Desolate - The Complete Trilogy

by Robert Brumm

  Okay, not so bad. Just like in high school. Steer clear of the jocks and don’t do anything stupid in front of the girls. One of the guys at the table leaned over a ripped a loud fart. Well, a little like high school, anyway. He poked at his meat trying to figure out which species it actually came from. Rat, horse, or shoe would have to be a pretty good guess.

  “Looks pretty shitty now, but in a week you’ll have that whole tray inhaled before you sit down.”

  Howard looked up and realized it was the longhaired guy from the barracks talking to him.

  “Ah, yeah I guess so.”

  “Not much for words are you, boy?” He sat down, slamming his tray on the table. “I was watching when Rover took your blanket. You gotta learn to stand up for yourself, man.”

  “Yeah, I know,” said Howard. “I guess I wasn’t really expecting that to happen.”

  “Well, consider that a lesson. Try to be ready for anything.” He held out his hand. “Name is Carl O’Donell.”

  “Howard Bell.”

  “Looky here, Howie. I been here only about a month now, so you ain’t much greener than me. The way I see it, we should kinda team up, look out for each other. What you say to that, boy?”

  “I guess that sounds okay.” Howard wasn’t so green not to be suspicious of this guy. He’d seen enough prison movies where a con will be nice to a new guy only to make him his bitch.

  “Damn right it’s okay. New guys like you and me gotta stick together. This place ain’t no picnic, that’s for damn sure.” He shoved piece of meat in his mouth.

  “If the niggers or spics don’t get you the goddamn queers will. And don’t get me started on the Brits. Trash, every one of ‘em. Talking with that cockney slang and shit. Pip pip. Cheerio. Fucking faggots, every one.”

  Howard sipped at his coffee. Great. His only friend was a racist psychopath. Things were really starting out great. Only about fifty years to go.

  “You’re lucky y’all got here on our day off or they’d send you out to work right away.”

  “Work?”

  Carl looked up, surprised. “Yeah, work. You think we just lay round all day, Howie?”

  “What kind of work is it?”

  “Bullshit is what kind. They got us digging in a goddamn mine right in the side of that ridge out back.”

  “What sort of mine?”

  “Platinum. Can you believe that? Ain’t nothing but snow and bird shit on this rock but underneath we’re sitting on a fortune.”

  Howard bit into the mystery meat and quickly took a gulp of coffee to help swallow the grisly hunk. “I never heard anything about mining going on down here. I thought we were supposed to be trying to live off the land building some kind of prison utopia.”

  “Well you thought wrong, son. The way I heard it is a while back some of the cons got to digging in the ridge for some heating project or what not. All the lava and shit underground from the old volcano made them think maybe they could tap into a geyser or whatever.

  “Turns out what they did tap into was a nice little platinum vein instead. Warden went ape shit and got some mining expert in here to set up shop and that’s all we’ve been doing since. Only he’s too cheap to get us some real equipment. We’re in that tunnel all day busting our asses with picks and shovels. Old school shit.”

  “Sounds like a blast,” said Howard.

  “Oh yeah, it’s a blast all right. Bullshit is what it is.”

  Howard managed to get most of his meal down while Carl continued on about his views of queers and niggers and some lady back home named Della. It was almost dark when he and his fellow roommates got back to the barracks. With no electric lights inside, the inmates went to bed as soon as the sunlight was gone.

  Howard curled up the best he could to try and stay warm since Rover had relieved him of his blanket. He let out a sigh and closed his eyes. As usual, his thoughts turned to The Day. If Howard Bell could have one wish, it would be to somehow go back in time to The Day and talk some sense into the lunatic that caused all this mess.

  3

  It was June eighteenth. It was an easy enough date to remember since it just happened to be exactly one year to the day since Gina left him. At first it had almost been a relief. With her gone, there was no reason to hide, no reason to make excuses, no reason to hold back. Howard left work at five. By a quarter after he was through the front door. By five thirty, his first beer of the night was gone.

