Librium

by PJ Bayliss

  Tim’s message was next. He was upset and talked with a sense of alarm in his voice. Chaise listened intently to every word he said before hanging up and drifting back into the dining room from the balcony. He slumped down into a lazy chair by the hallway.

  ‘Everything okay, Chaise?’

  ‘Not really…’

  Peyton approached the chair and placed her hand upon his shoulders to comfort him. ‘Is it Julie?’

  Chaise nodded.

  ‘What’s wrong? What has happened?’

  ‘That was Tim, one of our friends from University. He says that Julie is on life support and it’s not looking very positive. She's hanging in there, but he thinks she may end up dying.’

  ‘Christ, Chaise! I’m so sorry,’ she consoled him the best she could as he sat in the chair. ‘What do you want to do?’

  ‘I dunno...

  I think I need to go back to London,’ he looked at her.

  ‘Can you help me get there?’

  ‘Of course I will. I’ll get both of us there.’

  ◆◆◆

  It was only a matter of a phone call to arrange for transport back to London from Naples. They were planning to head back that way regardless, but Peyton waited for Gianni to arrive back at the villa with the rest of the family before making the it.

  Gianni decided it would be best if the entire family travelled together to London before heading home to New York. It always was his intention to fly the twins back to Scotland to tidy up any loose ends with their accommodation. The situation with Julie only meant their flight plan had to be brought forward a couple of days, but it was more important to keep his family happy.

  40

  Chaise looked out of the window as the pilot banked to the east upon take off. He watched as the isle of Capri swung into view with its white rocky cliff faces slicing through the calm blue ocean. Clusters of boats in the harbour congregated by the shoreline and a white trail of wash drifted behind the ferry as it departed the dock. Federico’s villa had just popped into view just when a few tufts of low-lying cloud obscured the view.

  Gianni was also enjoying the sight in a nearby seat. Together, they watched the island drift away into the distance beneath tiny puffs of cloud as the plane climbed higher.

  ‘It’s a beautiful view, isn’t it?’

  ‘Yes, Papa. Pretty spectacular.’

  ‘We’ll be back again soon enough. Then we can take you and Carlos around a few of the islands.’

  ‘You’re coming back? When?’

  ‘In a couple of weeks or so. I have more client meetings, but I also need to sort Federico’s affairs out of course. The properties and all of his belongings.’

  Chaise’s heart skipped a beat. His experience with Peyton at the villa had etched a vivid memory deep inside his mind, and it had probably left a scar on his rump as well.

  ‘Will you sell the villa?’

  ‘Villas. He has three, remember?’

  ‘Oh yeah, that’s right. I forgot about the others.’

  Chaise wondered, if one villa had a laboratory like that, then what secrets could the other villas' possibly withhold? The possibilities were endless.

  ‘I’m not sure if I'll sell,’ Gianni took a last look out the window back at the island, ‘There was something about that place that really changed me inside. I’ve never quite felt like it before. And I’m not so sure if I want to get rid of it quite yet.’

  Chaise raised an eye, ‘I’m pretty sure you had a different experience to mine,’ or at least he hoped, 'But I see your point. Keeping them would be a good decision for now.'

  ‘It’s hard to explain Chaise, but I believe it’s for the better. I first arrived there several months ago amidst a hectic work schedule. I thought your grandfather was just complaining once again like he has done in the past. I tell you, so many times I’ve turned up at his request just to discover whatever was bothering him suddenly disappeared.

  I thought he was a hypochondriac for several years. He always had something wrong with him. Always needing to see a doctor.’

  ‘But he really was sick, Papa. You know that.’

  ‘Oh, I knew it alright. But I’m talking about before he was diagnosed with pancreatic cancer. Years ago, when you were this high,’ Gianni held his hand out a couple of feet from the ground. Those days were long gone now. ‘I’d never had to deal with it before then. Your grandmother always dealt with the situation. It never affected me.’

  ‘What was she like?’

