The Easy Way Is Always Mined

By E. Nelson Stiles

The second book of a story about one man's experience in his attempt to survive the unthinkable. This is a tale of deception, adventure, magic and horror, woven in the fabric of courage, innovation and trailer-trash humor. Things are not as they appear and outcomes could be unimmaginably dark. Plans may seem foolproof, but no plan survives first contact with the enemy.

• Language: English
• Publisher: Trafford Publishing
• Release date: May 17, 2012
• ISBN: 9781466935846

E. Nelson Stiles

E. Nelson Stiles is the CEO and Senior Captain of Glass Bottom Boat Tours Inc., http://glass-bottom-boat.com a nonprofit charity organization that provides free glass-bottom boat rides and free lunches to anyone, primarily the underprivileged. All proceeds from Tracers Work Both Ways go toward funding for Glass Bottom Boat Tours Inc.

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© Copyright 2012 E. Nelson Stiles.

All rights reserved. No part of this publication may be reproduced, stored in a retrieval system, or transmitted, in any form or by any means, electronic, mechanical, photocopying, recording, or otherwise, without the written prior permission of the author.

ISBN: 978-1-4669-3586-0 (sc)

ISBN: 978-1-4669-3585-3 (hc)

ISBN: 978-1-4669-3584-6 (e)

Library of Congress Control Number: 2012908706

Trafford rev. 05/14/2012

missing image file www.trafford.com

North America & international

toll-free: 1 888 232 4444 (USA & Canada)

phone: [phone] fax: [phone]

All proceeds from this work go to fund Glass Bottom Boat Tours Inc.

Glass Bottom Boat Tours Inc. is a registered 501C3 charity that provides free glass bottom boat tours on the Silver River in Ocala Florida. Free tours are available to anyone, with the primary focus being to provide free tours to the underprivileged, the elderly, and children’s, veteran’s and church groups. The tours are educational in that environmental awareness of Florida’s natural resources is experienced and promoted.

Website: http://glass-bottom-boat.com

Contents

CHAPTER 1

CHAPTER 2

CHAPTER 3

CHAPTER 4

CHAPTER 5

CHAPTER 6

CHAPTER 7

CHAPTER 8

CHAPTER 9

CHAPTER 10

CHAPTER 11

CHAPTER 12

CHAPTER 13

CHAPTER 14

CHAPTER 15

CHAPTER 16

CHAPTER 17

CHAPTER 18

CHAPTER 19

CHAPTER 20

CHAPTER 21

CHAPTER 22

CHAPTER 23

CHAPTER 24

CHAPTER 25

CHAPTER 26

CHAPTER 27

CHAPTER 28

CHAPTER 29

CHAPTER 30

CHAPTER 31

CHAPTER 32

CHAPTER 33

CHAPTER 34

CHAPTER 35

CHAPTER 36

CHAPTER 37

CHAPTER 38

CHAPTER 39

CHAPTER 40

CHAPTER 41

CHAPTER 42

CHAPTER 43

CHAPTER 44

CHAPTER 45

CHAPTER 1

TOM HUNTER LOOKED up at the chains on his wrists and was glad that his bare feet were still touching the floor, if just barely. The room where he was imprisoned looked like something from a horror movie and smelled even worse.

He saw two other people chained to the wall to his right. They were a middle aged man and a woman. Both of them were gagged and their feet were not touching the floor. They were nude, like Tom, and they were both unconscious. Tom listened to their labored breathing.

The room was round and had two doorways maybe forty five degrees apart. Dim, flickering light came from the flames of four burning torches ensconced on the walls. The ceiling of the round room was domed but Tom couldn’t really see the top.

The room was about forty feet in diameter. The concrete flooring formed an apron for ten feet inward from the circular wall. In the center of the room was circular steel grating with what seemed like a heap of decomposing human body parts nearly five feet high.

Mosquitoes, flies, fleas and ants feasted on Tom and the others. Tom sucked on his dry tongue and hoped someone would soon give him some water. How long had he been here? He rubbed his cheek on his armpit to try to tell from beard growth, but he had stopped shaving nearly a year ago.

