Amoeba (The Experiments) (48 page)

Lyle’s fingers clicked once on a keyboard as he looked up. The electronic map of the island, blue, green and yellow in color, showed a wide shot view, then it zoomed in on an area. They watched a set of lights move. “Heading out of the camp area again.” Lyle looked over his shoulder to tell Greg who leaned in between him and Barb.

“How long were they there?” Greg asked.

Barb answered. “Ten minutes maybe.”

“Near Larry’s again?” Greg questioned further.

“In the vicinity,” Lyle answered. “But then . . .” He pointed to the monitor of Larry’s room. “There he is.”

“We ought to put a fuckin tracking device in his arm. What is he up to? He is up to something.” Greg s
hook his head in disgust then stopped cold. His eyes raised slowly and widely to the wall of monitors. “Where’s Cal?”

It was bad enough that Cal got sick so easy, but now she had to use everything she had inside of her not to throw up. Fight off the gagging that came from the dirty cloth shoved in her mouth and bound there with another cloth, she used her hatred, her disgust, watching the four men, not far from her, create a bloody mess of themselves as they each sliced open their upper left arms.

He
r fingers fidgeted with the rope that tied her arms behind her to a tree. Cal kept her eyes peeled at Luther, who was the obvious leader. He bandaged himself and stood up at the same time as the others. He kept his eyes on her, and she kept hers on him, trying to use her peripheral vision to keep the others in her focus.

He was so disgusting to her, not just in appearance but his whole attitude,
that all she wanted to do was just throw up all over his pathetic ass the second he removed the gag.

Luther smiled
. He had a silver tooth, the only one in his smile that hadn’t rotted away. He closed his fist and stepped to Cal. “Lights out baby doll.” He swung back careening his fist into the side of Cal’s face.

Cal’s head flung to the right and she lifted it, glaring at him.

Luther was a bit shocked at first, and then he laughed it off. “Didn’t give her all I got. But the bitch can still take a punch. Did you hear me bitch?” He asked Cal. “I said lights out.” He clenched his huge fist tighter, taunting Cal with it as he pulled it back in her view. Glare and all on his face, biting his bottom lip, Luther brought his fist toward Cal. Just as he tossed it, Cal dropped to the ground, causing Luther’s powerful fist to smash into the tree’s trunk.

Hands free from the rope she
had untied, Cal pulled the gag from her mouth, locked both hands together, and, jumping to her feet, she brought her hands up into Luther’s gut causing his body to bend down. Still joined, she lifted her hands high, cracked them down onto his back, then grabbed hold of Luther’s collar. With both hands, a grunt, and everything she had, she jolted Luther and smashed him head first into the tree. “Meet the star pupil of Graison 101 . . . you asshole.” With her last words, Cal delivered her final blow, bringing up her bent leg hard and kicking Luther in the center of his chest with her knee. He rolled over and fell to the ground.

In ready mode, arms out and waiting
, Cal turned to see the other three charging her way. Axe, the greasy, long-haired man, swung his arms out like an ape. Cal dodged his swing, ducked and sailed her fist into his gut. Standing up, with a clock turn spin of her body, Cal kicked out, nailing Rapper in the side of the face. The momentum of her kick carried into Wilson, the thinnest and smallest of them, hitting him as well. Coming out of her kick, Cal was greeted with a fist, fast and hard, into her cheek. He took her by surprise, and she stumbled a step or two, caught her balance and charged, forward into Axe, the one who had hit her. She tossed two fast jabs, both to his face, neither of which fazed him much., The punch to his stomach caused a slight grunt, but the knee shot to his groin caused him to whimper.

If Jake
had taught her anything, it was if she ever found herself in a bad situation, do what she could to get out of it and run like hell. And that’s what Cal wanted to do. Two steps into her bolting run, her long hair was grasped and yanked so fiercely that Cal literally flew backwards, her feet sweeping out from under her, and she landed hard to the ground on her back. She bounced with a grunt, shifted her eyes, and saw the legs of Rapper. She quickly brought up her one leg, hooked it on his, scissor-locked it with her other leg, and brought Rapper to the ground. Joined nearly in what wrestlers would call a ‘figure four’, Cal, turned her body, flipping Rapper and bringing herself to her hands and knees. The moment she raised her eyes was the moment she was kicked in the side of the head.

