The Trace Trilogy (Book 1): The Wretched

by R. James Faulkner

  They finished the drinks in relative quiet, sizing up each other as the time passed. The doctor questioned himself if he trusted the major any longer. He regarded the man as a violent imbecile, worth only his ability to order around the men who felt they were beneath him in station. It was amusing to the doctor at times, the men could leave the hospital at any sudden whim, refuse to follow the major’s orders at their own discretion, without the fear of any retribution, and yet, they stay and follow the orders given to them. There was no longer a functioning government, the military had ceased to exist, utilities and other resources were gone, never to return. Yet the men, his soldiers, still scrambled to complete the directions the major belted out, as though his satisfaction were paramount to their own existence. A small chuckle escaped the doctor’s lips before he could stop himself.

  “What’s funny?” Major Rose said.

  “Oh, nothing. Just thinking of how close I am to the cure. That’s all.”

  “You believe you are?”

  “Yes,” the doctor said. He leaned forward and tapped on the table. “Closer than I have ever been before. And that man, the one who calls himself Frank, he is the key.”

  “What makes him special?”

  “He is the perfect specimen. The proof that it is only a physiological condition that affects the people. Treat the condition, cure the patient. It’s simple really. You see?”

  “If it was so simple, why didn’t you figure it out months ago?”

  The doctor jumped to his feet and paced the floor as he sucked on the earpiece of his glasses. He circled the room while he pondered the question and tried to focus past the whispers that filled his hearing. After several minutes of brisk pacing, he sat back down to the desk and spread his hands across the stacks of papers arranged over the surface.

  “Because, there hasn’t been the perfect candidate before now. When the governor called me, he asked ‘Do you believe you can stop this?’ And I swore to him then that I would. Now, right here, locked away, is the answer to our biggest puzzle. All I need to do is break the lock inside him and fish out the information.”

  “And the woman?”

  “Yes, she is also a part. She is the way to break him open.”

  “What if she won’t cooperate?”

  “If you and your men did an adequate job tonight, she’ll be ready to confess everything she knows.”

  “Trust me, she won’t forget it for a long time.” The major wiped at his mouth. “And after this? When you have what you need. What will happen to her? My men still need to be able to find…relief.”

  “Yes,” Doctor Wilson said. “Yes, yes. I know the needs of men. Right now, she’s to be left alone, unless I instruct otherwise. I need her to trust me, not fear me. Do you understand?”

  “Sure.”

  “Afterward, well, it will be entirely up to you and her to decide what her future role is here. After all, you are the commanding officer of this installation.”

  “Indeed,” the major said. He spread a huge grin across his face. “I think she’ll find she has a very important place here.”

  The doctor stood and offered his hand to the major, they exchanged a quick handshake, and Major Rose left the office. After several minutes of waiting for him to go some distance down the hall, the doctor removed the syringe and took his second injection. He collapsed to the sofa and rested, watching the lights flicker the strange message to him.

  He is the key. The answer I have sought so long now. I will pull him apart and piece him together again. I will find the remedy. I will understand the method. I will save all of mankind. It will be my legacy. I shall be praised the savior of men.

  31

  Ben lifted his leg again and tried to feel for the wall behind him. His toe could graze the surface of it, but nothing more. He tried to push against it, but his leg could not extend far enough. The air on his tongue was thick and silvery tasting. He struggled to keep himself standing but was too deficient to keep his feet under him for any length of time. His mind ruminated over how he came to be so unfortunate.

  The loud voices of men and the sound of a door unlocking startled him. He let his head hang forward and tried to still the movement of his body. There was the rattling sound of metal wheels rolling over metal tracks and a flood of light came into the room. Ben let his body go limp, made his breathing shallow, and played dead even as his heart raced inside his chest.

  “All I’m saying,” a loud voice with a southern accent said. “Is why do I have to cut it off every time? Y’all should have to do it too.”

  “Cause, I’m the one who’s got to cut it up and cook it.” Another less southern voice spoke. “You know what that smells like?”

