Ragnarok: The Fate of Gods

by Jake La Jeunesse

  Charlie checked his gun. “How many rounds you got left?”

  Smalls hit the release on the side of the magazine. It slid gently out. “One,” he said. “You?” Thump. Thump.

  “Three. Maybe four.”

  “Great,” said Smalls, clicking the magazine back into place. “Well, let’s go answer the door.” They advanced slowly, trying not to trip over the junk on the floor.

  Thump, thump.

  They spied a deadbolt. Still latched and holding fast after nearly eight years.

  “One of us gotta do it.” They each held up one fist.

  They counted together. “One, two, three.”

  Charlie chose rock. Smalls chose paper.

  “Not my day,” the big man grumbled as he stepped forward to twist the deadbolt.

  Before he reached it, the door burst open. He screamed and raised his gun. The figure came face to face with the weapon and screamed, too. Both men heard it scream and screamed again.

  “Get that thing out of my face!” yelled Zeke, pushing the barrel of the gun away.

  “You’re alive!” shouted Smalls, who calmed down first.

  “Of course I am.”

  “How did you get in?”

  Zeke looked angry. “Well, when you didn’t answer, I just kept on kicking.”

  “No, I mean . . . well, we’re sorry, but . . . does this stairwell lead downstairs?” he asked.

  “Used to. Looks like the bottom level caved in, though. I got in from the roof. Street is swarming with draugr, but there’s none out back. Good thing, too, because you missed the ladder hanging from the roof.”

  Charlie and Smalls looked at each other sheepishly in the dark.

  “So where are we anyway?”

  “We’re still betting on a prison,” said Charlie. “Saw some stuff in the street looks like it used to be a fence. Razor wire and all.”

  “That tower we saw earlier,” added Smalls. “Looks like there were others that were knocked down or something.”

  “Great,” said Zeke, not much caring for the details of the prison. “You find any medical supplies?”

  Charlie reached for a table with some bags on it. He pulled out a small box and threw it to Zeke. “Jackpot. One box of self-adhesive bandages. Assorted sizes.”

  “Great. Then we’re set,” he answered flatly.

  “The mission was a bust. They must have sent us out here for some other reason.”

  “Yeah. I figured that out on my own.” He thought back to what the malak had said. Zeke was the one it was sent to find, the one he chose. The one who chose? “Let’s skip to what’s important. How are we going to get out of here?”

  “The car should still work. The only problem is getting to it.”

  “We tried clearing out the draugr after we holed up in here, but they just kept coming.” Charlie paused. Zeke wasn’t happy. He continued meekly. “So then we started weeding out the fast ones . . .”

  “Let me guess. When that didn’t work, you started making bets. Right?”

  The two big men glanced at each other sheepishly. “Uh . . . no?”

  “Great. Just great. How many bullets do you have left?”

  “Best case scenario or worst?”

  “Let’s go with worst.”

  “Four,” said Smalls.

  “And the best?”

  “Five,” said Charlie.

  “Jae-Ho and Daniel. Where are they?” He pressed forward, trying to assess the situation.

  “They fell behind.”

  “Daniel made it to the tower, but they got Jae-Ho.”

  Charlie pointed at a nearby table. “We have radios,” he said helpfully.

  “Why didn’t you say that earlier?” He dashed over to the table and started flipping switches and turning knobs. Pulling the small microphone to his mouth, he said, “Daniel, this is Zeke. Do you read me? Over.”

  He released the button. No answer.

  “Daniel. They said the draugr got Jae-Ho. Are you hurt? Over.”

  Nothing.

  “Daniel, are you there? Come in. Over.” His voice was more urgent.

  Still, no answer.

  Charlie stepped forward slowly. “I don’t think you understand. We have radios. He don’t.”

  Zeke banged his head down on the table and rested it there. “Then since the two of you gambled away your own defenses, I guess I’ve got to go check on our little friend myself.” He stood. “How do you get outside?”

  Smalls and Zeke peered cautiously out of a broken window. They didn’t want to attract any unnatural attention. The ground floor was not secure—the men had protected themselves by barricading the stairwells and hoping the draugr couldn’t climb. The creatures seemed to have lost interest in the building, though.

