Ragnarok Rising: The Awakening (Book One of The Ragnarok Rising Saga) Read online

  Somewhere along the line, the order came to open fire. All at once, weapons began to bark and chatter. To give the LAPD and the Guard credit, I could see the hits. There were center mass shots all across the front line of rioters, just like they were trained to do. Many of them stumbled and some even fell, but then got back up and kept coming. It was surreal, as if I was watching a movie and not the morning news. I even found myself double-checking to see if the DVD player was off. It was, and that bothered me. In fact, it bothered me a lot.

  Then, much to my horror, the mob was crawling over the barricade and attacking the officers. The last images I saw before the camera went out were of rioters biting the falling officers and soldiers. Yeah, I said biting them. I couldn’t help but wonder just what was going on. Whatever it was, it wasn’t just a riot. The talking heads returned to the screen right about then.

  “Experts agree that the riots were brought on by socio-economic stress placed on the lower classes by the failing economy,” said Anchorman Smarmy.

  I’m just an uneducated hick from Missouri and even I knew that was pure bullcrap. Before I could switch channels to see if any other station had coverage, the television lost the signal and the screen was filled with a “Please Stand By” message. I didn’t like the implications of that but I didn’t have time to ponder it for long. My wife brought me back to the here and now.

  “Honey, shouldn’t you be getting in the shower?”

  I thought about it while I showered, shaved and got into uniform. It continued to plague my thoughts, even on the way in to briefing. I just couldn’t get it out of my head. The images had been too vivid and they were staying with me. Especially disturbing were the images of them getting back up after multiple gunshots. Like being shot had no affect on them, whatsoever.

  “They had to have been wearing body armor,” I said softly, shaking my head.

  I usually carry two extra magazines with me when I carry my pistol. However, when I went to retrieve my pistol from my gun safe, I just had the feeling I should take all four magazines that I had loaded. I don’t know why, but it made me feel a little better. When I walked outside to get in my truck, I stopped dead in my tracks. Sitting perched on the tailgate of my truck was a large raven. Perched on the mailbox was its twin.

  The thought immediately came to mind, “It’s Huginn and Muninn.”

  Huginn and Muninn are Odin’s ravens; the All-Father’s messengers in the world of mortal men. I had the distinct feeling that He was trying to tell me something. Perhaps it was a warning about trouble to come. An omen about the gruesome sights I had just seen on television. It was enough to make me have an uneasy feeling in the pit of my stomach.

  I sat there in silence for a moment, when the nearest one squawked at me and began flapping its wings. The other one followed suit, and soon they were calling back towards me as they headed off almost due north. I hesitated a moment longer, then got into my truck to head for work. I just couldn’t shake the uneasy feeling that now haunted my thoughts.

  The talk radio station that I listened to on the way to work was covering the riots, as well. They were saying how the extent of the rioting was far worse than was being shown in the mainstream media. They even mentioned that the National Guard had orders to put down the riots with deadly force, if necessary. When I turned off the radio as I got out of my truck, I had to shake my head in dismay. Things were really getting out of hand in California. But then again, it was California.

  When I walked into the briefing room, the mood was somber. Sergeant Daniels had his cell phone out and he was watching a video in grim silence. Several officers were standing around him and I crowded in to see if I could get a peek at what was going on. The look on everyone’s faces told me that what they were seeing was bad enough to shock a group of veteran CO’s.

  Corporal Newberry looked at me quickly and said, “It’s some sort of boot-leg video of the L.A. rioting that got posted to the net.”

  “If it’s real,” said Sergeant O’Neill. “It’s probably some viral video someone put together to scare us. It is April Fool’s Day.”

  “If this is a joke,” said Sergeant Daniels, “it damned sure ain’t funny.”

  I finally got into a position where I could see the tiny screen. The images it showed looked like something out of a war zone. There were fires burning everywhere from both overturned vehicles and buildings. Grainy images of the rioters savagely tearing into the flesh of their victims filled the screen. I could hear the screams of the wounded and the dying. I could also hear the guttural growls and snarls of the rioters. It was as if they were more beast than human. Even on the tiny screen, you could see that there was blood everywhere.

  All throughout the video, you could hear the photographer repeating in a hysterical tone, “Oh, my God! Oh, my God! Oh, my God!”

  It wasn’t long before the rioters noticed the photographer. The last images we had were of dozens of them swarming the car where he or she was hiding. Their faces were like something out of a nightmare. The skin was mottled gray with dark blood around the mouth, nose and eyes. Many of them had pieces of their face, neck or other parts of their body bitten away. You could see the ragged teeth-marks in some of the closest rioters. It didn’t take but a few seconds before they were through the window glass and the screaming began. Then, thankfully, the video died. It was replaced with a screen that said, “Server Signal Lost.”

  Right about then Lieutenant Murdock said, “Listen up, everybody.”

