Ragnarok Rising: The Awakening (Book One of The Ragnarok Rising Saga) (36 page)

“Do you know who got weapons and ammo from the National Guard Armory and brought it back to the jail?”

“No,” said Wright.

“We did,” I snapped. “Wilder, Southard and me. Not you. Do you know who rescued Southard and an EMT?”

“No,” replied Wright, her voice growing softer.

“We did,” I said, gesturing at me and Spec-4.

“Do you know how many officers we’ve rescued?” Spec-4 snapped at Wright.

“No,” Wright said, looking down now.

“Sixteen, counting you,” I said.
“Over twice that in civilians.”

“But you had help from real cops,” Wright said, a bit of her fire coming back.

“Not really,” said Spec-4. “Mostly it was me, Wylie, Southard and Sanders. Wylie led us to all of you.”

“Southard is a patrol officer,” said Wright. “Why didn’t you follow him.”

“Because Southard and I are friends,” I replied. “We’ve worked together, we know each other and more importantly, we trust each other. He trusted me enough to follow me.”

“I trust him with my life,” said Spec-4.
“And I’m not even a cop. I’m Army.”

“Commissions amount to absolutely nothing right now,” I said.
“It’s about survival, now. You’re going to want to follow someone with some actual experience.”

“Wow,” snapped Wright. “You have a lot of experience fighting zombies.
Was there a big zombie war sometime in the past that I didn’t hear about?”

“Young lady,” said Maddie.
“This man has been nothing but a gentleman since he rescued me. I’ve been a resident of this county for the last six sheriffs. I would have to say that he ranks right up there with the best of them. Now just because he doesn’t have your fancy piece of paper doesn’t mean he doesn’t know what he’s doing, or that he doesn’t deserve your respect. You’d do well to remember that.”

“You can stay in the vehicle,” I said.
“I wasn’t really going to toss you out. But you
will
remain quiet for the rest of time we’re in here. When we get back to the jail, you can leave if you want. No one will stop you. But I’ll be damned if I’ll sit idly by and watch you undermine everything we’ve been trying to do. Good people have died to get us where we are. We’ve all risked our lives in this. I won’t let your lack of experience and humility tear it all apart.”

“But…” began Wright.

“I’d keep quiet, if I were you,” said Maddie. “Before he changes his mind and puts you out on your backside.”

Wright got a sullen look on her face, but said nothing.
Samantha Patterson just glared daggers at Wright, but didn’t say anything. I have the feeling that Wright was like this the entire time they were together. I had the sudden realization that I now knew someone from the patrol side that I actually liked
less
than Henderson.

Without another word, I put the Humvee back into gear and continued on.
Southard kept pace behind us. I could see him in the mirror giving me the “What the hell?” look. I’d have to explain it to him when we got back. I knew one thing for sure, though. He wasn’t going to like it. Chuck came from the jail and knew what we went through. I used to tease him about being a “traitor” and going to the other side. But Chuck respected what we did, and it showed. He might have gone to the other side, but he’d always be one of us.

I made it to the intersection at Sunshine.
It was blocked worse than I had given it credit. I couldn’t find a gap that would let us continue down the Bypass. I had to take the ditch and go back east on Sunshine. That would be just fine, though. I already knew the path we’d need to take back to the jail. It was already cleared by our trip out here in the bus. So long as we didn’t run into any zombie hordes, we’d be back to the jail before sundown.

I was right about the path being cleared, but the sun was already down before we rolled through the back gate at the jail.
We’d avoided the worst of the zombies, and found our way back home. Well, home for now. It wasn’t great, but it was keeping us safe. And the lights were still on. I guess the Gods
were
watching over us.

I almost yelled out for joy when the gate rumbled shut behind us.
I got out of the Humvee with Spec-4 and Southard following suit. We did a quick pass around the vehicles with our weapons at the ready, just making sure we didn’t have any unexpected hitchhikers.

“Clear,” I said, softly.

Right about then, the doors to Release opened and out came several people. EMT, Sanders, Kris Newberry, the Fair Grove Guys and the Lieutenant all came out to greet us. Sanders almost broke my back in a bear-hug.

“Welcome back,” said the L.T.

“Thank you, sir,” I replied. “It’s good to be back.”

After everyone had climbed out of both vehicles, we brought out laundry carts and started unloading supplies.
The bag of AK47’s and pistols went with my stuff in the Classification Office. I was getting quite a collection of guns. I was going to need them when I went after Karen and the boys. At least, I was in good shape. I had plenty of weapons, and all of them without taking away from the supply the jail had.

