Hell Released (Hell Happened Book 3) (26 page)

The generator was still running at just above idle when they pulled into the parking lot. Eldred and Doug both had M4 rifles with full magazines. They locked and loaded their weapons before going inside. Russ had his Python loaded, but he left it in the holster.

Entering the building, Russ smelled something out of the ordinary. He pulled the Python out of its holster and looked at the other two men with him. Both nodded, smelling the same sick smell of copper and sweat.

Russ turned on the light switch to the foyer and the hallways. All three men walked slowly toward the cells. They had their fingers on the triggers and safeties off. They weren’t taking any chances. The odd thing was there was silence when the lights were turned on. Russ had expected the prisoners to make some type of noise.

Just before turning the last corner, Doug put his hand on the colonel’s shoulder and held him up. Russ stopped and looked at Deputy Doug but Doug refused to look at him.

Instead, he pushed his way in front of the officer.

Looking around the corner with his rifle at the ready, the muzzle of the M4 dropped and Doug walked brazenly around the corner and down the hall where the prisoners had been.

The cell doors had been ripped from their frames and blood was splattered on the walls, ceiling and floors. There were small body parts in corners of the cells and all three men knew their prisoners would no longer be a problem.

Myles turned his head and threw up in the hall, unable to stomach the carnage. The young Marine, Doug, stood in a state of shock, barely moving but just staring at the horror. “Dear God in Heaven,” he whispered and crossed himself.

Russ had seen death before -- bombings, burnings, war zones and machete attacks -- but this was the worst destruction of a human body he’d ever seen. Blood was pooling in several different areas, as if the bodies had been torn apart. Small pieces left behind had tooth marks readily apparent. There were bone splinters, but mostly the entire body had been eaten or carried away.

Russ looked down the hall to the far end and the security door, steel and locked, had been no barrier to the beasts that had done this. The door had been pulled from the jamb.

Whatever it was that had wrenched the cell doors off had ripped into the men inside. Russ couldn’t tell if it had been one or two of the mutants, but he hoped it had been two of the hell-borne creatures. He hated to think of what the second prisoner would have been thinking while the first was being torn apart and eaten, only to see the creature look to him for its second meal.

“Come on guys, we need to get out of here and back home. We need to find a way to protect ourselves from these creatures because our houses are no way as secure as these cells were,” he said, putting his hand on Myles’ back and pulling Doug by the arm to hurry them along. Every one of those people who he was fast becoming to think of as a surrogate family was in mortal danger of the beasts.

“We’ve been damn lucky they haven’t come for us already.”

Chapter 4

C
J woke to a light that was coming from a portal in the wall of his room. It wasn’t a bright light and didn’t hurt his eyes, but it was a light he didn’t remember the night before. It took him several moments to orient himself on where he was.

When the realization hit him, he was both deeply saddened by being alive when so many others had died, but he was also surprised he was still alive and able to think and feel and hear and see.

CJ got out of bed and went over to the portal. He’d forgotten about the addition to the executive model of the Apocalypse Survival Shelter which allowed him a real outside view. The previous night, it had been dark and no light came through the portal, but now that the sun was up, he could see out.

The outer glass of the thick two-piece unit was dirty, but CJ could see the overcast outside. The sun was well above the mountains, but the amount of smoke and debris in the air and low-hanging clouds made it seem worse than the dreariest days he’d experienced in England while visiting Wimbledon.

“Hopefully the rain will wash the crap out of the air,” he said to himself. The only clothes he had were the clothes he’d been wearing for four or five days now. He’d lost track of the last time he’d changed them.

As he was dressing he realized how hungry and thirsty he was.

CJ could hear the generator outside, but just barely. He could hear his own breathing easier. Someone was already awake on the first level, but whoever it was, they were being quiet. CJ tied his still-damp shoes and opened the hatch which led down to the first level.

Jo was already awake and she too was wearing the clothes she had on the previous day. CJ realized the movies didn’t ever address the issue in their end-of-the-world scenarios – sometimes clothes stank and you had no choice but to wear them.

“Morning,” she said quietly. “Chloe and Ted are still sleeping, but I was hungry and couldn’t sleep.” She was rummaging through the six-month supply of MREs in the storage locker. “You want anything?”

CJ nodded and started going through some of the packages. He found a chicken meal that didn’t sound terrible and Jo found something that suited her and they sat at the fold down table to eat. The table dropped from the wall and three chairs unhinged. It was an ingenious space-saving design, but a little hard on the ass.

