Hell happened (Book 2): Hell Revisited

by Terry Stenzelbarton

  Just the thought of it made the hairs on her neck stand and a chill work its way down her back.

  Eddie, Nick and Tia had become accustomed to seeing such horror, but the two astronauts hadn’t. She heard Cleve at the end of the corridor throwing up what food he had in his stomach and Tia giving him words of solace. Kayla, being a doctor, wasn’t immune to what she was seeing, but she wasn’t sickened by it.

  Kayla looked through a dozen darkened suites before finding the supplies she knew she would need. Most of the supplies she came across were useless and she wasn’t prepared to risk her patients’ life on something she wasn’t sure was safe.

  The doctor was careful in what she chose, but she took everything she could and put it in the bag she’d brought in with her. She sent Nick and Cleve back to the truck for more totes when the bag was full. She found the pharmacy and the safes and secure cabinets were open. She and Eddie worked on moving some of the ceiling tiles and fluorescent lights that had fallen.

  Everything she wanted wasn’t available because of the damage, but she was able to get the basic necessities.

  With everything she believed she would need, she told everyone they needed to get back to the shelter. Eddie suggested they look around more while they were there, in case they could find some more supplies they might need, but Kayla looked at him with her ice blue eyes and told him there wasn’t time, adding “I don’t even know if I can do what I’m going to have to do,” she told Eddie. The young man read her intensity and between the lines, but they did pick up a laptop and two computers with monitors on the way out. Kayla said they might have medical texts that she could use on the hard drives.

  They all hurried to the trucks and broke speed limits, not that there any cops left to catch them on radar, getting back to the shelter.

  It was a good haul of medical supplies and Kayla, who spent the ride from the hospital sorting through the haul, had two totes filled with what she needed first.

  When they arrived back at the shelter, she had the totes unloaded into the shelter while she and Monica cleaned up. She then threw everyone out of the shelter while the two women worked.

  The doctor, with Monica assisting as nurse, was able to stitch the wounds in Kellie’s head and Danny’s arm with confidence and a local anesthetic in a sterile environment.

  The bullet holes in Kellie’s side were trickier and Kayla wanted more time to examine the woman and get her more stabilized and hydrated before deciding what to do.

  With Kellie and Danny now resting more comfortably, she’d turned to Randy. Dr. Kayla, after more than an hour of examining Randy and giving him both visual and oral tests, concluded he’d gotten a sever concussion. She was able to determine that Cheryl’s kick to his groin had missed its intended target which was fortunate.

  The two teeth that had been broken had to be removed, but it was nearly painless for Randy with the amount of Novocain she pumped into his gums. He would heal and, except for the teeth, be okay.

  Kayla said she needed rest, telling Monica to get some as well. Before retiring, she asked Buff to set up the laptop and two computers they’d retrieved and to wake her in four hours. Jerry let the doctor sleep in his bed, while Monica slept in her own in the shelter. Everyone else was kept out. Four hours later, Buff had the computers up and running and the passwords had been hacked. They had medical texts she’d hoped for and Kayla read through them. She then told Jerry what she was going to do.

  Kellie hadn’t progressed as well as the other two people attacked by Cheryl, and by the time Jerry had arrived with the astronauts, she was just barely holding on to consciousness. Kayla did everything she could to stabilize her, but her condition wasn’t improving as the doctor hoped, which had spurred her to get more equipment and supplies just in case.

  Kayla, once she’d returned with the medical supplies, put Kellie on a saline drip with antibiotics, and took slides of her blood to look at under a microscope. She and Monica made regular checks of her blood pressure, heart rate and breathing but Kellie wasn’t getting better and after a four-hour nap and two hours of reading, Kayla made the decision to look deeper into Kellie’s wound.

  Kellie was moved to one of the motorhomes, even as Jerry and Buff were supplying it with power, and the operating area made as sterile as possible. Tony and Nick used 25 feet of plastic surgical tubing for a rudimentary suction that they ran through the sink’s drain and outside the motorhome to a small shop-vac.

