Ragnarok Rising: The Awakening (Book One of The Ragnarok Rising Saga) (52 page)

“Way to go, Chuck,” I said, grinning. “How’s that foot taste?”

“Besides,” said John, mock-seriously. “I prefer Geronimo or Sitting Bull. They were at least real Native Americans.”

“Let’s get out of here,” I said.
“John, you’re with Big Chief Dumb-Ass there in the Humvee with the trailer. Spec-4 and I will have the other one and take point.”

“You drive,” said John to Southard.
“I’ll take the turret.”

“Ok, people,” I said. “We’re going to be taking back roads all the way to my sister-in-law’s lake house.
It’s in the middle of nowhere near Cape Fair. I’m not taking the main highway. It’ll be clogged with traffic and if they’re watching the roads, they’ll watch the main ones closest.”

“What if we run into a road-block?” asked Southard.

“You’ve already seen what they’ll do to their own men,” I said, gesturing at the church behind me. “Don’t expect a warm welcome. Besides, no roadblock’s going to stop us. I’m going to get Karen and the boys out of there if it kills me.”

“Before we go, I’d like to offer a prayer for our safety,” said John.

“It couldn’t hurt,” I agreed. “Go ahead, John.”

John took a deep breath and closed his eyes.
Then he spread his arms wide and leaned his head back with his face towards the sky.

“May the Great Spirit bless all who travel this day.
May our journey be swift as an eagle in flight. May our path be clear and our purpose fulfilled in safety. And may the Great Spirit guide and keep us from the dead that walk among us,” he said, almost chanting.

“Let’s hope the Great Spirit is listening,” said Southard.

“The Great Spirit always listens,” said John. “We just don’t always understand the answer.”

“Spoken like a greeting card,” said Southard, smiling.

“Alright folks,” I interrupted. “Let’s get moving. We’re burning daylight.”

Everyone double-checked their weapons and ammo before heading towards their assigned vehicles.
I walked over to the fence and climbed up the lookout ladder next to the gate. Just as I had feared, there were almost fifty zombies milling around on the east side of the fence. I’m sure that some of them had been attracted by the sound of us working, but many of them had been there for some time. Lucky for us, the fence was solid.

“If we open that gate, we’ll be swarmed,” I said.
“We’d better go back out the north gate.”

“I saw another gate back near the edge of the field,” said John.
“Over beyond where all the bodies are piled.”

I didn’t really want to go that way, but it would put us out past the zombies and on the road that I wanted to take.
I milled it around for a few seconds, before deciding to not go that way. I couldn’t do that to Chuck. Even if his family wasn’t there, it’d be torture for him to drive past without getting out to look for them.

“I think we should go that way,” said Southard.
“It’s the shortest way out and it gets us on the road we need to be on.”

“Chuck,” I said, “you…”

“I know,” Southard interrupted. “Tell me I’m wrong, though. We need to get on that road to be on the route you’ve planned.”

“We can go around,” I said.
“I’ll get us back on the right road. I don’t want to put you through that.”

“I want to,” he said, almost whispering. “I need to.”

“Are you sure, Chuck?” I asked, softly.

He thought about it for a few seconds before answering me.

“I’m sure,” he said, shaking his head.

We climbed in the Humvees and headed around to the back of the church.
Then we turned south behind the parsonage. We were driving between row after row of bodies. There had to be over a thousand people lying in that field. We were almost halfway through when I saw Chuck’s Humvee stop and he jumped out. Before I could get our Humvee stopped, he was already pulling two tiny bodies off of a pile.

Even from a distance, I recognized his two little girls.
Chuck was cradling them and crying as I ran up to him. He was kneeling on the ground, rocking the girls in his arms. I could see Melodi lying on the ground in front of him. They all had a small caliber hole in the middle of their foreheads. Other than the bullet wound, there wasn't a mark on them. There was no way that any of them could be infected.

I did the only thing that a man can do for his friend at a time like that.
I sat beside him and cried with him. I cried hard at the tragedy of it. There wasn’t any sense to it. The virus only spread through bites. They were killed for absolutely nothing. I cried for Chuck, I cried for his family, and I cried in shame for the thought that popped unbidden into my head.

