Hell Revisited (Hell happened)

by Stenzelbarton, Terry

  The Home Depot and Best Buy on the west end of town were scattered over several dozen acres now. They drove the main road down to the 459 bypass and saw nothing but devastation being reclaimed by nature.

  Eddie decided he didn’t want to drive back through what was left of the little town, so he took 459 south to I-20 to take that way back to the farm. He was glad he did when off to the east he saw some heavy equipment. Eddie elbowed Cleve.

  The two men looked at each other and grinned like only men seeing heavy equipment will. “Toys,” said Eddie.

  “Damn straight. Let’s go look,” Cleve told him. Nothing could have stopped Eddie short of another hurricane.

  It took an hour of picking through debris for the two men to find something worth their time. It took four more hours for them to get it to the farm.

  Cleve felt like a 12-year-old who had just conquered the middle school bully when he drove a Cat 420E backhoe loader through the back gate of the farm. He was pulling a trailer with DK32 bulldozer strapped to it.

  He was followed by Eddie, who had two 1,000 gallon diesel fuel tanks on his trailer. They weren’t full, but they had enough fuel in them that the trailer was at its weight limit and maybe a little over. Eddie didn’t care. He’d seen other trailers if they broke this one and there were other implements they could scavenge at a later date.

  Everyone knew, eventually, their ability to find fuel would run out. It might be years before they couldn’t find anymore or work on a way to manufacture their own, but for now, they’d find all they could and use it as best they could.

  Rusty, Sade and Jamal spent a week on fuel duty. The spare 500-gallon tank was strapped to a trailer and pulled behind Jerry’s Ford and the three found every semi, bus, piece of heavy equipment within 20 miles that had fuel in it and filled the two 1,000 gallon tanks. When they were full, they filled the 500-gallon, unloaded it, loaded the other 500-gallon tank used for storing gasoline and filled it by emptying cars and trucks. They were careful of gas stations because they found the underground tanks were often contaminated. They were marked on a map and kept track of by Kellie, who was still recovering, but wanted to help in any way she could.

  The first storage outbuilding was finished and a small celebration was held.

  To Jerry, it felt like real progress was being made. The storage building was filled over the course of the next week with canned food and non-perishables, as well as an office for Tony and Cleve and their surveillance and radio equipment and a server Cleve set up.

  The shelter also took in two more groups looking for a safe haven. The first was encountered walking along 59 south out of Gadsden. There was a man and three women who told their story of misery to a stunned Randy, Nick, Danny and Jamal.

  The four had escaped a small compound in Georgia that had become militant, with the capturing and ritualized killings of zombies, execution of members for minor infractions and women being forced into group marriages.

  The man, who said he was a man of the cloth, and three women of varying ages ran away one night, not knowing where they were going, but knowing they needed to head somewhere safer.

  It was a tense meeting. The four had been caught by surprise on a long stretch of highway. They hadn’t been able to hide fast enough. They were tired of running and hiding and gotten careless when Randy spotted them.

  From 100 yards away and with Nick and Danny covering the four, Randy called to them. They were starving and exhausted. Randy thought it might be a ruse and made them lay flat on the pavement. Nick and Danny stayed behind him and kept the four covered while Jamal manned the BAR 30-06 pointing out the front of the SWAT truck.

  All four were searched carefully. Randy still felt suspicious of strangers and made sure to search them thoroughly even though one was a young girl of 17, the other two women in their mid 30s and the man claiming to be a minister in his 40s.

  He found no weapons and the minister was carrying a bible. They begged not to be hurt and two of the women started crying, including the young waif of a girl. They asked for water and food. Randy and Danny had seen this play before and were hesitant to trust the four refugees, ready to send them on their way with no help at all.

  It was Nick who helped the situation most. “For by grace are ye saved through faith; and that not of yourselves: it is the gift of God,” he quoted, looking at the preacherman. The man of the cloth knew this passage as well as he knew the opening of Genesis. “Ephesians 2:8 from the King James,” the minister said readily.

  “Story checks out” Nick said confidently.

  Randy still wasn’t ready to trust them implicitly, but the threat was lessened and they were taken back to the farm for the others to meet. Randy took the precaution of blindfolding the four, but he did give them water and reassured them they were not being held captive. He just wanted everyone to be as safe as possible until they got back to the farm.

  The second group they found was coming north from Orlando. Their camp had been mostly destroyed by the hurricane and the flooding that followed. Of the 60 who had started the compound, they were the three who survived. They were headed to Texas, where one of the men used to live. They were intercepted by one of Jerry’s foraging parties. Two of the men decided not to stay at the shelter and wanted to continue on to Texas.

  The Escalade might have seemed an extravagant gift before the fall of civilization, but it was just one of five SUVs that were at the farm now. It was dented and dirty and the back window was broken, but the two men were grateful for the generosity and full bellies and tank of gas. Jerry gave them enough food for a week, some ammunition for their guns and wished them the best of luck in their search.

