(I)
"What do you make of it, Sergeant?" the colonel asked, having made a rare appearance from his makeshift field office. The sergeant had logged the observed activity at the old head shack, believing it to be "atypical."
We must be getting ready to leave, the sergeant pondered. Why's he so interested in a bunch of civilians all of a sudden?
The corporal was manning the monitor controls, zooming the military's very best lenses, but he seemed more fixed on the slender woman with frizzed hair. Have to get that kid's mind out of the garbage, the sergeant thought.
"Look at that," the colonel said. The image onscreen lurched forward from the zoom: a closer shot of the slender woman in the dark one-piece swimsuit. She was leaning over a computer now, typing something. The colonel added, "I don't like it. It looks like she's recording data. Data on what?"
The sergeant stepped closer. "I'm not sure, sir. As I noted in my log, the civilian activity in that building seemed harmless. But I could be mistaken."
"It looks like they're keeping specimens of some kind in there."
"That wasn't the case earlier, sir."
The colonel faced the sergeant directly. "In your estimation, is there any way the civilians know we're here?"
"In my estimation, sir-no."
"What about you, Corporal?"
"No signs of detection, sir."
"The only civilian who ever saw me was in the second arrival group… and he's dead. That's verified and recorded. The fourth group's craft has been disabled. In fact, every civilian to come on the island is now infected, this third group being the only exception. What they're doing seems routine and unalarmed. I think it's some kind of nature excursion-the blond woman appears to be a photographer."
The colonel thought on it, then watched the screen some more. "You're always right, Sergeant, and I'm not disputing your assessment. But I still need to know what they're up to. I need you two men to make another trip outside and guarantee me that what they're doing won't compromise our tests."
"Yes, sir," the sergeant said.
"Good, then do it. Do it tonight."
The colonel's boots snapped as he left the room.
The corporal looked up when the door closed. "I wonder what's up his ass."
"He's bucking for general, and he'll probably get it if this mission yields positive results. That guy's been do ing these field jaunts for years-it racks up promotion points. He's not going to let anything screw this up."
The corporal rolled back in the chair, put his feet up on the old desk that was once used by missile-control officers. "The hybrids are duplicating better than we ever expected. We already know that they don't hesitate to attack human hosts. The worms and the ova alike have already proved that they can live in multiple environments. Why can't we just go home now?"
"Because the brass says so, and you can bitch about it all you want, but it won't do any good." The sergeant laughed and slapped the corporal's back. "Just think of all that extra-duty pay you'll get."
Fuck that, the corporal thought. I want to get laid. He'd been in the military long enough to know that whenever you thought sure a mission was about to end… you could slap on another week or even a month.
"I'm going to go finish my shift log," the sergeant said. "In the meantime, keep an eye on the civilians." He pointed to the screen. "Let me know when they lock that place up for the-night.-That's when we go back out."
"Sure thing, Sarge."
The corporal switched to another camera once the sergeant left. Now he had the low-light on and was watching the blonde.
That's more like it.
The blonde was already naked, and sprawled out on the beach. When she climbed on top of the guy, her back arched, which couldn't have displayed her breasts more perfectly in the moonlight.
But the corporal knew that looking would suffice for only so long.
One thing I know for sure, he told himself, before we leave this island, I'm going to bang that blonde…
(II)
That wasn't bad, Annabelle thought in the so-called afterglow. Out here I have to take what I can get. She wasn't used to that-not with her looks and her social status back in New York. Young power players were more her speed-and Trent was neither of those-but he did have an aggressive way about him. He was perfunctory and direct, no frills, all business. If she viewed the island photo shoot as an adventure, she'd feel more content.
Cool gulf breezes diced up the night's blanket of heat. They both lay naked and sweating right up at the wood line, their clothes flung this way and that before them. Soft waves fell twenty yards beyond-the tide was coming up-and the beach sand looked bizarre in the subdued moonlight, like cold smoky glitter.
Trent looked haggard in the same light. I'm wearing him out, Annabelle thought with an inner giggle. She reached into her beach bag and pulled out a flask.
"Holding out on me, huh?" he said.
"I wouldn't call what we just spent the last hour doing 'holding out.'" She took a long sip-dark rumand smiled. The sudden swell of heat in her belly made her think of a penis going from soft to hard in the channel of her sex. I'm a dirty girl tonight, she joked in thought. Can't get my mind off anything but sex. It was the hot night, she knew, and this exotic environ and its circumstances: stuck on an island with no way off, and only two men in her midst, both lusting for her faultless physique. The notion lit primal fuses in her psyche, unleashing the bitchy, antsy, slut-in-heat disposition. She knew she shouldn't be drinking-it only laxed her inhibitions more-but the moment seemed to warrant it. She passed Trent the flask, deliberately brushing his shoulder with a hot breast.
He drank gratefully, and sputtered a satisfaction. "This busywork assignment has turned out to be a great time."
"Yeah, and we're both getting paid."
"But I don't think I'll be writing this part down in the report to my CO. Drinking rum on a moonlit beach at midnight, with a foxy blonde. No, that wouldn't wash."