Cal rolled, opened her eyes, saw another careening boot, and as she grabbed hold of that to stop the blow, she felt the painful se
ar of a foot into her rib cage. All air escaped her, and Cal’s neck arched. Before she could catch her breath, get herself together, she was out numbered. On the ground, trying to get up while shielding herself, Cal became like a forest fire, something they just wanted to stomp out.

No matter how many times she tried to get up, she was kicked back down. Her hands searched out the ground, trying to get leverage, and a heel came down hard, digging into her fingers, spinning with a crushing vengeance. And Cal, not loud, screamed.

^^
^^

Moseying along in a walk across the unity circle, Rickie froze. The smile dropped from his face and his head jolted around. “Cal?” Though the painful scream he heard didn’t sound like it came from her bungalow, Rickie raced there to be sure. He barged in. “Cal-babe!” She wasn’t there. Pulling the door closed as he flew out, he ran as fast as he could to Billy’s.

No knocking, Rickie raced in. “Billy where’s Cal and . . .” He saw Jake stand up. “Sarge. Cal. I heard her scream.”

Jake flew to the door and out. “She’s at the bungalow.”

“No
, Sarge, I checked.” Rickie, with Billy behind, him ran out.

Jake stopped in his walk out. “She’s supposed to be . . .”

“There.” Rickie’s head jolted up. “There it is again.”

Jake looked around. “I didn’t hear it. Can you tell where it was coming from? Try Rickie.”

Rickie closed his eyes, listening, really listening. “I hear her grunting . . . up there.” He pointed to behind Judge’s bungalow.

“Let’s go
.” Jake grabbed hold of Rickie’s arm, and in the same stride, pointed to Billy. “Go to my room and grab two M-16's. Hurry.” Jake, letting Rickie lead the way, took off running while Billy ran to Jake’s bungalow.

^^^^

Amongst the laughter, pain filled legs, burning scrapes, arms aching, and hands cramping, Cal drew everything she had inside of her, and tried once more to get up. Her lifting body from the ground was an open invitation, and a foot came up, slamming her in the center of her chest. A long wheeze shot from Cal, and she flipped onto her back. Everything around her began to go blurry. Her spine arched high as only a rasping sound escaped her. She couldn’t breathe. The crushing pain that filled her chest made Cal fear she had gone into cardiac arrest. Her hands went numb, and shook. And with rolling eyes, one more reach out, Cal’s body went limp, flopping back to the ground and slightly to her side.

The four men laughed tauntingly as they closed in
on Cal, each of them taking turns to nudge her with their foot, seeming to derive a sick pleasure at how she failed to respond, grunt, or moan. And then the four of them, tips of their boots nearly touching Cal’s body in the circle around her, summed up an eerie deranged silence, a silence that was only broken by the simple sound of zippers. Towering over Cal’s motionless body, in some sort of psychopathic necrophilia sexual arousal, the four of them each undid the fronts of their pants and began to perform a tribal ritual they had done so many times before.

^^^^

Rickie looked panicked and out of breath when he stopped cold about three yards from Judge’s garden. “I don’t hear anything, Sarge. I don’t hear anything.” He sounded so desperate.

Jake’s eyes shifted to a distraught looking Billy who handed him an M-16. He saw Lou there
, too. “What?”

“I’m here to help.”

Jake nodded and stepped to Rickie. “Okay, get it together. Calm down, you hear me? Calm down.” Jake, adjusting his M-16, laid his hand on Rickie’s shoulder. “Find her scent. Can you find her scent, Rickie?” He saw Rickie shake his head. “Rickie, I need you to try. Try.”

Rickie stepped back and turned
, facing the woods. His face crinkled almost like a sniffing dog, shifting his head from left to right, taking a step, then stopping. He bent down to the ground and pulled a handful of grass bringing it to his nose. He dropped it and moved more to his right, bent down again and ripped up grass. After smelling it and standing up, Rickie pointed and began to run in the direction he aimed. “This way.”

Jake spun to Billy and Lou in his backwards run. “Let’s go.” He turned back around and ran to catch up to a fast moving Rickie.

“Cal-babe!” Rickie called out. “Cal!” Rickie bent down catching his breath. His eyes looked to the small hill before him. “She’s close, Sarge, She’s really close.”

