Hell happened (Book 2): Hell Revisited

by Terry Stenzelbarton

  * * *

  Keith Bennett, a radio man at the military compound located at Ft. Knox, was on the radio much earlier than his usual call time. His story brought back memories they’d put behind them months ago.

  Unlike the Saunders’s Farm, the Smith Compound was run like a military installation. There were more than 100 people on the base that was led by a former battalion executive officer.

  Lt. Colonel Smith ran the base under his interpretation of martial law. Keith had told Tony of summary executions and strict adherence to following orders of those in charge. They’d all sympathized with Keith, but there was nothing they could do for him, even though they tried to keep his spirits up by letting him know if they found a way to rescue him, they would.

  His story this morning, however, involved an old nemesis and interested Jerry, Randy, Kellie and Danny with an intensity that roiled their guts.

  The way Keith had heard the story, two men had stumbled into the compound’s sentries and been captured. They told stories of an encampment of 25 or 30 men east of Birmingham who were capturing anyone they could find. The men were killed or used as zombie bait while the women were used for breeding stock. The captured men told horrific stories of crucifixions and murder, burning at the stake and other tortures straight out of the dark ages.

  Jerry surmised the men were two of the half-dozen brigands who had escaped with their lives after attacking his farm three weeks earlier.

  “That’s not the worst of it,” Keith said over the short wave. “There’s a woman who has been put in charge of the colonel’s peacekeeping unit. She showed up about six months ago and said she was a captain assigned to Redstone Arsenal in Huntsville. She said she was company commander for some tech unit. The colonel talked to her for hours then assigned her to the peacekeeping unit as executive officer. A month later she was in charge of it and still is. Everyone is afraid of her because she kills like it doesn’t bother her.”

  Everyone listening at the farm knew who the woman was. They’d hoped that they’d never hear from her again, but should have guessed, like a bad penny, she’d return.

  Even as they were hoping she’d been captured by some other vigilantes, they somehow suspected the woman would have found a way to survive.

  “Here’s the kicker guys,” Keith said over the radio. “Scuttlebutt has it she is going to mount a rescue of the women there because we only have 11 here. The colonel thinks, because he was told by these new men, that you have 20 or 30 or more women there being held hostage.”

  A cold shiver ran down Jerry’s back. Cheryl was going to lie through her teeth to mount a mission to come here and destroy us. She probably thought we were done and that Kellie, Danny and Randy were dead, but the brigands who got away probably told the most embellished story they could think of to explain how we defeated them.

  Jerry knew that she would be back with heavy weapons and military backing.

  “Do you know when, Keith?” asked Jerry.

  “Not yet, but I think soon because there’s word we are moving the camp to Indiana in the summer. We have heard there’s a military presence with a full bird in charge at the old Ft. Benjamin Harrison.

  They say they have a thriving community going with people from all over the tri-state area. They have farms going and everything. We’ve got nothing but shit here and hardly any food and the colonel wants to move all of us there.”

  “Let us know if you hear anything, friend,” Tony told him, and then signed off.

  Jerry looked at the men in the room. Eddie, Cleve, Buff, Tony and a very angry looking Randy all looked at him.

  Eddie broke the silence. “Shit’s getting real. Let’s get ready.”

  Jerry nodded solemnly.

  * * *

  After escaping from the Saunders’ farm, Cheryl wove a story of honor and duty, self-sacrifice and quick thinking on her part to Lt. Colonel Pendleton Smith. The colonel listened and questioned and listened some more.

  Cheryl’s story included fights with zombies and vigilantes, death and imprisonment and escape. She told about how everyone in her unit that had been on temporary duty at Redstone Arsenal, died while she stayed at her post as long as she could; told stories of how zombies had taken over, killing so many of others of those left alive.

  She told her story just as she’d rehearsed it in her head during her entire trek to Ft. Knox. Randy had told her that Tony had made contact with a military base there and with her military background she believed they would accept her. She’d never been stationed at Redstone, but had done an article on the base when she was working at the public affairs office at Ft. Benning.

