Hell Released (Hell Happened Book 3) (14 page)

“Uh, no sir. I don’t know anything about them. Do you?”

“I’ve set up a few. Let’s go get some tools,” he said getting up from his desk.

It took two hours of trial and error and process of elimination, but Russ and Myles eventually got the generator set up, fueled and hooked into the power for the building. Doing houses, like the previous afternoon was one thing, but a 60 kw into a building was a different level of electrical work. Lisa returned from the commissary with some food. She told him a lot of the food could be salvaged because the store was as cold as outside at night. The days hadn’t been so warm that there was much spoilage.

Russ gave Sgt. Bare the privilege of starting the generator after it was fueled and the oil checked. Russ checked over the wiring with one of the civilians who knew a little bit about electrical wiring in houses. They couldn’t find any faults in the work.

The generator needed a jump start from one of the HUMVEEs, but once it started, the lights came on in the armory, just like it had in the houses.

A cheer went up.

It took a little time to find the furnaces and get them working again. They were still being fed fuel through the gas lines. Russ knew that wouldn’t last long, but for his first morning as commander, he didn’t think they’d done too poorly.

He called a meeting for noon and asked for everyone to be in the conference room. They’d have lunch together and talk about what projects they should give priority.

Russ and Lisa went to his office to discuss what she thought he could reasonably expect from the people with whom she’d worked through the morning. She’d taken an office across the hall from him and when she entered the room, the computer was on and all the lights in the ceiling appeared to be working. Russ hadn’t been so lucky. Three of his lights didn’t work and when his computer was powered on, it refused to boot past the post screen. Russ didn’t know much about computers, so that was something else he was going to have to get someone else to work on.

Lisa had also acquired herself her own transportation so she wouldn’t have to depend on Russ to get around. She had left her car at the accounting center on the other side of the base. She had no emotional attachment to the car she’d left over there, but she had formed one with the 2013 GMC Denali she found in the parking lot of the hospital behind the commissary. The keys had been left in the ignition and she’d found it when they were looking for an open door to the building.

Russ’ office also had a small refrigerator in the corner and when he opened it, he found it filled with water bottles. Lisa asked him if it was still working and he told her it was. She went to her truck and brought in some lunch meat and bread from the commissary, along with some pears and peaches that still looked to be edible.

“Most of the bread was showing signs of mold, but there was a rack in back that must have been the most recent delivery before the store closed. We ought to eat it as soon as possible,” she told him and she began preparing sandwiches for them.

All 14 people were in the conference room at noon. They’d left the head of the table for Russ and a seat next to him for Lisa. Capt. Eldred took the other end of the table with Sgt. Bare to his left. Everybody had brought something to eat and drink.

There was small talk through the meal. But the moral seemed better than earlier this morning. Maybe it was the warm conference room or the fact that they had electricity, Russ didn’t know, but it was good to see a few smiles around the table, even if the smiles were on faces that had seen the horrors of the end of the world.

When everyone had finished eating he stood up and walked over to the large dry erase board on the wall. He’d already checked and found a pen that would work. He started writing on the board.

“Here’s what I think we need to get done over the next week or so,” he told them. He wrote the numeral one on the board and circled it. “Power,” he said and wrote it on the board. “We need to get one of the generators Capt. Eldred found and hook it up for the commissary. Lisa said there’s a lot of food over there that hasn’t spoiled yet and we need to save as much of it as we can. We also need power to run our houses. Right now we’re using six small ones to run six houses, but with the generators we have, we can run two dozen houses on just one. That saves fuel and maintenance time.

“Soon we’re going to not be getting gas for our stoves and furnaces from the gas lines, so we’re going to have to bring in propane tanks. We should be able to find plenty of them and keep them filled for several years, which should be enough time to set up an alternative source for heating and cooking.

“Two,” he said, writing it on the board and circling it. “Water. Water is life and right now we’re getting water from a tower, but that’s going to run out eventually. We need to power the filtration system and pumps to fill the tower so we have running water, or we need to sink our own wells. I know very little about the process. Hopefully one of us here knows something about it more or we find someone who does.”

One of the civilians raised his hand and Russ pointed to him. “I worked with a well driller when I was in high school. If we can find the equipment, I think I could drill you some holes.”

“Thank you, sir. As a matter of fact, we’ll be discussing all our skills in a few minutes. Right now, I want to give all of you and idea of what we’re looking at for the future.

“Third is a septic system,” he said as he wrote on the board. “Like everything else this takes power, but it’s also probably the easiest to overcome. All the houses and buildings already have the piping, we’ll probably just reroute it to some far away basin or septic tank. We don’t have many people here now, but I think we can safely say there are more people than us alive. I don’t think the 14 of us can do much damage to the earth by burning and burying our garbage.” That brought nods from everyone.

“That brings me to number four, security. If there were two mutants, there’s probably more. If there were six thugs shooting every thing, there will be more. Lisa also said there were some who had a woman chained to the hood of their car and that means lawlessness. Now it’s up to you what type of government you’ll want, but right now, you have selected me as your leader. I’ve been a soldier for more than 30 years and I believe the United States, for all its faults, was the best country in the world. We had bad laws and bad politicians and bad business people and racists and bigots and everything else that was wrong, but we also had a constitution I swore to defend. I think we should continue with that tradition, which means we have human and individual rights and someone is going to have to protect them.

