Hell Revisited (Hell happened)

by Stenzelbarton, Terry

  It wasn’t supposed to end with her killing Randy, but if she did, it was his own fault. She did however hope she’d killed Kellie and the Danny Rambo who came running in. They got what they deserved.

  She decided she would exact revenge on all of them, starting with the guy who locked her up, Jerry, when she got back on her feet. But first she had to get to the Smith Compound. They had tanks at Ft. Knox and damned if tanks wouldn’t blow that shelter out of the ground once and for all.

  * * *

  Amanda and Shep shared a HUMVEE for the night. They moved the trucks to a large parking lot and parked them side by side, facing opposite directions, letting them idle.

  They thought about turning the trucks off to save fuel and so they wouldn’t attract attention from the wild animals, but the temperature was already below zero so staying warm was a higher priority.

  By the time they finished eating and sharing one of the 12-pack of beer Roy had smuggled along, they settled in for the night, closing up the windows, leaving just a crack for fresh air.

  It was more than eight hours before there would be enough light to see anything beyond their headlights. Amanda put the pillow between the window and her head and she worked to get comfortable. She thought about her dad a lot and how she had told him she didn’t want to stay on the farm but to get away and see the world.

  “Dad, I’ll never get into a good college with my grades,” she told him. “But in the Army I can learn to do something more than farm. I can earn some money and see more of the world than our part of it.”

  Jerry had reluctantly agreed with her choice. He’d always thought she wasn’t like her brother or like so many of the girls with whom she went to school. She wasn’t one to become a mother at 19, a wife at 20, ex-wife by 23 with two kids and living at home with her parents. She was too headstrong and smarter than her grades showed. There was too much she’d read about and seen on television.

  Her dad had supported her decision, but her mother had not. It caused a lot of arguments in the house during her last year of high school. She knew it wasn’t the cause of her mom moving out and divorcing her dad, but it was part of the cause and it hurt her.

  Jerry showed up for her graduation from basic training from Ft. Jackson, but Randy hadn’t. He had been left to work the farm. Her dad was proud of her. He showed up again when she finished 14 weeks and three days of school at Fort Eustis, VA. He only spent a few hours with her, but he made the drive and it meant a lot to her.

  Amanda loved working on the helicopters. She didn’t like the winter weather at Fort Wainwright, and wasn’t gung ho for the military lifestyle, but she passed all the physical tests and fit in with her teammates.

  She was promoted to specialist E-4 after only 15 months of service and was recently made acting sergeant while waiting for the Army to catch up with orders. She had the points to be promoted and was just waiting for the rank to be made official.

  By the time her orders came in for more advanced schools in leadership training, she was contemplating applying for helicopter flight school at Ft. Rucker Alabama. She worked on the birds every day and the pilots often told her how much fun it was to fly the UH-60s. Her boyfriend was 21-years old and used to be a 15T UH-60 repairer like her before going to flight school. He had been a UH-60 pilot for six months before he died.

  Amanda hadn’t talked to him about her orders to report to Ft. Lewis for a month at the NCO Academy there for PLDC before her re-assignment to a permanent duty station there. It would have been a month before she had to begin out processing and she didn’t want to upset the apple cart with his training. A lot of military relationships were like that, temporary. Some got used to it, others didn’t.

  * * *

  Amanda woke early in the morning, like she had done on the farm and in the Army. Shep was snoring softly with his head against the passenger window.

  She was glad he was sleeping but in the reflected light, saw tear stains on his face. She didn’t want to wake him, but she had to go to the bathroom. She reached quietly behind her and pulled out her over night bag with the tampons she’d gotten from the PX, a roll of toilet paper, the wet-naps she picked up, a pair of clean underwear and the large flashlight.

  She got out of the truck as quietly as she could and gently closed the door. Both men in the other truck were still asleep, which she was glad to see. There was no reason for her to be embarrassed for being a woman, but sometimes this time of the month came at the worst time of the month.

