Hell Happened (Book 1)

by Terry Stenzelbarton

  Kellie, Monica and Mike were waiting for them as they drove up to the partially hidden entrance. Jerry hardly got the truck in park before Monica had the back door open while Kellie opened Eddie’s door and hugged him.

  Mike opened the driver’s door behind Jerry to help Monica with Tony while Jerry walked around the other side to help. Before he could ask, Kellie told him Randy was on the antenna making sure no one had followed them at a distance.

  Jerry told her the bad news. “Terrill didn’t make it,” he said as gently as he could. “I’ll tell you about it after we get Tony settled.

  “Eddie, how ‘bout you take the truck down to the barn and clean it out for me, while I help here.”

  “Okay, boss,” he said, but not with the lightness he usually had. Jerry figured the young man could use some time to himself. Maybe in a little while he’d send Randy down and the two could talk without the adults around.

  Mike had gone into the shelter and brought out the long folding table to use as a stretcher. Jerry kicked himself for not thinking ahead. He and Mike helped Monica get Tony onto the makeshift stretcher and then the both of them grabbed each end while the women made sure he didn’t fall off as they took him inside. As they were carrying him, Jerry saw Tony’s foot and was now sure the ankle was broken.

  Kellie opened the door to the shelter and Jerry was glad that he’d put in the double doors instead of just the single 36-inch door. They were able to get Tony through the door and onto the saw horses the table usually sat on.

  Jerry was again out of his element. He knew how to sew up cuts, stop bloody noses, cure headaches, sore muscles and bruises, but he’d never set a broken bone except for fingers and noses. He didn’t know any of these people well enough to know if they did either.

  He thought it would be Kellie, who had been a teacher, who would have stepped forward and taken over, but instead it was Monica who was shoving people out of the way. “I need the first aid kit, some bandages, hot water, ice packs and some quiet,” she said pushing Mike out of the way and looking into Tony’s eyes. “He threw up in the truck and there was blood in it,” was all Jerry could think to add.

  Kellie and Mike went to get the supplies Monica wanted.

  Looking up at Jerry she said in a tone that was not the drama queen attention whore he’d come to know. “Stop standing there. You’re making me nervous. Go find me a flashlight. And if you have them, two small funnels and a plastic hose about this long,” she said holding her hands about 15 inches apart.

  Jerry went to find what she’d asked for, having no idea why she wanted them. The flashlight he had in the cellar, as well as a couple of the cheap plastic funnels he had left over from when he tried reloading bullets. He went down the steps and overheard Monica asking Kellie if she had any rubbing alcohol.

  In the cellar he found the flashlight and the funnels. The only hose he could find was an old garden hose he used to drain the hot water heater. He used his knife to cut off a piece about as long as Monica asked.

  By the time he got back up stairs, Monica had Tony’s shirt off and was gently probing him for injuries. Kellie had gotten ice packs made and Mike had hot water and a blanket ready.

  “Oh good,” she said taking the flashlight from Jerry. “Now everyone get out of here until I call you. I have a lot to remember.”

  Jerry, Mike and Kellie went into the living room and sat, not talking and trying not to watch Monica. She looked in Tony’s eyes with the flashlight, then in his ears with a child’s plastic magnifying glass someone had found. She also looked up Tony’s nose then opened Tony’s mouth as gently as she could.

  She turned the flashlight off and picked up the two funnels. She forced the hose on the small end of each and used it as a make-shift stethoscope. Where she’d learned that little trick, Jerry hoped to learn some day, but it seemed she knew what she was doing.

  The ingenuity of the girl sparked some words from Jerry. “There’s a lot about that girl I didn’t know. Who is she? MacGyver’s illegitimate daughter?” Kellie smiled and Mike snorted.

  “She does look like she knows what she’s doing, though,” Kellie added.

  Placing the stethoscope first on his chest, then his stomach she listened. “Mike, I need you.” He got up and hurried over. She told him in a low voice what she wanted and Mike rolled Tony gently onto his side while Monica placed one of the funnels on several places on his back while listening to the other end. She nodded to Mike and he gently laid him back down flat on the table.