“Thank God I didn’t send my family to the Evac-Center.”

I hated myself for even thinking that, right then. It popped into my head without any conscious thought. I’d never tell Chuck that I thought that, but I felt guilty none-the-less. I don’t know how long we sat there in the dirt, crying and I don’t really care. Somehow, I found myself with an e-tool in my hand. Through the tears, I dug three graves. John and Spec-4 helped me and we left Chuck to grieve.

It was full on dark when we finished.
We made crosses out of pieces of wood that we pulled off of crates. We lashed them together with boot-laces. We put their names on them with a sharpie. It wasn’t much, but it was the best we could do. John said a few words of comfort over the graves, but I don’t remember them. I was numb with shock and grief.

We talked it over and decided that it was best not to try to drive at night.
The headlights would be a dead give-away. Instead, we pulled the Humvees next to each other and all climbed inside ours. Then we locked up and buttoned down for the night. It wasn’t going to be comfortable, but we wouldn’t get eaten in our sleep.

I pulled out a bottle of Bushmills from my rucksack and handed it to Chuck.
Everyone but John took several pulls of the fiery Irish whiskey. I was breaking my rule about not drinking in the field, but this was different. We needed the drink to soothe our nerves. At least now, we knew for certain what happened to Southard’s family. We could mourn their loss. We could also make plans to make the people responsible pay dearly for it, too. Plans I have every intention on carrying through with. We would find a way to make them pay for this.

We got as comfortable as we could in the canvas seats and tried to get some sleep.
At least it was cool that night and we didn’t have to worry about over-heating. I set my watch to wake me up at 0700 hours and drifted off to sleep. Despite the soreness of my muscles, I felt myself slowly relaxing as my eyelids grew heavier.

I awoke in full daylight with a sudden start as something impacted with my window.
I turned to see who or what it was and looked into the face of a soldier wearing full protective gear and a gas mask. He was pointing a weapon at me and motioning for me to get out. I glanced quickly around and saw that we were surrounded. More than a dozen soldiers in protective gear were all around us.

“Get out of the vehicle, sir,” said the one next to me.

“Go fuck yourself,” I said, and flipped him off.

Then he slapped a block of C-4 on the window and stuck in a detonator.

“I’m going to ask you one more time, sir,” he said. “Get out of the vehicle.”

The thought ran through my head that we were dead either way.
If we got out, we’d be executed just like the people from the Evac-center. There was enough C-4 on the window to put us into a low orbit, and I was considering my options when it hit me. He’s too close to detonate that. They’ll all be killed too.

“Screw you,” I said. “I’m not budging.”

“Fall back!” he shouted, and pulled out a remote for the detonator.

The soldiers started falling back and I knew that we were about to be blown to kingdom come.
I glanced around and found that I was alone in the vehicle. I couldn’t see anyone. Spec-4, Southard and John were nowhere to be seen. Then I panicked, thinking that they’d already been captured. I grabbed the door handle to get out, but it wouldn’t budge. I started pulling on the handle frantically, but it wouldn’t move. I could see the soldier starting to press the button. I could even see a little red light on the detonator blinking on and off. I closed my eyes and screamed, “
NO
!” Then there was a bright flash of light.

I opened my eyes to see Spec-4 leaning across the seat and shaking me.

“Wylie, are you ok?”

It was still dark outside.
I was sweating heavily and my breathing was fast.

“I…uh…I’m not sure,” I panted.

“You were screaming in your sleep,” she said. “Did you have a nightmare?”

“Yeah,” I said, “just a stupid dream.”

“Good,” mumbled Southard. “Shut-up so we can go back to sleep.”

“Sorry, Chuck,” I said. “I’ll let you sleep.”

The moon was full and my watch said it was 0206 hours. I’d been asleep for about five hours. That was good enough. I could see all around the area very clearly in the moonlight, so I got out of the vehicle taking my weapons with me. I shut the door quietly and stood in the cool air. I didn’t use a flashlight, because I didn’t want to attract unwanted attention. Spec-4 got out of her side and came around to stand next to me.

“Want to talk about it,” she whispered.

“Not really much to talk about,” I whispered back. “I just dreamed that the Army caught us and was going to blow me up.”