  The fresh snow, four or five inches she figured, showed no tracks from any animals either. She found a spot of bushes between the Lowes and Office Depot buildings where she could relieve herself and clean up.

  The temperature had fallen to below zero over night, but in the three minutes it took her to change, she’d suffer through it.

  When she finished, she was shivering, but she felt clean and that was important to her. She walked back to the trucks and climbed in. Shep was already awake. “Sorry,” she apologized.

  “No problem,” he said to her. “Can I use your light? I’ll be back in a minute.” Amanda turned the heat up as soon as he got out. Her feet and fingers were really cold and her nose had started to drip. When Shep got back a few minutes later he too put his hands by the heater vent.

  “I miss Mississippi,” he said to her. “I want to go back and find out if my mama or brothers or sisters made it.”

  “How many do you have?” she asked him, trying to keep him talking a little.

  “I have four brothers, but Leo was in prison. I don’t know if’n they’d let him out before everyone died. I got three sister and they all live around Meridian. You probably never heard of it.”

  “You’re wrong there, Shep,” she said, a smile growing. “I live on the other side of Birmingham. My dad has…or had…a farm about 150 miles east of Meridian.”

  “Well, I don’t know what caused everyone to die, but if I lived, maybe some of my brothers and sisters are still alive. Maybe even my mama. I’d like that. She says I’m her pride and joy because I got out of Mississippi.”

  “My dad wasn’t happy about me leaving Alabama, but he knew I had to get out of there,” Amanda told him. “Right now, I’d give anything to be back there.

  “So, are you going back?” he asked, voice full of hope.

  “If I can find a way, I want to,” she admitted to him. “But it’s a long way away. I think I’ll first try to get to Spokane, that’s where my mom lives.”

  “Can I go with you? I can help drive.”

  “Shep, as long as you carry your own weight and mind your manners around me, we can be partners.”

  “You don’t have to worry about that Sergeant,” he said, a smile reaching his face for the first time since she’d met him. “My girlfriend lives with my momma.”

  Chapter 4

  There’d been a few days with snow recently, but the weather had turned remarkably mild over the past few weeks. Those at the shelter of Jerry’s farm needed it. A spring storm moved through the night before and Jerry had walked down to the river to check on the paddle wheel generators. Both were running smoothly and the deeper water caused by the storm didn’t appreciably raise the river level.

  The three months since coming back from the gulf coast with the astronauts had been busy for him and everyone else at the shelter. Keeping the wheels that powered the generator that charged the batteries for the house was one of the more important things he did every week.

  Every day had been busy with surviving and making preparations for the future.

  This morning the sun was just rising over the trees and reflecting off the underside of the clouds. It was a beautiful sunrise by anyone’s standards and something the people living on the farm needed with so little beauty left. The slapping of the water wheels was calming, but it sounded like a bearing might be going in the generator. He’d have to make a note to change it as soon as possible.

  Jerry stood silently, watching the water and reflecting o
n the past five and a half months.

  Randy’s head injury had healed under the tender ministrations of Monica and Dr. Kayla, but he was a different young man than he’d been. He was quiet more, less ready with the smart remark. He blamed himself for what Cheryl had done to his friends Kellie and Danny, blamed himself that she used him to get away with the minivan. He blamed himself for being naïve and nearly getting people killed. He’d thought she was a good person and was a woman who could be trusted.

  Randy had been fooled by Cheryl. He realized upon reflection how she had used him and manipulated him. While he tried to believe her story of woe, everything she told him that night more than three months earlier had been a lie. She lied as easily as he breathed and she did it with the expertise of a professional poker player.

  On the morning Jerry and his team returned from picking up the astronauts, the Ford slid to a halt in front of the shelter. He ran into the shelter and saw Randy on the bed they’d made for him in the living room. The older Saunders stroked his son’s hair until his son awoke. Jerry smiled down at his boy and spoke softly. “How are you son?”

