Hell happened (Book 2): Hell Revisited

by Terry Stenzelbarton

  Amanda chuckled. “No, those stories are really exaggerated. Anyway, I have to get to the general’s office. I’ve been assigned to Sgt. DeBusk’s platoon. If you don’t mind, I’ll try to join your PT sessions when I can.”

  “Please do sergeant. The men didn’t bitch and complain the entire run like they usually do. You’re good for morale.” Amanda smiled. There had been no women running with them, but she had seen women out running. Maybe they were afraid, but Amanda wasn’t and maybe she’d start a trend.

  “Thanks, Pinkston, we’ll see you around.” She started walking back to her house.

  “Oh!” he called to her, “If Sgt. DeBusk is looking for anymore in his platoon, I’m available.

  “I’ll tell him,” she told him. Amanda got the impression, despite the casualties Sgt. DeBusk led the platoon every one wanted to be in.

  It took an hour for her to shower, iron her uniform, brush her boots and get breakfast for her and Chopper. She didn’t want to show up to the motor pool too early and Lt. Nila was expecting her at 0830.

  She sat down at her laptop and wrote for 20 minutes, catching up her journal to the point of contacting Sgt. DeBusk on the highway two nights ago. That was when she realized, she had no idea where the motor pool was.

  “Come on Chopper! We’ve got 45 minutes to find a building on this base, get our truck and get to work!”

  She was locking her door when she saw Nila leaving for the office. He was already on the sidewalk and Amanda hurried to meet up with him. She saluted and said “Good morning, sir.”

  He returned her salute and kept walking. “Morning Chopper,” he said to the dog who sniffed at his leg, then ran off to find something more interesting. “You’re up early, sergeant.”

  She told him she was on her way to the motor pool, but didn’t know where it was. He pointed her in the right direction and they parted ways. She caught up to Audrey who was a block in front of her. The tattoos and cigarette were a giveaway.

  “Morning, Audrey!”

  “Hey, kid. Good to see you. Nice uniform, I wouldn’t want to wear anything like it, but it looks good on you.” Amanda grinned. Audrey had a leather jacket over her denim vest over a blue tee shirt and was wearing jeans and cowboy boots. No apocalypse was going to change her.

  “I thought you would be off Armying or something.”

  “Yea, I start today. How’s Dan and the kids?

  “Good and getting better,” Audrey said. “They’re going to release Dan this morning and I got the kids on the school van this morning. They’re still in some shock and Beth cried, but they need other children to play with. They have a teacher here who was a professor of educational development and he is great with the kids. There’re about 20 of them, from Beth’s age up to 16 years old.”

  “I’m glad to hear that they’ll have friends about their age.” They talked while they walked until they got to the motor pool. The bay doors were already open and there was a black senior NCO in Navy uniform sitting in a chair cleaning parts and smoking a fat cigar.

  “Hey,” he called to them. “Git yer asses in here. We gots lots ta do ta-day.” His voice was scratchy from years of smoking and giving orders. “You the swabs?”

  Amanda spoke up first. “Sergeant Saunders. I’m here to pick up a truck that was supposed to be assigned to me?”

  “Oh, shee-it! You’re the doll who killed those 20 dead things that aren’t dead and saved a passel of kids from that tidal wave. Damn glad to meet you girl,” he said, standing up and reaching out to shake her hand, after wiping his own hand on a shop rag.

  Amanda shook it. “Actually, those stories are getting very exaggerated. This is Audrey. She’s been assigned to you.”

  The senior NCO, who looked to be near 70 years old, heavy in the gut, missing a tooth and most of his hair, looked at Audrey. “Well, I guess I gotta take what I git. Can you make coffee girl?”

  Audrey looked the Chief Petty Officer. “I can sailor, but if you call me ‘girl’ again, I’m going to kick you hard enough, you’ll be able to scratch your nuts with a Q-tip.

  “Not only can I make coffee, I make it so it’ll grow hair on your bald head. I can also rebuild gas and diesel engines, repair transmissions, troubleshoot, do body work, and run every piece of electronic equipment you got in this hole you call a shop.

