Edward Lee - Slither

Within fifteen minutes, her catch bag was full.

Back on the beach, she realized it would be getting dark soon. She trudged ashore with difficulty, dragging the bag, and hooked the cumbersome flippers to her belt. Out of the water, the lobster bag revealed its true weight: over ten pounds; the creatures flapped and rustled. A trail of water dripped behind her as she marched up the beach and entered the woods.

The bag dragged at her arm. She huffed down the trail, but as she neared the campsite, she thought she heard a hissing sound.

She stopped, squinted.

A gaze through some branches showed her the field shower. Nora's squint transformed to a frown. It was Annabelle in there, and the shower's ugly tarplike curtain was only halfway closed.

Exhibitionist floozy, Nora thought. I'll bet a million bucks she left the curtain open on purpose. Of course: She was hoping Trent or Loren might catch a glimpse of her body in the raw. Wants to keep them whupped up. Earlier, Trent had sprayed the shower down with some bug repellent, which would likely deter any more of the bizarre yellow ovum from venturing in.

Though she only glimpsed the other woman for a moment, Nora couldn't deny the pang of jealousy. Annabelle stood angled in the cramped stall, showing the curve of her buttocks and the edge of a breast. She turned slowly, almost as if aware of being watched, then stretched as the shower water pushed suds down her breasts and abdomen.

Nora silenced her thoughts and moved off. However, she hadn't walked far before she heard-

Snap!

She stood still, listening. Then came a quick scuffle: someone obviously dashing off through the woods.

Nora followed the sound, peered through trees. The sound disappeared as quickly as she'd detected it. At first she felt alarmed, but then realized her earlier assumption must be right. Annabelle WANTED one of the men to see her body. The escaping footfalls could only have been from Trent or Loren.

Probably Loren. That blonde tease has got him ALL twisted up. She held her gaze on the woods awhile longer, but saw no one running off. Who cares? she thought.

The lobsters stirred. Better quit fooling around and get these in the cooler. She stepped up her stride, got back on the trail, then winced and fell to a knee.

Damn it! That HURTS!

She'd stepped on something; her bare foot blared pain. What the hell is that?

She awkwardly crooked her leg around. Something metal on a string stuck out of the bottom of her foot. "Bastard!" Grimacing, she yanked it out as a small amount of blood dribbled from the tiny wound.

Her first notion was that it reminded her of a key on a pendant, as someone would wear around the neck. A straight, flat piece of metal on a looped cord, three inches long and an eighth of an inch wide. She wiped the blood off it, took a closer look. Jewelry? she considered. Some party kid could've dropped it. But why the string cord instead of a chain? When she rubbed her fingers against the tip, she felt ridges of some kind. Then she thought of keys again, something to unlock a security cable on a laptop.

Shit on it, she thought and stood back up. The damn thing had just been lying there in the trail, and she'd stepped on it. It didn't even look like it had been there long-…

When she'd hobbled back to the campsite-bowed to one side by the lobster bag-she found Annabelle in a new bikini whose fabric was shockingly flesh-tonedsitting at one of the old picnic tables. Her hair was up in a towel now, and she was passively painting her fingernails. Trent sat across from her, scribbling in his army pad.

Nora huffed forward, her pierced foot throbbing. "Hey, Annabelle, could you give me a hand with this bag of lobsters?"

The blonde looked up and sighed. She displayed her shiny red nails. "Sorry, my nails are wet."

"Here," Trent offered. He took the bag and appraised it. "Wow, this is great. There must be two dozen lobsters in there."

"About that, and all still alive and kicking. But we've got to keep them cool before dinner."

Annabelle looked at the impressive bag but said nothing. She sat with her legs demurely crossed, and blew on her nails. "I'll stick them in the cooler I've got hooked up to the generator," Trent said and walked off.

"Ouch, ouch, ouch," Nora muttered when she hobbled the rest of the way to the table and sat down.

"Still aching from your sunburn?" Annabelle asked.

"No." Nora resisted the impulse to yell.

The blonde took a pleased glance at her own arms and legs. "I tanned great today. Not a trace of burn. Good genes, I suppose."

Which I guess means my genes are inferior. Nora couldn't believe the photographer hadn't burned while wearing only SPF 2. Must be my karma.

Annabelle beamed to herself. "I'll have the best tan when I get back to the Big Apple!"

Bully for you, you pompous bitch, Nora thought very calmly. She opened the waterproof first aid kit, extracting some antiseptic and a Band-Aid.

"Step on a thorn?"

"No. Some key or pendant or something." Nora put the stringed object on the table. "Somebody dropped it on the trail, and I stepped on it coming back from the beach."

Annabelle felt the ridges on the end. "Oh, this isn't a key and it certainly isn't a pendant. I'm pretty sure it's a jeweler's file. I used to date a jeweler, and he always had something like this around his neck, along with an eyepiece."

"A jeweler's file?" Trent asked, returning. He sat. down with a bottle of water.

"Nora stepped on it." Annabelle passed it to him.

"Hmm." Trent turned it around in his fingers. "And you say you stepped on it, Professor?"

"Yes." Nora applied the Band-Aid to her foot, knowing it would probably fall off within an hour. "On the trail back from the beach. Do you have any idea what it is? I was thinking it must be some kind of key someone was wearing around their neck. Annabelle says it's a file."

Trent raised a brow. "Looks more like an old calibration tool for army PCR radios. There's a slot on the side you stick this in, to change channels." He gave it back to her. You should get a tetanus shot when we get back to the mainland."

Nora got one every year, for her job. A calibration tool, she thought, looking at it. Another boring mystery solved.

'I'll bet some grunt with the missile team dropped that thing here twenty years ago," Trent said.

74,enty years ago? Nora wondered. The tool didn't even look tarnished.

She put it away and forgot about it. In truth, though, the object wasn't a calibration tool, nor was it a jeweler's file. Nora had been right in the first place. The object was-

(I)

My key! the corporal thought in the worst kind of alarm. When he'd returned to the control center, he reached to his belt where the key's lanyard had been attached but-

It was gone.

I must've tied the damn thing on wrong! he realized.

This was not good. Especially considering the classified nature of this assignment, the key was considered a sensitive access device. The corporal sweated beneath his protective mask. If one of those civilians gets hold of that key, they could get into the command center! The corporal's career would be over. He'd be busted, written up, fined, and probably thrown in the stockade. The entire mission could be compromised…

He stood a minute to compose himself, and think. Maybe… maybe no one will find out, he thought. I won't tell anyone I lost it until the assignment's over. The sarge is coming out on rounds in a minute anyway; I won't even need my key…

It was the only plan he could think of.

A minute later, the door did indeed open, and the sergeant emerged. "Why didn't you come inside?"

"I was just taking a last look around before shift change."