Ragnarok Rising: The Awakening (Book One of The Ragnarok Rising Saga) (6 page)

“Attention rioters!
You are in violation of local, state and federal law!”

“Sick ‘em,
Barney
,” muttered E-2.

As they closed to within one hundred yards, we began to clearly see the horrific bloody wounds that were evident on most of them.
These were not the slow-moving, plodding zombies that I saw on the old movies. They were fast, terrifying and quickly eating up the ground in between us. I felt like someone had just poured ice water down my spine.

“Mary, Mother of God,” whispered Shu, crossing himself.

“Attention rioters!” shouted Henderson. “By order of the Nathanael County Sheriff, you are hereby ordered to cease all violent activity and disperse immediately!”

“Wow,” said E-2, his tone dripping with sarcasm.
“I bet no one ever thought of ordering them to cease and desist before. What a dumbass.”

“If you do not disperse immediately,” yelled
Henderson, “we are authorized to use deadly force.”

“I really don’t think they’re listening to you, idiot,” said Spec-4, glaring at
Henderson.

I counted well over forty of them and they were closing fast.
My heart felt like it was about to beat its way out of my chest. Shu and I exchanged a quick glance. I could tell that he felt about the same way I did. Henderson climbed onto the hood of the Charger and started to raise the bullhorn to his mouth, again.

Spec-4 threw me a look that seemed to say, “Want me to drill him for you?”

I had to think about it for a second, but gave her the, “We might need him” look and a slight shake of the head. Henderson kept screaming orders at the advancing zombies as they closed to within fifty yards. Somehow, the zombies paid even less attention to him than we did.

“You two,” I shouted, indicating the two guardsmen. “Start picking your targets!
Keep it on semi-auto and conserve your ammo! Fire when ready!”

Henderson
whined at us, “Do
NOT
fire until
I
give the order! Don’t listen to him! I’m in charge, here!”

Thankfully, everyone ignored him and took their cues from me.
If we’d have followed Henderson’s orders, we’d have all died. Spec-4 and E-2 began squeezing off shots. Their first few shots hit center mass, just like they were trained. I found myself falling back on my Army days and calling out orders in my loudest command voice. It was the same voice I used in a Pod when I wanted the inmates to do what I said. No one put me in-charge, I just knew that someone needed to be. Someone other than Rickey Henderson, that is.

“Hit the heads!” I bellowed. “Shoot the
goddamned heads!”

The next few shots dropped their targets, and this time they stayed down.

“Shu, don’t shoot until you’re sure of your target! That Glock doesn’t have the range of their M-16’s.”

Shu just nodded as I placed my shotgun on the hood of the Charger and lay my extra magazines for my Glock next to it.
Then I took up a Weaver Stance with my pistol, legs shoulder width apart and left foot slightly forward. My left hand was cupping the bottom of my right hand on the pistol. I noticed that Shu was using a different method for his pistol. He held the pistol firmly in his right hand and braced his wrist with his left. I didn’t have time to give him shooting pointers, but his way gave him less control of his weapon.

As the zombies closed to within 20 yards, their numbers had been reduced to about 30.
Henderson finally got the point that they weren’t going to follow his orders and drew his sidearm. He started shooting as soon as his weapon cleared the holster. He was in a near complete state of panic and pumped an entire magazine into the chest of the nearest zombie. It had no effect, other than to make it stumble but not fall.

Shu and I opened fire and for the life of me I can’t figure out why I did it, but I shot the zombie that was about to grab
Henderson. I let fly out of instinct and hit the bloody postman with the
Mogadishu Drill
.
My shots hit it twice in the chest and once in the middle of the forehead and it dropped like a stone. Shu was being calm, selecting his targets and conserving his ammo. That was good. Shu also looked a hell of a lot calmer than I felt.

“
Henderson, aim for the head, you dumbass!”

Henderson
was still in full blown panic-mode as he tried to change the magazine with fingers that appeared numb. He managed to drop the empty magazine and fumbled for another one from his belt. He was completely oblivious to the zombies that were nearly on top of him. The rest of us were making steady progress, but our accuracy was down to about one kill for every four or five shots fired.

It’s one thing to put fifteen rounds from a Glock into the 10 ring on a paper target.
And it’s quite another thing entirely when the adrenalin is pumping and you’re facing targets that will eat you if they get close enough. To say we were scared was the understatement of the century. That’s right about the time that Henderson decided to try and run for it. He dropped his pistol and jumped off the hood of the Charger. He didn’t make it very far.

“Get back here,
you idiot,” I yelled as my slide locked back.

I had to take my attention off of him to reload.
While I changed magazines and dropped the slide, I heard a blood curdling scream. I looked up in time to see two zombies, one a young girl of about 15 and the other a big hillbilly in bloody over-alls, drag Henderson to the ground. Before I could get off a shot, he was completely covered with zombies. His screams abruptly began to gurgle and then cut off entirely.

“
Henderson’s down!” I called out.

“Changing mags,” yelled E-2 from the other end of the barricade.

“Hold the line!” I screamed, and returned to my own shooting.

“More approaching on our nine!” yelled Spec-4.

“There’s a fuckload of then, too,” called E-2.

I stole a quick glance to my left and swore at what I saw.
Another group, this one much larger than the one we were facing, was rapidly approaching. There were probably close to a hundred of them, maybe more. They were still a few hundred yards out and I knew we had only a couple minutes before we’d be overran completely.

E-2 returned to the firefight, after loading a fresh magazine.
We were making good progress when suddenly E-2 went down screaming. A zombie had crawled under the Humvee and pulled him down. It was savagely taking chunks out of his legs and he was bleeding profusely. I mentally named those kind
Crawlers
. I don’t know why that came to me right then.

