Amoeba (The Experiments) (58 page)

Billy felt disgusting. He didn’t want to be wearing a tee shirt. He’d rather be going without one with as hot as it was so early in the day. But he supposed he had developed an immunity to the sun screen. It seemed that every time Billy went out and put it on, he got burned.

It was probably the longest walk of his life, but he had to get to the spot where he
had gotten the great view of the volcano on the other side of the island, the one where the smoke seeped out every once and a while. The one Jake assured him, if it erupted, they would be fine. Of course, Billy had to wonder what Jake knew of volcanoes. But seeing it was more than he knew, he took Jake’s word on it.

Billy heard the rustle drawing near to him as he walked in those deep woods. He thought at first it was Reed, who was out walking alone for the first time in a while
, developing the attitude that if he was alone and he had a mishap, then he had no one else to blame but himself. How right Billy thought Reed to be. Then again, Rickie had been extra careful with him, and Reed hadn’t had an accident in nearly two weeks. That alone could have explained the bravery that Reed had in trudging out alone.

But the closer the rustling drew, the more he realized it wasn’t Reed. It moved too fast. Nor could it have been Judge who had recently thrown himself into paleontology. Judge limped. The rustling moved at a steady quick pace.

Through reasonable deduction and having no one left, Billy chalked up the incoming noise to one of two people. And he pegged one of them when Lou came whizzing by him.

Lou spun. “Bill. You did not see me
, okay?”

“O
kay.” Billy raised his camera and took a picture when Lou ran off to the left.

The high pitch war call alerted Billy at the same time he heard more rustling.

Paul, war paint, loin cloth, and spear, stopped running when he saw Billy. “Clever Bamboozle. Have you seen Large Curse?”

“Uh, yeah.”

“Which way did Large Curse run off to?” Paul asked.

“He went uh . . . that way.” Billy pointed to the right, the totally opposite direction that Lou ran.

“Thank you Clever Bamboozle. May the good spirits be with you.”

“And may the force . . .” Billy watched Paul run in the
direction he had pointed. “. . . be with you.” Billy chuckled, snapped a picture of Paul, catching the flapping of the loin cloth and getting Cal a really good butt shot.

Amongst the bitches and the gripes, Aldo and Douglass still put it off, but they got to it in the control room. Standing before a card table with money and a large board on it, trying to wade through it while Greg discussed with Barb her inability to track who was getting sun burned and who was not, Aldo and Douglass did their job, being the judges in the ‘no winner’ sidebar betting.

Douglass laughed listening to Aldo.

“Bald. Ear eaten by a boar. Lost left eye to hot cinder. Twisted Ankle. Boar ate little toe. Thought he had head lice but only had psoriasis. Got bit by a jelly fish. Zombie ate his fingers, and now the newest Reed incident . . . speared by a wild Indian with a really firm butt.”

Douglass chuckled some more. Sounds like you
’re reading from the top ten list.”

“And can you actually believe the poll has started for the next Reed accident
?”

“Oh, yeah. I’m in it
,” Douglass said, laughing. “He’s the best damn participant I have ever had.”

“Yes he is. So let’s finish this up. No one had
Reed getting speared, so we’ll go with the next closest. What do we have?”

“Two people said he’d get hit by an arrow.”

“Any on the arm?” Aldo asked.

“Chest and leg.”

“Give it to the chest.” Aldo wrote it down.

“That would be Tony in
maintenance. Next. First to loot the dead man’s room.”

“No one had him
,” Aldo said. “No one even pegged him to go in there first.”

“Ok
ay, so we go first degree to Jake.” Douglass’ hand ran across the board. “Two people picked Cal.”

“Items
,” Aldo asked.

“Tough one. Electric razor and
back massager.”

“Hmm. Tough one is right.” Aldo thought. “Well, let’s reason it out. Since no one enjoys shaving and since the massager could be enjoyable
, and since Jake stole the ‘Best of Journey’ collection for enjoyment, give it to whoever picked Cal and the massager.”

“Tony from
maintenance.”

Aldo slammed his pen. “Again? Does this man have nothing to fix or what?”

Before Douglas could add his own gripe, Greg approached and interrupted. “How’s it going? Did I win anything?”

“Nope.” Aldo shook his head. “We’re just about done here. We have to tally up the attempts on Lou’s life poll
, and we should be finished.”

“I think I’m the closest in that one
,” Greg said. “Of course, I never would . . .”

Something unexpected interrupted Greg’s speech.

A hiss, long, loud, and static sounding. A painful scream cut short. Gurgles and another hiss.

Greg spun to Barb. “What the hell was that
?” He raced back over to her.

“I don’t know
,” Barb said, tossing her hands up.

“Our stasis?”

Barb looked at the monitor. “Still in the cocoon.”

Aldo rushed over. “What was it?”

Greg shook his head. “I don’t know.” His eyes quickly skimmed the monitor. “Who the hell was it? And where is everyone?”

“Out and about
,” Barb replied.

“O
kay,” Greg ordered. “Stop all live feed and go to un-monitored recording, rewind what we got and play it back for me.”

“Got it.” Barb began to follow instructions.

Greg kept his eyes on the screen, holding tight to the back of Barb’s chair.

“One minute rewind.” Barb called out. “Here it is.”

Silence. Hiss. Scream. Gurgle. Hiss.

Greg slammed his hand. “What the hell? Again.”

Aldo noticed the wild look in Greg’s eyes. “Haynes, what is it?”

The sequence of the painful silenced scream played again.

“Where . . .” Greg looked in wonder “Where? Again.”

“Haynes.” Aldo called his attention again. “What is it?”

“Something . . .” Greg paused on the scream. “Something just happened that I didn’t plan. But what?” Greg looked down at Barb. “Again.”