  Kayla operated with Monica assisting. Two hours later she came out. “The bullet hit her ascending colon and some blood vessels. She has lost a lot of blood which was pooling in her guy. I would like to see if we got a blood type testing kit in all those supplies.”

  They found one and an hour later, everyone had been tested. Katie had the same O+ blood type and willingly donated a pint straight into Kellie.

  During the entire procedure, Jerry sat next to Randy, who was now setting upright and holding onto Kellie’s dog Molly, who whimpered continually.

  Neither man talked much. Jerry was playing out every bad decision he’d made in the past two days and Randy continued to beat himself up over the way he’d allowed Cheryl to play him.

  Danny, head bandaged and with the stitches Kayla had put in his arm left the shelter to sleep in his tent. He came by after a few hours to check on Kellie. He felt a lot of guilt for what he failed to prevent and he wanted to make sure Kellie and Jerry knew how sorry he was. Jerry told Danny he’d done nothing wrong and asked if he’d sit with he and Randy while they waited for the doctor.

  Five hours after moving Kellie to the motorhome, Kayla came to talk with Jerry. She’s weak, but her stats are finally coming up. I’ve done all I can. I haven’t practiced medicine in 12 years, but I was able to close the hole I discovered in her colon and stop the bleeding. There was an infection I cleaned out. Now she is going to have to heal on her own.

  “Can we see her?” Jerry asked.

  “Not now. She’s resting and I want to keep where she’s at, as sterile as possible for as long as possible. Why don’t you wait a day or two? She’s still sedated, so she won’t even know you’re there.”

  Jerry spent the days alternating between sitting with Randy and helping the astronauts move into their new homes. Tia had brought four mint-condition motorhomes she’d located near Anniston.

  Danny, Nick and Cleve cleared and leveled areas for the new motorhomes and the tour bus they’d found when picking up the astronauts. To keep his mind busy Jerry helped Tony and Buff run wiring and cables for electricity and networking of all the computers at the farm, and plumbing for the septic systems.

  Randy was moved into his and Eddie’s room and given lots of time to sleep and recover. His eyes were black and blue but the swelling on the back of his head had gone down considerably, making it easier to lay on his pillow.

  On the third morning after their arrival, the spacemen started an exercise regimen for themselves. The kids loved it. They did jumping jacks and push ups with them and the astronauts helped the kids learn the right way to do the exercises, and how to stretch before running.

  The American astronauts moved into the home Tia had driven, Kayla and Monica took the tour bus as their home. Eddie had called dibs on the bus, but Jerry told him no.

  Nick and Rusty were still in tents so they were allowed to move in to the second motorhome. The deJesus’ took the third home and Danny, Sade and Jamal took the fourth, so no one was sleeping outside unless they wanted to and no one wanted to.

  Josh, Katie and Marissa were still living in the cramped camper on his truck and hadn’t complained once. Katie took the baby from the mother who had died, because Josh insisted.

  Between Katie and Marissa, the baby was pampered. The little guy got his fill of fresh cow’s milk six times a day through an ingenious IV bag feeding bottle Kayla cobbled together. The newborn was certified healthy by Kayla and Josh told Jerry how Katie had never had children of her own and when Katie had first seen the child the night he
was brought in, he knew she was in love with the little guy.

  Eddie and Tony thought the four in the camper, as well as themselves, needed to get out of the shelter and into something with a little more space to live.

  Eddie convinced Jerry to allow him to take Tia, Nick, Sade and Rusty back to Anniston to pick up the other three new motorhomes they had located four days earlier and Jerry agreed.

  There were no troubles this time, something for which Tia was grateful. The last time she had gone to Anniston, she had a building collapse on her truck and she and her team had to fend off several zombie attacks. She’d driven over two that had attacked her, and the men who had gone with her killed another six before they were able to safely retrieve four new motorhomes.

