Nasty Little F___ers-Kindle (5 page)

Harper shot to his feet, his face red as a tomato. “You bastard! What did you do that for?” He sputtered and shook his fist at Bock.

“That’s Jared lying there, Harper,” Bock said. “You get that? Jared. Not some fucking experiment.”

Harper at least had the decency to look chagrined. He dropped his eyes to his feet and shuffled out of the clearing, mumbling something about having to use the facilities. Colby watched him go, then turned to Bock. “What do you care about Jared? I thought everything was an experiment to you science types.”

Bock winked. “I just don’t like that guy,” he said, nodding his head in the direction Harper had gone. “He’s too fucking pompous.”

Colby didn’t have a ready argument for that because he’d been thinking pretty much the same thing. Harper rubbed almost everyone the wrong way. Mostly it was the way he looked at people. He stared at them most of the time like they were one of his specimens, something to be examined. No, Colby didn’t like him much, either.

“Well,” Colby said, “It’s about two-thirty in the morning. Think you can get back to sleep?”

Bock shook his head. “Probably not. What I’d really like to do is get back to the others.”

“I know the feeling,” Colby replied. “I want to get the fuck out of here and get moving, too. Still, we shouldn’t stumble around in the woods after dark. We’re going to have to sit tight until daylight comes. That should be in about three hours, maybe a little more.”

“What about him?” Bock pointed at Jared’s remains. “How are we going to move him without getting those vicious little bastards on us? I don’t want to have to stare at Jared’s body until the sun comes up.”

“You’re the scientist,” Colby said. “You think of a way to move him.”

“I’m a biologist. That doesn’t make me an engineer.”

Colby stared at the body for another few minutes, wondering exactly how they were going to get it out of the clearing. He sure as hell didn’t want to sit next to it for the next few hours, but to actually touch it? Not a chance. If they had some rope, maybe they could loop it around the remaining foot and drag the body out of the clearing. From what he’d seen of the grubs they would probably follow the corpse, hungry little buggers that they were.

“Hey,” Colby said. “You got any rope in that tent, Bock?”

Bock smiled. “I always come prepared.”

“Great. All we have to do is make a lasso on one end and we can drag—”

Harper’s scream shut off all thoughts of what to do with Jared’s body.

***

Janice stepped out of the hot shower and into the warm, humid air of the woods, which felt cool after standing in the steamy water for twenty minutes. She wrapped a towel around her body and another around her hair, grabbed her clothes from the stoop outside the stall, and walked back to the camp. She was tired, but she wouldn’t go to bed yet. She still had some work to do before the night was over, and she still held out hope that Colby might return early. Her exercise in the shower was nice, but it was no substitute for the real thing.

And Colby was, without a doubt, the real thing.

She sighed and ducked into her tent, trying to keep her mind off her new lover. They’d only known each other for the two weeks they’d been on site together, but already she was thinking of reasons to stay in New England after the survey. After all, some of the best universities were in the area, and it’s not like she had tenure back in Arizona. Would it be that big a deal to shift locales and continue to work around here? She had enough money saved up to sustain her for a while, if necessary, but ideally she’d be able to land a new position at one of the colleges in Maine or Massachusetts before she left Phoenix.

Slow down, Janice,
she told herself.
You are out of control.

True, they’d had some nice nights together, but would Colby even want her sticking around after the survey? It was possible his attraction was due to the fact that she was, quite literally, the only woman for miles and miles.

No
, she realized.
I’ve seen the way he looks at me. There’s something there.

Something. Definitely. Just what that something was, she still wasn’t sure. But would it really be so bad to find out? She looked around at the woods, trying to picture how they would look under a blanket of pure white snow. Would it be like the postcards she saw in the Hallmark store at Christmas time? Beautiful, hushed, and somehow reverent, as if the whole world was sleeping peacefully? What would Colby look like with a winter growth of beard and wearing a flannel coat? Something plaid, maybe, with a matching toboggan and some fur-lined boots…

Janice snapped herself to attention. It wasn’t like her to daydream so much when there was work to be done. She shook her head again, laughing inside at her own schoolgirl nonsense. Whatever happened with Colby, she would find out when they finished the survey, and not before.

All the same, when they got back to Bangor, she intended to check some of the local universities for openings.

She towel-dried her hair, then the rest of her body. When she finished, she put on a fresh set of clothes. But as she put her soiled laundry in the Hefty bag she kept in the tent for that very purpose, she noticed something odd.

The panties she’d worn all day were missing.

Chapter Four

Bock and Colby ran through the trees, looking for Harper. They followed the sound of Harper’s scream until it cut off abruptly, at which time they had to resort to looking for visual clues. After five long minutes following a trail of broken twigs and shifted pine needles the two men found the spot where Harper relieved himself; his piss showed up shiny and wet in the moonlight on the southernmost side of a pale birch trunk, but other than the fresh urine there was no sign of Harper himself. Colby circled the tree, checking the ground around it for signs of a struggle. Nothing. Like Jared the night before, he seemed to have just disappeared.

Colby sniffed the air. There was something mixed in with the smell of Harper’s piss and the earthen, woodsy smell of the forest, but he couldn’t make it out. Something musky, like an animal, but he couldn’t tell what. Also mixed into the smells was something else, something copper. Something almost like.

“Blood,” he said. “I smell blood.”

“Something extremely fucked up is going on,” Bock noted.

“Really? What was your first clue?”

“Go fuck yourself.”

“Do all biologists use such bad language?”

“Are all Marines such dickheads?” Bock retorted.

“Ex-marine.”

“Yeah, well...biologists are people too, you know.” Bock harrumphed, and returned to examining the area around the tree. Colby could have told him it was useless; but decided to let him figure it out on his own. He turned away from the tree and started back toward their camp.