  For a while he made it work. Somehow he managed to get up every morning and go to work, get the rent in the mail, and get the bills paid. As the weeks and months drifted by, he watched as six pack a night Howard Bell turned in twelve pack a night Howard Bell. It didn’t bother him when he first noticed screwdriver before work Howard make an appearance. By the time flask of Jack in the car during lunch hour Howard arrived it was too late.

  It caught up with him eventually. Suspicions and rumors at work were confirmed the day he backed the forklift he was driving into a rack. It tipped over and crashed to the floor, just barely missing the quality department manager as she walked by. They sent him to the clinic for a mandatory breathalyzer and urine test which both came back positive. By the time he got home, a voicemail message from his boss made it clear he wasn’t welcome back.

  Howard spent the next three days on a bender of epic proportions. Looking for sympathy, he made a couple drunken calls to Gina that degraded into ugly shouting matches. The more he drank and the more he stewed in his bitterness, the more he blamed Gina for his troubles.

  His ex was only part of the problem, however. There was one man ultimately responsible for his downfall and that was Steve Creighton, manager of warehousing and logistics at Willmar Industries. Steve always had it out for him. Anybody else wouldn’t have fired Howard over the forklift incident, he was certain of it. Steve had been waiting years for a good excuse to get rid of him.

  If that prick wouldn’t have cost Howard his job he could have gotten his act together. Probably cut back on his drinking, maybe save up a little money and get a better place. Gina would see how much he’d grown. Maybe the two of them could have worked it out.

  Now all that was gone. Gina hated him more than ever, he had thirty seven dollars in the bank, no food in the kitchen, and he was over two weeks late on the rent.

  On June seventeenthat 11:37 P.M., Howard broke the seal on his last can of Blatz in the fridge. As the can grew lighter he realized there was only one thing left to do before he hit bottom and lost everything. He needed Steve Creighton to pay for ruining his life.

  4

  If he was going to do it right he’d have to get a gun. Who wouldn’t be scared shitless looking down the business end of a gun? A knife just wouldn’t do the trick and he wasn’t big enough to be physically imposing. No, he’d have to have a gun. He’d shove it in that bastard’s face and watch him shit his pants and beg for mercy.

  Oh God, please no. Don’t hurt me Howard. I’ll do anything thing you want, just please don’t hurt me!

  Yes, it would be sweet.

  The problem was, Howard didn’t own a gun. He hadn’t fired one since his dad tried to introduce him to hunting when he was twelve years old. He shot a couple dozen rounds from a .22 and tried a shotgun once or twice. He even shot a deer with his dad’s old lever action .30-30. He cried. He sobbed like a baby after he watched the deer try to stumble forward on dying legs and fall to the ground. It lay there bleeding and dying and staring at him. His dad said it was okay, that he shouldn’t feel bad, but Howie knew that his dad was secretly disgusted with him. He was disgusted that his only son cried like a girl after he got his first kill when he should have been proud.

  After that, Howard never went hunting with his dad again and his dad never asked him to. He didn’t care for hunting and didn’t even like guns or shooting at all, but he was at least thankful that his old man was a hunter. A hunter has lots of guns.

  With the last can of Blatz long gone, Howard got in his car and carefully drove the three m
iles to his parent’s empty house. Arthur Bell and his wife Betty had retired a few years ago. With their newfound freedom, they spent a lot of time traveling in their new Winnebago Adventurer. They were currently on a tour of the Pacific Northwest.

  Howard let himself into the house and headed down to the basement. In his dad’s workroom he reached for the key on top of the gun cabinet and opened it. Inside was a wide assortment of rifles and shotguns. He looked at the old .30-30 that still brought back shameful memories of that day back in November years ago. A long gun like a rifle or shotgun wouldn’t do the trick. It would be too hard to conceal.

  He crouched down and opened the metal lock box at the bottom of the cabinet. Inside was one of Arthur’s most valuable possessions, his government model M1911 Colt .45 Automatic. He brought it back after his tour in Vietnam and only took it out to fire at the range a couple of times a year.