He looked to his right when the man moaned. Tom didn’t dare speak because the last time he did all three captives were savagely beaten with a leather belt. He heard liquid splashing on the floor as the man urinated. The urine was dark, almost brown.

Tom closed his eyes and silently prayed. He had always been close to Jesus and his faith blocked the fear. He half stood, half hung by his wrists, feeling the pain and accepting it. He thought that Jesus may have felt similar pain during his crucifixion. Tom silently smiled that he had yet to be adorned with a crown of razor wire.

One of the doors suddenly opened and a tall, muscular, nude man entered the room. Happy to see me? the man asked the captives. He had a thick Mexican accent.

Tom was secretly happy that something was happening. Hanging from the wall in this fetid chamber, slipping in and out of consciousness while enduring pain and dehydration was becoming boring. He didn’t feel that dying in slowly was a good idea.

The nude man who had entered the room had a cloth bag in one hand and a nude child by the wrist in the other. The child seemed to Tom to be about six years old. He couldn’t tell if the kid was a boy or a girl.

Let us go! You have no right… Tom stopped when the man shoved the child to the floor. He strode over to Tom with the cloth bag in his hand. Tom cringed at the abundance of prison tattoos on the man’s body. He averted his eyes when he saw the man’s erection.

The man reached into his bag and retrieved a Velcro strap. He wrapped the strap under Tom’s jaw and over his head several times before cinching it tight. This effectively clenched Tom’s teeth.

The man rummaged in the bag again. He told Tom in his thick Mexican accent, "You fucking nigger mother fucker. You think I’m stupid? You want me to kill you to end the pain. Mictecacíhuatl don’t want that, puto."

He began to stitch Tom’s lips together with medical sutures. He worked with brutal dexterity. Your big fat nigger lips are easy to sew shut. Don’t worry, you gonna die here. Real fuckin’ horrible too. The foul odor of rotten meat and burned plastic that was the man’s breath nearly gagged Tom as he struggled in vain to resist the stitches.

With his sewing complete he stood back and admired his work, absentmindedly stroking himself. Here’s something to look forward to; I’m gonna fuck you to death. His eyes gleamed and squeezed Tom’s genitals.

Tears steamed down Tom’s face. He concentrated on taking slow, deliberate breaths through his nose.

The man reached into the bag, cracked an ammonia capsule and woke the two others who were chained to the wall. He stroked himself and smiled as they came to, coughing and gagging.

Mama! Mama! I’m scared! came from the child who was now cowering in the doorway corner, knees drawn to chest.

It’s okay baby! the woman weakly replied, Moma’s here!

The man stepped in front of the woman and probed her genital area with his left hand. His grin bared many gold teeth.

Please, begged the woman, I’ll do anything! Don’t hurt my baby!

Damn right you will, bitch, said the man, spinning her around on the chains so her face was against the wall. He inserted himself and began to powerfully thrust. The man chained beside her received a backhand blow to the face at every fourth stroke.

Tom’s eyes widened and he shook his head when the child stood and pensively approached. He shook and tried to twist his body, trying to warn the child. To no avail.

Stop hurting my Mama!

The rapist stopped and smiled at the child. Okay, he spun the woman around so that she could see. But you gotta take care of this, he indicated his erection and beckoned the child toward him.

He grabbed the child by the head and inserted himself into the kid’s mouth, thrusting furiously. The chained woman and man weakly moaned their inane protests. The pervert laughed manically, climaxing. The child’s body went limp. He twisted the child’s head around several times and then placed his knee on the back, tearing the head from the torso, a foot of esophagus trailing from the trophy. He moved to the pile of obscenity in the center of the room. "My gift to you Santa Muerte! You have the most beautiful nganga in the world!" he proclaimed. He carefully placed the head on the top of the altar.

Tom’s vision was blurring and the left side of his body was going numb. He watched the man produce a glass pipe and light it with a blue flame. He watched helplessly as the man inhaled deeply, put the other chained man’s face against the wall, inserted himself and began to thrust. There was no resistance.

