Edward Lee - Slither

"-not that I'm in favor of legalization, mind you," Loren was saying, still plugged in and animated in the discussion, "but from the cold scientific standpoint, it's hard to argue with a clinical physical addiction rate of zero, even as opposed to the roughly fifteen percent for alcohol."

"Yeah, but every long-term pot smoker I know," Annabelle offered, "is kind of… a moron."

"Plenty of statistics on that side of the fence too," Loren stated. "Pot smoking goes hand in hand with an incontrovertible reduction in longand short-term memory, thematic apperception. Plus, it remains the leading cause of amotivational syndrome."

"What's that mean?" Trent said.

Nora finally snapped out of it and offered, "It makes you a moron."

"See?" Loren laughed. "The professor speaks! I told you she didn't slip into a coma when we weren't looking."

/eez, Nora thought. I really am the life of the party, huh?

"What about you, Professor? Have you ever smoked it?"

Nora blinked. The question had come from Annabelle. "I… uh…" Then she smirked. "No."

"I think it's a bunch of silly crap," Trent said. "Call me a redneck, but I'll take a can of Bud any day."

"Still big money in it, though," Loren posed. "I'll bet that plant you burned was worth hundreds of dollars on the street."

Nora couldn't resist. She wanted to watch Trent's reaction. "Secluded island like this? Inaccessible?" She feigned a laugh. "Shit, Lieutenant. You could start your own little enterprise out here, and make ten times more than Uncle Sam pays you."

"No, with my luck, it'd be ten times less," Trent replied, "spending the next ten years in an army prison," and then he laughed himself. – - – - – - – - – -

Nora had to admit, her comment didn't seem to jilt him one bit. I guess I'm wrong about everything, she thought.

Then Annabelle shrieked.

Every face jerked toward her. Annabelle shuddered, tensed up, her fists at her bosom.

"What's wrong!" Loren exclaimed.

Annabelle pointed to Trent. "There's-there's-"

"What is that?" Loren said.

Trent snapped, "What the hell's wrong?"

"There's-there's-there's-" Annabelle stammered some more-

'Something on your back," Nora said.

Trent's eyes bugged. "What? A fuckin' tarantula? What?"

Nora saw it easily. Hmm, she wondered, but she didn't want to take any chances. She grabbed one of her scuba flippers, and-

Splap!

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…