(I)
But when Slydes noticed the dead worms floating in the bilge, he also noted that the bilge line seemed a little high.
This is turning into one FUCK of a shitty day, he thought. My brother's dead, a bunch of fuckin' worms somehow ate HOLES in my engine block, and now I guess they ate holes in the hull, too!
Yes, the bilge line was very slowly rising. He leaned back out of the engine compartment, veins thumping at his temples.
"The boat's sinking!" he snapped to Ruth.
"The fuck it is!" she bellowed back.
"Come on!"
"Come on where, for shit's sake?"
Slydes was beginning to see the limits of his patience. He lowered his voice, his eyes hard on her. "Ruth. I just got done telling your dumb ass that the boat's sinking. That means we need to be off the boat."
Too much stress and confusion had taken too great a toll on poor Ruth. Things just weren't working right upstairs. "I don't wane go back on the island!"
"We ain't got much of a choice, do we?"
"The snakes! The zombie!"
Those worms are so damn big she thinks they're snakes, he reminded himself. And Jonas had mentioned some big guy out there, who was all fucked up from the worms, and something about military people in gas masks. But it gave him an idea…
"There's gotta be another boat somewhere on this island," he said.
"The photographer people!"
"Naw, they came by helicopter, but there's some other people here. Jonas told me about 'em. We'll rip off their boat."
"Fuck yeah!"
There wasn't much to salvage. Slydes grabbed the flashlight, a knife, and some tools. "We'll hide out at the head shack till dark, then find us a boat. Let's go."
Ruth, still dressed in nothing but the long pink T-shirt, stood hesitantly on the side ladder, peering down. "Slydes? There might be more worms in the water."
Slydes took a handful of her hair and-
Splash!
– heaved her over the side, then stepped down after her.
The tide was up now, the water up to their chins. When they struggled ashore, Slydes looked back at his former pride and joy.
The boat sank before his eyes.
(II)
"Annabelle!"
Loren was winding himself by the constant calling out. He'd searched the entire north point of the islandAnnabelle hadn't been found at the campsite, shower, or head shack area, and there was no sign of her on the beach. Her camera and snorkeling gear were stowed in her tent.
Where the hell is she! he thought in an uncharacteristic flare of anger. We might have a serious parasitic threat going on here, and she's out lollygagging. He stomped through more brush, whacking branches out of the way. Every so often he'd see an ovum or two on the trail, which he gladly stepped on. They popped like bubble wrap.
The farther trails were so unpronounced they barely existed. Pretty clear no one's walked here in years. There was no reason to, even when the missile site was up and running.
A cigarette butt on the ground looked relatively new. None of us smoke, he reminded himself. The knowledge gave him a creepy feeling in his gut. Then he noticed something shiny. A quarter? he guessed.
Loren picked it up.
It was a cap from a beer bottle.
This wasn't terribly surprising: Trent said that college kids sneak on the island sometimes. But like the cigarette butt, the cap looked brand-new.
Just as he thought the trail would diminish to nonexistence, it fanned outward. Loren followed it another hundred yards and-
How do you like that?
– found himself standing at the edge of a wellenclosed lagoon. Anchored right off the rocky shore was a long-and very new-looking-boat. A Boston Whaler, he knew at once..A nice, pricey little pleasure boat.
So we're not alone here after all.
Loren didn't hesitate climbing aboard. The boat was obviously unoccupied. Storage bins lining the deck were filled with life jackets, towels, and assorted boating gear.
Damn…
No radio. But the boat hadn't been here long. At least we can get off the island now, he realized. All we have to do first is find the owner of this thing.
But then another thought drummed in his head.
That is, if the owner's still alive.
For all Loren knew, the owner of this Boston Whaler and the rot-riddled corpse he'd found in the trench were one in the same.
He needed to think. He sat down on a rolled-up tarp in the aft area, but-
What the SHIT!
The tarp thrashed when he sat down on it.
"Get away, get away, get away!" a muffled voice was suddenly shrieking.
Loren stumbled back at the shock.
There's someone under the tarp!
When the tarp came unraveled, a dark-haired young woman emerged, just as terrified as Loren. She wore bikini bottoms, a sweat-drenched T-shirt, and sneakers. And the nearly insane look in her eyes didn't set Loren at ease when he noticed what was in her shaking hand:
A big revolver.
"Don't shoot," Loren's voice cracked.
"Who are you?" she wailed.
