Ragnarok Rising: The Awakening (Book One of The Ragnarok Rising Saga) (56 page)

“When everything goes to hell, the people who stand by you without flinching -- they are your family.”

- Jim Butcher

I put the Humvee into gear and pulled back onto the highway. Southard pulled out right behind me and we headed out of town. From down a gravel side-road, I could see the zombies coming our way. We’d be long gone by the time they reached the highway and I planned on putting a lot of miles between us before we stopped again.

We drove in silence for a while, both of us concentrating on our ow
n tasks. She was working on the jammed gun and I was watching the road ahead of us for trouble. My thoughts were whirling through my head at lightning speed. I was worried about my family, my friends back at the jail and the success of our mission. Most of all, I was worried about getting us through it all alive. There was a growing feeling of danger in the pit of my stomach, and it was really starting to worry me. About fifteen minutes passed before I heard a metallic click.

“There you go,” she said, tossing the bent cartridge into my lap.

“Gee, thanks,” I said, and tossed it back to her.

She sprayed down the lever and chamber with break-free, and then ran the cleaning rod through the barrel.
Then she gently wiped down the entire weapon to remove any dirt or grime off of the barrel, stock and trigger assembly. For reasons I can’t really explain, I really like the smell of gun oil. I once told my wife I’d wear it as cologne if I thought I could get away with it. I smiled at the memory of her response to that. Turns out, I can’t wear it as cologne no matter how much I like it. Who knew?

“Surprisingly, it’s not really all tha
t dirty,” said Spec-4, bringing me back to reality. “You had a bad feed. It happens from time to time.”

She worked the lever several times, emptying the gun.
Then she inspected the shells and dug out a box of ammo from the backpack. After reloading the weapon, she levered a round into the chamber and put another round into the tube magazine. Once that was done, she put it back on safe and sat it in the back seat.

“That should do the trick.”

“I hope so. The damned thing nearly got me eaten.”

“Well, we can’t have that,” she said, jokingly. “You’d probably give those poor zombies a bad case of indigestion.”

“Thanks,” I said, sarcastically.

“So, how long until we reach the lake?”

“At this rate, I’m not sure. We’re not driving as fast as I normally do. We still have quite a ways to go. Not to mention the fact that we’re assuming the bridge over the lake is still there. I hope it is.”

“What if it isn’t?”

“Well, then we backtrack about a hundred miles around the lake. That’s not something I’m looking forward to doing.”

“Can you still get us there by going around?” she asked, looking at me.

“I think so,” I said, without much confidence. “It won’t be easy, though. I’ve never gone that way. If we have to, it’ll probably mean finding a place to spend the night at least a couple times.”

“That’s not good,” she said, frowning.

“No, it’s not. We’re damned if we do, damned if we don’t. If we decided to hole up for the night, we have to make sure it’s secure. If we drive at night, we run the risk of running into a blockage we didn’t see coming or worse, into a horde of zombies. Even with the headlights on bright, we wouldn’t see them until we were almost on top of them.”

“A zombie horde or an ambush?”
she asked, frowning.

“Yeah, both are bad.
I think I’d rather engage zombies in the dark than be in a firefight.”

“What if we get lost going around the lake?”

“That’s one reason I wanted to search that gas station back there,” I said. “Gas stations usually have roadmaps.”

“Well then, I know what I’m looking for the next time we stop.”

“We should all keep our eyes peeled for either a roadmap or an atlas,” I said. “Even if we don’t end up going around the lake, it’ll still show us all the back roads. It might help us to get back to the jail without having to cross that bridge, again.”

“Yeah, I’d rather not cross that thing again,” she agreed.

“Me either. I doubt we’d make it a second time.”

“So, how do we contact your family once we get to the lake?”

“That’s easy. The boat has a radio. I made sure it was a good one that could broadcast on emergency frequencies.”

“Will it still have power?”

“It should,” I replied. “I installed backup batteries in the unit and it runs off of a solar cell I mounted on the roof of the bridge. The cell generates enough power to run the radio and to keep the batteries charged.”

“Where’d you find one of those?” she asked, surprised.

“They’re not too difficult to find. The solar chargers are available from most outdoor and survival stores. I bought mine off of a website that caters to outdoorsmen and hunters.”

“I bet you’re glad you did,” she said, smiling.

“Yes, I am. It was a good investment.”

“Will it pick up our radios?”

“It should, if I can find the right emergency frequency,” I said.

“
Should?
”

“Yeah, it should,” I said, grinning. “If it doesn’t, we find a boat and go out to them.”

Up ahead, I saw a zombie walking in the ditch. It was wearing military ACU’s. It hadn’t noticed us yet, so I started slowing down.

“What’s up?” asked Spec-4.

“Maybe nothing. Check out that zombie.”

“What about him?”

“He’s in uniform,” I said, pointing at him. “That means there are others around here. Is he National Guard or regular Army?”

She looked closely at the zombie as it began coming towards us.

“National Guard,” she replied. “He must be from a local unit. I think the closest one to us is in Monett.”

“You mean Monexico?” I asked, grinning.

“Why do you call it that?”

“Because before all of this kicked off, the place was
overrun with illegal immigrants.”

“That’s funny,” she said, smiling.

“Well, wherever he’s from, there has to be equipment here somewhere,” I said, gesturing around us.

“Do we have room for it?” she asked. “We’re pretty full, as it is.”

“True,” I agreed, “but I never pass up a chance to scavenge. Who knows, we might find an APC or a Hemmitt
[19]
.”

