The Wretched Read online

  The Wretched

  R. James Faulkner

  This is a work of fiction.

  The characters, incidents, and dialogues are products

  of the author’s imagination.

  Any resemblance to actual events or persons, living or dead,

  is entirely coincidental.

  Copyright 2017 by R. James Faulkner.

  Published by Dark Pines Publishing

  All rights reserved.

  No part of this book may be used or reproduced in any form

  without the permission in writing from the author.

  Published in the United States in 2017

  Cover design by Richard Dakin

  For my family.

  The road is hard, but worth the travel.

  Thank you for reading this novel.

  Some people enjoy listening to music while reading.

  I have created nine tracks that total

  forty-five minutes to set the atmosphere

  while reading this E-book.

  If you would like to download them, please follow this link.

  http://rjamesfaulkner.com/music

  The Wretched

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  1

  His emaciated body trembled in the cold night air. Matted strands of gray hair covered his weathered face. He did not bother to move it from his eyes. The fire in front of him grew from a weak flame into a large roaring blaze. He waited until it cast a bright yellow glow around the small clearing before he stood up. A thin, sinewy figure covered by tattered clothes. That was all that was left of him, of who he once was. Leftovers in an old sack of flesh.

  The frail body of his wife appeared no better than his as she sat leaned against a small pine tree. She had mumbled something to him, he thought, or maybe to the wind. Her face was gaunt, with eyes sunken deep inside her skull. He tried to get her to eat the day before, but she refused and reassured him she would soon. She remained in the same spot where he sat her down. The fear she was already gone kept gnawing at his mind. They had walked so far in the last few months, passing around Memphis on their journey south.

  You don’t want to go into Memphis. It’s death to go in there. Got to go around.

  He knew better than to go through the city. They were old and unable to defend themselves against bandits. The safer route took longer than he planned. She followed him and never complained.

  “What was it you said?”

  He stooped over in front of her to watch her mouth move and asked her again. She did not respond. The man gathered more wood for the fire from the nearby ground.

  Got to keep it high.

  The old man tossed armfuls of sticks into the flames and searched for more. Each trip he made rendered more light for the next. In a countless cycle, a relentless act of labor, he stumbled into and out of the woods. The thin skin of his hands ripped open and added blood to the ever-growing fire.

  She said something to me. What was it?

  He asked her again, but she was silent. Noise in the distance made him stop. He held his breath and waited to hear it again. Nothing came to his ear. He went back to piling the gathered fuel. The man paused every so often and strained to catch the sound of movement in the surrounding woods. In a short time, he created an inferno with enough heat to make him stand back beside the tree next to her.

  He watched the small sparks race upward from the licking orange and yellow flames. The sound of the fire crackling limited him from hearing anything else.

  She said it right before…

  The man knelt beside his wife, reached out to feel her, and touched her cold hand. He cried what few tears his dehydrated body would let go. The flames called his attention. It spoke to him. The man closed his eyes and listened. It was time.

  He found a small twig and wrote with it in the dirt. His weak hand scrawled out three simple words. Walter and Vanessa. He considered adding more when he stood and looked at them, but he did not have the strength.

  My whole life, and all I have to show for it is words in the dirt.

  Walter lifted her into his arms.

  She’s so light now.

  As he stepped forward, he looked at Vanessa’s face one last time and kissed her blue lips.

  “What was it you said to me? What was it?” He spoke against the roar of the fire. “I can’t remember.”

  With one feeble step, he carried her body into the greedy flames. The sound of it encompassed him. Unable to breathe, the world faded from his knowing.

  The fire spread from the place of its creation, and the flames devoured the nearby trees. It swelled in size and became a massive wildfire. It consumed everything in its path as it roared across the landscape. The firelight faded on the three words in the dirt, and there was only darkness.

  2

  Ben’s eyelids fluttered for several seconds before they sprang wide open. He was unsure if he dreamed it or if he heard a noise. To clear away the blur of sleep, he blinked his blue eyes several times and attempted to focus on the tree in front of him. The world around him was dim, holding the hue of pale gray from the early dawn light. He listened to the noise again.

  Has someone found me?

  His heart pounded in his chest, and his throat tightened until it seemed he breathed through the narrow passage of a drinking straw. The muscles in his legs stiffened from reflex. Panic, the jitters from the rush of adrenaline, it was a familiar sensation for him.

  Will I have to fight them?

  He heard the sound of rustling leaves move closer to where he was. Perhaps it was Charlie, his older twin brother, coming to find him. He pushed the bitter notion from his mind. It would be better for it to be an animal, something that moved over the dead leaves. He waited.

  Can I get away?

  His eyes darted back and forth over the sprawl of brown leaves as he searched for the source of the noise. After a long while, he saw a pair of small brown birds with yellow underbellies. Ben relaxed and took several deep calming breaths. He watched as they picked through the leaves in hunt for a meal.