As Tom’s consciousness slipped away he heard the man say, You like that preacher man? Don’t worry, nigger. You’re next.

Tom opened his eyes and immediately realized that he was no longer in the Santa Muerte chamber. He was cold. He gently tried to move and found that his left arm no longer worked. His left leg worked a little but it wasn’t right. He thought about going back to sleep but then he looked slowly around him to discover that he was in a shallow pit with dozens of corpses in various stages of decomposition.

Insects buzzed remorselessly and the pit was full of maggots. Tom was surprised that he couldn’t smell anything and decided that it was a gift from Jesus. He tried to thank the Lord aloud before he remembered that his lips were sewn together.

Tom knew what he had to do. He looked around and noted that the sun was high. He couldn’t see more than ten feet. Tom started crawling.

He crawled over body after body. The dead bodies turned and gurgled as he pressed his weight on them. Faces, some ashen with rigor, some with hollow sockets turned to him, silently wailing for justice.

Tom’s sense of time was gone. He didn’t stop crawling when he came to the edge of the pit but he noted that the sun was going down. Now out of the pit, he stood on one wobbly right leg and one almost useless left leg. His left arm was locked with the elbow bent and the hand was curled and clenched at his shoulder.

He figured that he would head downhill in search of water. He entered some open woods hobbling slowly at first, and then he picked up what he considered to be a good pace. He thanked the Lord and his mind drifted to his days of infantry training at Fort Benning. He always loved the road marches. Tom began a cadence in his mind, smiling against the sutures in his lips; mama mama can’t you see, what the Army’s done to me? Took away my faded jeans, now I’m wearin’ Army greens.

It was very dark when Tom stumbled into a stream. The cold water shocked his damaged limbs into convulsions. He rolled in the steam, trying to remove the death scum from his body. He tried to suck water through the stitches in his lips, but the stitches were too tight and the lips were swollen. He quickly figured out how to suck water through his nose without drowning himself and he thanked Jesus again.

Tom knew that hypothermia and exposure would take him if he didn’t get help soon. He stood on the creek bank and listened. All he heard was forest sounds. Tom was not afraid. He had Jesus in his heart. He started out and limped as quickly as he could along the stream.

At daylight Tom saw that the stream was heading east. He thanked Jesus for the stream because he knew that he would have walked around in circles all night without it. After a few hours the woods abruptly opened into a field. The stream formed the south border of the field and ran straight east.

Tom went to the stream, found some broken glass and cut some of his stitches. Each cut felt like a hammer blow to the face but he thanked Jesus for the broken glass and continued to cut away until he could take water through his mouth.

After Tom drank his fill he hobbled north along the wood line. The sun was high and bright in the September Georgia sky. He estimated the temperature to be in the mid fifties but he was still very cold. He could feel his body stiffening.

At the end of the wood line was a blacktop road. It was somewhat cracked overgrown due to little traffic. Tom thanked Jesus for the road and he lie down on it, absorbing its heat.

When he awoke, the sun was sinking again. He stood and began eastward, thankful to Jesus and moving relentlessly. He followed the road all night and stopped to get water from the ditch in the morning. He dug in the bottom of the ditch with his hand and extracted several earthworms and grubs, which he promptly ate. He found that his sense of taste was gone too and he thanked Jesus.

Tom walked on until noon, daydreaming all the while and thanking Jesus profusely. Then he stopped and listened. A vehicle! Coming from the west! He turned to the west and limped furiously. He couldn’t see any vehicle but he could clearly hear one, no, more vehicles behind him! And closer!

He heard, and then saw the vehicles from the east. The first pickup truck accelerated and abruptly turned off the road to the north, easily clearing the ditch and headed northwest. The second pickup made the same maneuver to the southwest. A third vehicle rolled up and stopped ten feet from Tom.

Tom instinctively dropped to the pavement and started crawling toward the ditch at the side of the road when gunfire erupted from the first two vehicles. Two men from the third truck dragged Tom around to their tailgate. They put a blanket on him, laid him on a cot and started an IV. Tom was surprised that they didn’t seem concerned at all about the gunfire to the west.