“Hey, where are you going?” Bock asked.

“I’m going back to camp,” Colby replied. “Whatever happened to Harper, I sure as Hell ain’t waiting around until it happens to me. Besides, it’s too dark for us to see anything, but there are plenty of other things in the woods that can see just fine at night. Big things. Hungry things, you get me? I don’t want to run into one, do you?”

Bock looked thoughtful for a second. “Wait up.”

They walked back through the woods toward camp, a distance of about thirty yards or so. Colby took the lead, holding his pistol down and toward the horizon. Bock held the rifle, pointing the business end of the AR-15 toward the treetops. Colby couldn’t help but wonder at the distance Harper had gone to relieve himself. Apparently the man didn’t want to be disturbed while he took a leak. Colby had a feeling that if the man had been about twenty yards less modest he might not have vanished. He determined then and there that if he had to piss, he was going to do it right at the edge of camp with his .45 in one hand and his dick in the other. Fuck Bock if he didn’t like it, although truth be told Bock would probably do the same thing. The man had some common sense and some mettle, unlike the rest of the group.

When they got back within the light of the campfire, Bock walked over to the tent and opened the flap, then stepped inside.

“You don’t seriously think we’re staying here tonight, do you?” Colby asked.

“Why not?” Bock asked. “Whatever’s out there already knows we’re here.”

“My point exactly.”

“But if we go out into the woods, especially in the dark, how are we going to see it before it takes us, too?”

Colby had to admit, Bock had a point. In addition, the campfire would deter more animals than it would attract. For one thing, it would destroy the night vision of any predator used to hunting by moonlight, just as it did his own. “Fine, but only one of us sleeps at a time.”

“Suits me,” Bock replied. “I’ll go first.”

Before Colby had the chance to argue, especially since he’d been up keeping an eye on the camp long before the other two awoke, Bock looked at the ground by the front of the tent and froze.

“Wait a second,” he said, his eyes wide as oranges. “Where’s Jared?”

Then Colby noticed it, too, and swore under his breath. How could he have missed something so obvious? He should have seen it the moment he walked into camp. Jared’s body was gone. Just…fucking gone. A few puddles of grubs were all that remained in the spot where Jared fell. The little bastards were spreading out from the impression of Jared’s body, probably looking for more food. Colby raised his leg and stomped on a pile of them. Then he stomped again, and again, and again. Soon he was jumping up and down on the piles of larvae and swearing at them.

“Mother fucking little Bastards! Cock gobbling bitches! Take that you little fucks!” When he couldn’t think of anymore swears or curses he just grunted and continued to stomp his feet, pulverizing the grubs under his boots.

Bock reached over from beside the tent and grabbed his arm. “All right, Sarge,” he said as he pulled Colby toward the tent. “Dude, they’re dead. You got them.”

Colby shook his head, trying to clear away the images of Jared’s grub-covered body walking into the clearing. He looked up at Bock, nodded, and took a deep breath. He held it in for a count of ten and let it out slow, like a yoga instructor.

“Sorry, Bock,” he said. “The shit with Jared’s body walking around…I guess it just got to me.”

Bock nodded. “I’d be worried if it didn’t.”

Colby nodded. He had killed men in the military. Plenty of them. But never anything like that, and never a civilian. Never mind the fact that the civilian in question had chewed off his own hand and probably didn’t have much longer to live, anyway. Never mind that the guy was trying to get to the men under his protection. He’d shot someone in the head. A geek. A small, slight computer geek who probably couldn’t have beaten him arm wrestling if Colby let him use both arms and a leg, to boot. That shit was messed up.

“Maybe I should take the first watch,” Bock said.

Colby handed him the .45, not about to disagree, and clambered into the tent. He didn’t think he’d be able to sleep, guessing that every time he closed his eyes he’d see Jared, covered in insect larvae and happily munching away at his own wrist. Or Jared’s head expanding in a cloud of scarlet goop. Nope, no way he’d get to sleep after that shit.

He was wrong, though.

***

Moretz sat in his tent with the light off, preferring to be in the dark so everyone else might think he was asleep. While he sat, he ran the soft panties through his fingers. Cotton, he noted disdainfully. He would have preferred she wear her satin panties, the bright pink ones he’d seen in her bag the last time he was in her tent. The time she and Colby went for a walk in the woods and stayed gone for three hours. He’d almost taken the silk underwear then, but they were too clean… too fresh. Sterile. He wanted something she’d worn, something that didn’t smell like laundry soap.

He held the cotton fabric under his nose and inhaled, breathing her scent deep into him. His erection was back, and throbbing painfully under the tight fabric of his khakis. He unbuckled his belt, unzipped his pants, and pulled his cock out into the open air, marveling at how good it felt to free it from the confines of his pants.

He should go to her. Right now. This minute, and confess. He’d tell her everything; how he followed her, couldn’t take his eyes off her, and how he thought about only her while he masturbated. He should go.

But she was working. She’d left her own tent and went back to the large computer tent to pound out some more data. He couldn’t walk out there with his dick hanging out; the rest of the team would know. And he didn’t want to share what he and Janice had with the rest of the team. Not yet. For now, it was just he and Janice. The way it should be.

He took another deep breath, inhaling the scent of Janice’s panties, allowing the fabric to brush his cheeks. Just like a lover’s touch. He ran his tongue up and down the inside of the crotch, tasting where she had been and imagining what it would feel like to put his face between her legs. Would she be soft? Wet? Would she smell like lilacs? How long would it take her to come?

Moretz shuddered at the image, then reached down and began to stoke himself for the second time that day. He kept one hand on his shaft and the other on the panties, holding them under his nose and breathing deep as he stroked faster and faster.