Ragnarok Rising

by D. A. Roberts

  “Before the dead came,” he began, gesturing around us and leaning back in the chair, “I was a cop in this town. I used to patrol these streets and the people loved me.”

  Sure they did.

  “I was also a model,” he added. “I did photo shoots for lots of different magazines. The camera loved me. There were even a growing number of people who wanted me to run for mayor of St. Louis.”

  I bet there was. He seemed to be warming to his theme and was no longer even looking at me. I could see the looks on the faces of his men. They were nodding in agreement. This was just fucking great. This egotistical asshole had his own personality cult here. I bet they were “loyal subjects” of his before this all started. That explained why they were following him. It’s easy to create your own little empire when you only recruit people who think you’re the greatest.

  “When things started getting bad,” he explained, “I called my friends and we grabbed our gear. We were all preparing for some kind of collapse of society, anyway. Initially, we had planned to seize the brewery but had to change our plans when it was overrun by the dead and caught fire.”

  “I can see how that would cause you to change your plans,” I said.

  He suddenly looked at me like he was seeing me for the first time. He seemed annoyed that I had interrupted him. Anger flashed in his eyes and he looked like he was about to launch into a tirade when I distracted him.

  “So you decided to come here instead,” I said, feigning interest.

  “What?” he asked, confusion on his face.

  Then his mood shifted again and he looked happy.

  “Oh no,” he said, excitedly. “We tried to reach the airport first. The government had set up an evacuation center there, but you couldn’t get anywhere near the place. The dead had the place under siege. It was unbelievable. There was no way we were going to make it in there. Well, not without a tank. Then again, if we’d had a tank the dead wouldn’t be that much of a threat, anyway.”

  I decided to just let him ramble on without any comments from me. It only seemed to distract him and he was too unpredictable to take the chance of him completely snapping. I began to slowly flex my hands and wrists, straining against the riot cuffs. I knew no one could see my hands behind my back because of the chair, so I slipped my knife out from my waistband and began to cut into the plastic. I had to do it very slowly so that it wasn’t obvious to my “hosts.”

  Then through the blah blah blah of his speech, I heard something that I keyed onto and began listening. He was talking about other survivors.

  “We initially weren’t rescuing anyone or anything,” he explained. “We were just looking for a place to ride out the rise of the dead. But pretty soon we realized that we weren’t going to be able to do it alone. So, we started grabbing people that we thought might be useful.”

  It was the “useful” part that jumped out at me. What did they define as useful? What did they do with the ones that they thought were useless? My temper was starting to flare at the thought of what he might have done to survivors that didn’t make the cut.

  “There were fifteen of us, in the beginning,” he said, gesturing at the others. “We lost a few good friends in the early days, but since then we’ve figured out that moving fast and agile with the motorcycles is the best way to forage for supplies.”

  “What about the other survivors?” I asked, unable to resist any longer.

  “Oh, they were brought here,” he said, as if he was a teacher explaining things to a child. “We separated them by our needs, of course. I mean, women had to be kept away from the men. Naturally, there was no sense in letting them have all the fun.”

  That drew a few nods and chuckles from his men. I wanted to punch him in the throat.

  “Some of the men had to be put out on the street,” he said, his gaze drifting off away from me. “Like the ones who couldn’t work, or if they needed medical attention. I mean, we couldn’t afford to waste what supplies we had on someone who probably wasn’t going to make it in the first place. Am I right?”

  That resulted in a lot of nods from his men and a few mumbled agreements.

  “The others were put in an area that we set up to hold them,” he added. “We feed them, but we never let them have any guns or weapons. I can’t trust them to be loyal, like my men. Although there have been a few who have proven loyal to me and joined us.”

  I could see why they would have to keep them locked up, too. If they were keeping them like prisoners and separating the women for their own use, then it’s amazing that they had managed to keep them contained. I couldn’t understand the ones who had decided to join this asshole. Some people would sell out their own grandmother to make things easier on themselves.

