Slither (8 page)

She smacked the flipper against Trent's back, but
Trent was already jumping up, tearing off the green fatigue shirt. "Jesus! Would somebody tell me what was
crawling on my-back?"-

"Not sure," Nora said, and took the shirt. She spread
it out on the tabletop.

"It was a spider!" Annabelle. "Maybe poisonous ..."

Trent looked outraged. "No way!"

"Loren, did that look arachnoidal to you?" Nora
asked.

Loren was checking Trent's back. "No. I didn't see any
appendages and the body definitely wasn't bisectional."
He slapped Trent on the shoulder. "And, Lieutenant, I'm
happy to say you don't have any bite marks."

"Jesus!"

It didn't look like a beetle, and it was too big to be a
tick," Loren added.

Nora was examining the shirt. "But it was definitely
motile."

Trent was clearly upset. "What's that mean? Speak
English!"

"It means it was moving," Nora defined. "And if it
didn't have ambulatory appendages, it must be monotaxic."

Trent appeared as though his entire world had become upheaved. Though not overweight, he was in
desperate need of some sun, black chest hair matting
on white skin. "What are you talking about!"

"Lieutenant, relax, you weren't bitten by anything,"
Nora reminded him while she and Loren pored over
the shirt. "Slugs, limpets, snails, and leeches move by
means of what's called a monotaxia 'foot'-"

"The slime pad," Loren simplified.

"-and that's probably what was propelling your little friend here."

"I'll bet it was a leech!" Annabelle continued to
overreact.

Trent looked on the verge of vomiting. "Shut up!"

"No, not a leech," Nora informed. "Leeches are just
another type of segmented worm-an annelid-and I
got a good enough look at this to see that it wasn't
segmented."

"And this thing's body wasn't ovated," Loren added.
"It was circinated."

Trent and Annabelle stood aside, mystified, as Nora
finally found the splatter on the shirt. "There, see?" she
said. "It's not insectoid, no exoskeleton."

"Well, I guess that means it wasn't a tick." Trent
seemed relieved. "I don't need any of that Rocky
Mountain oyster fever."

Nora shook her head, bemused.

"Maybe it was a pebble snail," Loren said. "That's
about the only monotaxic animal I can think of that has
a circular body."

This was definitely circular, Nora remembered. "It
almost looked nodulous or ovumular."

"Actually it did," Loren agreed, "but we both know
that's impossible."

Trent sneered. "I think it would be really nice if you
would drop the college professor talk, and-"

"Ovumular," Nora specified, "or like an ovum-an egg
cell. Some marine worms, for example, as well as many
marine creatures, have ova that move about by their own
means of locomotion once they leave the female's body.
These species are mostly parasites; therefore, once the
fertilized ovum has been dispersed, it seeks some other
form of animal life in which to nurture itself and grow.
And nodulous-like a node. Some of these motile ovum
are actually carried around in a self-contained node`
that protects it and helps it get to a host."

The prospect of "parasites" and "nodes" didn't overjoy Trent. "How do you know that thing wasn't one of
those?"

"Because they're microscopic," Loren said.

Trent and Annabelle leaned over now, to get a
closer look.

Whatever had been on the lieutenant's back was now
just a viscid splotch. What Nora had seen had been
about the size of a large-shelled peanut, but circular,
like a hazelnut. And yellow, like butter.

"Here's the skin of whatever it was." She pointed,
moving the flattened thing with the tip of her pen.

"And, look." Loren squinted, leaning closer. "It's yellow but has tiny red spots."

"Some kind of epidermal pigmentation," Nora said.

"Another vote for a slug, but ..." His thoughts
trailed off.

Nora chewed her lip. "I know. I'm not familiar with
any species of land slug that's yellow."

"Oh, yuck!" was Annabelle's next contribution.
"That big splat is its insides?"

"Yep." Nora was secretly pleased by the photographer's revulsion. "I'm not seeing anything that looks
like the remnants of an organ system."

"Jesus," Trent said. "It looks like someone hocked a
loogie on my shirt, that's what it looks like."

Then Loren brought a hand to his brow. "Oh, shit, I
know what it is! It's a spumarius, Nora. Right after
molting."

"A what?" Annabelle looked to him.

