Edward Lee - Slither

She shone down her flashlight, while her other hand unsheathed her utility knife. She thought of grave robbing when she brought the tip of the blade to the corpse's abdomen.

The sharp steel tip hadn't penetrated more than an inch before three long pink ropes flew out of the cadaver's mouth.

Nora's heart felt stabbed. For a moment, she blacked out from the shock of what she'd witnessed, dozens of feet under water, in dead silence.

But there was her evidence.

The worms were a yard long each. They cork screwed away from her, their grotesque bright pink skin shimmering.

Holy, holy, holy SHIT! she thought.

Then she froze in the water when a fourth, longer worm shot out of the knife hole and wrapped around her waist so quickly it was on her before she even saw it-

(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."