  ‘Marlena? An absolute angel with a heart of gold. If everyone was like her, the world would be perfect.’

  ◆◆◆

  Gianni held the highest regard for his mother. In his eyes, she could never do any harm to anybody as she always cared for strangers her entire life. Marlena was a career nurse of twenty-plus years, right up to her untimely death many years ago during a snowstorm in the north-eastern states.

  Marlena was visiting Seattle with Federico on a holiday trip. She was about to turn sixty and they had planned an eastern seaboard trip along with a visit to Hawaii. The couple had spent two weeks together rekindling their love on the island following a whirlwind stopover in Vegas. The overnight layover in Seattle was their last night before returning to New York. Federico later recalled it as being the perfect trip of a lifetime that had invigorated their relationship to a new momentum.

  It was meant to be the commencement of her retirement years. Federico’s business was finally producing a healthy income and together they had decided it was the ideal time for her to stop working and she was eagerly anticipating the announcement to her employer back in New York.

  Her employer called her the night they arrived in Seattle. There was an ice storm on the horizon which looked likely to become a civil emergency. A call for support from various hospitals around the country was raised and Marlena was asked if she would volunteer.

  She was never likely to say no. Marlena was dedicated to helping humanity, and already was right on the doorstep of the pending disaster. She chose to stay behind and help the local medical teams while Federico continued home alone.

  ‘My mother never deserved to die. But I know if she was alive today, she would still have made the exact same choice to stay there in that city. She would’ve done so no matter what. Even if she knew she would never survive.’

  ‘I wish I had known her better.’

  Gianni looked Chaise in the eye. ‘Sometimes we all wish for the same things in life. I just wonder if they’re all cast upon the same star.’

  The tense and sombre atmosphere suddenly dissipated between them when Adrienne turned up with a couple of drinks. Gianni’s reflection on the relationship between his parents was only part of the truth however. There was far a greater and far darker dependency between them at the time.

  ‘Federico couldn’t have done any better in life, Chaise. Something we could all learn something from,’ he glanced toward Josephine as he continued,‘Tell me, did Peyton tell you what we discovered when he passed away?’

  Chaise choked and nearly spat his drink out in surprise. Surely his father wasn’t aware of what they’d discovered. Perhaps Peyton told him about the laboratory the previous evening? Regardless, this was not a conversation that Chaise felt very comfortable about with his father.

  ‘No. No Peyton hasn’t told me a thing…’

  ‘Hmm. Not surprising. It’s a little off-colour, you know what I mean?’

  Chaise quickly gulped back another swig of liquor from his glass. Somehow, he felt he would be needing it.

  ‘When I discovered him that morning, I asked her to look at him. You know, inspect him.’

  Chaise nodded with relief.

  ‘It probably sounds weird, but Peyton has the medical background. Christ, she even wants to become a fully qualified doctor, so I couldn’t get much better than her to do it.’

  ‘Sounds logical...’

  ‘It was at the time. The island isn’t exactly crawling with medical examiners, and his r
egular doctor had taken a trip to Naples. Anyway, we discovered some weird electrodes sticking out on his body. Like tiny little horns…’

  Chaise wasn’t sure how much information Peyton had passed on to his father. He wasn’t even so sure himself about what became of the mass of wires they had retrieved from the crematorium.

  He decided that honesty was the best policy with Gianni.

  ‘Yes, she did mention them to me, actually. What do you make of them?’

  ‘I have no idea. Federico was always experimenting on his body for medical science. God only knows what he got up to by himself. Maybe Peyton has an idea.’

  A cold pair of feet walked up Chaise’s spine.

  Gianni called for Peyton to come over from her seat further down the plane. She unlatched her seat belt and staggered toward them, hanging onto the furniture as she walked.

  ‘Chaise and I were just talking about your discovery back at the villa.’

  The same look of terror scattered across her face as she tried to ascertain precisely what information had been shared between them. Her anxiety eased a little once she looked Chaise directly in the eye and watched his reaction.