  Ben listened to the sound of boots step closer and dared not open his eyes. He could feel the fresh air come into the room.

  “Get some of the newer stuff.” The second voice commanded. “I think they can taste the difference now.”

  A string of laughter came from both of them followed by the jingle of a belt buckle and the sound of a zipper sliding down. Ben let his eyes crack open to see it was brighter in the room. The harsh light blinded him. His vision adjusted, and he could see his own bare feet on black concrete. His eyes moved upward and he saw another set of feet, woman’s feet.

  “Holy shit,” the thick southern accent said. “Joe, look at that. His whole leg is almost rotted.”

  “Then cut from the other leg,” Joe said. “Hurry up. It smells awful in here.”

  Ben looked to his left, not more than four feet from him, hung Evan’s half naked body. Two men wearing green uniforms stood in front of the hanging man. One wore a tan fishing hat and he held a metal bucket. The other one had a mustache, and he stabbed a large butcher knife into Evan’s unmoving leg above the knee.

  “Hurry it up, Larry,” Joe said. He sat the bucket on the floor and crossed his arms over his chest. “Today is hygiene day, and I got damned guard duty.”

  Ben watched as Larry used a sawing motion to cut on Evan’s right leg. Thick black blood fell to the floor in large globs. The sound of tendons and ligaments snapping at the edge of the blade filled the room. Soon the lower leg fell to the blood-coated floor below with a thud.

  The man called Joe picked it up and put it in the bucket. Larry went back to work butchering on the upper leg, and separated it from the hip. It fell and swung by a large vein that once carried blood. A quick cut of the knife and it too landed with a dull thud on the floor. Joe bent over and lifted it up. His eyes looked directly into Ben’s. Ben held his shallow breath and did not let his eyes move.

  “We’ll have to use some of them all,” Joe said. He tossed the thigh into the bucket. “Don’t want them to go to waste.”

  The two men roared with laughter as they turned to leave. Joe grabbed Larry’s arm, stopped him, and pointed to his chest.

  “Hey,” Joe said. He patted the shirt pocket with the back of his hand. “You still owe me a full pack of smokes. And I ain’t letting you off, so pay up.”

  “Oh, come on,” Larry said. “They’re back at my damn room. You’ll get them, hell.”

  Joe walked from the room, carrying the bucket in his hands.

  “I’d better see them this afternoon. You hear?”

  “Yeah,” Larry said. He stabbed the blade into Evan’s lifeless chest. “Yeah, yeah. I’ll get them for you, asshole.”

  He stepped from the room, grabbed the door handle, and slid it shut with enough force that it bounced back open almost a foot. Ben waited until he was sure they would not return before he tried to move again. He looked up at the woman in front of him and could just make out the shape of her head. He assumed it was Jessica, by the look of the long graying hair. His attention shifted to Evan’s body and the knife planted in his chest.

  He looked up at Jessica’s bound hands. She hung from a metal hook that had been fashioned from reinforcement steel. The same was true for Evan and the three other decomposing bodies beside him. He tried to look at his
own hands, but he could not see them.

  Ben allowed himself time to rest. When he felt his body was ready, he used his feet for purchase on Jessica’s clothes. Slow and steady, desperate to avoid a mistake, he put his feet over her head and in between her arms.

  He had to pause and rest again, his strength faded fast. Ben caught his breath before he shoved his legs to the knees past her arms. Once more he rested. With everything he had left in his body, he pulled against her arms. He felt her right shoulder dislocate. It released an audible pop as he pulled harder against her. He heard the sound of scraping steel, followed by the sensation of the world flying over his head. Ben felt the cold, wet concrete slammed against his face a moment later.

  He stayed on the blood-soaked floor, breathing hard, and thanking God for his release. After a long, agonizing struggle to get to his feet, he teetered on shaky legs. Ben stepped toward Evan’s body as he focused on the shiny steel knife blade. It took several minutes before he made it to the dead man. He worked at cutting the rope from his hands. While he cut the cording, he could not help but stare into Evan’s dead eyes. At least his suffering was finished, Ben thought, he did not have to feel pain any longer. The man was at peace and beyond the problems of the world.