“A Hemmitt would be nice, but we’re just as likely to run into a mob of zombies,” she said.
“Or worse, live National Guardsmen.”

“How would that be bad?
Aren’t we looking for survivors?”

“I guess it would depend on whether or not they have orders to shoot survivors,” she replied.

“Yeah, that’s a good point. If we see any live military, we approach with caution, if at all.”

“We could always try talking to them on the SINCGARS,” she replied.

“Even better. Why get close, at all?”

I continued on, accelerating away from the lone zombie soldier.
He quickly fell behind us and disappeared from view. We continued on for a few minutes, lost in our own thoughts. I slowed down as we went into a sharp turn. On top of a hill just past the turn, we found where the zombie had come from. It was another road block.

One Stone County Patrol Car and one Humvee blocked the road.
The Humvee didn’t have a weapon on the turret. Since it was only a two lane road, there were no saw horses placed in between the two vehicles. I came to a complete stop to check out the area. It definitely didn’t look like they went down without a fight.

The bodies of more than a dozen zombies littered the ground on our side of the roadblock.
Another half a dozen were still up and moving around. As we approached, they noticed us and started coming towards us. One of the zombies was wearing the uniform of a Stone County Deputy and another one was in ACUs.

“Wow,” I said, “they sent one deputy and two National Guardsmen out to close this road?
No wonder they were overran.”

“They only sent five of us to close Highway 65, and it has a lot more traffic than this road.”

‘I remember,” I said, “but at least we had a town nearby. These poor bastards are in the middle of nowhere.”

“Then they probably didn’t expect a lot of zombies.”

“I guess so,” I agreed. “I still think they got a raw deal.”

“Do we scrounge?” she asked, leaning towards the turret.

“See anything worth scrounging?”

“Not on this side.”

The ditch wasn’t deep, so I drove into it and around the roadblock. Southard followed me, but kept a safe distance. There weren’t enough zombies to slow us down, so I didn’t plan on engaging unless we had to. On the other side of the barricade, I saw a pistol, a shotgun and a pair of M-4’s. There was expended brass everywhere and more than a dozen zombies lying on the ground. There were a couple of large bloody spots on the asphalt, near the vehicles.

“They put up one hell of a fight,” I said, almost reverently.

“There’s one inside the Patrol Car,” said Spec-4, pointing.

I stopped to get a better look.
Sure enough, I could see the body of a Stone County Deputy in the front seat. From the blood splatter on the windows, it looked like he’d shot himself.

“Must have gotten bit,” I said, “then crawled inside the car and ate a bullet.”

“Poor guy,” said Spec-4. “What a horrible way to die.”

“There’s a good way?”

“No, not really. Well, maybe quietly in your sleep. That’s how I’d want to go.”

“Not me, I always wanted to go out in
a blaze of glory. Good men who die in their sleep go to heaven. Warriors go to Valhalla.”

“So, you see yourself as a warrior?”

“I don’t know, but Valhalla holds a great deal of appeal.”

It looked like she wanted to say something else, but she was cut off by the radio coming to life.

“Southard to Grant,” crackled the SINCGARS.

“Go for Grant,” I responded.

“We’re not stopping here, are we?”

I thought about it for a second.
I hated to leave weapons just lying there, but Spec-4 was right. We had a lot of gear already. There wasn’t any sense in taking an unnecessary risk for equipment we really didn’t need.

“That’s a negative,” I replied. “Let’s move out.”

“Copy that, we’re right behind you.”

“By the way,” I added. “Let’s stick to radio numbers and call-signs, just in case someone’s listening.”

“That’s a copy,” replied Southard, “917 out.”

“Good call,” said Spec-4. “What about me and John?”

“Just don’t use names. Use your call-sign the guard gave you.”

“Rogue-6?
I guess that’ll work. What about John.”

“I don’t know,” I said. “How about Archer?”

“That fits him. He’ll like that.”

“We’ll tell him the next time we stop,” I said, pulling away from the roadblock and back onto the highway.

With that settled, we continued down the road. The going was pretty slow, since we couldn’t afford to drive at highway speeds. There were enough things in the road to make us cautious. I knew we’d be passing the turn off to the Hootentown River Access, before long. I’m certain that place would have zombies galore. It was always packed during warm weather with campers and fishermen. A lot of locals went there to party, too. In fact, the place was pretty much infamous for the parties there in the spring and summer.

“917 to 829,” said the radio.

“Go ahead, 917.”

“Isn’t that the turn off to Hootentown?”

“Yes, it is,” I answered.

“Remember that river party we had there back in ’08?” he asked, chuckling.

“I remember part of it,” I replied, grinning.

“Yeah, me too.
My memory is still pretty fuzzy.”

“Did you ever find your pants?” I asked with an evil grin on my face.

“No, I never did,” he replied, laughing. “Thanks for bringing
that
up.”

“Hey, what are friends for?”

“Yeah, yeah,” he said, still chuckling, “917 out.”

“So, what happened to his pants?” asked Spec-4.

“No one really knows for sure. I don’t remember a lot of that night. I remember he was wandering around with a beer in his hand and we had a bonfire going. We found him the next morning, passed out facedown in a canoe. He was butt naked with his ass in the air. I think he went skinny dipping and then passed out in the canoe.”

“Sounds like you guys had a good time,” she said, smiling.

“Hey, we work hard and we play hard,” I said, in mock defensiveness.