  She remembered enough to make her story plausible.

  As a woman, she would have been welcomed anyhow.

  As a former Army officer, the colonel welcomed her aboard after just two hours and assigned her quarters. Food was mostly military rations and whatever animals the peacekeepers could shoot. There were no real farms or gardens like on the Saunders’ farm so fresh fruits and vegetables were limited.

  The towns near Ft. Knox had been burned after the tornadoes that had done so much damage, to rid the area of zombies without thinking ahead of the stores which had canned goods that could be used.

  It had been a harsh winter for the area too, and farming hadn’t gotten a good start. They had plenty of purified water, regular houses to live in, but a failing septic system, cars for use by senior personnel only, but because of the rarity of gas, were seldom used. The base had Abrams tanks and Bradley Fighting Vehicles everywhere, and Stryker vehicles that were being used for defense. The vehicles were only started if there was an attack, which they’d had six in the past nine months, because of the scarcity of diesel fuel.

  The commander of the Smith Compound might have been a good military officer, but he wasn’t good at running a community. His focus was on defense of the property and the safety of the 11 women and 93 men on his base. He didn’t spend enough effort making the community survivable. He leaned too much on the stores on the base and the heavy equipment, big guns of the tanks and Bradleys. He had a military mind set, like he was waiting for relief or instructions from higher headquarters.

  Smith assigned Cheryl, now referred to as Capt. Paxton, to Captain DenHarTog’s peacekeeping unit. The captain was one of the few who had an unshared wife and was envied for it by many of the men on the compound.

  DenHarTog did his best to keep the peace. To Cheryl, he was an honest man who worked hard and tried to take good care of the 15 men in the peacekeeping unit. The peacekeepers were responsible for the equipment, guard duty, and making sure fights over women didn’t get out of hand.

  If strangers were captured, they were interrogated to determine if they were vigilantes or just refugees from the bigger cities along the east coast. Vigilantes were executed.

  Capt. DenHarTog was a former active duty officer before the fall. He was assigned to a military police detachment at Fort Campbell, KY. When the country fell, he was on temporary duty at Ft. Knox and submitted to the colonel’s authority when the senior officer began setting up the camp.

  One of the first women in the camp became his wife. He was lucky because she was only one of 11 on the base. The colonel had one, as did a few of the senior NCOs on the security force. The other women were in plural marriages of a sort.

  DenHarTog saw Cheryl as just another peacekeeper and assigned her to patrols and guard duty even though she was his executive officer. She had more supervisory duties, but also had to man guard stations, break up fights, deal with prisoners and execute violators. The captain had only a few men to protect a lot of area and everyone in the unit had to pull duty. Cheryl hated it.

  Even DenHarTog pulled guard duty as well as his command responsibilities. He believed everyone had a responsibility to do the boring jobs and the fun jobs, regardless of rank.

  The house she was assigned, next to Smith’s, was a lot nicer than the barn in which she was held captive for almost two weeks, but she had to
fend off the men who wanted to have sex with her, some more insistent than others.

  Four of the men on the peacekeeping were more aggressive in their suggestions and she shut them down, one with a knee to his groin and another with a knife. She wasn’t punished. They had neither the prestige nor the power to get her what she was after. There were 93 men in the camp and only one had what she wanted and that was Col. Smith and it would take some real effort to wrest it from him. Her sex appeal wasn’t going to work on him because his wife was a very pretty 26-year-old New Hampshire woman.

  Smith had his camp set up as platoons of men. Each was responsible for a set of missions the colonel gave them. Cheryl’s platoon worked in peacekeeping. The others in maintenance, engineering, communications, procurement and supply, weapons, medical, P.O.L. (petroleum, oil, and lubricants), engineers or part of his command platoon. Smith was a strict leader and merciless against anyone who stepped out of line.

