Edward Lee - Slither

"You gotta be shitting me. You smoke pot like they're cigarettes and you don't have a lighter on you?"

Ruth glared. "Well, I had one, Slydes, but like I told you, before the zombie tried to rape me he tore off my shorts! And the lighter was in my shorts! Does it look like I got any pockets to carry a lighter in?" She faced him arrogantly in the drenched T-shirt, then flapped the damp hem up. "See any lighter, Slydes? Huh?"

"All I see is your dirty camel toe." He pointed to the other corner: some clothes and towels. "There's a pair of shorts there. Put 'em on."

Ruth made a face, as though the suggestion were outlandish. 'I'm not putting on some other girl's shorts! She might have crotch rot."

"I guarantee you, Ruth, your own crotch rot'll kill anything on them shorts." And then he grabbed her hair and shoved her forward. "Now put 'em on! Every time you bend over, I gotta look at your ass hair."

"I don't have ass hair, you fuck!"

Slydes stared her down. "Your lips are gonna be a lot fatter in about one second-"

Ruth smirked, and pulled on the shorts. She reached into one pocket. "Hey! Money!" She held up a small roll of cash. "And-" From the other pocket she extracted a cigarette lighter.

"All right." Slydes snatched the lighter away from her and headed for the door.

"What are you gonna do?"

"Boil some of that brook water, Einstein. Kill the worms."

"You're a genius!"

He went back outside. He'd hoped that eating something would make him feel better, but instead it made him feel worse. Yeah, shit, we're probably dyin' of dehydration and don't even know it yet… But maybe some luck had come his way.

He set the grill back upright and opened the small propane cannister to high, then snapped the lighter over the element.

The lighter worked fine, but the grill didn't catch.

Don't tell me.-.-. He put his ear to the element.

There was no hiss.

God is really kicking our asses today. He chucked the lighter into the woods, disgusted.

Some char marks seemed to sweep up the shed's wall. Must've been a fire here, he realized, but somebody managed to put it out. A logical deduction.

Yet who was the bigger "pea brain"? Slydes walked right back into the shed and never even noticed the water hose lying at the other end.

"Ain't no fuckin' gas in the tank," he said, back inside.

"Fuck." Ruth sat against the wall, an orange hand to her belly. "I feel like shit, Slydes. I feel like I could croak. Maybe those worms infected us."

Slydes wanted to throw up, in part from how he felt, and in part from remembering exactly what Jonas looked like the last time he saw him. if we got infected, we'd be turnin' yellow, like Jonas. We ain't infected, we just need water." Darker thoughts entered his head. He kept looking at Ruth… and the stark veins standing out in her sweaty neck. He knew this:

When hunters couldn't find water, they could drink the blood of any animals they killed. Blood was mostly water.

In which case, Ruth was a veritable bucket of water.

Am I that much of a scumbag? he asked himself. The question almost bothered him.

Almost.

He had his Buck knife right there on his belt. He'd skinned and gutted many a gator with it. And compared to gator skin, cutting Ruth's throat would be like putting his knife through mashed potatoes.

The question appeared to be answered.

But if he was going to kill her for the water in her blood, then-

I just gotta have it one more time, Slydes figured. His lack of reservations, perhaps, represented his human truth, so at least he was being honest. He was going to use her mouth for his own sexual pleasure and then drink her blood. Great guy.

He sat down and put an arm around her.

"What-are-you doing?"

"Cuddlin'," he said.

Ruth rolled her eyes. "Now?"

Now, or any time. You're always beautiful."

Ruth was stunned by the compliment, however phony. Slydes held her tighter, caressed a breast. "Come on, baby. I've been missin' you fierce."

Ruth's expression showed sheer befuddlement. Any other time, she'd be happy to oblige, but under these circumstances? Jonas dead along with God knew who else? Giant worms, and a zombie in the woods? Plus, she was feeling really lousy…

"Slydes…"She tried to push his hand away, but by now he'd already pulled her T-shirt up. "I feel like shit, like I'm gonna throw up." – - – - – - – - – - – - -

Slydes's beard tickled her when he kissed her neck. "Please, baby, don't leave me hanging. I'm needing you really bad."

"I'm not in the mood, Slydes!" she outright whined.

He had his jeans opened, and pushed her head down. "It'll only take a minute, sugar. See, Ruth, you're so beautiful, it just makes me hot for you all the time."

Ruth frowned and shrugged. It wasn't the first time she'd performed a sex act simply because there was nothing else to do. Slydes groaned once her expertise was upon him. He obviously wasn't the most considerate of men, and given that he'd been sweating and stinking on this island for the past three days only proved more of Ruth's resilience. Yeah, she's a trooper, all right, he thought, the sensations building already. In which case she'd be a dead trooper very shortly.

Just as Slydes would have his moment, she stopped and looked up at him. "Oh, fuck, what a couple of morons we are!"

"What!" he shouted, outraged. He pushed her head back down. "Come on, girl! You don't stop right before a guy's going to-"

"I just thought of where we can get water!"

"Huh!" The distraction spun in his head. Yeah! Your neck! Again, he tried to force her head back down.

"Would you wait a minute!' she managed to blurt.

"We can get all the water we want at the head shacks where Jonas grows his pot. The drip lines, from that old army filter or whatever the fuck it is!"

Slydes eyes widened. Holy shit, she's right! Unbeknownst to her, Ruth's perceptivity had just that second saved her life. "'That's good thinkin', baby!"

'Fuck-yeah!"-

"But finish the job." And then he shoved her head back down.

Ruth, indeed, finished the job, treating Slydes to a potent climax, the residue of which was displaced into her mouth.

"Aw, yeah, honey, that was great…"

But Ruth sat bolt upright, eyes pried open. Her lips puckered in distaste, as though she'd taken in a mouthful of turpentine.

"What's wrong with you?" Slydes asked, refastening his pants.

Ruth spat loudly on the floor, and when she looked at what she'd expectorated, she grimaced. "Oh, fuck! That's fuckin' gross!"

"What'choo talking about?" Slydes leaned over and looked.

Oh, fuck. That IS fuckin' gross, his thoughts heartily agreed. There were no other words.

Roiling amid his spat-out semen were hundreds of tiny yellow beads, smaller versions of the ones he'd plucked off his body the other night.

"You're infected with those worm things!" Ruth shrieked at him.

"Bullshit! I ain't infected. They came out of you! They came up out of your belly or somewhere!"

Ruth jumped up. "They didn't come out of my stomach, Slydes, and you know it! They came out of your pecker!"

Slydes stroked his beard. Had they? He looked at his arms, looked under his shirt. My skin ain't yellow, he saw. Jonas said you turned yellow if you were infected. But…

Ruth wasn't yellow, either.

And the ova came from somewhere. "They were on the floor already, like the ones outside," he tried to convince himself.

Ruth stomped around the shed, spitting incessantly. "I could feel 'em squirming in my mouth, Slydes!" Then glared as though he were a leper.

Slydes didn't much care for that look.

"You're infected! I'm getting out of here!"

The predicament irritated Slydes… so he decided to kill her anyway. I know it ain't me who's infected, he kept telling himself.