Ragnarok Rising: The Awakening (Book One of The Ragnarok Rising Saga) (55 page)

“None of us should go off alone,” she said, shaking her head.

“Again, I totally agree,” I said. “I just don’t see any other way.”

“Fine,” she said, frowning. “Just don’t expect me to like it.”

“Me either,” said Southard, looking worried.

“I’ll be fine,” I promised. “It’s like they used to tell us in the Army.
You don’t have to like it; you just have to do it.”

With that, the argument was pretty much settled.
Spec-4 climbed back in our Humvee and into the turret. She put her M-16 and my old Mossberg on the roof beside her, and then worked the bolt on the SAW. Then she gave me a determined nod. John and Southard headed off across the road, while I headed off towards the other end of the diner. I could feel Spec-4 watching me as I went.

The side of the diner I went to had a small parking lot on it.
It was empty except for one old Ford pick-up. It was pretty beat up and had different colored parts on it. The main body was red, the doors were blue. The hood was green and the bed was brown. The tailgate looked to be black. Someone had pieced that truck together out of a salvage lot.

One thing about the truck did catch my eye.
It had a gun rack in the back window, and it held two rifles in its hooks. I decided that warranted closer investigation. It was a mid-seventies model Ford F-100. I’d had one almost like it when I was a kid. Almost, in the respect that mine was all one color. But one thing I did remember about that old truck was that I had a bad habit of locking my keys in the ignition.

However,
old Ford trucks like that had a weak spot. On the door, there was a little triangular shaped “wing” window that you could open to catch the air while you were driving. The lock mechanism on it sucked and could be popped open easily with a pocket knife. I learned that trick pretty quickly, since I had locked the keys in it so many times. Grinning, I pulled out my combat knife from my boot. I had the door open in less than thirty seconds. Then I put my knife away and slowly opened the door, trying to minimize the noise. I almost laughed when I noticed that the keys were hanging in the ignition.

I took the first rifle down from the rack.
It was a Remington .30-06 deer rifle with a scope. It also had a leather sling on it, so I slung it over my shoulder. The other rifle was a Marlin .30-30 lever action. I smiled when I saw the Marlin. My father had one just like it when I was growing up. I deer hunted with that rifle for years.

Behind the seat, I found a Mossy Oak Camouflage backpack.
Inside was two boxes of ammo for each rifle and a bone handled hunting knife. It looked like it had been custom made. There were also four boxes of .357 Magnum hollow points. The front pouch had two space blankets and a snakebite kit. The pack went over my shoulder.

I looked under the seat, but didn’t find anything but empty beer cans.
But inside the glove box, I found the Holy Grail. It was a nickel plated Smith and Wesson .357 Magnum, the Model 627 with the 2 and a half inch barrel. That’s an eight round revolver, instead of a six. It was in a brown leather holster with a clip on it, so I clipped it to the front of my belt.

I had to let my AA-12 drop on its sling since the Marlin didn’t have a strap.
That was fine with me, since I knew I could drive nails with the Marlin at anything less than a hundred yards. Every deer I dropped as a teenager had been with my dad’s old Marlin. I worked the lever to check the ammo. It was loaded, so I chambered a round and brought it up to my shoulder. I knew the Marlin only held six rounds, so I had to make them count.

I closed the door on the pick-up as quietly as I could, and then I headed on towards the back of the diner.
I still didn’t see any movement in my immediate area, and that was good. Then I clicked off the safety on the Marlin and peeked around the corner of the diner. I didn’t see any movement. The zombies that had been at the door to the shed were gone. I couldn’t see the zombies that had been at the window, since it was on the other side of the shed. So I decided to creep closer.

As I approached the back door of the diner, I noticed that it was open.
It was dark inside and I couldn’t see much beyond the doorway. The sun was bright in the sky and it was almost directly overhead. The door didn’t look forced open, but that didn’t mean there weren’t zombies inside. I didn’t want to risk going in, so I ducked past it as quickly as I could and put some distance between me and the door.

I peeked around the next corner and saw a dead zombie with an arrow protruding from his face.
Then I heard a scraping sound behind me and spun around. There were three zombies emerging from the back door of the diner. One was an elderly man in a flannel shirt and jeans with a missing throat. The next one was an elderly lady with an apron on around a yellow floral print dress whose nose, lips and right ear were missing. The third one was a huge redneck with a massive beer belly and a Budweiser t-shirt stretched tight over it. He also had on blue jeans and a John Deere hat. He was missing two fingers on his left hand and most of the muscle off of his left forearm. There was a massive wound to his left shoulder and neck.

I decided right then and there that I didn’t want to try to take them on alone.
Then a fourth one emerged from the diner. This one was a woman in her mid-twenties. She wore jeans and a bloody yellow t-shirt that had been torn open, exposing her breasts. She hadn’t been wearing a bra and had been bitten on the left breast, removing the entire nipple. Her stringy blonde hair was plastered to her skull with dried blood.

“We’re boned,” I said into the radio. “I’m going weapons hot.”

“Copy that,” said Spec-4, “All units, we are weapons hot.”

“Acknowledged,” replied Southard.

I brought up the Marlin and squeezed the trigger. The sharp report shattered the silence, and struck the big redneck right in the middle of the forehead. At less than 25 feet away, I really couldn’t miss. The soft nosed bullet did its job. His head erupted like a ripe melon and he fell in a heap. I worked the lever quickly and fired at the old man, since he was the next closest. He fell without so much as a grunt. I shot the old lady next. I felt a pang of remorse in shooting someone who reminded me of my Grandmother. She fell beside the old man.

I worked the lever again, but the shell didn’t extract.
I had a round lodged in the chamber. The half-naked woman was coming right at me, her mouth snapping shut in eager anticipation. Her lower lip had been bitten off, leaving her teeth exposed in a gruesome parody of a smile.