  That was our cue that our briefing was about to begin. It was time to take our seats and shut our mouths. That never stopped us from tossing out the occasional smart-aleck comment during the briefing, and it didn’t stop the L.T., either. Nevertheless, there was a line and we didn’t cross it. We respected him too much to do that.

  Sergeant John Jacob “Jack” Daniels and Sergeant Patrick O’Neill took their place at the front of the room with the Lieutenant. Sergeant Daniels and Sergeant O’Neill were our shift NCO’s. One ran Booking and the other ran Housing. They alternated every two weeks. This week, Daniels would be in Booking and that meant that O’Neill would be upstairs with the pod officers. Either way was fine with me. I trusted them both with my life.

  I can’t say for sure about the other three shifts of corrections officers in the jail, but our shift was a family. If you were moving, you could count on a small army of help. If you threw a party, you could count on a large turnout. If you were in a fight, you could count on having twenty-five other offers at your back with no questions asked. And if you did something stupid, you could count on them to laugh at you and never let you live it down. We were a family, alright…a family that put the fun in dysfunctional.

  As we all quickly took our seats, there were only a few murmurs between us. Then the Lieutenant started our morning briefing and we quickly got lost in the events of the previous shift. We also received our instructions and assignments for the day. I didn’t mind working any pod except the female housing units. Call me old fashioned, but I didn’t like yelling at women. It didn’t matter if they were inmates. My Hillbilly upbringing made me somewhat old-fashioned.

  Inmates are classified by the type of offense committed. Then they’re placed in Housing Units called Pods. Our facility had four large pods and three smaller ones. We’re designed to house 450 inmates and I’ve only rarely seen it below that. Usually, it’s well over 500 inmates and occasionally over 600. The big pods have 48 cells, each housing between two and three inmates each. During recreation time, they’re all out and the Housing Unit Officer is locked inside the pod with them. It’s called Direct Supervision.

  There were four shifts of CO’s and we worked 12 hour rotating shifts. Alpha and Charlie shift worked the same days but opposite hours. Bravo and Delta shift worked opposite days from Alpha and Charlie. I was on Alpha Shift and that meant I rarely saw the officers on “B” and “D” and I didn’t know most of them very well. But “C” shift was our “sister” shift. I knew most of them almo
st as well as the officers on my shift. We saw each other every day we worked.

  I drew Bravo Pod, again. I always wanted to be at the top of my game in Bravo Pod. This housing unit held all of the violent offenders. Murder, assault, rape, armed robbery, you name it. If it was violent, it was in Bravo Pod. I headed for the main slider doors with the cell roster, lost in my thoughts for the coming day. The main sliders were a double set of doors that operated like an air lock. Only one would open at a time. It was a security measure that helped prevent escape.

  I pushed the events on the news to the back of my mind as I got my “game-face” on for the day. I didn’t have time to ponder events in someplace as far away as L.A. For all that it mattered; it might as well have been on the moon. With a hundred and seven inmates in Bravo Pod and only little old me, I couldn’t afford to think about much of anything but going home in one piece. For some reason the name “Custer” kept coming to mind. If you’ve never walked a pod with direct supervision of the inmates, you‘d never know what it’s like. It takes a special kind of crazy to do this for a living.

  I didn’t think about the rioting again for any length of time until I hit the parking lot that evening for our “unofficial” after-shift BS session. We met by our cars to vent about the day, and have a few laughs to get our minds off of the job. It was our way of not taking the job home to our families. Our on-staff mental health doctor said it was a “coping mechanism.” I don’t know about all that, but it did let me blow off steam before going home. I saw enough ugly in a day to make most grown men run screaming. The last thing I wanted to do was take it home to my family.

  Corporal Winston handed me a six-pack of his most recent home-brewed beer. It looked to be a dark stout. He had his own micro-brewery set up in his garage and was always bringing me a sample of his most recent batch to try. I loved being his guinea pig. I got to try out a lot of beer, that way. After the day I had, I was already looking forward to having one of them on the back deck when I got home.

  “Give this one a shot, Wylie,” he said, grinning. “You look like you could use a good beer, anyway.”

  “I won’t argue with that,” I replied, taking the beer with a smile on my face.

  We both had families to worry about, and the rioting was foremost on both of our minds. Tonight, all anyone could talk about was that more reports were coming in from California, only this time they were from San Francisco. The eyewitness accounts were almost identical. At that point, we all started to get a little worried. If they couldn’t contain it in Los Angeles, how could they contain it at all?

  Chapter Two

  The Gathering Storm

  “War is an ugly thing, but not the ugliest of things; the decayed and degraded state of moral and patriotic feeling which thinks nothing worth a war, is worse. A man who has nothing which he cares more about than he does about his personal safety is a miserable creature who has no chance at being free, unless made and kept so by the exertions of better men than himself.”

