Jumping away from the wall, I brought my M-4 to my shoulder and looked at the building with growing fear rising in my stomach. I guess the wild look on my face coupled with the readying of the weapon gave Spec-4 all she needed to know. She snapped her weapon to her shoulder and began to swing it around looking for any sign of a threat.
“Wylie,” she hissed. “What’s going on?”
“That warehouse is full of Stalkers,” I replied, not really trying to keep my voice low. “That’s why we don’t see many of the dead walking around. They’ve all been turned into Stalkers. Grimnir told me that they had figured out how to spread the Stalker modification into the others.”
“That’s not good,” she said, looking pale.
“No, it’s not,” I replied. “They must have been turning all the dead that they can find, hoping that they will find us and take us out. We’re damned lucky that there’s still enough light out to make them go to ground.”
“Then we definitely don’t want to be out here when the sun goes down,” said Spec-4, frowning.
“We need to find something armored or a place that we can secure,” I added.
“Why didn’t they find us at your house?” asked Spec-4.
“I have no idea,” I replied honestly. “Maybe they just hadn’t searched that area yet.”
“Springfield is a big area to search,” agreed Spec-4. “I guess it would take them time to search all of it.”
“I can’t think of any other explanations, other than blind luck,” I said, wrinkling my brow in thought.
“Whatever the reason,” said Spec-4, “we need to get as far away from this building as we can get before nightfall.”
“Considering the number of dead that would have to be left,” I said, glancing around, “I’d say it’s a safe bet that this isn’t the only building that’s packed full of Stalkers. In fact, I’d say any building that is big enough and doesn’t have many windows would probably be full of the damned things.”
“So you’re saying that there could be literally thousands of them?” asked Spec-4, incredulously.
“Maybe tens of thousands, depending on how many they can turn,” I replied, shrugging.
“An entire army of Stalkers,” she muttered. “This just couldn’t get any worse.”
“Sure it can,” I said, smiling without humor. “There are still Gods know how many of those damned gorillas out there, too.”
“You really are just a ray of sunshine today,” she said sarcastically.
“Let’s get to the church,” I said, turning to move off. “If there’s another Humvee there, at least we can button down inside it and keep them off of us for the night. We know that they can’t get through the armor.”
“At least that’s something,” she said, moving to follow me.
We gave up the pretense of moving quietly and just watched for movement as we hurried towards the church. We knew we had plenty of daylight left to get there, but I knew that if we didn’t find a suitable vehicle then we were going to have to find a place to hide before it got dark. The problem was, there just weren’t that many buildings in the city of Springfield, that I was aware of, that would withstand an attack by the Stalkers. Well, nothing short of a bank vault. Getting ourselves inside an Up-armored Humvee was about as close to that was we were likely to find.
By the time we reached the park across the street from the school where my sons went to grade school, we had passed at least three buildings that could potentially have Stalkers inside of them. One was a church, which made me worry about our destination. If they could hide in the darkness of a church, then we were heading for a big one. It was a good sized Catholic Church and could easily hold a couple hundred of the damned things without much problem.
On the corner, there was one of those large chain drugstores that was open all night before the shit hit the fan. It had already been looted seven ways from Sunday, but I wanted to check inside anyway. I knew that food and water would have been one of the first things to go, right after the drugs. However, I wasn’t interested in drugs or food. I was after something infinitely more useful to our situation.
Crunching through the glass to get inside, I could see that there was enough light filtering inside from the windows to make it unappealing to the Stalkers. That more than made it appealing to me. Using my light, I swept row upon row of empty shelves. Looters had taken anything even marginally edible or drinkable. They even took all of the alcohol. Batteries were gone as well as flashlights. Hel, someone had even looted all the fucking cell phones, for all the good they would have done them.
I wasn’t interested in any of that, anyway. I was heading for the minimal stock of automotive goods that they had. Just as I had hoped, it was largely untouched. I guess car maintenance wasn’t a high priority during the zombie apocalypse. Opening my pack, I took every can of fix-a-flat that they had and four cans of starter fluid. Then I grabbed a small kit of basic tools. Just for the Hel of it, I took a couple of cans of spray lubricant and about a dozen rolls of duct tape. Those all went into a canvas bag that I found on the floor. The last thing I grabbed was a set of jumper cables.
“Planning on doing a little vehicle repair?” asked Spec-4.
“Not planning on it, but expecting it,” I replied, zipping up the bag. “After a vehicle has set this long, the tires will go flat. I can’t just pop down to the nearest Stop N Rob to use their air-tank to air them up. I’ve gotta plan ahead.”
“What about the tools and other stuff?”
“Well, the tools are for checking fuel filters and cleaning the injectors,” I answered. “They tend to gum up if they set too long. The rest is just in case.”
“Gotcha,” she said, grinning. “I hope you know what you’re doing.”
“Yeah, me too,” I said, heading for the door.
As we got closer to the door, I was beginning to get that queasy feeling I get when something is going wrong. I had the sudden impression that we shouldn’t walk out the door. There was something going on and my instinct was kicking in to warn me of danger. I had learned to listen to those feelings over the last few months. It had saved our lives many times.
