Ragnarok Rising: The Awakening (Book One of The Ragnarok Rising Saga) (7 page)

I motioned for them to stop up the road where it appeared to be zombie free, for the moment.
The zombies that were pursuing us were almost half a mile behind, and falling farther behind by the second. Once we topped the next hill, I started slowing down without pulling off the road. They matched my deceleration and stayed right beside me. As soon as we came to a complete stop, we all got out. The only one who remained in the vehicle was the injured Fair Grove officer.

“Thanks for the help,” said an officer
whose name-plate read Griffith.

“No problem.
We just happened to be in the neighborhood.”

“Where do we go, now?” said another officer, this one named Weaver.

“I was planning on heading back to the jail,” I said, shrugging.

“It hasn’t been overrun?” said the third officer.

His name-plate read Wells.

“Not as far as I know.
By the way, how’s your injured officer? Is he hurt or was he bit?”

“Gun
shot to the shoulder,” said Weaver. “He got hit by a stray round.”

“One of yours?” asked Spec-4.

“No, stray round from a group of red-necks in a pick-up,” said Wells, shaking his head. “They were driving past us earlier and shooting at zombies. Looked like they were drunk and having the time of their lives.”

“Yeah,” said
Griffith. “We’d have gone after them, but we had bigger problems at the time.”

“Do you want to follow us, or meet us there?” I asked.

“We know the way,” said Weaver. “Besides, Wells lives on H Highway, on the way into town. We’re gonna stop by there and pick up some ammo and a few guns.”

“Alright,” I said. “Be safe and don’t get cut off.
I’ll keep my radio on. Can you guys pick up the jail frequency?”

“Yeah,” replied
Griffith. “We’ll tune in as soon as we’re back in the car.”

With that, we shook hands and piled back into our respective vehicles.
They turned around and headed back a few hundred yards, to where H Highway meets 65 and turned off. We continued on directly towards Springfield.

“The supreme irony of life is that hardly anyone gets out of it alive.”

- Robert A. Heinlein

I thought that
this was about as good a time as any to check in with the jail. I knew I couldn’t avoid it forever, although I was dreading doing it. The Sheriff probably wouldn’t be happy that we abandoned the roadblock. I just hoped that it wasn’t as bad for the rest of the county as it was for us. If it was, we were all screwed. With a resigned sigh, I reached over and keyed the mike on my shoulder.

“700, this is 829, over,” I said.

Nothing. Not even static.

I tried it again, but got the same results.
Not even the chirp it makes as the handset activates. Pulling the radio off of my belt, I checked the faceplate. The battery was dead as the proverbial doornail. It hadn’t even chirped like it was supposed to, signaling that the charge was low. See what I mean about the crappy jail equipment? This battery should have been good for another six to eight hours, at least. But it had died completely sometime between when I left the jail and now. I couldn’t be certain exactly when.

Muttering obscenities, I tossed the radio into the back seat.
Then I remembered that I’d snagged Henderson’s radio before we bugged out. I yanked it off of his belt and checked the charge. Of course, it was working perfectly. It was just off. That moron had turned off his radio. Turning it back on, I noticed that it was on one of the patrol frequencies. I quickly switched it over to the jail band and keyed it up. I was intensely relieved to hear the chirp of the set activation.

“700, this is 829,” I said, holding my breath.

“Go for 700,” came an almost immediate response.

“700, am I ever glad to hear your voice.
I’m in route back to the jail.”

“Copy that, 829,” said 700. “Be careful on your way back, there are reports of rioting all over town.”

“Understood. My ETA should be about half an hour, the Gods willing.”

Another voice came over the radio.
It was Kris Newberry.

“Wylie!
Thank God! Where are you?”

“About five miles south of
Fair Grove on 65.”

“We’ve had Dispatch trying to contact our people for over an hour, now.
They said that they weren’t able to reach you and to assume that you were gone. We’re losing people all over the place.”

“I know.
Of the five of us at the road block, two of us are on the way back. I’ll tell you all about it when I get there. The reason you couldn’t reach us was that my battery died and that moron Henderson turned off his radio.”

“Wylie,” she said, and I could hear the tension in her voice.
“Have you heard anything about Amanda?”

