The Iso-Stasis Experiment (The Experiments) (45 page)

“Oh, Rickie had some.”

“Rickie?” Jake placed down the bottle and sat on the bed next to her. “Rickie is under age. It is against the law to distribute alcohol to minors.”

“Quit being so anal.” She looked at Jake and asked, “How come you’re not trying to take advantage of me?”

“Cal, I just don’t when you’re drunk.”

Slurring her words a little Cal stared up at him. “You’re the only guy I have ever slept with that didn’t want to have sex with me when I was drinking.”

“Cal, please. I would really appreciate you not bringing up your past sexual experiences. At this point in our relationship, it makes me uncomfortable, not to mention jealous.”

“Relationship, Jake? You mean as in how we relate to each other or as a couple?” Cal asked.

“I would hope . . .” he said as he covered her up, “. . . as a couple. Now, it’s late. Get some sleep. I have to be on top of things.”

Taking a shivering breath Cal sat up. “Jake? I’m really glad you want to be a couple with me.” Cal spoke honestly through the courage of her bottle, “Because I want to wake up next to you for the rest of my life.” Even though she was drunk, she saw a not-so-Jake look on his face. “Oh, shit, I just scared the hell out of you.”

“No. You shocked me. It’s just that you always imply that after the experiment there will be no more us.” Jake pulled her into his chest. “You never talk about a future for us.”

“It’s not because I don’t want one.” Cal nuzzled in comfort on him. “It’s because I promised David after I get back, him and I would finally . . . .” Cal closed her eyes before finishing, “. . . get married.”

Jake’s whole body dropped when he heard that. As his hand fell from her head, he felt her body slump. Cal had passed out. Laying her down, Jake stood up from the bed. What he wouldn’t have given at that moment not to have heard what he just heard be the final words Cal spoke to him for the night. Unfortunately . . . they were.

“Rickie . . .” Jake flung open the bathroom door. “Go away!”

“Sarge, I had this revelation.”

“Not now.” Jake glared at him. “I have to talk to Cal. Do not, unless you’re dying, knock on this door. Got that?” Jake slammed the door closed and turned to Cal pointing at her. “You and I need to talk.”

“So you’ve said.” Cal screwed up her face. Her body was feeling the effects of the fall but her head was feeling the booze from the night before. “But could you do it quietly?”

Jake walked up to her. “No!” His voice was deep, abrupt and, of course, loud.

“Jake, please.” Cal sat on the bed. “What did I do? Will you wait until I’ve gotten up, had my coffee and showered so I could be fully awake to get yelled at?”

“Yes.”

“Why?” Cal reached for her coffee.

“You said something last night.”

“I said a lot of things last night. Do you mind being more specific?” She sipped her coffee.

Jake moved to the bed. “You told me last night that you and David are getting back together.”

“Oh, I did not.” Cal placed down the mug. “Now is that it?”

“Cal. You did. I said you never mentioned us having a future together and you said it was because you promised David when you got back you’d marry him.”

“Oh.”

“Oh? Oh?” Jake’s voice grew louder. Are you engaged to the man still? Because I swore you told me you broke up.”

“We did. And . . .”

“You said you didn’t love him, Cal.”

“No.” Cal held up her finger to silence him. “I said I didn’t love him
that
way. But he still loves me. And he came to me before I left and we talked. He made sense. He talked about not being alone, our history together. And I promised I would give us another chance when I got back. I made that promise.”

“Break it.”

“Excuse me.”

“Break it. I earned that chance with you far more than David did.”

“You’re absolutely right.”

“I’m what?” Jake nearly fell to the bed. He was rearing for more of an argument.

“You’re right. I made that promise to not even thinking I’d meet anyone up here. David’s not the one I’ve slept with for the past five months. You are. I haven’t slept with him since before I came up here.”

“Yeah, like almost a year before.”

“Sort of . . . I need an aspirin.” Cal stood up.

“What is sort of? I thought you guys broke up when Jessie died.”

“We did.” Cal opened up her desk drawer and pulled out a bottle of aspirin.

“When was the last time you slept with this guy you supposedly don’t love?”

“It was before I came up here.” Cal placed the aspirin in her mouth and washed it down with her cooling coffee. She gagged when it got stuck in her throat.

“When before?”

“Jake.” Cal coughed. “I’m choking.” She wiped her mouth with the back of her hand and faced him. “Can I be perfectly blunt with you right now?”

“Of course you can.”

“Good.” She set the mug down. “It’s none of your business.”

“You slept with him the night before you came here, didn’t you?”

“Jake, please. And besides, I thought for sure it would be seven months before I had sex again.”

“You did.” He watched her ‘oh well’ attitude as she sat back down. “Cal, am I going to have to deal with this man when we get back? Obviously you led him to believe you’d marry him.”

“No, Jake. I’ll deal with David. And can we please drop this? Being together or not after this experiment will be dealt with later. Not now. You drive me crazy with this shit. You want things under your control at all times. It drives you insane when you don’t know exactly what’s happening when.”

“I’m pushing you, aren’t I?” Jake shook his head. “I am really sorry. I never meant to do that. I also apologize, Cal, for crossing the lines with your previous personal life. It was out of bounds. I won’t bring it up again. What happened before me is your business.”

“God, Jake.” Cal plopped sideways on the bed covering her head with a pillow.

Jake smiled at her and pulled away the pillow. He kissed her on the cheek. “I love you, you know that?”

Cal slowly raised herself up from her plopped down position. She stared at Jake. “That didn’t sound rehearsed.”

“It didn’t?” Jake gave a gloating look. “See. I’m getting really good at this stuff, Cal. I just don’t want you to make me stop doing it. I just assumed that you wouldn’t make me stop.”