“These are some nice digs,” Jo said as she dug into her second package of food, “but we’re going to need something better than this for the long term.” CJ agreed with her but didn’t know what she expected him to do about it. So far, since the end of the world, the only thing he’d done was to not die. He hadn’t thought about anything more than the next few minutes.

The thought of having to think about “the long-term” made his stomach churn. Or maybe it was the fig bar in his meal.

He heard the hatch to Chloe’s room open and the girl come down. She stopped by Teddy’s bed to wake him gently. The little boy sat up and looked around. He dug the crust out of the corners of his eyes where it had built up from crying in his sleep, then grabbed the teen. She held him for a moment before encouraging him to get up and get some breakfast.

There were only three chairs at the table, but CJ was finished enough to stand so gave Ted the third chair.

CJ wasn’t ready to face the outside world, knowing the low-hanging clouds and cold rain outside would make him feel more miserable. When Jo finished breakfast, she was going for the door when CJ told her it was raining out right now and suggested they wait for a while. It was warm in the shelter and he wasn’t ready for the cold dreary weather.

Instead, the two went over the control panel for the survival shelter. CJ showed her how everything worked and how simple of a system it was. Two of the rockers on the panel were for the lighting on each level. There were also rockers for the electrical system’s heavier circuits for the refrigerator, water heater, air flow system and laundry. There were dials for electrical use, a digital read out for the charge on the lithium battery pack and a fuel gauges for the generator and heating unit. CJ showed her how he’d started up the shelter the previous night, then how to switch from battery to generator.

Chloe and Ted finished their breakfast and CJ was showing them where the first aid kits were located, how to test for clean water, how to test food for bacteria, and how to use the facilities. He checked the bathroom and the water storage indicator showed a full bladder, but not knowing when or if they might get more water kept them from showering this morning. The efficiency laundry would work for their clothes when they found some.

CJ told the three he was going to check the surveillance camera feed in his room to see if anyone else had braved the rain. All three wanted to see so followed him up the ladder way to his room.

On the upper level, CJ sat down at the desk and turned on the computer and monitor. Chloe looked out the portal and said all she could see was the overcast sky, while Jo made CJ’s bed. The young boy sat on the floor and played with a small stuffed animal he had with him.

With the computer running, CJ accessed the program which operated the six external cameras.

The first camera, which was on the back side of the shelter, above the door, showed the fields they’d walked through the day before. It had a zoom, infra-red and thermal imagery. It was also on a swivel and CJ panned back and forth on its 25-degree range.

CJ saw desolation. The salt water from the ocean was already turning the fields a dull gray/green with dead or dying plants. CJ remembered something from school about an invading general who salted the land to keep crops from growing on his enemy’s property.

Looking out, he wondered if anything would grow in this area again, and would the rains dilute the salt out of the land. He was no horticulturist, but he did take classes in botany and land management, courses that he could take and still have time to concentrate on his tennis.

The thought of his life before the fall brought his mood to the dreariness that matched the outside weather. Three months ago, he was living the life he had dreamed. He had all the necessities to make himself happy -- pretty women asking for his autograph, first-class passage on airplane flights, the best hotel rooms, six hours of tennis everyday and pleasant company every night.

He had several small sponsors which helped, and the bankroll of his parents. He was one of the lucky ones because he wasn’t one of the top 200 players in the world, but he was closing in before his injuries. He was able to jet set and make the right contacts to set him up for a future career in broadcasting. Many of his closest tennis friends who were still on their way up the ladder, had to take part time jobs, share hotel rooms with others to make it through.

Now, instead of tending offers for color commentary from ESPN, he was thinking about where his next meal is going to come from. Instead of choosing a restaurant, he was hoping to find food that wasn’t in a foil bag. Where he was handled by coaches and trainers and a publicist, he was now making all his decisions on his own.

The water that had flowed in this far, the rate of absorption, salinity and saturation levels would have to be checked to determine if cabbage, soybeans, corn or wheat could be planted. He had spent five years in college and despite what many people believed about his level of intelligence, he did pay attention in class, even if he hadn’t been interested. CJ knew each shelter had a complete database of how to survive after the fall of government, a major upheaval that lead to a breakdown of civil services, or an all out nuclear war.

Chloe was busy looking at the camera view out back of the shelter. She leaned over his shoulder, pretty as she was, he knew everyone could use a toothbrush now and her hair still had the smell of yesterday’s putrid water and decomposing dead animals. It was almost enough to make him wretch. He almost said something before he realized he probably smelled no better.