“Wait a sec,” I said, quietly. “Something’s up.”
Without hesitation, Spec-4 knelt down behind one of the cash registers and brought up her weapon. I crouched behind the other register and brought up my M-4, quietly switching the selector from safe to semi. I noticed Spec-4 following my lead and hear the soft click as her selector changed positions. With a grim nod, she indicated that she was ready for whatever happened next. I just hoped that we could handle whatever it was.
We waited in silence for a long moment until I was just about ready to give up and move closer to the door. That’s when I heard it. It was the clear sound of hoof-beats. It was easy to identify the source as those massive horses that the Eldjötnar used. I strained my ears to try and determine how many were coming. It wasn’t easy to be certain, but I estimated three to four. Those were not good odds.
“What do we do, now?” whispered Spec-4.
“We wait,” I replied, keeping my voice low. “If we’re lucky, they’ll keep moving. If not, we’re going to have one Hel of a fight on our hands.”
“I’m going to go ahead and guess the second one,” she said with a wink. “That’s usually how it goes when I’m with you.”
I couldn’t argue that. If anything, I had to admit that she was right. It seemed like things never went the easy way for us. If there was a fight to be found, we were damned sure going to find it. Or, more specifically, it was going to find me. I seemed to be a magnet for trouble, despite the fact that I would prefer to avoid them most of the time. Well, ok. Part of the time.
Some days, I wanted to fight. Especially if it was going after someone that had hurt us or killed someone I cared about. The Freemen could attest to that. There were a few others who could join that list, too. If there were any of them still alive to say anything.
This, however, was
completely different. We were running low on time, luck and options. If they didn't move off and out of the area soon, we were going to be stuck in here when the Stalkers came out to play. We needed to get moving and either find a place to barricade ourselves inside of or a vehicle to get us the Hel out of here.
"Cover me," I whispered, shrugging out of my pack and placing it quietly on the ground.
Staying low, I crept towards the front door. I was careful to avoid the broken glass that littered the ground. I knew that the crunching sound would instantly draw attention to me and I wasn't planning on announcing myself. If there was a way to deal with them without a fight, then we were going to have to find it. I knew I could take one, maybe two, of them. Spec-4 might not be able to handle the other two. Especially since she didn't do as well as I did with swords. I knew that the M-4's were only going to be of limited use against the Eldjötnar.
Peering around the corner of the doorframe, I could see that there were five of the riders. They were stopped in the middle of the intersection about thirty yards away from where I was crouched. I doubted that they could see me, but I decided to err on the side of caution. I could hear them well enough to know that they were speaking a language that I didn't understand. That was going to make eavesdropping useless.
Motioning for Spec-4 to move up slowly, I kept an eye on the assembled warriors. There had to be a reason that they were out here. It was possible that they were searching for us, but I felt like there was something more at work here. Call it one of my hunches, but something wasn't adding up to me.
"What are they doing?" whispered Spec-4 as she slid up next to me.
"I'm not sure," I replied. "It almost looks like they're waiting for something."
"What would they be waiting for?" she asked, glancing around nervously.
"Probably to rendezvous with another group," I replied. "Which is exactly why I don't want to move too quickly."
"Good point," she agreed. "Five to two is bad enough odds."
We sat there in the semi-darkness at the front of the store for a long, tense moment. Occasionally, we would exchange glances but we kept quiet. The Eldjötnar continued to set on their horses and talk amongst themselves. They didn’t seem to be in any hurry and no one else arrived to meet up with them. It was almost as if they knew we were there and were just waiting there until we did something to reveal ourselves.
“How long are they going to just sit there?” said Spec-4, her patience clearly running thin.
“Something isn’t right,” I agreed. “I know that the Eldjötnar can’t control the dead like the Hrimthurssar. That means they will have to be heading for someplace safe before it gets too dark.”
“And they’re on horseback,” added Spec-4. “Wherever they are going, it can’t be too far away.”
I slowly made my way back to the register and recovered the rest of my gear. Slipping the pack back onto my shoulders, I unclipped my tactical sling for the M-4 and put it away. Then I reached for Beowulf. I checked the load and readied the weapon. Beowulf was ready.
Moving back into position beside Spec-4, I smiled at her and brought the weapon up to my shoulder.
“Uh oh,” muttered Spec-4. “So much for doing things the quiet way.”
“We’re running out of time,” I replied. “We’ve either got to engage these assholes or find a way to slip away without them noticing.”
“Isn’t there a back door to this place?” asked Spec-4.
“I suppose there is,” I said, nodding towards the back. “But the storerooms don’t have windows, so I’d bet that there’s a good chance we’ll run into Stalkers back there.”
“So we’re damned if we do and damned if we don’t,” said Spec-4, frowning.
“Yeah, pretty much,” I agreed. “If we go out the front, they’ll probably see us. If we go out the back and there are Stalkers back there, then the Eldjötnar will definitely hear us.”
“So which way do we go?” she said, sighing.
