Cruel and Unusual (Somewhere In-Between) Read online

  Cruel and Unusual

  A Novel that falls Somewhere In-Between by C.E. Wilson

  For the latest news and updates: www.cewilsonauthor.com

  Cover Image by Desiree DeOrto Artist and Designer

  Cruel and Unusual

  ASIN: B01NAYOAWV

  ISBN-13: 978-1542640947

  ISBN-10: 1542640946

  Text copyright © 2017 by C.E. Wilson

  All Rights Reserved

  For Erin Bedford.

  Thanks so much for everything

  you’ve done helping me on this journey.

  Cruel and Unusual

  Chapter One

  I wasn’t afraid of being alone

  until I realized what loneliness truly meant.

  Routine. I found it enjoyable for the most part, I really did, but as of late I couldn’t.

  For the past some odd 730 days, I lived in a routine. I woke up. I found a way to take a shower. I found a way to stop the insufferable, dark scruff from growing on my chin and under my nose. I found a place to set up for the day to work on my art. I waited for the sun to go down or the temperature to drop. On some days, I would talk to my neighbor, but if he didn’t come outside by the time the sun set, I would go back home and try to make my dinner—normally cod, pollock, or halibut—taste like something it wasn’t. Then I would sit down and try to catch some of the local radio station. If it was interesting, I would try to stay awake. If there was nothing going on (and there usually wasn’t), I would try to get some sleep.

  Then the routine would start all over again.

  I didn’t have a job, and unfortunately the only person I was able to talk to on a regular basis was my neighbor. That’s not meant to imply that I’m anti-social. I was there to serve time for a crime I was rightfully imprisoned for. I didn’t like to give details about what I did or why I was… where I was, but serving time was the right thing to do. A man is allowed to have secrets, and it wasn’t like there were many people to share secrets with anyway—let alone to trust to keep them. My neighbor? Flynn Andersen? I don’t think he gave a shit as to why I was there—I just was, and therefore he came to two conclusions.

  I must have done something pretty terrible.

  Also, my parents or I must have money because otherwise, I wouldn’t be there in the first place serving my time—I would have been in jail.

  Project Isolation was a new concept in solitary confinement championed by the new elect. With jails—and everywhere else, for that matter—filling up to the brim, the government had a difficult time finding a place to house such criminals like Flynn and myself. The idea was that if you didn’t want to go to prison or could afford not to go, an alternative was available. Time was served on an isolated island, and though criminals there wouldn’t technically be alone, rarely were any of us able to interact with more than one other person.

  Since I’m a guy, I shared my tiny island with another man. If I had been a woman, I would have served with another. The new elect declared it dangerous to keep those of the opposite sex on the same island. The higher-ups thought of criminals like rabbits and came to the conclusion that if we had an opportunity to have sex, then we as humans would stop at nothing to find it.

  So men and women were kept apart, and secrets of sexuality were no longer considered private.

  Perhaps the new elect were correct. After two years, I was dying to have some sort of physical interaction. I was so desperate in that last year. I would spend hours thinking about blondes, brunettes and redheads, and it was through those fantasies that I realized I could paint. I couldn’t touch a woman, but I could draw one. I could make her look however I wanted. Blue hair? White eyes? Anything I wanted, I could create on paper. Thanks to those who mercifully delivered our supplies, most of us were able form a habit to keep ourselves busy and stop us from trying to escape. Because of my new hobby, paint and paper came as often as it could be supplied.

  Nothing truly helped cope with loneliness, however. I missed Mauve even though she was a big part of the reason I was there. I tried to paint her a few times after I realized I had talent, but I couldn’t recreate her perfection on canvas or paper. I couldn’t truly capture her cruel beauty, her wide but cold baby-blue eyes. I couldn’t find the perfect color, and as time went by, she became less of a reality and more of a fantasy I could never obtain. So for a while, I stopped trying to paint her.

  Three years—my sentence could have been limited to two, but I didn’t respect the rules. I didn’t understand how extreme Project Isolation was and how hard the new elect were trying to prove that it could work. I ripped off my shock collar within the first few months and tried to escape. At the time, trying to escape didn’t seem like such a big deal—the collar was like a dog’s, and dogs escaped from their invisible fences all the time, so why couldn’t I? I was on one of Aleutian islands, so I figured I could probably find a way to make it to the mainland and hide out while I figured out my next move.

  The collar I wore could track prisoners, so I thought that by removing it I would be untraceable, but I had forgotten about the device implanted in my lower back—again, just like a dog would have—and the wardens were able to track me down easily before I had even hopped two islands.

  Another year was tacked on to my sentence, and Flynn had a laugh about it for days. I considered ripping off my new wrist and old neck collars right there so I could go over and bash his face in. His face was all he had, and I could have so easily ruined it.

  Project Isolation was better thought out than I gave it credit for. If I’d tried to escape again, staying there might no longer have been an option, and like a coward, I feared going to a real jail. I was only twenty-two, barely twenty when sentenced. Prison life would have eaten me alive. Then my parents would have chewed me up and spat me out like the fat on a duck breast. If I wanted to have any chance at a normal life, I had to realize I was there to stay for the rest of my sentence. They weren’t going to take any chances with me. The opportunity to escape no longer existed.

