Desolate The Complete Trilogy

Desolate The Complete Trilogy - By Robert Brumm


Part One - Desolate





1



If one were to fly a plane over the South Shetland Islands, just off the northwest side of the Antarctic Peninsula, one might notice a small horseshoe shaped island nestled in between the larger islands in the chain. Thousands of years ago, a massive volcanic eruption collapsed the volcano’s summit. The caldera was flooded and created a bay within the remaining land.

This island was once home to a thriving community of seal hunters in the 1820s. By the early 1900s, seals were nearly hunted to extinction, so the hunters turned to whaling. In 1910, a whaling station was constructed near the protected waters of the bay where whale carcasses were boiled down to extract the valuable oil within. The rich waters surrounding the island rewarded the workers well, and soon a small town grew between the black sand beach and glaciers looming in the hills above.

As isolated as the island was, it could not hide from the depression of the 1930s. The price of whale oil plummeted and the workers struggled to turn a profit. Most of the residents left the island in search of work back in the civilized world. A stubborn minority stayed behind and patiently waited for better times while hunting Chinstrap penguins to keep from starving over the long winter months.

In 1941, the volcano erupted again. It destroyed most of the small whaling town and killed over half of the remaining residents. The island was finally abandoned once and for all. The rusty remains of the oil tanks along the shore and a handful of crumbling foundations is all that is left today.

If one were to continue to circle the island in the plane, one would notice the permanent glaciers that cover over half the island. The other half is covered in black volcanic sand and rock, penguin and kelp gull feces, and scraggly moss and lichen. It is an ugly and inhospitable land. One would quickly lose interest and change the course of the plane to a more appealing location.



Howard Bell saw none of these things because he arrived to the island by boat. He stood on the deck waiting to disembark with a few dozen men. It was cold. He was no stranger to cold being from Wisconsin, but he was wearing clothes barely suitable for an air conditioned office.

“All right ladies! Fall in line and get on my ass! Anybody falls behind, anybody pulls any shit, and I will introduce you to Little Billy here!” The speaker was a large man dressed in a parka. He gripped and caressed a club that must have been Little Billy. Besides him, a few other men dressed in the same fashion stood by holding shotguns. The guns may have also had clever names but there were no introductions yet.

The shivering men followed the well-dressed guards off the small ship which had been their home for the last several weeks. Like all the other convicts, Howard started the journey by slowly heading to Miami by bus. It stopped in various cities and towns, picking up more cons along the way. He was pulled off the bus, pushed on to a shabby looking ship, and was locked into one of the cells below deck.

The ship headed south through the Caribbean toward South America. As the ship sailed closer to the equator, the cell became unbearably hot and humid. Howard shared his cell with five other men. They slept on dirty mats on the hard deck and squatted over a hole when they needed to relieve themselves.

The ship made several stops along the way as it hugged the continent’s shore. In Sao Luis, Rio de Janeiro, and Montevideo, the convicts were allowed out of their cells to the upper deck. They helped haul supplies to and from the ship and were hosed down with salt water afterward to wash the sweat and grime from their bodies.

After the ship left Uruguay and sailed further south, the temperature dropped considerably. For a while, it was downright comfortable, but it soon turned bitter cold. Howard sat on his mat shivering and wishing for the delicious warmth of the Caribbean. Finally, the ship reached the final destination and soon he discovered what real cold was like.

The official name of the installation on the island was the International Experimental Rehabilitation Facility. Everybody that lived on the island simply referred to it as the farm.

Nobody was quite sure how it came to be known as the farm, as there were no similarities to an actual farm whatsoever. It was just a handful of ratty buildings in the middle of nowhere. Isolation was the main crop of the farm and the inmates didn’t need to do much to keep the crop thriving.