“What about the rest of us?”

“I don’t know. I was alone in the Humvee.”

“Weird,” she said. “But then again, nightmares usually are.
It’s ok, though. You’re fine.”

“I know.
It just shook me up. It was pretty realistic.”

“Wylie,” she said, hesitantly, “Can I ask you something?”

“Sure, anything.”

“Is there any chance for us?” she asked, softly.

“What do you mean?”

“You know, for you and me,” she said, “For us to be together.”

“I don’t know, kiddo,” I replied, and put my arm around her. “I love my wife. But I care about you, too. We’ve gotten pretty close during all of this.”

“I think I’m falling for you, Wylie,” she said, looking down.
“I tried to ignore it, but I can’t. I’ve never met anyone like you. Everyone always treated me different because I’m a woman. In the Army they acted like women couldn’t do the job, even though I did all the time. You treated me like an equal from day one. You never treated me like I couldn’t do the job. You always made me feel important.”

“Hell, kiddo,” I whispered. “You’re probably better at this stuff than I am.
I haven’t been a soldier in a long, long time. Besides, don’t sell yourself short. I’d have never made it this far without you. None of us would have.”

We stood there in silence for a while, just listening to the night.
I could hear movement beyond the fence. For the first time standing there in the dark, I could hear the soft moan that the zombies made as they moved. I’d never noticed it before. It was unnerving but it did tell me that if you listened, you could hear them coming in the dark. I tucked that little piece of information back into my mental file box.

"I'll be your friend," I whispered, holding her close. "I'll hold you when you're scared. I'll even die to protect you, but I can't promise more than that."

"It's enough," she whispered, softly. "For now."

"
“These woods are lovely, dark and deep,
But I have promises to keep,
And miles to go before I sleep,
And miles to go before I sleep.”"

— Robert Frost

.

0
7 April

Since neither of us was tired, we crawled into the other Humvee to talk for a while.
I’m not sure when I dozed off, but the next thing I knew I awoke to my alarm going off. I didn’t want to move, but I knew we had to. The sun was up and we needed to get moving. Gently, I shook her awake

“Wake up, sleepy-head,” I said. “It’s time to get moving.”

We both sat up and started gathering our gear. My back was stiff from sleeping in a chair and I felt like every muscle in my body was cramped. I had to stretch my muscles just to get moving. Once we were up and ready, I scanned the area and found no zombie hordes around us and no gas-masked soldiers either. I got out and headed over to the other Humvee to wake up Southard and John. They both woke up reluctantly and sat up, stretching.

“What time is it?” asked John.

“0708,” I replied. “Time to get moving.”

Spec-4 came up behind me and handed me a cup of MRE coffee.
It was cold, but it was caffeine. I made a face, but drank it anyway.

“Thanks,” I said, smiling.
“That was awful.”

“No hot water,” she replied, smiling. “What did you expect?
Starbucks?”

I just chuckled as we started tossing our gear into the Humvee.
John and Southard got up and headed for theirs.

“Where did you two go last night?” asked Southard, walking around to the driver’s side of his Humvee.

“I didn’t want to wake you up with my nightmares, anymore,” I replied. “We slept in your Humvee.”

“That was thoug
htful of you,” said Southard, eyeing me speculatively.

Heading over to the fence, I climbed the ladder next to the gate and peeked over the top.
There weren’t any zombies outside the gate, but they were close by. I climbed down and walked back to them.

“We’re going to do this a little differently than before.
The zombies are too close for it to work like it did last time.”

“What have you got in mind?” asked Southard.

“We open the gate and you guys drive out first,” I said. “I’ll drive out second and stop just outside. Wilder will close the gate, then climb over the fence and jump onto the roof. I’ll leave the turret open and she can dive in. Then we’re on our way.”

“I’ll cover you guys from my turret,” said John.
“If they get too close, I’ll cut a few of them down.”

I looked at Spec-4.

“Sound good to you?”

“Yeah,” she replied, smiling. “No problem.
I can handle it.”

“That’s my girl,” I said, grinning. “Let’s do it.”

Spec-4 climbed into the back of our Humvee and opened the turret hatch. Then she climbed back out and headed for the gate. I got in and locked the doors. Once Southard and John were inside, I fired up my engine. John climbed into the turret and worked the bolt on his SAW. Southard fired up his engine and gave me a thumbs up.