  Cheryl knew a week after being here it was a mistake to come. There were too many men loyal to the colonel, and the ones who weren’t, were the dregs and not worth her time.

  Now she spent her time devising a plan to leave the compound, something that would not be as easy as just walking away. The perimeter was closely guarded and anyone leaving had to have a pass signed by the colonel or be part of a scavenging party.

  She also would need transportation, food and weapons. DenHarTog kept her on a short leash, not trusting her and knowing how someone like her could use men to do her bidding. He told her as much and warned her to act like an officer.

  Cheryl knew that, even at 28-years-old, she was still pretty. She had smooth features, a slender, athletic body and light olive skin. Her eyes were dark brown and a man could get his soul stolen from a sultry look.

  She was also intelligent and fearless and not afraid to murder. She’d done it before and would do it again without a qualm.

  DenHarTog came up missing for first formation one day. His body was never found despite an extensive search by Cheryl and the peacekeeping detachment. Smith railed against everyone who was on duty that night and handed down punishments. Cheryl expected as much and took the criticism and discipline from Smith without complaint.

  After 48 hours of searching by every member of the platoon who wasn’t on duty, the Colonel called her into his office and told her his suspicions. “I think someone killed him for his wife. Find out who did it,” he told her.

  Smith never suspected it was she who had slit the Captain’s throat as he returned from his morning run.

  Cheryl had watched DenHartog for weeks and his pattern almost never changed. The morning she killed him it was raining, something she’d waited for because DenHarTog ran even in the rain. She put on her camouflaged rain slicker and hid in a spot where no one would see her or the murder.

  DenHarTog finished his run, in the same place he always did and was walking the last quarter mile to his quarters. He had his hands on his hips as he walked. He tipped his head skyward, eyes closed letting rain fall into his open mouth when Cheryl came up from behind and slit his throat.

  It happened fast. Cheryl used a razor sharp knife. Blood gurgled out of his mouth and he took four or five more steps, reaching up to stop the blood flow in vain, before he fell to the ground. The blood washed down the drain, just as Cheryl had hoped it would. His lifeless eyes stared up at her.

  She dragged the body to where there were 55-gallon drums that had been emptied and stacked up. It took her two minutes to get the body in one and the top sealed. She was back in her quarters 20 minutes after she left.

  From her quarters she could see when Col. Smith left for his office and she made sure she was in a clean, dry uniform when she met him on the sidewalk to walk with him, just like they had often done.

  When given the order to find out what happened to the captain, Cheryl saluted the camp commander, did an about face and left his office without betraying any inkling that she had been the one responsible or that the colonel had just given her a way to advance her plan of taking over and putting the murder behind her.

  It took a few days, but she found someone, an NCO about the right age, to take the fall. He was a man without a wife, a friend of DenHarTog’s, but who was also loyal to the colonel. She made a show of “investigating” many of the soldiers, but she already knew the NCO was going down for the murder of DenHarTog.

  It was almost too easy. She met with the sergeant near one of the security bunkers after dark and just before shift change. He had a side arm and an M-16 rifle and she had just the 9mm.

  They were near a bunker, but out of sight of anyone. She pulled her 9mm and shot him in the heart before he could comprehend what was happening. She grabbed his gun and fired it in the air and put it in his hands before “help” could arrive.

  The story she told was that while she was questioning him, he got suspicious and pulled his gun to shoot her, but missed when she ducked, at which point she pulled hers and shot him in the heart.

  The next day, the captain’s body was found and the bloody knife one of the soldier’s found in the NCO’s gear was all the proof the commander needed to put the matter to rest.

  Her street cred grew as her death count increased by two, the sergeant and the captain of the peacekeeping force.

  The colonel put her in charge of the security platoon the next morning and for Cheryl, things were looking up. She was one step closer to being in charge of this compound.

