The Protocol: A Prescription to Die
Read The Protocol: A Prescription to Die Online
Authors: John P. Goetz
Table of Contents
THE PROTOCOL
A PRESCRIPTION TO DIE
An Eat Teague Novel
By
John P. Goetz
This book is a work of fiction. Names, characters, places, and incidents are either the product of the author’s imagination or are used fictitiously. Any resemblance to actual persons, living or dead, or to actual events is entirely coincidental.
2
nd
Edition
Copyright © 2015 John P. Goetz
All rights reserved.
ISBN-13: 978-1512005158
ISBN-10: 1512005150
ALSO BY JOHN P. GOETZ
Doorway to Your Dreams
Souls of Megiddo, Book 1: The Caretakers
Death solves all problems. No man, no problem.
Joseph Stalin
DEDICATION
This is for you, Mom.
You’ll always be on the highest pedestal in my heart
.
THE PROTOCOL
A PRESCRIPTION TO DIE
An Eat Teague Novel
By
John P. Goetz
Prologue
Over the past few months, Carl Titmueller had learned that fresh corpses were tough to cut, and the mess they made was a nightmare to clean.
He preferred the bodies slightly frozen. Stiff, but slightly tender. The carpenter saws and box cutters he used worked much better, and made hacking through the muscles, tendons, and ligaments so much easier when they were firm. Otherwise, it was as if he was trying to saw through a marshmallow.
Bone, fresh or frozen, was the same.
Except for the smell.
Fresh bone was pungent and stung his nose.
Frozen bone looked and smelled like fresh, falling snow as his saw made its way through the marrow, and dusted his shoes with boney, pink ice crystals. Even in the humidity of July and August, his job made him think of Christmas.
Carl turned his non-descript, white van into the Minnehaha Springs’ parking lot, briefly glanced at his side mirror, and then shifted the van into reverse. Even with the weight in the cargo area, the van resisted movement as its bald tires spun on the thin layer of ice. Finally the tires found their footing on the slick blacktop, and started to move. The row of large, commercial trash bins that were lined up against a short wooden fence next to the frigid Minnehaha Creek grew in his rear view mirror. It was near midnight, so he didn’t think anyone would be around, and luckily for all involved, no one was. He had neither the time nor the desire to deal with fresh, uncut corpses tonight. What he had wrapped and taped-up in the black trash bags behind him, was more than enough for a night’s work.
When he heard the metallic crunch of his rear bumper hit one of the bin’s metal doors, he stepped on the brake, and then let the van roll forward. It was just far enough to allow him to throw open the van’s rear doors, yet close enough so he didn’t have to exert himself while disposing of his cargo. Carl wasn’t one who appreciated the finer qualities of manual labor. To him, manual labor was for those who preferred landscaping jobs.
Manuel. Manual.
Carl snorted at his own joke.
The van’s driver-side door, bent from a recent encounter with an oak, protested as Carl used his shoulder to convince it open. Carl, wrapped in a black parka so torn and frayed it was barely worth wearing, stepped out into the brisk April night, and onto icy pavement. Minnesota Aprils are nothing if not schizophrenic. Earlier in the day, it was sunny and fifty. Now, close to midnight, a fine mist of sleet was falling, the air was frigid, and Carl’s breath created white clouds that wafted back into his face.
The cloud of exhale smelled of bourbon mixed with a hint of tequila.
And onion.
There was definitely a hint of onion in there.
He smacked is lips, and gave them a quick lick.
The thin layer of ice covering the blacktop made walking towards the trash bins treacherous. He had to steady himself with one hand against the van’s side, while the other flailed up and down to maintain his balance.
*
With the van’s rear doors wide open, Carl eased himself into the expansive cargo area, pushed a few plastic bags out of his way with his steel-toed work boots, and started to collect and stack the dozens of old pizza boxes that had accumulated since his last excursion.
The boxes would go last, to cover the bags.
As he stacked the boxes, one popped open. Carl spied two pieces of untouched pepperoni, and a blob of leftover mozzarella congealed on the cardboard. The cheese was covered in a red substance. Most days he found himself covered in blood, so it didn’t seem out of the ordinary that his dinner was too. He just wasn’t sure if the cheese was covered in marinara, or blood.
Either made sense.
His stomach let out a growl that seemed to echo all of the way to downtown Minneapolis.
Whatever the red stuff was, it didn’t matter to Carl.
He was hungry.
He pried the cheese off of the corrugated box, and tossed it and the dregs of the pizza box that clung to it, into his mouth. He followed the red-painted cheese with the two round pieces of stale, dry pepperoni.
Besides his liquid dinner, he hadn’t eaten all day. Hunger didn’t curb his curiosity, though. He contemplated the lingering flavors of what he’d just eaten. Was it blood or marinara?
Marinara.
There was a definite lingering backwash of garlic and onion remaining on his tongue.
Blood from some old spaghetti-slurper that had splashed into the box?
It could happen.
He’d tasted worse.
