Hell Happened (21 page)

“They’ll be fine,” the kindly man said to her. “Why don’t we get these two kids breakfast. Tony and Monica are running some more cable to the windmill tower so he can move the short wave antenna. That’ll keep those two busy for hours.

“I think John could use a little distraction to keep him from thinking about his mom so I’m going to teach him to use some of Jerry’s wood working tools. I’m sure you and Hannah could find something to keep her busy.” Kellie understood Mike was also finding a way for her to engage her time with young Hannah so she wasn’t worrying about Jerry.

Following breakfast and with the dishes cleaned and dried, Hannah said she wanted to build a doll house for her dolls the same way Jerry had done for her, her mom and brother.

Mike had already left with John for the garage.

Kellie found a couple of hand shovels and the two ladies started digging in the rim of the parapet.  Molly tried to help with the digging too, but she got tired and laid on the rim with her head on her paws. Boomer ran around the field for a while then lay down in front of the shelter door.

Everyone was working on non-critical jobs, enjoying the light duty while the others were away. Kellie kept the doors open
to  the
shelter so she could hear the CB. Jerry checked in while they were in range and had told her they would be going further than the CB could reach, but to not worry. He’d let her know they were running behind schedule, but assured her they’d be back before dark.

Kellie thought she’d heard something from the radio so left Hannah to dig while she checked. She called several times but didn’t get a response.

She’d just returned to where she and the little girl were digging when she heard a
gun shot
report. She actually heard the echo from the hills that ringed behind the shelter. She wondered if it was Monica or Tony who was shooting.

It sounded like a heavier caliber gun than the .22 Monica used. She then heard a truck coming up the drive. Something didn’t feel right to her. If it had been Jerry, he would have radioed her and the gunshot she heard before the sound of the truck bothered her.

Hannah heard the truck too and looked up to Kellie. “Is that mommy?”

“I don’t know, sweetheart. Let’s get you inside and in the cellar and I’ll go find out. If it is, you can surprise her when she comes in.” She smiled a smile she didn’t feel and took the little girl’s hand and led her inside. Molly followed with Boomer. She sent all three to the cellar and told Hannah to lock the door. She had given the little girl a walkie-talkie, but told her not to use it or to unlock the door until Kellie told her to.

She then picked up the Remington 20 gauge, which was loaded with six rounds of buck shot. Jerry had showed her how to use it and she’d fired it half a dozen times, but only at a target.

She picked up her walkie-talkie, changed to the channel Tony and Monica were using and placed it on her belt. She was afraid, but she had to know what was going on. She looked out the door and saw no one. She didn’t want to use the walkie-talkie in case it would alert someone to her presence. She waited and listened.

~     
~
     
~

Monica saw it happen.

Tony was between the hills, but she was on top of the taller one where the windmill was and where they were going to put the short wave antenna. She saw Mike talking with someone. She hadn’t seen from where the man approached her friend, and she was too far away to hear what was being said.

She saw Kellie and Hannah playing in the dirt outside the front door of the shelter and at the sound of the gun shot, Kellie had calmly taken the little girl and dogs inside and shut the shelter doors.

Mike must have walked out from the barn where he and John had been working.

It was an ugly scene.

~     
~
     
~

Mike had heard someone calling in the driveway. It was a voice he didn’t recognize. He and John had been sanding on one of the new propellers Jerry would be using for a second wind mill. Mike told John to go hide while he checked on who the person was in the driveway. John nodded and ran to the back of the
barn and lay down inside one of the old tractor tires. He held his walkie-talkie in his hand and tried not to be afraid.

When John was well hidden, Mike opened the door of the barn and saw a large black man wearing a dirty red shirt, a brown jacket and pants. Mike had a pistol holstered under the leather jacket he had put on before leaving the barn. He didn’t want the stranger seeing the gun and start shooting before talking.

Mike walked slowly toward the man. He was shorter and darker than Mike, and had 100 pounds on him, but he didn’t look threatening.
“Morning, mister.
Can I help you with something?” Mike asked pleasantly, stopping 10 feet from the stranger.

“You got any food, mister? We need food and water,” the man said. He had a
gravely
voice, deep and harsh like he’d been a smoker for 50 years.

Mike looked around. “I don’t see anyone else. Who else did you bring with you?”

“I didn’t bring anyone, mister. You got any food and water. I
ain’t
had anything good to eat in days and am real hungry,” the man said, looking nervous now that Mike had noticed his mistake in mentioning “we” instead of “I.”

“What ‘
chyou
got in that barn there?
Cows?
I like steak.”

“Mister, we don’t want any trouble. If you’re hungry, we will share our food with you,” Mike said, trying to placate this man who was looking more nervous as the conversation continued. He hoped the offer of food would settle him down some. Mike had face a bank robber early in his career in banking and the robber had settle down after Mike had given him four thousand dollars in cash.

The robber had left the bank without killing anyone and was caught a week later, but no one had died.

“You said ‘we’ too, mister,” the newcomer said.
“Who else you got here?
You got women? How many are here?”

Mike raised both his hands to show the man he had nothing to fear. “Mister, my name is Mike and there are a number of men who live here. We don’t want any problems. If you want food, we can give you some and send you on your way.”

The man’s feral smile was filled with rotten teeth. “Your
menfolk
are gone. We saw ‘
em
leave
. I bet
yer
the only one left here ‘
cept
the women.”