Loren hoped he hadn't had an accident in his trunks. "Loren Fredrick," he answered in a voice as shaky as this woman's gun hand. "I'm an associate professor at the University of Southern Florida. I'm here as part of an escort group for a nature photographer-it's all spon sored by the college." Sweat was dripping into his eyes. "Now, could you please put the gun down? I'm not going to hurt you-I'm just looking for a way off the island."
The pistol jiggled as she stared back at him, weighing his words. Finally, her gun hand lowered.
Thank you Jesus, Mary, and Joseph! "Now that you know who I am, who are you? And whose boat is this?"
She sat at the aft rail, her hair disheveled, stringy from the humidity. "My name's Leona Long," she said. Her terror finally wound down. "I came here with some friends-Carol, Howie, and Alan-this is Alan's boat."
"Came here to party?"
She nodded, and forearmed sweat off her brow.
"We need you and your friends to take us off this island," Loren told her. "Where are they now, and… Why were you under that tarp? It must be hot as hell under all that thing."
Her eyes looked dull and lost when she gazed back at him. "My friends are all dead. I was hiding here."
"Hiding from what?"
She spared a sardonic chuckle. "You have no idea what's going on here, do you?"
The remark seized Loren. "Well, I think I do-at little, at least. Were you hiding from the worms?"
"Yes!" she cried. "You know about them? And those little yellow bug things?"
"They're called motile ova," Loren explained. `They're the worm's eggs. The worm itself is a kind of parasite that we've never encountered before. We think that these worms as well as their ova can infect humans."
"You think right," Leona asserted.
"So your friends were killed by-"
"Yes-Jesus-yes. The worms were actually growing inside them. And I saw other bodies too; there was a group of students who came out here several weeks ago. I'm pretty sure I'm the only one left alive. The only thing I could think to do was hide here; I was hoping someone would just… find me, eventually." She looked around groggily. "I hid under the tarp-I didn't want those other guys to see me."
Loren's brow shot up. "What other guys?"
"There's military people on this island, too. I think they put those worms here to see what they'd do to humans. They've got these little cameras all over the place-they're monitoring us, for God's sake. It's like we're part of some scientific test."
Now, here was some news. Military, Loren thought. Cameras… one of the things Nora found… "And you've seen these military men yourself?"
"Yes, a couple of times," she murmured. "They never confronted any of us-they just kept back in the woods. We'd catch glimpses of them. I even saw one of them taking pictures of one of the bodies-after it had been infected by the worms. They're in gas masks and black suits with hoods."
"Well, how did they get on the island themselves? Do they have a boat too?"
"I don't know," she said. Her shoulders drooped. "And I don't care." She began to choke back sobs. "I just want to go home."
"Don't worry, we'll get you home…" Then Loren looked down at the boat, and blinked at the incongruence of what she'd just said. "How come you're still here? If you knew your friends were all dead, why didn't you just take the boat out of here yourself?"
"No keys. Alan's got them, and he's long gone."
A hope glimmered. "Where's his body? We can still get the keys."
"He's out rotting in the woods somewhere!" she whined. "I don't know! You want to go digging through a dead man's pockets when he's full of those things?"
She's right about that, he realized. "We don't even need the keys. We can push the boat out of the cove if we have to, let the current take us-one way or another, we're getting out of here. Come on, I'll take you to where my friends are."
Leona stiffened. "I-I don't think I want to do that. I'd rather stay here."
"You'll be perfectly safe," Loren assured her.
"How do you know your friends aren't infected by now?"
"They're not, trust me. I just saw them a little while ago-
She was shaking her head. "You don't understand. Those little yellow things are all over the place. They'll fall on you from the trees if you're not careful. And some of the worms are really big. I'm not going back into those woods; I'm lucky enough to have made it this far without one getting me." She paused, eyeing him. "Why don't you and I leave right now?"
"That's impossible," Loren told her. "My friends aren't infected. I guarantee it. But I can't just leave without them."
"I think you should," she said, fingering the gun.
Oh no. This is going to be a problem, Loren realized. Should he go for the gun? Loren knew his karma didn't work that way. I'd get my skull parted… "Okay, look. You stay here and wait for me to get back with the others. Will that work?"
The lost gaze searched his face. "Yeah, I guess. I'll be able to tell if any of them are infected."
Loren assessed her comment. Interesting. "How can you tell, by the way? You seem to know a lot about this. If a person's infected initially, how do you know?"