  There was no escape except through routine.

  The place I resided in was an area called the Shumagin Islands, off the mainland of Alaska—a collection of small islands for criminals to inhabit. Mine was a very small island, and only held two men, but the big ones held quite a few more. None of the islands had individual names, I think to confuse us. Project Isolation was not created to make things more comfortable—at least not on the surface. At least in prison, you stood the chance at having visitors, family and friends who cared about you despite the horrible crimes you may have committed.

  However, not many people wanted to come the whole way out to Alaska to pay an hour weekly visit to someone who might have done something so unspeakable.

  The only way to get contact with others outside the island was to have a worker come from Sand Point—a town on a large nearby island and the closest airport. It housed many of the workers involved with Project Isolation, including wardens, counselors, psychiatrists, bodyguards, and distributors. They were all paid well because of where they lived and the newness of such a project. No one really knew how long Project Isolation would stand, but wardens and all other participants wanted good money while they could get it, especially if they had to live out on a remote Alaskan island.

  The population of Sand Point had yet to reach one thousand, or so I was told. If the radio or wardens didn’t tell me something, I had no way of knowing if it was actually true or happening.

  For the most part, I had three wardens who came to visit me and bring supplies for the month: Felix, Milo, and Janet. They never told me their last names, and something told me this was either because they were frighten
ed to let me know or because this was simply another precaution by Project Isolation. I didn’t care either way. I would count the days, the hours, the minutes, and even the seconds until one or more of them would show up with my supplies.

  Felix always tried to bring me something to help with my “art kick.” He thought it was a good idea to keep my mind busy so I forgot the time… as if such a thing was possible. He usually came every other month and sometimes several months in a row. He was often the kindest and felt bad for my situation though I’m sure he thought I deserved to be there. He always looked too clean, and I couldn’t help but feel jealous of those who lived at Sand Point. They had a library and restaurants and a theater, and when it snowed, someone would plow or shovel it. At Shumagin… I had to figure it out; otherwise, I would have been buried not only by my own guilt, but also by the elements.

  Janet didn’t come by too often, but it was always such a joy when she did. She never came alone though, as Project Isolation specified. The higher ups were probably worried I would jump on her and have my way. Perhaps I would have. Janet wasn’t the most beautiful woman, but she was the only woman I had seen with any regularity these past two years. Her mousy-brown hair was always matted by damp air or snow, and she never seemed to bother to take care of it. Her husband had some important job on Sand Point, I didn’t like to think about him. I didn’t think I wanted to. Without him, I could pretend that Janet was some clueless woman who needed a little fine tuning to find her beauty. She didn’t bring me much, not like Felix did, but her gifts were always a kind surprise—a new paintbrush here, a cut of smoked salmon there. Her dark-brown eyes always softened when she handed me something, and I was always grateful.

  What I wasn’t grateful for was when Milo came to visit. Honestly, I didn’t even know why he bothered. He couldn’t have made it clearer that he hated not only me, but also Flynn and everyone else associated with that project. He came in with his platinum-blond hair and judgmental eyes, and made me wonder if money was the only reason he was there at all. He must have been paid well—otherwise, why would he involve himself with something that disgusted him so much?

  I swear, the man was always looking for reasons to report me. Well… maybe Flynn, too. The fact that Milo was an asshole was one of the few things Flynn and I could see eye to eye on.

  The wardens really weren’t supposed to put their hands on us unless there was a reason, but Milo always seemed to be on the lookout for one. He usually didn’t pull that kind of shit when Felix was around, keeping a watchful eye on everyone, but when he came by himself, or with Janet, he was a completely different person. He didn’t hit me very often, but I knew he hit Flynn on more than one occasion. Perhaps that was because, while I’m lanky, I’m a few inches taller than Milo, but Flynn was your typical trust-fund baby with a Napoleon complex. Flynn showed me the bruises on his back and sides once or twice. As criminals, we aren’t even allowed to fight back.

  Thankfully, I didn’t piss off Milo too much, and he didn’t like to mess with me, either. I didn’t know how I would have reacted to someone hitting me the way Milo hit Flynn. I couldn’t respect Flynn Andersen for a lot of things… but I had to give him credit for not taking revenge on an asshole like Milo. Thank goodness our most hateful warden didn’t come too often, and he came even less often by himself. I didn’t want to think about what I would do if Janet and Felix stopped coming to deliver my supplies. I wouldn’t be able to paint. I wouldn’t be able to attempt to capture the one thing I missed the most during that time of loneliness.

  A woman’s voice… a woman’s smile. The touch of a woman.

  I wasn’t even that picky during my time there. I would have settled for something with Janet if she wasn’t married. Despite my loneliness, I still wanted to think of myself as a good man. I still wanted to think that even if Janet threw herself at me, I would be able to resist. Thankfully, I’d never been tested. Janet was kind, and she probably didn’t think I was ugly, but I knew she loved her husband and her child. I never wanted to ruin that type of relationship for her. Or anyone. Despite the fact that I was a criminal, I wanted to think of myself as a good man.