  Howard looked at the box of .45 ACP cartridges next to the case. Should he load the gun? He hadn’t thought of that before. What if the bastard didn’t get scared right away and didn’t take him seriously? He could fire a shot into the ceiling. That would definitely get his attention.

  He released the magazine and fed seven shells into it. He saw an extra mag in the box and loaded that one too. Better safe than sorry.

  He tucked the gun under his belt like they do on TV and headed upstairs to the kitchen. In the cabinet above the fridge he found an unopened bottle of Black Label. He spent the rest of the night drinking in his dad’s favorite chair watching infomercials.

  At 8:00 A.M. he got in his car and drove to Willmar Industries. Creighton didn’t know it yet, but that bastard, that arrogant little prick, was about to get a visit from a very pissed off ex-employee.

  5

  A dirty hand clamped over Howard’s mouth and something sharp poked into his throat. It took him a second to realize where he was, but he had no idea what was happening. He could make out a face above him in the dim light of the barracks. It was the crazy Briton who had yelled at him for sitting on the bunk. He hissed at him in the darkness, inches from Howard’s face. His foul breath almost made Howard gag.

  “Don’t make a thumb-suckin’ sound or I’ll cut yer billy goat and do wot I cheese anyhow. I’ll be takin’ your ones and twos and anythin’ else I see fit.”

  Howard just stared at him.

  Losing his patience, he explained again to Howard. “Your shoes. Give me your bloody shoes. Slip them off real nice and quiet like.”

  He released his grip from Howard’s mouth and let him sit up so he could untie his laces. Howard could now see what poked at his throat. It looked like a piece of bed spring sharpened to a fine point. He slipped off his shoes and handed them over.

  “There’s a good lad. You got any fags, I’ll be taking them too.”

  “I don’t smoke.”

  “None of you yanks smoke no more, I swear,” he glanced nervously around the room and attempted to lower his voice some more.

  “Listen Junior, I just happen to run this bloody place so’s I do wot I please. I may as well be walking bare foot in me sorry pair so I earned these shoes. You start any trouble and me and mine will work you over real proper. Got it?”

  The shadow of a man rose behind the shoe thief and knocked him to the floor. It was Carl O’Donnell.

  “What the fuck do you think you’re doing you little piece of shit?”

  “You got me all wrong mate! I weren’t doing nothing at all!”

  Carl jumped on top of him and punched him over and over again in the face.

  “It’s okay Carl, take it easy.” Howard jumped up. “You’re going to get us in trouble!” Carl kept pummeling him as Howard tried to pull him off.

  All the commotion got the attention of a couple of guards outside and they pierced the darkness of the room with their powerful flashlights.

  The guards produced their billy clubs and took turn bludgeoning Carl, who gave no notice to the guards and continued his beating. He finally gave up and fell to the floor.

  Most of the other inmates stood by, watching the entertainment.

  “All right, everyone back in their beds or I’ll whack the snot out of every one of you motherfuckers!” One of the guards pulled out a pair of flex cuffs and secured Carl.

  “I got him for ya buddy,” said Carl through his bloody lips. “Like I said, we got to stick together.”

  One of the guards kicked him hard in the ribs. “Shut the fuck up, piss hole!” He turned to the two closest inmates and pointed to the unconscious shoe thief on the floor. “You and you. Carry this pile of shit to the infirmary.”

  He raised his voice to yell at the rest of the convicts. “I don’t even want to know what these two perverts were up to! If I hear so much as a wet fart slip out of this place I’ll have both gun towers empty their drums into this dump.”

  With that, they led Carl out the door into the night. The inmates returned to their beds and so did Howard. He found his shoes on the floor and put them back on before going over to the shoe thief’s bed and taking his ratty blanket.

  Only about fifty years to go.

  6

  Howard felt as if he’d just nodded off when the barracks door slammed open and flashlights filled the room with light again.

  “Drop your cocks and get your asses out of bed,” a guard shouted. “We got work to do!”

