Another whine occurred, and Rickie had to turn around from the bed because he didn’t want his lack of compassion to show through.
Jake rubbed his own forehead in frustration. “Cal, could you go get a bucket of ice for his foot.?”
“Sure, Jake,” Cal responded. “I’ll be right back.” She walked out.
Jake felt the heat from Reed’s red leg. “He’s fevered. We really should get this guy in a cool bath. Bill, you want to help?”
“No.”
“Billy.”
“All right. I’ll help you.” Billy was reluctant.
“Not me,” Jake told him. “Rickie, Cal wants me to check on Judge. Why I have to play fuckin doctor in this place is beyond me.” Jake walked to the door. “It’s a fuckin endurance experiment. People should to learn to endure for crying out loud.”
Billy’s eyes widened and he bounced from heel to toe, placing his hands in his pockets. “Okay, well,” He shrugged moving to the bed. “Shall we, Rickie?”
“Bath him?” Rickie’s eye widened. “No way dude.”
“But Jake said . . .”
“You know what?” Rickie inched his way to Billy. “Let’s just, like, splash him with water and make him look wet. No one will ever know.”
“Rickie, I don’t . . .” Billy paused when Reed moaned. He looked at Reed, bald, earless, tongueless, and now sporting a huge foot. “Okay, let’s do that.”
^^^^
Cal thought she was alone in the kitchen, but she found out quickly that she wasn’t. Reaching under the sink for a bucket, she felt a body move up behind her.
“Did you get my message?” Larry asked her.
Cal spun around. She just stared at him. “Why are you so sure that I’m not gonna lay you out right now?”
“I think that you want to, but I don’t think you will. I’ll go to Jake.”
“Go to Jake.” Cal started to spin, but Larry grabbed her arm spinning her back around.
“I don’t think you quite understand. See . . .” He stepped to her. “I know things. I know things because I am one of the fortunate in this experiment to be informed. Yeah, your happy-go-lucky husband may be bopping along thinking that the institute drugged his wife, that his wife wouldn’t have cheated on him on her own. So forgiving. So fast. But the fact remains that that isn’t true, is it?”
“You know nothing.”
“I know enough about that drug. And I have the proof to back it up. Nice little information package concerning the cause and effects.” Larry smiled at her snidely. “See, what Jake doesn’t know is the kiss, the hug, they were all preludes to something that would have happened anyhow, drug or no drug. And for all he knows, probably will happen again.”
Cal stared down to Larry’s fingers that gripped her arm. “Get your hand off of me now.”
Larry removed his hand. “Tell me something, Cal. How’s Jake going to react about the little mud wrestling moment? Or how will your husband react to the fact that the drug may have made you horny, but it didn’t get you there, and it wouldn’t have happened with just anyone. You, Cal, started that whole night. You kissed him first. Billy asked you to stop. He told you to tell him to stop. And you didn’t. You seduced him. And the best part is . . .” Larry dropped his voice to a whisper. “The drug at that point didn’t even have enough time to kick in yet. You went over the edge all on your own.” Larry stepped even closer. “How would Jake like to know that? He wouldn’t. You can stop him from ever knowing. My lips will remained sealed.” Larry’s hand slid in between Cal’s legs and rigidly up. “Perhaps somewhere else.”
Cal kept eye contact with him, cold and hard despite the fact that his hand groped her. “You’re pathetic.”
“And you’re stuck between a rock and a hard place.” Larry brought his lips to her ear. “Tonight.” Parting his lips, he extended his tongue, running it up her cheek. He backed away with a smile.
Cal didn’t flinch, blink, or move until he had left that kitchen. And then she spun to the sink, bent over the basin and threw up.
CHAPTER FORTY-FIVE
I-S.E. Thirteen - The Island
April 7th - 8:00 p.m.
Paul looked very seriously at Lou as they stood outside the dining building. “So. What do you say?”
Lou folded his arms. “Is this offer valid only today, or can I take you up on it at anytime?”
“The offer is always valid. However, these demons are after you. Twice today I had a vision. Let me exorcize them, Lou.”
“Can I smoke the pipe?” Lou asked with a raised eyebrow.
“Yes.”