You’re gonna be okay, Pops, one of the young men smiled. Tom studied the men. Apparently they were well trained in patient evaluation and first aid. They were both white. They wore military clothing and equipment. Both had shaved heads and tattoos. Tom thanked Jesus for Skinheads.

When Tom woke up again he was lying on a cot in an improvised shelter between two pickup trucks. He felt very comfortable and saw that there was an IV in his hand. A dog licked his face and he was too weak to do anything about it. Then he saw that four dogs sat surrounding his cot, watching him and panting contentedly.

He’s awake, a young man announced, wiping Tom’s face and upper chest. Tom was glad that the young man was black. He wondered why a black man was running with this bunch.

An enormous white man suddenly stood beside Tom’s cot. He dropped to one knee and unzipped his body armor, revealing a swastika tattoo on the center of his chest. He smiled at Tom, patted his leg and pointed to the offensive ink.

Don’t worry about that, old man. I got it in the old days to piss people off. It worked! he said. His smile increased.

The young, black man now had Tom’s shirt open and was dabbing at wounds on his chest. Tom looked at his chest to find that dozens of strange symbols had been carved onto it.

The big white man stood. He removed a camera from his vest and took a few photos of Tom’s chest. He put the camera away and smiled at Tom. I’m Erik Lykens. I run the Palatka Sanctuary scout group. Tom tried to talk. Hey, hey there buckaroo! Don’t try to talk. Just one blink for yes and two blinks for no, okay?

Tom blinked once.

It’s okay. You’re with friends here. You’re totally safe. Looks like you had a heart attack and a stroke so you just gotta rest and you’re gonna be alright. You got any friends or family around here?

Two blinks.

You know who did this to you?

One blink.

Good! We’ll take care of them. It’s our favorite pastime! Get some rest, old timer.

Tom thanked Jesus and silently asked him to bless these men. He wondered why all these boys kept calling him ‘old timer’ and ‘pops’. Then he caught a glimpse of himself in the shiny stainless pan that the medic was using to clean his wounds. He raised his right hand to his beard and pulled the hair away from his face. It’s white! He had never had a grey hair in his life! His left arm involuntarily bent all the way at the elbow.

Easy there, sir, the medic said. Then he saw what Tom wanted and held the pan so Tom could see himself.

Tom saw that his hair and beard were completely white. As he passed out he thanked Jesus because there must be a reason for this. That’s right.

He opened his eyes to bright sunshine. Tom saw that he was alone in a hospital room. Hospital room? There’s a hospital that still functions? Then he saw that he wasn’t alone. A pretty Mexican woman in an Army major’s uniform smiled at him from the foot of his bed. Her nametag read: CANTRELL.

Tom tried to speak and his left arm and leg flexed involuntarily while the left side of his face contorted. The major ran out of the room and two nurses quickly appeared. They attended to Tom, urging him to relax. He felt his face and head and was pleased to discover that he was clean shaven and his hair was close cropped.

When the nurses were done, a shaved-head white man wearing a black t-shirt with a large yellow ranger tab across the chest entered the room and cracked off a perfect military salute. Sergeant Major Hunter! You may not remember me. Sergeant Dave Cantrell. I worked for you in Germany in ‘92. Right before you retired!

Tom extended his hand and Dave gripped it. Still got a mighty grip there Sergeant Major!

Nobody had called Tom by his title for twenty years or so. After he retired he just lived with his now dead mother and tended to a small Baptist congregation. He hadn’t set foot on a military base or traveled outside his county. He did remember this boy. He brought Cantrell to Jesus all those years ago. Tears escaped his eyes.

Dave tossed a box of tissues onto Tom’s chest. Tom winced and then showed his contorted stroke-victim smile, complete with drool.

We’re gonna get you fixed up Sergeant Major. We got everything here in Daytona. Get to work on your rehab now. I’ll check on you in a couple weeks. Hooah! Dave stepped back, saluted and strode out the door.

Tom thanked Jesus and asked a blessing on Dave. He strained to hear Dave issuing instructions out in the hallway.