Rickie’s arms flapped about and his legs kicked as he sailed, nearly flying over the beach and into the ocean with a splash a good twenty yards from shore.

“Now see.” Jake held out his hand. “If I could do that
, I would do it with grace.”

“You would
,” Cal commented. “But Rickie’s not you. He has to do everything with, well, his own style.” Cal folded her arms. “We almost done with him? I’m tired of watching him jump, Jake.”

“Yeah. I’ll call him . . . what’s wrong
?” He looked at Cal holding her ear.

“I have this weird tickling. Buzzing. It
’s so . . .”

A low hum rumble occurred followed by a vibration. Jake grabbed hold of Cal’s arm as the ground
on which they stood began to shake nearly knocking them over. It lasted for about thirty seconds. When it was over, Jake looked behind them and to the right.

“Volcano?” Cal asked.

“Nah. But it’s gonna happen soon.”

“I just hope you’re right
, Jake, and I hope it’s more visual than deadly.”

“It’ll be fun. Now let’s get Rickie out of the water.” Jake turned calling out as he did. “Rickie come on . . .” Jake stopped cold as he looked out into the ocean. “Oh shit. Rickie! Hurry!”

“Oh my God, Jake!” Cal backed up, seeing a wall of water seemingly chasing in toward them. “Rickie!”

“Dudes!” Rickie called out as he swam his hardest looking behind him with each moving stroke. “Dudes! Surf’s up!”

“Cal.”

“Yeah.”

“Run.” Jake grabbed Cal’s hand, hoping that with his help they could run further inland and beat the wave that charged in their way. They thought wrong. Over his shoulder and in his ears, Jake knew it had arrived. With fast moving legs, he released Cal’s hand, reached out his arm, grabbed hold of her by the waist, and whipped her into him. Jake wrapped his arms tightly around her bringing Cal to his chest as the giant wave not only crashed into the beach, but thunderously over Cal and Jake. It smacked into them with such a force it lifted them up into its watery hand and carried them at top speed further and further inland. And as the wave smacked with its final fury somewhere just into the edge of the trees, it threw Cal and Jake forward as it pulled back, causing the ground to vibrate again.

They rolled, still wrapped together
, through the muddy land as if the momentum of the wave still carried them. And when they stopped moving, mud covered, wet and breathing heavily, Cal and Jake laughed.

Jake reached his hand up to Cal’s face wiping away the mud, looking at her as she lay on top of him. “Fun
, huh?”

“Yeah.” Cal smiled.

Jake kissed her. “You okay?”

“I’m fine.”

“Are you sure?”

“Jake, I’m fine.”

“So am I.” Rickie whined out. “Like if anyone cares.” Not two feet from them, like Rambo, Rickie lifted from the mud. “Washed in from the ocean like that army broad’s head. But, like, no one cares.” Rickie rubbed the mud from his eyes. “Thank you.”

They couldn’t help it. They tried not to laugh, but they did as they watched Rickie, so child like
, stomp off in a hissy fit back towards the bungalows.

“Again,” Greg ordered, still standing in the same place as he had been for over a half an hour. Only this time more people had joined him, all eyes trying to find where it came from. He listened to the scream, short and painful. “All right. Take out all building and structure monitors.”

Barb did
, and she played it back again.

“It’s outside. All right
,” Greg said. “Let’s do process of elimination. Take out one at a time. One monitor at a time and play back.”

“Here’s less the beach monitors.” Barb pressed the tape, the scream en
sued. “Not on the beach. Less section forty off the bungalows.” Another play of the tape, another scream. “Less section twenty, near the center . . .” Barb played the tape, the scream happened again. “Now . . .”: Barb’s fingers clicked. “Less area seventeen near the cavern.” She pressed play. Nothing.

“It’s there.” Greg clenched his fist in excitement. “All right
, shut down everything but seventeen. Can you run it through to the big screen?”

“Yes.” Barb leaned to Lyle and together they worked
together for a minute or so. “Ready.”

“Everyone watch seventeen. Play it.” Greg watched. He heard the scream but saw nothing. “The microphone picked something up there. Zoom in.”

Acting like it was a waste of time and probably just Paul chasing Lou, or Reed getting hurt, Barb zoomed in. “All right.”

The scream. Then Aldo called out. “There!.”

“What?” Greg spun to him.

“You have to watch and you can’t blink
,” Aldo explained. “Watch it.”

Barb played it again.

“Did you see it?” Aldo asked.

“No.” Greg shook his head.

Aldo moved closer to Barb. “How slow can you play back this feed?”

“Slow I guess.” Barb shrugged, looked to Lyle and rolled her eyes. “Shall I?”

“Yes,” Greg nodded. “Do it.” He folded his arms and promised himself, burning eyes or not, he would not blink. And he watched. The sound of everything was so deep it was monstrous. But with the deep hissing sound came something else, a total blackness of the screen. It was during the blink of blackness that the scream called out. And then the screen showed the woods, just before the gurgle. But this time, they monitored closely and it was like everyone in the room saw the same thing at the same time. Those who were seated stood up. The room went silent.

“Oh my God.” Barb pointed. “Is that a . . .”

“I believe so,” Greg answered.

“Christ
!” Aldo gasped. “What in the hell?”

“I don’t know.” Greg shook his head. “But we have to find out.” He spun and began to walk from the room. “Lyle
, get me exact coordinates of that spot. Pull a live feed again and see.” He moved to the door.

“Greg
,” Dr. Jefferson called out. “Where are you going?”

Greg stopped before going out. He pointed to the screen. “There’s only one way to find out if
that
is what we think it is.” He opened the door. “I have to call Stan. Get them out there.”

After his dramatic exit, all eyes, confused and horrified, turned back to look at the screen.