“Yeah, I talked to Karen a couple of hours ago.
They’re at the lake and they’re fine.”

“Oh, thank God,” she said, relief evident in her voice.

“Karen will take good care of her,” I said as comfortingly as I could over the radio. “I’ll go get them as soon as I get a chance. Right now they’re out on a boat in deep water, so they’re probably safer than we are.”

“Alright Wylie, just get here as soon as you can.”

“I will. Have you heard anything from anyone else from our shift?”

“The Lieutenant’s here,
” she answered. “He’s in his office. He was in a car crash and broke his arm. Boyett was in Bravo Pod when we lost it.”

“What?
We lost Bravo Pod!”

“Yeah,” she said.
“Delta, too.”

“
Was there a riot?”

“No.
Someone inside was infected. It spread unbelievably fast in the pods.”

“How many officers did we lose?”

“There were just two, one in each pod. Boyett was in Bravo and Church from C Shift was in Delta. When we saw what was going on, we sealed the doors. We couldn’t risk them getting out and there weren’t enough of us here to go in after them. But so far, they’re still contained in those two pods.”

I didn’t know Church all that well.
He had only been with us for a few months. He was young, only about 21 or 22, but he was eager to learn and did his best to help out. I kind of liked that about the guy. Although I really hadn’t had the chance to get to know David Church, he seemed like a good kid. I don’t know if he had any family or not.

I’d known Mike Boyett for a couple years.
Boyett wasn’t a very good officer. He was also notoriously full of shit most of the time. He was about five feet six and weighed a little over 230 lbs. His uniform usually looked like it had been slept in. He was also one of those guys that it didn’t matter what you had done in your life. He’d done it bigger, better and before you. But, he was one of ours. Although I felt bad for his wife and daughter, I can’t really say I’d miss the guy. At least he was better than Henderson.

“You did the right thing,” I said, knowing how tough a decision that must have been to make.
“Let’s hope they stay there.”

“Amen.
I’ll fill you in completely when you get here.”

“Got it, we’re on our way.
829 out.”

Then, I did what I had been dreading doing since we headed back.
I switched to patrol frequency and radioed in to dispatch.”

“829 to Dispatch.”

“Go ahead, 829,” said Dispatch.

“I’m back in route to the jail.”

“10-9? Say again, 829.”

“I’m back in route to the jail.
Our position was overrun by rioters.”

“829, this is Sheriff Hawkins,” said an all too familiar voice.

“Yes, sir?”

“What’s the situation out there?”

“It’s pretty bad, sir,” I said. “We were completely overrun. We’re returning to base.”

“Negative, 829.
You get back out there and keep that road closed.”

“No can do, Sheriff,
” I replied, scowling.

“Why the hell not?” he demanded.

“Because your
fucking
r
ioters
ate three of my team,
SIR
!” I snapped back, anger flashing in my voice.

I might have said
sir
, but that’s not what I meant.

“I don’t want to hear excuses, Grant,” retorted the Sheriff.
“Get your ass back out there and
HOLD
!”

I was about to reply with something even less flattering than before when a much calmer voice cut in.

“829, come on back to the jail. You’ve done more than enough.”

It was the voice of Lieutenant Murdock.

“Copy that, L.T. I’ll be there as soon as I can.”

“Fine,” snapped the Sheriff.
“Get back here for reassignment. But you can bet your ass that the Lieutenant and I will have some words
before
you get here.”

I wasn’t worried about the L.T.
He could take care of himself. The way things sounded to me, the Sheriff might not have enough officers left to call a department. Besides, if it came down to it, I’d quit and leave to go find my family. I wasn’t in the military anymore. I could leave whenever I chose to, and there wasn’t a damned thing the Sheriff could do about it.

I didn’t want to listen to Patrol traffic anymore, so I switched over to t
he county-wide emergency channel. It was flooded with calls. Some were calling for help, others were pleading for it. You couldn’t get a word in edgewise. Everyone was trying to talk at once, and from the sound of it everything was going to Hel in a handbag. I switched frequency again, to the alternate patrol frequency. The one not as widely used. Within seconds I picked up a call.

“To any available unit, this is 917, over,” said the voice.
“I’m trapped on the roof of the visitor’s center at Valley Water Mill Park. Can anyone hear me? Over.”