He heard Dave say, Listen up. Sergeant Major Hunter is a Ranger and a hero. He got the Medal of Honor in Viet Nam, Silver Stars and Purple Hearts in Just Cause and Desert Storm, all that. He’s a Sergeant Major, not a General. Do not baby this man. That’s no good for a Ranger. This guy is special. He really likes it when things suck because he knows that Jesus made it suck for a reason. No profanity around him either. He’s a man of God.

CHAPTER 2

KURT OPENED HIS eyes just a crack in order to see where the sounds were coming from. He could feel his arms bound behind his back and he could feel that his ankles were tied together as well. He saw three shirtless men with their backs to him. They were fiddling with some piece of equipment on the tailgate of a pickup truck.

He felt cold. Not only cold but wet. He heard some whimpering from beyond the pickup. Kurt opened his eyes a little wider and tried to focus through the early gloom of dawn. He could tell that he was in a warehouse but it was not yet light enough to see the walls.

Kurt could make out shadowy figures on the other side if the pickup. He opened his eyes wider and saw a man abusing a girl who had her wrists bound over her head and secured to a support post. She stared off and the man committed his crime. At least a dozen other girls were lashed to posts throughout the warehouse.

The men at the truck’s tailgate turned around in unison and drew their knives. They grinned and leaned in toward Kurt. The men were all well-built Latinos with prison tattoos and scars covering their torsos. There was a gold tooth here and there but what caught Kurt’s eye was the black hand-print tattoo that each one had on his upper right chest.

The Latinos disappeared to be replaced with a tall, thin man with a Mohawk haircut. He was shirtless and covered with scars and tattoos. Kurt recognized him as Freaky Zeke, the Aryan Brotherhood member who had been arrested months before for stealing marijuana. He held a large knife to Kurt’s throat, said something to the Latinos in Spanish and laughed.

When Zeke drew his knife back and prepared to strike, Kurt sat up, now wide awake. He was breathing hard and his heart raced. He looked around the camp and saw that the sun was rising above misty rain clouds.

Had a nightmare again, looks like, Said Scooter.

Yeah. Same one, Kurt muttered. He walked to their field latrine. Their camp was nearly fifteen miles north of Palatka Florida and a quarter mile west of the St Johns River. It was in the southern section of what used to be known as the Bayard Conservation Area. Kurt Weinstock and his friend Darnell Johnson, known as Scooter, had been in this part of the woods for four weeks.

The area wasn’t really a forest and it certainly wasn’t hospitable. The ground was soft, wet and muddy most of the time and swamp pools were in all directions. There were some cypress, pine, live oak and swamp cabbage palm trees along with palmetto and sea grape bushes. Spiders and spider webs dominated the woods except for around sunset when mosquito time came. These woods had been burned the previous summer but were still a mass of tangled mess. Anyone approaching their camp could easily be heard a hundred yards out.

Kurt had shot a deer for them every week since they arrived. The venison complimented their diet of catfish, swamp cabbage palm, cattail root, sea grape shrub and whatever their dog, Duke brought in. Duke usually brought a rabbit or chicken to the camp every day. Duke had yet to return from his night-hunt so after his morning calisthenics, Kurt grabbed his M4 carbine and decided to walk the perimeter trail and check their animal traps.

During the past few weeks he had learned that being quiet was better than being quick in this merciless wilderness. The perimeter trail around their camp was a rough circle with nearly a hundred yard radius. The trail zigzagged intentionally and was difficult to follow in that a man would have to travel on his hands and knees for half of the distance. This is why Kurt always wore kneepads and gloves in the woods. He also wore his straw Stetson, jeans, and a BDU shirt over a black t-shirt. He still wore his steel toed work boots and along with his M4 he carried a Colt Anaconda and his USMC KBAR knife.

For the first leg of the trail Kurt walked upright most of the way. He checked two animal snares and the man-traps that they had built. None had been disturbed but he noticed raccoon and feral hog tracks nearby.

He made his way north and stopped to look over a one acre area of flooded, open woods. He