Hell Happened (13 page)

When he first saw Kellie and her dog in his field, he thought she was probably insane. He, Randy and Mike were careful when approaching her. She was dirty with hallowed cheeks and had scratches on her hands and face; her clothes were torn, shoes muddy, hair a mess and had eyes that looked as if they’d died already.

Her voice however, was firm, if a little shaky and he could tell she was very close to breaking down. They told her she was welcome to come with them to shelter. Her dog growled a little but she shushed the little mutt she called Molly. It had taken 10 minutes to convince her they were not going to hurt her. He thinks the dog was the key when he knelt down and Molly timidly came up to him and licked his outstretched hand.

Kellie agreed to follow them back to the shelter, still obviously scared. She started crying in gushes and leaned on the gentle Mike. Mike was the one who comforted her led her back to the shelter and Jerry called for Monica. Monica came out and led Kellie inside. She heated some soup and biscuits Terrill had made that morning while Kellie composed herself.

She ate and watched the men and Monica carefully, looking for anything that might be a ruse. There was none. She finished eating and fell asleep, a peaceful sleep right there on the table. Monica woke her after an hour, suggested she take a shower and then showed her the extra inflatable bed in her room that was hers for as long as she wanted it.

Monica took Molly outside and fed the mutt some leftovers while Kellie showered. The little dog was hungry and finished them before Kellie finally felt she’d gotten all the dirt off. She came out wearing a pair of Jerry’s jeans, held onto her narrow hips by an old belt, and one of Randy’s tee shirts. It wasn’t much, but she wore it without complaint.

Over the next week she got to know the people in the house and they got to know her and the struggles she had getting to where they found her. She was a dainty woman who had obviously led an easy life up until the fall. She spoke with an educated voice and used words Jerry could tell she’d learned from a good school and college. She told them her version of what had happened to the world and it paralleled what they had heard and experienced.

Randy filled her in on how fortunate she’d been the previous night, sleeping in the factory building, and not having met any of the not-dead zombies. She stared at him in disbelief, but Mike and Jerry confirmed the young man wasn’t kidding. She’d not encountered any zombies, and after what Jerry and Randy said, she could go the rest of her life without meeting them.

She chipped in with the chores and found a way to fit in with the vastly different personalities and people.

After hearing Jerry
talk
tonight, explaining to them his vision and willingness to lead, Kellie felt she was where she belonged for the first time in years. She missed her sister and her family terribly, she missed her school kids and her friends, but of all the bad things that had happened, she was glad she was here with these people. It made the sorrow and pain less tormenting to her dreams.

Chapter 4

J
erry
had climbed into bed with a book, intent on reading until his mind was full of sci-fi and not reality. It was cool, but not cold, in his room so he pulled the single blanket up and put on his reading glasses.

Then there was a knock at his door. “Can I come in?” she asked, peeking through the door. She wanted to tell him how much it meant to her to feel like part of something so special.

“Sure,” he said pulling the blanket up to cover more of himself. He laid the book down and took his glasses off. “What’s up?
Something wrong?”

“No, not wrong,” she said, staying by the door. “I don’t want to be a bother, just wanted to let you know how much confidence you instill in those people.”

“You’re not a bother, Kellie,” he said. “And thank you. They are really good people and don’t need me to give them confidence.” She really liked his self-deprecating manner. He was never too proud and always willing to listen to others. She again counted herself fortunate to have stumbled upon this man and this shelter.

“May I sit down?” she asked. It was probably the first time a woman had ever been so forward to him. She knew what this must look like to him, but he hadn’t made any move which might even be vaguely considered inappropriate or threatening to her. She felt safe with him.

Jerry stuttered something that sounded like “please” and moved his feet to the side of the narrow bed.

She took the offered seat and she sat with her hands clasped together in her lap. She looked uncomfortable to Jerry, like she wanted to say something but didn’t know if he’d understand what she was going to say.

“What is it, Kellie?” 

There was a long pause. Jerry was never the type push someone into talking about something they didn’t want to.

“Terrill was a tortured soul,” Kellie began. “He told me what happened to him in Afghanistan and it was terrible. He was always afraid growing up and he joined the Army to try to get the confidence to not be afraid. When his Army truck was blown up, he was afraid again and he just wanted to get away from the Army and the heroes there who faced terror every day.

The death of Terrill weighed heavily on Jerry. He replayed it in his mind at least a hundred times already.

“He started drinking to forget the horrors he saw and when the end of the world came, he thought he wouldn’t have to be afraid anymore, but the vigilantes and the zombies continued to make him afraid every day and every night. At one point he tried to drink himself to death, but he stopped before he did. He was too afraid to even die.

“When he came here, after he came to know you and your son and the others, for the first time in his life he wasn’t afraid all the time. When you asked him his opinion on the wisdom of going to look for Tony and Jeff, Terrill felt you listened to him. It made him feel like a part of something…something important. He told me this the night before you guys left.

She paused for a minute to stifle back the tears she was fighting. “I don’t know because I wasn’t there, but I think Terrill’s sacrifice today was his way of facing the terrors and the fears he’d been carrying with him all his life.

“I think because he died saving you and Tony, you’re going to be afraid to make difficult decisions and you’ll second guess yourself. You might even start thinking of quitting and let someone else do it so you don’t have to.”

Jerry’s eyebrows went up high on his forehead because he’d been thinking just that, back when she and Jerry were talking in the garden and then again earlier today. She was perceptive if nothing else.

“Big decisions will always weigh heavy on you and I hope they always do because then you’ll never take someone’s life for granted.

