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

by D. A. Roberts

  I was just finishing up when Southard came trotting back up to us with several pairs of leg irons. I took one pair from him and climbed back under the front bumper. Then I locked the gate to the frame of the cruiser as a back-up to the chain. By the time I climbed out, Southard was already on the ground doing the same thing to the rear bumper.

  Once we were confident that we had the gate firmly attached to the cruiser, we turned our attention to another problem. We needed to get the bodies of the zombies out of the intake area. Southard and I started grabbing them and dragging them over to the cruiser/gate. One at a time, we dragged them up on top of the cruiser and then tossed them over the fence.

  This took us almost half an hour, but it did give me another idea. After we’d tossed the last one over the fence, I held out my hand towards Spec-4 and pointed towards my AA-12. She nodded and tossed it to me. Then I leaned over the top of the gate and systematically eliminated the dozen zombies that were outside trying to get in.

  “Like shooting ducks in a barrel,” I said, climbing down.

  “Good thing we’ve got a four wheel drive,” said Southard. “There’s a pretty good sized pile of bodies outside that gate.”

  “I’ve driven over worse,” I replied.

  “Yeah, that’s what scares me,” said Southard, grinning.

  I was about to come back with a smart-assed comment of my own when we heard an explosion. It came from somewhere south of us. We all glanced at each other and ran for the back door of the jail.

  “700, what the hell was that?” I yelled into my radio.

  “We don’t have a camera on that angle,” was the reply.

  “Let’s get to the roof,” said Southard, as we cleared the Release doors.

  We pounded up the stairs and then headed for the maintenance access doors. 700 buzzed us through and we headed for the roof. I emerged first, with the others right on my heels. I could see a few others were already up here, including Sheriff Daniels. Deputy Wright was up there, too. I was going to have to resist the urge to toss her off of the roof. It was really going to take some willpower.

  As we approached the edge of the building, I could see the glow of a massive fire. Thick black smoke billowed towards the sky. All around the area, I could see zombies were turning and moving off towards the explosion. That was good news for us, but not so good for whoever started that fire.

  “Jesus Christ,” said Sheriff Daniels. “What do you think caused that?”

  “I don’t know, but the fireball went into the clouds,” said Koob, who had been on-duty on the roof when it happened.

  “From the direction, I’d guess either the Southwest Power plant or the tank farm at the old belt plant,” I said, lowering my binoculars.

  “God in Heaven,” I heard Spec-4 say.

  I turned to look at what she was seeing, when I noticed it too. Every street that we could see from up here was literally crawling with zombies. Then it hit me like a slap in the face. We were an island of life in a city of the dead. Springfield was now just another Necropolis, taking its place along-side Los Angeles, St. Louis, Kansas City, Chicago and pretty much every other major city we’d heard from. It was almost enough to make you sick with despair.

  I couldn’t let that happen, though. I was more determined now than ever before to get to my family. Nothing else really mattered. I was starting to believe that this was truly the end of the world. If I was going to die, I wanted to be with my family when I did. I wanted to be with them to give them as much comfort as I could.

  I scanned the area around us with the binoculars, once more. It wouldn’t be long before the area around us was overrun with the living dead. I couldn’t count on them continuing to move south towards the explosion. Any little thing might get their attention and cause them to stop. I could handle a few dozen zombies surrounding the building, but not a few thousand. We’d never get out of here.

  “We’ve got to move,” I said and started heading towards the stairs.

  Southard and Spec-4 were right behind me. We hit the stairs running, and were almost to Master Control when Sheriff Daniels caught up with us.

  “Where are you going?” he called from behind us.

  “For my family,” I called over my shoulder. “If we don’t get out of here quick, we might not make it at all.”

  “We’ll cover you,” Daniels yelled.

  He started rounding up anyone who could shoot and followed us out into Release. I headed for the driver’s side door as Spec-4 dove into the passenger side. Southard slid into the backseat. I was about to fire up the engine when I heard a knock on my window. It was my friend, John Banner. He was standing there with his gear bags and a grin on his face.

  “Room for one more?” he asked, opening the back door.

  “Sure thing, John,” I said. “Stow your gear and get in.”

  Southard helped John stash his bags in the back and then he climbed inside and shut his door.

  “Do we have everything?” I asked, as I fired up the engine.

  “Food, guns, ammo, water and your fuel pump gadget,” replied Southard.

  “Good enough,” I said, pulling the Humvee into gear.

  Half a dozen officers took up positions around us, then locked and loaded their weapons. Matthews ran for the improvised cruiser/gate and jumped inside, flashing us a quick thumb’s up. Sheriff Daniels threw me a one finger salute and mouthed “Good luck.” The way the streets had looked from up on the roof, we were definitely going to need it. This was shaping up to be the hardest run yet, but I was going through with this no matter what. Come Hel or high water, I was going for them.

  “700, how’s that gate look on the outside?” asked Southard, into his radio.

  “Gate shows clear, except for the ones you shot,” replied 700.

  “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 c
leared 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.”