  “How did you keep them from rioting?” I asked, my anger starting to grow.

  “Oh, that was easy,” he said, grinning. “A stroke of genius on my part, I must say. We just keep armed guards on them and have it rigged so that if they try to escape, we can open an exterior door and let the dead get them.”

  “How many are there?” I snapped, the anger evident in my voice.

  “Twenty men,” he said, scratching his thin beard. “Almost that many women, too. Something like ten kids. I don’t know exactly. I don’t pay attention to stuff like that. We make the men work in the outfield. We’ve turned it into a big garden. We’re growing quite a bit of our own food, now. We still have to make scavenger runs, but this place was a treasure trove of stored food. Mostly for the vendors, I would imagine. We also had plenty of beer.”

  I was making good progress on the riot cuffs when I realized that he had stopped talking. For just a moment, my heart skipped a beat when I thought they had figured out what I was up to. Instead, when I looked up I could see that Westbrook had distracted himself by gazing at his own reflection in the big mirror behind the bar. He seemed to be admiring his hair and beard, probably making sure no hair was out of place.

  My mind began to whirl with the possibilities for escape. The four men, five including Westbrook, were scattered in different parts of the room. Also, they were all armed. If I did get free, I could easily get one of them with the knife. Possibly two, if I was lucky. After that, I’d be cut to ribbons by the others. No matter which scenario I ran in my head or which direction of attack I chose, the end would be the same. I would lose.

  I figured that I would at least get to stick my knife in Westbrook’s neck. After that, it would just be a matter of time. I didn’t get too much time to ponder it, though. One of the men brought over my bag of gear and weapons. Laying them on the bar in front of Westbrook, he gave me a dirty look before turning to face Westbrook.

  “This old fucker sure was well armed,” he said, gesturing at the bag.

  “I’m not old, asshole,” I replied.

  “What did you just say?” snarled the man.

  I didn’t catch his name, but dipshit was what I was already mentally calling him.

  “Did I fucking stutter?” I replied, matching his tone. “Are you deaf as well as stupid?”

  Dipshit started towards me with his fist cocked back when Westbrook grabbed him by the shoulder and nearly yanked him off of his feet.

  “That’s enough,” snapped Westbrook.

  “Yeah, tough guy,” I said, mockingly. “You must be a real badass to punch someone who is already tied up. Cut me loose and see how fast I beat your ass.”

  “Come on, Kevin,” whined Dipshit. “Let me teach this old bastard some manners.”

  “Yeah, Kevin,” I added, smiling wickedly. “Let him try it. I’d be more than glad to teach him just how wrong he is.”

  “I said knock it off!” shouted Westbrook, his tenuous grip on his temper already slipping.

  “Better listen to him like good puppy,” I added, grinning. “Do what your master tells you. You don’t want to get put in time out.”

  I had no intention of letting either of them calm down enough to think rationally. My best chance for escape lay in
them being unable to out-think me. At five to one odds, I needed every advantage that I could get. If I could make them mad enough to do something stupid, I might get one of them to come close enough that I might be able to get my hands on a gun. If I could do that, I liked my odds against this crowd. Only Westbrook seemed like he had any real training, and I had serious doubts about him.

  “Goddamn it, Jordan,” snarled Westbrook, “We haven’t interrogated him yet. I don’t want him harmed until we learn everything we need to know.”

  “Yeah, Jordan,” I continued mercilessly, “Don’t make him smack you on the nose with a newspaper.”

  “Shut the fuck up!” screamed Jordan/Dipshit.

  “Or you’ll what?” I replied, calmly. “Scream at me some more? Oooh.”

  “If you don’t knock it off, I’m going to turn him loose on you,” snarled Westbrook.

  “Is that supposed to scare me?” I laughed. “He’s about as intimidating as my grandmother’s Chihuahua.”

  “That’s it!” snapped Dipshit.

  With that, he yanked away from Westbrook and stalked towards me. He started flexing his knuckles and smiling.