  When he had his hands free, he tried to grab the knife, but his grip was numb and weak. He struggled until the blade came loose and dropped with a loud metallic sound to the concrete floor. Ben stood frozen and waited for the men to come rushing back inside to discover him.

  Nothing happened. No one came to recapture him. He grabbed the knife in his right hand. The feeling of pins and needles started in his palm and his fingers throbbed. Ben searched Evan’s clothes and found a red plastic lighter in the dead man’s pants pocket. The other bodies hanging in the room were still clothed, but Ben did not want to search the decomposing corpses. He looked at Jessica and saw how badly she had been beaten. The men had damaged her face to such a great extent that she was unrecognizable as being human at all. Ben identified her only by her hair. He gave her a quick search for anything of use and found nothing.

  He crept to the door, squatted low by the threshold, and leaned until he could see past the edge. The dim lit hallway was empty. Before he stepped out to run away, he paused for a moment and looked at his blood-wet feet. Ben noticed the white tile floor with boot prints that tracked to the right. With no other choice, he removed his pants and shirt. He tied the shirt around his left foot, placed it into the hall, and tied his pants on his right one. It seemed as though it took an eternity to finish and he shouted inside his head to hurry before someone came back. Ben slid out the doorway and sprinted to the left, the best he could manage, until he came to an intersection. He turned left again, slipped on the smooth floor, and landed near the door to a stairwell.

  Ben got to his knees and rested. He was lightheaded and panting for air. A map of the floor hung beside closed elevator doors across from him. After a short pause to catch his breath, he got to his feet and searched the simple diagram for another way out. He studied the location of two stairwells at opposite ends of the floor. One the guards headed toward and the other where he stood.

  He walked further down the hall and tried several doors as he passed them. Some opened to reveal empty rooms and several more remained locked. One was full of large cardboard boxes. He ducked inside and locked the door behind him. He shifted the boxes until he could lie on the floor hidden behind them. The thirst he felt was relentless. It motivated him to move again. He opened some of the boxes hoping to find water bottles inside but found only bundles of paper.

  He sat on the floor to rest, as he thought of what to do. The pain of his arms coming back into use was tremendous. When he could stand the thirst no more, he got up and crept from the room to search along the hallway. He abandoned caution and went into any unlocked door he came across but found nothing other than useless office supplies. Ben gave up and headed back to the room he found earlier to rest.

  His feet felt heavier, and his eyes could not focus. He collapsed to his knees and let his head hang for a long while. When he, at last, lifted his weary head again, his eyes came to focus on a door, one with the picture of a stick figure. It was a bathroom, he got to his feet and labored into the unlit room. The light from the glazed windows was weak and fading. He turned the faucet knobs on each sink, and nothing came from the end of the silver faucets. Ben staggered backward from the sink, turned to walk from the room, and stopped when he looked at the row of stall doors.

  He pushed open the first one, and saw the white of the toilet bowl. He dropped to his hands and knees in front of it. After trying the handle to no avail, he stuck his fingers into the bottom of the porcelain and wiggled them. He heard the slosh of water. It was a small amount, but he did not care, he needed it. Ben pulled the shirt from his foot and dipped it into the small cavity at the base of the bowl. He lifted it to his mouth and sucked the foul tasting liquid from it.

  Ben repeated it several times until he got no more from the bowl. He went to the next stall and again sopped up the water. He thanked any deity or god that wanted to claim the blessing of quenching his thirst. His strength began to return. When he had sucked the fetid water from three of the toilets, he left and crawled back into the hallway. He rested his forehead on the cool tile floor and closed his eyes.

  His thoughts turned to escape from the building. Ben heard a sinister laugh echo from the far end of the long hallway. He knew who it was and it terrified him.

  “How?” Ben said.

