F
rom the east drives Hrym, lifts up his shield
The squamous serpent squirms with rage
The great worm with the waves contending
The pale-beaked eagle pecks at the dead,
Shouting for joy: the ship Naglfar

S
ails out from the east, at its helm Loki
With the children of darkness, the doom-bringers
Offspring of monsters, allies of the wolf,
All who Byleists's brother follow.

W
hat of the gods? What of the elves?
Gianthome groans the gods are in council
The dwarves grieve before their door of stone,
Masters of walls. Well, would you know more?

-

The Voluspa

Chapter One
Dark Clouds on the Horizon

“People sleep peaceably in their beds at night only because

rough men stand ready to do violence on their behalf.
”

- George Orwell

01 April

April Fool’s Day arrived and I started my day pretty much like any other day, by watching the news prior to getting into uniform and heading in for my shift.
The local news crew started out with some lame attempt at humor based on the April Fool’s theme. I couldn’t tell you exactly what they were talking about, since I didn’t really pay attention. It was moronic and seemed too blatantly obvious to be truly funny. It seemed like it was forced, like the smiles on the newscaster’s smarmy little faces.

I was busy with polishing my tactical boots and drinking my second cup of coffee.
I couldn’t care less about the drivel that they pushed through most of the news. I was only interested in the headlines and the weather. I didn’t care about the sports scores, the human-interest crap or the financial stuff. I just ignored all that garbage until they brought up a story that caught my interest. When they moved on to the headlines, they did just that. The lead story got my attention, and kept it.

I liked to catch the stories that involved Law Enforcement or crime, since that stuff could directly impact
me and my job. The bigger the story, the more likely that I was going to have to deal with it at work. I could tell that this story was
big
. Although it wasn’t local, the implications were dangerous for everyone. I could easily see how it could happen here. I’m a Corrections Officer with the Nathanael County Sheriff’s Office in Springfield, Missouri.

“The rioting continues today in downtown
Los Angeles, as units of the National Guard have been called in to contain what was being called
mob violence
,” said one of the talking heads. “Reports of rioting continue to pour from all over the city.”

The images that came on the screen made me set my coffee down and take a better look.
They were so vivid that I couldn’t help but stare wide eyed at the screen. I’d been hearing occasional reports of rioting for over a week, now. The violence had escalated
way
past small riots that flared up in homeless camps or bad neighborhoods. This looked like an up-scale residential area in a good part of town.

Law Enforcement and National Guard were squaring off against a large mob that was coming at them from down a debris-strewn street.
Although the images were distant and grainy, you could see well enough to know what was going on. Close to fifty armed officers and soldiers were behind a makeshift barricade made of vehicles and sandbags. It looked more like a scene out of a movie than what you’d expect from a major city in America.

The barricades were set up at an intersection that bordered a gated community.
Whatever the heck they were trying to contain, it damned sure wasn’t a gang from the projects. This was coming out of an expensive neighborhood with good security. In the distance, you could see the mob that was coming their way. They were too far away to see details, but there were a lot of them. Then the cameraman zoomed in on the leaders of the mob and I got my first look. The camera was jostling and the image wasn’t very good, but you could see well enough.

Most mobs are made of similar groups of people, going after a common perceived goal, threat or enemy.
One quick pan of the crowd and I could see business suits moving along side gang colors, track suits and cover-alls, homeless and professional. There were even a few that looked like they might have been law enforcement or firefighters.

The only unifying factor seemed to be they way they moved.
They all moved with the same odd shambling, jerky movements. What really stood out in my head was that they all looked…well, they just looked wrong. I can’t really explain it any other way. There was no screaming of obscenities and no throwing of objects at the officers and troops behind the barricades.

The quick view of the faces showed blank looks and dark blood around the mouths of the ones in front.
It was almost as if they’d vomited blood or had been drinking it. Some of them had horrific wounds to the throat, limbs or body that left arms and legs at unnatural angles. A couple even dragged their legs with severe damage done to them. You could clearly see bone showing through some of the wounds.

The images vanished as quickly as they appeared, replaced by the officers launching tear gas into the crowd.
For a few moments, the mob disappeared into the white clouds of gas that filled the street. Seconds later, they began to emerge from the cloud and it didn’t appear to have any effect at all. I’ve seen what tear gas does to people, first hand. There’s absolutely no way that they could just ignore it like that. No way at all.

However, the mob didn’t even seem to lose a step.
No one gagged, no one coughed, and no one looked nauseated. Hell, no one even tried to cover their mouths or noses to keep from breathing the noxious smoke. It should have been severely burning sensitive membranes in their noses, eyes and lungs, but it wasn’t. It was all just plain
wrong
.

Somewhere along the line, the order came to open fire.
All at once, weapons began to bark and chatter. To give the LAPD and the Guard credit, I could see the hits. There were center mass shots all across the front line of rioters, just like they were trained to do. Many of them stumbled and some even fell, but then got back up and kept coming. It was surreal, as if I was watching a movie and not the morning news. I even found myself double-checking to see if the DVD player was off. It was, and that bothered me. In fact, it bothered me a lot.

Then, much to my horror, the mob was crawling over the barricade and attacking the officers.
The last images I saw before the camera went out were of rioters biting the falling officers and soldiers. Yeah, I said
biting
them. I couldn’t help but wonder just what was going on. Whatever it was, it wasn’t just a riot. The talking heads returned to the screen right about then.

“Experts agree that the riots were brought on by socio-economic stress placed on the lower classes by the failing economy,” said Anchorman Smarmy.

