Hell Happened (Book 3): Hell Released

by Terry Stenzelbarton

  The car they were in dropped on the pavement as the ground moved below them. They could see other vehicles on the highway further ahead of them being thrown around too. A tractor trailer rig hauling fuel dropped to one side from the tilting of the highway and the three of them watched from half a mile away as the flames erupted from it.

  Too scared to move, the three stayed in the car. They saw cracks form on the highway and race in their direction. The world shook around them and all three had time to scream out what they thought might be their last words when their car dropped a tire into a crack, but stayed upright. Fortunately only this smaller crack got as far as their car. The bigger one opened up a gap wide enough to swallow a thousand cars about 500 yards to their right.

  The shaking went on for what felt like hours but according to the clock on the car’s dash was only 17 minutes. When the major shaking finally ended, the three survivors got out of the car and looked around. The fuel truck blocked most of the road in front of them and the over pass they’d been on blocked the road behind.

  The skyline of Los Angeles no longer looked as picturesque as it did in all those pictures everyone had seen. Now it was a cloud of dust and smoke from collapsed buildings. Nothing soared into the sky except the dead city’s heart.

  The City of Angels was now the City of Hell.

  ¤ ¤ ¤ ¤

  The U.S.S. North Carolina spent four days moored to the pier while the carrier Stennis remained anchored just outside Pearl Harbor Naval Base. The submarine’s captain, Commander Phillip Finley refused to allow any of the hatches to be opened until he was reasonably sure the plague or virus had run its course. C.P.O. Lindsey suggested at least 14 more days, but the communications from shore said that no people had died from the plague in three days.

  When the people rescued from the Stennis had gone ashore, they had drawn the attention of people on the island who had survived.

  Lt. j.g. Davies Jansen, the senior surviving engineer and default captain of the Stennis led the group from the hull of the North Carolina onto land. They were met by a group of more than 200 survivors from in and around Pearl Harbor, Honolulu, Waipahu and the Marine Corps Air Station who had all gathered in the area.

  As people started dying, someone had the forethought to broadcast across the entire island a place where the survivors, if there were to be any, could gather. The population of the island was nearly a million before the plague. After the great death there were less than 250 people left alive on the island and 209 were gathered on Hickam Air Force Base.

  When the North Carolina pulled up to a pier at the west end of Honolulu airport, things were still in disorder; no one had stepped forward and tried to organize any type of long-term survival.

  Jansen put together an ad-hoc command group to decide what the survivors would do for their future. He represented the military.

  Marissa Lawrence, the 27-year-old concierge from The Pride of America represented the survivors from that vessel and Dale Marks represented the survivors from the island. The three talked to the people in their respective groups.

  Some had ideas about flying back to the continental United States but they had no pilots for any of the aircraft. Some of the people suggested taking one of the yachts on the island and going back to the states. The problems with that were the 3,600 miles they’d have to travel and none of the yachts they’d come across could handle the 300 people, who would also need food and berths. A few wanted to set up a civilization here on the island.

  Someone started a rumor of a giant shark that came ashore and killed survivors which began to ripple though the survivors. Jansen and Lawrence tried to keep a lid on the stories, but someone said they came across a grisly scene in which bodies had been shredded.

  It was Marissa who suggested moving everyone back to the Stennis, a ship fully provisioned, with plenty of room and an engineer who could turn the engines on and guide the massive ship where it needed to go.

  The Stennis was actually too big, but Marissa said the big flat top would give everyone plenty of room to move around and there was enough food and utilities so everyone could be comfortable. The Stennis would also be an asset back in San Diego, presuming there were survivors there as well.

  Pearl Harbor was without power, but the Stennis and the North Carolina both had nuclear reactors that were working. If they got to San Diego and found survivors, the flat top and submarine could prove useful.

  Lt. Jansen and Ms. Lawrence and Marks agreed that the Stennis might be their best hope. A storm that moved through on the second day helped convince a few more for the use of the Stennis. Hawaii was an island with a limited amount of types of food that could be grown and types of livestock that would thrive. While it might be enough for a year or two, in the long term, the people ashore thought the mainland was a better option.

  At the end of the fourth day following the arrival of the two navy boats, a majority of those on shore decided to brave the 3,600 mile trip to the mainland. Jansen would command the Stennis and train some engineers and Marissa would organize the people to maintain the ship as best they could.

  The morning of the fifth day they radioed the North Carolina with their decision and told Finley there had been no deaths from the plague in five days.

  Finley gave the okay for the attempt. He, along with 100 percent of his crew wanted to get back to San Diego and he was still the most senior military person available. Many of his crew had relatives in and around the naval base, while others had family or friends in other parts of the Unites States. Living on the island, they would never know if anyone in their families had lived or died.

  Most knew the chances were next to none that anyone in their family was still alive, but every one of them wanted to know for sure.

  It took three more days while the people on shore were transferred to the Stennis. Jansen was in the first group and made preparations with the 14 sailors who had been aboard the Stennis, and nine more from the other ships in the original Task Force.

