Ragnarok Rising: The Awakening (Book One of The Ragnarok Rising Saga) (24 page)

“Poor bastard,” said Bowman.

“We can’t leave him like that,” said Shane.

It was a very bad spot to be in.
I couldn’t blame the guy for asking, and I couldn’t ask someone else to do it for me. This was something I would have to do myself, and then try and learn to live with it. It was something that a leader would have to do. You don’t order your people to do something you’re not willing to do yourself. That was a lesson most of the people I’d worked for had needed to learn, even when I was in the Army. Real leaders lead from the front and by example.

But was I really a leader?
It suddenly occurred to me that I wasn’t sure. Had I actually earned the silver sheriff’s star that I now possessed or was I just the recipient of the last desperate act of a dying man. In that moment of indecision, I looked into the eyes of my colleagues’ faces, the men that wore the black uniform that I was wearing; men that I had known & stood by for years. I knew they would stand beside me, whatever I chose, and whatever the cost.

Then my gaze fell upon Spec-4,
the newest member of the group. She held no loyalties to me. Hell, she was a soldier! But the hell that she had shared with me in the scant days that I had known her had bonded us in a way that can only be understood by those who had shed blood together. She was one of us now. Her pale eyes welled with tears & I saw a slight tremble in her jaw. Almost imperceptibly, she nodded.

I was suddenly reminded of a
quote I liked that I’d read somewhere. It simply said, “Who must do the hard things? Those who can.”

I took a deep breath and held it for a few seconds, then exhaled with a big sigh.

“Wylie,” said Sanders, a note of panic in his voice. “Whatever you’re gonna do, you’d better do it quick. We’ve got company coming.”

Zombies were moving towards us form every direction.
If we didn’t go soon, we might not make it out at all. I picked up my M-16 and brought it up to my shoulder.

“Thank you,” said the man, tears running down his face.

He closed his eyes as I sighted in on him. His lips trembled, or it might have been a silent prayer. I’ll never know, for sure. I muttered a silent prayer of my own, to the All-Father, and took a deep breath.

“I’m sorry,” I whispered, and squeezed the trigger.

The shot tore through is skull and emptied the contents behind him. He tumbled over backwards, and fell to the ground on the other side of the truck and out of our sight. Some of the zombies saw the movement and headed for him, temporarily forgetting us. It was all the excuse Sanders needed. He wasted no time in getting the bus moving, running quickly through the gears and putting distance between us and the closest zombies. We had to knock a couple of sports cars out of our way, but the center lane was mostly clear.

We were doing close to fifty miles per hour when we reached the next intersection.
An over-turned beer truck forced us into on-coming lanes. That might have been a problem, had we not been the only moving vehicle on the road. Other than abandoned cars, the traffic was easily negotiated. That was about the only advantage we had. Ironically, I used to complain about traffic along this part of town. Now, traffic was the least of our problems.

As we rolled down the wrong side of the road, I saw movement on the roof of a building ahead of us on the left.
It was a strip club and there were two men on the roof. One looked like a biker and the other was a big redneck. They both had what looked like scoped deer rifles. The front of the strip club had been barricaded with cars, and one of them was one of our Patrol Chargers.

“Sanders
, slow down,” I said, pointing.

He nodded at me.
He’d seen it, too. The bus started to decelerate as Sanders downshifted. The two men on the roof took aim at us, but didn’t fire. The only zombies in the area were lying on the parking lot and not moving. I noticed that they’d all been shot in the head. Right then, I made a quick decision. Right or wrong, I wanted to know just what they hell they were doing. If they had our car, then they might have one of our deputies, as well.

“
Cal, pull in there,” I said. “I want to know what they’re doing with one of our Chargers.”

“Way ahead of you,” he replied, pulling in and stopping.

“Cover me,” I said over my shoulder, and stepped out of the door.

Spec-4 opened a window and brought up her M-16
, taking careful aim at the biker. Southard did the same, sighting in on the redneck. Bowman and Shane opened windows and picked their targets, as well.

“What the fuck do you want?” demanded the biker through a mouth full of
rotten meth-teeth.

“I saw one of our Chargers, there,” I said, pointing. “Have you seen the driver?”

“No, we ain’t seen her,” said the redneck, his orthodontia no better than the biker’s.

“How’d you know it was a woman
?” I asked, cocking my head towards him.

“Aw, hell
,” said the redneck, spitting out a mouthful of tobacco juice.

“Shut the fuck up and let me do the talking,” snapped the biker to the redneck.

“Tell me where she is and we’ll be on our way,” I said, not quite raising my rifle.

“You’ll be moving on, anyway,” said the biker. “We ain’t telling you shit, cop!”

“Well, that’s too bad,” I said, “because I’m not leaving without my officer.”

“Then you’re dead meat,
motherfucker” said the redneck, raising his rifle.

Southard shot him in the face.
He fell over the side of the building and landed about twenty feet away from me. The rifle fell beside him, discharging a round into the wall when it hit.

“
Son-of-a….” Biker started to say, as he brought up his rifle.

Spec-4 drilled him right in the forehead.
He fell beside the redneck, and his rifle clattered to the ground a few feet away. I wasn’t worried about either of them returning as a zombie. For one thing, neither of them had enough skull left to turn. I had to climb over a couple of the cars to get to the front door of the club. Instead of parking the cars against the front of the building, they had made a horseshoe barricade around the door. Both redneck and biker were lying inside the horseshoe.

As I approached the door, Spec-4 and Southard caught up with me.
Bowman and Shane continued to cover us from the windows. Behind us, EMT secured the bus door in case any zombie stragglers showed up. Then he gave us the thumbs up and a smile. He was learning. Sanders was covering us with his M-16, from the driver’s window.