  Chapter 8

  The two newest adult women to the farm, Karen and Natalie and the Florida man, Tim, did morning milking and farming chores while plans were hashed out in the shelter. The three were living together in the spare motorhome that had been acquired for their use and were still finding ways they could contribute to the farm.

  The warning from Keith at the Smith Compound galvanized the Saunders Farm into taking extreme action to protect the farm. Jerry looked to Cleve, Buff and Tia for guidance at breakfast the following morning. Kellie and her assistant LT were there, so were Eddie, Randy, Monica, Nick and Tony.

  Cleve cut right to the heart of it. “We need to get to the depot as soon as we can. We need to replace the SWAT truck which we can’t fix and acquire get some military-grade weapons.”

  “We can’t get anything we won’t know how to use safely,” Jerry warned. “It wouldn’t do to have some big-assed gun only to have it break our arm when we try to shoot it.”

  “That’s a good point. I am a Marine, but I was educated to be an astronaut and scientist. I wouldn’t even think of trying to play with howitzers or tanks. I can set up defensive positions, lay land mines, call in air strikes and do reconnaissance, but I can’t plan a battle.”

  “No land mines,” Jerry said emphatically. “I don’t want some innocent kid being blown to hell five years from now because we forget to disarm one.” Hannah was pouring fresh coffee for everyone and she looked at Jerry. She was becoming quite the little executive assistant and Jerry had told her so, but she was also hearing the grisly details someone so young shouldn’t have had to be exposed to.

  “I think we should wait, at least until we get back from the depot, before making any more detailed plans. For all we know the place is destroyed or been scavenged completely empty.

  “I think the sooner we get on the road this morning, the sooner we can start figuring out what we can and can’t do.”

  Kellie spoke up for the first time during the meeting. “Something we might want to consider is finding some way to make contact with the Indiana group. Keith said there was a ‘full bird’ there?” Cleve told her a “full bird” was a colonel and would outrank the lieutenant colonel. “Maybe if the colonel has a growing community, he’s not some despot and can tell the Smith Compound who they have on their hands.”

  “That’s not a bad idea,” Tony said. “Next time I talk with Keith I’ll see what frequencies they’re on and at what time and try to make some kind of contact.”

  “Can’t hurt,” Jerry agreed.


  “Do we have time to make a secret tunnel?” asked Hannah, who had sat down next to Kellie with her coffee cup filled with chocolate milk. “Every castle has a secret tunnel.”

  Everyone looked at her and Hannah was afraid she’d said something stupid. She had a look of apprehension written all over her face. “That’s not a bad idea, Hannah,” Eddie said and the little girl’s face lit up. “What do you think, Jerry? Do we have time to make an escape tunnel for the shelter?”

  “Maybe not a tunnel, but we might be able to come up with something as an alternate escape route that Cheryl won’t suspect. I’ll give it some thought. Good thinking LT.” Jerry said. The little girl beamed and sipped from her cup.

  “Eddie, why don’t you and Cleve ride with me, Buff and Tia ride with Randy. Nick, since you’re the welding expert, can you start on fixing the gate? Josh will be here all day to help you.” Nick nodded.

  “Danny’s going to dig up the bodies and re-bury them somewhere a long way away from here.

  “Everyone else already knows their jobs and if they don’t Kellie an LT can find something for them.” He winked at both of them.

  * * *

  Amanda pulled off the interstate, following the signs to a rest area. The sun had set, but there was still enough daylight to see by. The lot was empty. She assumed most everyone in this area had gone to their homes before the great death. She saw one semi truck parked in the rest area and a body leaning against the driver’s window, but there were no other cars around.

  After finishing with the rest area, she went in search of some food. She was starting to run low.

  She drove through the parking lots, but most of the businesses were specialty stores or restaurants, neither of which would help her. She did come across a mini-mart that looked to have been closed up with some forethought. There were weeds that had overgrown around the perimeter and in the parking lot, but the building still looked in good shape and Chopper wasn’t growling.