From inside the walls, it was not.
The level of abuse came slowly but had ramped up recently. First it was loud voices behind closed doors late at night. Now Jim didn’t even try to hide his disgust at his wife and her kids. Chuck had seen the bruises on his mom before and she told him to “just never mind. It’s between me and your step-dad.”
When Jim kicked Garrick for the second time and called him a “nappy-hair little bastard,” Chuck had seen enough. At 16, he was already taller than Jim by three inches and probably weighed about the same. The police officer would take him in a fight because of his experience, but Chuck couldn’t stand seeing his kid brother and mom abused anymore.
When Chuck stood up, Jim was clear with his instructions. “Sit your ass down boy, or I’ll kick your black ass to the floor too.”
Chuck remembered seeing the gun in the belt. It was a .38 caliber police issue. Jim ignored Chuck after his threat and squatted down to tell his mom how useless she was. He had her by her the hair and was screaming at her, spittle flying from his mouth.
“Leave her alone,” Chuck yelled at him.
Jim stood up and saw Chuck had removed the gun from the holster. “You better put that gun down right now, boy,” Jim told him, believing Chuck wouldn’t pull the trigger, “or I’m going to take it from you and shove it….”
Jim’s threat was cut short when Chuck pulled the trigger. The bullet hit Jim in the center of his neck. He fell forward onto the table, grabbing the wound. Blood spurted in long gushes through the man’s fingers. Chuck kept the .38 caliber aimed at the man.
Weakening, Jim looked at Chuck with eyes that refused to focus as he slipped to the floor where he twitched for a few minutes and died.
The police and emergency medical techs that showed up could do nothing for Jim. “Exsanguinations from a single gunshot” was the official cause of death. The judge ruled that because Jim had been unarmed, it could not be considered self-defense; however, the mitigating circumstances did lighten the sentence. His age and severity of the crime had him in front of an adult court and not a juvenile judge. Chuck spent the next four years in detention.
His mom died during his incarceration and his little brother joined the Navy.
Three years after getting out and while still on probation, he was involved in a bar fight. Chuck had grown two more inches while in prison and put on more than 80 pounds of muscle. The man he fought suffered multiple facial fractures, a concussion and three broken ribs. The fight cost Chuck a nickel at the Deuel Vocational Institution, DVI, in Tracy California. It wasn’t hard time, but it was five more years of his life given to the state.
At DVI he learned to be a dairy farmer. It wasn’t hard work and it wasn’t clean work, but it got him through his five years without much trouble.
After leaving DVI, Chuck got a job at a dairy farm in the low hills off Route 50 near Shingle Springs, CA. It was low pay and because of his past he had to take what he could get, but it was something. He paid a few dollars for synthetic love from hookers when the need arose, but stayed out of trouble for the most part.
One of the guys with whom he worked, Mason, was a fellow graduate of DVI. The two hung out at local bars and played pool on weekends. Mason had done time for burglary, possession and assault.
One weekend, after being hustled by a couple of Marines at the pool table, he and Mason were driving around in Mason’s Pinto hatchback, complaining about being hustled and wondering what to do about money before their next paycheck in two weeks. Chuck had a rent payment due.
Mason reached into the glove box and pulled out a small cap pistol. The orange cap on the end had been painted black and on quick inspection it looked real. “I know where we can get us some easy cash.” Chuck had enough beers in him to think it was a good idea.
The robbery hadn’t gone as planned. They’d parked two alleys away and covered their faces with handkerchiefs, but the owner of the shop-and-go had a real gun. When he pulled it out, Mason fought him for it. Mason won and the owner was mortally wounded.
Their escape plan lacked forethought and the cops had the two in cuffs within 20 minutes. The judge sentenced them both to life without parole.
Chuck was three years into his life sentence at the state pen when he got into a fight in the yard with one of the ABs (Arian Brotherhood) who’d been pushing him around. He’d suffered a superficial stab wound, but the thug from the Arians had lost most of his front teeth before the guards got things under control.
