SPOTS The Finale: The Lost Tablets

By David Lawrence Morris

JR Ferguson is a retired farmer. His acreage has been leased to a young couple he once rescued from the muddy access road that runs through his cornfield. As a result, he examines the road after every heavy rain both for stranded lovers and to examine the roads condition.
One day he finds trash in the form of various kinds of medication bottles strewn on the side of the road. With his boots sinking in the soft mud, he collects the litter and returns with the bottles some of which are labeled ‘Low Dose Aspirin,’ something he takes daily since his heart attack.
Examining the tablets, he determines that even though the bottles seem to vary, the drug is obviously the same.
Knowing how to pinch a penny, he empties each of the bottles into one of his deceased wife’s old canning jars and starts to take one each day.
Still grieving his wife’s death and his daughter Carol’s recent move into town, he goes to work fixing up the old farmhouse in the hope that his daughter may one day return and raise a family on the old farm. In the process of making substantial repairs, he notices small changes in himself, attributing them to his increased activity while refurbishing the old homestead, only to discover months later that the tablets he’d been taking are not low dose aspirin but an experimental drug that reverses aging.

• Language: English
• Publisher: David Lawrence Morris
• Release date: Dec 29, 2019
• ISBN: 9780463932636

David Lawrence Morris

I grew up in Phoenix, graduating from ASU in 1976. Now retired in Palm Springs I have enjoyed writing fiction and editing more than I ever dreamed I would. My books to date are: The Trilogy; Spots: The Youth Tablets Spots, The People at the Pond-Second Chance Spots, The Finale-The Lost Tablets. This trilogy is about an accidental side effect of an experimental medication...It returns the people in the trial to their youth. The Time Ship is an unusual take on a time travel adventure. Jason's Virus is a novel about a virus that quickly kills all but a few adult men and the civilization that results.

Book preview

SPOTS The Finale:

The Lost Tablets

By

David Lawrence Morris

© 2019

All Rights Are Reserved.

This book is a work of fiction. Any resemblance between the characters in this work and any persons, living or dead, is purely coincidental.

The right of David Lawrence Morris to be identified as the author of this work has been asserted in accordance with the Copyright, Designs and Patents Act 1998.

No part of this publication may be stored in a retrieval system or transmitted in any form or by any means electronically, mechanically, by recording, or otherwise without the prior permission of the author except in the case of brief quotations embodied in critical articles and reviews.

For more information

Concerning this publication

Please contact:

David Lawrence Morris

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Chapter One

Sealed Evidence

Officer Preston White

On Monday, my first day back from vacation, the Chief came back into the evidence warehouse, which I managed at that time. He was carrying a small box. He handed it to me and said, Preston, mark this as sealed evidence, and store it in the secure section, in the back.

Sealed? I questioned. Sealed evidence was never stored here. It was usually ordered sealed by the court. Honestly, I didn’t know where it went after that, but it never came here. Was it sealed by a judge? Has this already gone to court?

No... It’s a special deal. The governor wants it sealed, so we seal it. Just do it. It’s been a long day and I want to go home. I’ll see you tomorrow.

He was right, it was late... at least for him, but it would be two more hours before my shift was over.

I opened the box the Chief had given me. Inside, I found a notebook and several tapes.

I’d never been asked to seal evidence that hadn’t already been introduced in trial, and my curiosity was killing me. With two hours to kill and no one around, I pulled a tape recorder from the supply room, popped in one of the tapes, and listened to it. After hearing Mark Aaron’s remarkable testimony, I tore the pages loose from the pad filled with Investigator Lee’s notes and copied them. Sealed testimony about regaining your youth was too tempting to ignore.

I took the original evidence back to my worktable, taped the box, put it into an opaque bag, sealed it with a zip tie, and with a felt tip pen I prepared the label, adding ‘SEALED BY ORDER OF THE GOVERNOR.’ As the chief had instructed, I took it to the back shelves and found a place for it.

* * *

Deloris

That’s right, I said. "Now that the pills are finally gone forever, we don’t have to worry, we don’t have to shoot people who try to kill us to get them, and we don’t have to worry if they’ll still work in forty years. We’re normal people now.

"Our lives can be wonderful here. We live in these pretty houses around this pond. We’re all each other’s very best friends. Our children are growing up like cousins.

"The only thing that threatened everything we’ve built here was those damn pills. Mark and I knew what we were doing when we flushed ours down the toilet. We knew they’d eventually ruin our lives; lives we’ve miraculously been given a second chance to live. Now that those tablets are gone, we can do it right.

"Some thief has those tablets now. Maybe they’re riddled with arthritis or filled with regrets for a life they lived badly. Who knows, maybe they needed them, but we don’t. None of us want to do this again.

Now that they’ve been stolen the chances are good, we’ve heard the last of people trying to get their hands on them. Brad and David don’t want to ever use them and look what we’ve all put them through! We’re free now. We are finally free.

* * *

Less than four miles away, at a Motel 6, a dilapidated old truck, still wet from the heavy rains, parked in front of one of the motel rooms. Two men hopped out and began to untie the ropes that held a rustic handmade coffee table. Stepping around to the back they unloaded the heavy-duty bench-like table from the beat-up old truck.

Because the tailgate was missing, it was easy to reach, and soon they’d set it near the motel room window, protecting it from the rain which was falling heavily once again. After shaking the loose water from their clothes, they knocked on the door to room 186.