By the time we were fully unloaded, it was completely dark.
I made sure all the people that we rescued were seen by medical and then fed. Then medical insisted on taking a look at my head. The wound that Spec-4 had sealed with super glue was seeping blood, again. EMT told me it was too late to stitch it, since so much time had passed since it happened. I didn’t care, I hate needles anyway.

“Ok, Wylie,” said EMT.
“Fortunately, your skull is pretty thick. No permanent damage done, other than a nice scar.”

“I’ll take a scar over being zombie chow, any day of the week,” I said.

“Get some food in you and get some rest,” said EMT. “You’ve earned it,
Sheriff.
”

I flipped him off with a smile as I walked out of Medical.
I took the stairs and made my way to the break room. Spec-4, Southard, Sanders, Sergeant Daniels, and a few others were waiting.

“Hey,” said Southard, “nice of you to join us lowly peons.”

“Come on, now,” I said, grinning. “I don’t think you’re all peons. Just you, Chuck.”

That drew laughter from the group.
I slid into a chair and sighed.

“You hungry?” asked Spec-4.

“Yeah,” I said. “But I’ll get a tray in a minute. Right now, I just want to sit here. I’m worn out.”

“And old,” mumbled Sanders.

“But still prettier than you, Cal,” I replied, grinning.

“Not with that scar, you ain’t,” countered Sanders.

“Scars are sexy,” said Spec-4. “Especially battle scars.”

“You hear that, you assholes,” I said
, smirking. “Scars are sexy.”

“Well
then, Frankenstein,” said Sgt. Daniels, “you must be the sexiest man alive. You look like you ran face-first through a barbed wire fence.”

“Gee, thanks, Sarge,” I said, smiling.

“I heard about the way Wright talked to you,” said Sanders.

“Screw her,” I said.
“She’s just a stupid kid. If she doesn’t wise up, she won’t make it very long around here. No one will want to work with her.”

“No one does now,” said Southard.
“That little bitch never spent a single shift in here. How the hell does she think that she knows what goes on in here?”

“Forget it, guys,” I said.
“I’m not getting worked up over her. I want to relax and eat, in that order.”

Spec-4 got up and started filling a tray.
Southard gave me a leering smile and I flipped him off by rubbing my eye with my middle finger. She came back and sat the tray in front of me, loaded with food.

“Thanks,” I said, smiling at her.

“No problem,” she said. “How’s the head?”

“Medical says I was lucky I didn’t hit anything vital,” I said.
“I should be fine.”

“Yeah,” said Chuck.
“I’ve known for years that there wasn’t anything vital in your skull.”

That drew another round of laughter.
It was good that everyone could laugh. It helped keep us sane, in an insane world.

I couldn’t help but think, “We just might make it, after all.”

Maybe our fate wasn’t yet fixed. Time would tell.

“
When we were engaged in the problems of survival we had no time to have anything to do with culture.”

-
Nursultan Nazarbayev

After a hot meal, I headed into the locker room for a hot shower. I figured that I might as well use the hot water, while it lasted. I kept expecting our power grid to fail, but it hadn’t so far. I knew that the jail was on its own grid, but I didn’t think it would last through all of this. But then again, it never went off when most of the town lost power during the big ice storm a few years back. Most of the town was out of power for a week while the jail just kept right on going. This time though, there were no crews out repairing downed lines or keeping the grid alive.

I took my time in the shower, and eased away some
of the aches and pains. I knew I was pushing myself too hard, but I didn’t realize how hard until the shakes hit me, again. I fell to my knees in the shower and shook like a leaf in a wind-storm. I couldn’t stop. After what felt like a month, it finally passed. I got shakily to my feet and finished showering. Then I dug out my razor and shaving cream to scrape a few days growth off of my face and head. I had to shave around the lacerations on my scalp and by the time I finished, I almost felt human again.

The shakes had left me drained, though.
I had dark circles under my eyes and bruises were visible on my arms and torso. That was really saying something, too. I have never been one to bruise easily. My wife can walk too close to the coffee table and get a bruise, but not me. I had to have been taking a real beating to bruise up like this. I guess I
had
been pushing pretty hard. I knew that when Karen saw the shape I was in, she wasn’t going to be happy. She’d know instantly how close to the breaking point I was pushing myself.

“I’ll be fine once I get some sleep,” I thought.

I put on a clean uniform and headed to laundry. Southard was already in the laundry room, reading a gun magazine.

“Hey, man,” he said.
I’m waiting on my uniform to dry. Want me to put yours in the dryer when it’s done washing?”

