Slither (3 page)

The huge-jawed warrant officer elbowed Trent.
"Ain't that somethin', Luey? The chick worm eats the
dude worm's works. That's how it gets knocked up!"

"Charming."

The warrant laughed along with the two pilots, while
Trent simply frowned at the image.

"It sounds like such a specialized subject," Annabelle said. She perkily pointed to Loren's T-shirt, which
read POLYCHAETOLOGISTS DO IT BETIER! "That word you
keep using. Polych-"

"Polychaetes," Loren was happy to reply. "That's the
class of worm that your employers have sent you all
this way to photograph."

Nora felt negligent by not contributing to the conversation. "The scarlet bristleworm, for example. Scarlata is the genus, or type, Polychaete is the class, and it
comes from the phylum known as annelida-which
covers all segmented worms."
---- -- - -- - -- - -- -

"Oh," the blonde said, then returned her attention to
Loren. "So that word on your shirt-"

"Polychaetologist," Loren explained, "is a scientist,
such as myself and Professor Craig, who- specifically
studies this type of worm. That's our job."

"Great job," Trent said, dimly astonished.

The WO called to the pilot, chuckling, "Hey, Flappy,
you hear that? These two here are worm scientists!"

"And the overall study of worms," Loren continued,
"is called helminthology."

"Wow," Annabelle said.

Nora couldn't believe it. He just told her that he's a
worm specialist ... and she's impressed.

"I'm just a photographer," Annabelle chatted on. "But
listening to a -real scientist-it makes me feel so dumb!"

You are, Nora agreed. She's got the high-paying job,
and she's got the looks, but ... at least I've got a better tan.

"What I'm looking forward to most of all," Annabelle prattled on, thrusting her bosom forward against
the straps, "is getting a tan. I work out so hard in the
gym to keep my body fit ... I guess while I'm in
Florida, I should take advantage of the sun, too. Look
my absolute best."

Unbelievable ego, Nora thought. She winced out the
window. Even if I DID look like her, I KNOW I
wouldn't be an asshole about it.

As for the trip itself, the university had sent Nora and
Loren on the excursion, since they were local and their
credentials were unmatched. The whole affair had been
chartered by National Geographic, no less. It sounded
exotic.

It's a shitty little island with no beach and it's uninhabited, Nora's cynicism kicked in. And we might
have to stay there for a week or more. I'll miss Desperate Housewives just so this bimbo can snap some
pix of a Polychaete scarlata. Annabelle was one of the
lauded magazine's professional underwater photographers. NG needed a new picture of the scarlata, one
of the world's rarest marine worms. And it's a hell of
a lot cheaper to go to Pritchard's Key than a threethousand-foot-deep trench in the Mediterranean. It
was Nora's and Loren's job to locate the exceptional
worm for Annabelle, for a pictorial on segmented marine bottom dwellers, and since Pritchard's Key technically remained a military reservation, however
nonoperational, Trent was sent as the team's official
escort.

Hence, the circumstances that had planted Nora's
derriere on the hard troop bench of an old helicopter.

What a festival of joy my life has become ...

"Crabs, fish, sharks, even killer whales," Annabelle
distinguished. "I've photographed them all, at some
pretty deep depths." She hitched in her seat, to shed an
imaginary discomfort, but Nora knew it was a pose.
She's sticking her tits out so the grunts will get all riled
up. Nora felt certain of it. She's the tribal queen and
she's marking her turf, showing the skinny girl that
she's got no chance.

"But I've never shot marine worms," the blonde
went on. "What's so special about this one?"

It infuriated Nora the way Annabelle focused her questions toward Loren and not Nora herself, who was
the more qualified expert.

"It's the rarest Polychaete," Loren answered. "And
it's probably also the most stunning to look at. Brilliant
red stripes run between its parapodia-the rings
around its body."

Now a hint of concern came into Annabelle's tone.
"How big is it? The idea of, like, really big worms?
Yuck. That would gross me out. Spiders, roaches, and
big worms. That's it for me."

"Then have no fear, because the Polychaete scarlata
never grows more than a couple of inches long."

"That we know of," Nora pointed out.

Did Annabelle actually glare at the comment?

Loren laughed it off. "Oh, Professor Craig is only kidding, Annabelle. It's impossible for a warm water worm
such as this to get any longer than an inch or two."