I turned to look at Spec-4 and nodded,
and then she sprang into action. She unlocked the gate and swung it inwards, as fast as she could go. Southard wasted no time and headed right out into the street. I was right on his bumper. The zombies noticed us immediately and started heading our way. It looked like most of them were
Sprinters
. That meant that they’d be on us faster than I’d anticipated.

Spec-4 was already shutting the gate behind us when John opened fire with his SAW.
He wasn’t trying for headshots, but was working the SAW back and forth at leg level. He reduced the front rank of
Sprinters
down to
Crawlers
almost instantly. I heard the gate clang shut behind me and kept my fingers crossed. I heard the thump on the roof, just as the first of the
Sprinters
hit my window.

I drew my pistol and leaned back into the gap between the seats, aiming up.
She dove inside and immediately spun around to reach for the hatch. I saw the face of a zombie scrambling up onto the back of the Humvee and squeezed off a quick shot. I had just enough time to see its head explode as Spec-4 slammed shut the turret hatch.

“I’m in!” she shouted. “Go! Go! Go!”

I slid back behind the wheel and let off of the brake. Immediately, we started rolling. Then I punched the accelerator and we leapt forward. I turned hard and shot past Southard in time to see John dropping back inside and sealing his hatch. Southard pulled in right behind me and we were off and accelerating.

I turned on the SINCGARS and started to adjust the settings.

“Don’t bother,” said Spec-4 sliding into the passenger seat. “I set them both to the same frequency last night.”

I flashed a quick smile at her, and then keyed up the mic.

“Southard, do you copy?” I asked.

Spec-4 turned around in her seat and mimed to Southard to use his radio by holding up her hand to her mouth and squeezing her finger as if she would key the mic.
Southard got the point.

“917 to 829, do you copy?” he said.

“Copy 917,” I said. “Do I have any unauthorized passengers on my vehicle?”

“That’s a Negatory, Ghostrider,” he replied. “You are all clear.
You shot the only one who managed to climb up. Nice shot, by the way.”

“Thanks.
Tell John nice shooting for me.”

“Solid copy,” he replied.
“Do we keep the radios active?”

“I think we can risk it.
We’ll just keep the chatter to a minimum.”

“Got it,” he replied, “917 out.”

“Now what?” asked Spec-4.

“We take a lot of back-roads all the way to the lake,” I replied.
“With any luck, the back roads won’t be blocked.”

“By abandoned cars or the Army?”

“By either one. The roads I’m going to use are off the beaten path. They’re old two lane blacktops, mostly. No major highways.”

“You sure you know the way?” she asked, grinning.

“Yeah, I’ve driven it before. I get tired of taking the same route all the time. I found this route by playing with my road maps a few years ago. About the time I started restoring my boat.”

“You really have a houseboat?
Isn’t that expensive?”

“A new one would be, sure,” I replied. “I bought mine salvage.
It was new back in the early sixties. It’s a 34 foot Chris Craft Cruiser, built in ‘62. It was just a wreck when I bought it. My wife wasn’t happy about it, but she couldn’t see what I did. I saw what it would look like when I was done.”

“And did you finish it?”

“Not really,” I said. “Oh, it can go out on the lake and we’ve slept on it quite a few times, but it will probably never be done. Well, that’s for sure now. It was my project. I was always doing something to it.”

“I bet it’s nice.”

“It isn’t bad, but it won’t ever be called beautiful,” I said. “At least not compared to the half-million dollar boats you see floating around the lake. Mine may not be the nicest, but it’s solid. Plus, I rebuilt it myself. It’s not just an extension of my checkbook.”

“I prefer something that took effort to get.
I’ve never liked rich kids in flashy cars. They didn’t earn it. Mommy and daddy just bought it for their little spoiled brat.”

“Exactly,” I said. “I’ve always worked hard for everything I have.”

We continued on south heading out of town. Once we passed the elementary school, we started to climb a hill. I knew that over that hill was a bridge that crossed the James River. If there was going to be a containment road block, it was probably going to be there. A river is a natural way to contain zombies. It works pretty well to contain most vehicles, too. Despite being a residential area, this neighborhood was remarkably zombie free. There were a few milling around, but not many. As we approached the top of the hill, I slowed down and came to a stop.

