Ragnarok Rising: The Crossing (The Ragnarok Rising Saga) by D.A. Roberts Page B

never know his fate. At least there was that mercy for him.
    I didn’t wait for him to regain consciousness, either as Jensen or as one of the dead. I whispered a silent prayer for him and shot him in the back of the head. While the others collected the gear from Jensen, I took a closer look at the dead woman. The front of her uniform dripped with blood and gore.
    “Wilder,” I said, “shine your light over here.”
    She lit up the corpse in front of me as I sat my weapon to the side. I grabbed the front of the woman’s shirt and ripped the buttons off as I tore it open. Beneath the shirt, she wore a black bra and a St. Christopher’s medallion, in addition to a set of army issue dog-tags. That wasn’t what interested me, though. I was more concerned with the dark spots that covered her abdomen and chest.
    “What the hell are you doing?” asked Spec-4, surprised.
    “You see these dark circles,” I said, pointing.
    “Yeah,” she said, “so what?”
    “Those are bullet holes,” I explained. “She was shot numerous times in the chest and stomach. If my guess is correct, I would say that she was a victim of the firing squad.”
    “Then how did she turn?” asked Elliott. “I thought she had to be bitten.”
    “This wound on her arm looks like it might be a bite,” I said, pointing at a blackened hole in her right forearm. “She must have been bitten and whoever was doing the shooting put her against the wall and shot her. They must not have known that anyone that gets bit will turn.”
    “What the hell kind of zombie was that, anyway?” asked Southard, still sweeping the interior with his weapon up.
    “This…,” I said, shaking my head. “This is something new.”
    “He …he was just going to the bathroom,” said the voice of Becca behind me. “There was no warning. They waited until he came into the darkness and attacked him. They waited for him to come to them.”
    “Since when do they do that?” asked Spec-4.
    “They never have before,” said Southard.
    “They ambushed him,” said Elliott, a touch of fear in his voice.
    “These fucking things are getting smarter,” said Southard.
    “That’s what I’m afraid of, too,” I said, shaking my head. “Let’s hope this is an isolated case and there aren’t more of these things around here.”
    “Do you really thing that’s likely?” asked Southard.
    “No,” I replied, softly. “I don’t.”
    “So, what do we call these things?” asked Spec-4.
    “ Stalkers ,” I replied, after a moment's thought. “We’ll call them Stalkers .”
    “Let’s find those weapons and g et out of here,” said Southard, glancing around nervously.
    With that, we all headed back to our vehicles. The water from the spring was nearly up to the road but we had a clear line of sight all the way to the bridge. It was intact, but looked like it had vehicles blocking it off. I took the opportunity to scan the area with the ACOG, but still didn’t see any other movement. I knew that the visitor’s center and store were on the other side of the bridge, as was the entrance to the POMCUS cache.
    “We’ve got to find a way across that bridge,” I said, gesturing. “It’s blocked, but I think we can clear it.”
    “Well, then,” said Southard. “Let’s get it done and get this show on the road.”
    Once we were all safely inside our vehicles, I took the lead and headed for the bridge. There were sawhorse style barricades on both ends of the bridge and two Park Ranger SUV’s parked nose-to-nose blocking the way. So long as there was no damage to the bridge, we wouldn’t have much trouble clearing it.

     

Chapter Four
Decent Into Darkness
    “Let another's wounds be your warning.”
    -                      Njal's Saga
     
    We made short work of the roadblock on the bridge. It was merely a matter of breaking out the windows on the SUV’s, then taking them out of gear. After that, it was easy to shove them out of the road. I had