“Cool. Let’s go.” Up for just about anything that would take his mind to really neat places, Lou followed Paul from the building.
^^^^
Like a little kid searching for his puppy, that was how Rickie sounded calling out. “Lou! Lou!” So lost. So desperate. His voice echoed as he called out the name, “LOOOOOOOUUUUU!”
Billy was on a roll typing up his day’s events, but he had to stop. At first it was funny, but Rickie’s calling out over and over for at least fifteen minutes became a bit bothersome. He stopped with his work on the laptop, walked to his bungalow door, and opened it. There was Rickie walking slowly around the unity circle, hands cupped over his mouth.
“Lou!” Rickie cried out.
“Rickie.” Billy stepped off his porch. “Stop that. I would think if Lou is lost you have certainly searched all that you could in the unity circle.”
“Dude.” Rickie’s head dropped. “I am like . . . so . . . bummed. I can’t find my body guard anywhere.”
“Where have you looked?” Billy asked.
“Here.”
‘He’s not here, Rickie.” Billy told him.
“But guy, where can he be?” With a snicker, Rickie started to sing. “Oh where, oh where has my body guard gone. Oh where or where can he be?”
Billy closed one eye in a wincing manner. “Cute. Would you like me to help you look for him?”
“Guy, could you? Like, I would be indebted. Really.” Rickie dropped his voice to whisper. “I would have checked around the island. But like . . .” Rickie shuddered. “It’s dark and scary.”
“Okay, not like I’m all that brave myself, but let me get my revolver and we’ll go look.”
“Cool. Billy, you’re the man.”
“Yeah.” Billy nodded once, rolled his eyes and walked to his bungalow. As soon as he stepped on his porch he stopped and spun back to the unity circle when Rickie was calling out again.
^^^^
There had always been things in Cal’s life that caused her stomach to gnaw and nausea to instantly hit her. Cold pizza, cat puke, and maggots at the bottom of a garbage can were some of them. But nothing ever in her life hit her like the sound of Larry’s voice when she knocked on his door and he snidely called for her to come inside.
Slowly and with only a creak she opened the door, slipping nervously into the dark room. When she shut the door, he stepped from the bathroom, not wearing a shirt.
Larry looked arrogant, ‘I knew it’ sprayed across his face. “You showed.”
“Yes,” Cal answered.
“I guess you listened to what I said.” He moved toward her.
“Oh, I listened. And you need to know, I hated hurting my husband and I wanted to put it behind me.”
“This is a step.”
“Yes it is.” Cal nodded. “I love him. And you know so much.” She watched Larry get closer. “But there’s something you don’t seem to know.”
“What is that?” He asked.
“I tell my husband . . . everything.” On her last word, Cal reached back for the door and opened it. There stood Jake.
Larry couldn’t react fast enough. Jake charged through that door, Cal shutting it behind him, Jake moving with a vengeance straight to Larry. Jake’s humongous hand reached out in a ‘snatch’ gripping Larry by the throat, and lifting him from the floor. With a sneer of hatred and all his strength, Jake smashed L
arry in the center of his face with one hard blow, holding Larry so he wouldn’t fly back. Blood shot out from Larry’s busted nose. With a running force, Jake then hurled Larry across the room. After smashing into the lamp, Larry careened back first into the wall, sliding down and dropping to the floor. Jake lunged at Larry lifting him up, securing his arm behind his back, and ramming him face first into the wall.
Larry grunted loudly in pain as Jake pinned him against the wall, feet dangling, face pressing so hard the rough wall seared into his cheek.
“There’s nothing more I want to do than kill you right now, and I can.” Jake ground out in a low, frightening, gravelly voice. “This is the Iso-Stasis Experiment. There are no rules. I can snap your neck and no one would care or miss you. But I won’t. You have five months left. I want every bit of torture intended for you to be thrown at you. But make no bones about it. You will not walk off this island. I will stake my life on it.” Jake pulled him back cracking him again into the wall. “You touched my wife.” Another pull back, another grunt as Jake smashed him again. “You shoved your hand between her legs.” Another smash. “You blackmailed her for sex.” Again and hard, Jake rammed him. “Death right now is an easy way out for you. You sick fuckin piece of shit.” Jake held him against the wall with such strength he could have crushed Larry. “Let me leave you with this. If by some slim fuckin chance your pathetic ass is alive on September third waiting for that chopper to arrive at eight a.m. . . . I’ll put a fuckin bullet in your head at seven fifty-five. Pray they get you first.” After one more slam, Jake dropped a shaking Larry to the floor, turned, face emotionless, walked to Cal, took her hand, and walked her out.