  Marissa and Dale put together food packages and other supplies they could find to help make the nine-day cruise. Jansen had figured he could safely pilot the Stennis at between 14 and 16 knots during the day, but he’d slow to about eight knots at night. He relayed his thoughts to Finley and the captain of the North Carolina agreed.

  The Stennis weighed anchor and the flat top and submarine pulled away from the island and deep water before turning toward the mainland.

  The people aboard the Stennis played games on the three-acre deck of the ship. There was not much work to do except for the sailors and other people who had skills in the mess hall or laundry. Considering the size of the ship, built to house more than 5,000 sailors, there was plenty of room for everyone.

  Aboard the North Carolina, the morale wasn’t quite as good. Men were getting tense, tempers short and the captain was having a difficult time enforcing military bearing. The people aboard the sub were still living in cramped quarters, eating and sleeping in shifts, while the other survivors were enjoying a nice day, playing volleyball and hitting golf balls off the fan tail of the aircraft carrier.

  The carrier also had women, something the sub did not, and while the sub had been at sea for just over 45 days, knowing there were women aboard the Stennis did motivate some of the men to speculate how much more fun it would be aboard the carrier.

  On the fourth morning at sea, almost halfway to the mainland, the sub had its first major conflagration. Two of the men working in the forward torpedo room got into an altercation with their section chief, and that grew into fights with the mess hall section, throwing food and punches.

  Chief of the Boat Bailey had to put seven sailors in lock up and sent three others to see the medical officer, Petty Officer 1st Class Lindsey. Lindsey fixed one broken nose, taped up the ribs on another sailor and put an ice pack on the third sailor’s left eye before sending them back to their bunks.

  Commander Finley came down to see Lindsey to talk about the fight. Lindsey had
been aboard two other submarines in his career, but had never had to deal with the stress the crew was under now. There were so many unknowns, but they did know most of the populations around the world had died.

  The captain asked if Lindsey was still adamant about waiting at least two weeks after the last reported death from the plague, and Lindsey told him again, the longer they waited before opening the sub to the outside environment, the safer they would be. Lindsey told him ideally they should wait at least a month and that 14 days was the absolute minimum the captain should wait.

  With the fights breaking out on board, Finley was getting anxious. It had been 10 days since the last reported death and they were now 1,200 miles from Pearl Harbor and 1,400 from San Diego. They’d never be further from land or any people who had died from the plague.

  “What do you think are the chances are now of contracting the plague this far away from land?” Finley asked the medical officer.

  “I can’t give you figures, captain, but every day we wait, I think, gives us a better chance of no one getting sick,” Garrick told him. “I’m not a doctor or a scientist, but we’re alive now….”

  He was cut off by the sound of a gun shot in a compartment not too far away. Both men ran through the hatches and found two sailors had tackled a junior lieutenant. A gun had been knocked from the officer’s hand and further along the corridor was a petty officer with a bullet hole in his chest. Garrick checked to enlisted man’s pulse and then pulled back the eyelids. “He’s dead captain.”

  The junior lieutenant was still struggling with the two men, but they had him restrained now. He was screaming about getting out of the sub and getting back to his wife and child.

  “I don’t think we can wait any longer, Lindsey,” the captain said. “If I told the crew we were opening hatches in the morning, do you think that’d relieve some of the stress everyone is under?”

  Garrick thought about what the captain was saying, and the necessity of why he wanted to do it, but he also knew the longer the crew remained on recycled air, the less chance they had of contracting the plague.

  “The crew would act positively to the news, sir, but I don’t think they realize what they’d be risking. Maybe we’d all be safe, but I just don’t know.”

  “Well, if I don’t do something soon, we won’t have a crew.”

  The captain made the announcement and Garrick could hear the cheers through the boat, but he wasn’t happy with captain’s decision. He knew morale was poor and not going to get any better, but opening the hatches seemed to be a decision based on emotion, not logic.

  Garrick spent the rest of the evening cleaning up his cramped office and putting away the supplies and filling out reports no one would ever read. He did them out of rote and carrying out the duties made him feel as normal as possible.

  The last thing he did before he retired for the night was write a letter to his brother, Chuck. He knew it would never get delivered, but he wanted to apologize for hanging up when his older brother told him he’d gotten into some trouble. Garrick had looked up to Chuck growing up and didn’t blame him when he’d killed their step dad. When Chuck was arrested for a bar fight, Garrick was on his first tour of duty in the Navy and while he sympathized, there was nothing he could do for his brother.

  Garrick focused on setting up a good life for himself and he couldn’t be drawn into the trouble that Chuck seemed to find at every turn. When Chuck said he’d been involved in an armed robbery, it was the last straw for Garrick. He wished his brother the best of luck and hung up on him. It was the last time Garrick had spoken with Chuck. He received a letter from some attorney telling Garrick his brother had been sentenced to life in prison.

  Garrick slept fitfully through the night and woke up early enough to be one of the first in line for the breakfast meal. The cooks had done a half-assed job of filling the line, but it was good enough for Garrick.