  Zeke wanted to keep it that way.

  He raised a radio to his mouth, held the button, and whispered, “Most of these guys look slow. I think I can take them, but cover me anyway.”

  “You got it!” boomed a voice from the small handset. “I got your back.

  “Shhh!” urged Zeke in a frantic whisper. He glanced around, but the draugr didn’t seem to hear him. He continued. “Now this is important. You don’t have many shots left, so don’t shoot unless I get hurt. Got it?” He released the button.

  “Got it.” Charlie whispered back.

  “This is important. Trust me to take care of myself. Do not fire unless it’s absolutely necessary.”

  “I read you, pal!” he shouted again. Zeke switched off the radio for safety. Then he clipped it to his belt.

  Turning to Smalls, he explained, “Your job is to bar the door as soon as I’m out. Then, you can cover me from the window, but save your ammo if you can.”

  “Understood, sir!” he whispered, all business.

  “Good. I’m going.”

  Without another word, the swordsman dashed out of the door. It slammed shut behind him, then came the sounds of scuffling as Smalls built a barrier behind it.

  Zeke dashes quietly into the street, hopping lightly among the rubble. He moves fast, but with so many draugr, they’ll notice him before too long.

  Once they catch the scent of fresh blood, they begin to cluster. They stand between him and the tower. He raises his sword. Most are slow. He handles them with ease. Corpse-like heads fly. But there are a lot of monsters. His progress is slow. Can I last until I hit the tower? he wonders.

  Suddenly, something grabs him from behind. Zeke is thrown on his back. He looks up at his assailant. It’s a clumsy, awkward beast. One leg is significantly shorter than the other. Both arms are even, but short. Its claws look broken. He prepares to stab upward at the weak enemy.

  Crack!

  A gun fires and the draugr explodes. Zeke is sprayed with a dark mess of blood and entrails.

  He stands. Smalls hangs out the window with his gun.

  “You fool! I said don’t shoot!” Zeke shouts.

  But the draugr seem to have forgotten him. Instead, they amble toward Smalls, who has just spent his last bullet.

  They know he’s defenseless. The thought makes him shiver.

  Click, click, click, click. Smalls pulls his trigger endlessly. It is both a demonstration of hope and an exercise in futility.

  Zeke hops up on a rusted sheet of metal. He jumps up and down. He picks up a rock and throws it. He shouts, “Hey! Hey you rotten bastards! What about me? You got a gourmet dinner right here!”

  The draugr aren’t interested in him. Are they really that intelligent? Can they really detect weakness? They don’t seem very smart. Instinct, maybe?

  An instinct about empty firearms?

  Zeke catches himself in thought and realizes he has to do something. The hoard of draugr are slowly closing in on the building, and the other men have no where to go.

  He shouts again, but his voice is lost as a grenade explodes.

  The street lights up with fire. Some draugr explode. Others ignite. Most just keep coming. Charlie follows Smalls’ cue and fires h
is own grenade. The same routine. Some explosions, some burning monsters.

  But the rest keep coming.

  Draugr are climbing in through the window now. Zeke catches a glimpse of a waving arm, but only for a moment. Over the terrible hissing and screaming of the monsters, he hears the unmistakable scream of pain. Coming from a human.

  It is too late for Smalls.

  With no way to save the man, Zeke took the opportunity to finish his dash to the guard tower. He hit the door with his entire body. For good measure, he knocked with his fist, too. “Daniel! Daniel, are you there? Open the door. It’s safe.”

  He waited a moment, then the door swung open. He ran inside and slammed it shut behind him.

  The room flickered with dim light. Daniel had found a small kerosene lantern and lit it. There was a cloth tied around his leg seeping with blood. Zeke took a moment to scan the scene, then pulled out his radio.

  “Charlie, can you hear me? Charlie?”

  A moment of silence, then the radio crackled. “–got you. Loud and—“

  “They got Smalls. You okay?”

  Another pause. Then, “Yeah, I’ve blocked the –well, and I doubt –elevator working soon. The runt – fine?”

  “Yeah. I just got here. Looks like he’s okay.”

  The reception through the concrete walls was terrible. All he could hear from Charlie’s next transmission were the phrases “on the roof” and “something’s going down.”