  In less than a day every one had a comfortable home. The motorhome in which Kayla had operated was converted to the farm’s “hospital” and had two patients, Kellie and Randy. All that could be done, by Kayla, by Jerry and all the others on the farm had been done. Now only time would tell if Kellie would survive.

  * * *

  Just as he said he would, when Spec. 4 Roy Johnson woke up, he insisted on locating his fiancée at Anchorage University. He told them he’d get another vehicle and head off by himself, but Jim and Amanda agreed there was safety in numbers. They’d stay with him while he went to the campus. If he didn’t find her, they’d decide what to do next from there.

  The sun was just coming up when they got to her dorm. Roy went in by himself, knowing without being positive, that when no one came running out of the building, she was probably dead. “Maybe she isn’t here and went home to Juneau,” he told them. “But this is where I last saw her and I have to check.”

  He went in the building himself while the others waited outside in the trucks.

  A few minutes later, a window opened on the third floor. The young specialist looked down at them and said she was there. It was the way he said it that they knew his fiancée was not alive. Roy stepped away from the window, back into the room.

  They’d give him time to mourn.

  A gunshot report and a splatter on the window told them all they wanted to know about how Spec. 4 Roy Johnson, Army cook and native of Milaca Minnesota, mourned the loss of his fiancée.

  The captain lowered his head and Shep said some kind of prayer that echoed his Cajun heritage. Amanda teared up and looked to the captain for help. He shook his head.

  “Let’s go,” he told them after a few moments and got in his HUMVEE. Amanda and Shep got in their truck and followed him. He drove for about 15 minutes until they were on the south side of Anchorage. He pulled over and got out.

  “I’m going on to Sterling, which is about three hours drive from here,” Jim told them. You’re welcome to come along. We haven’t seen anyone here and we should have seen someone by now. Anchorage is a big city. You might drive around some more and find someone. It’s up to you.”

  “If it’s all right with you, sir, Pvt. Sheppard and I are going to try to get back to the lower 48. We know it’ll be a long drive, but like you, we’re going to try to get back to family,” Amanda told him. There might not be an Army anymore, but still Amanda felt it the proper thing to say.

  “Well, good luck to you. Take 1 to 2,” the captain told them, referring to the Alaskan highways. “Then 2 to White Horse, and then the Alaska Highway all the way south. You’ll end up in North Dakota. It’s about 3,500 miles and should take a week or two.

  “I’d like us to stay together, but I know how you guys feel. I grew up in Alaska, so let me give you some advice. Remember your cold weather training, Sgt. Saunders. Your HUMVEE should make it as long as your perform maintenance on it and keep her fueled. Fuel up every chance you get. You do the same. Eat a lot. Drink a lot. Don’t take any chances and you might make it.”

  Amanda nodded to the officer and looked at Shep who was looking at the captain like he was being abandoned. The captain saluted the two, got in his truck without looking back. Roy killing himself after the two had ridden together yesterday must have bothered the captain as much as the deaths back on base.

  Amanda knew how to get back onto the highway. She was afraid of what was to come, but she couldn’t fault the captain. Her HUMVEE was fully fueled. She had four five-gallon cans filled, enough food and water for herself and Shep to last at least a week. There was nothing to do now but drive.

  * * *

  Jerry slept alone in his shelter for the first time since the fall of the world. It was almost too quiet and he missed seeing Kellie in the bed across from him.

  With everyone else sleeping in relative comfort of quarter-million dollar motorhomes, he felt the shelter was like the low rent district, with cots for beds and almost no room to move without tripping over something.

  Before falling asleep, he thought of a gift he could give Kellie.

  He was awake earlier than usual after a restless night and was working on the plans for her gift even as he made his morning coffee. He scribbled notes on a sheet of paper and looked around the empty shelter.

  He poured a second cup of coffee and walked down to the barn to begin morning chores. He saw the astronauts putting all the kids through morning “PT.” Both dogs were playing along and everyone looked like they were having a good time. Tia, Monica, Josh and a couple of the other adults were also working out with them. He hurried through the chores because he was looking forward to seeing Kellie that morning. He finished milking the herd which had grown to 33 head and threw some feed out for the chickens that had found their way to the farm.