  “I’ll show you Chihuahua,” he muttered as he approached.

  “You should have left him alone,” mused Westbrook, suddenly content to let him attack me. “He’s gonna fuck you up, now.”

  I waited until Jordan loomed over me and cocked his fist back to punch me before I cut the last of the way through the riot cuffs. My hands popped free of the plastic just as he struck me in the mouth. It was a fairly solid hit, but not nearly as devastating as he would like to think. I’ve been hit much harder that that before, and kept fighting. Actually, it wasn’t a bad punch for someone who hasn’t had any kind of training. Unfortunately for him, I have.

  I let my head rock back and felt the trickle of blood at the corner of my mouth. The look on his face went from triumphant to confused when I raised my head and smiled back at him. He blinked a few times in disbelief and even the others in the room seemed surprise that his punch hadn’t knocked me out. They were even more surprised when I stood up and shook my hands to get the circulation going again.

  “You hit like a bitch,” I said and drove the knife into the side of his neck.

  His scream instantly turned into a gurgle as the three inch blade sank to the hilt into the soft tissue of his throat. With my left hand, I gave the knife a sharp twist while my left hand yanked the pistol from his belt. Dipshit’s eyes began to roll back into his head and his knees buckled. I let go of the knife and quickly worked the slide on his 9mm pistol, making sure there was a round in the chamber.

  Westbrook dove for cover as the other three reached for their weapons. Systematically, I eliminated all three of them with well placed headshots. Before they had all hit the ground, I was already moving towards the bar. I wasn’t sure where Westbrook was at, but I knew that if he was anything like I expected he was going for a weapon. That’s what I would have been doing, anyway.

  As I slid behind the bar, I saw Westbrook do something that looked like it was right out of a bad movie. He stood up from behind a couch with his back to me, and then spun around to bring his shotgun up into a firing position. I instinctively dove behind the bar, just as he fired. Just as I had expected, he fired dramatically into the mirror above the bar instead of aiming towards where I had just took cover. This guy was some kind of bad cliché wannabe.

  Instead of firing again, I heard him hit the floor on the far side of the room. The jackass didn’t even capitalize on the fact that the shotgun was a pump and had more ammo in it. Just in case it was a trick, I eased up and peered into the mirror. Sure enough, he was nowhere to be seen.

  Standing up, I fired the pistol three times in the general direction of the couch, just to play along. As I ducked back down behind the bar, I grabbed my gear and brought it down with me. I watched in the mirror and Westbrook did exactly what I expected. He stood and took three running steps before launching himself in the air towards another couch in front of the door. He fired the shotgun at the bar as he dove. Another stereotypical movie stunt that accomplished nothing.

  Predictably, he didn’t hit anything except the bar. I briefly thought that he was being clever by positioning himself near the door so that he could make his escape, but he still seemed intent on pretending he was the hero in some cheesy movie. I heard him work the pump on the shotgun and begin to laugh. Did this dumbass really think he was the hero in some bad action film?

  “I’ve got you trapped in here,” he said, still laughing. “I have the only entrance covered and it’s only a matter of time before the rest of my men get here. What now, old man?”

  While he was chuckling amusedly at his own ingenuity, I was busily putting my gear back on. Once I had my weapons back in place, I smiled wickedly as I selected the weapon that would put an end to this conflict in a decisive manner. I picked up my Beowulf and checked the load. Satisfied that it was ready, I flicked the safety off and brought it up to my shoulder.

  “If you surrender now, I might go easy on you,” Westbrook called.

  All that did was confirm where I thought he was hiding at. Checking the mirror once more, I saw that it was clear and stood up with the Beowulf tight against my shoulder. I smiled thinly as I aimed at the couch. The Beowulf was designed to shred vehicles and armor. It wasn’t going to have much trouble with a leather couch, much less the dumbass behind it.

  “There’s only one problem with that,” I said, gently taking up the slack on the trigger.

  “What’s that?” asked Westbrook, oblivious to what was about to happen.