  — John Stuart Mill

  02 April

  When I got up for work the next morning, I was feeling very uneasy. I had disturbing dreams about Vikings fighting against the same type of “rioters” that I’d been seeing on television. The images were vivid, but already fading in my mind. It seemed like I’d lived it instead of merely watched it. I shook off the thought and forced myself to get out of bed.

  I immediately turned on the TV to check for any updates. I hadn’t slept well, at all. I’d been worrying about this situation and I really wanted to hear some good news for a change. Unfortunately, I didn’t. Reports were now coming in from Denver. The reporter was saying that there were unconfirmed reports from Salt Lake City and Albuquerque.

  I listened to News Radio all the way to work and the riots were all they could talk about. One report said that Mexico City was burning. The riots had gotten so bad there that the entire city was ablaze. The thought was both terrifying and awe inspiring. It must have been one hell of a sight, seeing a city destroy itself. Then a more unsettling thought occurred to me. What if the fires had been ignited by the Mexican Government to try to contain it? I’m not sure what frightened me more, the thought of the riots or of the government destroying it all.

  I prayed in the shower. I don’t pray a lot, but when I do I prefer to do it alone. I glanced down at the triple horn tattoo on my left pectoral and then at the volknut on each bicep. They symbolized my dedication to Odin and the Aesir. I kept the prayer simple and thought of the things I wanted. Then I closed my eyes and cleared my thoughts, letting the hot water run down my face and chest.

  “Odin, far wanderer, grant me wisdom, courage, and victory,” I whispered. “Friend Thor, grant me your strength, and both be with me.”

  By the time I got to work, the radio news was saying that Amarillo, Texas was experiencing rioting in the streets. This was spreading wicked fast, and nothing anyone did was even slowing it down. I was beginning to think it might actually be some kind of Old Gods Plague or possibly the end of the world, or Ragnarok as it is referred to by the Asatruar.

  By the time I made it to the briefing room, Andrews was telling everyone that Dallas was reporting rioting. Briefing was cut short so that the Lieutenant could tell us about a memo from the Sheriff. He called an alert status for the county as well as a recall to active duty of all of our reserve officers and recent retirees.

  All vacations were cancelled for the duration of the alert. There was also a warning to all officers that we should start making preparations for our families, just in case. It suggested laying in a supply of bottled water and extra canned goods. I made a mental note to pick up more ammo on the way home. At the end of the note was a heavy-handed warning that in an emergency situation, we were expected to report for duty until the alert was cancelled.

  The rioting was all we could talk about that day. Every time someone went out for a break, they would call in an update over the radio. We didn’t tie up radio traffic with big reports. We’d just say the name of any new city on the list. Santa Fe and Corpus Christi were the first two to come over the radio. They were quickly followed by Austin and Houston. When I went to lunch, I heard radio reports about New Orleans and relayed it. Later, they were followed by Oklahoma City, Tulsa and Wichita. That’s when we all started getting really nervous.

  The Lieutenant made the decision to secure the facility to prevent a riot of our own. The inmates had been watching the news on TV and were starting to get restless. Sure, some of them were worried about their families, but most of them were only worried about themselves. When I called “lockdown” for Bravo Pod, I really didn’t think they were going to do it. It was the first time I’d ever felt like I might lose the pod. I breathed a sigh of relief when the last door slammed shut.

  When we hit the parking lot that night, we were all abuzz with conversation about the latest rioting reports. Everyone was saying what they’d do if the riots started here. Most said that they’d get their families to safety and then return to duty. A few said that since no one had been able to stop the rioters so far, that they didn’t see what any of us could do except be killed. Better to just get your family and get away from the riots, completely.

  But everyone agreed we needed to start planning escape routes out of the city and safe-houses for our families. The only thing that no one could agree on was where it would be safe. Matthews and I both thought that the jail would be the safest place in the city. It was a modern day castle of steel-reinforced concrete. Steel doors and thick shatterproof glass surrounded all exits. It was a fortress. The kitchen had more than enough food to last a month, even longer without the inmates.

  Now, don’t get your panties in a bunch. I wasn’t talking anything crazy. There were a bunch of them that were only in on misdemeanor stuff. Reasons like traffic tickets, DWI, non-payment of fines and other minor offenses. With society collapsing as it was, why not just let them go. They weren’t a threat to society. It was quite the opposite, really. If we w
ere really seeing the beginning of the end here, then society was more of a threat to them.

  That didn’t deal with the violent ones or the sex offenders. You couldn’t just turn them loose, and anything else was unethical. That didn’t mean we didn’t think it, though. The building could hold over 600 people and the generators would keep the power on for a couple weeks after the power-grid failed. It was a moot point anyway. The decision to release the inmates had to come from way above my pay grade. A lowly CO like me never made decisions like that.