Spec-4 snap fired a quick shot and blew the back of the skull off of the
Crawler
, but the damage had been done. E-2 was screwed and we all knew it. The slide locked back on my final magazine in the Glock and I dropped it without hesitation. Quickly, I snagged the big Mossberg off of the hood in front of me. Then I let fly with the lethal .00 buckshot as fast as I could work the pump on the shotgun. I emptied the 8 round tube in less than twenty seconds, the last round taking the head completely off of Henderson as he stood back up.

I saw all of this like it was in slow motion.
Henderson had only been recognizable by the gray uniform that he wore. Most of his face had been chewed away and he was covered in blood. Shu was falling back towards me as the last few zombies began to come through the barrier. We needed to get the hell out of there, in a bad way. Screw the roadblock.

“Cover me, I’m reloading,” I yelled.

“Last mag!” answered Shu.

“Grant!” called Spec-4.

I looked up in time to see Spec-4 toss E-2’s M-16 at me. I dropped the shotgun and caught the assault rifle with my left hand. Although it had been years since I’d fired an M-16, it all came flooding back to me in an instant as I shouldered the weapon and shot the last three on our side in quick succession.

“Clear!” I yelled.

“Clear,” echoed Shu.

“Not for long,” yelled Spec-4.
“The next group’s inbound and closing fast.”

150 yards and closing

I assessed the situation as fast as I could, my mind racing from adrenalin. The Humvee was definitely the better choice. It was a 4 wheel-drive and it held more gear. But the best of all, it was armored. Once we were inside and locked down, they shouldn’t be able to get to us. The Charger couldn’t offer that kind of protection.

“We can’t hold.
We’ve got to fall back. Grab everything you can and get in the Humvee.”

Both Shu and Spec-4 jumped into action instantly.
I ran around the area and snagged all of the fallen guns, including Henderson’s. I yanked his duty belt off and took his radio, too. Then as an afterthought, I ripped the silver badge off of his chest and stuck it in my pocket. Shu grabbed the range bag full of ammo off the top of the Charger and headed for the Humvee.

100 yards

Spec-4 started to drag E-2 towards the back of the Humvee when she noticed he wasn’t moving anymore. One of the bites had severed the femoral artery. E-2 was dead. Unlike Henderson, E-2 would be missed. Pausing only long enough to sigh and shake her head, Spec-4 started pulling the gear off of him. Deftly, she removed the Interceptor vest and extra equipment. She tossed them to Shu, who put them into the back seat of the Humvee. Then she grabbed her own gear and headed for the front seat. Shu leaned over to pick up E-2’s helmet just as I saw his eyes open.

“Shu, look out!”

It was too late. Zomb-E-2 grabbed Shu and sank his teeth into the exposed throat. Blood erupted from the wound and gushed out his mouth as he began savagely tearing pieces out of Shu’s neck. I started to bring up the M-16 when I heard two quick shots ring out. Spec-4 put a 9mm round through both of their heads with her Beretta. They fell together, in a heap.

50 yards

“Screw the helmet! Get in!”

She dove into the open passenger side door as I ran around to the driver’s side.
The second wave of zombies was less than 25 yards away as I slammed the door shut and we pulled the locking levers. I pressed the button and waited for the green light. When it came on, I started the engine and it roared to life as the first of the zombies dove on the hood.

“Can they get in?”

“Not a chance. We’ve got bullet proof glass and armor plating. Unless one of them has an AT-4
[1]
, we’re good.”

“For now,” I muttered.

I slid the transmission into gear and mashed the accelerator to the floor. Spinning the wheels, I headed south towards Springfield. The powerful engine had no problems knocking its way through the leaders of the pack. As I jerked the wheel from side to side, the zombie on the hood went tumbling off into the median.

“Where a
re we heading?” asked Spec-4, catching her breath.

“Back into town,” I said, swerving around a knot of zombies in the road.

“Are you nuts? You do realize that there’s gonna be a lot more of those things there.”

“You’re welcome to get out anywhere you want, but I’m going back for my wife and kids,” I said.

“Somehow, I get the feeling we’re better off sticking together.”

As we approached the overpass at the town of
Fair Grove, most of the zombies were well in our dust. We could see two Fair Grove Police cars, one on either side of the bridge. Four officers were desperately trying to defend the bridge from more than fifty zombies on each side. I started to slow down and look for a way up there, but the off-ramps were clogged with traffic on both sides.

“Tell me you’re not doing what I think you’re doing,” said Spec-4.

“Hold on to something,” I said as I turned and started climbing the embankment.

The wheels dug in and the powerful engine pulled us up the hill without effort.
As we emerged at the top of the ramp, I rammed two parked cars and knocked them careening into a group of zombies. This had the desired effect of getting their attention. Unfortunately, it seemed to get their undivided attention.

Without slowing down, I rammed into the nearest mass of zombies.
This took the pressure off of the four struggling officers, and they took the opportunity to run for the cruiser that I’d just cleared of obstacles. Two officers ran backwards covering the other two. One of which was practically carrying the other one, who looked injured. I turned a complete donut in the middle of the intersection, knocking one car sideways and scattering zombies like bowling pins.

Once the officers were safely in the car, I straightened out the Humvee
. Then we shot down the south side of the embankment with the Fair Grove Police right on our tail. I bounced onto the road with a jolt, and I saw sparks fly off the bottom of the cruiser as it followed close behind. In seconds, we were flying side by side down the road towards Springfield. One officer rolled down the window on the passenger side and motioned for me to do the same. I tried to pull the latch and slide down my window, but it was almost impossible to do while driving.