That was why Chuck had been in solitary when people started dying.
Now he was in the exercise area and possibly the only one left alive in the prison.
Chuck had missed breakfast, so the first thing he did was go through his food. It wasn’t much, a large piece of baloney, a loaf of bread and two containers of potato salad. There were also three milk jugs filled with water. Manny had given him enough for a week if he stretched it.
There were also the pills the C.O. had told him about. Chuck read the label but didn’t know what the name meant or what the pills were for. There was a warning label and admonitions against driving equipment while taking them. It was a bottle of about 100 little blue pills. There was also a blanket and a pillow without a pillow case, just like good ole Manny had said.
Chuck ate all the potato salad as it would spoil within a day in the California heat. He was just finishing the second container and the two baloney sandwiches he slapped together when all the lights switched off and the emergency lighting came on. It was the second time Chuck had seen the prison lose power. The first time had lasted seven minutes and was due to a substation catching fire during a storm.
This time, the power to the prison stayed off. Chuck set his groceries to the far end of the cage, under the corrugated sheet steel covering, and out of the sun. He pissed through the gate, wondering what he’d do if he had to take a shit.
The prison was oddly silent. Chuck paced his cage, wondering if there was anything he had that’d get him over the 12-foot-fence and three rows of razor wire. He looked at Lake’s body in the next cage. The flesh on his hands had been ripped to the bone. The wire had also cut into his face and neck. He must have slipped at some point because the wire had cut through most of his neck. He bled out four feet from Chuck’s cage and was still hanging, head down and eyes open.
Chuck didn’t know what bothered him more, the open eyes of Lake, the silence in the prison or the sound of dripping blood.
The shadows grew long across the yard. Chuck started thinking about how much time he had left before the plague finally took him. He had heard dozens of prisoners die in their cells over the past two weeks. It was the one time he was glad he was in solitary. Those in the general population would wake up with a dead man in one of the other bunks and invariably start screaming.
Two guards had died while on duty at the prison and that’s when most stopped showing up for work. Chuck called out. He wondered if any of those prisoners released to the yard had stayed around. No one returned his call. Without guards, keeping a convict in the yard was like using a sieve to hold back water.
Chuck called several more times hearing only his echo in return.
This early in the year, it had been warm inside the prison walls, but the night would send temperatures down into the 40s. Chuck would be kept warm by the concrete walls surrounding the cage area, but it would still be too cold to sleep in the early morning hours if he was still alive.
Chuck lay down using the blanket and pillow under his head. The sun was down but there was still enough light that Chuck didn’t fall immediately to sleep. He picked up the pills Manny had given him. He read the label again. He wondered if he took them now, would he be comfortably asleep before it got cold. He tossed the pill bottle in the air and caught it several times.
Sleep didn’t come easy, but with the sun down and the cover over the end of the exercise cage, Chuck eventually fell into a fitful sleep thinking about his brother Garrick and hoping his life had been better.
Something was at the cage beside him. It was hard to tell what it was, but it wasn’t human. It was the size of one of the bears in the area, but the body seemed wrong. It was pulling at the body of Lake which was still hanging from the concertina wire on the inside of his enclosure. It was pulling the muscles from Lake’s leg through the heavy-gauge chain link fence.
When the pills fell to the ground, the thing that was pulling at parts of Lake turned to look at Chuck. The forehead was oversized and the eyes were twice too big for its face. It was also wearing a shredded prison guard shirt and pants, but the feet were bare and misshapen. Around its waist was a guard belt. It had been spun around but Chuck could see the Taser was still in its holster.
Chuck heard a guttural grunt from the thing and it rushed at him. Its fingers grabbed at his cage and Chuck backed up as far as he could. There was blood on its face, probably from Lake’s body.