  From the top of the tower, Zeke could see the draugr bang up the transport. Their antics would have reminded him of a band of gorillas, were it not for the unearthly hissing. They hopped up and down, hit the car with their claws, and rammed their bodies into it as if trying to kill it. Looking for blood. All the while hissing like demented snakes.

  “What do you make of it?” Charlie asked over the radio.

  “I don’t know. Looks like they’re excited about something, though.”

  “I got a few shots left. Want me to pick a few of them off?”

  “No. Save your bullets. You’ll need . . .” His voice trailed off as the draugr screamed loudly. He saw the monsters in the moonlight, dragging off what appeared to be the canvas walls of the jeep. They hollered as they tore through the crates, tossing objects left and right.

  “Holy crap,” the radio said. “They find a meal in all that?”

  Some of the draugr looked hunched over, playing with something.

  The street lit up in a giant fireball. Zeke ducked as a mess of draugr and shrapnel flew everywhere. When the explosion faded, he heard Charlie’s voice. It was not coming through the radio. “Take that you garbage-smelling sons-of-bitches!”

  He pressed the button on the radio. “What did you do?”

  “Nothing. I swear. Damn monsters must have found our bombs.”

  He shuddered at the thought. “Fine, but don’t get cocky. There are still plenty of them left, and now we have one less chance of getting out of here.”

  The radio crackled. “I know. How’d those guys manage to blow themselves up, anyway? Those bombs weren’t even rigged up yet.”

  Zeke didn’t want to say the answer. They had set up the detonator. The same way they knew when Smalls had run out of bullets—they were smart. Smarter than anyone guessed in the last eight years. They may not be brilliant, but they knew where the food was, and they knew the crates in the car could help reach it.

  “Charlie, don’t drop your guard tonight. These guys are still trying to get us, and they’re intelligent.”

  “Intelligent? Yeah, pretty damn intelligent to blow themselves up like that.”

  “Just be careful. We’re stuck here until we can figure out a plan. I’ve got to go take care of Daniel. I’ll radio again at sunrise.”

  “Got it,” Charlie replied. “You be careful too.”

  “Will do. Over and out.”

  He clipped the radio to his belt and climbed down the ladder to the interior of the guard tower. Daniel rested on a table, wincing in pain.

  “Sorry about that,” Zeke said. A wounded man was not something to be neglected. “Looks like we’re stuck here, though. Damn freaks blew up our car. How are you doing?”

  He looked calm, but pained. When he spoke, he sounded in a furious panic. “Just go! Don’t waste your time on me. Save yourself!”

  Zeke took a step back. “Giving up already?” he asked, genuinely confused. The wound didn’t appear deep or too severe. Daniel’s makeshift bandage seemed to be holding up well. “Let me look at it. See what I can do,” he offered.

  “You shouldn’t be here. Just go!”

  Zeke glanced around, as if something were about to jump out and attack him. He saw nothing. “Look, I know I haven’t exactly been friendly with you, but we’re still stuck here together. I might as well look at your wound.”

  “It won’t do any good.”

  He ignored the boy and peeled up the bandage anyway. Immediately, blood started to pour from the wound. The bandage had held the blood, but it hadn’t clotted. Zeke knew some animals that fed off blood had anti-coagulants in their saliva. This made drinking easy, since blood flowed freely. Were the draugr like that, too?

  He wiped with the dirty rag. For a moment, the wound cleared up.

  “It’s bleeding a lot, but it’s not very deep,” he told Daniel. He pushed the cloth down hard, forcing the bleeding to stop. Daniel winced. “So you can stop worrying.”

  “That hurts!”

  “Quit whining, gunboy. Don’t tell me you’ve never been hurt before.” Zeke could see his harsh attitude wasn’t helping. He tried a calmer approach. “This is the only way to stop the bleeding. It might take a while.”

  “It’s not the blood. It’s those . . . things!” His voice was still panicked.

  “What? They’re out there. We’re in here. We’re safe for now.” He thought of the draugr setting up the detonator and wondered if it were true.

  “You don’t understand.” He reached up and grabbed Zeke’s arm, pleading for understanding. “All the legends. Undead monsters. Zombies. They bit me. I could turn into one at any minute! You have to leave! Save yourself!”