  “His heart is beating strong,” she said. “That’s a good sign.”

  Then she called Jerry and Kellie in to help hold Tony down.

  “I’m going to set this bone while he’s still out of it. We don’t have any anesthesia here and if we did it while he was awake, he’d probably pass out again,” she said. “I’ll eventually need a splint for it when we get it straight, but want to get the swelling down before we put it on.

  “He’s lucky, if you can find any luck about this. I think it’s a simple break and not a compound fracture. Looks like someone stomped on his leg above the ankle. It feels like a simple break and setting it now, even if it is wrong, has got to be better than having it off kilter like it is.

  “Mike, push gently down on his shoulders because this is going to hurt. Yes, I see the bruises, but they are superficial and nothing is broken up there.

  “Kellie, use that towel under his head and hold down on his forehead. He might have a concussion, but there doesn’t appear to be any bones broken in his head. There are two bumps, so be careful.

  “Jerry, lie across his legs and hold him as still as you can. I hope I remember how to do this. Everyone take your place,” she ordered, a quiver in her voice betraying the confidence she had been showing. Mike and Kellie had to work around each other to get in position Jerry just leaned over the prone Tony and held on tight. Tony, not fully unconscious tried to move some, but the three held him still.

  Jerry started to look away from what Monica was going to do before deciding this procedure might be something he’d have to do in the future so didn’t look away.

  He watched as she firmly grasped the foot and the heel, her arms crossed. “Here we go,” she said as she pulled and twisted the foot. He could hear snapping or cracking but when she was finished, the foot was facing straight up, like the other foot and the blue color seemed to be changing to red. Tony moaned and murmured something, but never came fully awake.

  “Good job,” Jerry told her.

  “He’s not out of the woods. I think I set it right, but we don’t have an X-ray machine or an MRI. There might be bone fragments, torn ligaments, any number of things still wrong with that ankle, but at least now it is facing the right way, and it felt like it set.”

  She ran her hand across the top of the foot and felt for a pulse in the ankle. “It feels warmer already and I can feel the pulse better. “For the next 24 hours, let’s put him on the couch with the leg elevated and alternate hot and cold to bring the swelling down. Day after tomorrow the swelling should be down enough and we’ll splint it.”

  “What about the blood he was spitting up?” Jerry asked.

  “Yeah, I heard what you said about that and was worried he had a perforated stomach or some other internal injuries. But when I looked and listened to his chest and belly area it sounded clear. There’s some congestion in his chest, some rasping, but I don’t know what to do about that and think maybe nothing is the best treatment until he comes out of it. He’d been punched in the stomach, but it didn’t look like critical hits...like he was hit, but not real hard.

  “The blood he spit up was from the blood he swallowed when his teeth were knocked out or from his bloody nose. He’s lost two teeth on the left side and it looks like he bit his tongue pretty bad. His cheeks are torn up some and from the bruising it looks like someone punched him in the face.”

  “How long do you think he’ll be out of it?”

  “I don’t know, Jerry,” Monica sai
d, sounding a little exasperated from his questions. “He needs to be hydrated, but we don’t have that kind of stuff here. He needs to wake up before we give him water. I’ve done all I can do unless you got any ideas.”

  Jerry had none and shook his head. She returned to cleaning Tony’s body. The smell was terrible and Jerry could tell he was no longer needed so he went to find Randy. It had been a rough day and right now, now that Tony was in good hands, Jerry wanted nothing more than to hug his son. When Monica was ready to move Tony from the stretcher to the couch, she’d call him.

  He found his son just climbing down from the antenna, wearing leather gloves and a safety harness. Jerry remembered the first time he’d shown his son how to use the safety equipment and how afraid the boy had been. Now here he was three years later, showing some initiative and forethought before climbing up the 30-foot antenna.