  “Hi dad. I fee’ like I got ki’t by a horth,” his son said softly, then started crying, something his dad hadn’t seen him do since he was six years old and his dog had died.

  “Oh dad, it’s my faul’. I believe’ she wasn’ a ba’ perso’. I let her get loose and ‘he hurt Kellie and ‘anny.”

  “Oh no, son, she had me believing her too. It’s not your fault for being a good boy with a kind heart. This is on her and on me, not you. We were both used by her.”

  Jerry now had a very rare tear on his face as well. It was a partial lie to his son because Jerry hadn’t believed the story Cheryl had spun. He just didn’t want his son feeling like he was totally at fault. It was a lie Jerry told to his son without hesitation.

  That was when Monica came up to Randy’s side. “How you feeling, jerk?” Randy smiled, showing the missing bicuspid and canine teeth, one upper and one lower. “Damn, she really did a number on you guys,” she said unnecessarily, and hugged her friend gently. “It looks like Katie and Margarita have taken good care of you, but let me take a look.”

  Monica spent 10 minutes with Randy and certified the care he had received was good enough until Kayla could do a thorough examination. The real doctor would check him over more when she finished with Kellie, who had the most severe injuries.

  Jerry let Randy sleep some more and moved over to Kellie’s side. Kellie was asleep and Jerry held her hand for several minutes. She started to wake up to talk but Jerry shushed her and told her there would be time for that later. She closed her eyes and drifted back off to sleep.

  Capt. Kayla Schaeffer, who aside from being a pilot and scientist, was also an MD. She fussed over all three of the patients that morning. The Canadian looked over the medical supplies the shelter had in stock. After checking the two more severely wounded patients she declared the equipment was insufficient for the surgery she needed to do.

  Kayla and the others had moved to the kitchen area to give Jerry what little privacy they could while he sat with Kellie. He heard their low whispers and after kissing her gently on the forehead went to join them. They were trying to decide what to do about getting Kayla some better equipment.

  * * *

  Capt. Kayla Schaeffer was the over-achiever of the farm. She was born and raised in North Bay, Ontario, Canada. She moved to the United States with her parents when she was 16 to attend college at Dartmouth in Hanover, New Hampshire. Her parents were both blue collar workers, but her exceptional intelligence and perfect scores on the ACT and SAT and 4.0+ in her three years of high school got her accepted with a scholarship.

  She studied microbiology and after three years decided to get her MD at Geisel School of Medicine. After finishing residency, she realized she didn’t want to start a practice and work in a hospital so took a year and worked with the Peace Corps in Africa.

  While there, she learned to fly fixed wing, single engine airplanes from a man with whom she almost fell in love. They became engaged and came back to the United States where the man had an affair with one of Kayla’s friends. With him out of her life, and no direction, she got a job doing research with NASA and one of her co-workers got her hooked on helicopters. She already had a pilot’s license and learning to fly helicopters was easy for her.

  Within two years she was flying helicopters for emergency organ transplants along the east coast when called.

  Her research supervisor got her a placement with NASA as a mission specialist aboard the International Space Station where a long list of experiments would keep her busy for months.

  The training for the mission was just another challenge for her and she put everything she had into it. She launched aboard the Soviet Soyuz space ship with Col. Polkóvnik Rustov, who would be taking over command of the ISS from Marine Lt. Colonel William “Buff” O’Reilly.

  O’Reilly had been on the station for four months as an emergency replacement commander when the previous commander got appendicitis and had to return home.

  Also going up to the station with her was Commander Cleve van der Graff who would be working with the electronics aboard the station. He was a handsome Air Force test pilot who’d recently completed his Masters Degree from MIT.

  The speed at which people began dying on earth left NASA and the Russian space agency scrambling to launch a ship, but in four tries, there were four failures because astronauts and cosmonauts were dying even as they were waiting on the pad.

  It was the family man, Buff, who had a wife and two children, who suggested using the rescue capsule to return to earth. Cleve and Kayla wanted to return as well. Col. Rustov, who was starting his third tour as station commander wanted to stay behind.