^^^^
“Shh.” Rickie rushed his hand out, covering Billy’s mouth as they tromped in the woods.
“What?” Billy asked. “I didn’t say anything?”
“Dude, you breathed heavy.”
Billy tossed his hand in the air. “Forgive me. Now . . . what did you hear?”
Rickie pointed. “Lou.”
Lou’s voice, close but still in the distance, carried down. “Uh . . . Paul. Are you listening? Okay, now I liked the pipe, I liked the company, and I liked the mind clearing thing. But just about this point I’m gonna have to say enough is enough and get pissed off.”
Paul didn’t seem to listen. He just continued to gather logs and branches stacking them at Lou’s feet where he had Lou tied to a large post.
^^^^
Cal’s shorts and underwear, intertwined, flew high in the air and landed in the sand impressively close to where Jake had tossed the rest of her clothes. Not long after, his sweat shorts followed.
Softly, Jake moaned, adjusting the ‘too small’ blanket to at least cover his backside and most of Cal’s legs as he lay on top of Cal. He stopped the seduction when Cal giggled.
“What?” He asked. “What’s so funny?”
“This is so unlike you,” Cal told him.
“Please. I’m being romantic. Since I have to come up with my own list of things I need improvement on . . .”
“Jake.”
“No, Cal. You won’t tell me, so I have to figure it out for myself. And through deduction, I came up with spontaneous seduction.” He kissed her again. “So . . . a small fire and poor man’s champagne.” Jake’s hand reached up, lifted, and set down a beer. “Cal and Jake . . .” He smiled and kissed her through the smile. “Sexual protection.” His eyes glanced up to the M-16. “And here we are.”
“Here we are. And it’s still so unlike you. You enjoy privacy for your . . .” She snickered. “Intimacies.”
“Cal, please. Are you making fun of me?”
“Yes.”
Jake grunted. “This is as private as we can get. Far away, with my beautiful wife.” Jake laid his lips to Cal’s. “Who’s gonna see us?” Just as Jake locked himself and his body in the moment with Cal, kissing her and clinging to her, he sprung his head up when he heard the thump-thump-thump of feet on the sand.
“Sarge!” Rickie called out awfully close.
“No.” Jake closed his eyes then felt the tap on his shoulder. “Fuck.”
“Hey, Sarge. Hey, Cal-babe.” Rickie bent down. “You guys busy?”
“Rickie I believe so, yes,” Jake said so annoyed, shaking his head at Rickie and seeing Billy there too, only Billy had his back turned.
“Could you, like, put it on pause? We need your help.” Rickie rambled on, unable in the darkness to see Jake’s irritation. “Cause, like, my body guard is trapped in a bizarre Bewitched nightmare and is about to be burned at the stake.”
Wide eyed and nude, Jake’s head lifted up to Rickie with a stunned, open-mouthed expression, because up to that point in his life, Jake thought he had heard it all and he had just heard a new one.
MIND, BODY, AND SOUL . . . OBSTACLES
--Not only will the challenges that nature’s fury has to offer be thrown at you, but other obstacles as well. Be prepared. Just as in any monsoon, tornado, or hurricane, if there is calm, there is inevitably a storm brewing.--
Excerpts from ‘Surviving the Iso-Stasis’
By Jake and Cal Graison
CHAPTER FORTY-SIX
Caldwell Research Center - Los Angeles, CA
April 10th - 8:45 a.m.