I’m just an uneducated hick from Missouri and even I
knew that was pure
bullcrap
. Before I could switch channels to see if any other station had coverage, the television lost the signal and the screen was filled with a “
Please Stand By
” message. I didn’t like the implications of that but I didn’t have time to ponder it for long. My wife brought me back to the here and now.

“Honey, shouldn’t you be getting in the shower?”

I thought about it while I showered, shaved and got into uniform. It continued to plague my thoughts, even on the way in to briefing. I just couldn’t get it out of my head. The images had been too vivid and they were staying with me. Especially disturbing were the images of them getting back up after multiple gunshots. Like being shot had no affect on them, whatsoever.

“They had to have b
een wearing body armor,” I said softly, shaking my head.

I usually carry two extra magazines with me when I carry my pistol. However, when I went to retrieve my pistol from my gun safe, I just had the feeling I should take all four magazines that I had loaded. I don’t know why, but it
made me feel a little better. When I walked outside to get in my truck, I stopped dead in my tracks. Sitting perched on the tailgate of my truck was a large raven. Perched on the mailbox was its twin.

The thought immediately came to mind, “It’s
Huginn
and Muninn
.”

Huginn and Muninn are Odin’s ravens; the All-Father’s messengers in the world of mortal men. I had the distinct feeling that He was trying to tell me something. Perhaps it was a warning about trouble to come.
An omen about the gruesome sights I had just seen on television. It was enough to make me have an uneasy feeling in the pit of my stomach.

I sat there in silence for a moment, when the nearest one squawked at me and began flapping its wings. The other one followed suit, and soon they were calling back towards me as they headed off almost due north. I hesitated a moment longer, then got into my truck to head for work.
I just couldn’t shake the uneasy feeling that now haunted my thoughts.

The talk radio station that I listened to on the way to work was covering the riots, as well.
They were saying how the extent of the rioting was far worse than was being shown in the mainstream media. They even mentioned that the National Guard had orders to put down the riots with deadly force, if necessary. When I turned off the radio as I got out of my truck, I had to shake my head in dismay. Things were really getting out of hand in California. But then again, it
was
California.

When I walked into the briefing room, the mood was somber.
Sergeant Daniels had his cell phone out and he was watching a video in grim silence. Several officers were standing around him and I crowded in to see if I could get a peek at what was going on. The look on everyone’s faces told me that what they were seeing was bad enough to shock a group of veteran CO’s.

Corporal Newberry looked at me quickly and said, “It’s some sort of boot-leg video of the
L.A. rioting that got posted to the net.”

“If it’s real,” said Sergeant O’Neill.
“It’s probably some viral video someone put together to scare us. It
is
April Fool’s Day.”

“If this is a joke,” said Sergeant Daniels, “it damned sure ain’t funny.”

I finally got into a position where I could see the tiny screen. The images it showed looked like something out of a war zone. There were fires burning everywhere from both overturned vehicles and buildings. Grainy images of the rioters savagely tearing into the flesh of their victims filled the screen. I could hear the screams of the wounded and the dying. I could also hear the guttural growls and snarls of the rioters. It was as if they were more beast than human. Even on the tiny screen, you could see that there was blood everywhere.

All throughout the video, you could hear the photographer repeating in a hysterical tone, “Oh, my God! Oh, my God! Oh, my God!”

It wasn’t long before the rioters noticed the photographer. The last images we had were of dozens of them swarming the car where he or she was hiding. Their faces were like something out of a nightmare. The skin was mottled gray with dark blood around the mouth, nose and eyes. Many of them had pieces of their face, neck or other parts of their body bitten away. You could see the ragged teeth-marks in some of the closest rioters. It didn’t take but a few seconds before they were through the window glass and the screaming began. Then, thankfully, the video died. It was replaced with a screen that said, “
Server Signal Lost.
”

Right about then
Lieutenant Murdock said, “Listen up, everybody.”

That was our cue that our briefing was about to begin
. It was time to take our seats and shut our mouths. That never stopped us from tossing out the occasional smart-aleck comment during the briefing, and it didn’t stop the L.T., either. Nevertheless, there was a line and we didn’t cross it. We respected him too much to do that.

Sergeant John Jacob “Jack” Daniels and Sergeant Patrick O’Neill took their place at the front of the room with the Lieutenant.
Sergeant Daniels and Sergeant O’Neill were our shift NCO’s. One ran Booking and the other ran Housing. They alternated every two weeks. This week, Daniels would be in Booking and that meant that O’Neill would be upstairs with the pod officers. Either way was fine with me. I trusted them both with my life.

I can’t say for sure about the other three shifts of corrections officers in the jail, but our shift was a family.
If you were moving, you could count on a small army of help. If you threw a party, you could count on a large turnout. If you were in a fight, you could count on having twenty-five other offers at your back with no questions asked. And if you did something stupid, you could count on them to laugh at you and never let you live it down. We were a family, alright…a family that put the
fun
in dysfunctional.

As we all quickly took our seats, there were only a few murmurs between us.
Then the Lieutenant started our morning briefing and we quickly got lost in the events of the previous shift. We also received our instructions and assignments for the day. I didn’t mind working any pod except the female housing units. Call me old fashioned, but I didn’t like yelling at women. It didn’t matter if they were inmates. My Hillbilly upbringing made me somewhat old-fashioned.

Inmates are classified by the type of offense committed.
Then they’re placed in Housing Units called Pods. Our facility had four large pods and three smaller ones. We’re designed to house 450 inmates and I’ve only rarely seen it below that. Usually, it’s well over 500 inmates and occasionally over 600. The big pods have 48 cells, each housing between two and three inmates each. During recreation time, they’re all out and the Housing Unit Officer is locked inside the pod with them. It’s called Direct Supervision.

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

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