  The three were cautioned of the dangers and the risks. The rescue capsule might fail to orient correctly and burn up on re-entry, might sink into the gulf, or might land in the wrong place so they couldn’t be rescued in time or any number of other problems of landing the capsule without the help of ground control.

  They took the risk and Kayla, last to enter the capsule, kissed Col. Rustov and wished him well, even though she knew once the capsule landed safely or burned up on re-entry, he was going to move the station into its highest possible orbit, then open it to space to preserve it for some future astronaut.

  * * *

  Kayla was trying to describe to Eddie and Tia some of the equipment she would need for a proper surgery and the two were speculating on places to find the equipment. Jerry asked how much time they had.

  Kayla, looking gravely up at Jerry, suggested the sooner they got the equipment, the better.

  There was a health center in Moody before the fall of the world and after getting a list of supplies from “Dr. Kayla,” Jerry, Juan, Josh and Nick went to look for supplies, but the place had been wiped off the face of the earth from the hurricane.

  Jerry was glad he’d slept on the bus the night before, but even so he slept on the return from Moody back to the shelter. He woke with a start when Nick turned off the truck in the driveway.

  Jerry checked with Kayla and Kellie wasn’t getting any better. He recalled a hospital off the interstate near Huffman and another foraging party was sent, this time with Eddie and his SWAT truck, Dr. Kayla, Tia, Nick and the American astronaut Commander Cleve van der Graff, the former test pilot. Cleve was still weak from four months in space, but he wanted to help and he was well rested.

  Buff, who they’d discovered to be a fanatical chess player and dog lover, was also an electrical engineer. He would spend a lot of time helping Jerry re-design his power grid in the shelter and had volunteered to go along, but Jerry suggested his skills would better used improving the shelter and communication systems with Tony.

  Jerry decided to stay at the shelter with Kellie. Not only was he exhausted, he wanted to be with her in case her condition changed for the worse.

  The five took two trucks to go look for the hospi
tal. Kayla alluded that it would save time if she was with them and time was of the essence now.

  Dr. Kayla knew she’d find what she needed in the rubble as soon as they found the building, but it took the party most of the afternoon to get at it. The building, six stories high, had collapsed on itself and the two wings at either end of the building had caught fire. Eddie, pulling into the parking lot, said it looked like the quest might be a wash.

  Still, there were some areas that looked promising and Dr. Kayla urged them to check out the parts of the building still standing. Eddie was armed with his favorite rifle, the Bushmaster 308, Tia and Nick with AR-15s and Cleve with a BAR 30-06 he’d found in the stash the boys had picked up months earlier.

  They began searching for a safe way into the building.

  Staying in the truck as backup, Kayla kept in communication with the four searchers. The sound of gunfire startled her and it lasted for nearly half a minute. Kayla called Eddie as soon as the shooting stopped.

  “Cleve got three zombies, Nick got two. Me and Tia got one each,” Eddie told Kayla, breathing heavily. “Here’s an interesting question we gots to ask you doc. How the hell are these things still alive? There ain’t no food in this place, but they’re still big, ornery cusses who just don’t like dying.”

  Dr. Kayla didn’t have an answer, so urged them to hurry clearing the building.

  Twenty minutes later, Eddie gave the okay for the doctor to come in. The corridors of the hospital were dark and the doctor followed Eddie and his high-intensity flashlight beamed up the hallway. There were cracks in the walls and ceiling tiles on the floor, broken equipment and dead diagnostic device with clear tubes plugged into long-dead-patients.

  Every patient still in the hospital was dead. There were also decomposed and half-eaten bodies on the floors in the rooms and in the corridores. Beds still had bodies in them, but, to her disgust, some had been devoured to the bones. She didn’t know if the person had been alive when eaten or the feasting had taken place post mortem. She could think of no greater terror than to be incapacitated in a hospital and have one of the zombies start eating her flesh.