Ragnarok Rising: The Crossing (The Ragnarok Rising Saga) (56 page)

“That’s what I was afraid of,” he said, shaking his head.

“Do you think it will get dark enough for the
Stalkers
to come out?” asked Spec-4, looking up from the binoculars.

“I hope not,” I said, trying to sound reassuring. “There’s no way to be sure.”

“Well, if the moonlight stopped them,” said Heather, “then it only figures that they wouldn’t come out during the day.”

“It was dark enough
for them to move through the trees the other day,” said Sanders. “When we were running for White Bear’s house.”

“We might be in trouble,” said Spec-4. “Is there any place we can hold up until they go back inside?”

“The only places I know for certain are the facility that we just left,” I said, shaking my head.

“And the dam,” finished Heather. “If we can get there, in time.”

“I doubt that they would let us back inside the research facility,” I said. “Besides that, I don’t really want to go back in there.”

“Then we head for the dam,” said First Sergeant Gregory.

“Alright,” I said, throttling up the engines and pushing our speed as high as I dared risk it. “Let’s beat that storm.”

It was already beginning to rain when the dam came into view. I headed for the shore next to it, where we had left the suburban
after we rescued Heather and Mike. It was right where we had left it, which was reassuring. If we could load all of our gear into it, we could drive to the entrance of the dam without any problems. It would be crowded with all of us in it, but the alternative was to carry everything and run for it. I think I’d rather be crowded.

Thunder boomed across the sky as lightning crackled above us, striking a television antennae on the roof
of a house along the shore. It was an impressive sight, but the roar of the thunder nearly made us jump out of our skins. Heather winced and grimaced. The loud boom must have hurt her ears. If that bothered her, she didn’t want to be anywhere near the dam when we set off all of those explosives.

I angled the boat and drove right up onto the shore. I wasn’t exactly concerned with the condition of the boat, since we weren’t going to be needing it anymore. Once we blew the spillways, we wouldn’t be able use the boat to get back home. The though
t occurred to me that we could take it as far as the mouth of the river, but the damage was done. I wasn’t sure how badly we had damaged the boat, but I knew we didn’t have the gas for a return trip, anyway.

Once we were ashore, we started loading the gear into the back of the suburban as fast as we could go. It was already raining, but the sky was still light enough that the
Stalkers
hadn’t started coming out of the water. I wasn’t expecting that bit of luck to last. Just as we were placing the last of the gear in the back of the suburban, the rain began to come down with torrential force. It was getting hard to see.

We crowded inside the cab,
with Heather and Spec-4 having to sit on someone’s lap. It was a tight fit, but we made it. Thankfully, we had left the keys in the ignition when we left it behind. It fired up and began to idle after the second try. I couldn’t help but like this vehicle. Under different circumstances, I wouldn’t have minded having one for deer hunting.

I put it in gear and punched the accelerator just as I saw shapes begin to emerge from the water. With the heavy rain and the c
loud cover, the
Stalkers
were coming out to play. I knew we hadn’t taken out more than a handful of them, so the last thing I wanted to do was to face a few hundred of them out in the open. It was time to move.

I retraced the route
we’d taken from the dam. I already knew where the obstacles were and how to get through. All we could do now was hope that they didn’t beat us to the entrance. If they did, we were going to have no choice but to run. We had no prospects for a place to run to. What was worse was the thought of trying to outrun them in this weather. Despite the fact that this thing was a four-wheel drive, most of the roads were impassible. Our only chance would be finding a clear path to run. If they caught us, they would have no trouble coming through the glass.

The heavy rainfall was keeping my speed low because of the lousy visibility. When I finally rounded the last corner and saw the dam offices come into view, I risked more speed and took off. We bounced over a downed tree limb and into the parking lot, splashing water as we went. The heavy rain had brought the level of the river up dangerously high, as well.

There was standing water in the parking lot and I knew that there would be more before the rain subsided. The massive spillways of the dam were working overtime, letting massive amounts of water through to fall in white foamy sheets to the river below. Despite the massive amount of water that it let through, the lake level was still higher than normal, since the spillways could only let through so much water at a time. Well, we were going to change that.

I slid sideways at the entrance and came to a stop, with the rear of the vehicle facing the stairs to the door. When I jumped out of the driver’s seat, I splashed into water up to the middle of my calf. Everyone jumped out into the water and started grabbing gear. I caught Heather by the arm and pulled her to the side.

“If the rain keeps coming,” I asked, “will this area flood enough to trap us in the dam?”

“I’ve never seen the water get that high, before,” she replied. “I’ve seen this parking lot with three feet of water on it, but I’ve never seen it flood the dam.”

“Any chance it might flood us out in there?” I asked, gesturing at the door.

“No,” she said, shaking her head. “Once we’re inside, we can seal the hatch doors just like on a submarine. We’ll be stuck in there if it floods, but it won’t get to us.”

“With all this water coming down, will the dam hold?” I said, looking nervously at the churning water.

“It would have to rain a hell of a lot more than this to crack the dam,” she replied. “When they built that thing, they built it solid. We’re talking about millions of tons of concrete and steel.”

“Alright,” I said. “Let’s get inside.”

We rushed the supplies inside and sealed the doors. I doubted that this was the only exit from the dam, but I would have time to ask about that later. Right now, we had to beat the
Stalkers
inside before we became next on their menu. I saw movement in the tress as we brought the last of the gear inside. By now, they would be crawling all over the place. It was uncanny how they seemed to sense where to stalk their prey.

