Hell Released (Hell Happened Book 3) (37 page)

Todd’s video game tournaments were almost as popular as Sgt. Bare’s self-defense classes. It had started as her and a few other women working out in the armory gym, but as the winds grew colder, and winter longer, more people started coming to the classes, if for no other reason than to just break up the monotony of the day.

The gym could only hold 50 people for the work outs and more than 100 people were taking part, so Erica broke the people into a beginner / kids group and a more advanced group. As she taught, she learned to keep ahead of her class’ accomplishments. By the time warm spring winds began melting snow, Bare and a dozen other soldiers had studied and practiced Special Forces techniques, Navy Seal training and Urban Infiltration and felt they could, if called upon, perform the tasks of an elite military unit.

Different people were finding different ways to cope with the harsh winter. Fred’s fun was building snowmen and shooting them. After the first time he did it, he scared the bejeezus out of nearly everyone and Russ made him do it outside the housing encampment with the other people who were into shooting helpless snowmen.

Not everyone worked on improving themselves. Four men and one woman drank themselves to death over the winter, one woman hung herself and a man shot himself in his depression.

The radio station was popular through the winter with people creating their own “specialty shows” which aired in the afternoon and were voted on for popularity. Lisa and Russ, as leaders of the community had an entry that did well, but both knew they were getting a lot of “friend” votes.

The ham radio antenna was damaged in the ice storm and it took until late March before a new antenna could be erected. When contact was finally re-established with the outside world, Keith from the Smith Camp near Ft. Knox wove a tale to Russ about how things had gone from bad to worse.

He told about how Lt. Col. Smith, the commander of the base, had burned the surrounding towns to keep the “zombies” at bay. Storms pushed through late in the year which destroyed crops in the field and the winter had hit them hard as well.

Keith said living in the Smith Camp was bleak, but survivable and gave Russ the frequencies for trying to contact the Saunders Compound in Alabama, Ft. Carson in Colorado and a couple of others the man in Kentucky had reached on his equipment.

Russ also had several conversations over the ham radio with Lt. Col. Pendelton Smith. He didn’t like the man’s personality or his command style, but he was in no position to do anything about it. He was more concerned with flooding of the quickly melting snow, getting the farm prepared for planting, getting a working hospital going and building on the other projects discussed over the winter.

Russ wasn’t so shortsighted or proud as to cut off all contact between the two communities. The more people they could locate, the better the genetic pool for long-term growth of humanity and there’d be a wider supply of skills and knowledge.

During one conversation, Lisa was listening in. Russ had asked her along to get her opinion and when Russ was explaining how Ft. Ben Harrison’s community protected themselves from zombie attacks. The lieutenant colonel all but told Russ he should mind his own business and that he would run his camp and Russ could run his the way he wanted to.

“That man is a menace to those people,” Lisa told him. “You can hear it in his voice he needs to be in total control.”

“Yea, I think so too,” Russ admitted. “But really, there isn’t much we can do about it. They’re 175 miles south of here and got their own problems. We can let them know we can take their people, but I don’t think the Smith wants to give up his authority.”

“No, from the sounds of it, he sounds like a lot of the people my husband worked for,” she said. They’d long passed the time when either felt jealousy when the other spoke of their late spouse. “He sounds like he is trying to control his people instead of leading them.”

“Well, we can’t help them from here, but maybe there’s a way we can let his people chose if they want to stay where they are or migrate here.”

Lisa rubbed Russ’ shoulders lovingly as Russ pulled on the goatee he was growing. “I think Capt. Eldred, Sgt. Bare and Lt. Jimenez need to be in on this. Maybe we need to think about mounting a real military operation.”

It didn’t happen overnight. Winter still spit out a few more weeks of biting cold and Russ’ priorities were his community as opposed to Lt. Col. Smith’s, but the mission to Ft. Knox was something he concerned himself with.

Once a week, so as not to arouse suspicion in the community, the four most senior military people stayed late at the armory, ostensibly to discuss the mutant issue and better protecting the community. Only the four, and Lisa and Erica’s squad knew what was really going on behind the closed doors.

The secrecy was not because Russ didn’t trust the community’s people, although some of them were rather shifty, it was to keep too many people from trying to get involved. This was a military operation against another military installation and Lisa was all the civilian oversight he wanted.

When spring finally came in earnest, people in the community were finally getting a real dose of reality. The previous year, tools, toys, food and equipment they needed could be found with relative ease. Now, almost a year after the end of the world as they knew it came to an end, buildings were collapsed, animals had invaded, fires had ripped through entire blocks, and now the earth was taking back what had once been civilization.

There were no public works departments to clear roads, mow the tall grass or clean up fallen tree limbs. The community around where they had survived the winter was still in pretty good shape, but houses had to be repaired and finding matching shingles for the roof wasn’t always an option, repairing a broken window became more than running to the hardware store and people were learning that survival was work.

They had food, less of it fresh anymore, but enough to make it through the summer. Farm animals were still being rounded up and they had plenty of fresh meat, which everyone appreciated. As the spring progressed more fences were erected to keep the 100-plus head of cattle corralled, the dozen horses that’d been rescued, a large pen of pigs, chickens by the score and others the community had found.

Children as young as 15 were learning to use the farm equipment to turn ground for the garden Jennie had planned, while others were transplanting apple, peach and plum trees nearer to the community.

On the first day nice enough for a barbecue, nearly everyone was in the streets, meeting the spring weather with defiance after surviving some of the worst winter weather anyone had ever experienced.