"Oh, thank God!" the blonde laughed, but when she
brushed a tress of hair off her brow, she did it with her
middle finger.

A display for Nora's benefit?

Nora put her cheek in her hand. This is going to be a
peachy trip.

The aircraft noisily touched down on a long-since overgrown helipad carved into one edge of the island. "Oh
no! The little lizards!" Annabelle fretted at the window. Nora smiled when she peeked out, saw the helicopter's air-blast blowing countless dozens of little
anole lizards out of the palm trees.

"They're so cute!" Annabelle continued to object.
"We're killing them!"

Shut up, you airhead, Nora thought. If those things
were bigger, they'd eat you alive.

"Debark! Heads down, single file!" barked the warrant officer.

Nora was first off, and so slight in frame that the rotor wind almost knocked her down. They all jogged
away from the riotous noise.

"So this is Pritchard's Key," Annabelle remarked.

"It's a lot bigger than it looks," Trent added. "Ten
square miles, and dense. I'll bet there are parts of it
that no one's ever set foot on."

"But I still don't understand what the island has to
do with the military."

"Some kind of radar station, I think," Nora said. She
had to shield her eyes from the bar of sunlight flashing
like a guillotine blade. Palm trees clotted with the
greenest underbrush seemed to explode everywhere
she looked.

"No, a missile station," Loren corrected. "The locals
over in Clearwater used to call it Nike Island."

Annabelle's brow creased. "What do sneakers have
to do with missiles?"

Nora laughed out loud.

"The Nike Missile Program wrapped up in the mideighties," Trent explained. "It was an army tactical airdefense missile that was first deployed in NATO
countries in the late fifties, designed to shoot down enemy aircraft. As the missile became obsolete we started
pulling them out of Europe and planting them in the
continental United States. Our biggest fear back then
was Leonid Brezhnev and his new Backfire Bomber.
The Nike was no longer the fastest antifighter missile,
but it still had great range against potential bomber
threats. The army put fifteen Nikes right here on this
island, to protect MacDill Air Force Base and the
army's munition depot in Jacksonville. Fortunately, the
dreaded Backfire turned out to be the biggest claptrap
hunk of junk the Soviet Union ever put in the air, and
now there's not even a Soviet Union anymore so we
don't need them anyway."

Annabelle seemed alarmed. "You mean there are nuclear missiles on this island?"

"No, no, the Nikes here were never armed with nuclear payloads. The army took them all out of here by
'eighty-five."

The blonde sighed in relief. "Oh, wow, for a minute I
thought you were going to tell us that there were radioactive things on the island."

Nora couldn't have been less interested, but by accident she noticed a strange pause in Trent's monologue,
as if he were taken aback. "Nope. The Nike was strictly
defensive, and we don't need them now. Now we've got
the Patriots that take care of the whole ball of wax."

"Not much of a beach," Loren commented of the island's shoreline. Black boulders the size of compact
cars seemed to ring the key. "Just a bunch of rocks."

"Yeah, big rocks," Annabelle said.

Almost as big as the ones in your head, Nora
thought.

Annabelle hitched at her aqua-blue bikini top. "I was
hoping to get a tan in between shoots, but how can I?
There's no beach!"

Nora shook her head. Oh no! Dollface can't get a
tan! Poor, poor struggling Dollface!

"There's a strip of beach on the other side," Trent
told them. "It's blocked up by more rocks but there's
enough room to lie out. But before we do that-a word
to the wise." He passed everyone an OD-green aerosol
can as well as a neon-green rubberized repellent
bracelet. "This island is Bug City. Let's spray ourselves
with repellent every chance we get. And put on your
bracelet. They don't smell that great but they work."

"Oh, great. Mosquitoes, you mean?" Annabelle
looked like she had a mouthful of lemon juice as she
sprayed her arms and legs and put the bracelet on her
wrist.

"The mosquitoes aren't that bad," Trent went on,
"but there are ticks and chiggers."

"Even worse. I want to get a tan, not Lyme disease."

You're so pompous and annoying, Nora thought, the
ticks won't come near you. When she was done spraying herself off and donning her own bracelet, she
asked, "We're only a couple of miles off the coast. Why
go to the expense of the helicopter trip when we
could've taken a quick boat ride?"