“I wouldn’t, not on purpose.” She leaned closer to try to kiss him.

Rickie came bursting through the door at that moment. Excited, he stood before Cal and Jake as if he were about to perform. “I had a Rickie revelation. None of us were thinking yesterday. You know, with Bigfoot knocking off Carlos and all. But . . .” Rickie placed his finger to his temple. “But how did Bigfoot get in here?”

Cal and Jake lost their ready to laugh at Rickie expressions. They were both deadly serious when they turned their complete attention to him.

“Didn’t think of that? The Rickie-
Miester
did. He came from the dining area. How? There are no windows or door. I thought, what about the roof? But . . . he would have had to sneak by us in the gathering room. We would have smelled him. So all that leads to the big master question, how did he get in?”

Jake could have kicked himself for not even letting that be foremost thought on his mind. “That is excellent thinking, Rickie. So tell me. How did he get in here?”

“I don’t know.” Rickie shrugged. “I’m asking you.”

Jake jumped to his feet, groaning loudly and rubbing his hand down his face. “All right, think. If he didn’t come through the door, and he didn’t break any walls or windows, and he certainly didn’t come from the roof, then where . . .” With a bright look of revelation, Jake grinned.

^^^^

“If he’s coming from below, he had to come in through here.” Jake stormed into the dining area and turned his rifle upside down. With every step he took he tapped the butt of the rifle on the floor. He listened to the solid sound all the way around the room. Two feet before the far corner, he heard it, the empty hollow sound as his tapping rifle hit against the floor. His eyes lit up as he raised them to Cal and Rickie. “Bingo.” Almost struggling with his words, Jake ran his fingers along the crease in the floor. “There has got to be a way to open this.”

“Sarge? What about this button?”

Jake looked up. “What button, Rickie?”

“This one here right behind the fridge.” Rickie pointed. “Can I press it, Sarge, can I?”

“Be my guest.” Jake held his hand out.

“Cool.” Rickie pressed the button dramatically, all the while singing.

Jake, expecting nothing, was shocked when a four by four section of the floor by his feet slid silently open. “Oh, shit.” Another floor was rising up. “Rickie, come on.” Jake grabbed
 
hold of Cal’s hand and they stood with Rickie on the newly raised section of floor. It soon began to lower. “Rickie, how did you find that button?”

“I learned from the master. Anyone who’s ever watched
Scooby Doo
will tell you there’s always a secret lever or button somewhere.”

As they dropped down ten feet, the floor above that had become their ceiling, closed. Red emergency-type lighting came on just as they stopped in front of a silver door.

“Be ready, Cal.” Jake raised his weapon as the door slid open. Immediately they were overwhelmed with the most rotten of smells.

Cal lost control, exclaiming her disgust loudly through grunts and gags. “Oh, shit.”

Jake ignored the smell and he and Rickie stepped off the lift. “Cal, come on.”

“It smells, Jake.”

“Quit being so goddamn female and move.” Jake cased the room up and down. It was almost a mirror image of the dining area above them. “What is this place?

“Sarge, it’s like the downstairs apartment. You think this is
wear
Bigfoot lives?”

Jake picked up a CD case. “Not unless he likes the
Gin Blossoms
.” He tossed it down and noticed Cal still lagging behind. “What is up with you? We have to stay together. It may still be here.”

“God, Jake.” Cal leaned on the counter. “I think I’m going to throw up.”

“You wouldn’t be like this if you weren’t such an alcoholic.”

“Me? You are such an asshole.”

“Yeah, I am.” He motioned to her with his rifle. “Back me up or go back up.”

“Fine,” Cal said and turned to head back to the lift that brought them down.

“No you don’t.” Jake leaned back, snatching her by her arm.

“Sarge, you want me to go ahead first?” Rickie asked.

“Sure, Rickie go ahead.” Jake nodded. “Lead the way.”

Rickie stepped ahead of Jake. “It’s so much like upstairs, I know my way around.”

Cal’s mouth watered and so did her eyes. “Doesn’t this smell bother you?”

Jake turned back to her. “Breathe through your mouth, not your nose.”

“No, then I’ll taste it.”

Rickie began to pick up his decoy pace. “I’m heading to the gathering room. The smell is getting . . . whoa.”

“What’s wrong?” Jake called to him, keeping his distance behind him.

“Oh, gross,” Rickie yelled. “There’s like Bigfoot phlegm all over the floor. It made me slip. Be careful, it’s really slippery.” Rickie walked a little further toward the next room. “Whoa.”

“Is there more Bigfoot phlegm?” Jake asked sarcastically.

“Worse,” Rickie answered. “More like, Bigfoot victims.”

Jake mouthed the word questioningly, ‘victims?’ to Cal and ran after Rickie. He slid almost all the way down the hallway on the Stasis saliva drippings that seemed to make the floor like ice. “Holy fuck!” Jake grabbed the door way to stop himself from going in any further.

Cal made it just to Jake’s back and saw what was in the room. With a flip of her stomach, she handed Jake the rifle and sped back to the dining area.

Rickie stood in the center of the room. Walls, once white, were splattered and dripping with dried blood. Slumped on the first table was the body of
 
Hawk. Only his body, the head had been tossed like it was trash And Carl’s body had stayed pinned to the wall with the four legs of a wooden chair. One of the legs held him through his mouth.

Jake walked into the room slowly. “They’ve been watching us.” Grabbing the slumping body by the collar, Jake lifted his shoulders to get to the folder that lay under his chest. He took the folder and dropped the body with a thump. “These are notes they were . . .” Jake paused to read before continuing, “were going to fax.” His head spun around. He saw the two phones and the fax machine, all busted up. “They had communication with the institute. They’ve been here the . . .” He watched Cal walk into the room. “Feeling better?”