I thought about it for a long moment before answering. As much as I really wanted to just unleash the full fury of Beowulf on them and be done with it, I knew that would alert everyone who was searching for us for miles. If we could get through the backroom without having a major engagement with the dead, then we stood a good chance of getting away clean. On the other hand, if we ran into the dead back there, then it was likely we’d end up fighting both the dead and the Eldjötnar.
“Let’s try the back,” I whispered, reluctantly. “We’ll light it up with our tactical lights. If there are any of the dead in there, we fall back and head up here. There’s no sense in us having to fight both groups.”
“Think we can sneak past them?” she asked hopefully.
“I seriously doubt it,” I replied. “They’re on guard. I can hear them talking, but they’re waiting for something. If we don’t get out of here soon, I’m afraid we might be stuck here.”
“Let’s give it a shot,” said Spec-4, nodding.
With that, we slipped away from the door and headed for the back of the store. We were careful to stay out of direct line of sight of the door. I didn’t want to take the chance that they might catch a glimpse of movement and come to investigate. If they followed us into the store, we’d have no choice but to fight our way out.
As we approached the entrance to the storeroom, I switched back to the M-4. Bringing it up to my shoulder, I turned on the tactical light and nodded at Spec-4. Switching on her tac-light, we brought our weapons into position and flicked off the safeties. With a grim nod, I nudged open the swinging door that led into the darkness of the storage area.
At first, the powerful lights only revealed a ransacked storeroom. The ground was littered with boxes that had been torn open and the contents were scattered around the room. Nothing moved in the darkness, so we slowly stepped inside. I listened for any sound in the darkness that might indicate the presence of the dead. All I heard was an eerie silence and the pounding of my own pulse as it raced through my veins.
Motioning for her to sweep to the right while I swept to the left, she nodded and we prepared to swing around the corners of the short hallway. Although the room was still as quiet as the proverbial tomb, that didn’t stop the tension level from rising like the tide with each passing step. I knew that if there were Stalkers hiding here in the darkness, we might not be able to fall back fast enough to make our escape. They were too damned fast for comfort.
I held up three fingers and began making a chopping motion to indicate the countdown. On the third chop, I stepped out rapidly and swung my weapon around to cover my assigned section. My finger was itching to slide onto the trigger, but years of fire discipline held me in check. I would only place my finger on the trigger when I was ready to engage a target, not a moment before.
I panned the light from left to right, cutting my slice of the pie. Although there was nothing moving, I could see from the marks on the ground that there definitely had been some kind of creature in here. There were claw-like marks in the dust on the ground as well as the torn remnants of clothing. I could also see where they had made a meal of what was likely another zombie. Stalkers were predators in the truest sense of the word. We’d long ago discovered that they would hunt the other undead, if no other prey was around.
“Clear,” I called.
“Clear,” echoed Spec-4. “But they’ve been here recently.”
“Let’s find the door and get out of here,” I replied.
As we began to search the storeroom, it was clear that the place had been thoroughly ransacked by looters. It had probably been done on the first few days of the fall. From the amount of dust on the shelves and the items scattered on the ground, it was easy to see that no one had disturbed any of it in quite some time.
While I was moving around looking for the door, I found a box that had a couple of items of interest inside. I grabbed the small first aid kit and tucked it into my cargo pocket. Beneath it was the big score, though. I found two large bag
s of candy that were still sealed. One was Snickers and the other was Reece’s Peanut Butter Cups. I tucked them both in my other cargo pocket. I’d have to share those with Spec-4 later.
“Found it,” I heard her call, trying to keep her voice down.
Turning around, I headed towards the sound of her voice. As I was passing the doors that led back into the store, I heard the sound of movement. It seemed to be coming from the front of the store. Either the Eldjötnar were coming inside or whoever they had been waiting on had arrived. Either way, we needed to get moving and fast.
“We’ve got company,” I whispered as I moved up beside her.
“Let’s go,” she said, reaching for the door.
“Hold on,” I said, grabbing her hand. “Not so fast. These doors were designed to sound an alarm when they were opened. If there’s still any power in the batteries, then we’re about to let everyone know where we’re at. Let me check it out, first.”
“Better make it fast,” she warned, shaking her head.
Using the light from Spec-4’s flashlight, I checked around the door to make sure that there weren’t any alarms or other surprises. It didn’t take long before I found the wire that ran from the back of the door handle and vanished into the doorframe. Pulling out my multi-tool, I flicked it open and used the wire-cutters to clip the wire. I half expected it to sound the alarm anyway, but I breathed a sigh of relief when nothing happened.
I quickly put away my multi-tool and brought my weapon back to my shoulder. It was officially go time. While Spec-4 covered me, I pushed the door release slowly and started opening the door. Little by little, I gradually forced the door open and allowed the outside light to come pouring inside.
Peering through the gap, I searched around for any sign of trouble. When I didn’t see anything moving, I risked opening the door even further. Soon, I was able to open it far enough that I could stick out my head and take a quick look around. It was all clear, so I opened the door all the way and stepped outside into the light. Spec-4 followed me out and I silently shut the door. I just hoped that if someone had come into the store looking for us, that they didn’t notice our tracks in the dust.
Ragnarok Rising: Desolation: Book Five of the Ragnarok Rising Saga Page 36