Trent pointed to the boulders. "Those rocks encircle
the island, it's very hard to get a boat ashore, and the
current's so quick if you anchor out there and swim in,
you might lose your boat. Sure, every now and then
some kids get on, use the place to camp out and party.
The only reason I know anything about Pritchard's
Key at all is 'cause I have to fly out here and check it
once a month. Make sure no one's gotten on and done
damage."

Nora and Loren traded a glance. What the hell does
the army care about a missile site that doesn't have
missiles anymore? Nora had to wonder. The only authority interested in vandalism would be Florida Natural Resources.

The WO and pilots frowned as they carried boxes of
supplies off the helicopter.

"Where will we be sleeping, Lieutenant?" Loren inquired.

"Bivouac tents, of course," Trent told them. "And
we'll be eating C rats."

"Rats!" Annabelle almost shrieked. "What are you
talking about!"

"Rats as in rations. You'll be surprised how good
they are. And we do have a field shower, so no one will
be getting too stinky."

"There's a domestic water line running out to the island?" Nora questioned.

"No, no, the old missile station has a good old army
water purifier and desalinator," Trent explained. "And
a generator too, so we'll have some lights."

So we won't be living out here like total aborigines,
Nora realized. "Loren and I would like to set up a field
lab somewhere so we can catalogue worm samples for
the college. We have to use a tent for that?"

"There are fifteen empty head shacks," Trent said.
"You can use one of those. It's got lights, electricity for
your laptops, whatever you need."

Loren inquired, "Head shacks?"

"That's army lingo for the old launchpads. A head
shack is a missile bunker. The missile on its launch rail
is called the missile `head,' so that's where head shack
comes from. You'll see them in a few minutes. You
might have to sweep one out, though. All I do is stick
my head in them once a month to make sure there's no
squatters."

And ten to one this head shack is chock-full of spiders and God knows what else, Nora considered.

"Could you show us around the island now?"
Annabelle asked Trent, a camera slung around her
neck. "I'm dying to see it. It looks so exotic."

Trent led them toward. a trail. "If you're a tropical
nature buff, you'll find this place pretty interesting."

Nora frowned, lugging two suitcase-sized field kits,
while Loren carried the laptop and a bigger bag of collection and indexing gear. Annabelle bopped along
with her big Nikon bouncing off her bosom. "It's so
beautiful," she said wistfully.

You think it might be nice of you to carry one of
these for me? came Nora's sarcasm again. She sputtered. Fat chance.

Various types of palm trees formed a maze before
them. Nora didn't walk ten feet before she noticed
three different kinds of geckos, two kinds of parrots, and a squawking gull-billed tern. Just as they entered
the trail, a sedate marsh extended, mangrove roots jutting upward like weird plumbing. Clumps of water locus seemed to shiver as they passed; owls looked
down at them from high nests in cabbage palms. A
minute ago they'd been baking in the sun, but now the
woods seemed to draw them into a labyrinthine coolness. Nora oddly felt as though she were traversing
worlds.

KEEP our! a red-lettered sign warned. THIS IS A U.S.
ARMY RESERVATION AND IS UNDER SURVEILLANCETRESPASSERS WILL BE PROSECUTED ACCORDING TO THE
CIVILIAN STATUES OF THE UNIFORMED CODE OF MILITARY
JUSTICE AND ALSO FLORIDA STATE LAW.

"That's what I call a welcome," Loren joked.

"You've got surveillance cameras out here?" Nora
asked.

"Not anymore," Trent said, bored as he strode forward. "The sign's all bark and no bite, but it usually does
the job."

"A heyday of regional flora and fauna," Loren commented next. A marsh rabbit shot away through brush
at their approach. Swamp lilies and wild purple petunias bobbed their heads, and Spanish moss hung like
mop heads off low branches.

"There are also leatherback turtles, peregrine falcons, and big-eared bats."

"I'll have to get pictures of those," Annabelle assured them.

"Hate to tell you," Trent went on, "but most of the
wildlife out here is so unused to human contact, you'll
never see them."

"What about alligators?" Annabelle asked next.

"There aren't any here. But even if there were ..."
Trent indicated the pistol on his hip. "I'm a qualified
army pistol expert."