Lisa suggested naming the community something special, in recognition of the starting point and a radio contest was held. Names like “New Eden” “Utopia” and “New Home” were offered, but it was the name “Great Lakes Protectorate” that took the balloting by more than 30 votes. It seemed the people no longer wanted to live within borders defined on a map, and calling their new home a protectorate made people believe they were protecting all who came to live there, whether they were from the former United States, Canada, Mexico or any other place on the earth.

Russ was pleased when the sign was painted and put at the entrance to the housing area. Lisa Schaeffer was listed as “Mayor” and she rolled her eyes when she saw it. “Pfft. I was never elected,” she told Russ. “I was just sleeping with the senior Army guy.”

Through the spring, Russ did less and less managing as the community seemed to find its equilibrium. Several people stepped up as advisers in different areas of building a more self-sustaining community so Russ was able to focus instead on his projects and left running the community to others. While still nominally in charge under martial law, civilian government was making a comeback.

One of Russ’ pet projects was getting in touch with other communities in the United States besides Lt. Col. Smith in Kentucky. In the early summer, he was finally able to contact Fort Carson and Maj. Gen. Angela Parker. Her community was even larger than his, with more than 350 people living under the protection of the 1st Mid-American Army.

He spoke with her about once a week after that via ham radio to discuss mutual defense and how each had settled different issues from food to energy, housing and refugees.

Twice during the summer, his communications people made contact with a farm in Alabama. The farm had a dozen or so people living in a hole in the ground and several motor homes. Asked if they wanted to be rescued, the young man on the radio told a fanciful tale about saving astronauts, surviving a double hurricane and saving damsels in distress. 

When Russ heard Zach tell him about his conversation with Tony from the Saunders farm, he believed whoever had survived down south had also suffered a little bit of reality slippage, so they didn’t try to hard to keep in contact with the farm in Alabama.

That was until they heard from Jerry Saunders.

Zach called Russ one evening as he and Lisa were setting down to supper with some of the team leaders. He said Jerry was on the radio and wanted to speak with the senior military man. Russ almost told him to call Capt. Eldred and let him handle it, but Eldred and his new wife DeeDee were honeymooning for three more days.

He looked at Lisa and said maybe it was something important and she nodded. He kissed her on the forehead as he left.

At the radio station, Zach had the headphones and microphone ready for the colonel.

Half and hour later, Russ was sure he was going to meet Jerry Saunders and his friends one day, and shake all of their hands. Russ knew the people in his community had been through hell, but when hell happened in the deep south, they did it right. Jerry told the colonel about how Cheryl had been part of the murder of Mike, the attempted murder of his Jerry’s son and two others in the shelter, how she escaped and returned with platoon of men and weapons in an attempt to take over the farm and kill Jerry.

Jerry said a man named Keith had been killed at Smith’s camp when he warned Jerry’s farm of the impending attack, and spoke of the two friends who had been killed when the seven heavily armed HUMVEEs attacked the farm.

Russ’ understanding was the lieutenant colonel had authorized a military strike against a civilian target.

He promised Mr. Saunders two things before losing contact on the short wave. One was that he’d send a bus and some soldiers down to Alabama to take the prisoners off their hands and that he’d relieve Lt. Col. Smith of his command.

When he was relating to Lisa later that night about what Jerry had told him Russ said “What kind of person who calls himself an officer in the United States Army would send a platoon of heavily-armed soldiers against a civilian farm? He had his communications officer killed for sure and two people on the farm were killed along with four of the soldiers.”

“But Smith won’t willingly let go of his base, Russ,” Lisa told him. “And do we really have the right to take it from him?”

He liked that she said “we” and not “you.” She wanted him to know she was behind him on whatever decision he made.

“I believe I can take his command from him. If he is unfit for command, then he has no right calling himself a commander of a military garrison. I am going to call him and ask him to come up here to explain what happened. If he refuses, we’ll go get him. We’re still in America and I still out rank him.”

“Good. As long as we have the right to do it, I’d like nothing better than to have the guy in front of us when he tries to explain how he could allow armed soldiers to attack peaceful American survivors,” Lisa said.

“Not so peaceful, I think. They found military equipment, including an Apache helicopter and six Strykers to defend themselves. They surprised their attackers and won the day.

“Now I think I have to have a conversation with Lt. Col. Smith.”

As expected, the Smith told Russ that the operation was classified and suggested the colonel should mind his own community’s business. Even when Russ told him he was sending a bus to Alabama to bring the prisoners back to Ft. Ben Harrison for a military trial, Smith told Hammond the soldiers were under his command and he would deal with them as he saw fit.

Russ knew the time for talk was over. During his 30-year Army enlistment, he’d filled half a dozen positions beside that of commander of a civil affairs detachment. He’d been a company commander of a cavalry troop, instructor at officer’s candidate school, assistant battalion commander and positions as a division staff officer.

But Russ started his military career as a platoon leader in an infantry company. He’d never been in combat even though he served during both Gulf Wars, and he knew how to attack an entrenched position. 

He asked Capt. Eldred to join him at the armory even though it was getting late in the afternoon and Eldred was still supposedly on his honeymoon. When the young captain arrived, Col. Hammond explained his thoughts to his XO.  He could see the young captain was ready to take on the mission, but Hammond knew Myles was not ready for such an assignment of relieving an officer of his command...especially when that officer had tanks at his disposal.

Myles was a good staff officer, not a combat soldier. 

Myles would plan and execute the pick up of the prisoners from the Saunders farm. He and his team would be driving past Louisville, KY, to get to the Alabama farm at an appointed time. There was little chance a three-vehicle convoy, especially a noisy one, would go un-noticed, but that was what Hammond wanted.