Hell Released (Hell Happened Book 3) (22 page)

Early in the afternoon the sub got as far north as Cache Slough before the depth under the keel began getting too shallow. Garrick thought if he could find a place to park and tie up, this would be where everyone would leave the sub. He had Vasquez guide the sub up the canal east of the slough.

The sub bottomed very gently in silt and Garrick ordered the engines shut down. He called engineering and told them this was as far as the submarine was going, but they were still going to need power.

He went on deck and looked across at the land. It had been flooded by the tsunami that had given them such a ride days ago, but there was a patch of dry land big enough for everyone to get ashore.

He ordered food packs and medical kits to be taken ashore and the sub was abandoned. Garrick was the last one out and made sure the reactor was in safe mode and hatches were closed and locked with chains and padlocks he’d found in maintenance. He didn’t think the sub would ever return to sea or that he’d return, but just in case, he slipped the keys into his pocket.

Garrick took a head count and he had 146 people including himself and Marissa on dry land following the plague, earthquake and tsunami. As he worked his way the 20 feet shore in the raft, Garrick wondered what was in store for them. He didn’t know why these 146 people had survived when billions did not and no matter how he phrased the question, he couldn’t formulate an answer.

It was what it was and they were where they were because this is where life had brought them.

“What do we do now?” people were asking him and Garrick didn’t know. He was a medical officer aboard a sub and didn’t know what they should do, but they were looking to him for answers. Marissa, who had been going among the people, came up to his side.

“Captain, I think we need to go inland and see if we can find some shelter for the night,” she suggested. “It looks like we have a few hours of daylight left and the odor from the lake is making me sick.

Garrick and Marissa took the lead and headed inland. They walked along the edges of the fields, staying to the high ground and out of the fields which were soggy from water. They saw dead animals and humans in the fields and tried not to think about them.

After nearly and hour of walking they saw a two-lane road and it made walking easier. They came to a farm that had been damaged by the quake and later by the water from the tsunami. There was nothing left standing except the foundations and some steel.

They continued their trek inland until they came to a river. On the other side, they saw parts of a town with a few buildings that were not totally destroyed.

The flood had receded but the water was still flowing near its banks. They walked down stream and found a bridge that was still standing across the river. It was a sturdy bridge, but had lost most of its deck and railings. It was all they had to cross the river and one by one everyone crossed.

As a group, they walked back north and entered the town. Garrick figured about 90 percent of the structures were destroyed, but one of the sailors called to him. Near a school they found six school buses still on their wheels, protected by a fallen wall of the school and four other buses that had piled up against a pole. They’d obviously been under some water, but not totally submerged.

Three of the buses started and everyone climbed on board. It was crowded, but they now had transportation and a place of relative safety for the night.

In the lead bus, Garrick told the driver to head east in hopes of finding Interstate 5, which would take the group to Sacramento.

It took an hour to drive the broken road, but they reached the highway shortly after dark. They passed through several other improved areas that had been wrecked beyond safe habitation.

When they reached the highway, they parked for the night. People needed to get out and take care of personal business, get some food and stretch their muscles. They felt they made good progress.

With everyone settling for the night, finding any place comfortable to sleep, Garrick and Marissa, who had been on different buses got a chance to sit and talk. They were discussing plans on what to do to find food and more permanent shelter when they saw headlights in the distance.

The vehicle was driving slowly in their direction. Several of the people who were armed took up defensive position. The oncoming vehicle parked a hundred feet away from where the three buses were on the highway. Two people got out of the front of the vehicle; both had what looked to be pistols in their hands.

Garrick had no weapon but knew at least two people did and were hiding.

Garrick and Marissa separated themselves from the survivors and walked toward the two people. The lights of the truck were in their eyes. The two people at the truck walked forward.

The driver of the truck, a big man with a deep voice, looked over to the other person who stayed near the door of the truck. Garrick could tell he was wearing a light denim jacket and sporting a rather angry looking smile. “Tell me your God done did this,” said the man who had gotten out of the driver’s door and was pointing at Garrick.

¤ ¤ ¤ ¤

Col. Hammond wished Capt. Eldred a pleasant night and returned his executive officer’s salute. The younger man walked on to his own house. The captain had asked what Russ was going to do with the prisoners and Russ told him that he honestly didn’t know.

He walked to his own house and sat down on the top step of the porch. Lisa must have seen him because she brought out two bowls of ice cream, chocolate with chocolate syrup. She handed him one. He was more of a vanilla with cherry syrup, but he thanked the woman with whom he shared his new home.

They sat in silence. The only sound was the tinkling of the spoons against the side of the glass bowls. They could hear muted voices and music coming from the other houses.

When they were both finished, Lisa took Russ’ bowl, stacked it in hers and sat them down beside her. She clasped her hands in front of her and propped her elbows onto her knees and put her chin on her hands.

“My husband, rest his soul, was a fine man and I miss him everyday. All I could think about today when those men showed up was I was going to be seeing him again soon,” she said, looking off into the distance. “I’ll never let myself become that woman who I saw chained to the hood of the truck I saw.”

Russ could see the woman was shaking. He didn’t know what to say to comfort her. He put his arm around her shoulder and let her talk without interrupting.

“Those men are terrible people. They killed and tortured and made everyone here feel less safe because they’re alive. They’re worthless and are going to be nothing but trouble to us for as long as they’re alive,” she said. “If I’d had a gun, I think I could have killed them.

“Now we have them locked up and someone is going to have to feed and water them and do their laundry and take care of them and watch them. That means we have fewer people to make a working community.

