Edward Lee - Slither

"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.

(I)

When Slydes awoke, he felt akin to a reanimated corpse rising from a lime pit. Mooooooooother- FUCKER! he thought. Had someone hit him in the head last night? Had he fallen down? But when he awoke, he remained in the captain's chair behind the wheel, where he usually took his downtime on the boat.

Ruth's tousled head emerged from belowdecks. She looked cross-eyed and dehydrated-about the same way Slydes felt just now. "When are we leaving?" her shrill voice inquired. "Isn't it high tide yet?"

Bonehead, Slydes thought. "We missed it by ten hours," he gruffed. His watch told him it was seven in the morning. We fucked up again… "What the fuck is wrong with us!"

"I don't feel good, Slydes!"

Them bugs, he remembered. They MUST have bit me. "We all must have got some jungle fever or some thing. We keep passin' out." He tried to roust himself. "I'm gonna try to get us out of here in low tide. Shag Jonas's ass and get him up here."

"Jonas ain't down there!" she railed. "You said he went looking for me last night!"

Ruth's whining voice was killing him. "He never came back? That goddamn pain in the ass!"

"Where do you think he went?"

"You know damn well where he went! Probably went back for more dope, the shithead! We never should have come out here in the first place. This is his fault." The solution was simple; they needed to bring him back so they could leave. But he was still out in the woods, and the woods were where they'd picked up those gross-ass yellow bugs.

Slydes eyed up Ruth. "Go to the head shack and bring him back."

Ruth's face screwed up at the suggestion. "Fuuuuuu- uuck you, motherfucker! I ain't going back in those woods by myself! I told you! There's a zombie out there that pulled my pants off and tried to rape me! And he tried to feed me to those giant pink snakes!"

Here she goes with the zombie again. There's nothing like a drug burnout to make a fucked-up situation MORE fucked up. He took the keys out of the boat's ignition. Did he trust Ruth?

Hell no.

"I'll go find him, you stay here," he ordered.

"I don't want to stay on this creepy boat by myself!"

"Quit whining! You sound like a fuckin' dog toy. Nighttime's one thing, but this is broad daylight. You and I both can't be thrashing around in the woods, not with them photographers up and about."

Ruth crossed her arms. 'If you go, I go."

"Yeah?"

'Yeah."

Slydes punched her right in the forehead. She fell to the bottom of the short steps, out cold. Best way to win an argument with a gal, he thought.

Slydes stepped off the deck ladder into the water, and waded toward the island.

(II)

Nora thought back to her old lit classes as she meandered through the woods at just past dawn, Henry David Thoreau and all that. Being alone amid this plush wilderness-just as the new day began to arrive-put one in a sedate frame of mind. The beauty shimmered around her; it seemed to invite her to venture deeper, that and her curious solitude.

It feels damn good to be away from everyone else for a little while, she admitted, and she knew it was more than just escaping the envious angst that Annabelle incited. It let her free her mind, and now, for these cherished moments, she delighted in the luxury of thinking about nothing at all.

She roved deeper, down trails she hadn't been aware of. The pink light of the sunrise shot bolts down through dense branches. All that spiced the silence were chirping birds.

She wasn't sure why she'd risen early. She'd woken to obscure dreams and a headache. The other tents remained zipped up, so she sprayed herself down with some repellent and quietly wandered off, if only to take a look at more of the island.

I better be careful I don't get lost, she considered. The tropical forest grew more dense as the next trail continued. She supposed she was looking for more signs of the worms and ova she and Loren had stumbled on last night. Soon the dilemma ruptured her mood.

I'm getting paranoid, she realized. Everything she knew about worms that produced motile ova insisted that they were harmless to humans-so what was she afraid of? But-

A bienvironmental species? A worm as well as its ova that can function on land? And the worm itself did resemble certain worms from the Trichina and Trichinella families, and some of those could definitely infect humans…

Be realistic! she finally commanded herself. I'm an expert, and my professional inclinations are that these things are no more dangerous to humans than ladybugs.

The determination made sense, yet the back of her mind wouldn't let go of the creepiness.

Her next step was snagged-something on the ground. Vine, she thought at first. She looked down to see what had caught the front of her flip-flop.

Not a vine, a cable.

She detached her foot and knelt. A black cable-an inch thick-stretched across the overgrown trail. What's this doing in the middle of the woods? she thought. It's a power cable.

Nora followed the cable back toward the camp and head shack areas, and didn't go more than a hundred or so yards before it terminated and split. One end branched to a conical voltage regulator that provided the lights and electricity to the head shacks. The other end veered directly into a tin shed that contained two bulky machines. Stenciled spray-paint letters identified one: FIELD PURIFICATION UNIT, WATER, PROPERTY OF U.S. ARMY. A series of hoses ringed through the second machine, and most of the joints and connections on the hoses were streaked with white crust. Salt, she knew at once. This must be the desalinator Trent was talking about.

Then she turned around and followed the black power cable back, where it would undoubtedly termi nate at the portable generator that Trent had also mentioned on the day they'd arrived.

She followed several hundred yards farther, expecting at any moment to hear the chugging sound of the generator.

She walked on and on… and didn't hear a sound.

Finally the cable ended at a fat metal connection ring set into a square of concrete. The generator's underground? she thought. But she knew better. That can't be…

Something white could be seen behind some leafy branches. She pushed back a bough and found a metal sign on a post. The sign was white with red borders, and it read KEEP AWAY! RADIOACTIVE MATERIAL IN USE!

Nora ran back to the campsite. She didn't hesitate to open Trent's tent and stick her head in. "Hey! Lieutenant!"