“Yeah, Chuck,” I said.
“That would be great. I’m exhausted.”

“I can tell, man.
No offense, but you look like shit. I mean, much worse than usual.”

“Gee, thanks.”

“Don’t mention it,” he said, smiling.

“Are
you
ok?”

“Fine, why?” he asked, innocently.

“Chuck, you know damned good and well what I mean.”

Southard put down the magazine and looked me in the eye.
His entire demeanor changed in the span of a heartbeat.

“No, not really,” he said.
“I’m trying not to think about it.”

“Want to have a drink and talk about it?”

“I’ll take the drink, but I don’t want to talk about it. I know they’re gone, Wylie. But I can’t let myself go to pieces, right now. There’s too much at stake.”

“Yeah, there is.
But take some time for yourself, Chuck. Get drunk, let it out. Tomorrow, we can worry about the rest of it.”

“Only if you get drunk with me.”

I thought about it a second, then nodded.

“What the hell.
I’m sure they can survive one night without me. I’m worn completely out.”

“Screw it, then,” he said. “Let’s drink some of that Bushmills you have and get it out of our systems.”

I tossed my clothes into the washing machine and headed out of laundry. Southard followed me and we headed for my bedroom/office in Classification. My pack was already in there, and we dug out a bottle of the Bushmills 21. Almost by magic, Sanders and Spec-4 arrived as I was opening the bottle.

“Whoa,” said Sanders.
“You guys weren’t going to start without us, were you?”

“No way,” I said.
“I just figured we’d open it up and maybe have a taste or six while we waited.”

We broke out our cups from the night before and I poured a generous measure for each of us.
Southard and I both had a good long swig. Sanders took it down in a single swallow and Spec-4 sipped hers.

“Hey,” said Sanders. “This stuff is pretty good.
No wonder you like it so much.”

We all laughed and
talked for a couple hours, finishing off the entire bottle. We were all pretty drunk when we called it a night. Southard and Sanders headed off to the other office and I shut the door and turned off the light in mine. I sat down on my mattress and started taking off my boots. It wasn’t easy since I kept falling over. Eventually, I removed my gear and boots and lay down. I think I was asleep before I even hit the mattress. I was only vaguely aware of Spec-4 sliding up against me in the dark.

06 April

It felt like my head had no sooner hit the pillow, when someone was shaking me awake.
I opened my eyes, grudgingly, to see Spec-4 kneeling over me. She was saying something. I could tell it was words of some kind, but my brain seemed to be wrapped in thick wool.

“Wylie,” she said. “Are you listening to me?”

“Mmmhmm,” I managed to mumble.

“Wake up,” she persisted.
“The Lieutenant’s calling for you.”

“Ok,” I croaked in a voice not really my own.
“I’m awake. What’s going on?”

“Main power is out.
The generator’s holding, but we lost a lot of stuff. We still have doors, cameras and lights, but heat and A/C might be out of the question.”

“What about hot water?”

“Yeah, I think we still have that, too.”

“Ok, good.”

“Ok?” she asked. “Is that all you have to say?”

“Well, yeah,” I said.
“I wasn’t really expecting the mains to stay on-line this long.”

“You might want to get up to Master Control and find out what’s going on.”

She didn’t seem the least bit worse for wear from our previous night’s drinking. I vaguely recalled that she hadn’t drunk nearly as much as the rest of us, though. Still, my mouth tasted like I had been drinking the water you boiled the hotdogs in. I sat up and my head hurt like hell. Great, just what I needed during the zombie apocalypse, a fucking hangover. Serves me right, I guess.

It took a
few moments, but I managed to sit up. Then I pulled on my zip-sided tactical boots and zipped them up. After I bloused my BDU pants, I stood up. Albeit slowly. The room only spun a little bit, but my head felt like a large high school marching band was doing an extremely off key John Phillip Sousa march through my skull. Spec-4 handed me a bottle of water and a palm-full of ibuprofen.

I washed them down gratefully, and started putting on my gear.
Even hung-over, I had the presence of mind to put on the Interceptor vest. Then I buckled on my duty belt and checked my pistols. Odd, but it seemed like second nature, like I’d been doing it for years. I ran through it almost automatically. Once all of my gear was checked out, I headed out the door. I almost made it to the stairs before EMT caught me.

“Hey, Wylie,” he said.
“I need to check your head wound, again.”

“Can it wait ‘til later?”

“I suppose. But I want to see it and examine you before you go back out there after someone else.”

“Deal,” I said, and headed up the stairs.