"By looking at him," she said. "My boyfriendHowie-he turned real fast. Had to have been less than an hour before the signs started showing."
"What are the signs?"
"Your skin turns to this mucky yellow-same color as the eggs. After a while you even develop red specks along with the yellow."
More information of interest. She's talking about the mutagenic element. Contagion would depend on the level of viral admission, and also antibody resistence of each infectee. And Loren also knew-based on his knowledge of the Trichinella order itself-that a positive infection could bring about much, much more than a change in skin pigmentation. No need to tell her that part, he considered. Then he remembered Annabelle. Hopefully Trent's already found her by now. I'll just go grab Nora, and then we can get the hell off this island. But-as- he was about to do so he thought he noticed…
Wait a minute…
Her dull gaze came alert. "Why are you looking at me like that?"
Loren was looking at the crotch of her bikini bottoms. "What's… what's that? Down there?" He pointed.
The girl slowly looked down at herself. An uneven crescent of skin emerged right at her bikini line.
The crescent was yellow, almost like a stain, or a rash.
Then dread seemed to bloom over her head like a halo. "Oh no, no, no!" she groaned.
She yanked up her T-shirt.
"No, she whispered.
Her abdomen had turned yellow, with bloodred specks. Her eyes welled with tears as, next, a dozen motile ova began to inch out of her bikini bottoms.
Loren didn't even have time to lunge for the gun-or even implore her not to do it-when she put the revolver's barrel to her head and-
Bam!
Leona's horror was gone, along with the side of her head. Loren could do little more than stare through the shock. The woods froze around the lagoon, the silence now somehow more deafening than the discharge of the bullet.
Shit, was all he could think.
He quickly pushed her body overboard, then picked up the gun and made a swift exit off the boat…
(III)
Darkness was beginning to sift into the woods when Trent heard the shot.
He froze in place, eyes snapped open.
Yes, it sounded like a single, distant gunshot.
No. It couldn't be. He patted his gun belt, felt the butt of his army-issue 9mm strapped snugly into the holster. There's only one person on this island who's armed, he reminded himself. Me.
The mainland was only a mile or two away; sounds could carry in strange ways, especially over water. Probably a truck backfiring, he considered. Or maybe a sonic boom from a jet flying back to the air force base.
Yes. Maybe.
He stomped through most of the island's western end, but still no sign of Annabelle. This shit is getting old, he thought with a gripe. I don't care how goodlooking she is. I'm tired of bushwhacking through these woods…
And in the back of his mind he remained all too aware of Nora's and Loren's concerns. Maybe this worm stuff really is serious, too. They seem to think so, and they're experts.
But during his annoying trek, he hadn't encountered any worms, nor their accommodating ova.
Trent began to feel like an idiot before long. A wildgoose chase, only the goose is a brick shit-house blonde. His watch told him it was almost time to be heading back. Nora would have more information about the dead body out in the water-If there really IS a dead body. The kid could've been mistaken. Annabelle was probably back at the campsite by now…
Probably drunk, he added the thought, from that flask full of rum. And I'm running around out here looking for her… More irritation bristled.
Yeah, he thought. I'll bet she's passed out drunk somewhere, so to hell with this. I'm going back to the camp.
Just as Trent turned to abandon his search-
whap-
Something landed on his head. He flinched away, aghast, swatting about his head. What the fuck was that! Did one of those worms just land on me?
He flung something long and stringy off his neck.
"I thought that might get your attention," a sultry voice said from somewhere. Trent's shock faded when he saw what had hit him in the head…
Not a worm. A white G-string.
Annabelle grinned coyly at him. She leaned against a tree, stark naked, her tan lines raving at him.
"Where the hell have you been?" he almost yelled.
"Just wandering around. Where have you been?"
"Looking for you!"
Her eyes narrowed a little, she pouted at him. "You sound mad."
"I am mad! We've been looking for you for almost two hours! Nora and Loren think these worms might be dangerous to humans. We all need to stick together and think of a way to leave the island."
"Oh, let's not leave yet." Her voice remained singsongy, flirtatious. Trent noticed her beach bag at her feet, and the uncapped and obviously empty flask. Just as I thought. "Come on, you're drunk. Something serious might be going on, and you're out here getting loaded."
"There is something serious going on," she said. "Me and you. Right now."
Trent couldn't help it, but at least he was fairly sure that no other red-blooded man could either. His anger dissolved and then he was walking right up to her. Here we go again… His gaze slid up over her body, lingering over every perfect curve. Suddenly, worms, dead bodies in the water, and inexplicable electronic jamming were the furthest things from his mind.