“Open the door!” I yelled at the club.

“Piss off, pig!” said a voice from inside the club.

“Give me my officer and we’re gone.”

“You ain’t getting through that door,” replied the voice.

“Fair enough,” I muttered, and turned to Southard.
“It’s your funeral. Is there any of that duct-tape left?”

“Yeah,” he said, looking confused. “Why?”

“Give me a roll.”

He turned and looked at Sanders and held up his hand.
Sanders threw a roll of his famous redneck repair tape and it landed on the trunk of the car in front of Southard. He casually picked it up and handed it to me.

“Ok, now what?”

“Last chance!” I yelled at the club.

I didn’t get a response, but I didn’t really expect one.
So I casually pulled a fragmentation grenade out of my cargo pocket and taped it to the door.

“You guys might want to get back,” I said quietly, to Southard and Spec-4.

Then I pulled the pin and ran for the barricade. Southard and Spec-4 followed my lead and dove over the cars. The explosion shredded the door and the two bikers behind it. We moved in quickly, before anyone could recover and mount a defense. Ordinarily, when we would breach a door, we would toss in a flash bang grenade to disorient the people inside. I was pretty sure that the frag and done that job, all by itself.

Inside we found four more bikers and two big rednecks. All of them were armed with either pistols or shotguns.
We took them down in under 30 seconds, cutting the pie. Only two of them even got off a shot, and only one scored a hit. The round slammed into my vest and was stopped by the trauma plate. It drove me back a few feet, but didn’t penetrate the armor. It didn’t keep it from hurting like hell, though. That was the second time that vest had saved my life.

We found six women that were tied-up near the stage.
Two were strippers from the club, but the other four had been taken by the bikers. One of them was Deputy Cassie Bennett. She was wearing her county issue uniform top, and nothing else. The buttons had all been torn off. All of the women were similarly undressed, not to mention battered and bruised.

Cassie ran up to us and hugged Southard.
She was crying hard, sobs wracking her body.

“Thank you, thank you, thank you,” she cried
, tears streaming down her face.

“It’s ok,” he said, and held her tight. “It’s ok.
How long have you been here?”

“Since yesterday afternoon,” she said, still crying. “They grabbed me when I stopped to see if they were alright.”

“Let’s get you all out of here,” I said, fighting back the anger I felt inside.

“Wylie,” she cried. “They hurt us.
They hurt all of us.”

I didn’t want to know, but in my heart I already did.
They’d all been raped repeatedly. I was glad we’d killed all of the scum-bags. I only wished we could have done it again, this time more slowly. Or better yet, leave them bleeding and tied-up for the zombies to find.

“It’s ok, Cassie,” I said, trying to sound soothing. “No one’
s going to hurt any of you, now. Not anymore.”

“Thank you,” she said, still holding Southard tightly.

“Wilder, get these ladies on the bus. Let them grab clothes, if they have them. Southard and I are on round-up detail. We’ll grab all the guns and ammo we can find. Make it quick, though. It won’t be long before we have zombies crawling all over this place.”

Reluctantly, Cassie let go of Southard and went with Spec-4.
She found what was left of her uniform, but it was cut to pieces.

“I have a spare uniform in the trunk of my Charger,” she said.

“Grab it, but be quick,” I said.

In less than two minutes, we rounded up all of the guns we could find and were back on the bus.
I dropped the lock into place and Sanders fired up the engine. I was careful to look the other way while the women got dressed. Spec-4 handed out water and EMT was checking them all out. He looked pissed off as he’d glance at the front of the strip club.

“Hey, Wylie,” said Southard. “Want an inventory of the gun bag?”

“Yeah,” I said. “What did we end up with?”

“We got two deer rifles, four shotguns and six pistols.
That’s not counting Cassie’s pistol and shotgun. It’s a mixed lot on the ammo, but quite a bit of it.”

“Thanks,” I said. “We may need it all.”

“How much of it do you want to stash back for you to take with you to the lake?” he asked quietly, so only I could hear him.

“As much as we can spare,” I whispered.

“We can spare all of it,” he said. “Besides, Sanders and I are both going with you.”

“Thanks, Chuck,” I said. “That means a lot to me.”

“Just say the word.”

“I will.”

Just then, Cassie Bennett came walking up to the front of the bus. She was dressed in her spare uniform. Although bruised, there was a look of calm defiance on her face. She looked like a cop again.

“Are you ok?” I asked.

“No, not really,” she replied, honestly. “I’m back in this. Besides, you’re going to need me.”

“Yes, we will
,” I said. “But after what happened….”

She stopped me there.

“I don’t want to think about that. It happened, but we have to think about survival. I won’t forget it, but I won’t let it break me, either.”

“Good,” I said. “But only if you’re sure.”

“I am,” she replied, a ring of steel in her voice. “I’m not going to cower at the back of the bus. I’m not a victim.”

“Southard has your pistol and shotgun,” I said. “Get your gear and load up.
We’re going after more people.”

“Thanks, again,” she said, softly. “You really don’t know how grateful I am.
How grateful we all are,”

“Any time,” I replied, smiling.

Sanders was still picking his way through abandoned cars as we approached the Army Surplus store. The parking lot was empty and the place was closed up tightly. It didn’t have the look of a place that had been looted.

“I’d love to get in there,” he said, pointing.

“Don’t rule it out,” I said. “There’s a lot of gear in there we could really use.”

“What about right now,” he said, grinning.

“Not this trip,” I replied. “We’ve got people to save.”