Valhalla Virus, Nick Harrow [simple ebook reader txt] 📗

Or jötnar.

“Who are you?” Gunnar called back. “My name is Gunnar. This is my lodge, and you’ve got five seconds to open the damn gate before I come over the top.”

A moment later he glimpsed a man’s eyes pressed to the gap between the gate’s heavy logs. Whoever he was stared up at Gunnar and took an audible gulp.

“Oh, shit, you must be the big guy” the guard said. “We didn’t know you were coming back so soon. Give me a second.”

The guard yelled for Deke and the front door of the house banged open a few seconds later. Another eye peered through the gate, and Gunnar heard a familiar laugh.

“It really is you,” Deke said. “Welcome back.”

Gunnar heard the men struggling with the bar that held the gate closed. After a few huffs and puffs, the rasping sound of wood sliding over metal came from behind the barrier and something thudded against the ground. The gate creaked open, and Deke peered through the gap.

“You made it,” Gunnar said as he opened the gate wider to admit the völva. “Who’s the new guy?”

“We, uh, might have found some stragglers,” the old man said. “Erin wouldn’t hear of leaving ’em out there on their own. I hope that’s okay.”

“That was smart,” Ray said. “This place is for everyone who wants to help keep each other safe. The more, the merrier.”

“She’s right,” Mimi added. “Don’t let ol’ Jarly Green Giant here say otherwise.”

“No complaints here,” Gunnar said with a chuckle. “I’m just glad you made it. Is everyone underground?”

Gunnar pulled the gate closed behind him, lifted the stout wooden beam that Deke had dropped, and slid the bar through the iron brackets to seal the barrier once again. The courtyard inside the gate held an old, battered wagon that had once been the Accord. A pickup with quadzilla mounted on its hood sat off to one side. The jarl wondered how much longer that piece of equipment would hold out against the changes remaking Vegas.

Deke led them past the pair of wide barn doors that had replaced the rolling garage door and around to the longhouse’s front entrance. He called out a greeting that he was with friends, then waited for a moment until Erin’s voice told him to come in.

The front room had completely transformed. A board covered in a carved image of a wolf with an axe handle between its teeth stood where the TV had once been. The sunken section of the floor held a firepit filled with blackened coals, and bent wood chairs around the pit served as the only furniture. There were no ground-floor windows, but candles shed a warm light that held the gloom at bay and made what could have been a dark and dreary room cozy.

“You scared us half to death,” Erin said to Gunnar with a frown. “Next time you don’t have to throw a rock through the window. Hey, where’s Bridget?”

“That’s what we’re here to find out,” Gunnar said. “We’re headed to the bunker.”

“Oh,” Erin said, her cheeks blushing brightly. “I’m sorry, I didn’t know. I shouldn’t have yelled at you. Let me introduce you to everyone.”

Gunnar and the völva followed Erin through candlelit hallways, past doorways covered by tanned hides, until they finally reached a staircase that corkscrewed into the ground. They descended deep into the earth through the shaft that had once held the elevator. The air grew cooler the deeper they went, and the finished stone walls gave way to rough-hewn stone. When they got to the bottom of the stairs, Gunnar was shocked by how much things had changed.

The main building and guesthouse were both gone. The bunker had become a wide-open cavern with a natural spring at one end. A handful of firepits were scattered around the floor, smoke leaking up through the holes in the stone ceiling. Stalactites dangled overhead, their wet points gleaming in the uncertain light of the fires. The shadowed mouths of other caverns opened around the perimeter. Even stranger, thick tree roots plunged through the ceiling and burrowed into the floor. But what most surprised Gunnar weren’t the changes in the bunker.

It was the people.

Men, women, and even a few children sat on logs around the firepits. Some of them tended to meat roasting on spits above the flames, while others talked in hushed tones. The children were subdued and nearly silent. They sat next to their parents, eyes fixed on dancing flames. There had to be close to fifty people down there, none of whom Gunnar recognized.

“I hope you aren’t mad,” Erin said softly.

“Where did they all come from?” he asked. “You couldn’t have brought this many in your truck.”

Erin cleared her throat, then raised her voice. “Everyone, this is Gunnar. He’s the one that was kind enough to let us all stay at his place.”

“His place,” Mimi snorted. “More like my place that he took over.”

One by one, the lodge’s new inhabitants stood and clapped. Soon, the sound of their applause filled the cavern, and Gunnar saw smiles creep onto their lips. One man, a big, boisterous guy with a bushy black beard and a bald head, thrust his fist toward the sky and cheered. Others joined in, filling the air with raucous cries. Even the kids got in on the act, jumping and hooting, dancing around the fires while their mothers warned them not to fall in.

“A few of them came with us,” Erin said. “The others started showing up not long after we got inside.”

The voice of his father rose up in Gunnar’s memories. The old man warned Gunnar that he couldn’t take care of every stray dog he passed on the street. “You’ll go broke or crazy if you try,” his father said. “Take care of yourself and expect everyone else to do the same.”

So many new mouths to feed was a big responsibility. Keeping all these people safe from the jötnar would be a tremendous strain