Jake took short breaths, trying to stay calm
, trying to stay in control, trying to think. He peered like a hawk around the wooded area that surrounded him. “Over that hill, Rickie?”

“Maybe. But she’s really . . .” Rickie stopped talking when a crunching sound was heard.

The sound grew louder, picking up intensity and drawing closer to them. All of them were shocked in horror when they saw the reason for the noise. Cal’s body rolled with speed down the hillside at them.

Billy’s emotions escaped him verbally as he ran directly behind Jake to Cal. “Oh my God.”

Jake dove forward onto the hill stopping Cal from falling any further. He dropped on his knees, and Cal literally rolled over into the palm of his hands. It was Jake’s sound of pain, a moan that flowed from his throat as he stared down at his wife. Her face and body beaten, hair and clothes dirty, bloody, and surely showing remnants of other things she had endured. A gnawing ache twisted in Jake’s gut, and he bit his bottom lip, trying to stay in control though his eyes shifted about Cal in a sense of loss. His huge hand gripped around her neck and he closed his eyes in gratefulness when he felt a pulse. “Cal,” her name seemed to whimper out from him. So in shock, sick, and more so heartbroken.

Billy’s shoulders bounced as his hand reached down to her leg. “God Jake. What did they do to her?”
He lifted his head. “What did they . . .” Billy’s eyes widened. “Jake.”

Jake heard the change in Billy’s voice. He opened his eyes, raised his head
, and saw him. A man, Axe, long hair, half way up the hill, thinking he could hide in the brush. Standing watching, as if seeing Cal laying there was some sort of sick after pleasure. A look like no other took over Jake, and he released Cal, reaching for his M-16. Bringing himself up as he swung his weapon around, Jake only pumped the chamber but never got to shoot. It all happened so fast.

From the corner of Jake’s eye, he saw what made him stop. A blur, fast moving, flashed by Jake hitting him with the breeze of its force. And a flutter hit Jake’s eyes when he saw Rickie
- moving as fast as any bullet Jake could fire - literally shoot himself toward the man in the trees. A beastly growl, deep and gurgling, reverberated from Rickie the second he leaped up, sailing his thin body in an animalistic attack lunge at Axe. Rickie landed on him rolling to the ground with a man twice his size. Yet Axe stood not a single chance. From the spot where they landed, mid hillside, there were only painful screams mixed with the sounds of snarling. And all that could be seen was the spraying of blood and flesh that shot up and rained out from the ground like a volcano of death had erupted there.

Lou couldn’t move, his eyes transfixed up on that hillside to Rickie. “Talk about a temper. Oh my God.”

Jake, running his hand over Cal’s head, stood straight up. “Billy, you and Lou get her back. The rest of them are around here.”

“Jake
, don’t leave her,” Billy told him watching Jake walk up the hill. “Jake, I don’t know what to do for her.”

Jake kept walking.

There was nothing left of Axe when Jake made it to Rickie. Nothing together, that was. Pieces of his mutilated body were scattered in a close circle. Rickie, eyes a different shade of green, was in the center of the mess, catching his breath. Rickie’s hands, his weapons, were covered with Axes blood.

“Grab his scent
,” Jake told Rickie. “It’ll linger with the others. They’re still here. I feel it. I . . .”

“Jake!” Billy called, holding Cal whom he had lifted into his arms. “Hurry
! Please!”

Jake turned around and looked down the hill. He saw the look on Billy’s face
, and he raced down to Billy. “What is it?”

Billy’s answer wasn’t verbal. It was the mere shifting of his eyes down to his arm that braced under Cal’s legs. An arm now covered with fresh flowing blood.

“Oh God.” Jake reached out for Cal, taking her from Billy’s arms. His eyes closed as he pulled her close to his chest, pressing his face to hers.

Lou took the M-16 off of Billy. “Jake, take care of her. I’ll go search with Rickie.”

There wasn’t any question about what Jake had to do. Even though his gut wanted to tear the others apart like Rickie had done to Axe, Jake’s place was with Cal. And holding her in his big arms, Jake carried Cal back home.

^^^^

A pile of Cal’s hair lay on the bathroom floor. It was so bloodied, tangled, and knotted that Jake had had no choice but to cut it, even though Cal would never say anything to him about it. He took great care to cut it carefully, bringing up the long length to just below her shoulder.