  With five more people living at the farm, two more motorhomes had to be located. It took more than a week and the search parties had to go to the far side of Birmingham to find them. The minister, who everyone started calling “Padre” and the man from Florida, Tim, moved into one of the new homes, and the two women, Natalie and Karen, and the teenage girl, Cindy, moved into the other motorhome.

  Other improvements came with another water wheel and generator, further upstream from the first and the second windmill was completed. The people on the farm also dug a better septic system, installed a much larger water storage tank, better water filters, and completed repairs to the barn and garage.

  Tony and Cleve improved the power grid, installed larger transmitters and antenna for Tony. Tia found bicycles when she was on the crew looking for new motorhomes and brought them back and Buff built a small soccer field among other projects.

  Tony had contact with Keith from the Smith Compound at least once a week. Keith was the first outside contact Tony had made months earlier. He was the communication specialist for a military compound in Kentucky.

  He also made contact with two encampments in the western U.S. There was a Mormon group with 76 people that was suffering a food shortage near Wendover, Utah, just past the Salt Flats. The second little bit of civilization was the Perry Cooperative near Sacramento that had more than 175 survivors. They were struggling, having lost a third of their number in an earthquake months before, but C.J. Perry had radioed they were still strong enough to keep the cooperative viable.

  Since it was Sunday morning, Jerry knew everyone would be taking it easy. Jerry had never been a religious man, but he was a believer in God and his dictate of a day of rest and, truth be told, he liked the day of rest idea.

  For those who wanted to attend, the Padre would provide a non-denominational service on Sunday morning after breakfast.

  Of the survivors, four or five would show up for the 15 minutes of prayer and reading from the bible. Sometimes Jerry would go with Kellie, but most times they would just relax in bed. No judgment was made for those who attended and no recriminations to those who didn’t.

  The night before was the weekly get together of everyone on the farm. It was an informal gathering where everyone was free to speak their thoughts, as long as they kept their language proper and di
dn’t make any false accusations.

  Jerry had originally suggested that to be fair, they should decide on a leader who would be the final authority on the farm. He understood that before the Armageddon as it was now being called, he had owned this place. Now, he didn’t think that claim held much weight without a government to back his claim.

  Also, he didn’t think he had made the best decisions for the people living here and brought it up at the informal gathering. “If you all agree to appoint someone else as leader of this group,” he told them, “I’ll understand.”

  Cleve, the senior American military person, even though there was no real military left, put the kibosh on Jerry’s idea. “Jerry, I don’t think anyone here believes they could have done even half the job you’ve done with your generosity, compassion, thoughtfulness, foresight, leadership and work ethic, especially with the stresses you’ve been under.

  “Unless someone feels differently, I think you should remain the top dog for a few more years,” the former astronaut said, “then we’ll worry about creating a republic.”

  Everyone started applauding Jerry until they could see how embarrassed he was becoming. “Okay, if you say so,” he said in his usual self-effacing manner that any politician in the past would have given his first born to be able to fake.

  * * *

  Amanda was immediately afraid for herself and Shep. There was no reason for Shep to have gone to the truck and gotten their guns out so she assumed it must have been someone else.

  She worked her way between buildings until she could see the house she and Shep had holed up in the previous night.

  Now that she wasn’t running, she was getting cold.

  The house they’d stayed in had smoke coming from the chimney, but the front door was open. She knew she’d closed it and knew Shep wouldn’t have left it open. They hadn’t seen anyone in their 3,200-mile drive so far and didn’t expect to find anyone in this little town.

  Just as she was about to move closer to the house, she saw a strange man in the door. He was looking outside as if looking for her. He was talking to someone over one shoulder and had a rifle leaning over the other.

  She was getting colder where she was hiding, but wasn’t going to get nearer to the house without knowing more.

  The man in the door was huge and he was dressed like a man who knew how to survive in the cold. He came out of the house and opened the door of the HUMVEE to look inside. Amanda was hoping he didn’t notice the keys in the ignition or rifle in the back. He did notice the M-60 covered on the roof.

  The man heard something from inside the house and he walked back toward the door. There was something inside that was more important to him than the HUMVEE right now. She heard another voice from inside the house. It wasn’t Shep’s.

  Amanda moved from her hiding position, keeping the HUMVEE between her and the door to the house. She was going after Shep’s gun which was in the back seat of the HUMVEE. She’d just reached the door behind the driver’s door, when she heard another gun shot.

  She opened the door, threw off a mitten and grabbed the 30-30 which had been lying on the floor of the truck. She could have reached for her pistol, but she’d put it in the front seat pocket and the shotgun wasn’t loaded. She chambered a round and leaned across the hood of the HUMVEE. She surprised the two men who were pushing the young black soldier out of the house. He was alive, but had been shot at least once.

  “Hold it!” she hollered at them, causing them to pull their guns up. She fired two rounds at them before they could aim. The first shot hit the man in back in the leg and the second shot went through the arm of the big man in front.

  Both men dropped their guns and put hands over their wounds.

  “Hey lady, this is our town and this guy was in our house. We had the right to throw him out,” the big man said, his accent decidedly French-Canadian.

