Hell Happened (Book 3): Hell Released

by Terry Stenzelbarton

  “I don’t want that crap in the living room,” she said to him. “That reading goes in our bedroom. I don’t want our friends thinking we read that smut.” Russ joined in her tinkling laugh and was halfway up the stairs when he realized she’d said “our bedroom.” Three nights before, she had come into his room because she was alone and afraid. She slept in his bed with him and even though nothing happened physically, it had helped them both through the night.

  Two nights ago he had forgotten her offer of spending the night in her room until he had gone to his room and it was already cleaned out and his clothes from his room had been moved into hers.

  The first night sleeping in the same room was a little awkward, but the next was easier for both of them. They went to bed tired and sleep came easy. Russ was usually up first and showered and dressed before she got out of bed.

  Now he was taking two dozen romance novels to their room so she could read them before going to sleep. Russ was more of a movie watcher before going to sleep, but it was something they would work out.

  He was stacking the books when Lisa brought up the last few books Russ hadn’t been able to bring in his first trip and the movies she had picked up at the store. She also had a handful of his movies too.

  Whoever had lived here before had really done a nice job of decorating with the latest electronic equipment. There was a 42-inch flat panel in the bedroom and the remote was on Lisa’s side of the bed. There was also a DVD and Blue Ray player and a high-end stereo system.

  They stacked the books and movies together, discussing which ones they’d read and watch and wondered if the movie industry would ever put out another movie in their lifetimes.

  In a long moment of silence, Lisa finally asked about the elephant in the room. “Have you decided what you are going to do with the prisoners?”

  “I think I have,” he told her. “I asked Doug to find shackles for the two and if they accept parole, we can put them to work on menial, low-supervision jobs until they prove themselves capable of being part of our community and willing to follow our rules.

  “During the day, they’ll work and eat and join us, but they will be shackled at the feet and have no access to weapons. At night, they will be returned to their cells before our communal dinner. I don’t think anyone wants them there for our time.”

  “We’re going to use them as slaves then?” she asked.

  “I thought the same thing when I was searching for an answer and I know a chain gang is reminiscent of slavery, but I think the goal of any penal system should be to punish someone to an extent to where they see that following the laws of the community in which they live is more beneficial than violating the rules. The punishment will direct them to rehabilitate their attitude.

  “If they violate the rules to an extent where we can never trust them, then we have the choice of ending their rights to life or send them away with instructions that they will be shot on sight if they ever come back.

  “The second option puts us in the position that we may be pushing our problem off on someone else. We may send them away, but they may survive and kill someone else. That death will be our fault for not dealing with our problem. I will not do that to some innocents who are living like we are, hoping to make it from one day to the next.

  “If the prisoners decide, after living with shackles and sleeping in cells, that they’d rather follow our rules, then they can earn the right to become part of our community. If they want to stay in their cells for the rest of their natural lives, then that’s where they’ll stay. I will not take someone’s life for anything less than murder, rape, arson, child molestation, or doing something that will intentionally endanger our community.

  “We’ve all been through the worst kind of hell imaginable. As we rebuild the United States, we need to feel safe in our homes and as we go about our personal business. As long as we are not infringing on the rights of someone else, I believe we have the right to protect ourselves and the people with whom we live.”

  Lisa was looking at Russ. He had been talking to her, but she had the feeling he was talking it out for his own benefit more than it was to explain it to her. She already knew what she would do, but as the leader of their community, Russ had to think of everyone and how they would see the punishment he meted out to the two.

  “Have you listened to any of the surveillance tapes?”

  “Yea, Todd fast forwarded though the recordings and he saved out six or eight recordings. There was no overt admission of guilt from Miguel, but Mason did admit that his shooting and killing of one of their cohorts was because the man had lied to him” Russ told her.

  “So he is a killer,” she said, a statement, not a question.

  “There is no doubt.”

  “And you think he would work in leg irons and try to be part of our community?”

  “No.”

  “But you’re still going to give him the chance?”

  “Yes.”

  “Why?” she asked, not sure why the man now sitting on her bedroom floor would do something like that.

  “Because I don’t know the man; don’t know what he might do. He might surprise us. He admitted to one killing, but maybe there were extenuating circumstances that we will never know. I think we need to at least try to give someone a chance to change before we take their life. Killing someone is the only permanent punishment we can inflict, and it is the most severe.”

  Lisa had been sitting on the bed listening to the reasoning of Russ as he sat on the floor stacking movies beneath the television. When he finished, she reached a hand down and he took it. She helped him to his feet. He had obviously thought long and very seriously about what he would have to do tomorrow and she was glad he wasn’t being cavalier. He might have to take someone’s life and permanently punish them. “Come on, colonel. Tomorrow is the day you have to worry about that. Tonight I have something special for you.” She winked at him. “You get ready for bed and get back here.”

  Russ went into the bathroom, washed up from the day, brushed his teeth and put on the pajamas that were hanging on the back of the bathroom door.

  When he was finished, Lisa was already in bed with her trademark impish smile. Russ wasn’t sure what special thing she had for him, but he hoped he’d be up to it. The lights were off in the room except for her night stand light.