“But I hope you never become afraid to lead like you did tonight. I don’t pretend to know what tomorrow or the next day will be like, but I know I wouldn’t want to have anyone but you to follow.”

Jerry’s rubbed his face and then his head. He didn’t know what to say or if he should say anything at all. He was blushing like a teen after a first kiss.

“I just thought you should know how much you mean to everyone.”

“Uh,” Jerry stuttered. “Thanks.”

She got up from the foot of his bed and kissed him. It was a kiss that was more than a friendly kiss, but not a kiss that would lead him to believe she was offering more than just a warm kiss right now.

“Good night, Jerry. Sleep well.” She winked and smiled at him, just enough to let him know there was interest but not so much as to make him feel uncomfortable.

She closed the door.

Jerry sat for five minutes thinking not about what she’d said, although it did mean a lot that she came to tell him, rather thinking about the feel of her warm kiss on his lips and the feeling of her hand on his cheek.

It was a good feeling.

He put the book on the floor beside him and turned the light off.

For the first time in longer than he could remember, he fell asleep with a smile on his lips.

~     
~
     
~

Jerry, as always, was up before the rest of the shelter the following morning. He dressed and started a pot of coffee. He saw Monica sleeping on the floor beside Tony and both looked like they were at peace.

He stepped out the front door to get a feel for the weather. One of the things he missed most was the Weather Channel and the local weather meteorologist. Even though he’d been a farmer all his life, he didn’t have the knack for determining the forecast by watching animals, feeling the wind and noting the temperature variations.

It had become his habit that after church on Sunday, after chores and when Randy had gone off to hang with his friends, Jerry would turn on the Weather Channel and plan out what chores he would get done in the coming week.

Those days were gone and since the fall, he’d been winging it day by day and getting a feel for weather changes. He could easily judge the changing of seasons, but the day-to-day barometric changes, high pressure systems and cold fronts were something for that weather lady and her computer models on Channel 13 to figure out and tell him what they meant. She was gone now and Jerry was left to predict the weather as best he could.

Every morning he’d walk outside and try to guess what the upcoming weather would be like. He’d feel the wind on his face, look at the stars or clouds, judge the temperature and do his own modeling in his head. Usually this took a few minutes, after which he’d go pour himself a mug of coffee and go to the barn, milk the cows and feed them before returning to the shelter for breakfast with Randy and the others.

What he saw this morning as he stepped out were the last of the stars being drowned out by the sun, which was still below the horizon, and the clouds themselves. The skies reminded him of the days before hurricanes Katrina, Dennis and Ivan, most recently, came to roar through Alabama and the four that ripped through in the late 90s. They’d all done damage to his farm, but the weather forecasters had warned everyone and Jerry had prepared.

This morning, as he looked at the sky, the long strips of high-level clouds coming in from the Gulf of Mexico could be seen on the southern horizon. There was a light breeze and it was a warm morning for early September.

He knew what they meant without having to be a meteorologist.

He heard someone come out behind him but didn’t turn. He couldn’t take his eyes off the clouds. His coffee mug was offered to him as he felt a soft hand and arm lay across his shoulder. Kellie’s head leaned on his shoulder as she, too, looked up at the clouds.

“Thanks,” he said, still looking skyward and not at his beat up mug, the one given to him by a Chambers Seed representative a few years back. He took a sip as the two stood in silence watching the sky.

“It sure is beautiful this morning,” Kellie said in a low voice, in awe of reflection of the yet-to-rise sun off the underside of the wisps of clouds that reached out from the horizon. She felt Jerry nod. A light breeze met them in the face, warm and moist and gentle. It was a consistent breeze, not the up and down from a passing weather system, but the constant southwest to northeast breeze.

Jerry, who’d lived in Alabama all his life, had seen mornings like this before.

“There’s a hurricane over the Gulf,” Jerry said, breaking the silence. “Probably coming this way if the wind is any tell.”

“Dear lord. Can you tell how long before it gets here?”

“I’d guess at least a day or maybe two, but Mike knows how to read that barometer thing, so we’ll ask him when he gets up. But it does look like we’re going to get wet real soon.” He took another sip of coffee.

“I’ll get some breakfast started for everyone. I’m sure you’ve got a lot to get done and you’ll need some help from your team.” He looked and saw she said it with a smile, a beautiful smile. Impulsively he kissed her on the forehead.

“Let’s ‘
git
‘r’ done,’” Jerry said,
mimicing
comedian Larry the Cable Guy. They turned to walk back inside, Kellie holding on gently to his left arm with both hands. “I never liked that guy.”

“Me either,” she said.

Entering the foyer, Monica and Randy were both awake and in the kitchen. Tony was being helped from the bathroom by Mike. Eddie was probably still sleeping. He seemed to always sleep in. “How you feeling this morning, Tony?” Kellie asked.

“Better than yesterday morning,” the young man said. “Foot hurts like a
muth
-….My foot hurts quite a bit, but Monica says that’s good. Head still hurts some and my ribs hurt. But I
ain’t
gonna
be
complainin
’.”

“It’s good to see you up.”

“Thanks, ma’am,” he said as Mike helped him back onto the couch.

“Randy, go get Eddie out of bed. We have a lot to do today and we ought to get started. It looks like there might be some weather moving in.”

“
Gotchya
, dad,” his son said, placing his bowl of cereal on the table and taking the spiral staircase two stairs at the time. He opened the door to their room and hollered. “Get up! Dad needs us.” Eddie said something which no one downstairs could hear, but everyone guessed it was not polite. “Good God, Eddie,” Randy responded. “Did you kiss your father with that mouth….oh wait…too soon?”