Ragnarok Rising: The Crossing (The Ragnarok Rising Saga) (36 page)

I saw several possibilities where the Trooper could have come from. Nothing that looked inhabited, but several that looked like they could have been defensible. None of them looked like something we should stop and search,
but they were worth remembering for future reference. We were getting close to town when I saw something that made me slow down for a better look.

On our right was a parking lot with a few buildings. There was a golf course behind it and even tennis courts. It looked like some kind of country club.
There were a few vehicles in the parking lot, most of which were damaged. One of them was a Missouri State Highway Patrol Car. The buildings weren't anything special, other than it looked like the doors and windows had been covered from the inside.

"I think we might have found it," I said, pointing.

"That could be it," agreed Spec-4.

"Think there is anyone left alive inside?" asked Snake.

"I hope so," I said. "There was at least one person who's been in the military, inside."

"Why do you say that?" asked Southard.

"Look at the flag," I said.

Everyone craned their necks to see the flag that was still fluttering in the breeze atop the flagpole. It was frayed and damaged, but unmistakably an American flag.
It was also flying incorrectly.

"Why is it upside down?" asked Snake.

"It's a call for help," explained Spec-4. "Flying it upside down is a distress signal."

"Ten points for Gryffindor," I said.

"I guess that makes me Hermione," said Spec-4.

"Well, Wylie's old enough to be Dumbledore," said Southard, laughing.

I gave him the old one-fingered response and made a sour face at him.

"What the hell are you guys talking about?" asked Snake.

"Just some Harry Potter references," I said, smiling.

I pulled into the parking lot and slowed almost to a stop. Of the six vehicles in the parking lot, most of them had been damaged in collisions. Only one stood apart from the others. It was a severely damaged pick-up truck with
bullet holes in the windshield and driver's side door. There was dried blood on the back window, but nobody inside.

"That explains why he was walking," I said, pointing to the cars.

"I wonder why they tried to reach the park instead of heading into town?" said Spec-4, shaking her head. "That was one hell of a long shot."

I didn't see any dead in the area, so I slowed to a stop right in front of the main doors. I sat there with the engine idling for a few moments, just looking around.

"Are we checking the building or just sitting here?" asked Snake, leaning forward between the seats.

"We're checking it," I assured him. "I just wanted to look things over before we got out."

"Fair enough," he said, and leaned back. "Let me know when you're done looking around. I'll be nearby."

I turned to reply, but he was already getting out of the door. He shut the door and brought up his weapon, then headed for the building.

"Aw, shit," I muttered, grabbing my weapon and getting out my door.

"Here we go," said Spec-4, following suit.

Southard joined us and we all brought up our weapons, sweeping the area just to be safe. Snake just headed right for the main building. The wind was picking up and you could hear the flag flapping in the breeze. When we rounded the corner, we found Snake just frozen in place. The front door was open and a young woman that looked to be in her early thirties had a shotgun stuck to his forehead.

"And that's why I wanted to check the place out before we went charging in," I said to him as we moved up, weapons at the ready.

"Yeah," he said, almost stuttering. "I'm…uh…I get that, now."

"Next time, we stick together," I explained.

"Who the hell are you people?" demanded the young brunette with the shotgun.

"We came looking for other survivors,
" I said, trying to stay calm.

I also didn't lower my own weapon.

"Lower you weapons or your friend dies," she said.

"I don't think so," I replied, shaking my head.

"I mean it, mister," she assured me, frowning.

"Go ahead and shoot him," I said.

"What?!" demanded Snake, eyes widening in surprise.

"No offense, bud," I said, smiling. "But you brought this on yourself."
              "I ain't joking, mister," she snapped.

"Neither am I," I said, keeping my tone cool. "But before you do, you'd better understand one thing."

"What's that?" she said, not taking her eyes off of Snake.

"If you do shoot him," I said, lowering my voice, "We have the firepower to turn this building into rubble. You will undoubtedly kill him. But we will unleash Hel on this building and
everyone inside."

"We're here because of a Missouri State Trooper," said Spec-4, giving me a dirty look.

"What was his name?" demanded the woman.

"We don't know," I said. "He didn't make it. We did find his dog. The tag on the collar says the dog's name is Aegis."

"What do you mean, he didn't make it?" she asked, tears in her eyes.

"The dead got him just outside of our
area," I said, feeling bad for threatening her. "We managed to rescue the dog."

"So, Henry didn't send you here?" she said, looking surprised.