He just couldn't help it.
The image of her body and its accommodating promise dragged him to her as effectively as a chain around his neck.
"That's better," she whispered when they embraced. Her hot hands seemed impatient when she lifted his T-shirt over his head, and a moment later he was back in his lustful heaven, his bare skin pressed against the warm, plenteous bosom. Oh God, I am so pussywhipped! Trent gave up altogether. Nature was calling again, and he simply didn't have the will to say no.
He could feel the turgid nipples pressing against him, could feel the heat radiating off her body and surrounding him, pulling him. Trent was none too daintily sucking her neck when he felt her fingers teasing around his groin. The sexual energy between the two of them was merging into a cocoon of antsy, hot static.
She was about to unfasten his gun belt and delve into his trunks when she suddenly nudged him back.
"Let's get kinky," she whispered.
"Huh?"
Annabelle picked up the beach bag and slipped out the drawstring. Now her fingers spidered across his chest. "Tie me up."
Trent was thrown off guard. lie her up? In the woods? I just want to get laid again. Trent had never really been into such things but…
"You really are buzzed," he said.
"Um-hmm." Her big, wanton eyes blinked. "Makes me hotter." She put the drawstring in her hand and offered her wrists.
What a nut… but I guess I don't really care. He lashed her wrists together, and thought, What now? but she pointed just above her.
"Lift me up. Right there."
The crook of a broken bough stuck out of the tree. Annabelle held her arms up, elucidating her breasts, as Trent palmed her hips, raised her enough to get the lash hooked on the bough, then released her. Now she stood before him on her tiptoes, stretched out like something for display. Her breathing grew heavier at once.
She's really into this kooky stuff, he realized, but scarcely cared. He began kissing her breasts and tonguing around her neck. Words weren't necessary now, just primal action. Her stretched body trembled as Trent's mouth embarked on a hot, wet trek from the dimple of her throat, and down…
"Lower," was the only word she breathed.
The officer knew what she wanted, and took his time getting to it. His mouth sucked fresh sweat off her skin, between the valley of her breasts, then more tan skin, then her navel. Her body was quivering now. Trent lingered at the navel, knowing that it only maximized her expectations; now he was toying with her, a notion that seemed ultimately satisfying.
After minutes more of excruciating mouth-play on her abdomen, he finally lowered himself to his knees.
She breathed through hisses, then quickly raised her legs, splaying everything before his face. The bottoms of her thighs rested on his shoulders.
Trent tinkered further with her angst, refusing to ar rive at the mark. She was truly hanging now, her arms straight as rods, her bare heels thunking his back, trying to pull his mouth closer. Trent just kissed and sucked ever more along the insides of her thighs.
The way she began to shudder, he would've thought she was climaxing even before his mouth finally found her sex.
Annabelle let out a delicious moan. If Trent had been able to see her face, surely her eyes would've been squeezed shut in the most potent pleasure, and every muscle in her flawless body flexing beneath the tan skin.
Her moans rose to repeated crescendoes, her flesh quaking, then-
Just as he expected her climax to let loose-
"Get me down!" she shrieked. "There's someone behind you!"
Trent heard an unpleasant metallic clack! of some sort, and before he realized it might have been the sound of something hitting him on the back of the head, his vision began to blur. It seemed that black ink had been dumped over his consciousness, and-
Trent collapsed flat on his back.
Only one second of awareness ticked by before he'd fully blacked out, and in that second, he saw two things:
Annabelle hanging helpless and naked against the tree.
And a man in a decon suit, gas mask, and hood reaching out for her.
CxnrrExWErr[y
(I)
Nora corkscrewed in the water as the pulsing, pink worm tightened its coil around her waist. Somehow her instinct turned off her panic and turned on her defensive mechanisms; as the worm coiled in one direction, she violently flailed her body in the opposite, hoping to retard the thing's efforts to fully encircle her.
She thrashed, wielding her knife. No thoughts of horror or fear filled her head-only reaction. The worm seemed the width of a garden hose, but it had to have been ten feet long. Eventually it wrapped around her body several times, then began to constrict.
Its strength was dizzying, as though two hefty men were pulling on each end of a rope looped about her waist. Had it gotten around her neck, she knew she'd be strangling now, but this wasn't much better. The worm was trying to squeeze all the air out of her body…
Her free hand clamped just under the tapered cone of flesh that was the worm's head; this was all that kept it from slithering about her throat…
Nora was running out of air. Her flippers kicked to the surface, but the worm's posterium-its tail endraveled around her legs, tightening more.