  Randy didn’t see his dad approach so started unbuckling the harness after taking off his gloves. Jerry waited until the harness was off before saying anything.

  “Well done, son.”

  Randy quickly turned around at the sound of the voice. He and his dad had never been demonstrative, but right then, at that moment in time, with no one else around to see them, Randy wanted nothing more than to hug his dad and have his dad hug him.

  “You did good, boy,” Jerry said as his son’s arms wrapped around him. “I knew you could do it.”

  “Dad, I was so scared,” his son said, voice cracking a little. “For Tony and Jeff, for Eddie and Terrill, but I don’t know what I’d do if you’d gotten hurt or killed.”

  Randy was still a big kid, Jerry realized. At 22-years-old, he was immature and had led a sheltered life, even though he grew up on a farm. Jerry often thought he’d not done a very good job raising the boy like he’d been raised. He wasn’t a strict parent like Jerry’s father had been and allowed his son to find his own path. Looking back, he saw where he made a lot of mistakes, missed a lot of opportunities, failed to teach his son a lot of things.

  But at this moment in time, feeling the big bear hug from his “little boy” who stood two inches taller and weighed 60 pounds more, Jerry felt more pride in his son than ever before in his life.

  “You did good, son,” he said again, feeling the pressure of his son’s two strong arms. “Now I can’t breathe.” Randy released his dad and the two looked at each other. There was relief in both men’s eyes.

  “So dad, what happened?”

  “I’ll tell you, but let’s wait until I can get everyone together. Go get Eddie and Mike from the barn. They should have the truck cleaned out soon so give them a hand if they need it.

  “We have some planning to do because the shit hit the fan today and I think we need to re-think what we’ve got going here. Have everyone back up to the shelter,” he looked at his watch, “in an hour.”

  Randy picked up his harness and headed over the hill to get Eddie and Mike.

  Jerry walked over to where the chair was still sitting from this morning, where he and Kellie had watched the sunrise. He sat down and thought about the day’s events and his decision to allow Jeff and Tony to go look for more weapons, then his decision to take Terrill and Eddie to find out what happened to the other two. It seemed everything had happened with spur of the moment decisions, without thinking them through, and now Jeff and Terrill were both dead and Tony was injured.

  Maybe he wasn’t the one who should be in charge of his shelter. Maybe he shouldn’t be the one making decisions. Maybe he should just take care of his farm the best he could and let someone else be in charge of making life and death decisions.

  The doubts ran through his mind as he sat in the chair, watching the sun pass through the trees and shadows cross over the farm he’d been working for more than 30 years. His life had been simple before the fall. He paid his taxes, paid his bills, went into debt and struggled to get back out every year, watched TV and woke up every morning knowing what work he had to get done before going back to his house in the evening.

  With the fall of the world, everything was different. Now his decision to get a loan for a new tractor, something he’d agonized over for weeks last spring, seemed insignificant compared to what was being asked of him now.

  Jerry wasn’t a man who wanted to make decisions for anyone other than himself and his family.

  ~ ~ ~

  In the first days of the catastrophic death tolls world-wide, it had been just Jerry, his son and Eddie on the farm. Eddie showed up the day after his mom died because he had no where else to go.

  They watched the news reports until network and local television stations went off the air. With the ending of public utilities, they used the power provided by water wheel and two wind turbines to power the shelter. They also worked the farm and twice made trips to get supplies. There had still been people around, very damn few, but civilization as they knew it was done.

  They found out what they could, and saw what was happening in their community and around the world so they isolated themselves to the farm. The radio Jerry pulled out of the barn, he put in the living room for the three to listen to at night after the supper dishes were cleaned and put away and the day’s work was done.

  Most stations were off the air, but there were still a few they could pick up on the AM band. This is where they heard of stories of the not-deads who were eating human flesh. They heard of the vigilantes who were taking over cities, raping and plundering what was left. Millions of dead were rotting in big cities, billions world-wide were left unburied. When the three heard that statistic from some nameless radio announcer, they shuddered. Their mind couldn’t comprehend the enormity of billions. They couldn’t even really grasp what a million dead would be like.