“That means weapons and, as difficult as this is to say, somewhere to hold prisoners or punish someone. We don’t know yet what kind of person is still out there, but we can’t believe we’ll find good people like us all the time. Where there are good people, there are also those who will want what good people have and try to take it. We have to be prepared for this eventuality.

He wrote the number “5” and beside it the word “Food.”

“I don’t think I need to say much more about this. We can salvage what we can, collect all the non-perishables we can and store everything we can. The reason this is down so far on the list is because right now, we can salvage enough non-perishables for a year or so.

“Eventually, however, we’re going to have to be able to grow and raise our own food. We might as well start now.”

Russ wrote the number six on the board. “Medicine. We need someone who can fix our boo-boos, stitch our cuts, set our bones or perform surgery if someone’s appendix goes bad. We have a fully stocked hospital down the road, we need someone who can work there and keep us healthy.”

On the second white board, Russ wrote the number seven twice as big as he’d written all the others and circled it four times. Beside it he wrote “MORE PEOPLE.”

“This one is self-explanatory. Fourteen people are not enough to start a sustainable community. We might last a few years, but within a generation, two at the outside, problems will crop up we can’t even imagine now. There are 14 of us here and we were all in this area when all the death happened.

“Indianapolis had a population of more than 800,000 people so there might be a lot more people alive in the area. If we can bring them into our community, we can increase our chances of making a community that will survive.”

“Why?” said one of the men sitting in the middle of the table. He was wearing a one-piece jump suit with the name “Fred” sewn on the left breast pocket. His hands, calloused and dirty, were clasped in front of him on the table. He looked like he hadn’t shaved in a few weeks, or showered in at least a few days.

“Why?” Russ asked him. “Why what?”

“Why try to rebuild civilization? It was the government that killed everyone with their killer virus. But some of us are too strong or too stupid to die. Why rebuild everything just to have the government kill us again?”

Eldred spoke up before Russ could say anything. “You’re out of line, Fred. If you don’t like it here you can leave at any time and good riddance to you.”

Russ held up his hand. “No, captain, you’re wrong. Fred isn’t out of line in saying what he did and he posed an excellent point.”

“Fred, can I call you Fred?” Fred nodded to the colonel. “Fred, I don’t know what caused the great death. It could have been our government. It might have been a foreign government. Hell, for all I know it a mad scientist working in his basement who created the virus that killed everyone.

“But what’s done is done. Everyone in the room lost someone very close to them. I lost my wife and son. We’re all alone in this world right now, but at least we’re all alone together. Yesterday morning I was all alone and didn’t know anyone had survived, but today I know there are 13 other people still breathing and hoping for a better tomorrow.

“If you want to work with us and join in our community to build a better life than what we had yesterday, every person here will appreciate whatever it is you can contribute. But if you want to go out on your own and live your life your way, no one here is going to stop you. We want you to stay and be a valuable part of our community, have a voice in how it’s run, but if you don’t want to stay, no one is going to force you.”

Russ put the cap back on the pen and stuck it to a piece of Velcro on the board.

Fred Burrell, former oil changing professional and minimum wage earner, had never been told he had value. It made him feel like he was important, which is exactly what Russ had intended.

“Well, to be honest, I don’t think it was our government who did it because the president died, but whoever did it, if we find out, I want to be in on their ass kicking,” Fred told everyone.

Everyone around the table laughed with Fred and Russ. A tense situation had been calmed by Russ’ leadership, the first of many. Russ sat back down in his chair so they could discuss the details of what he’d written on the board. He could feel Lisa’s foot touch his in appreciation for a job well done.

“Okay, Fred, if we ever have a prison system, I’ll suggest you as its first warden.”

Fred smiled, showing teeth stained from the use of chewing tobacco, but also a man who would help with the upcoming work.

The group spent the next two hours discussing the talents of the people who were sitting around the table. Russ had some electrical and plumbing experience, more than anyone else so he put himself in charge of providing electricity, water and a working septic system.

Lisa had been an Army wife and the administrative assistant for her husband’s tax business that he ran on the side. She was also good with computer software and she excused herself from the room for a few minutes. She came back with a laptop she found in a satchel that had been in the SUV she had found. She opened it, happy to find it hadn’t been password protected, and opened up an Excel and a Word file and started making notes. She typed faster than Russ wrote.

She would be the group’s knowledgebase and scheduler.

One of the younger men, Todd, had been attending the community college for computers and said he could set up a network in the Armory so all the computers could talk to each other. With a little extra work, he could get all the computers in the houses to work as well. He couldn’t bring back the internet, but he could get all the computers talking to each other and he could set up a server and backup so they could start gathering and storing information.

Capt. Eldred would be in charge of transportation and fuel. He was the former commander of a transportation company and knew the vehicles forward and backward. In the civilian world he worked in advertising, so those talents weren’t a big need, but his experience with transportation would be an asset.

Fred volunteered to be Eldred’s assistant and the captain hesitated for a moment until Fred told him that he’d changed the oil on more than 5000 cars and trucks and knew his way around and engine block.

The Marine Lance Corporal, Douglas Angelopoulos, was the most knowledgeable about small arms and had finished the Law Enforcement Military Police (MP) Course at the United States Army Military Police School. He’d finished the course, but had no experience in the field. Russ has extensive training in military law, but didn’t have the time to wear two hats.

By default, the Greece-born U.S. Marine became the “Deputy Doug” because Angelopoulos was too difficult to say and remember for most of them. He would be responsible for all the weapons they found and to settle fights and arguments that got out of hand.