Meanwhile, unvented carbon dioxide began to swell in her lungs…
Through her mask she viewed the worm's eyeless head and the sphincter of muscle that composed its frontal duct. The fleshy ring opened and closed akin to a heart valve, driven to attach itself to her mouth through which it would either empty its digestive enzymes-to feed-or empty its ovarial reservoirs-to plant its eggs.
The mouth had no jaws-just the grotesque, pulsing ring-and no teeth, but instead something worse: a circle of "stylets" that would sink into the meat of her back throat like fishhooks, to keep the worm's body securely attached to the host. The most revolting sensation of Nora's life was the feel of the worm's own throat clamped in her hand, its skin-or hydrostatic sheath-moving back and forth-like the foreskin over an erect penis.
At that moment, she thought: I'm going to die now…
She felt something tear through her swimsuit-and her skin. Seawater burned into a six-inch-long gash down her abdomen. The worm was now a belt tightened around her waist…
Nora's knife had shot down, then, and cut the belt in half.
She'd done it without thinking, cutting herself in order to cut the creature…
Half of the worm's length drifted away, dead.
But this left the top half, still alive and squirming.
Nora's blade blurred across her eyes, and severed the worm's head. It floated away, a squirming, pink lump.
The rest of the body unraveled, the clipped end re leasing a plume of tea-colored digestive enzymes as well as a slew of underdeveloped ova. In a split second, Nora watched those same corrosive enzymes burn up any ova it came in contact with.
She managed to kick away, as still more of the acids came only inches away from drifting into her face.
Her legs kicked independently from her mind. To escape the corrosive ooze, she'd kicked backward, farther into the trench, and then her back collided with something…
A moment of thinking passed.
Then she shot up to the surface, where her head broke the water only a few heartbeats away from the point in which she would've drowned…
I'm alive! was her first genuine thought.
She was slowly treading water, to stabilize her metabolism out of shock. Her chest heaved as she sucked in breaths.
I have to get back to the others, she knew. But…
But…
What had that been?
Not the worm, but the abutment she'd backed into just after decapitating the worm?
Something not right…
Her confusion waylaid her. She was swimming back down to the trench, knife in one hand, flashlight in the other.
What the hell was that!
She had to know. A culvert of some sort? An oil pipeline? But what purpose could such things serve twenty feet beneath the Gulf of Mexico near a useless island? She knew there were more worms down there, yet her curiosity seemed fevered. The worms had more than likely swum away, and the enzymes from the one she'd killed would have dispersed in the current. So…
I just have to see. She felt driven. What was that thing I backed up against?
Her flippers pumped furiously; she swam back down to the trench. Crystalline water glittered, prism-bright. Ys and Ws of coral branched out from the bank, skeletal fingers that seemed to be pointing to secrets.
Nora slowed her descent, then stopped.
The trench stretched onward, probably several hundred feet, and widened to thirty. The sun's angle kept the underwater gouge blotched in cool, teeming darkness. She couldn't see what she'd touched, and only knew that it felt out of place, but…
Something's there, she noticed through a squint.
She'd have to surface for more air in another minute, but not till she got a look.
She reached back out into the inkiness and felt it again: a smooth, flat surface, slightly curved. Like metal.
That's when Nora-mildly alarmed-veered the waterproof flashlight around.
She became severely alarmed when her eyes registered what she was seeing, and then she shot herself back to the surface, gulping air.
That's-that's-that's… CRAZY! she thought.
What she'd seen lying in the trench was an object that could only be a naval submarine…
(II)
He was supposed to be here an hour ago, the sergeant thought. He checked all of the rooms in the old control station. Where the hell is he?
The sergeant wasn't the overexcitable type. When something went wrong, he simply fixed it, with a calm professionalism. He'd sent the corporal out a while ago, to retrieve the climate sensors and the little bit of field equipment that had been posted outside, but there was no sign of him. Just what I need. A man away from his post when the mission's winding down…-
He was about to check the monitors when he heard footsteps coming down the hall.
The major walked in. "Good news, Sergeant. All of the project's findings have been logged and processed, and every duty protocol has been completed. It's time to leave. The colonel's very pleased with the mission's success."
"That is good news, sir."
"Looking forward to getting back to the post?"
