Hell Released (Hell Happened Book 3) (6 page)

“Good thinking, Russ. How long were you in the Army?” she asked.

“I retired after 30 years a little more than a year ago,” he told her.

“And you didn’t make general?”

“No, I could never make general because I had a few black marks on my record. But I retired as a full colonel and that was pretty good for a kid from Osseo Michigan.”

“Is that where you’re from, Michgan?”

“I was born there. I went to college at Hillsdale Community College before joining the Army. My parents passed away quite a few years ago and my sister died of breast cancer in the mid-90s.”

“I’m sorry,” Lisa said to him. He could tell it wasn’t just a reactionary “I’m sorry” but a real one.

“I haven’t been back there since my parents died.”

They put his clubs in the truck and decided to walk along the buildings in the direction in which they’d heard the gun shots. They talked quietly while walking.

“I’m originally from Nebraska,” she told him. “I met my husband there during college and I dropped out my senior year to follow him out to Ft. Irwin, then Korea then everywhere else he got stationed. I loved that man so much.

“We could never have kids of our own, but when we could, we’d borrow my nieces and nephews and keep them around the house for a week or two.

“We had a really good life, Russ, and I don’t know why I’m telling you all this but I miss that man so much it hurts.”

Russ stopped. He didn’t know why she was being so open with someone she just met either. He looked at her. The eyes which had been so happy not 10 minutes earlier were now filled with pain.

“I’m sorry too, Lisa. I also loved my wife and son very much. I think sometimes it might have been easier to have died when she did, but I didn’t. I’m still here. I don’t know why but I am.

“I guess I just want to see what comes next.”

“Well, I’ll tag along with you if you don’t mind.”

“Not at all, Lisa. Do you play tennis?”

“Yes, I do. I’m pretty good at it too for an old broad,” she told him. “How do you think I keep this trim figure?” she said, slapping her bottom.

They walked along a series of buildings, stopping at the building with the “Police” sign in front. Inside the building, Russ found an AR15 rifle and some magazines. Since it was similar to Lisa’s rifle he chose it and a Glock 9mm pistol. He filled the clips and put them in a vest he found in the changing room.

He felt better armed. Lisa told him that her husband Steve had taught her to shoot the M16 and she was pretty good with it. She also told him she hadn’t chambered a round when she approached him. She said she knew in her gut he wasn’t dangerous.

Before they left the department, both of them chambered rounds and put the safety on their weapons. “Now remember, we are just looking, not trying to start any trouble.”

“Yes, sir. I’m following your lead.”

He smiled at her and led them out the north door of the building. The two worked their way along side the structure, continuing along the tree line eastward, where they guessed the gun shots had come from.

They worked their way past the old DINFOS building before they heard voices. They squatted down near the southwest corner of the building and listened. There was one man directing several other people on the clearing of a residential building complex. He was talking into a walkie-talkie unit and had an M4 rifle across his back. There were three HUMVEES parked in a line.

Russ and Lisa watched the man with the walkie-talkie work.

“He’s sounds like a screamer,” Russ observed to Lisa quietly. “I can’t tell his rank, but I know a screamer when I hear one.”

They listened for a few minutes. The people inside must not have found what the guy in charge was looking for. “All right,” the man called on the walkie-talkie. “Get your asses back out here, but keep your eyes open.”

The man by the HUMVEES tossed his walkie-talkie through the window of the Army truck. He was clearly disgusted. Russ and Lisa watched from their concealment. Eventually 11 people came out of the building, six men and five women. All were carrying weapons of one sort or another. A couple of them had Army uniforms on, but most were in civilian clothes like Russ and Lisa.

The leader of the group in the building walked up to the guy who’d been giving instructions while the other 10 walked over to the other vehicles and pulled out bottles of water and lit up cigarettes.

Russ looked at Lisa. “So what do you think?”

Lisa sat down behind the building. “Well, it looks like the one guy is in charge and the other is his lieutenant. The others are probably not all military people. They don’t act like it. Maybe they’re just hanging out together for mutual protection?” she offered.

“I think you’re right. I think they’re survivors just like us. They’re armed, but they’re clean and look like they’ve been eating okay. The men are mostly clean shaven and the women don’t look like they’re being held captive or abused. I think they’re more a loose group of people who have gravitated toward the military officer.”

Lisa seemed to agree with his assessment. “So, you want to contact them?” she asked.

“I don’t think it can hurt, but that screamer looks to be high strung. Remember he said ‘keep your eyes open?’ I think they were looking for someone or some thing. Maybe it was those thugs you saw or the mutants. Whatever it was, we need to be very careful.”

Lisa looked a little frightened, but so far Russ had made solid decisions without being reckless. “Okay, how about you show yourself first and I’ll cover you, just in case,” she suggested.

“Good idea. I won’t call you out until I am certain as I can things are safe.”

Russ put Lisa in a good prone supported position and told her which people to shoot first if things went awry. He wasn’t sure she could do it, but she said she would. He looked around the corner and through the bushes one more time. The two in charge seemed to be discussing something important and pointing at different buildings. The other 10 people were still milling around or sitting on the ground leaning against the trucks.

“Ready?” he asked Lisa quietly. She nodded, adding, “I got your back, Russ.”

Russ checked his weapon to make sure the clip was seated and a round chambered. He kept the safety on, but held the grip so he could flick it off in an instant.

He then stood up and backed away from Lisa, backtracking a hundred feet and crossing over into a parking lot adjoining the building to the east. He wanted to make sure the people he was going to contact saw him coming from anywhere except from where Lisa was hiding.