"No, ma'am," I answered. "We just backtracked what we thought was the direction he came from."

"How did you guys know where to look for us?" asked Spec-4.

"We have a scanner," she said, shaking her head. "We can listen, but we can't transmit."

"His name was Henry?" I asked, not sure what else to say.

"Corporal Henry Yocum," she said. "He saved our lives and kept us together. When we started running low on food, he volunteered to try to reach your group."

"Lady," I said, lowering my gun. "We're not your enemy. How can we help?"

At first, she just stared at us like the thought of us being friendly had never occurred to her. I can't say that I blamed her, though. It' not like we haven't run into our own share of survivors who tried to kill us. Spec-4 gave her a reassuring smile and took her hand off of the grip on her own weapon. Then she let the M-4 dangle from its strap and raised held her hands up with the palms showing to demonstrate she didn't want to fight.

"You'd better not be here to hurt anyone," she said, sighing.

Reluctantly, she lowered her shotgun and took a step back from Snake. He gave me a relieved look and shook his head.

"You wouldn't have let her
shoot me, would you?" he asked, concerned.

"She wasn't going to shoot you," I said, smiling.

"Yes, I was," she said, suddenly angry.

"Not with the breech partially open," I said, gesturing at the shotgun.

She checked it and swore. When she had worked the pump on the shotgun, she didn't lock it forward. Obviously, she wasn't very familiar with the weapon.

"Look," I said, trying to keep my voice calm. "My name is Wylie Grant. This is Chrissy Wilder, Chuck Southard, and the guy with the barrel print on his forehead is Janos. You can just call him Snake."

"I'm Elizabeth Goddard," she said. "I'm sorry about the shotgun."

"Don't worry about it," I said. "You had no way of knowing if we were a threat or not. Besides that,
I doubt that it's the first time Snake has had a gun in his face."

"He's got a point," muttered Snake, shrugging his shoulders.

"How many of you are here?" asked Spec-4.

"Six," she said. "Me, my daughter,
two waitresses from the Club and an elderly couple that was here when things went bad."

"How did you all survive, this long?" I asked, impressed.

"This place has a restaurant," she said, gesturing behind her. "Corporal Yocum helped us barricade the place and set us up a ration plan."

"Who hung the flag upside down?" asked Southard.

"That was Corporal Yocum's idea," she answered. "He said he'd learned it in the Marines."

"Sounds like he was a brave man," I said. "I wish we could have saved him. He sacrificed everything to try to get help for you all."

"We'd all be dead if it wasn't for him," she said.

"We don't have room for all of you in the Humvee," I said. "But we're going to radio our base and have them send another vehicle to pick you guys up. We can offer you guys shelter, food, water and protection."

"Thank you," she said, tears in her eyes.

"No thanks needed, ma'am," I said. "It's the right thing to do."

Spec-4 got out her radio and walked a few feet away to try to make contact. I knew Winston would be monitoring our frequency and our handsets were well in range of the park. While she talked on the radio, we broke out a case of water and MREs and brought them inside. It wasn't much, but it was more than enough to make them all very happy. None of them looked like they had eaten a good meal in quite some time. Well, they
were
MREs. They still weren't getting a good meal.

While I was watching them pass out the food and water, I made myself a promise. When we made it back to camp, I was going to have a glass and say a few words to the memory of K-9 Trooper, Corporal Henry Yocum. The dead might have taken his
life and body, but we could honor his memory. We'd have a fire and toast his name to let the Gods know he was coming. He'd earned his place in Valhalla.

"I have learned to hate all traitors, and there is no disease that I spit on more than treachery."

-
Aeschylus

We didn’t wait for the team to come extract the survivors. We just made certain that they were safe and headed off into town. I spoke to Gunny on the radio and he assured me that they would be there to pick them up within the hour. So, after briefly teaching Ms. Goddard how to use the shotgun, we were loading up and heading out of the parking lot.

It was eerily quiet as we rolled into the city of
Lebanon. The streets were empty and not even small animals were to be seen walking the streets. The houses all looked abandoned and the storefronts were empty. It was like everyone had just disappeared. When the order came to evacuate, most of the city must have headed for the hills. I could only see the occasional abandoned car.

As we passed the High School, we could see the massive amount of damage that had been done to the building. Undoubtedly, there had been one hell of a fight there when things broke out. Part of the building looked to have been on fire, at some point. There was even a massive hole in one wall, where it looked like a vehicle
has crashed through.

“Where they fuck did everybody go?” asked Snake.