“What’s the problem?” asked Southard over the radio.

“Just playing out a hunch,” I replied. “I want to check something before we top this hill.”

“Copy that,” he replied.
“We’ll cover you.”

I nodded at Spec-4 and climbed out of the Humvee.
I grabbed my binoculars out of my rucksack and readied my M-16, leaving the AA-12 in the Humvee. Moving to the right side of the road, I followed the sidewalk to the top of the hill. As I approached it, I crouched down to not give away my position. Spec-4 stayed a few yards behind me, providing cover.

I crept the last few feet until I could peek over the top of the hill.
Then I glanced around to make sure that there were no zombies close by and lay down on the ground. I crawled the last few feet until I could see over the top without being seen, myself. I didn’t see anybody in the immediate area, but there was another problem. The bridge was gone.

“Son of a bitch!”
I snapped, slapping my hand on the ground.

“What?” asked Spec-4, from behind me.

“There isn’t a roadblock,” I replied. “They blew-up the fucking bridge.”

“I guess we’re not going that way, then?” she said, disappointment in her voice.

I stood up and headed back towards our Humvee. I could see Southard giving me an expectant look. Spec-4 and I climbed back inside, and I fired the engine back to life.

“Whiskey Tango Foxtrot, over?” asked Southard over the radio.

“The bastards blew the bridge.”

“Then it’s a safe bet they’ve done that to all the major bridges leaving the area,” said Spec-4.

“Follow me,” I said into the mic. “I think I know a back road that they might not have hit.”

“What if they did?” asked Southard.

“Then we see how well a Humvee can tread water,” I replied.
“They can handle water just fine, so long as it doesn’t get too deep,” said Spec-4.

“That’s the trouble,” I answered. “The
James River can run pretty deep, especially with all the rain we’ve had over the last couple months.”

“Well, keep your fingers crossed,” said Spec-4.
“There’s only one way to find out.”

With that, I put it in gear and headed on over the hill.
Just before we reached the bridge, there was another road that went to the west. It headed into a rich neighborhood near a golf course, but it also intersected a road that turned back south. It would have been faster to turn around in the road, but Southard was pulling a trailer and that would make it tough to pull a u-turn.

A few minutes later found us back on track.
We’d gone this way after we’d rescued Sergeant (now Sheriff) Daniels from the library. I knew that there would be quite a few zombies in the residential areas, but we’d gotten through once before. I was confident we could do it again.

My confidence was shook as we approached the edge of the town of
Battlefield. Nearly a hundred zombies were milling around in the road. As soon as we saw them, Spec-4 jumped right into the turret and got behind the SAW. It was a good thing that she did, too. I don’t think we’d have made it through if she hadn’t blasted us a path. I don’t think she put very many of them down permanently, but she did knock a hole in the middle of them large enough to drive a pair of Humvees through and that was good enough for me.

By the time we reached
FF Highway, things were looking up for us. The road was mostly clear and once we were out of the town of Battlefield, I knew that the worst of the zombies were behind us. The area we’d be travelling through now was mostly rural farms. Sure, there were a few subdivisions, but not enough houses out this way to produce large numbers of zombies. Hel, I’d be surprised if we didn’t find more survivors out this way.

I was keeping my fingers crossed that they hadn’t thought to blow up the bridges in the rural areas.
I could understand blowing up the bridges on the main roads, but most people didn’t know about the back roads. It was pretty much just the folks that lived out there and the occasional visitor. My wife was a big fan of just driving around areas like that and exploring roads we’d never been on before. I’d driven most of these roads dozens of times.

Outside of Battlefield, I took a left onto a farm road that led away from the highway.
There were houses out here, but they were few and far between. That didn’t stop me from slowing down at the first corner and taking a look through the binoculars. I checked the area for zombies and only saw one. It was an elderly lady in a nightgown. There was blood on the front of her gown and she was coming our way. She was moving slowly enough that I could have gotten out and pushed the Humvee away from her and still stayed ahead. I didn’t see any others in the immediate area.