  ‘Discovery?’

  ‘The electrodes?’

  Peyton heaved a sigh of relief. ‘The electrodes! Right..’

  ‘We never worked out what they were for, did we?’

  ‘No. No idea at all.’ she replied, ‘Did you want to see them?’

  Her timing was impeccable. Chaise’s freshly charged glass was placed up against his lip and he almost spat his drink out once again.

  ‘What? Do you have still them?’

  ‘Yes. I did salvage them.’

  ‘I don’t want to know!’ Gianni said, shuddering at the thought. ‘I didn’t think…. Never mind. I just don’t want to know.’

  Peyton smiled at his physical response. ‘They are in the cargo hold if you’re interested.’

  Wild horses couldn’t keep Gianni back from inspecting the cargo hold. Memories of his father’s funeral may well have been fresh in his mind, but the mental preparation had been going on for years while the cancer slowly crept through and infiltrated his body. As a matter of fact, Federico’s passing was more of a blessing to see his pain and suffering finally end.

  The three of them walked toward the cargo hold at the back of the plane. Carlos was curious and joined them as they entered the hold. There were two large cargo crates strapped down toward the end of the cargo hold and a long metallic green box in front of them marked with the words “Biological Sample” on the outside.

  Peyton headed straight toward the green box and started to unlock the lid. She asked Chaise to lend a hand lifting the lid off the top of the casket-sized crate. As he did so, his mind played tricks on him as if he was lifting the lid off a tomb.

  They placed the lid to one side and Chaise looked inside the crate. It was full of a slimy fluid, like a massive egg-white embryo, and the titanium wiring harness was laid out inside. The metal electrodes and wires were suspended in the liquid, floating about like the tentacles of a jellyfish, only these tentacles resembled the human form.

  ‘What the hell is that?’ Carlos asked, tapping the glass top of the crate.

  ‘We don’t know. Federico had it implanted in his body.’

  ‘Seriously? You’re kidding me right?’

  ‘No joke, bro. C’mon, let me tell you all about it.’

  41

  Carlos and Chaise left the noisy cargo hold, leaving Gianni and Peyton to talk about the suspended network of wires. The twins walked up to the front of the plane and entered the conference room. Chaise briefed his brother along the way, telling him the major highlights of how they had retrieved it from the crematorium.

  ‘I can’t believe Federico had all of that gear inside his body! It’s got to have something to with the cancer,’ remarked Carlos.

  ‘I know! I thought the same thing at first. But if it was developed for the cancer, it never won the battle.’

  ‘Hmm. You’re right there.

  Hey, you don’t think it might’ve made him catatonic?’

  ‘What?’ replied Chaise. ‘Why on earth would you think that?’

  ‘Just think about it Chaise! Imagine if he was asleep?’

  ‘Trust you to think about this type of shit. Do you seriously think he’d be pronounced dead if he was just having a deep siesta? C’mon man…’

  Carlos agreed and thought for a moment. ‘It’s got to be for the cancer. What do you plan to do with it?’

  ‘Take it to the lab. Need to examine it somehow.’

  ‘Could be challenging. There must be something else to it,’ Carlos paced around the table in the room, then, he stopped and clapped his hands and pointed to the monitor on the wall. ‘Got it!’

  ‘Got what?’

  ‘The videos! Perhaps he left a clue in them. We can watch them here, see?’

  Chaise wasn’t surprised with his brother’s suggestion. It happened so frequently to them - sharing ideas, and inspirations. He liked to think it was divine intervention, but Chaise’s mind was simply too logical for this to happen. Everything happened for a reason and he was simply too black and white in his perspective of life.

  ‘Videos! Of course it’s the answer when it’s right in front of you…’ Chaise muttered. He collected the remote control for the monitor from the table and flicked the screen on.

  ‘What’s this dude?’ Carlos asked as he returned to the room.