  He crawled into bed and she giggled.

  She slid down from sitting and got to the same height as him, so they both had their heads on the pillows. Russ knew she was teasing him in her own way, thinking that she knew what he was thinking. “Ready?” she asked huskily.

  “Yes, ma’am,” he said, almost choking on the words. She was very attractive and she was in the same bed as him and she did seem like she was game.

  She rolled over to her side of the bed, opened the drawer to her night stand and pulled something out. She rolled back over to him.

  “Here you go,” she said and handed him the remote for the TV. “Blazing Saddles is already loaded and it’s ready for you to watch. I remember you saying you really liked that movie.”

  Russ smiled and took the remote from her, aimed it at the TV and pressed the power button. The TV took a moment to warm up and he looked over at Lisa while he waited. She was smiling at him, happy that she’d given him something that he had wanted.

  “You are a rare treasure,” he said and kissed her on the forehead. She turned off her night stand light and cuddled beside him as he folded his pillow so he could see the TV better.

  “And you, sir, are a true gentleman.”

  Lisa fell asleep before the end of the movie. When the movie was over, Russ shut the TV off and reached across her to put the remote on her stand. As he fluffed his pillow and pulled the covers up to go to sleep, Lisa repositioned herself with a leg across his and her warm body pressed very close.

  “You’re a true gentleman, Russ,” she whispered and kissed his shoulder. “A true gentleman.” Russ fell asleep with the woman draped on him and h
e was thinking very ungentlemanly thoughts.

  Morning was not as awkward as previous mornings. Russ woke shortly before Lisa who was still hanging onto him. He cleared his throat softly and heard Lisa say she was awake, but not wanting to move because she was comfortable. Russ told her she was going to have to move or he’d have an accident like he hadn’t had since he was four years old. She laughed and rolled off him.

  By the time he was out of the bathroom, she’d already gotten her robe on and headed down stairs. He pulled out a uniform because he would be performing his job as a military officer this morning. He’d told Capt. Eldred and LCpl. “Deputy” Doug Angelopoulos to be ready at 8 a.m. to go deal with the prisoners.

  When he went downstairs, Lisa had his coffee poured and breakfast almost ready. The gravity of the day’s upcoming events weighed heavily on him and Lisa had the good sense to not flirt or act like she didn’t know how serious the day was for him.

  Russ looked at his watch and realized he must have slept in. It was already quarter to 8 by the time he finished breakfast. Lisa sat with him and had her breakfast too, but it was in silence.

  When he finished rinsing his dishes, he dried his hands and walked to the door where his field jacket was hung. Lisa walked with him to the door but wouldn’t be going with him.

  “Wish me luck,” he said as he put his cap on.

  She reached up and kissed his cheek. He had to bend over a little to accept it. “Good luck, colonel.”

  She opened the door for him and he smiled at her as he left. She waited for a moment as he walked away and then closed the door behind him.

  Deputy Doug was already waiting in the middle of the street and Eldred was walking down his walkway to meet them. Both saluted the colonel.

  “Are we ready, gentlemen?” he asked. Both said they were. “Let’s take the deputy’s Army truck. I know he has the shackles already loaded.”

  Doug tapped out the garage door’s access code on a panel and backed his truck into the street. Russ sat in back and the captain in the passenger seat. As they drove, Russ asked the two men to follow his lead. He briefed them on what he’d decided to offer.

  Doug said he had a portable copy of comments Mason and Miguel had made, and that he’d gone through the recordings up through about 6 p.m. the previous night and didn’t hear any more conversation between the two prisoners. Russ said they had enough for what he needed.

  The generator was still running at just above idle when they pulled into the parking lot. Eldred and Doug both had M4 rifles with full magazines. They locked and loaded their weapons before going inside. Russ had his Python loaded, but he left it in the holster.

  Entering the building, Russ smelled something out of the ordinary. He pulled the Python out of its holster and looked at the other two men with him. Both nodded, smelling the same sick smell of copper and sweat.

  Russ turned on the light switch to the foyer and the hallways. All three men walked slowly toward the cells. They had their fingers on the triggers and safeties off. They weren’t taking any chances. The odd thing was there was silence when the lights were turned on. Russ had expected the prisoners to make some type of noise.

  Just before turning the last corner, Doug put his hand on the colonel’s shoulder and held him up. Russ stopped and looked at Deputy Doug but Doug refused to look at him.

  Instead, he pushed his way in front of the officer.

  Looking around the corner with his rifle at the ready, the muzzle of the M4 dropped and Doug walked brazenly around the corner and down the hall where the prisoners had been.

  The cell doors had been ripped from their frames and blood was splattered on the walls, ceiling and floors. There were small body parts in corners of the cells and all three men knew their prisoners would no longer be a problem.

  Myles turned his head and threw up in the hall, unable to stomach the carnage. The young Marine, Doug, stood in a state of shock, barely moving but just staring at the horror. “Dear God in Heaven,” he whispered and crossed himself.