* * *

Roger McDowell

When the headlights from the truck lit the curtains to my room, my excitement pulled me from my chair, where I’d been sitting tapping my foot, unable to do anything but wait. I opened the door, saw the two men and the table, swung it wide open to let them bring it in. I’d found these men months ago at a dive bar in Cedar Falls. I’d hired them first to bug the house, but today I hoped to cash in on all my efforts.

Today was to be their big payoff when they delivered the table. Get in, I ordered, standing aside to give them room to haul in the cargo. They lifted the table, now dripping wet, and sat it on the floor of the room, shutting the door behind them.

Both faced me with a look of proud triumph, waiting for me to speak, but for now, they’d have to wait.

I grabbed the table and flipped it over. My face fell when I saw the compartment wide open with the carefully crafted sliding wooden door wide open. I slid the door shut and then open again. The interior of the hidden storage area, built to hold the pharmaceutical bottles, was empty.

I’d watched from my computer screen as Mark and David packed the bottles away in the hidden compartment. The camera I’d installed in the stuffed toy bear provided a clear view, revealing my eventual target, the last of the medication that returned youth to its user.

I’d hired the two men standing before me to ‘obtain’ the coffee table. They fulfilled their part of the bargain and I’d been careful not to reveal my real target. I’d convinced them the table was made by my late grandfather and accidentally sold at a garage sale. It meant everything to me and the guys who bought it refused to sell it back. I was certain that when they left to get the table, they knew nothing about the hidden compartment or its contents.

Was this little door open like this when you got the table?

I didn’t know anything about a door. One of the men said. We didn’t want to scratch the top, so we never turned it over.

Me neither, said the other. You should’ve said something. Wait a minute! You didn’t even want that stupid old table, did you? You wanted what was inside. I’ll bet it was full of cash.

Thinking fast I came up with the first thing that came to mind. No, my grandpa used to hide things in there. It might have been empty. I was just curious to see if he’d left anything inside. If he did, it’s gone now. That door was probably open when you got it.

Then folding their arms in unison and leaning back to look bigger and perhaps meaner one of the men said, It’s time for our pay. We still get our money, right? We delivered what you asked for.

I flashed them both a disappointed look like their attitude hurt my feelings, then before I could discuss their payment, a spark of hope stopped me in my tracks. Wait a minute, your truck’s right outside. Let’s take a minute to see if anything fell into the bed of the truck.

Seconds later, we were all looking at the truck bed, now empty except for the old toolbox that I soon emptied finding nothing but a collection of old tools. I’d never seen the truck they planned to use and had no idea it was missing a tailgate.

Did you take anything from that table or the truck before you got here, I asked, feeling more and more like accusing the two thugs of stealing the tablets perhaps thinking they were valuable street drugs."

NO! they said in unison Now give us our money and we’ll leave. Now would be good.

I had little choice, even if the men had taken the tablets, they were fully capable of taking what they wanted whether I liked it or not.

Handing them an envelope holding the agreed fee I shook my head in disgust. I’d worked so long and so hard to get my hands on the last of the tablets and now they were… Wait. Did you follow the exact route I asked you to follow?

Yes Sir. The heavily muscled, shorter man said, counting the money in the envelope.

Okay then, take your money and go. I’ll take it from here.

As they turned to leave the smaller man, Bob left me a warning. If you’re going out to that road, I’d wait ‘til morning. It got pretty muddy out there, especially toward the last.

No problem, I’m not going anywhere. If anything fell from that compartment in the pouring rain, it’s ruined. This table is what I wanted. It’s just one of those things that’s important to me but probably worthless to anyone else. I knew there was something in that table, but I have no idea what. Grandpa was secretive about that kind of stuff. You win some and you lose some, I guess. You guys can take off, I’m going to get some shut eye. I was hoping my feigning joy at the delivery of the table would steer their attention from the contents of the hidden compartment.

Knowing those roads were not regularly traveled, and the men leaving my room were staying in another room at the same motel, planning to leave for Cedar Falls the next morning, took away some of my anxiety, but all night I imagined a bunch of yellow bottles lying on the road between two corn fields, a road no one would be driving down tonight. You boys hit the sack and maybe I’ll see you at breakfast.

Tossing the envelope into the air and catching it again like the prize it was, they turned and left the room.

Shit! I thought. That stuff is somewhere between the house and here. Hopefully those bottles are lying on that old dirt road through the fields. Nobody will be out there. If they’re there in those yellow shiny bottles, they should be easy to find.

Whether they were out there or not, I knew I had to wait. The road was muddy, and it was still raining although it showed signs of stopping. My car might easily get mired down in the mud. If it did, I could finish my search on foot in broad daylight, but I didn’t want to do it in the dark. I’ll never get to sleep thinking about them lying out on that road.

I laid across the bed, fully dressed to wait until morning. It wasn’t even bedtime. When dawn lit the curtains, I jumped up to drive the road, passing the kitchen off the front lobby. Bob and his friend were eating what looked like a bowl of oatmeal.

Chapter Two

The Farmer

J.R. Ferguson

I thought the rain would never stop. Hearing the downpour on the roof the night before, I climbed out of bed at four like I had all my adult life. I just didn’t seem to be able to sleep later than that. I always set the coffee maker the night before. My travel mug was already sitting down there. It’ll stay hot a while longer, I thought.

As I lay there looking around the dimly lit room, I inspected all the things my wife had done to make it her’s when we first took over the farm after Dad died. It had been five years since Kate passed on. Nothing in the room had changed. The lace curtains filtered the little bit of light dimmed by the clouds still trailing after last night’s storm.

Kate’s