  Charlie clapped his hands as he walked closer to his younger brother.

  “You didn’t think I could find you?” Charlie said. “Come now, little brother. Don’t you think I’d know where you were?”

  Ben tried to stand. He strained until he realized he was too weak. Charlie grabbed him under the arms and lifted him. He pulled Ben along and led him into an unlocked room he found.

  “I saw you,” Ben said. “I saw you run…”

  “I’ve been watching you,” he said. “Charlie’s always watching you.”

  Charlie helped Ben to hide behind some large boxes. He arranged them so no one could find him.

  “Water,” Ben said. “I need water.”

  Charlie nodded his head. “I’ll find some. You just wait here. I’ll come back for you.”

  “Promise?”

  He looked at his younger brother. There was no feeling of sympathy for him. He regarded him as a burden, and it made him disgusted.

  “Yes,” Charlie said. “Just wait here.”

  He left Ben and searched until he found another room full of storage boxes. It was better to split up. At least one of them had to escape. After he rested for a while, he searched the entire floor for water but came up empty-handed. Charlie did not worry about Ben’s need for water, Charlie came first to Charlie, and Charlie’s needs outweighed all others. Charlie waited in his hiding spot for the nighttime. He planned to hunt for water when it was dark. A devilish thought sprang into his mind, and he clasped a hand over his mouth to stifle a giggle.

  Perhaps I should kill Ben, end his suffering. The poor boy can’t last too much longer. After all, it would be the humane thing to do.

  32

  Dr. Wilson unlocked the door and turned the handle. He paused before entering to give the young woman in the room a few seconds to compose herself. It was a habit made from his years of practice. He found it less stressful on the patient than rushing in without warning.

  A calm patient was a healing patient.

  He pushed the door open and stepped inside. The room was bright and sterile white. In the center of the floor was a small table with two metal chairs. He looked at the far wall and smiled to the young woman sitting on the cot. She lowered her head and fidgeted with the end of her hospital gown.

  The doctor pulled out the chair nearest him and sat down. He laid the handful of papers he held in his right hand down on the table. The bundle made a loud thud as it landed on the otherwise empty table. I
t startled Amy, and she cut her eyes toward the doctor. He remained oblivious to her reaction as he set about organizing his paperwork. She noticed he placed everything square to the edge of the table closest to his chair.

  Amy glanced over to her left toward another cot against the far wall. She looked at the small shape under a thin white blanket. The cloth moved with the steady rhythm of Maggie’s breathing. Doctor Wilson noticed the direction of Amy’s interest. He sighed as he watched her. The sight of it all made him frustrated. Distractions were a nuisance, they had to be purged if real work was to be done.

  “Hello, Amy,” he said. “How are you today?”

  “Fine,” she said.

  “No aches, pains?”

  “No.”

  Doctor Wilson nodded his head as he looked at her.

  “That is good,” he said. “Very good. Let me know if that changes.”

  Amy pulled at the cloth of the gown she wore in an attempt to stretch it farther down her legs. She cast another long look at the shape under the blanket.

  “Do you have a family history of any known ailments or diseases?”

  Amy shook her head. The doctor looked at her over his glasses. He smoothed his hair over his head before he wrote on his small notepad.

  “Have you started your cycle?”

  The question made Amy uncomfortable, but she nodded her head. She hoped he would not ask any other questions along the same lines. He tapped the pen on the notepad, lost in thought, as he stared at her. The doctor shook his head as he pulled himself back to the present. He gave her a smile. She did not believe it to be sincere.

  Doctor Wilson pulled the glasses from his face and leaned back in his chair. He sucked on the earpiece as he stared at her. She avoided his eyes. The air in the room was stuffy, and it made it difficult to breathe. He stood and walked around the table toward her. She watched his hand reach into his pocket and pulled out a small pen-size flashlight.

  Standing in front of, without speaking a word, the doctor clicked on the little light and aimed the beam into her eyes. He pressed his index and middle finger to her wrist. She waited as he finished his examination.