Just foxy? She took exception. I'm a hell of a lot more than that and you know it. Don't get cocky. She stretched out. A couple of hits of rum right after sex was an ideal tranquilizer. Trent lay angled away from her; she could see him gazing out at the surf, his middle-aged desires clearly sated. A younger, more acceptable man would be on top of her again. She had that way with men-to make them want more than they could handle. She reveled in the impression of herself.
"Can't believe you're not married," Trent muttered.
"That's so proverbial," she teased. "You can't do better than that?"
"Yeah," he admitted, "but I'm too tired right nowthanks to you."
"My pleasure."
"No serious boyfriend back in New York?"
"Nope," she lied through her teeth. She'd been stringing along the same fiance for a year. A successful stockbroker, whose family owned one of Wall Street's biggest brokerages. He was great for jewelry and the Porsche, of course, and she supposed she really would marry him someday. It would be worth her while. And he was so busy with his job, he didn't have time to monitor her. She cheated on him with impunity, any time the magazine sent her on a shoot. As long as she kept her infidelity out of the city, she could have the best of both worlds.
She caressed her breasts when she knew he wasn't looking.
"Yeah, well, I think I'll be visiting you in the Big Apple sometime soon," he asserted.
In your dreams! Now he was annoying her, the way he wielded his personality the same way he had sex: with assertiveness. I'm the one doing YOU a favor, she wished she could say aloud, and it's only because Loren is LESS my type than you. "We'll see," she said instead. She wanted to keep his fire fanned. Then she added, if you're a good boy."
"Oh yeah?"
She stretched her toes out as far as she could, flexed her long legs. She let her mind wander.
She imagined herself being taken right here on the beach, not by Trent nor her fiance but by a coterie of men from her past. Her nerve-charged body, her spread-open legs and narrowed eyes summoned them, and then they were lying atop her, thrusting into her fast and rough, one after another. The fantasy titillated her as the sea breeze slipped up and over her bare skin…
"Be right back, gotta take a leak," Trent said and got up.
Charming, she thought, but now that he'd left, she could focus on the greedy invention of her mind. Hot, muscled bodies squashed her, callused hands mauled her breasts. Raving sensations pinpointed at her nipples, which were either torqued by fingertips or sucked out by fervid mouths. Stout penises delved into her most private places, spending themselves in a feverpitch only to be replaced by more. Back in reality her own hands succored herself…
Mmmm…
"Hey, Annabelle! You got a flashlight?"
Trent's voice shattered her pleasures. That asshole, she thought, disgusted. Can't even have a minute of fun with myself. She leaned up with a frown. A flashlight? What's he want that for? He needs to SEE where he's pissing? "I think so!" she griped back.
"Bring it here, will you? I need to see what this is."
Probably means his cock… She pulled the light out of the bag and got up, followed the annoying voice to the edge of the woods.
There he was.
The moonlight painted his naked body. He was leaning over, looking at a tree. Annabelle's smirk couldn't have been more severe, her senses still buzzing from her self-stimulation. "Here," she said testily.
He pointed the beam on a tree trunk, lighting it up. "There. See?" His finger indicated a nub of some kind. "Definitely not part of the tree. I scratched my damn leg on it."
Poor you… Annabelle looked closer. "It's a nail. So what?"
"I don't think it's a nail…" It looked more like a black stud. "It's coming loose," he said, yanking on it with his fingers. "It's working free." – - – - – - – - – - – - -
Annabelle shook her head, hands on bare hips. "Is therea reason I'm supposed to care about this?"
"It's got-" He squinted harder, the image ridiculous now: a hairy-backed man fiddling with a tree in the middle of the night, buck-naked. "Remember what Nora was saying earlier?"
"That skinny wuss?"
"She said she found something that reminded her of a camera lens attached to a tree." Finally he prized it loose. "It's almost like it was nailed into the tree."
"A camera that small?" Annabelle objected. "That's ridiculous."
He held it right up to the flashlight, the splayed beam throwing wedges of dark and light against Annabelle's bosom, belly… and frown. "She was right. It's got a tiny piece of polished glass inserted in the top, like a lens."
"Read my lips. Who cares?"
He seemed amazed by the find. "I guess I was right. It's an electric eye sensor from the old missile site probably. They left these things in the perimeter because it was easier than removing them all. They're probably all over the place."
`Read my lips. I'm bored."
"Oh, sorry." He caught himself. "It's just kind of interesting, isn't it?"
"How about… no?"
"I'll have to show it to Nora, see if it's the same thing she was talking about."
The comment made her fume. As far as Trent went, she could take him or leave him. The man was just a sideline distraction because there was nothing better around. But he was still part of her sexual turf and there was no way she'd allow him to be in proximity to that bitch.
"We can show it to her tomorrow," she said, emphasizing the pronoun "we."
They moved through moonlight back to the beach; Trent placed the object in his bag. "Well, you're bored, so I guess that means you want to get back to the camp," he presumed, and reached for his pants.
"Not that bored."
"Oh, okay. Let's lie out here a while longer," he said. He got back down on his towel.
What a moron. "I'm not done yet," she said bluntly.
"Not done with what?"
She stepped over him, looking down. "With you," she said, and sat on his face.