  I can’t take much more of this. I can’t…damn you, Charlie.

  Ben removed the small pine branches and dead leaves he had piled over his sleeping bag. He hated to climb from the relative warmth of it and step into the cold morning air, but his bladder commanded him to.

  Ben stepped from his sleeping spot to relieve himself. He went on the side of a tree trunk and not the dry leaves below him. It made less noise. The quieter he was, the safer he was. His stomach growled, and he looked at the small birds, watching them as they shuffled among the leaves. He wished he could scrounge to find food as they did.

  After he finished his morning need, Ben took a small cooking pot from his backpack and crept to a little stream down the hill from his camp. He dipped the rim of the metal vessel into the water and collected some. Ben looked for fish, no matter h
ow small, within the dirty water. The trickling stream was too shallow to hold any. It did not surprise him.

  Ben gathered a handful of sticks and piled them together over a piece of paper he had found. ‘Closeout Sale’ it proclaimed in bold black letters. He stared at it and considered what it represented then.

  Closeout indeed, everything is closed out.

  He waited until the sun rose above the horizon before he started the fire. Ben held the green colored lighter close to the paper and struck it. The yellow flame consumed the white and turned it into a charred black. He added small twigs followed by larger ones until little smoke at all came off the flames. All he needed was enough hot coals to heat the water. The warmth it created felt good to his cold fingers.

  When the sticks had burned down to large coals, he raked them together and sat the pot on top. He let the water come to a boil while he ate what was left of his food. There were a few pieces of beef jerky and half of a stale tasting candy bar. The chocolate had long lost its flavor, and the nougat was hard to chew. He pulled the water from the fire with his right hand and covered the coals in dirt with his left. He would drink it as he walked. Fear of staying too long in one place made him push forward.

  He went about his morning routine and rolled the sleeping bag up tight. After he strapped the bag to his backpack, he checked the cylinder of his father’s revolver to count the rounds.

  Five for them, one for me.

  Ben stared at it for several seconds and ran his thumb over the smooth metal of the barrel. A sigh escaped his lips as he tucked the revolver into the worn holster hanging from his belt.

  He pulled his pack on, slinked toward the roadway, and waited at the tree line to listen for noises. He wanted to be sure before he exposed himself to whoever could be on the road. When he was certain it was clear, he walked out to the edge of the blacktop. He looked down the highway to the south and then back north the way he had traveled the day before. His gaze lowered to the charred body spread across the yellow center line. It remained in the same frozen state he saw it the evening before, twisted in an unnatural position that reminded him of a scorpion. The empty red gas canister sat at the border of the black scorch marks on the highway.

  Ben pulled his knit hat down over his dark hair and covered his ears. Within the same movement, he lifted the collar of his jacket. He cleared his nose with one long snort, spat it out on the pavement, and walked south. It was south, always south. Day after long day he walked, always headed south. He hoped to travel fifteen miles further in the day, but he figured it would only be eight. Each day was a slow and dangerous walk that wore on his body. The long travel had fatigued his leg muscles. They ached through the night and felt stiff and sore in the morning.

  Ben walked with a limp that appeared within the past week. His left knee hurt when he put his full weight on it. It needed rest, more rest than he could give it, but stopping for a day was not an option.

  Head south. We have to get south. It’s the only way. We have to hurry. No rest until we get there.

  That was what his father told the family. Ben thought about it for a short while before he pulled himself back to the present. His boots made small noises against the road with each step. He moved to the shoulder to walk quieter. With the cushion of grass, he could use the five-foot-long piece of water pipe he carried as a walking stick. He wanted to drop it, let it go, and had every day since he picked it up. But the safety he believed he had with it in his hand kept him from doing that. It was the thought it might provide protection that made him hold onto it.

  Days had turned into weeks, and he lost track of how long he had been walking from his home. Yet he knew exactly how long he moved south by himself, alone and terrified.

  Three weeks. Three goddamn weeks. Where are you, Charlie?

  It was long enough for him to become uneasy when he spoke aloud. If he talked to himself, to comment on a mistake, it startled him. To hear a human voice of any kind had become a warning, much like the sound of the screams that came from the distance sometimes. Anything that carried a human voice was not to be trusted. Human voices meant death. Silence was better.

  The sun warmed the chill of the morning air. A few wisps of steam rose from the open spots beside the road farther ahead of him. Small clumps of green grass stood out against the dull brown of the dead grass. The trees were budding. Spring was not far off. It would not be long at all and it worried him. First, the warmer air would bring mosquitoes to bite him in the night, then it would bring chirping crickets, and the loud call of the tree frogs soon after. The nights would be full of noises, ones that blended into each other and hid the important sounds.