I felt safer once the big metal door was sealed behind us, and even more so when I realized that the lights were still on inside the dam. I guess I shouldn’t have been surprised, since the entire place was one gigantic power generating station. It only made sense that it would still have power
, especially with the lake running so high.

I could almost imagine the sound of their claws scraping on the outside of the door. I had also expected the inside of the dam to be much louder, from the roaring of the water. Near the turbines it was loud, but where we were setting up for the night it was almost eerily quiet. There was a locker room for the employees complete with showers, so we took turns using the hot water and getting out of our wet clothes.

Once it was my turn, I dug out clean and dry clothes from my pack and headed for the showers. It felt good to take a long, hot shower. It eased away some of the aches and pains, as well as the dirt and grime. When I had finished, I dug out my straight razor and lathered up my face and head.

When I emerged from the locker room, I was clean and freshly shaven, with more than a few pieces of toilet paper stuck to my head where I had nicked myself with the straight razor.
I’d even managed to trim my goatee into something manageable. It was getting long and it had way more grey in it than I would like.

I walked back into the small break room that we had taken over as a common room. Everyone was there, talking and laughing. It was a
comforting scene, and it made me stop and admire them. They were all my family. We were all bound together in this Hel on Earth that the world had become. We were all we had left and we would stand and die beside one another. That kind of commitment makes you strong together.

Then, thoughts of what White Bear had said to me came rushing into my mind. It felt like someone had poured ice water down the back of my uniform and chills spread throughout my body. I suddenly had the terrible feeling that this would be the last time I saw them like this. As much as I didn’t want to
believe the old man’s prophecy, I couldn’t help but worry about it. I wasn’t going to let it stop me from accomplishing my task, prophecy or no.

Shaking my head to clear that unwanted feeling, I forced myself to continue on into the room. Heather was explaining the finer details of working inside a dam to First Sergeant Gregory and Sergeant McDonald. Snake was entertaining everyone else with a tale about one of the biker parties he
had attended just down the river from this dam. No one seemed to notice my hesitation at the door. That was fine, since I didn’t want to worry anyone about it. I still hadn’t told them what White Bear had said.

I grabbed some food that had been laid out and joined the others near Snake. Spec-4 handed me a bottle of water and slid over so I could sit next to her. Sanders gave me a leering wink, but I only smiled. I had little doubt that most people thought Spec-4 and I were physically intimate. I doubted anything I could say would change that, so I didn’t b
other to try. I knew we weren’t and that was enough. I just wondered if Karen knew it, too.

After we were all finished eating, I took Spec-4 and Heather to the side to have a quiet talk. I didn’t want to get everyone else involved until I had more information. At the moment, all I had was an idea and needed to know about the layout of this place before I decided what I thought would be the best course of action. We needed to make a plan. One that would not only guarantee the destruction of the spillway gates, but would allow for our escape, as well. No matter what White Bear said, I wasn’t planning on dying here.

“I was wondering if you could tell me a bit about the layout of this place?” I said, facing Heather.

“I can do better than that,” she said. “Let’s go to my old office. I have detailed maps of the entire facility. I can show you whatever you need to see.”

“Let’s go, then,” I said, and motioned for her to lead the way.

Spec-4 followed next to me as Heather led us down a narrow corridor and into a group of offices. Hers was the third one on the left. Although
the office was small, there were numerous screens, readouts and maps covering the walls. There was even video feed from the spillway cameras, turbine cameras and transformer controls. There was everything I needed to know, right here in one convenient place. There were even schematics for the flood gate controls.

“It looks like everything I need is in here,” I said, looking around.

“Yeah, all the major systems can be monitored from here,” she said, smiling. “Although I never thought I’d be using them to find the best place to plant charges.”

“Desperate times,” I said, shaking my head. “Lowering the lake level should keep the rivers flowing smoothly.”

“It will help,” she said. “You’ll still have the normal flooding problems during bad weather, but it will help keep the flood levels lower.”

“Whatever helps to keep the
Stalkers
at bay,” said Spec-4.

I walked over to the internal map and started checking walkways. I was looking for an opening on the top of the dam. It didn’t take me long to find one.

“Where does this door go?” I asked, pointing to the map.

“That’s a maintenance access way
,” replied Heather. “We don’t use it much. It’s a heavy steel door and I doubt they could get in that way. It would take the force of a wrecking ball to smash it open.”

“Where does it come out?” I asked, a plan starting to form.

“On the lake side of the dam,” she answered. “Near the floodgate control tower. Most people don’t even know it’s there. It’s hard to see from the road.”

“Then the
Stalkers
might not see us come out of it,” I said, thinking.

“You’re not planning on going up there now, are you?” asked Spec-4, concerned.

“No,” I said, hesitating slightly. “Not unless we don’t have any other choice. Just checking my exits.”

“What does this blinking light mean?” asked Spec-4, pointing to a control board.

“That’s a turbine failure indicator,” answered Heather. “It’s not a problem. We don’t need to generate full power right now, anyway.”

“Is it something we should worry about?” I asked, turning to look at the indicator.

“Not yet,” she said. “We can lose a turbine and not have any issues. When we start losing multiple turbines, then we’ll have a problem.”

“What kind of problem?’ I asked, dreading the answer.

“It could cause a cascade failure that would shut the power generation systems down,” she said, frowning.

“Would that cause the dam to break?” I asked.

“No, it shouldn’t,” she said, hesitantly. “It will shut all power down and make it unsafe to stay inside of here.”