There were a few cars in the parking lot and no one saw him until he called out.

“Hello!” he called to the group by the trucks. “Friend or foe?”

The leader of the group was the only one who pulled up a weapon. The others waved and hollered. They seemed actually happy to see Russ. Two of the men and one of the women started walking over to Russ when the screamer told them to hold up. Screamer warned them against being too trusting and told Russ to come closer so they could get a better look at him.

Russ was careful, keeping his weapon pointed at the ground and keeping his left hand in the air. “I am not looking to hurt any one. I heard gun shots and came to investigate.”

“State your name and intentions, sir” Screamer said loudly.

“Col. Russell Hammond, sir. United States Army. And my intentions are peaceful,” he said, leaving out the fact that he was retired. Sometimes too much information wasn’t the best policy.

Screamer lowered his weapon and the other people hiding behind the trucks started coming around the vehicles. “I used to be stationed here and I was on the golf course when I heard the shots. I thought I’d come to investigate.”

Screamer decided the older man seemed uninterested in attacking the superior force so slung his weapon over his shoulder. Russ took this as an invitation to come closer.

Screamer, Russ saw, was wearing captain’s bars. He looked to be about 25 years old and carrying a little extra weight around his middle. He was cherub in the face, but not a fat person. He had a close-cropped military haircut, but the colonel didn’t recognize the unit patch.

“Captain Myles Eldred, commander of the 1438th Transportation Company, Indiana National Guard,” the man said with a sharp salute.

Russ returned the salute and slung his own weapon.

“What do you have going on here, captain?” Russ asked.

“We killed two zombies just now, sir,” he said pointing his weapon at the building his people had just exited. “That was the shooting you heard. Now we’re clearing the building to make sure there is no more hiding inside.”

“Zombies, captain?”

“Yes sir. So far they’ve killed four of our people already that we know of. They’re not really zombies, but a difference that makes no difference is no difference.”

“You’ve lost me captain. What the hell are ‘zombies?’” Lisa had said something about them to him, but he wanted to hear another observation.

It was one of the women who spoke up, the person who had been in charge of the group in the building. “They’re freaking mutants, sir. They’re mean and ugly and vicious. They’re hard to kill and faster’n hell.”

“And you are?” Russ asked her.

“Sgt. Erica Bare, sir, 438th Signal Company,” the young woman said without hesitation. The colonel looked over the young sergeant who stepped forward. She couldn’t have been more than 23 years old. The uniform she wore looked almost too large for her rail slender frame, but she looked smart in it. Her dark hair was folded neatly under her cap but it was her piercing ice blue eyes which made Sgt. Bare’s face most memorable. Those eyes had seen death and reflected what they’d seen. Col. Hammond didn’t think someone so young should have had to experience such horrors, but she carried her M4 rifle with confidence. He could tell by the way she spoke and her body language, she’d earned the sergeant stripes on her uniform and he was glad she was on his side.

“Yes, I have heard about the mutants, but haven’t seen any myself. I wasn’t sure if they were just a nightmare someone made up or were really something to be aware of.”

Capt. Eldred reasserted his authority. “Sgt. Bare was the one who said she saw some of them in this area early this morning. We know they don’t come out in the daytime so we went hunting for them. We found a bloody path and that led us to the two just inside the doors here.”

The conversation went along those lines for a while, with the captain filling Russ in on his plans and ideas for clearing the base eventually. Russ listened and learned about long-term plans for the dozen people. The captain had been so focused on clearing out the zombies, he hadn’t thought about long-term survival.

Russ found out the group was living in base housing and living day to day with the food they could get from the commissary and post exchange. No real long-term plans were in place for feeding people beyond what they could salvage today. There were also no plans for finding other people who may have survived and how they might be vetted to live within the group.

The questions Russ asked made the captain feel uncomfortable. Russ could see the captain was feeling like he was being criticized and he didn’t want to alienate the young officer so threw the man a bone.

“Captain, it seems you have things well in hand and are doing a very good job. If you’d like, I will offer my expertise to your group. I have been in the Army for more than 30 years and served as the commander of a civil affairs unit. I can help you organize a community and prepare for long-term self-sustainable survival.”

“With all due respect, colonel,” the captain said, feeling flushed with pride at the complement from the senior officer, “you should really be the one in charge. I’m in way over my head and in civilian life, I’m in advertising and don’t know much about running a community. If you want the command, I’ll gladly step aside.”

Of all things Russ had pictured happening, becoming the leader of a community was furthest from his thoughts. Just an hour ago he was playing golf and now there were 12 people looking to him for leadership. Counting Lisa, who was still lying besides the building waiting for Russ to signal her when it was safe, it was 13 others.

Russ had never been someone to shirk responsibility and while he didn’t feel obligated, he felt these people needed solid leadership.

Russ ran his fingers through his hair. That was the signal for Lisa that it was as safe for her to come out. “I have a friend who will be coming up behind me. She’s a dark-haired woman with an M16.”

Sgt. Bare saw her first and waved her over. When she was at Russ’ side she looked over the faces of the people milling about. All of them were younger than her and Russ. “I’m Lisa Schaeffer. How y’all doing?” she asked pleasantly, as if the end of the world hadn’t crushed all of their dreams and hopes.

Introductions were made all around. The conversation told Russ that Capt. Eldred and Sgt. Bare were two of the five here who were former military. There were also an Army specialist and a private and one Marine lance corporal. The other six were civilians between the age of 16 and 28. They had banded together out of safety. The Marine had lost two of his friends off base to the zombies and Bare had lost one. She only survived by driving over the beast that had killed and was eating her friend.