“Most of them must have headed for the hills when the evacuation order came down,” I replied, still looking around.

There
was an uncomfortable silence in the town. I’ve seen what it looks like for the dead to rule a town. The dead didn’t rule here. It was just dead. There was no life here. Everything just felt wrong. I wanted nothing more than to find the people we were looking for and get the heck out of here.

“Where are the dead?” asked Southard.

“Well,” I said, frowning, “either they wondered out of the area, or there are
Stalkers
here.”

“Holy shit,” said Southard. “A town full of
Stalkers
. I hope you’re wrong about that.”

“Me, too,” I muttered.

Fortunately for us, the sky was clear and the sun was almost directly overhead. We still had hours of daylight left before we needed to be safely back inside the bunker. I planned to be back long before dark. In fact, I doubted that I would feel any better about this until I heard the big doors of the bunker shut behind us. Even then, the thought of a town full of
Stalkers
would haunt my dreams.

We continued on, past the High School
and towards the main part of town. The first businesses we passed looked like Convenience Stores. Both buildings had been hit hard, either by looters or by the dead. All of the glass had been busted out and the interiors looked to be in shambles. A couple of blocks later, we found a grocery story that looked to be in the same condition.

It occurred to me that any place that sold food or useful supplies looked like it had been through a riot. I wanted to get a closer look, but my first priority was to find the survivors and get out of here. Some mysteries could wait until we had more time. In fact, some of the questions didn’t need to be answered, at all. I didn’t really care what caused the damage. All I cared about was getting us all out of here alive.

I slowed to a crawl as we approached a small drive-in restaurant next to a Stop’N’Rob. Surprisingly, the two of them were intact. All of their windows were still in place and there didn’t seem to be anything wrong, from what I could see through the windows. It was out of place enough that I decided I wanted to take a closer look.

“Why are we stopping here?” asked Spec-4.

“Notice anything different about these two places?” I asked, gesturing at them both.

“They don’t look like they’ve been through a war,” suggested Snake.

“Precisely,” I said, nodding at him. “What makes these places so different?”

Pulling into the parking lot, I stopped the vehicle close to the gas pumps.
Checking my mental map of the area, I knew we were within a couple of blocks of the Sheriff’s Office and Jail. It was worth taking a moment to see if there was anything left worth taking. It was a small department. They might not have had time to use everything in their armory before things went to hell. If there was anything left, we’d take it.

Out of the corner of my eye, something stood out about the Convenience Store. There was just something there that I couldn’t quite put my finger on. Something was tugging at the back of my brain, screaming that something was very wrong. It wasn’t the “hey, you’re about to get shot at” feeling that I get sometimes. This was more of a “what’s wrong with this picture?” kind of feeling.

I nodded at Spec-4 and we got out of the Humvee at the same time. Bringing up our weapons, I motioned for the other two to stay put. If things went bad, I wanted someone to be able to cover us. Southard got the idea of what I meant and climbed into the turret, locking and loading the SAW. I flashed him a quick smile and turned back to the store.

Spec-4 and I fanned out, putting about twenty feet between us. As we advanced towards the front of the store, my brain kept up the alert. Something was wrong with what I was seeing. I froze mid-step when the realization dawned on me. There was a light on in the back of the store. It wasn’t a big light, but it was definitely not the light of the sun. For one thing, sunlight isn’t blue.

“There’s a light on inside,” I said, whispering to Spec-4.

“I see it,” she said. “What does it mean?”

“Maybe nothing,” I said, shaking my head. “It might be nothing or it might mean that this town still has power.”

“It might be something that runs on batteries,” she suggested.

“Still running after over a month?” I replied.

She just shrugged and flashed me an apologetic smile.

“What do you think it is, then?” she asked.

“I’m not sure,” I said, “but whatever it is, it might mean something good for us.”

We headed up to the door and peered inside. I lit up my tactical light and pointed it inside, panning around the aisles and near the register. I didn’t see any signs of movement or of life. No blood trails or bodies could be seen. The place looked like it was closed, not shutdown for the zombie apocalypse.

The doors were locked and the glass was unbroken. Since it wasn’t a particularly strong looking lock, I decided we would risk a little noise.
Letting my Beowulf hang from its strap, I reached behind my back and grabbed my hammer. I shoved the pry bar end into the lock and leaned back, putting my entire weight on the bar. The lock groaned and creaked, then snapped with a loud
crack
!

