Desolate The Complete Trilogy

19



Dr. Clark sipped his coffee as he looked out the small porthole window. The sky was clear and he felt optimistic about being able to get a little work done outside that day. He was about to turn away from the window and tell Liz about his plans, when he caught something out of the corner of his eye. He stopped in mid-sip as he saw two people walking toward the station.

“Liz!” He ducked his head out into the hallway. “We’ve got visitors!”



****



Howard took the steaming cup of coffee and wrapped his numb fingers around the soothing mug. He inhaled the wonderful aroma and took a sip.

“I’m Howard Bell.” He offered a tired smile to the curious man before him. “This is Carl O’Donnell.”

“Dr. Clark,” the man said. “Phillip. Judging by your uniforms, I assume you men work for the prison camp here on the island?”

“That’s right,” said Howard. “We ran into some trouble at the prison camp and came looking for help.”

“Yeah, that’s right,” chimed in Carl enthusiastically. “We came looking for help.”

“I see,” Clark said. “From the look of it, you two found us just in time. No offense, but you look terrible.”

“I don’t think we look half as bad as I feel,” said Howard.

A woman entered the room and was startled by the sight of the two haggard strangers. “Oh my gosh. Hello.”

“This is my wife, Dr. Liz Clark. This is Howard and…”

“Carl, ma’am.” Carl bounced to his feet and took her hand. “Pleased to meet you. Gosh, you’re a sight for sore eyes.”

“Hello, Liz Clark.” She pulled her hand away from Carl’s enthusiastic shaking.

“Ah, what I mean is ma’am, I haven’t seen nothing but men for quite a spell. Prisoners I mean. Me and Howard here are guards over at the prison camp. Ain’t that right, Howard?”

“You mentioned you had some trouble?” Phillip asked.

“Yes,” Howard said before Carl could do any more nervous rambling. “There was an issue with the inmates. A riot. They took over the whole prison and Carl and I barely escaped alive.”

“Oh how awful,” Liz said.

“I wouldn’t worry about it too much, ma’am,” Carl said. He hadn’t taken his eyes off of her and was standing a little too close. “We won’t be missed and they sure as hell won’t be coming after us. They’re probably kicking back in the guardhouse right now getting drunk.”

“Well, what can we do to help?” asked Phillip. “I assume you’d like to contact the authorities, but unfortunately, we haven’t had much luck with the radio the past few days. We haven’t been able to get through to anybody.”

Howard felt a great sense of relief. With the radio down, that would at least buy them some time so they could come up with some sort of plan. Up until now, his only concern was getting to safety, not what to do once they got there.

“I want to get you two into the med lab,” Liz said. “I don’t like the look of that windburn on your faces.”

Carl and Liz walked down the hall with Phillip and Howard following. “The full crew for the station is usually six people this time of year but at the moment it’s just me and Liz,” Phillip explained to Howard. “Jack Norris, our meteorologist, had a heart attack yesterday. Liz stabilized him and he was flown out this morning.”

“So you folks have your own plane?”

“Helicopter, actually. Ron Baker is our resident pilot, engineer, and handyman. He flew Jack out along with Lisa Hammond. She’s a biologist who also happens to be a paramedic. Steve Flemming, our geologist, had to fly back to the states last week on a family emergency. It’s rare for us to be missing so many people but you caught us at an odd time.”

“Phillip, if you’re done boring these two with your personnel updates and fun facts, I’d like to make sure they’re not about to drop dead,” Liz said.

“Yes, yes, by all means. Forgive me gentlemen, I tend to rattle on. And being cooped up alone with your spouse in the middle of nowhere isn’t quite what it’s cracked up to be.”

Liz gave her husband a playful swat on the shoulder and showed Howard and Carl into the medical lab. Besides being slightly dehydrated, both “guards” were given a clean bill of health after a quick examination.

The Clarks offered them a change of clothes and gave them a tour of the research station. It consisted of a steel tube partially buried beneath the ground. The tube was three hundred feet long and thirty feet in diameter. They showed them the living quarters, pantry, kitchen, laboratories, sanitation plant, energy supply station, and snow melting plant. Liz cooked a simple meal of soup and sandwiches and the four of them ate in the kitchen.