I released my grip on the Marlin with my right hand, and held on to it with my left.
Then I quickly drew the Smith and Wesson .357 magnum that was clipped to the front of my belt, leveled it and squeezed the trigger. The big magnum bucked in my hand and I could see the round strike the woman in her left eye. The back of her head erupted and spewed gore all over the ground behind her. She fell at my feet. I had shot her at a range of less than five feet.

“That was close,” I sighed.

Behind me, I heard the door to the shed opening and spun around with the pistol ready. Two women emerged. One was a young blonde of about nineteen or twenty who looked remarkably like the zombie I’d just shot. The other was a brunette that looked to be in her late twenties. The brunette was carrying a small boy about two or three and looked just like the brunette. Both of the women were of medium height and weight.

“Are you from the Army?” asked the blonde.

“No, ma’am,” I replied. “I’m with the Sheriff’s Office.”

“Are you here to rescue us?” asked the brunette.

“Yeah,” I said, smiling. “I guess we are. We’re looking for survivors.”
“Well, it’s about time,” snapped the brunette, hoisting the child up on her hip.

“Please take us with you?” pleaded the blonde.

“Of course we will,” I replied, ignoring the brunette’s comment. “I’m Sergeant Wiley Grant, Nathanael County Sheriff’s Office.”

“You do realize this is
STONE County, right?” asked the brunette, petulantly.

“Does that really matter?
I’m here and they’re not. Besides, if you prefer we can leave you here.”

“No, please,” said the blonde, nearly crying.
“She doesn’t mean anything. That’s just her way. Please, we want to go with you.”

“Relax,” I said, softly. “I’m not going to leave you here, unless that’s what you want.”

“No,” said the brunette. “I’m sorry. I just always expect the worst in people. I shouldn’t have acted like that. We’re scared and I shouldn’t act that way.”

“It’s perfectly ok, ma’am,” I said. “I understand completely.
We’re all scared.”

“Where are my manners,” said the brunette. “I’m Rebecca Randle and this is my son, Toby.”

The boy looked at me quickly, and then buried his face back into his mother’s shoulder.

“And I’m Tessa Blakely,” said the blonde.
“We’ve been locked in here for days. Do you have any food?”
“Yes, ma’am,” I said, smiling. “Why don’t you ladies follow me and we’ll get the hell out of here before more of these things show up.”

The brunette, Rebecca, walked over to the fat redneck and kicked him in the face.

“I take it you knew him?”

“He was my husband,” she replied.
“You did me a favor by shooting him, zombie or not. I won’t miss his foul breath and nightly beatings.”

Then she spat on the corpse and turned to follow me.
I decided it was best not to ask for any details and let the matter drop. If she wanted to talk about it, she would. If not, I wasn’t going to press her. Hell, I didn’t even know her and she didn’t exactly strike me as the friendly type.

"She was my sister," said the blonde, pointing at the young female zombie.

I thought that they looked a lot alike. I wasn't sure what to say. Words of comfort were practically meaningless when everyone had lost friends, family and loved-ones. In the end, I just gave her an apologetic look and nodded.

“Ok, Ladies,” I said, “let’s go.”

I headed around towards the front of the diner, keeping the .357 out and ready. We were almost to the front when Southard and John came running around the corner.

“We came as quickly as we…,” said Southard, noticing the ladies.
“I take it this is why the zombies were trying to get into the shed.”

“Ladies,” I said, “this is Deputy Chuck Southard and that’s John Banner with the bow.
The young lady over there behind the machine gun is Corporal Chrissy Wilder, with the National Guard.”

John just nodded and quickly started recovering his arrows.

“Chuck, do you mind taking these ladies to one of the vehicles and getting them something to eat?”

“No problem,” he said. “If you ladies would come with me.”

Chuck led the ladies off towards his Humvee, talking to them as they went.
Frankly, I was glad to pass them off to him. John came trotting back over to me with his arrows still in his hand. Chuck's tone was friendly, but distant. It wasn't his usual jovial banter or flirting style. I wondered if we'd ever see that side of him again, after what he'd been through. My heart still ached for him and I felt the loss of Melodi and the girls as deeply as if they'd been my own family. I could only imagine how he felt.

“Wylie,”
said John, “we’ve got company. I saw about twenty or so approaching from the west. They’ll be here in a few minutes.”

“Then let’s not be here when they do,” I said and headed for my Humvee.

John didn’t waste any time and trotted off, heading for his own. Spec-4 sealed the turret hatch and climbed back into the passenger seat. Once she was in, I handed her the two new rifles. Then I locked my door and fired up the engine.

“There’s a shell stuck in the chamber of that lever action,” I said, nodding towards the gun.

I tossed the backpack into the floorboard at her feet.

“The ammo for the rifles is in there, along with a hunting knife.”

She just nodded and went to work on the jammed rifle. She took her tool kit out of her rucksack and put the rifle in her lap.

“Did they get the chance to search the station?”

“Nope,” she said, without looking up from the gun. “They’d just finished off the last of the zombies when we heard you start shooting. We didn’t recognize the sound of the shots, so we assumed that you’d run into hostile survivors.”

“Armed no, hostile yes,” I replied. “That brunette is something else.”

Spec-4 glanced at me with a raised eyebrow and smiled.

“Sounds like my kind of girl.”

“Not really,” I said. “She’s just a bit abrasive. You’ll see for yourself when we get back.”

“So why aren’t we searching the gas station?”

“John says that we have inbound hostiles.”

“How many?” she asked, looking concerned.

“Twenty or more,” I replied. “They’ll be here any minute.”

“Then let’s not be,” she said, going back to the gun.