"Yes, sir."
"Get the collection and security gear ready to take out. I'll be securing the specimen data. We'll debark tonight."
"Yes, sir."
The major eyed him. "You seem… reserved, Sergeant. Is something wrong?"
The sergeant sighed, his shoulders slumping. "Yes, sir, it appears that there is."
"It appears…" The ranking officer looked around the room. "Where's the corporal?"
"I sent him out in the field earlier to take the climate sensors off-line. He should have returned by now."
"So he's away from his post without authorization, is what you're saying?"
"Yes, sir, at this point, I'd make that conclusion."
The major muttered something under his breath, then leaned over the security monitors. "He's not in any of the surveillance sectors. I know he was thoroughly screened before this assignment. Do you think he abandoned the mission?"
The sergeant was sweating now. "No, sir. I just can't see that. He knows that we'd find him."
"Does he have any abuse problems?"
"I don't think so, sir. Things like that are usually easy to detect on missions like these. But…"
"But what, Sergeant?" the major asked sternly.
"He may have a problem with unauthorized interaction."
The major went silent for several moments. "Don't mince words, Sergeant. You mean you think he's out there fucking one of the populace."
"I suppose it's possible, sir. Just based on some comments he's made."
The major shook his head, blank-faced. A blank face, the sergeant knew, was worse than a tirade from any other officer.
"If anything botches this mission, Sergeant, we'll all be ruined. The colonel won't stand for it. He'll be busy for a while so… let's suit up. We've got to find the corporal ourselves and get him back here."
"Yes, sir." But the sergeant groaned to himself. This was one of the worst things that could happen. – - -- – - – - – -
He grabbed his protective hood and mask, thinking of the corporal. I should've known. I'll kill him myself, if the major doesn't beat me to it.
(III)
Part of him felt gypped. These people here were obviously into some bizarre sexual shenanigans. The blonde was hanging on the tree, already naked.
All ready for me, the corporal thought.
He knew it was risky… but he also knew there was no way he'd end this mission before getting a piece of her. At least he wouldn't have to fight with her-she was hanging there for him, like a suit of clothes in a closet. Less time fooling around. I'll be able to get right to the goods…
But her nakedness did make him feel a little gypped. One thing he'd been looking forward to all this time was the thrill of ripping her clothes off.
Neither of them had seen him watching. The man was on his knees, getting to business. That's when the corporal stepped out and jacked him in the head with his service tool.
The blonde had seen him in that last second. The look in her eyes was delicious: pure horror. Yeah, the corporal thought. He liked that. She'd only had a second to scream when-
Clack!
The corporal jacked her out, too. She hung limp from the tree now. Had he killed her?
Who cares?
The corporal had to make this one quick, real quick. The sergeant thought he was out pulling in some field equipment, but the corporal had already done that. If I got caught out here, that would be it for me.
But this blonde was too much. Some things were worth the gamble…
There were other risks, too-the worms and ova, especially. But his field suit and hood would protect him. The thalate and ethylene fibers in the fabric would repel the worms like tear gas, at least that's what they'd been told. The corporal unzipped the front of the suit down to the crotch.
He degloved, too. He had to touch her.
Oh, man, this is some prize, he thought, kneading the plump breasts. His hands slid down her sides, reveling at the sensation of warm, damp, tight skin. He could stand only a few moments of this before he lifted her down and dropped her to the ground.
The rape was simple and precise. No frills. Too bad you won't be conscious for the best fuck of your life, he thought. He just climbed on and did it. One, two, three.
For some reason, it was always more satisfying when it was against their will.
Now you have something to remember me by.
She hadn't moved a muscle throughout. Again, he thought she might be dead, but then after he made a last grab on her breasts, he felt a heartbeat. The idea of killing her crossed his mind, but the corporal knew he didn't even have time for that. I better get back to the field station before the sarge gets wise. He zipped his suit back up and redonned his gloves.
Yes. The corporal really liked these field assignments.
He took a last look at the blonde, who lay crumpled and spread-legged, wrists lashed over her head.
No, he decided. I won't kill her. I'll leave her for the worms instead.
He was about to make tracks back to the station, but stopped cold. He thought he'd heard a sound.
A metallic click.
Then came the last sound he'd ever hear.
Bam!
The corporal collapsed right on top of the blonde, dead from the bullet that had slammed into the middle of his back.
(N)
Gun smoke stung Loren's eyes. He couldn't believe what he'd just done; he hadn't even given it a thought.