"An insect called a froghopper," Nora said. She was a
little agitated with herself for not thinking of that first.
"The larval form of something in the cicada order."

"They're the same size and the same color," Loren
said.

Nora handed Trent back his soiled shirt. "Good job,
Loren. The mystery is solved. An immature froghopper."

"Are they poisonous?" Trent asked warily.

"They're-absolutely harmless."

"Not if you're a shirt," Loren said of the mess.

"Christ, this shirt's blown," Trent said.

"I'm sure Uncle Sam will spring for a new one."

"Are you kidding? We have uniform rations in the
army. Can you beat that for cheap?" And then Trent
walked off, presumably for a clean shirt.

Nora rolled her eyes when she noticed Annabelle's
hand on Loren's shoulder as she talked. "Wow, you really know your stuff, Loren. Of all the things it
could've been, you identified it in a minute."

"Aw, it was nothing," he chuckled.

Make me puke, Nora thought. Look at her cozying
up to him...

Eventually, Annabelle walked off again with her
camera. "See you guys later, for dinner," she said.

Which I hope you choke on, Nora thought.

"Well, so much for the big excitement of the day," Loren said. "A friggin' froghopper. Shit, I almost wish
it was something interesting, like a rhino beetle or a
black widow."

But Nora had already turned toward the woods. "Do
you ... smell that?"

"Smell what?"

"Something in the air ...

"You mean the pot that Trent just burned?"

"No, no." She felt sure. "The breeze is blowing
south, and this is coming from the north." It seemed
vague but very familiar. "I can swear I smell something
cooking. Like hot dogs or hamburgers."

Loren sniffed the air, then shrugged. "Beats me. I
don't smell anything."

Must be my imagination, Nora concluded.

Leona flipped the burgers on the grill; at least, she
guessed she was doing it right. She pulled another
Zima from the cooler, then looked into the woods.

Where are those assholes?

The burgers sizzled, their aroma eddying into the
trees. Leona wasn't much of a cook. How long per
side? she wondered. This weekend party had sounded
like a great idea ...

Damn them!

Leona did a good job hiding her insecurities, but the
truth was she couldn't stand to be alone. At once she
felt foolish, dressed only in flip-flops and her cutoffs.
I'm cooking burgers topless and I'm by myself! What
happened to the party? Her thoughts trailed back to
Alan. Sure, he was cute, popular, and seemed very connected to her, but she'd always had the tiniest suspicion that his true interest was Carol.

My best friend, Leona reminded herself.

All was fair in love and war, she knew, but she also
knew Carol, especially after a couple of drinks .. .

Alan's probably bofng her right now. Hell, Howie's
probably in on it too. She's got them in a three-way, the
ho! And here I am, cooking hamburgers in the woods
with my tits out!

She shrieked as something scratched up her bare
shoulder. She imagined the most disgusting bugs, but
when she flung it off, she saw that it was only one of
those little green lizards.

"Oops. Sorry," she said.

The lizard landed on one of the burgers. When it
tried to run off the grill, it got about two inches before
the heat claimed it.

Gross ... A few moments later, the smoking remains fell into the grill. She looked at the burger it had
landed on, then decided, That's Alan's.

"Come and get it!" she yelled at the top of her lungs.
Some birds cackled back at her, as if inconvenienced
by her shout. "Where are you!"

Sexual excitement wasn't the only thing that hardened Leona's nipples. Anger did too, and said nipples
stuck out firm as coat pegs when her gaze fumed back
into the woods. They're out there laughing at me, the
fuckers! And Carol, that sleaze! Some best friend. I
know she's doing both of those guys-

She screamed hard when two clammy hands landed
on her bare back and shoved at her. Instinct made her
grab the spatula for a weapon but just as she would
take a swipe-

"Howie?"

Howie collapsed against a tree.

My God! When her own shock wore off, she was
seized again merely by the look of him. Hair pasted to
his brow by sweat, and more sweat drenching his shirt. There was something else on the shirt, too ...

Did he. . . puke on himself?

He stared up openmouthed for a moment, silent,
shaking.

"Howie! What happened to you? And where's Carol
and Alan?"

"Carol, Carol," he stuttered, "out in the woods, I had
to leave her. She had these-these-these things on
her, and-"

"What things?"