“Tell me,” said Liz. “Are we in any danger from what happened at the prison camp? Before we signed up for a rotation, Phillip told me it was here on the island and I was less than thrilled.”

“Don’t worry,” said Howard. “None of the inmates even know this station exists. They come in on boat from the other side of the island.”

“I’ll try the radio again after dinner and see if I can get through,” said Phillip. “At the very least, I would expect Ron and Lisa back with the helicopter soon. It’s too late today but they may be back tomorrow.”

“I hope so,” said Liz. “It gives me the creeps knowing that we’re stranded out here even if it’s only temporary.”

Howard was about to speak when a loud noise down the hall made them all jump and look at the doorway.

“What in the world was that?” Phillip checked his watch. “That couldn’t be them back so late.” He excused himself from the table to investigate the noise.

“You’re welcome to use Jack and Steve’s beds to get some sleep if you’d like,” Liz offered. “You must be exhausted.”

“You can say that again,” said Carl. “A warm bed sounds mighty nice about now, Liz.”

Liz let out forced chuckle and took a nervous glance at the doorway. “I better go see what’s keeping Phillip,” she said and left the room.

“Son of a bitch,” Carl muttered. “That’s a fine piece of ass, hey Howie?”

“Are you nuts?” Howard glanced at the door and lowered his voice. “How can you think about that now? Look, sooner or later he’s going to be able to get somebody on that radio. What then? It’s not going to take a rocket scientist to figure out we’re not guards. And in case you didn’t notice these two are f*cking scientists.”

“Relax man, didn’t you hear? They got a helicopter. All we have to do is bide our time ‘till they get back.” He lifted up the bottom of his shirt to show the Glock tucked into his waistband. “Then I’ll flash the piece in everybody’s faces and Joe Chopper Pilot flies us anywhere we aim to go.

“Before then, I pop a couple slugs in the radio, or better yet, I do Doctor Pencil-Dick and his tasty bitch. By the time the cops figure out what happened back at the farm, and seen we ain’t in the pile of stiffs back there, we’ll be long gone. And these a*sholes won’t be around to tell nobody about us.”

Before Howard could respond, Phillip and Liz came back into the room. “Everything all right?” Howard asked.

“It’s the strangest thing,” said Philip. “The outside door was open a crack and one of the storage racks in the hall fell over.” He dismissed it with a wave of his hand. “With all the excitement I must have left the latch undone.”

They cleaned up the dishes and Howard and Carl were shown the bunks where they could sleep. Howard stretched out on the bunk and it felt heavenly.

He propped himself up on one elbow and whispered across the room to Carl. “Your plan with the helicopter isn’t bad, I’ll admit, but let’s not rush into anything too hasty. These people don’t have to die just so we can make a clean getaway.”

“Well, look who got all high and mighty on me all a sudden,” whispered Carl. He sat up in his bed and a dark look came over his face. “Look, I don’t know about you but I’ve been doing time longer than I care to remember. This is the best chance I got to be a free man and I’m gonna do whatever it takes.”

For the first time since they met, Howard realized there was a dark side to Carl he hadn’t really seen yet. Howard wrote him off long ago as a foul mouthed, easy going simpleton, but they met at a federal prison, not a scout camp. Carl had committed some crimes in his past to get there and Howard wasn’t sure he wanted to know the details. He also suddenly didn’t feel too good about Carl having the only gun.

“Yeah, I know,” Howard said. “I’m just saying let’s not do anything we’ll regret later. If we get caught it’ll just be harder on us.”

“What are they gonna do, sentence us to life? Oh wait, that’s right.” Carl sat back in bed again and his mood lightened. “Listen kid, don’t sweat it. I ain’t no psycho and I’m not gonna start blasting people for no reason. I just want to make sure you’re on my team, is all.”

“You know I am.”

“Good. Now go to sleep, you look like shit.”