Holy fuck! I just shot a guy in the back!
Only after the pistol pumped out its round did Loren remember he'd never fired a gun in his life. The weapon kicked so hard, it flew out of his hand…
He stared through vertigo for several moments, listening to his heart beat. Annabelle's rapist had collapsed right on top of her. When Loren snapped out of it, he rushed over, yanked off the motionless assailant, and tended to Annabelle.
Ohno…
Her hands were tied and lay limp over her head. Her legs were disarrayed. Loren felt encased by dread when he put a finger to her throat to check for a pulse. After what seemed a minute, he found one and sighed in relief. He jostled her around, gently slapped her face, but she remained out cold.
"Goddamn, what the hell happened?" Lieutenant Trent had just come to. He sat up, a hand to his head, then stared in disbelief at the scene.
"That guy in the suit raped Annabelle," Loren's voice cracked. "So I…"
Trent saw the revolver on the ground. "You shot him?"
"Yeah. Uh, in the back."
Trent instinctively checked his gun belt, found his own pistol intact, then leaned over the man in the suit. "Man, this is really fucked up. Who is this guy?"
"I don't know but that gear he's wearing looks military to me," Loren said. "We need to get out of here right now and find Nora. That guy's got colleagues who are going to be looking for him."
"You're right…" Trent grabbed the gas-masked man's shoulder, to look at him. "He's military, all right, but I can't tell what branch." The mask's eye portals were mirrored. Trent yanked at the hood but couldn't get it off.
"Help me with her," Loren said. "We need to leave." He picked the revolver up and stuck it in his waistband.
"Where'd you get that?"
"Long story, I'll tell you on the way."
They each shouldered one of Annabelle's arms and stalked off.
"This is crazy," Trent muttered. "Military personnel in decontamination suits?"
"Yeah, and surveillance cameras in the woods and our cell phones and your radio being electronically jammed. Plus a parasitic worm that looks like a genetic hybrid, a damn gene-splicing experiment or something-all on an island nobody knows about."
"I'll bet that guy's with the Army Research Command. We walked right into the middle of one of their black projects by accident."
It sounded too coincidental, but after he thought about it, Loren had no choice but to agree. "I can't think of anything else it could be," he said. "We're in the middle of it, all right, and now we have to get out before we wind up dead. Other people have died on this island-"
"The body you said you saw in the water-"
"Not just that. This pistol I have I took off a dead college girl. She'd committed suicide with it, after telling me that other people have been killed by the worms."
"What?"
Loren sighed. "Just wait till we find Nora. I'll tell you the whole story."
They huffed through more brush. Annabelle didn't weigh much, but under these circumstances, the burden-was wearing both men out.
"Stop!" Trent said in a sharp, sudden whisper.
"What?"
The lieutenant stared at Loren. "Did you hear that noise?"
Loren looked desperately about, listening. "I… I don't think so…"
"Something rustling." Trent seemed sure. He looked up into the trees. "It sounded like it was above us."
Loren looked up, too. "Probably, uh, probably one of those big iguanas, or a tree-nesting bird."
"Yeah," Trent muttered back. "You're… probably right."
Before Loren's perceptions could register, something fell from the tree, as if unraveling. He thought of a hose being dropped: pink hose, and that's essentially all he could think before the two-inch-wide, twenty-foot-long worm unfurled from unseen branches, deftly coiled about Annabelle's chest, and began to lift her upward.
"Holy shit!" Trent yelled.
"Hold on to her!"
Annabelle's unconscious body was being lifted as if on a towline. Trent lashed his arms around a thigh, while Loren grabbed her feet, but then-
"Fuck!" Trent shouted.
They began to rise too; the worm was lifting all three of them. Trent and Loren, out of futility, dropped back to the ground. Trent drew his service weapon and fired several stray shots higher into the branches. "It's like trying to shoot a piece of rope!"
Annabelle's nude body disappeared upward.
Loren shook off his shock and still not really thinking jumped up for some branches. His flip-flops scuffed against bark as he tried to hoist himself up.
Trent grabbed his shoulder. "Forget it, man."
"We can't just leave her!"
"She's gone. There's nothing we can do to help her. What? Climb the tree? You'd never get up there, and even if you could, how are you going to shoot a worm that moves faster than a sidewinder?"
Loren knew he was right, but he still couldn't break his instincts. He tried to pull himself up again: useless. He hung off a short branch like a kid trying to do a pull-up.