“Valley Water Mill,” I said, looking at Spec-4.
“That’s pretty close to us.”

“Do you think we can get there in time?”

“There’s only one way to find out. 829 to 917, I am in route to your position. I can be there in 15 minutes, maybe less.”

“Grant?
Is that you?” said 917.

Then it hit me.
I knew 917. That was Chuck Southard’s radio number. Southard was a “Roadie” but he started out in the jail. More importantly, he’d been on my shift and that made him one of us. Chuck Southard was my friend and I’ll be damned if I was going to leave him to die, or worse.

“Yeah, Chuck.
It’s me. What’s your situation?”

“Pretty damned bad,” he said, matter-of-factly.
“We’re stuck on the roof of the visitor’s center in the park and we’re surrounded by a whole shit-load of zombies.”

“Think you can hold for 15 minutes?”

“Hell, Wylie. I’d say I can hold till Judgment Day, but I think it’s here already.”

“I’ll take that as a yes, then.”

“I think we can hold, unless one of these bastards learns how to climb. They can’t reach us, but I’m out of ammo. I’m forced to defend myself with my charm and good looks.”

“So basically, you’re unarmed,” I replied.

“Yeah, up yours, buddy. Oh and by the way, my Charger’s on fire.”

I could see Spec-4 was grinning at our exchange.

“How many of you are there?”

“Just two left out of six.
It’s me and an EMT. The rest are dead. Well, sort of.”

“Understood,” I said. “Hang on, I’m coming.”

“I wouldn’t dream of leaving without you.”

“Th
at’s good,” I said, grinning, “Because you’re gonna have to kick in for gas.”

“Wylie?”

“Yeah, Chuck.”

“Less than 15 would be much appreciated.”

“Copy that, brother. 829 out.”

Up ahead, I saw the overpass for
Valley Water Mill Road. There wasn’t a ramp on the north side of the overpass, so I had to improvise. I drove under it, and then cut back up the other side onto the on ramp. I was going against traffic, but really couldn’t care less for traffic laws at the moment. When I hit the top of the overpass, I took a sharp left and accelerated hard.

“Easy, there,” said Spec-4.
“Wylie, isn’t it?”

“Yeah,” I said, carefully watching the road.

“I’m Corporal Chrissy Wilder. 1138
th
Military Police Company.”

“
Good to meet you. Sorry, but I didn’t catch your name earlier. I’ve been mentally calling you Spec-4, all this me.”

“That’s ok.
Keller and I were calling you guys Badge 1, 2 and 3.”

“Keller?
I guess he was E-2. Sorry about that,” I said.

“Yeah, you too.”

“Shu was alright, but I can’t say I’ll miss Henderson.”

“You mean
Deputy
Henderson,” she said, smiling. “Yeah, I can’t say I’ll miss him, either.”

“You caught that, did you?”

“Yeah, like you and Shu weren’t shit.”

“We get that a lot from most of the roadies.”

I explained about the difference between roadie and jailer. All the while, I kept a close eye on the road. I was passing through a residential area and there were quite a few zombies around. Some were busy eating. What, I didn’t want to know. Others tried to chase us, but we were moving way too fast for them. This road was mostly clear and I was clocking close to 60 MPH.

“Do you mind reloading all the weapons?” I asked, holding my Glock out for her to take.

She took it without hesitation.

“I’m already on it.”

I’d been too busy watching the road to notice.

“Would you like an inventory of what we have on hand?”

“Yeah, that would be great.”

“Can do,” said Spec-4.

Sorry, old habits die hard and I would probably always mentally call her by that nick-name. It was pretty much rooted in my brain, now.

“We’ve got two assault rifles, three shotguns and five pistols,” she said. “That i
ncludes yours. Probably a couple hundred rounds of ammo of various calibers and eight magazines for the rifles. The pistols and shotguns are all reloaded.”

She handed me back my Glock and reached over and put two fresh mags in
the empty holder on my belt. I shoved the Glock in my holster and kept driving.

“Great job,” I said, “and thanks.
I’ve got a bad feeling we’ll need these before we make it back.”

She smiled, but didn’t say anything.
But she did lay my Mossberg right next to my right leg. She’d refilled the sling bandolier and reloaded it for me.

“What did you say you did in the Army?”