Mike’s hands were in the air and he wasn’t prepared for the swiftness the man in front of him moved. It was just registering with Mike that the man was reaching inside his jacket when he realized he’d made a mistake. Fifty years separated him from his Marine training and years of sedentary living slowed his reactions. He’d just started reaching for his gun when the man’s gun came up, aimed right at him.

The sound was loud, but Mike was dead before the echo faded.

It was surreal for Monica. Mike and the other man were talking for a moment and Monica supposed Mike was just trying to find out if the man was a drifter who had just showed up or something more devious.

It was the latter.

As Monica watched, the man reached into his jacket and pulled out a gun and shot Mike in the head. The old black gentleman who had been kind and helpful to everyone in the shelter, who had never said an unkind word, dropped.

Monica was shocked into inaction. Tony also heard the shot. He had to say her name three times before she responded. She ran down the hill when she saw the truck come up the driveway. She hoped she hadn’t
been seen. She met up with Tony halfway down the hill and she told him what she’d seen. Tony, who had been unrolling coaxial, sat down in the knee-high grass with Monica.

“We have to get back to the shelter,” Monica told him.

“No, you have to. I’ll never be able to get back there without someone seeing me, but you can sneak back and call Jerry for help,” Tony told her. They’d become close friends, closer than
Tony’d
been with anyone, but there hadn’t been a physical relationship. Only Tony knew that Monica had a crush on Eddie, and in one of their late-night talks, he admitted he had a bit of a crush on Randy, a secret she swore she’d take to her grave.

Monica nodded at
Tony’s
suggestion. “What’re you
gonna
do?”

He lifted his head above the grass. “I’m going to crawl all the way down there, then up on top of the hill where the hatch is. I’ll be able to see everything from there. If I can get Jerry on the radio, I will, but also, I want to make sure John stays wherever he is hiding.

“Sounds like a plan, man. Be careful.” She kissed her friend on the forehead and started off through the grass, trying to follow the path Tony and she had already made on the trek out to the windmill.

Tony, tossing his crutch aside pulled out his 9mm and began crawling the hundreds of yards he’d have to navigate to get to the base of the tree line so he could go up the hill under the cover of the trees.

Monica moved quickly. She was a large young woman, but the panic she felt gave her the extra energy to move through the field. She had her .22 rifle with her; she carried it with her all the time now after the death of Jeff and of learning of the callousness of the vigilantes.

There were about 100 yards of cleared field between Monica and the shelter. She was hesitant about crossing the area, not knowing who might be watching. Instead she laid down at the edge of the field and waited until she saw Tony finally reach the edge of the tree line.

Monica had been caring for Tony and he was healing well. She hoped he didn’t hurt himself scrambling the way he was. She was using what she’d learned from three years of working for Dr.
LaFavre
at the clinic.

~     
~
     
~

Her parents had doted on her growing up. She hadn’t liked sports and wasn’t good at music, except listening to it, but she did enjoy eating. She’d never been lithe and slender, but she did have an athletic build prior to junior high school. That was when her parents moved from the country to the city for her dad’s job.

She was at a new school with no friends she began spending more time enjoying the friendship of comfort food. By the time she was in high school, she was topping 200 pounds.

Her grades were excellent, but her friends were few. She was able to test out of classes and started nursing school during her senior year. That was the same year her parents divorced and after 18 months of nursing school, she had to drop out and get a job.

Dr.
LaFavre
needed a receptionist at his small clinic and Monica was able to earn enough to live on her own in a small apartment not far from the clinic. After three years she felt like a part of a team at the clinic. Mrs.
LaFavre
worked part time while her husband and his partner Dr.
Belewa
saw patients. The clinic catered to lower income patients, some with questionable injuries or illnesses, but Dr.
LaFavre
was an honest man in treating patients and if they were fakers or malingerers,
LaFavre
wouldn’t allow them to use him as their doctor of reference.

Dr.
Belewa
wasn’t as honest.
Belewa
had his own receptionist, but she and Monica shared duties with billing and scheduling, but only
Belewa’s
assistant would take care of certain patients. Monica asked why one time and was told to mind her own business by Dr.
Belewa
.

When
LaFavre
took a week off to work with Doctors
Without
Borders, Monica was left with little actual work to keep her busy. She was sitting at the reception desk when a patient came in. Dr.
Belewa
was very busy this week and he and his receptionist were in one of the back examination rooms. She knew the man was one of
Belewa’s
patients and she took his name and put him down as a walk-in.

When the man demanded to see the doctor right away, Monica firmly told him to have a seat and said she would page the doctor. She paged
Belewa
and told him he had a walk in and the doctor told her he would be with his current patient for another 15 minutes.

Monica passed on the message to the walk-in customer at which time the man pulled out a two-way radio and said “Move in.”

Seven police officers rushed through the door with a warrant.

Belewa
and his assistant were both handcuffed and led
out,
along with the “patient” they were seeing at the time. Monica was threatened with arrest if she tried to leave so she sat back down and started crying.

The officers took the computers and the files and searched every room in the building, taking garbage bags full of drugs and paperwork. When they were finished taking evidence out, a female detective lieutenant questioned her for nearly six hours before telling her she could go home, but they
warner
her to not leave town.