She was pointing at something in the far distance. CJ zoomed and it was an animal, the size of a large dog, it was hard to tell with the resolution of the camera, and it was running as fast as it could away from the shelter area. CJ tracked it with the camera until it ran out of the field of view.

“What else can we see?” she asked.

CJ opened the computer window for all six cameras to display at once.

Chloe gasped and CJ sat upright so fast, he pushed the girl back.

The camera which was positioned on the opposite door, the one that was generally pointed in the direction of the other survival shelters, showed one was being attacked by six of the most horrific creatures of human parodies. The mutants had deformed foreheads, huge eyes, and muscular limbs and were extremely quick.

To CJ they looked like a bad movie creation. They were tearing at the door handle, trying to break in to the people living inside. CJ hoped the door would hold.

One of the beasts had climbed onto the side of the shelter with a 12-foot standing leap and latched onto the miniscule finger hold around the exterior of the portal. It was peering through the glass. CJ watched as the beast broke through the exterior glass but it couldn’t puncture the interior glass. Its fist wouldn’t fit through the hole when it punched at the inner glass.

CJ stood up and raced for the hatch to the first level of his survival shelter. Jo must have thought the same thing at the same time and she was following him as fast as she could. As her head was clearing the hatch, she looked back to Chloe and told her to take Ted to her room and find some game to play on the computer. Chloe understood and nodded.

CJ raced to the front door while Jo took the back door. The door opened inward and had four steel bars that slid into steel recesses from a center point. The handle for the door, when closed, sat on a steel bar that was buried in the reinforced concrete and was locked from the inside with a second 3/4” round L-shaped spike that was placed over the closed handle and shoved in the wall.

CJ had closed the doors the previous night, but hadn’t locked them. He hadn’t even given it a thought. When he got to the door, the L-shaped spike was in and keeping the door locked from the inside. He knew he hadn’t done it and he looked at Jo.

“I am a trucker. We always make sure our doors are locked for the night. I came down and locked them when I checked on the others,” she said with a grim smile. “I hope the other shelters did the same.”

After checking each door twice, CJ and Jo went back up to his room to check the monitors. Chloe had come down out of CJ’s room with Ted and picked out some of the sweets in storage and two bottles of water. She took him up to her room to play games on her computer and Jo suggested she open the intercom and make sure the hatch door to her room was closed securely.

Back in CJ’s room, they could see the six beasts were still clambering around the shelter they had chosen to attack, trying desperately to break in. One of the beasts had found a large piece of steel and was beating against the wall of the shelter. Even through the insulation and the reinforced concrete, they could hear the banging of the steel against the exterior of the other shelter.

CJ didn’t know who was in the other shelter. He knew it wasn’t the professor because his shelter was off to the left of the one they occupied. He hoped those in the other shelters had found the surveillance system on the computers if they had them and didn’t come out to check on what the noise was.

Just as he thought it, camera three showed movement on the exterior handle of one of the other shelters. It was the one furthest from the other six and had been moved when the flooding had come through, but was still water tight for people to live in it for the night.

CJ screamed but knew his voice could not be heard.

A man opened the door and as one, all six creatures attacked the opening door. The creature that had been futility attacking the portal leaped across the open distance and was through the door before the man realized he was even being attacked.

CJ was glad he couldn’t hear what must be happening in the other shelter. All six of the creatures were inside in less than a couple of heartbeats. The five or six people who were in the shelter never stood a chance.

Jo whispered, “can they lock themselves in their rooms, maybe?” CJ shook his head. “There’s no lock on the hatches to the second level.” The two stood at the monitors and hoped no one else came out of their shelters.

“Can we lock them inside somehow?”

“I doubt it,” CJ told her, unable to stop watching the screen. CJ had enlarged camera three and put the others in the background. “The shelters are made to keep people out, not keep people inside from getting out.

“What’re we going to do? When they finish with them, they’ll just start back at the other shelters or someone from one of the other shelters will come out and they’ll all be killed.”

“I don’t know. We need some way to contact everyone and make sure they stay inside and keep their doors locked. I don’t think those creatures can break though the doors or the walls with the concrete bars.”

A bloody torso was thrown halfway through the door of the other shelter and quickly pulled back inside. The door slammed shut, but the lever that latched the door remained up so the door wasn’t locked, just closed.

Just when CJ didn’t think he could be shocked to any greater degree, he was shocked again.

A school bus had come from somewhere and crashed into the door of the shelter at an angle. Three men with rifles jumped from the emergency door of the bus and took aim at the shelter while three others exited the normal door and ran around to the second door of the shelter. One of men produced a length of heavy pipe and stuck it through the handle for the door and two other men held it down.