  “I don’t care. Just shut your face or I swear to God you won’t breathe another breath.”

  Then, not moving her eyes off the two men and their guns on the ground, she spoke to Shep. “How you doing, partner?” she asked the man on the ground.

  “Bastards kicked in the door and shot me in the leg,” he told her raggedly through the pain. “When I wouldn’t tell them where you were, they threatened to shoot my dick off. The little guy even shot between my legs to let me know he was serious.”

  “Can you get in the truck and start it?” she asked him.

  “I think so, sergeant,” he told her. He was still wearing just his regular clothes, but they could find winter clothes once they were away from here. Because she had backed the truck up to the house to unload the 5-gallon water bottles, the passenger side of the truck was closer to Shep. He climbed in and turned the key, giving the truck time to heat the glow plugs. Amanda didn’t take her eyes off the two men, one who was on the floor inside the house, the other still in the doorway.

  “Kick the guns out where I can see them,” she ordered the two men. The big man standing in the doorway, looking pure hate at her, kicked both rifles out of the house and onto the walk. He then spit chewing tobacco in her direction. Amanda didn’t care.

  The HUMVEE started up and Amanda knew she would have to stop aiming at the two long enough to get into the truck. She could kill both of them right now, but she wasn’t prepared to take a life. Instead she shot the two guns on the sidewalk. She hit both of them and throwing bits of concrete at the man still in the door. It was a bit of payback for his spitting. “Go inside and close the door. If I see your face again, I’ll put one or two rounds in it just to watch it splatter.”

  The big man spat again, but still closed the door. As soon as it was closed she fired a round high into the door frame which should make the men hesitate long enough for her and Shep to get away.

  She was throwing the 30-30 to Shep even as she was jumping into the driver’s seat. She had the truck in drive and pulling out of the driveway even before her door was closed all the way. She knew the men might come after the two, but maybe they wouldn’t after being shot. She hoped the damage she’d done to their weapons had disabled them as well. Thinking back, once they’d closed the door to the house, she probably should have grabbed them.

  Amanda was as scared as she’d ever been in her life. They were on the highway to the United States again when she heard at least one bullet impact on the back of the HUMVEE. Someone had shot at them, but checking her rear view mirror, she didn’t see anyone following. She drove as fast as she dared and Shep didn’t utter a sound as she swerved around other cars on the road. She was a mile from the house when she finally slowed to a safer speed. Her heart was still beating hard but there was at least a half mile behind her without anyone following her.

  She looked over at Shep and the man was pale. She looked down at where he’d been shot. There was a puddle of blood. Amanda looked in her rear view mirror one more time then looked for a place to pull over. There was an industrial complex and she pulled in, being as careful to not raise dust or leave easy to follow tracks. She pulled the HUMVEE behind some buildings and turned it off so she could hear if anyone was approaching. She then jumped out and ran to his side of the HUMVEE. She opened his door and blood ran down onto the tennis shoes she was still wearing. Shep fell over on her and she caught him as he fell out of the truck.

  She helped him to the ground and reached for anything in the truck she could that would stop the bleeding from Shep’s leg. She tried to remember everything she’d learned about first aid and she got the tourniquet on and tightened in less than 30 seconds. Shep’s eyes fluttered and he opened his eyes for the last time. He was whispering something and Amanda had to lean down to hear him. “Thanks for helping me, sergeant. Sorry I couldn’t help you more,” he whispered.

  He closed his eyes and breathed two breaths. When he opened them again he whispered “Momma.”

  Then there was a stuttering breath from him and he expired.

  Amanda held him and cried.

  Chapter 6


  Jerry had been up for hours to milk the cows and feed the chickens and hogs, regular chores that needed to be finished no matter what day it was.

  This morning, if it were like the past few Sunday mornings, would begin slowly as some slept later than usual.

  Eddie was scheduled to help him, but Jerry had told him the previous night that he could sleep in. Eddie had liberated some Jim Beam and would probably be nursing a hangover this morning.

  It was just himself doing the chores and he had finished an hour ago so he was walking the farm, just reveling in the peace this morning was bringing him.

  About 9 a.m. the younger children would come out of their motorhomes and begin playing on the soccer field, or riding bikes or playing kickball or some other sport they’d make up. Some adults would come out for the church service; others might do laundry or watch a movie, read, play video games or whatever they did to relax.

  Jerry loved Sunday mornings.

  Walking back to the living area, Kellie was sitting at the picnic table with Monica, Dr. Kayla, the deJesuses, Tia and Buff, the former Army wife who had become close friends with the Marine astronaut. They were drinking coffee and watching the twins, Tara and Sara, with John and Hannah, and Marissa, Josh’s daughter, face off in a soccer game against Jamal, Cindy, the 17-year-old refugee, and Rusty.

  They played without a lot of noise because there were still many people sleeping.

  Josh and Katie had baby Adam bundled up for the cool morning and were heading for the picnic table as well. Everyone else was either still sleeping or busy in their homes.

  It was a quiet morning even with the kids kicking the ball and Boomer running around and getting in everyone’s way.