  Jerry’s farm was 20 miles from Birmingham, a city with a population of 225,000 people. If the announcer was correct, or even close to what he said, there’d be maybe 200 people left alive, like Jerry, Randy and Eddie, and another 200 of the not-dead zombies.

  The three agreed to stay away from the big cities, not only because of the dangers, but the dead bodies would be rotting in the Alabama heat and diseases would be running rampant. Not just the disease that had killed the world, but others from the decaying bodies. There was no longer any organized government or policing force and the announcer said it clearly before he signed off. “It’s every man for himself.”

  ~ ~ ~

  Jerry was pulled out of his reverie when heard voices and looked down the hill and saw Randy, Eddie and Mike walking up the path that led from the barn to the house. Jerry looked at his watch and saw almost an hour had passed since he’d first sat down to contemplate the past 24 hours and last few weeks.

  Instead of climbing down through the hatch, he walked down the hill to walk the rest of the way with the others. He had never been a “people person” but right now he wanted to be with his son, his son’s friend, and the very wise former bank executive.

  Randy waved to his dad and Eddie, whose smile looked rather ragged, acknowledged his arrival. Mike, who was a bit winded from the walk up the path broke the silence. “You got some real good boys here, Jerry.”

  “Thanks,” he said as he walked with the little group. “How you doing, Eddie?”

  Eddie, one hand in his pocket, probably playing with the one dollar coin he always seemed to have, hesitated before speaking, something he rarely did. “It’s not like a video game that’s for damn sure.”

  “He hasn’t told us what happened, but we got the truck cleaned out and fueled it back up, and unloaded the quads,” Mike said as the silence stretched on for a few paces. “We only have about 100 gallons of diesel fuel left and about 75 of gasoline. We might want to think of finding a way to make our own fuel soon or else start salvaging some. Which means some way to move it and some place to store it.”

  Jerry nodded. Again Mike was thinking ahead. Jerry hadn’t thought of making their own fuel, thinking they could get it from the hundreds of cars and trucks and semis sitting around abandon
ed on the highways, but after today, the less they traveled, the better it might be to stay out of the way of the vigilantes. It was something else he had to think about now.

  Again he thought that maybe he should put Mike in charge. The man was a natural leader.

  Entering through the front door, they saw Tony on the couch already. He was awake now, talking quietly with Monica. She had laid him out and made a sling which she safety pinned to the back of the couch to keep his right ankle elevated. There was a glass of water half empty beside them.

  Kellie was in the kitchen. From the smell, she’d made something for them all to eat. Jerry hadn’t realized it, but more than seven hours had passed since they left this morning and he and Eddie hadn’t eaten anything.

  She brought three bowls of soup in for them, one for Eddie and Jerry and the other for Tony. “Sorry if it doesn’t tastes real good. I just opened the cans and put it over heat. I’ll never be the cook Terrill was.”

  “Thanks, Kellie,” Jerry said. “I’m sure it will be fine.”

  With the mention of Terrill’s name, Jerry began to relate what had happened that day. He didn’t inflate his or Eddie’s role, and neither did he shy away from saying how afraid they’d been. When he told of how Terrill had died, he choked back tears. When he finished, he dipped his spoon into the soup and ate more. No one asked him any questions and Eddie didn’t offer any more to the story.

  Tony, having finished his soup, handed the bowl to Monica. Jerry noticed that Monica had taped up three of his fingers on his left hand and cleaned and bandaged all his wounds. He’s had all his clothes removed and was covered from the chest down by one of the blankets Kellie had found for her. It must have come from the cellar because it wasn’t one he had seen before. It had probably been one of Terrill’s which made using it wholly appropriate.

  Tony cleared his throat and ran his tongue over the spot where some of his teeth were now missing. He was a very different person than the 21-year-old, weed-smoking, wild kid he’d been two days ago.