  Russ had seen death before -- bombings, burnings, war zones and machete attacks -- but this was the worst destruction of a human body he’d ever seen. Blood was pooling in several different areas, as if the bodies had been torn apart. Small pieces left behind had tooth marks readily apparent. There were bone splinters, but mostly the entire body had been eaten or carried away.

  Russ looked down the hall to the far end and the security door, steel and locked, had been no barrier to the beasts that had done this. The door had been pulled from the jamb.

  Whatever it was that had wrenched the cell doors off had ripped into the men inside. Russ couldn’t tell if it had been one or two of the mutants, but he hoped it had been two of the hell-borne creatures. He hated to think of what the second prisoner would have been thinking while the first was being torn apart and eaten, only to see the creature look to him for its second meal.

  “Come on guys, we need to get out of here and back home. We need to find a way to protect ourselves from these creatures because our houses are no way as secure as these cells were,” he said, putting his hand on Myles’ back and pulling Doug by the arm to hurry them along. Every one of those people who he was fast becoming to think of as a surrogate family was in mortal danger of the beasts.

  “We’ve been damn lucky they haven’t come for us already.”

  Chapter 4

  CJ woke to a light that was coming from a portal in the wall of his room. It wasn’t a bright light and didn’t hurt his eyes, but it was a light he didn’t remember the night before. It took him several moments to orient himself on where he was.

  When the realization hit him, he was both deeply saddened by being alive when so many others had died, but he was also surprised he was still alive and able to think and feel and hear and see.

  CJ got out of bed and went over to the portal. He’d forgotten about the addition to the executive model of the Apocalypse Survival Shelter which allowed him a real outside view. The previous night, it had been dark and no light came through the portal, but now that the sun was up, he could see out.

  The outer glass of the thick two-piece unit was dirty, but CJ could see the overcast outside. The sun was well above the mountains, but the amount of smoke and debris in the air and low-hanging clouds made it seem worse than the dreariest days he’d experienced in England while visiting Wimbledon.

  “Hopefully the rain will wash the crap out of the air,” he said to himself. The only clothes he had were the clothes he’d been wearing for four or five days now. He’d lost track of the last time he’d changed them.

  As he was dressing he realized how hungry and thirsty he was.

  CJ could hear the generator outside, but just barely. He could hear his own breathing easier. Someone was already awake on the first level, but whoever it was, they were being quiet. CJ tied his still-damp shoes and opened the hatch which led down to the first level.

  Jo was already awake and she too was wearing the clothes she had on the previous day. CJ realized the movies didn’t ever address the issue in their end-of-the-world scenarios – sometimes clothes stank and you had no choice but to wear them.

  “Morning,” she said quietly. “Chloe and Ted are still sleeping, but I was hungry and couldn’t sleep.” She was rummaging through the six-month supply of MREs in the storage locker. “You want anything?”

  CJ nodded and started going through some of the packages. He found a chicken meal that didn’t sound terrible and Jo found something that suited her and they sat at the fold down table to eat. The table dropped from the wall and three chairs unhinged. It was an ingenious space-saving design, but a little hard on the ass.

  “These are some nice digs,” Jo said as she dug into her second package of food, “but we’re going to need something better than this for the long term.” CJ agreed with her but didn’t know what she expected him to do about it. So far, since the end of the world, the only thing he’d done was to not die. He hadn’t thought about anythin
g more than the next few minutes.

  The thought of having to think about “the long-term” made his stomach churn. Or maybe it was the fig bar in his meal.

  He heard the hatch to Chloe’s room open and the girl come down. She stopped by Teddy’s bed to wake him gently. The little boy sat up and looked around. He dug the crust out of the corners of his eyes where it had built up from crying in his sleep, then grabbed the teen. She held him for a moment before encouraging him to get up and get some breakfast.

  There were only three chairs at the table, but CJ was finished enough to stand so gave Ted the third chair.

  CJ wasn’t ready to face the outside world, knowing the low-hanging clouds and cold rain outside would make him feel more miserable. When Jo finished breakfast, she was going for the door when CJ told her it was raining out right now and suggested they wait for a while. It was warm in the shelter and he wasn’t ready for the cold dreary weather.

  Instead, the two went over the control panel for the survival shelter. CJ showed her how everything worked and how simple of a system it was. Two of the rockers on the panel were for the lighting on each level. There were also rockers for the electrical system’s heavier circuits for the refrigerator, water heater, air flow system and laundry. There were dials for electrical use, a digital read out for the charge on the lithium battery pack and a fuel gauges for the generator and heating unit. CJ showed her how he’d started up the shelter the previous night, then how to switch from battery to generator.

  Chloe and Ted finished their breakfast and CJ was showing them where the first aid kits were located, how to test for clean water, how to test food for bacteria, and how to use the facilities. He checked the bathroom and the water storage indicator showed a full bladder, but not knowing when or if they might get more water kept them from showering this morning. The efficiency laundry would work for their clothes when they found some.

  CJ told the three he was going to check the surveillance camera feed in his room to see if anyone else had braved the rain. All three wanted to see so followed him up the ladder way to his room.