Hell Released (Hell Happened Book 3) (30 page)

Another attack was against Capt. Eldred and his team when they were salvaging some heavy equipment from a dealership just off the base proper. Pvt. Lucien was killed when he went for his rifle that he’d sat down and in the ensuing firefight, three bandits were killed.

It was difficult for the community, and all mourned the loss, but it was the world they lived in and everyone became more vigilant.

Jennie and her crew of 36 had a thriving farm going. She admitted she was doing a lot of guess work on seeds she put in the ground, food rations for the cattle and other livestock, but from what Russ could see on the dinner tables, people had plenty of fresh vegetables. The database on the servers Todd put together was helping Jennie and her team.

Jennie was also husbanding 42 milk cows, four dozen beef cattle, 60 or so pigs, chickens, turkeys, ducks, and nine horses for riding. They were contained within a former high school campus and a nearby farm. It saved time on building fences.

Apples, cherries, grapes and other fruit were gathered by foragers, not out of need yet, but because people liked fresh fruit better than canned goods.

Capt. Eldred’s fuel team found a 35,000-gallon reservoir tank nearly full of diesel fuel. He had two men whose main duty was to seek out and keep the reservoir filled.

The community was a cooperative in the most basic sense. Everyone was fed and housed and warmed through the talents and abilities of those who had them. There was a veterinarian who was the doctor for the community, and he had four trainees because of his advanced age, who were learning the basics. Zach was teaching music classes to kids, Capt. Eldred taught vehicle maintenance, Todd had seven other kids learning computers, Sgt. Bare on other electronics and two new members of the community had more electricity and plumbing experience than Russ, so he stepped back into full-time administration.

He found two people in the community with enough education to begin a small school for the 22 children between the ages of six and 16 years old. The school year would run from January thru May, with a month break for vacation, then July and August would be spent apprenticing with someone experienced in some field, and finish the school year from September to December.

There were four houses of worship for the community, a non-denominational church, a Catholic church, a Jewish Temple and a Mosque for the two Muslims in the community. People attended or didn’t and no one was forced or judged by which one they chose to attend. Seventh Day Adventists prayed in the same church as the Baptists and Jehovah’s Witnesses, the Episcopalians and Lutherans in the same church as the Catholics.

With only 300 people struggling to rebuild the world, people were praying out of faith rather than religion. Some even believed the Rapture had already come and taken the souls and left the bodies.

Russ didn’t know who was right, if anyone was right or if all the believers were wrong. Russ believed that God was God and life was life. He didn’t have answers and never would. He went to at least one service in all four churches just for the sake of equality, didn’t proclaim a preference, just to show he would respect all religions as long as it didn’t infringe on the rights of someone else.

He also believed God was in each one of the churches, and every soul in the community.

Russ and Lisa, the former Army wife who’d been at his side, off whom he bounced ideas and his thoughts, through the building of the community, deferred to him on the particulars of martial law, and backed all his decisions publicly, but in the privacy of the home they shared they had long conversations about the reality of living today. They were creating something of a utopia that religious leaders, political leaders and fanatics had been trying to create for hundreds of years.

“Years from now,” Russ said to Lisa as they reached the far end of their walk, “people are going to look back on what we’re doing here today. I hope they think we did well.”

Lisa, holding Russ’ hand, leaned her head on his arm. “Russ, we’ve all lived through the end of the world as we knew it. We all lost loved ones, friends, family, parents, children...all those we loved and counted on and built our lives around.

“Now there’s 302 of us living in this base,” she waved her other hand at the 400-plus houses that were guarded by newly erected 14-foot high chain-link fences with high-intensity lights pointed outward and motion activated. “We have room for another five or six hundred people if they come. We are warm. We are as safe as Deputy Doug can make us. We all have food to eat, clean water to drink, showers and barbecues.”

Hearing him grunt acknowledgment, she continued with what she saw as important to the community. “We have our own world series with seven softball teams, a Wimbledon among 14 tennis players including us, the Superbowl for our five flag football teams, a U.S. Open Golf tournament, soccer teams, 3-on-3 basketball teams and there is talk of hockey and ski team, sledding groups and other winter sports and poker games in a dozen houses every Friday night...most of them strip poker. Next year, there’s talk of starting up auto racing on a track if enough fuel can be found.”

She paused as they turned and headed back to their home. “You made sure these people had a chance to start over, to start something new, with the best of what made the United States great. They can worship how they please, assemble, listen to whatever music they can find, talk to you about their problems. That’s the first amendment right there.

“We’ve now been a community for more than six months and everyone over the age of 15 has a real weapon, so that’s the second amendment.

“The other top 10 hardly mean anything now, but they will as we grow as a community. You’re starting with what you have and from what I hear, no one is complaining about your leadership. You just keep being the guy you are and I think a hundred years from now, when the teachers in first grade talk about George Washington, Patrick Henry and John Hancock, they’ll also mention Col. Russ Hammond.”

Both of them laughed at the thought.

Things had been going well and Russ didn’t know why he was feeling a foreboding. It could have been the weather changing so quickly this year. It felt colder than usual for this early in the fall. Winter was coming and the community was already preparing, but without the civil servants they’d all grown used to, they were going to have to make sure they could survive for the next five months of cold, ice, snow and the usual colds and flues. Winter was a different season than the other three and much harder on everyone.

Lisa was talking about Connie, the file clerk who was her best friend and how she was pregnant. Connie would be giving birth to the first child to be born of the survivors and there were all sorts of gossip surrounding the pregnancy. Russ avoided it, but Lisa had to hear about it because she spent a lot of her time with the civilians.