"Ticks or something, I don't know-"

Leona didn't process the information very well. "You
left her in the woods!"

"I-I-I-I had to, 'cause-'cause she passed out,
and these ticks, er, well, I don't know what they were,
but they were this really disgusting yellow color with
red spots on them and I think they were poisonous or
something-"

Leona fell to her knees and shook him by the collar.
"And you left her? You asshole!"

He yammered on, eyes wide open and bloodshot.
"Had to come to get Alan, I couldn't carry her by myself but then-then-then I found a dead body-"

"What!" Leona bellowed.

"I got lost trying to find you and Alan, and there was
another inlet with a boat, not Alan's boat, but just a little boat, and that's where I saw the body floating in the
water. It was some chick just floating there, her eyes
out of her head, and-and-and there was a really long
snake wrapped around her, and oh Jesus God, I think it
was one of those girls who disappeared a few weeks
ago!" And then Howie's torment-twisted face fell into
his hands, and he sobbed aloud.

Dead bodies. Ticks. Missing persons.

This ... was too much for a girl like Leona.

"Howie! You're on drugs! Look, I know lots of peo ple at school are doing the Ecstasy and crystal and this
Oxycontin stuff-"

"No, no, no," he blubbered. He hadn't even seemed
to notice that Leona was topless as she leaned over to
talk to him, the orbs of her breasts practically bumping
his face. "Do you remember?" he stated more declaratively. "A couple, three weeks ago. It was in the local
papers and the paper at school-"

"What?"

"Robb White." He cleared his throat, rested his head
back against the tree. "Do you remember that name?"

Do I remember him? Shit, she thought, embarrassed. I
fucked him. Robb White was one of the classier jocks at
school, nice guy for a jock, and, yes, Leona had hooked
up with him at the Easton dorm mixer several months
ago, after Alan had petered out after too much tequila.

"The papers said ... he was officially missing," she
recounted. "He and a bunch of other kids from school
disappeared."

Howie shoved a piece of paper in her face.

What? It was a -credit card receipt, for gas at the
marina.

"I found that in the boat," Howie declared.

"In our boat?"

"No, no, no, in his boat. A little skiff anchored at one
of the other inlets on this island. It's here now, Leona.
And that receipt is from three weeks ago, when he and
his pals disappeared. I think that corpse I saw with the
snake around it was one of the girls he was fooling
around with."

Leona's mind ticked further ... rather slowly, but at
least it was functioning. Corpse, she thought stonily.
Snake.

"And-and ... what about Carol?" she asked. What
had he said? Ticks?

She had ticks on her tits. Yellow ticks ..."

The idea, the very image, made Leona swoon in disgust.

.But that's not all. After I found that body, I saw ...
this guy-"

Leona's anger rose. She was too confused. "What
guy? Robb White, you mean?"

"No. A guy in a gas mask and hood. Military."

Yes, this was much too much .. .

"I don't know what the hell's going on..." Howie's
shock was finally wearing off; he was getting his reason
back, and this was a good thing for Leona. "We have to
start somewhere."

"We have to get off this island!" she blurted back.

"I know. But first we have to find Alan and we have
to find Carol, and we need to do that now."

Just as Leona helped him up-

What's that smell? she thought.

"Something's burning!" Howie yelled.

He was up and running toward the Coleman grill.

Holy shit!

Boy, had Leona fucked up! The leaves and sparse
brush around the grill had somehow caught fire.

And the fire was crackling toward the shack.

"Jesus Christ, this whole island'11 be on fire!" Howie
snapped. "The smoke'll kill us before we can get to the
shore!"

Leona stood paralyzed, ludicrous now since she was
topless.

Howie pointed to the end of the shack. "Turn on that
faucet! I'll get the hose!"

Another second, and the seriousness kicked in. This
island, this time of year? It was dry as tinders. A fire
could engulf everything ... including them.

Leona sprinted forward, slid to the shack on her
knees, and cranked the faucet handle. She grabbed
the hose lying there and clumsily aimed the water stream toward the fire. She wagged the hose back and
forth, drawing lines of smoking sizzle. The fire had
spread out quickly, but just as quickly, Leona had
managed to put it all out.