“They’re going to hate being locked up and they’ll be abusive to whoever is watching over them because they are just rotten people. You could see it in their manner.” Lisa and Russ watched the night sky and saw a few shooting stars and listened as the music was turned off at the neighbor’s house.

“What’re you going to do with them, Russ?” she asked finally.

“Honestly, Lisa, I do not know,” he admitted. “Legally, because the last order of the president was martial law, I could stand them up against the wall and shoot them. It’d end the discussion and they’d no longer be a problem.”

“But who here could do that?” her asked. “I don’t think I could shoot a man in the head when the man was defenseless and tied up. It just isn’t in my personality. Maybe Deputy Doug could do it, but remember when he had a shot at the one guy, he instead shot the gun to remove the threat, and not the man.”

“‘Vengeance is mine, saith the Lord,’ or something like that,” he said. “I’m a God-fearing man even if I’m not religious and don’t buy into most of that stuff. The only time I went to church was when my wife dragged me on Easter and Christmas. But I can’t think of anything more precious now than a human life. If we take their life from them, there is no recourse. They lose their life forever and they don’t get a second chance. Death is the end of this life and killing them is an end to our troubles, but it is the end of them forever.”

“All it takes for evil to succeed is for good men to do nothing,” Lisa paraphrased, reminding Russ of the opposite side of the death penalty argument. “When we allow them to kill, and we know they did, and get away with it, they have taken the life of some innocent who survived the plague. What gives them the right to take someone’s life and then allow them to breathe and eat and sleep while someone is dead forever?”

“But we don’t know for sure. You saw a truck with a body strapped to the hood, but you don’t know if they personally killed the woman or the other two people they had with them. You and I both know they probably did it, and when they crashed our barbecue, they threatened us and we knew what they were going to do, but we stopped them.

“They probably are guilty of any number of crimes and the United States we are trying to restart has laws,” Russ said to Lisa, but mostly thinking out loud for her benefit. He was trying to get his thoughts in straight.

“And the last law was martial law, from the last authority to give it, the president.” Lisa countered. “And that gives you, as the highest ranking military man we know about, the right to try and convict people like those two…those…criminals.”

“You’re right, of course, as far as that goes. It means we’re assuming the United States is still a union. We would have to believe I am still in the Army, even if I was retired, I am technically still on inactive ready reserve, and I am in command of a military unit and not just a man with a rank,” Russ reminded her.

“I think our choices are simple and we should keep them simple while we decide what we should,” said boiling down their options to three. “We can kill them and be done with it. We can keep them in those cells for the rest of their lives. We can send them away and order them to never return under the punishment of immediate death.

“But whatever we do, we must do it with a trial. A trial as legal as we can make it.”

Somewhere on the base they could hear animals fighting. It was a ferocious fight which sounded like dogs and something else.

“Tomorrow morning when we have our meeting, I’ll listen to what everyone has to say about the kind of community with which they want to be a part, but right now, I think we should go inside before we get another fight at our door.”

“You’re a smooth talking man, Russ,” Lisa said, a wry smile at the corner of her mouth. Russ knew it was her way that wasn’t really flirting, but innocent teasing.

The only lights she’d left on were in the kitchen. Russ started the water in the sink to wash the dirty dishes, two ice cream bowls and spoons, a cup from the tea she was drinking while he and the captain were restraining the prisoners for the night and the coffee mug he carried with him most of the day.

He washed and she dried the dishes. Neither of them spoke. They were lost in their own thoughts.

With dishes done, there were no chores left for them for the night. Lisa walked into the living room and was running her fingers over books. She must have finished the one from the previous night.

Russ sat down at the laptop Todd had installed late in the day. It was one of dozens he’d found in a room in the armory, still in the box. He opened the cover and waited as it booted. At the login screen, he typed in his name as the password Todd had given him.

The desktop was a simple dark blue screen, but Todd had installed open source programs from a thumb drive he had taken to carrying around. Russ double clicked the word processor and opened a new document. In his years of military service he’d written thousands of reports and the habit came back with ease.

He detailed the two days he’d been in command of this “unit.”

Lisa found a book and ran her hand across his shoulder as she headed upstairs to bed. “A lot to get done tomorrow. Don’t stay up too late,” she said as she headed up the steps. In Russ’ mind he could see the woman doing that same thing to her husband a month ago. He stopped typing and thought about how his wife would have waited for him to join her before going up to bed.

He finished his writing. Saved the document with a password and stored it on the server Todd had installed in the armory. He’d make a point of journaling each day he could. He wanted to chronicle his decisions for the people of the next generation, if there would be one, so they would understand what he was thinking as he developed and built a community from who was left in the world.

He closed the laptop’s cover and turned off the lights. Going upstairs to his room, Lisa’s door was cracked open. Russ didn’t mean to look, but his glance saw Lisa in her bed, sitting up, pillow behind her back and reading. She’d let her hair down and in the bass relief of the light off to her side creating shadows, in the brief half second of what he saw, he noticed she was a very attractive woman.

In his room, getting ready for bed, he reminded himself he was a 62-year-old man who was easily 10 to 15 years older than her. Her innocent flirtations were just that – innocent flirtation to keep the seriousness and tension of their situation from becoming overwhelming.

Russ climbed into bed and turned off the light on his nightstand. The digital clock / radio clicked over to 11 p.m. on the nose. Russ reached over and turned on the radio. He rotated the dial, listening for anything other than static. The silence of the full range, both on the AM and FM bands saddened him.