Connie was living with Robert, a heavy equipment operator who was instrumental in clearing a clear field of fire area outside the fence that surrounded to community. He was also the new golf course attendant. It took him about a week to figure out how to use all of the mowers correctly, but he was able to keep a playable golf course open. This endeared Robert to a lot of people and he was paid with fresh brownies more times than Connie cared to think about from the women who played. The men who played golf made sure anything Robert needed from fuel to a light bulb was found and fixed without delay.

Robert was a nice guy about 10 years older than Connie and the two seemed to make a good couple. What worried everyone was that the child could be born, only to die when it started breathing air on its own. No one knew if any child born would survive.

Russ had heard it already so was only half listening. He was watching the patrol truck that was circling the base. It had stopped and the man on the passenger side had gotten out of the truck with a pair of large binoculars. He looked to the north through the glasses then said something to the driver. The driver got out and looked through his pair of binoculars. Russ wondered what had got their attention and started walking quicker back to his home.

He was pretty sure it wasn’t the mutant zombies, because the men weren’t going for the spot lights or the heavy machine gun. Instead it was light enough that they’d seen something and weren’t sure what it was.

During the day, Russ always carried his radio in case someone wanted him. On his evening walks, he wanted it to be just him and Lisa. The only other times he was without contact, was either on the golf course or the tennis court.

Lisa seemed to have noticed that Russ had tuned her out and looked up to see what had drawn his attention. The men in the Army truck were climbing back inside and headed back to base in a hurry. Russ thought it was unusual enough for him to hurry back and find out what it was.

He and Lisa had just reached their home when the siren began blaring. Capt. Eldred and his housemate Lt. Deardra “DeeDee” Beck were already in the street waiting for the HUMVEE to pick him up. DeeDee was one of the two regular Navy survivors from the Recruit Training Command at Great Lakes IL, where she had been an instructor. She’d lost her husband, her parents, three older sisters and a younger brother to the plague. Like others, she heard the radio broadcast and came to Ft. Benjamin Harrison. Her and Myles became friends and lived together.

Myles was filling Russ in even as Russ was still catching his breath. DeeDee went with Lisa into the colonel’s house to get the keys for Russ’ truck. Lisa knew whatever was going on, Russ would want to be there to oversee.

“A big-assed fire, Colonel,” Myles was telling him. “The patrol truck said they could see the smoke and flames on the other side of 63rd street. They said it might be coming our way,” he told him.

Others were coming out of their homes now. “Get on the radio, captain. Let’s get all our firefighters to the fire station.”

Lisa came back with the keys to Russ’ truck and his web gear, which included his radio. Channels one and two were reserved for military use only, but he could already hear chatter when he turned it on.

Eldred left with the Army truck, and Russ, Lisa and DeeDee were climbing into his truck. Lisa would drive so Russ could use binoculars and the radio. “Clear this channel except for official business,” he said and the talking stopped. After a brief pause, he heard the captain calling all the volunteer firefighters to the fire station which was on the other side of the medical clinic.

Over the summer, the fire station had been cleared and made ready to use in an emergency, but the volunteers had been trained to fight house fires, not forest fires. Fourteen men and women showed up at the station within minutes of Russ and Lisa. Capt. Eldred had the station open and the first of the fire trucks were already moving onto the street.

“Army truck,” he said into the radio, “who is on duty tonight?”

“This is Hilario, Russ,” he heard a young Puerto Rican say. “It’s me and one of the new guys.” Hilario was one of the original settlers of the community and wasn’t technically in the Army, but still pulled patrol once every 10 days. It was the kind of man he was.

“Excellent. Pull ahead on the road and wait for the trucks to get manned. Once all the trucks get lined up, lead us to the fire.”

“Roger,” he said. “Better get them to hurry because that sucker is huge.”

The station had been augmented by nine tanker trucks. No one was an experienced firefighter, so Russ went with the idea that if a structure was on fire, flooding it with water was the answer. The trucks were rolling out even as Russ was giving instructions. “Go, Hilario, go!” he said over the radio.

The Army truck lead the way and 10 fire tankers followed north on Lee Rd. to 63rd St. Russ followed the line of trucks and for some reason, he wondered why every man driving turned on their sirens. Russ looked at Lisa who was beside him. “There are no other people on the road, no one is living within 100 miles outside our community and still men will turn on the sirens.” Lisa smiled. How could she argue? Men would always be boys.

There was a jog in the road where 63rd St. crossed Fountain Springs, but Russ doubted any of the drivers slowed down. Picking up his radio he told the trucks to add some extra distance between them and the truck in front of them. If one of the trucks lost control, he didn’t want to lose three our four or more because of one careless driver. They acted like they were driving on a Formula 1 track and cut the corners to make the straightest line possible and took the jog at better than 60 miles per hour.

No sooner had he said it than the seventh truck in line cut the second half of the jog too close at the Winona Rd. intersection where 63rd St. went from being a wide three-lane road to a narrow two-lane. The driver had been cutting too far to the right and didn’t see the road width change quickly enough. The driver over-corrected and then saw he was headed for a pair of telephone poles. He jerked the wheel, but even with both feet on the brakes, slammed into a tree in a yard.

The trucks following him were already slowing and Russ picked up the radio microphone. “Keep going to the fire. We’ll take care of this.

“Captain Eldred. Deploy the firefighters as you see fit and we’ll catch up soon.”

Russ heard the captain acknowledge as he was climbing out of the truck. Lisa and DeeDee were out as well. The lights from Russ’ truck showed the tanker had hit hard and the front of the vehicle had wrapped around the large Maple tree. Russ went to the passenger door that was closer while the two women went around the other side. Lisa was on her radio calling for the doctor and anyone who had gone to the fire station as a reserve. She wanted someone to bring the ambulance.