  “Now, do you want me making coffee or fixing these trucks old man?” Amanda didn’t say a word. Audrey had obviously encountered people like the chief before in her line of work.

  The old NCO rubbed his head and muttered to himself. “I came outa retirement for this shit?” then aloud said, “fine, what’s yer name agin?”

  “Audrey. Call me Audrey and nothing else or I start kicking your ass.”

  “Fine, Miss Audrey. I’m Master Chief Cecil Cadwallader. Call me Cal or call me Chief, it don’t make me no nevermind. Yer now shop form’n.

  “I don’t got no time for teachin’ anymore so yer in charge of makin’ sure the guys they sen’ over don’ break more shit than they fix.

  “The las’ kid they sen’ me wrecked more trucks than he could make work. Five E-nothings will be here in about 20 minutes and they’re all yers. Train ‘em how you want, I’m just here for the paperwork and porn on the computers.

  “Have at it,” there was a pause as he was making sure she knew she had earned his grudging respect, “Miss Audrey.”

  “As for you little missy,” he said looking at Amanda. “Yer a damned hero, little lady, and I gave you the best truck we got. It’s right over there.” He pointed to a HUMVEE that was painted flat black.

  It looked like it was new off the showroom floor with new tires and a heavy-duty winch on the front. “Adm’rl Parker said to give you the best one we gots and that’s it. It’s got ceramic armor in the doors and bullit-proof glass. That mount on the top is fer one of those super-type machine guns that shoots a million rounds a second.

  “Key’s are in it.” The sailor was a man of a different Navy than the one now, and he was far from any ocean, assigned to a motor pool, doing what he could to be a part of the base.

  “Thank you, chief. And it was a pleasure meeting you.” She walked toward the truck and called Chopper who had been sniffing the area. When she opened the driver’s door he hopped into the passenger seat and Amanda rolled the window down for him. “Let’s get to work boy.”

  * * *

  The two remaining HUMVEEs were doing everything right to keep the forces on the farm contained and focused on them. They were becoming more confident in their abilities after surviving in battle now for more than six minutes.

  The Stryker trying to crash into them had been effectively neutralized…tires were being blown out, main gun empty and the armor was being torn away. It was no longer a major threat even though it was chasing after them.

  The bunkers too had been neutralized. The men in them couldn’t stick their heads up without being shot at by first one, then the other HUMVEE’s heavy machine gun.

  Their hunger for battle, something to kill, had been whetted by the zombies at the truck stop earlier that morning. Now they saw an opportunity to satiate their hunger by defeating the entrenched farmers and taking down a Stryker. This morning the reward had been beer and canned food. This evening their reward would be women.

  Their confidence was as high as it had been since entering the farm. True, they had lost two of their HUMVEEs and some of the soldiers in those were dead, but the two others were still mounting a good offense. They knew they had the upper hand and were going to end the battle with discipline, superior firepower and a better battle plan.

  Everything a looking very good for the invading force until Kayla popped up from behind the tree line that backed up to Cleve’s bunker and Jerry’s position.

  “Oh shit,” the driver of the fourth HUMVEE shouted when he saw the Apache monster on which Kayla had painted a bright pink smiley face. Instead of swinging his truck’s M-2 toward her, the man panicked and started screaming at his driver.<
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  Dr. Kayla, with surgical precision, followed the instructions she’d read in the helicopter’s manual. She flicked the master arm switch, chose “gun” and began hitting the area around the HUMVEEs with 30 mm shells. She could have destroyed the trucks, but Jerry had said he wanted a minimum loss of life. She began circling the HUMVEEs and had to tip the nose down to fire, but she’d put nail polish on the windshield which allowed her to aim the chain gun under the nose of the gunship.

  The helicopter was just clearing the trees to take on the three remaining HUMVEEs in the front of the farm when Kellie’s voice broke through the talk on the radio again. “Back gate! Trucks coming through!” She then lost her cameras to that part of the farm as three HUMVEEs came crashing through the gate. The Gatling gun on the first vehicle, manned by a pro, took out four cameras and the truck in the middle with the smaller machine gun took out another one.