“Wylie?” he asked. “Are you feeling dizzy?”

“Nope.
Just hung-over.”

I didn’t even look back as I continued on up the stairs, but I could feel his eyes on me until I rounded the corner at the landing and disappeared from his view.
I appreciated the fact that he was worried about me, but I’ve been hurt way worse than a little bump on the old noggin. Hell, I’d wager my old bean was the most invulnerable bone in my body, considering the number of times I’d hit my head and not done any serious damage.

I reached Master Control less than a minute later.
My skull was pounding from the exertion of climbing the stairs. I couldn’t wait for the ibuprofen to kick in. As I walked in the door, Lieutenant Murdock handed me a Styrofoam cup of hot coffee, which I gladly accepted. He gave me a few seconds to enjoy a few sips before he started.

“We lost the grid
sometime around 0300 hours,” he said. “All things considered, it lasted far longer than we had any right to expect. The generator is holding, and we have enough fuel to run it for the better part of a week. Longer, if we can find some propane.”

“We can shut down unnecessary lights and equipment,” I said.
“We don’t need the booking computers or the fingerprint machines.”

“We’ve already gotten started on that,” replied the L.T.
“We cleared and emptied the towers, except for medical. All power has been cut to all floors but five.”

“Good, we can also
turn out any of the big pods we aren’t currently using. We can consolidate people into one pod.”

“I’ll get on that, next,” he said, nodding.
“We still have door control and cameras.”

“That’s good news.
If we lose the doors, we can always key them manually. But if we lose cameras, we lose our eyes outside.”

“We can always replace the cameras with a guard on the roof, if we have to,” said the L.T.

“True. But once we lose all power, we lose the radios.”

“We have a couple of boxes of batteries.
I’ll see to it that all of them are put on chargers. So if we go dark, we’ll have radios for a while longer.”

“Anything else?”

“Yes, I’m afraid so,” he said. “We had a few survivors try to get in the gate last night.”

“Where are they now?”

“I wouldn’t let them in,” he said. “They claimed that they needed medical attention for bites.”

I sighed and let my shoulders slump.
I hated to turn away any survivors, but we couldn’t risk letting an infected person inside here. If they turned, we could lose everything we’d accomplished. He was right to turn them away, but it still bothered me. It went against my nature not to help someone in need.

“Did they get clear?”

“They left the same way they arrived. On foot,” he said, solemnly.

“On foot?” I asked, incredulously.
“No wonder they’d been bitten.”

“I don’t know where they went, but I’m sure that they’ve all turned by now,” said the L.T.

I let that sink in for a few seconds, and tried not to let it get to me. I failed. So, I changed the subject.

“How many more officers do we have locations for?”

“Hmm,” said the L.T. “Let me think. “

He reached over and picked up his clip-board and started running through the papers stuck to it.

“We have two that are on the roof of Cox Hospital North,” he said.

It killed me to say it, but I really didn’t have any choice.

“There’s nothing we can do for them. I’ve seen it, and it’s completely overrun. If we had a helicopter, maybe we could go after them. There’s no way we could fight through all of those zombies and get them out. There’s just too many of them.”

The Lieutenant looked thoughtful for a moment, then nodded.

“I can’t think of a way to get to them, either. If the place is as bad as you say, then it would take more men than we have to fight our way inside. Even if we had a helicopter, we don’t have a pilot.”

“Anyone else?” I asked, hoping I didn’t sound callous.

“The last I heard, Captain Meredith was trying to fortify his residence,” said the L.T. “He was calling for officers to assist him.”

“Fortifying his residence?” I asked, anger rising in my voice.
“We all got the speech about duty first and all that shit, but he went home to sit it out there?”

“So it would seem.
I would have thought he would have been here or at the mobile command post.”

I didn’t want to say it aloud, but I wasn’t planning on rescuing someone that selfish.
Someone who would order us to put our asses on the line and put the department before ourselves, then run home and do exactly the opposite. Well, I guess rank hath its privileges.

“Where does he live?” I asked, more out of curiosity than anything else.

“He has a house in the Ravenwood subdivision,” said the L.T.

“Ravenwood,” I said, surprised.
“How does he afford that on a LEO’s salary? I don’t make enough to afford a mailbox in Ravenwood.”

“I never asked, b
ut I understand it’s a really nice house.”

“I’m sure it is,” I said, a little heatedly.
“A
cheap
house there costs six times what mine did.”

The Lieutenant continued to consult the clipboard, while I steamed about that information.
Rank definitely has its privileges, I guess.