I knew there was a pretty good chance that there would be zombies along the east wall. The last time we were here, we entered through the east gate. There were zombies coming our way when we left, and Spec-4 had shut the gate behind us. I hope it was secure or the place would be crawling with zombies.