Chuck had no place else to go. He was trapped with an un-holy monster coming after him. The thing climbed the fence and grabbed at the concertina wire. It should have cut the beast to pieces, but while the wire was cutting, it didn’t stop the thing.
Chuck was more afraid than he’d even been. He was six-foot-five, 275 pounds of prison-hardened three-time convict and there was no man who could stand in front of him and make him afraid.
But the creature instilled a primal fear in him, a fear deep in his gut.
The thing had pulled the concertina from on top of the fence keeping Chuck in. It was supposed to be impossible, but the monster was doing it. Chuck didn’t even stop to wonder if he was dreaming or living out some horror for a hidden camera. From somewhere deep inside his memories, he remembered something someone somewhere in his past had said “God helps those who help themselves.”
It was the first time Chuck had talked to God in more years than he could remember when he said “God, you better be helping me right about now.”
He reached down and picked it up the baloney he’d accidentally kicked. He shook off the bag it was in and rubbed a handful of the pills he still had into the meat.
The monster was cutting itself with the concertina wire it was pulling off the top of the cage, but it was intent on getting at Chuck.
Chuck rubbed the baloney on his sweating forehead and tossed it over the fence, hoping the creature was drawn to the smell. Several of the pills fell out of the chunk of baloney when it landed but he was happy it got near enough to the monster to get its attention. It picked it up and swallowed it whole before coming at him again.
It reached the fence and started climbing. Chuck could see cuts bleeding on the monster. The blood looked thick and dark in the moonlight and Chuck wondered what he had left with which to defend himself against the monster that wasn’t stopped by razor wire, the fence or the dozen or so deadly pills it had consumed.
He reached down for the blanket and wrapped it around his hand.
The monster reached the top of the fence and was over it with a leap. It landed and stumbled. Chuck backed to the far end, nearer to the gate to give himself more room. He’d been in a few prison fights and knew he could handle himself, but this thing was out of his league.
For the first time, Chuck could see the creature wasn’t as invulnerable. It took several seconds for the creature to track him. Chuck guessed the pills and the cuts had weakened the thing. It finally focused on him again and started at him, moving slower but with intention. It dragged its right arm a little and Chuck could see tendons and muscles hanging, torn from the razor wire.
Chuck watched as it closed on him. It stumbled again and fell face-first at Chuck’s feet. It twitched and groaned and Chuck didn’t wait. He grabbed the Taser and ran for the same area of the cage where the monster had climbed over. He threw the blanket over the top and was half-way over himself when the monster started getting back to its feet.
Chuck jumped and clambered out of the cage. The monster shook its head and came running again. It jumped and was halfway up the fence when it was hit with the first of two shots from the Taser. It was near the top when Chuck shot it again. The monster jerked and fell and Chuck ran, jumping over the low spot in the wire the monster had pulled off the top of the cage. He was through the first gate and saw the monster was after him but had gotten entangle in the razor wire again.
The other prisoners who had been allowed into the yard must have already opened the doors and gates. Chuck jumped in the first vehicle he found with keys, a white 12-passenger van, and drove away from the prison.
Chuck was shaking as he drove.
Six hours ago, Chuck was thinking of taking his own life. An hour ago, he was sleeping, dreaming of something that left him un-rested. Ten minutes ago, some freak of nature was trying to eat him.
Now, he was a free man and he was going to stay that way.
¤ ¤ ¤ ¤
The Virginia-class, nuclear-powered attack submarine U.S.S. North Carolina settled to a relative stop for the first time in almost two months. The sub drifted gently to one of the many empty piers without the help of a tug or anyone on shore to grab mooring lines.
Everyone aboard the boat had already been informed of the ending of civilization. They’d lived with the knowledge for the past three weeks as their fellow sailors died aboard other ships in the task force. They sent personal e-mails and made phone calls to family members and loved ones when operational security was relaxed and the full extent of the deaths began being known. Many never reached family.