  The grumbling inmates slowly rose from their cots and shuffled to the door. Howard followed and lined up in the frigid yard. The sky was slowly turning gray as dawn broke over the camp.

  “All accounted for, Chief,” said a guard to the one in charge.

  “Okay, let’s move out!”

  The inmates marched under the leadership of several armed guards out of the camp. Several minutes later they reached the ridge Carl had spoken of. They stopped outside a large hole carved into the hillside near a crudely constructed shed. One of the guards opened the padlocked door and started handing tools to the inmates as they filed by. Most of them received large picks while every third or fourth inmate got a shovel. Howard received the latter.

  They walked into the dimly lit cave, provided by propane lanterns. It was still cold in the tunnel but at least it offered relief from the bitter wind outside. The inmates with the picks started working at the end of the tunnel and Howard soon caught on to the task at hand. There wasn’t much to it. The men with picks hacked away at the dirt and rock and the diggers like Howard moved in and shoveled it into carts. The platinum deposits were separated and placed in different containers. When the carts were full, three men pushed them out of the mine and dumped the contents into the large pile by the entrance. All the while, the sullen guards watched intently with their rifles and shotguns at hand. The guards got bored just standing and watching so they passed the time by yelling at the workers they deemed not pulling their share.

  Howard tired quickly and soon every muscle in his body protested. His hands grew raw from the rough wooden handle of the shovel. It didn’t take long before one of the guards took offence from his efforts.

  “Damn boy, we came in here today to work. You think you’re on vacation?” He slapped Howard on the back of the head causing him to drop his shovel. The guard became instantly enraged.

  “Just what the hell do you think you’re doing, butterfingers? Are you trying to break my shovel?”

  Howard picked it back up and attempted to gather the rocks on the tunnel floor. The guard kicked the shovel from his hand and pushed him to the ground.

  “I asked you a question, you piece of shit!”

  “I wasn’t trying to break it, sir.” Howard slowly started to get to his feet.

  “Then what’s your problem? You’re moving slower than frozen monkey spunk.”

  “I’m sorry, I’m just not used to this kind of work. I’ll try harder.”

  The frown on the guard’s face disappeared “Oh right, you’re one of the news guys aren’t you? I remember you getting off the boat yesterday.”

  �
�Yes, sir.”

  “Well, I’ll tell you what son, what was your name again?”

  “Howard.”

  “Howard, right. Tell you what Howard, since you’re new and all we’ll take it easy on you for now.” He placed his hand on Howard’s shoulder. “Hell, most of these boys have been digging in this tunnel for months and have worked up some endurance. Ain’t that right boys?”

  The working inmates acknowledged in unison.

  “Why don’t you just have seat and take break for a while. The rest of the boys will understand.” He started to walk away but then stopped and turned.

  “Tell ya what though, I’ll need somebody to make up for the lost time while you’re resting. One of these boys will have to work twice as fast. That makes sense, don’t it Howard?”

  Before Howard could protest the guard continued. “I’ll let you decide who to pick. After all, I’m just a screw and you’re one of the fellas. You have a better idea who the right man for the job would be.”

  Most of the inmates stopped working and looked at Howard. The guards grinned and chuckled amongst themselves.

  “Oh, I get it,” the guard continued. “You’re worried about stepping on some toes. Why don’t you just whisper the name in my ear?” He leaned in and put his ear next to Howard’s mouth.

  “Big Wilber? I’m sure Wilber would be happy to oblige. Wilber! You heard the man, get cracking. Your buddy Howard over here needs you to work double time so he can take a break and get some rest.”

  Big Wilber wasn’t one of those ironic nicknames like a fat guy named Slim. He was big as a mule and gave Howard a look that promised there would be hell to pay that night in the barracks.

  Howard didn’t have the guts to protest any further so he sat helplessly on the floor of the cave while the rest of the inmates slaved away. The guards rode Big Wilber’s ass relentlessly to get him to work faster.

  Eventually, Howard was told to get back to work and the day dragged on. The inmates worked at a steady pace and the guards continued to abuse them verbally and physically.