  The men in the three trucks were the most savage of Cheryl’s platoon. They were here for the women and the guns and the property. She’d filled them with promises of sex, alcohol, power and food aplenty. They were here for all the things Jerry had worked so hard to achieve but they wanted. Cheryl thought they’d fight the hardest and not have any qualms about killing the men on the farm.

  So focused was everyone on the battle in the front of the farm, the attack through the back gate surprised the defenders. Cheryl had planned it that way. She had expected the defenders to all be looking at the front of the farm and ignore the rear entrance. She really believed she was a modern day warrior.

  Jamal, from the closest Stryker guarding the rear gate, was able to get off just one shot before his main gun jammed. After a tense few seconds of trying, he told Jerry the gun was broken.

  The shot surprised the driver of the first HUMVEE who swerved away from the spot he’d been directed to park and defend. There was no way he was going to stop there and let some farmer with a .50 cal pot shot him and his truck.

  Randy, whose Stryker’s main gun was pointed too far to the right, swung the barrel around in time to get off a stitching shot into the third truck which swerved and crashed into the first motorhome, the one Tia, her four kids and Buff, lived in. Bullet holes appeared and paint chips flew from the impacts.

  Sade, driving Jamal’s Stryker, said he was moving to block the back gate, but Jerry told him to hold off. “I want them to have a way out and you have no way to defend yourself. Stay where you are and watch for soldiers on foot,” he told them.

  Randy wanted to make sure no one snuck up and attacked his dad from the blind side of the tree line. They hadn’t expected the attack to come in two waves. It wasn’t something anyone had thought about. They weren’t military people on the farm except the astronauts, and they were more scientists than military strategists.

  He started his Stryker and backed out of the revetment. The big engine coughed and stalled. He couldn’t get it restarted. He called his dad on the radio and told him his vehicle was out of action and needed someone to watch his flank. He then climbed out of the Stryker to do something his dad told him to never do.

  Jerry was angry because things were going from bad to worse. Three of their six Strykers were now unusable, the one in the front of the farm was being shot up, the helicopter was no guarantee of victory, and now, his son was calling again.

  “I got an idea, dad,” his son told him as he crouched beside the big truck. Jerry looked to where he knew Randy was parked and he could just see the berm Randy was parked behind through the trees. He watched as Randy did something stupid.

  In that moment of time, Jerry’s mind raced through all the mistakes he’d made raising his son. He remembered the times when he was too harsh with his words, the times he coddled the boy instead of letting him grow in his own direction, the times he forced the boy left when he wanted to go right. In the time it takes for a memory to be retrieved and remembered, he said a quick prayer to God for the safety of his son.

  Jerry’s focus came back quickly. He hated making the decision, but he hated more the thought of losing his farm, his friends, and most of all, his family. “Eddie, Monica, cover Randy!” he hollered to the kids in the other two Strykers parked near the far hill.

  He hated moving them in case either of the two HUMVEEs in the front of the farm decided to make a run for the shelter entrance. The helicopter could cover both of the still moving trucks, but it would be hard pressed to cover those trucks if one of the others started shooting. The men in the bunkers had taken a lot of fire and were probably still trying to get a grasp on the situation.

  From where he was hidden above the shelter and behind sandbags, he couldn’t see where the deJesus’s were exactly because of trees, but he knew his farm’s layout. “It’s your turn Mrs. deJesus. Please be careful,” he said over the walkie-talkie, his voice a little calmer than the orders he’d shouted to Eddie and Monica.

  The deJesuses were older people, he a former correction officer, she a school administrator. Both were in their late 60s and Jerry had hoped putting them in a Stryker, between the motorhomes and the shelter, far from either of the gates, they’d be the last to have to be used.

  He almost called Kayla and her helicopter to the back of the farm, but if he did, Tia and Tim and probably both bunkers could be lost. He had five Strykers defending the shelter in back and he had to trust the plan Cleve had devised.

  “Jamal and Sade’s Stryker is out of action and Randy’s Stryker just died,” Jerry told them. “You guys have got the entire back of the farm to protect and watch out for Randy because he’s running across the field like an idiot!”

  Time was both going in slow motion and super speed for Jerry.