The facility was a collaboration between the United States and United Kingdom. The two countries acquired the island under the blessings of the Antarctic Treaty System to create an isolated prison colony where they could send the worst men society had to offer. All inmates had at least one life sentence without the possibility of parole. The farm not only provided extreme isolation from the rest of the world, but also acted as a deterrent for other would-be bad guys. Straighten up or freeze your ass off at the farm for the rest of your life. The long-term goal was a nearly self-sufficient outpost of exiles with low cost to the taxpayers. There was hope that eventually, with proper guidance and resources, the prisoners would develop a society on the island unlike traditional prisons. The inmates would govern themselves and find a way to survive with little help from the outside world. Ultimately, the government wanted to be able to drop off new convicts and wash their hands of them. Survival of the fittest. The new men would need to adapt quickly and find their place in the little island nation of criminals.

Escape was not a concern. The island was under constant satellite surveillance and any suspicious sea or aircraft would be intercepted courtesy of the RAF. The Mount Pleasant air base on the Falkland Islands was just minutes away via fighter jet. Any man foolish enough to try the five mile swim to the nearest island wouldn’t get far in the icy water.

The farm was just over ten years old when Howard and his peers arrived. Concerns in Washington and London were growing and it was becoming clear the experiment was not going as planned. The inmates seemed no closer to self-sufficiency than they were a decade ago.

Howard trudged along with the others led by Little Billy and his friend a quarter mile inland to the farm. The first thing he noticed was the pair of guard towers looming over both sides of the compound. Each held a guard and a powerful spot light mounted on a fifty caliber machine gun. The guns weren’t used to discourage escape since there was no place to escape to. They simply stacked the odds against the inmates in case of an uprising. Each gun had full coverage of the camp and could rain down lead up to 2000 yards away. The thin aluminum walls of the barracks offered no protection from the powerful rounds of the fifties.

The inmates were led out of the cold and into a room in the main administration building. They were told to shut up. Line up. Eyes forward. A large man entered wearing a clean and wrinkle free uniform with three chevrons on the sleeve indicating his rank of sergeant. He stood for a moment eyeing the convicts for drama.

When he finally spoke he did so with a powerful voice, each word slow and deliberate. “My name is Sergeant Vincent Cottrell and as you may have already guessed, I’m in command of the guards in this facility. I assume you all have names as well, but I don’t give a shit what they might be. You were sent to me because you’ve committed crimes against society. A society that you will never be a part of again. The farm is not a pleasant place to live for convicted felons. The United States of America and Great Britain gave me this job to see to it that it stays that way. And I take my job very seriously, I shit you not.”

The con standing next to Howard found that last bit amusing and he let out a little snicker. Cottrell simply stopped talking, sighed, and looked at the ceiling. Within a second, two guards were on him, beating him with their clubs. He collapsed to the floor and screamed as they delivered blow after blow. They skillfully struck with just enough force not to break the skin or any bones. He would receive no permanent damage, just weeks of recovery from swollen lumps and painful bruises. The guards stopped at the same time and looked to their sergeant for guidance, who told them to get the piece of shit out of his sight. They uncurled the con from his fetal position and dragged him from the room.

Cottrell continued. “I’d like to thank that young man for demonstrating a very valuable lesson. I will not take shit of any kind. My men will not take shit of any kind. Your welfare is not a great concern to me.” He paced the floor, stopping in front of Howard. “If I had my way, I’d use my sidearm to put a bullet into each of your heads and end your worthless lives right now. It sickens me to share the same planet with you. However, I also share this planet with bleeding heart lefty do-gooders that might consider that cruel and unusual punishment.” The guards took their cue and laughed at their sergeant’s joke. The inmates did not.

“You will find no bleeding hearts here. If you do as you are told, and don’t attract my attention, we’ll all get along just fine. Attracting my attention means you’ve made the mistake of deciding to become a troublemaker.” He pointed to the door. “When that boy gets out of the infirmary, feel free to ask him if he regrets that decision. Do I make myself clear, convicts?”

One of the guards stepped out in front of the inmates and screamed his best drill instructor scream. “When the sergeant asks the convicts a direct question the convicts respond by saying YES SIR!”

The convicts muttered the required response out of unison.

“The sergeant can’t hear you!”

“YES SIR!”

“All right then, gentlemen,” Cottrell said. “Welcome to the farm.”