*
Carl grabbed the last bag by one of the thick laces of silver duct tape he’d wound around the opening, lifted it to his chest, and hurled it into the trash bin. It made a dull, heavy thump against the other bags. There were more than fifty bags on this trip, and he’d filled each bin to near capacity.
The evening’s work was a record for him. Since he was the only one at the firm who did what he did, it was a record for his employer, too. Up until this evening, he’d never had more than twenty-five bags to dispose of.
Each disposal point varied. He chose the site based on the number of bags he had taped and ready, and the garbage pick-up schedule. These bins would be emptied tomorrow, their contents dumped into a large truck, mixed with tons of other garbage, and compressed beyond recognition. He knew the exact garbage pick-up schedule of each park in Minneapolis.
He was
that
good.
Occasionally, if he needed to, he ventured to one of the first-ring suburbs to get rid of an ad-hoc batch. He avoided St. Paul due to its distance from the city, and he never let the bags sit in the bins for more than one day.
Business was definitely booming for the firm.
Things were going quite nicely for Carl Titmueller, too.
He earned a C-Note for every body he processed, and tonight he’d gross two grand.
With the last bag gone, and the pizza boxes randomly strewn across the top of each bin, Carl sat on the edge of the cargo area to catch his breath. His legs dangled over the side, and bumped against the ball of the tow bar as he bounced them back and forth. He pulled out his phone and, using his glove-covered forefingers, composed a text message to his boss:
DIspoosLE DUn. 20 youNitS
Each of the words, except “20” was underlined in red. His phone was telling him, according to its electronic circuitry, that the words he typed were not spelled correctly.
“And you are supposed to be a Smart phone,” he growled.
Carl wasn’t getting paid by the word, or the accuracy of each one. She’d get his point. If she didn’t, then she wasn’t as smart as she thought she was.
“Fuck it.”
He pressed SEND, and put the phone back into his coat pocket.
*
As Carl lifted his leg to jump back up behind the wheel, he noticed a slight shadow in front of the van’s rear wheel.
He squinted and leaned forward to see what it was.
Carl gingerly walked back to the tire, nudged the object with his boot, and then kicked it. His target skidded out from behind the wheel, twirled in circles, and stopped a few yards away. He still couldn’t tell what it was.
“Shit.”
Carl shuffled across the ice towards the object. The lighting in the park was dim so he crouched down closer to what he’d just kicked.
“What the fuck?”
It was a foot.
In a monogrammed sock.
Carl looked around for any other remaining body parts but didn’t see anything that caused concern. One of the bags must have had a hole. He remembered one of the straps of duct tape getting caught on the door handle as he lifted it towards the bin, but didn’t think it had ripped when he pulled it loose.
Evidently it had.
Carl pondered his options.
He could pick the foot up and toss it into one of the bins.
That was too easy.
Instead, Carl decided it provided more irony to kick a foot with his foot, than it was to pick it up and toss it into the garbage bin with his hand.
Carl stood up and pulled his foot back. He imagined the wayward foot was a NFL-sanctioned football, and kicked it towards the Minnehaha Creek. The foot twirled in the air, reached its pinnacle, and then descended into the weeds a few feet short of the waterline. Carl had expected a splash, but the only sound he heard was made by the slight breeze rustling the bare tree limbs.
“Shit. Missed.”
He couldn’t tell how close it was to the creek’s ice-cold water, but he really didn’t care. His attempt at the extra point had been futile. Carl’s job was to deliver the contents of the bags to garbage bins, and he’d done that. His job said
delivery
. Miscellaneous
pickup
was for the same people who liked landscaping jobs.
He’d let the animals do what animals do when they found fresh meat.
Eat it.
*
It had been a very long, cold winter, and he and his sable collie, Bob, were anxious to resume their walks along the Minnehaha Creek. Minneapolis had strict leash laws, but the man let Bob run along the creek, and relish the blossoming scents of spring. When Bob ran though the soggy bramble to where the creek made a quick, sharp turn leading him closer to the water’s edge, the man decided it was time to put the leash back on.
Collies were not fun to clean.
It’s that fur thing.
“Bob! Bob, get back here. Come!” he yelled as he slapped his thigh.
Bob ignored him.
He saw Bob’s ears and tail bounce through the wet weeds along icy shoreline.
“Get back here! Come! I don’t want you to get wet.”
He saw Bob stop, put his head down, then quickly turn around. Bob had something in his mouth as he turned and strutted back. Bob’s tail was straight in the air and his paws were black with mud.
“You’re filthy!”
The man crouched down to be at eye level with Bob.
“Bob. Drop it.”
Bob wasn’t listening.
“Drop it. Now!”
Bob put his ears down, and dropped what he held in his mouth. The man stood up and walked towards Bob with the leash in his hand. Ready to put it on Bob’s collar.
Bob sat on his haunches and waited. His tongue lagging and flapping along the side of his mouth.
“Oh God,” said the man when he recognized what Bob had found.
A human foot.