  ‘I’m not sure…’ Chaise had been staring at the screen the entire time. His eyes were transfixed upon the words on the screen and the name - Julie.

  ‘This must’ve been the last time the thing was used, bro. Did you try to Skype with her?’

  ‘Yeah. I dialled it the other day when we were flying to Italy. But I never got a chance…’

  ‘Why not?’

  Pieces of the puzzle started to fall into place, as Chaise recalled the events of that flight. The timing of the call, then the interruption from Carlos and Adrienne. He worked the scenario out in his mind and imagined what might’ve come through Julie’s phone at the other end of the line.

  ‘I was interrupted. You and Adrienne… remember?’

  Carlos paused as his mind completed the puzzle. ‘Shit! You don’t think?’

  ‘It’s exactly what I think Carl!’ He wrestled with his pocket and grabbed his phone to flick through the various messages from Tim. Then he checked the time log of Julie’s scrambled message.

  It was a perfect match to the time he was seeing upon the screen.

  ‘This isn’t good, Carlos. Not good at all.’

  Carlos sat down at the table. He never called his younger brother by his full name. Not unless there was something deadly serious between them, or in the heat of the moment of a major argument.

  Chaise pulled out a paper note from his wallet. ‘Fuck me. This is the fourth card…’

  ‘What? Fourth card?’ Carlos was confused.

  Chaise never told him about the tarot card reading. It went against his grain to search the stars and psychics for answers. But now he was becoming a believer.

  ‘My future. Pain. Misery…. This is the fourth card all right,’ he looked back at his brother. ‘I think you might’ve accidentally killed her bro.’

  The words slipped out of his mouth. He would never accuse anyone of such an act, but all the elements fitted together.

  Chaise sat down, raking his fingers through his hair in despair.

  ‘What? How?’

  ‘She had a car accident, right? That’s why she is in a coma, and the accident took place at the same time this call went through,’ he double-checked the timing on his phone, ‘The exact same time.’

  ‘Shit! Shit, shit, shit, shit!’ exclaimed Carlos. ‘You’ve got to be kidding me!’ He paced around the table, then, walked outside the room briefly before returning. ‘I can’t believe this! It can’t be right!’

  ‘Can’t believe what?’ Peyton asked. She had followed
Carlos back into the room from the main cabin.

  Chaise explained the situation to her and showed her the timing of the call made to Julie on the screen. Then he showed her the time log of the message from her on his phone.

  ‘Okay, okay, let’s just settle down for a minute,' she said ‘We can check to see what actually happened here…’ Peyton opened a door beneath the monitor to reveal a recorder.

  ‘Is that…?’

  ‘Yes. Gianni insists the last four hours of transmission through this camera is always recorded. Not real time, transmission time, so you, or whatever went through to her phone, will be on this.’

  Peyton looked at Chaise, who was now looking very green around the gills. ‘Shall we?’

  Chaise nodded, swallowing back a surge of reflux from the back of his throat.

  The screen flickered on and a picture of the room displayed on the screen with Chaise positioned dead centre. He fumbled about with the remote control and a pop-up screen appeared in the bottom corner immediately before Carlos and Adrienne stumbled into the room.

  They watched as Chaise disappeared from the screen after flicking the remote-control switch. ‘I thought it was turned off!’ he exclaimed.

  ‘This happens all the time,’ Peyton explained, ‘the screen turns off, but the camera…’

  ‘Fuck!’

  They continued to watch as Julie’s face appeared in the pop-up screen. There was no doubt she was driving at the time with a head-rest tucked up firmly behind her. The scenery behind her was moving, as was Carlos and Adrienne, their bodies sprawled out upon the table.

  ‘Oh God…’ exclaimed Peyton. She watched with horror as Julie’s face stretched with shock, her mouth gaping wide open. From the angle, camera zoom, and dim lighting in the room, there was no telling who was propped up on the table.

  ‘Fuck!’ cried Carlos. He dashed outside into the main cabin where he could be heard vomiting into an airbag.