  By then he couldn’t wait any longer.

  Walking back up to the shelter, he saw Tony at the graveyard where Mike was buried beneath the slate markers Jerry had carved for him and Terrill, two men who had given their lives in defense of the shelter and the people living here.

  Tony was finishing a project on which he had been working. The marker he placed read “Polkóvnik Александр Rustov – a man of the stars.” It had taken Tony two days to carve. He’d refused any help.

  Col. Rustov, after making sure his fellow astronauts from the International Space Station were safely rescued, wished them all Godspeed, said goodbye to his friend Tony.

  Alone in the International Space Station, the Russian officer turned off all the equipment, purged the air and fluids from every system he could and opened the station to space.

  No words needed to be said. Jerry left Tony to his thoughts and privacy. Tony and the cosmonaut had shared hours of friendship in the final days of the ISS and the young man on earth felt a kinship to the man who orbited above them.

  Jerry showered and put on clean clothes and wondered how Kellie had always been able to find something clean for him. It wasn’t that he wasn’t organized; he just didn’t seem to find the time to fold and put away his clean clothes.

  * * *

  Jerry had met Kellie for the first time in a field behind the farm. She was in her early 40s looking disheveled and lost. She’d been a teacher of special education students and the punching bag for an abusive husband.

  When her sister and her family had died, Kellie’s mind came apart and she tried to kill herself by driving her Lexus into a tree. She cried when she failed. After that, she and her dog Molly, a small mutt of undetermined breed, started walking. They’d avoided a band of vigilantes and was fortunate enough not to encounter any zombies in the manufacturing plant in which she’d spent a night.

  Jerry, his son Randy and Mike, before he was murdered, found her walking…stumbling more often than not…in the back field. She’d been afraid at first, but eventually found she fit in with the farmer and his friends.

  All her life she’d had it easy. She’d married a wealthy man and lived an easy life. She never wanted for anything except someone to love and respect her. Her ex-husband had said he loved her, but the violence and abuse he’d inflicted upon her belied his words.

  In Jerry she found an honest man with weathered but gentle hands. She didn’t plan it, and w
as hesitant about admitting it to herself, but she was sure she was falling in love with Jerry. They slept in the same room, a necessity brought on after Jeff had been killed and Tia and her kids came to the shelter, but in separate beds. They became friends and Jerry trusted her with responsibilities of the farm, but Jerry had kept his feelings close to his vest and she was unsure where their relationship was headed.

  When Cheryl had threatened Hannah, the nine-year-old daughter of Tia who loved spending time with Kellie, Kellie was more afraid than anytime in her life. When Cheryl shot her and Danny, she felt like she’d failed Jerry.

  When John reported over the walkie-talkie that he’d found Randy and that he was dead, Kellie wanted to die herself.

  She heard later as she drifted in and out of consciousness that Randy was still alive and the doom she felt clouding down on her life lifted. She made sure, since Jerry had left her and Randy in charge of the farm, that she would tell him what had happened. Her failures had almost cost his son his life, and might still cost her hers, but she would tell him.

  * * *

  Dr. Kayla met Jerry at the door of the medical motorhome and told him Kellie was still unconscious, but doing better that day. She allowed him 15 minutes to sit with her which he did.

  He walked up the three metal stairs and saw Kellie lying on a comfortable bed, on the other side of where Randy was sleeping. There was a makeshift barrier of linen between them. Randy was sleeping, but Jerry had been able to speak with him while he was recovering in the “hospital.”

  Kayla or Monica must have brushed Kellie’s dark brown hair because it had been neatened up since the last time he’d seen her on the stretcher being taken into surgery. There was a clean bandage covering the wound on her forehead and another on her neck, but her color was less pasty than he’d seen. She also didn’t have a waxy look to her fine features anymore.