  Eddie heard the three HUMVEEs in the distance. He had no good view to his far left because of the camouflage, bushes and trees. He scrambled back inside his truck, started it and drove over the front of the revetment he’d been hiding behind. “It’s time to show these carpetbaggers how us southern boys play rough!” Jerry heard him say over the radio, surprised Eddie had remembered anything from his fifth grade history class.

  Mrs. deJesus pulled her Stryker straight out of hiding when told to by Jerry. She hadn’t driven a car in 15 years, but she insisted she’d be with her husband in this battle. Her husband Juan let the main gun clear its throat into the engine block of the first HUMVEE in the line of three. Its engine went up in smoke and came to an abrupt halt 40 feet from the Stryker.

  The second HUMVEE crashed into the leader as it tried to swerve out of the way of the stopped vehicle, stopping along side the first. Juan put a burst of rounds through its engine block too, one of which exploded the radiator creating a steam screen of the third truck. The correction officer then pinged a few rounds off the top of each truck, keeping the men inside cowering.

  The two dead HUMVEEs were at the far left of Monica’s sight and she played with the mini gun on her Stryker, throwing rounds into the tires of the second HUMVEE. She loved the sound of the mini-gun when it burped out 20 rounds with each the pull of the trigger. “This is better than sex with Eddie,” she said over the radio.

  The gunners in the trucks were thrown around and when they tried escaping or shooting back, Juan or Monica would fire off a few rounds to let them know they were outgunned and out maneuvered. They were surrounded and they were just realizing their Capt. Paxton had led them into an ambush.

  Monica’s shots kept the trucks from moving off because she was deadly accurate at hitting the tires. She’d wanted to put a few rounds into the trucks themselves, but Jerry had asked everyone to show mercy if they could.

  Just for fun, and because she liked the way the Gatling gun sounded, she’d let loose a quick burst. “It looked like that tire was trying to re-inflate,” she told everyone.

  She had to stop shooting when Eddie’s Stryker crossed in front of her at top speed. She kept her hands, which were sweating from the excitement, off the trigger. She’d grown rather fond of Eddie and was pretty sure he felt the same toward her in his o
wn immature way and didn’t want to accidently shoot his skinny little ass.

  Juan, however, wasn’t feeling as good covering the trucks. The old man did not enjoy what he was doing. The heavy machine gun was loud and the vehicle shook his arthritic arms painfully, but he stood his ground.

  He’d seen enough hate and pain in his life as a correction officer. He’d seen death and anger and too many convicts with a total disregard for human life. He was tired of it and when he and his wife retired, he had hoped for a dozen years of time with grand children and travel with his lovely bride.

  Instead, he was here fighting so he and his wife could live in peace.

  Eddie, seeing the third vehicle that had entered the rear of the farm crash into the escape trench after being shot Randy, told Jerry what he was seeing. He also saw Randy running toward the crashed HUMVEE. “You’re right Jerry. Your son’s an idiot, but God love him, look at that fat ass run.”

  “Natalie, Josh, watch out for intruders in the trench! Don’t let them get to the SUVs,” Jerry told the two defenders who were probably the weakest team when it came to shooting. They were in a bunker guarding the escape route for the children if they needed it and Randy believed that was what the soldiers in the third HUMVEE would attempt. Randy wanted to make sure no one was able to take the kids’ escape vehicles.

  * * *

  Cheryl had been certain the four attacking HUMVEEs in the front of the farm would draw all the attention away from the back entrance. She ordered the three remaining vehicles in what she claimed was a “classic pincer” movement to attack through the rear gate two minutes after the first began attacking in the front. She was just realizing that the military plan she’d laid out for her platoon was falling apart when the crews in the first HUMVEEs started calling for help on the radios. They couldn’t be helped. Cheryl’s dip into obsession with the destruction of Jerry’s farm and everything on it had taken her from obsessed to insane.

  The first truck in her element knocked the gate off without slowing down, and gunners on the front two HUMVEEs shot out the cameras just as they had been instructed. She was feeling confident of her plan until she heard the report of a .50 cal from her left. The first truck was supposed to stop at the back gate and guard it so no one could escape, but instead the driver accelerated. She started to say something on the radio but was interrupted when her truck was hammered from the right and the windows shattered throwing glass everywhere.