  I wanted to be a good twenty-two-year-old man living alone on the outskirts of Alaska with only a young embezzler as a neighbor. I wanted people to know that my dark-brown hair only looked disheveled because I didn’t always have access to scissors and a mirror. I wanted people to understand that I only looked scruffy because I didn’t care. I wanted people to understand that my eyes were only tired… because I was tired. After two years of cruel and unusual punishment, I really didn’t see any point in trying to make myself look better. It only reminded me that I had nowhere to go, no one to see, and no one to impress. Flynn couldn’t have cared less when I gave myself a new haircut or finally shaved my stubble clear. I still wanted people to know that, despite what I’d done and what was on my record, I wasn’t a monster. I wasn’t a bad person. I made mistakes, but I learned from them. I’d tried to escape, but I realized that the only way I’d grow was to accept what I’d done and serve my time.

  I’m not a bad person.

  I’m not a cruel person.

  I’m not a perfect person, either.

  My name is Malcolm Davenport, and I had just under a year of sentence remaining for my crime, which I am too ashamed to speak of.

  Chapter Two

  The temperature was mild on one particular Tuesday afternoon, decent enough to set up close to the coast on the island and sketch out a few pictures. I was particularly lonely for Mauve, and as I sat down as close to the water as possible without setting off my collar, I thought about her. I missed so much about her…even the things I didn’t like about her in the first place. Her sky-blue eyes and flowing, highlighted hair still haunted my dreams. I never wanted her to put the red in, but I’d be damned if I ever tried to get in her way.

  What Mauve wanted, Mauve got.

  Which probably explained why I was at Shumagin and not back at home with friends and family.

  Still, I couldn’t picture anybody else. Even when I tried to work on a new piece, it ended up looking like a memory of her—and everything we had lost.

  I lifted my head and watched the ocean gently caress the sand before me, but I couldn’t even reach for it. The water and the coast…they were not for people like me.

  People in Project Isolation were like animals in a zoo – confined to small pieces of land on islands that couldn’t even support game animals. They confined us to one-room houses that maxxed out at two hundred square feet if we were lucky. We had no specific rooms—everything was together in one boxy area, kitchen, bathroom, living space, and a sleeping quarter. Our homes had a stoop and a chair, but nothing more if we wanted to sit outside. Besides, even if we did venture out, there wasn’t much to go to. Electric fences kept us confined, and we couldn’t touch the water at the coast right in front of us. We couldn’t go to our neighbor’s homes—one man per fenced-in cage, a small shack surrounded by electric fencing. I could see Flynn, but I could never go on his property. Our land was split in two by a real fence. In the eyes of the new elect, we were nothing more than dangerous animals that must be kept separated at all times.

  “I shouldn’t be surprised to see you out and about,” someone called from my right.

  I tore myself away from my work to see Flynn standing nearby with his overly large hands on his slender hips. Flynn Andersen had an almost feminine quality about him—perhaps it was the fact that he was barely five-and-a-half feet tall—but there was also something very stylized about him. I imagined that before he arrived on the island, he was well dressed, with a clean-shaven face and immaculately kempt hair. Even though he was like me, serving out his sentence as an alternative to prison, he didn’t allow much of his physical appearance to suffer. Even in the cold remoteness of our barely inhabited island, he was dressed for a business meeting in the city with navy slacks, heavy boots, a button-down shirt, a pea coat, and a scarf. Guessing by how he was shiveri
ng, I assumed he was cold, but he would never admit it.

  “What’s so surprising about it?” I called over.

  “Don’t you know what today is?” He smiled widely as he strode to the border of his fence.

  I looked down at my sketchbook and pretended to keep drawing. “I can’t say that I do,” I lied.

  He chuckled throatily. Despite being a small man, he had a rumbling voice, and his laughter was no different. It was odd—he was such a small person, but he sounded like a James Earl Jones knock-off. And while I was tall—easily over six feet—my voice hadn’t changed much since high school. It was still a little high pitched, a little immature. I could only hope that when I got to be Flynn’s age, I would start to sound more like a man and less like a teenager.

  “Oh, Mr. Davenport,” Flynn continued, still laughing slightly. “You are a funny one. You know damn well exactly what day it is. It only comes once a month, so of course you coincidentally happened to be out here working on your little drawings.”

  I scrunched up my nose. Little drawings. I hated when Flynn said things like that. Just because the only habit he had was keeping track of stocks in the newspaper didn’t mean everything else was lame and boring by default.

  “It’s a nice day,” I said shortly. “I wanted to come out and get some fresh air before it got too cold.”

  As if on cue, the wind picked up, and Flynn and I were both hit by a salty blast of chilled air. His hair stood up on end in a few places, and he freaked out, immediately trying to smooth it back down. Metrosexual, right? That’s how to describe a guy like him.

  I started to sketch some more details on the eyes I wanted to paint later. I couldn’t paint outside because of the elements, but I could get a lot of sketching done.