Four of the enlisted and two officers had committed suicide when they found out loved ones had perished. It was horrifying to everyone on board, but the commander and senior non-commissioned officer did what they could to maintain discipline and morale.
The captain of the boat, Commander Phillip Finley, was a 12-year veteran of the United States Navy, but this was his first cruise as commander of a submarine.
It was also to be his last.
It had been 21-days since the boat’s last contact with any other navy ship outside their task force or Commander Submarine Force, U.S. Pacific Fleet (COMSUBPAC) when the sub finally pulled into Pearl Harbor, but not for a lack of trying. They’d been on maneuvers when the first deaths began aboard the carrier U.S.S. John C. Stennis, the flagship of the carrier group to which they’d been temporarily assigned.
Word spread throughout the fleet and the presidential order for martial law was enacted less than two weeks after the first death from the plague. On the open ocean, the deaths had come just as quickly for the sailors, Marines and civilians aboard.
The U.S. Military Command was on full alert even though there was nothing they could do. Communications throughout the world to military units both on land and at sea was breaking down. All ships were ordered back to port, but the speed at which the deaths happened left ships far at sea in dire straights. The order had come too late for most ships.
Pilots aboard the carrier were catapulted skyward and all but two birds from the Stennis Group were able to make landfall in Hawaii. The pilots had been ordered to make regular contact with the group, but after four days, none of the pilots were still alive.
The ships steamed with all haste, but they were more than a thousand miles from Hawaii and it would take the group at least two full days to reach port.
The dying was pervasive and no one on the surface of the earth was safe. More than nine-tenths of the group’s complement was dead when the task force was less than 100 miles from Pearl. Panic had ensued on several ships when senior officers died at their posts. Military discipline aboard the surface ships fell apart. Some crews abandoned their fellow sailors, taking life boats or just jumping overboard for w
hatever reason.
It was a destroyer that first turned out of the group and headed for destinations unknown, followed later in the day by a fuel tender and a pair of cruisers. Bodies were being tossed off the ships as soon as they died, but as crewmen dropped, others couldn’t perform the jobs needed to keep the vessels on course or at speed.
The admiral in charge of the battle group died in the command center. The captain of the Stennis died on the bridge of his ship. The executive officer and a dozen other senior officers of the Stennis died over the course of 30 hours. The last message that came from the carrier was a prayer from a Chaplain’s Assistant. “Unto your arms, dear Lord, please take these men of the sea.”
The Stennis’ speed dropped to five knots and the three surface ships that had remained in the group closed to within 1,000 yards of the flattop. It was all that was left of the group as it limped the last few hundred miles toward Hawaii.
The other ships still under weigh, continued in their last direction and speed as crews died. Some eventually would run aground and sink; others had the forethought to shut down the propulsion and the ships drifted in the ocean waiting for time to send them to the bottom.
The doctors aboard the ships had no time, nor the equipment to stem the tide of the virus to save the thousands of sailors who had been deployed in the Pacific Ocean, a thousand miles north-northwest of Hawaii and 3,600 miles from the North Carolina’s home port of San Diego.
The submarine commander who surfaced his vessel found no decontamination procedure was sufficient to stem to outbreak that killed his crew.
Commander Martinez, the captain of the other submarine in the current deployment, surfaced his boat when what was left of the crew of the USS Lake Erie ordered abandon ship. There was an out of control fire and 22 men had to jump ship. Martinez and his crew were able to rescue the sailors before the ship’s stores of munitions exploded, breaking the ship’s keel and sending the Ticonderoga-class guided-missile cruiser to the ocean floor.
Martinez’ sub cleared the area with the survivors, but neither crew made it to Hawaii. Finley, his communications officers and enlisted had to listen to the last transmissions from Martinez as his crew started dying within a day of opening its hatches to save the men from the Lake Erie. There was nothing anyone could do to help them.
Hell Happened (Book 3): Hell Released Page 3