Spec-4 kept the area covered while I put my hammer away and brought up my own rifle. We waited for almost a minute, listening for any sounds of either the dead or the living coming our way. All we heard was the wind whispering between the buildings. The silence was unnerving.

“Let’s sweep the building,” I said, softly.

“Right behind you, boss,” she replied, smiling.

We both took our weapons off of safe and slipped inside. We stuck together and swept the interior of the store. We cleared the aisles and behind the counter. The only place we hadn’t been was inside the cooler and the storage area. I located the source of the blue light. It was coming from inside the coolers and could be seen through the glass doors.

I noticed that most of the canned goods were missing from the shelves and the coolers had been depleted. However, the store did not look like it had been ransacked. It was in surprisingly good order.
We moved over to the door that led to the storage area and the entrance to the cooler, and slipped inside. There was still no sign of movement.

When we entered the cooler, we were both shocked by what waited for us. On the floor were two makeshift bedrolls. The light was coming from a hand-crank powered lantern with an LED light bulb. There were empty cans of food and bottles of beverages in this room. Someone had been using this cooler as a
shelter. What’s more, was since the lantern was still lit up, they couldn’t have been gone for very long.

“Wylie!” said Southard through the radio. “We’ve got company.”

Spec-4 and I headed out the door as quickly as we could move. As we trotted past the liquor shelves, I snagged a big bottle of Southern Comfort. We checked the area before we went out the door. I could see that Southard was looking away to the south, towards the railroad tracks. I couldn’t see what he was looking at, so we headed for the Humvee.

“Here,” I said, tossing the bottle to Southard. “Something for the road.”

“Thanks,” he said, grinning. “I know just what to do with this.”

Almost lovingly, he tucked it into his pack and s
et it gently inside the vehicle.

“What do you have?” I asked, glancing around.

“We just saw movement near the railroad tracks,” he said, pointing.

I grabbed my binoculars from my pack and started scanning the area south of us.
At first, I didn’t see anything. Just as I was about to pan away and scan another section, I caught a glimpse of a shadow moving on the ground. Adjusting the binoculars, I found what Southard had seen. It was a group of the dead. They looked to be all
Shamblers
, but looks could be deceiving.
Sprinters
and
Shriekers
sometimes moved in groups with the others. You never knew what it was until it was too late.

They were moving among several parked cars. I counted eight of them and they appeared to be shuffling to the west, ignoring their surroundings. Obviously, they had not noticed us. As they began to cross the road, one of the zombies towards the rear seemed to slow down. The others didn’t seem to notice and kept moving. When the group was about ten yards ahead of the straggler, it did something I’ve never seen a zombie do. It began looking in the cars and checking to see if they were locked.

I watched as it peered in windows and seemed to be looking for something in particular. When it didn’t find anything, it began moving off after the others. It moved at a slightly faster pace to catch up, without drawing too much attention to itself. Just as the group reached the western side of the four lane road, the straggler rejoined the group and resumed keeping pace with them, as if nothing had even changed.

“What the hell was that?” I asked, rhetorically.

“What was what?” asked Spec-4.

It occurred to me that without binoculars, she wouldn't be able to see what I was talking about.

“One of the dead was acting really odd,” I said.

“How so?” she asked.

I tried to explain it as best as I could. I wasn’t sure if I could make it make sense. Mainly because I wasn’t sure that what I had seen made any sense at all. The only time I’d ever seen the dead try to get into a vehicle was in pursuit of prey. This one just seemed to be looking for items. I’m not sure what that meant but I’m pretty certain that it wasn’t good for any of us.

“What do you think it means?” asked Spec-4, looking perplexed.

“I have no idea,” I said. “If there had been something alive in those cars, they would all be pounding on the glass trying to get to it.”

“So, what do we do, now?” asked Southard.

“I want to get a closer look at it,” I said, frowning. “I want to know what’s different about it.”

“Want to chase them down with the Humvee and run them all over?” asked Southard, grinning.

“Nothing that dramatic,” I said, shaking my head. “I was thinking about having you and Snake wait here with the Humvee and sneaking ahead of them. Then we could hide and watch them.”

“What are you looking for?” asked Spec-4. “What do you think you’ll find?”

“I don’t know,” I said, frowning. “I just want to know more about it. If this is something new, we need to know about it. The more information we gather on the types of the dead, the better off we’ll be trying to fend them off.”

“Good point,” said Southard.

“Keep your radios on,” I said. “We’re going to sneak over a couple of blocks and get ahead of them. If we call, come get us in a hurry. We’re not going to engage unless we don’t have a choice.”