Edward Lee - Slither

Dizzy now, and her vision dim, she felt herself being dragged yet again away from the shed. She was perhaps half conscious, her brain screaming to rebel, but any genuine attempts to fight back were enfeebled by her daze.

She was dragged into the leaves and flipped over. The shots to the head kept her from focusing. Her shorts were ripped open and yanked off, and then her top was hauled up, her breasts pawed by a hot, humid hand that seemed intent on milking out all the saline.

Something remotely similar to a human voice splat tered down into her face, uttering, "Shut up and lie still. It won't hurt much," or something like that.

When more of Ruth's vision cleared, she noticed that he'd dragged her back to where she'd been last night, her legs spread wide open to the deeper woods.

"Look," the voice gargled over her like someone with a rotten larynx. "There's more."

Before she could think, More what? Ruth looked down between her legs and saw-

The leaves… moving…

She remembered the rustling earlier, and she remembered seeing something moving beneath the leaves.

And whatever it had been began to come forth.

What Ruth saw vigorously wriggling forward was so revolting she nearly passed out altogether. Shock riveted her so completely that she was past screaming anymore.

Churning out of the leaves were several glistening, bright pink snakes, about the diameter of garden hose. No eyes could be discerned on the things, just that glaring, wet pinkness. The head of each one appeared to be tapered, even skull-less, with a small hole where the mouth should be.

They were shivering toward her, as if even in their blindness they sensed the presence of her body.

And they just kept coming, their tails never appearing from the underbrush.

Had she been less traumatized, she might have wondered how long they were, because right now they'd shivered out at least fifteen feet…

"Don't move," the phlegmatic voice ordered. it won't take long. Just lie there and keep your legs spread."

This was not the situation where Ruth would be favorable to such a command. But her daze began to fade, and more of her strength returned. She began to flail in the dirt, and shove her heels at the grotesque pink things, but each time she did, her captor tightened the grip on her hair and thumped her head back to the ground.

Don't let the fucker knock you out! she managed to order herself. Because if she were unconscious, she knew damn well where those snakes were going.

Instead of kicking out this time, Ruth lunged up, grabbed her attacker's own hair, and pulled. He was strong, though; he didn't come down, she went up, and-

Her attacker gargled out a splattering scream.

Ruth bit a sizable chunk of upper cheek right out of his face.

The hand released her hair, and Ruth got up and ran, just as the first of the snakes would've entered her vagina.

The roar of objection splattered behind her-a hideous, barely human sound-as Ruth's feet shot her away into the trees. She spat the chunk of cheek out of her mouth like a chunk of hot chewing tobacco.

Get out, get out, get out!

She stopped only for a split second, and looked around to see who the man was who'd tried to feed her to the shivering pink things.

She screamed again-louder than she ever had-for her attacker was barely a man at all but more like an erect cadaver, with eyes like raw oysters and enslimed yellow skin flecked with bright red spots.

Holy fucking shit! she thought, running. It's a fucking zombie…

(II)

Robb White's former mind was barely functioning by now, taken over by mutagens expelled by the aggressive ovum that were now well insinuated throughout the island. These microscopic pieces of viral proteins common among many species of invertebrates-had intricately mutated his instincts and motor responses by infecting his central nervous system. In other words, most of what existed between Robb's ears was now mutated porridge.

He could still talk a little, and still think a little less, but everything else was essentially overridden. He'd lived much longer than the friends he'd brought here, but then he was good strong stock, a jock, a college athlete, a health and physical education major. How could he have ever imagined that all his healthmindedness would only lengthen his life as a human carrier for mutated worm ovum? The few synapses that still fired dragged back the dimmest etchings of memories. Their weekend party on this little island hadn't lasted long before the others began to disappear-

And reappear later, but not in the best of shape.

By the time he knew he had no choice but to get back to his skiff-and abandon his friends-it was too late. He'd already been duly infected by those little yellow beetles or ticks or whatever. He would retain enough sentience, though, to figure that the disgusting little things probably had some direct connection to the ten-foot-long pink worms that had started showing up too. Before his own infection, he watched one coil about the voluptuous body of his latest girlfriend and burrow its head down her throat.

Robb trudged on back toward the shed, not even consciously aware of his mission. Neither was he aware of the fact that his skin had mutated to an ill shade of yellow highlighted by brilliant red specks.

Every now and then, though, some cognizance did flare in his mush-brain and register appropriate thoughts, like: Ugh! I'm royally fucked up! and My fucking father's gonna kill me if I don't get the skiff back in time! and Pretty decent set of tits on that trampy blonde. And as for that trampy blonde, he'd promptly dragged her out of the shed to leave her closer to one of the nests. He hadn't been consciously aware of this; he'd simply done it because an instinct told him to.

But when he'd returned, she'd been trying to escape. Hence, his altercation, and, yes, after roughing her up and popping her in the head a few times, those acts of violence did seem to trigger some long-lost sexual reaction. But that was all for nothing now.

Robb's penis had rotted off his body a few days ago.

His yellow hand felt at the gouge she'd bitten out of his cheek. Something like pain registered… along with something like defeat.

A woman had beaten him. Robb, an all-star athlete and muscle rack, didn't care to be beaten by a woman at anything.

He stood shakily between two palm trees, staring at the woman's escape route with gray, runny eyes. Then he looked down at the tiny pair of cutoff shorts he'd pulled off her. Shhhhhhhit! his infected brain thought.

"Gonna find the bitch and really fuck her up," his phlegmatic voice rattled aloud. "I'll stuff the worms up her snatch myself if I have to."

(III)

The brisk snorkeling session livened her up. I feel human again! I feel like a real, live polychaetologist in the field!

Nora had wound up snorkeling for hours, actually, marveling at the scenery beneath the tepid, crystalclear water. Flippers pumping, she glided through schools of pinfish, blue tang, and damsels. Fire sponge and fernlike sea rods branched up from clumps of orange and yellow coral. The languid water caressed her, cool and warm simultaneously, and the sunlight seemed to float above her like lightning-white lava. Sea horses frolicked among stalks of phallic club coral, and when Nora diverted her direction, a lustrous green and blue parrotfish turned briefly to show her teeth like a handful of nails, then returned to eating algae off a rock. The fish was the size of a bed pillow.

Being right back in the face of nature rejuvenated her, reasserting her love for marine habitats. Nothing up there is as beautiful as this, she thought. I'd probably enjoy life a lot more if 1 were a friggin' fish…

She let these underwater spectacles enrapture her; she got lost in all the variations of beauty. A sensation nearly erotic titillated her when a funnel of minnows shifted directly into her; it gave her the impression that she'd just swum into a cloud made of glitter. When she checked her watch, she couldn't believe so much time had passed. I came out here to catch lobsters, she reminded herself.