  Zeke brushed off the grasp. “What? Zombies? Of all the stupid . . .” He caught himself and shifted his tone. “Those are just fairy-tales. Stories they told hundreds of years ago to frighten children.”

  “Then what are those things out there? Does anyone really know?” He was still afraid, but Zeke thought he might be calming down.

  He spoke confidently, despite his own worries. “I don’t know. But none of them are, or ever have been, human. Don’t worry about it or you’ll end up like that Slayer, running around, staking draugr like vampires. You will be fine.”

  Daniel relaxed, looking relieved. Zeke thought the best thing to do was to take his mind off the injury and the fear. Daniel’s guns were lying next to him on the table. “Do you name your weapons?”

  The boy paused for a moment, caught by surprise. Then he answered, “No.”

  “What would you call them if you did?”

  “I never really thought about it.” He thought briefly, then said, “I’d have to say ‘Blaster’ for the pistol and ‘Boomstick’ for the shotgun.”

  Zeke smiled. He immediately recognized them as the names of weapons from old fairy-tales and legends. “You really do go for those old stories, don’t you?”

  “Everyone needs a hobby,” he said, starting to relax for the first time that night.

  “You remind me of someone I know. Knew. During the war,” Zeke said, telling the story more to himself than to the boy. “He was obsessed with fairy-tales. Said it helped him understand people. Silly, really.”

  “My boss is like the same way.”

  “Dumah?” Zeke seemed surprised, then he caught himself. “Wait, that’s right. You’re working with him, not for him.”

  “What do you call yours?”

  “What?”

  “Your sword. You must have a name for it. What is it?”

&nb
sp; Zeke hesitated. “Deanna,” he said.

  If Daniel was still in pain, he was ignoring it well. His eyes lit with interest. “Deanna? Who is she? Some old girlfriend?” he asked with a suggestive smirk.

  “Absolutely no one.”

  He was so honest and sincere that Daniel assumed he must be lying. “Come on,” he pushed. “She must be someone. Who is she?”

  “No one at all. I swear. I just liked the name.”

  It was clear that the boy didn’t believe him, but he was either satisfied with the answer or didn’t feel like pushing it, because he stopped pestering.

  For about five minutes.

  After a long silence, he asked, “What about Ariel? Who is she?”

  Zeke had had enough. “Look, she isn’t my girlfriend. I’m just taking care of her. A favor among friends. Your bleeding has stopped, so I’m just going to re-tie your bandages. And then, I’m going to sleep. Okay? Tomorrow we have to figure out a way to get home, so I suggest you get some rest too.”

  He blew out the lantern and lay down on the floor without another word.

  Chapter Seven: Return Journey

  The dream began at dawn.

  A dream? Thought Zeke. Am I dreaming again? Somehow, it felt strange. Like his mind wasn’t private anymore.

  The two boys popped out of the woods. It looked like they had been there for a week. They were dirty. Scratched. Bruised. It had only been one night.

  “A town,” observed Micah, glancing in the distance. Across a field of tall grass, they could see buildings. People. “Let’s go.” Zeke followed him through the grass toward the settlement.

  People swarmed around an open-air market. All of them busy, no one noticed the two dirty kids who crept out of the field. The boys were grateful for their invisibility. They were hungry. They needed food, and they had no money.

  Micah led them to the main street. They stopped by a large shop. “Wait here. It’s best if I go alone.” He handed his bag to Zeke. The weight dragged him off-balance.

  “You have a bag that weighs this much and there’s no food in it?” He was slightly annoyed at their lack of foresight.

  “Food is easy to replace. I took the things that aren’t.” With that, he disappeared into an alley. Zeke waited, standing still for a long time. His eyes scanned the crowd. People came and went. They passed quickly. Their lives crossing paths with him only for a moment. He knew they were there, but he felt like he couldn’t see them. Not who they were, at least. Theocratic? Rebellion-friendly? It was hard to say. It didn’t matter. They couldn’t see him either. To one man, he was just a boy waiting for his parents to come out of the store. To another, he was waiting for his girlfriend to meet him. To a woman, he was a thief, eyeing up the crowd. A thousand different personas to a thousand different people, but no one could see who he really was.