"Forget it, man," Trent repeated.
The realities began sinking in all at once. Loren didn't know what to think, but he did know that Annabelle was gone.
He dropped back down, and the two men ran off as fast as they could.
Nora, pondering some bizarre realities of her own, stumbled back to the campsite just as Loren and Trent sprinted into the clearing. The three of them nearly collided with one another.
"I found the dead body in the water," Nora announced. "And it was full of worms. At least now we know. These things do attack and infect humans."
Trent sat down at the picnic table, winded. "You can say that again."
"Annabelle's… gone," Loren said.
"What do you mean?"
"A worm got her," Trent said.
Nora tried to cogitate. "I saw four of them in the water, and they were all over ten feet long."
"This one was twenty, at least," Trent confirmed.
Loren was getting his breath back. "It could've been longer than that. It was impossible to tell how far it went up the tree."
Here goes, Nora thought. "I also found a submarine."
Loren and Trent stared at her.
She recited the experience in detail.
"I saw that trench," Trent said. "A submarine couldn't fit in it."
"No, no," Nora explained. "Not like a nuclear submarine full of missiles. It was a lot smaller-"
"Like a submersible?" Loren said. "A research submersible? The military uses those all the time. They use them to map transport routes for the navy."
"That's more like what I'm talking about," Nora said. "And I'm certain it wasn't a pipeline or anything like that. It was a submarine. It even had some fins on the side."
"Were there windows?" Trent asked.
"I didn't have time to look over every inch. There were still plenty of worms down there. One of them almost got me… till I cut off its head."
And, next, Loren and Trent explained their own encounter.
"A man in a decontamination suit and gas mask?" Nora questioned. "Every new thing we discover looks more and more like a military experiment of some kind."
"And you can bet there are more of those guys on the island somewhere," Trent offered.
"But where?" Loren questioned. "On the submersible?"
"Maybe, but I'd guess they've got their own field station set up out here somewhere," Trent said. "And another thing you can bet on. Whatever this experiment is they're doing, it's definitely a top-secret project. They're not giving a flying fuck about any civilians who get killed. It's almost like they're hoping for that-"
"Right," Nora picked up. "That's what the experiment's all about. To see how vulnerable humans are to the worms and ova."
"A potential antipersonnel weapon," Loren posed. "The girl I got this gun from said she came here with several friends, and one by one they'd all been infected by the worms. She said these military guys seemed to be surveying them, which makes sense because of all those tiny cameras out here."
`As far as the military is concerned," Nora said, "we're expendable."
'Yeah," Trent added, "and we're being jammed and there's no way off the island."
Loren sat bolt upright. "Shit! I forgot! There is some good news in all of this."
Nora and Trent looked at him.
"We can get off the island. Because I know where there's a boat."
"You're pulling our legs?" Trent said. "We could never be that lucky, not after all this shit."
"Well, we are that lucky. There's a Boston Whaler anchored in one of the coves. No keys to start the engine, but we can push it out of the cove and drift back to the mainland. It'll be tough if the tides aren't right."
"I'll drag the fucking boat out with my teeth if I have to," Trent said. if we stay here much longer, we'll be worm food."
"I guess we should leave now…" Nora's eyes widened on the others. "But… I don't feel right, about-"
"Annabelle," Loren said.
"Should we try to find her?"
Loren and Trent both slowly shook their heads. "There's no way she could've survived," Trent said. He seemed reflective suddenly. "This is a stupid thing to suggest but…" He stared off.
"What?" Nora asked.
"I'm really curious about something. I think we should take a chance and stay for at least another hour. The tide'll be higher then anyway, easier to get out." He took out his gun, checked the slide. "I want to have another look at that guy Loren shot."
"What the hell do you want to do that for?" Loren objected. "I thought we wanted to get out of here ASAP."
"We do, but I really want to check that guy's dog tags, see what branch of service he's in."
"That's actually a good idea," Nora offered, "if it's not too risky. I'd like to know who exactly is behind all this."
Loren maintained his protests. "What difference does it make? Army, navy-who cares? If there's a submersible out there, it's probably the navy. I don't give a shit. Nora, one of those worms lifted Annabelle up into the trees!"
"We'll be careful," Nora said, hoping she wasn't being too naive. "I'm curious about something too. While the lieutenant's checking out that guy in the gas mask, you and I can go check something else."
"What?" Loren asked.
"The other side of the island. Where the original control station is for the old missile site."