  Then I won’t know anymore. I just won’t know.

  A tree limb moved while he was lost in thought and it pulled him back to full attention. Ben thrust the rusted pipe in front of him like a dull and useless spear. Grit teeth and held breath, he waited for what would come from the woods. But nothing appeared, and he strained to hear beyond the pounding of his heartbeat in his ears. Ben heard it again, higher above him.

  He saw the small flicking of a light gray tail. A squirrel was on a thin limb over the shoulder of the road. Ben watched it as he pulled the revolver out of the holster. He aimed at it and reconsidered. The small animal would be a good meal for him, being almost a week since he had eaten anything cooked. However, the squirrel was not worth the waste of a round. What he had in the gun were all that remained. He watched as the animal jump from limb to limb away from him. Ben regretted the lost opportunity.

  He walked three miles before he finished drinking the water. The dirty taste made it hard to swallow. He hoped to find a clear spring where he could drink his fill of some better tasting water. Ben remembered how he would waste clean water playing with the garden hose. He would hold his thumb pressed over the end and spray a mist to see a rainbow form. Long showers were another waste as he stood under the showerhead, letting the warm water flow over him until it ran cold. All of it wasted down the drain. He wished he had a gallon of it back in front of him. To drink from creeks and mud puddles was unpleasant at best. He had tired of filtering water through a shirt to be able to drink it.

  Maybe they have fresh water there. Running water. The kind that comes from a tap.

  3

  The man stopped walking to lean against the corner of a brick building. He looked behind for his pursuers, but they remained hidden. Tired and breathless, he moved past the corner, heading into a small concrete parking lot of a fire-gutted grocery store. He tried each of the five vehicles that sat abandoned in the parking spaces. None would crank, he lifted the hood of two of them and discovered the batteries missing. He moved down the sidewalk, every so often looking back to see if they were still following him.

  Vultures. Goddamn cutthroats and fiends, always following, always waiting. Just waiting.

  All he had to do was get far enough ahead of them, outpace them, and he could get some rest. He leaned his head back, ran a hand through his blond hair soaked with sweat, and looked at the sky.

  No clouds mean no rain, and no rain means a good night’s sleep.

  A large pile of rubble made him cross the street toward more burned out buildings. He looked inside the hulls of brick and timbers as he passed. This town was like those before it, damaged and dead.

  Shattered window glass littered the sidewalk under his boots. He slid on it as turned to the right. A small convenience store was ahead, and he sprinted toward it. The blond-haired man paused at the door only long enough to pull out his long blade machete. He looked inside for anyone.

  “Hello. Anybody there? Just need some food. A little water.”

  No answer came, but he did not wait for a reply. He swung open the blood smeared and dirt covered glass doors of the drink coolers, looking inside each until he found an unopened gallon of water. The man made a circle around the shelves on his way back out and bent down to pick up several trampled on candy bars from the floor. He grabbed half a dozen small cans
of pork and beans from a bottom shelf and found himself with his hand hovering over tins of sardines. He tried to choose which flavor to get before he raked them all from the display stand and into his waiting bag. Whichever fell inside was what he would eat.

  The heel of his boot met the glass door, and it swung open. He stepped from the store and onto the sidewalk. His attention returned to find the ones who tailed him. It was clear behind and no one ahead. He jogged down the street. As he turned the corner toward the right, he noticed an open field beyond a cul-de-sac. His pace quickened. The man heard them shout to one another, communicating his location, trying to trap him. He moved faster, powered by adrenaline, as he sprinted down the street.

  He made a full run toward the trees, knowing he had to get to the woods to slow down the men behind him. Limbs and briar barbs clutched at his clothes as if to capture him for ransom. The thick underbrush slowed him down, and it would hinder the followers as well.

  He stopped running when he reached a small clearing. It looked to be part of an old logging road cut between the pine trees. After throwing down his bag, he set about gathering wood and tossed the sticks into a hurried pile.

  Got to get a fire going. Sons a bitches don’t like fire. Going to build it big too. Burn ’em right back to hell.

  He got to his knees, pulled clumps of dead grass from the sides of the clearing, and stuffed it under the firewood. Soon he had a blaze going. He tossed more fuel onto it and admired its size.

  “You like that?” He yelled at the darkening woods around him. “You like my big fucking fire?”

  Nighttime was coming, bringing the biting coldness with it. He gathered more firewood. When he determined there was enough to last until dawn, he stopped and sat by the flame. Time moved slower in the darkness. He had forgotten to wind his watch. It no longer counted off the minutes. Nevertheless, the habit to look at his wrist checking for the time had not ceased its own measured glancing. Not that it mattered what the hour was. Daylight would still seem an eternity away even if he could count the hours on a clock face.