“And fortunately for Lou . . .” Greg spoke before the table full of investors. “He escaped with only minor feet and ankle burns. He’ll be walking again in a few days. Now, if you’ll turn to page forty-nine.” Greg waited for the simultaneous sound of flipping pages. “As you can see, the mental phase is giving thriving results. The easing-in instead of the bam-bam-bam method used in previous experiments is proving beneficial. We have Larry, who hasn’t spoken to anyone since Jake not only beat him, but scared the hell out of him. Our panel of psychologists don’t . . .” Greg shook his head dramatically. “They don’t expect this quiet, frightened behavior to last. We’re keeping an eye out for Cal. We believe she will be his target.”
Aldo, whose fingers played with the edge of his booklet, looked up and grumbled.
“Judge King,” Greg continued. “We’ve increased the reality of the mental pressure, thus causing him to question his sanity every single time. We’re still keeping our fingers crossed that Rickie will tell him soon about the tragedy with his granddaughter, because we know that will push him. Paul . . .” Greg stopped to laugh. “Paul is now convinced that it is his calling to exorcize every demon on that island before they overcome them. We have not only great plans for Paul, but rather entertaining ones when he sees the proof of his failure in his calling.” Greg noticed Ivan raising his hand. “Yes, Ivan.”
“I have Paul. Why is he still walking freely if he tried to kill Lou?”
“He didn’t try to kill Lou,” Greg explained. “He merely tried to burn the demons from him. Jake and the others enjoyed the moment, and they saw no reason to harm him. Okay, next page.” Again, the flipping of pages put Greg in a pause mode. “With the mental phase in full swing and thriving, we will now move on to the element phase with only one failure in the mental endurance . . . .Lou.”
With a ‘Nah-uh-uh’ Aldo shook his head. “Cal, Jake, and Billy. You failed there.”
Greg arrogantly flashed that closed mouth smile at Aldo. “My dear Mr. Connilucci, we did not fail there. Quite the contrary. The fun with those three has just begun.” He smiled again. “Wait.”
I-S.E. Thirteen - The Island
April 10th - 9:00 a.m.
Lying on her stomach on her bed, Cal stared at her left hand. It rested on top of the other, cupped some and just under her nose. She looked at the shiny new diamond band that now graced her ring finger. It fit perfectly with her engagement ring and wedding band, completing the expensive trio. But instead of smiling at the ring Jake had given her the day before on their anniversary, Cal wiped the tear drop that fell upon it.
“Cal-babe.” The door opened with Rickie’s call.
Cal rolled onto her back and sat up. “Did you do it?”
“Yes.” Rickie shut the door and walked in. “I got the Sarge occupied. Now what’s wrong?”
Slowly, Cal stood up from the bed and walked to him. “Oh, Rickie.” She dropped her head to him. “I think I’m in trouble.”
^^^^
Stan angrily slammed his clipboard on the counter, spinning to Rickie while holding back his lab coat. “I cannot believe you are putting me in this position.”
“Dude.” Rickie stepped to Stan, leaving Cal behind. “Be a pal. Guy. Come on.” Rickie whispered. “It’s, like, my mom. . . .” Rickie looked back at Cal then to Stan. “Help.”
Caldwell Research Center - Los Angeles, CA
April 10th - 9:40 a.m.
Aldo knew something was up when he was pulled from the meeting during the break and brought alone into Greg’s office. He sat there watching a calm Greg stand behind the desk. Dr. Jefferson was seated in the office as well.
“You needed to hear this first.” Greg spoke softly then tossed a folder in front of Aldo. “Ovastim is the name the drug was given at first. It has no name since we have taken over it. It was given to us by a sexuality and fertility research clinic. We of course . . .” Greg held out his hands. “We made some adjustments.”
Aldo opened the folder. His dark eyes glanced up at Greg.
“But . . .” Greg held up his finger. “Any adjustments we made did not deter from the original intention of the drug. And you can see the original intentions.”
“Christ.” Aldo’s eyes partially closed.
“A problem most couples suffering from infertility have is that trying to conceive can become regimented, boring. It becomes such a task that the couples no longer follow the demanding procedures they should. Therefore, failure is almost always imminent. Ovastim was designed for couples in this predicament. Created to not only stimulate the ovum for egg production and release, it was designed to stimulate sexual hormones in the adrenal cortex as well. Hence, a more enjoyable, less tedious conception.”
Amoeba (The Experiments) Page 41