  “This isn’t a movie and you’re not the hero,” I said and fired three times into the back of the couch. “You’re just the crappy villain.”

  Beowulf bellowed his fury and shredded the material on the couch without effort, creating a cloud of white stuffing each time a round punched through it. I heard a grunt of pain come from the other side and I began to advance tactically, keeping my weapon trained on the spot where the noise had come from.

  When I arrived, I found Westbrook lying on his stomach in a growing puddle of blood. My second round hand punched through the middle of his back, right between his shoulder blades. The shotgun was just beyond his reach and his fingers were still flexing as he tried to get his hands on it. Just in case, I gave it a kick to put it well beyond his grasp.

  With my foot, I hooked his shoulder and flipped him over onto his back. The look of shocked disbelief was frozen on his face as his mouth opened and closed like a landed fish. His eyes were already beginning to lose focus and I could tell that he was not going to live much longer. I think the shock of losing was more of a surprise to him than the fact that he’d been shot.

  “You fu…,” he gasped, blood on his lips. “You fucking s…shot me.”

  “Surprise, asshole,” I replied, sneering down at him.

  He still had the confused look on his face when the lights went out in his eyes. With a rasping wheeze, he shuddered and then was still. The ragged hole in the center of his chest was big enough to drop a softball into and the last of the air bubbles were popping in the blood. Kevin Westbrook was dead and I can’t say that he would be missed, at least not by me. If I had my way about it, he wouldn’t be missed by anyone either in the very near future.

  Casually, I reloaded my weapons and recovered my knife. I would take the time to scavenge this place for gear when I had a moment, but for now I had to get ready for his other men. I knew that they would be coming soon, no doubt attracted by the gunfire. I was going to make sure that they had a surprise when they did.

  Quickly, I dragged Westbrook’s body over to his overstuffed chair and lifted him into it. Then I turned it so that the back was facing the door. After that, I lit a cigar and put it in his hand, along with a beer bottle. Once that was in place, I headed over to the bar and ducked down behind it. I could already hear the running of feet from outside the door. I knew that it would take them a little ti
me to get here because of all of the stairs we had to climb on our way up. When they arrived, I planned to have a little surprise of my own for them.

  A quick mental inventory told me that I had the most ammunition for the shotgun, so I put away the Beowulf and brought out the Keltec. I double checked the load and clicked off the safety, then crouched down to give myself an effective field of fire but still remain hidden. It suddenly occurred to me that this would have been a great time to have a few grenades, but regretfully I had used the last of them escaping the undead. Well, I’d just have to make do without them.

  The first two through the door had their weapons up in a decent approximation of a tactical entry. They immediately scanned the devastation in the room before fixating on the back of Westbrook’s head, just like I had planned. It was almost as if they saw him sitting in his usual chair and assumed that he had done all of this damage and calmly went back to his beer. Actually, from what I had seen that is exactly the kind of thing he would have done.

  “Kevin?” asked the first guy. “Is everything alright?”

  Number one was an average looking guy with a team polo shirt on and a 9mm pistol gripped tightly in both hands. Number two was younger, probably in his early twenties. It was clear that he’d either done a great deal of harsh chemicals or had severe acne when he was younger. From the glazed look in his eyes, I was guessing the former. I estimated that he was still doing some harsh chemicals.

  “What the fuck’s going on?” asked Number two.

  They began to hesitantly approach Westbrook, seemingly afraid that he would turn around and do the same thing to them that he had done to the others. No one seemed to notice that my body wasn’t among the dead. From my concealed vantage point behind the bar, I wasn’t surprised that they had missed me. It would prove to be a fatal mistake.

  The third man through the door came in with his pistol pointed in the air like an old television show. It was almost funny, if it hadn’t been so sad. I could see at least two more people on the landing outside the door, but I decided to not wait for them to all get inside the room. Number three took my first round right in the chest. He flew backwards out the door with his arms flailing wildly. His pistol flew away from him and landed next to the shredded couch.