  He finished eating and walked back to his office to complete some paperwork from the previous day. He looked at his watch and it was already 0625 hours. The captain said he’d be opening the hatches at 0700 hours.

  If the plague was still out there, Garrick didn’t want to be one of the last ones left alive. He’d rather be one of the first to go. The captain had said the only hatch to be opened would be the one aft of the control room. Garrick reasoned this was because it was the smallest room with an exterior hatch and the pressure hatches could be shut to isolate the room while Garrick checked the air.

  Finley had already relaxed all the military training, figuring the sub would never return to sea once they reached their final port. Finley was a good commander, both intelligent and quick witted. He’d showed already that being cautious saved lives, but also found a way to help those still alive on the surface. He was also a realist and he could see his crew was falling apart despite the concessions he made. The junior officer who had killed the petty officer pushed the captain to make the decision to open the hatch and allow his crew to see and interact with those who had survived and were on the Stennis. It would reaffirm to his crew that life was still possible.

  Garrick, the only enlisted department head, had suggested waiting at least until the sub reached San Diego, but the officers thought their men needed it now. It had been hard on them to not go ashore or open the hatches when docked in Hawaii, but then the memory of the death in the other sub was still fresh.

  Almost two weeks had passed since the last death from the plague, and there was no real test to find out if the plague was still in the air outside the sub, but still the captain had insisted Garrick test the air before opening the hatch.

  Opening one of the lockers in his impossibly small office, Garrick pulled out the equipment he’d need. He also grabbed his tablet and a pad of paper and headed to the bridge. The captain had asked him to be ready at 0645 hours.

  He walked through hatches and listened to the sounds of sub. He had been aboard this sub for more than a year and two cruises. He could tell there was unrest aboard. Voices were louder and sharper. Body language was less military. Sailors were less gentle with equipment.

  The control room was below and aft of the sail of the North Carolina and Garrick reported to Finley at 0644.

  “What’s the status on the Stennis?” Finley was asking his executive officer.

  “Captain Jansen reports they are ready to increase to 12 knots for the day shift,” the exec told him. “He also reports no deaths on his crew overnight, but one injury to a civilian who fell down a ladder well.”

  “Tell him to proceed to 12 knots,” Finley told him then over his shoulder added, “Chief of the Boat, take us to 12 knots and keep us abreast of the Stennis.”

  Orders were repeated in the time-honored ritual of naval tradition. Garrick felt rather than heard the sub double its speed. It was a gentle increase in speed. He knew the sub could easily keep pace with the flat top, even while they were on the surface. On the screens he could see the Stennis’ wash and could tell it was increasing speed as well.

  The two boats were still three full day’s sail from San Diego at this speed, but the lieutenant junior grade who was commanding the Stennis was just a junior engineer and was not prepared to take the engines up to their rated speed.

  When both boats were cruising at 12 knots and the exec reported this to Finley, the captain of the sub turned to Garrick.

  “You ready, doc?” he asked.

  Garrick patted his air testing equipment bag and nodded. “Yes, sir. As ready as I can be.”

  “Here’s how we’re going to do it, doc,” the captain told him. “You’re going into the lockout trunk and put on the MK-10. We’re going to close the hatch to that compartment and over pressurize the chamber below you. You’re going to open the outer hatch and test the outside air. When you’re done, you’re going to close the outer hatch and we’re going to flood the chamber you’re in to remove the outside air, then evacuate the water.”

  The MK-10 is whole-body suit and one-man life raft
, designed by British company RFD Beaufort Limited. It allows submariners to escape from a sunken submarine. The suit provides protection against hypothermia and has a self-contained air supply for up to an hour. The exec said Garrick could use the MK-10 as protection against the outside air in case he did find some contamination.

  “How long are you going to need outside, doc?” the exec asked.

  “I’ll need five minutes for this,” he said indicating the test kit slung under his arm. “I’ll need another two to take air samples for the testing equipment in the lab.

  “But I just want to reiterate, I won’t be able to tell if the virus is still in the atmosphere because no one knows what it was that killed everyone. All I’ll be able to do is tell if the air is breathable and safe.”

  “I know, doc, you’ve told me all this,” the captain said, “but on the one in a million chance that something shows up, I want to make sure we’ve exhausted every avenue of precaution.

  “Get to it, doc,” Finley told him.

  Garrick climbed the ladder to the lock out trunk and put on the MK-10. When he was ready, he radioed the executive officer and said he was ready. He was given the okay to proceed.

  Garrick heard a dull “clump” as the hatch to which he’d just come through was sealed tighter by the over pressure on the opposite side. Now any air that he let inside the chamber when he opened the outer hatch wouldn’t enter the interior of the sub.

  He opened the outside hatch with a twist of the wheel. He climbed the ladder and put his back against the hatch and for the first time in 49 days, Garrick saw the sun.

  He took his samples and tested the air just as he told the captain he would. He tried not to enjoy being on the hull as much as he did because he knew there were 118 sailors below deck who probably would have sold their soul to be where he was.

  On the deck of the Stennis, he saw people waving at him. He must have looked quite the sight in his orange outfit and testing equipment, but he waved back.