Edward Lee - Slither

"So what did you do with the bomb?"

"I put it in my pocket, figured I'd try to find a safer place to ditch it."

Nora's eyes widened. "Loren. Tell me that bomb's not still in your pocket?"

Loren rolled his eyes. "Of course not. In fact-" He paused and snapped his gaze back toward the beach.

"Look! There's the third guy! His buddies left without him!"

Nora could see the frantic black-clad figure standing on the beach. He was looking to the sky.

"That must be the one I knocked out in the control station. When he didn't get back to the ship in time, the other two left."

Loren broke out into hysterical laughter. "Oh, shit! That guy's really screwed!"

"Loren, what are you talking about? There's a live alien on the island now! Who knows what kind of weapons and technology he has! Jesus Christ, if he gets to the mainland-"

Loren crossed his arms and shook his head. "Take my word for it. That asshole's not going anywhere."

"What do you mean!"

"After I got the bomb off the RTG slab, I stuck it in my pocket. Then I went to look for you. I went back to the control station, and that guy was lying on the floor, unconscious."

"So?" Nora shouted.

"Nora, I put the bomb in his pocket."

Nora stared. "You mean-"

"Then I ran back to the campsite."

Just as the words left Loren's lips, the detonation took place.

There was no sound, no cacophonic explosion as they might expect.

Instead, just the sensation of a sudden monumental shift in air pressure.

The entire island jolted, its trees swaying as if swept by a hurricane wind. The point on the beach where the figure had been standing was suddenly a throb of light that rose, then fell. A similar throb occurred deeper on the island, where the old control station had been.

That fast.

The light dispersed, forming a crude dome over the entire island, and a second after that-

Nora was fingering her cross. "God in heaven…"

The diffuse dome flattened all at once.

The concussion knocked Nora and Loren flat on their backs. No heat wave or scalding radioactive flash assailed them. No mushroom clouds emerged.

When they got back up, they looked back at the island…

It was on fire, from one end to the other.

They could feel the heat even this far out.

"Incineration," Loren observed. "How convenient."

"It'll kill everything on the island, every worm, every ovum."

"And the third guy? He doesn't even exist anymore. You can bet everything they left in the control station will be ashes too."

"No evidence," Nora whispered.

"Look at that shit. Unbelievable…"

The fire raged for only seconds. Then it went out as quickly as it had bloomed. Even the smoke dissipated in a matter of moments.

But the island was a blackened clot now. Every tree on it had been reduced to a charred stalk.

"No evidence is right," Loren said. "But it doesn't make sense."

"Maybe it does but we just don't get it."

Loren stroked his chin, contemplating. "Why did these people come here, from God knows where, to create a hybrid bienvironmental parasite that grows exponentially and infects humans faster than any known virus… only to destroy it all in one puff and leave?"

"Just a field research exercise, I guess," Nora muttered. "A scientific test on their equivalent of laboratory animals."

"Only in this case the rats were us."

"Has to be. We do the same thing sending probes to Mars, and mice in space, and setting up research stations on the North Pole."

Loren chuckled, wiping sweat off his brow. "No reason to even tell anyone what really happened."

"Not unless we want everyone to think we're crazy," Nora added. "Our authorities will think the RTG melted down, that's all. It'll get pushed to the last page of the newspaper."

Loren shrugged, eyes ahead to the sea. The boat bobbed as the current claimed it. They'd probably drift back to the mainland in an hour or so.

Loren looked at her in subtle shock. "But something just occurred to me."

"What?"

"We're alive."

Nora let the two words sink in. Yeah. How do you like that?

"Oh, and I have to be honest enough to admit something," Loren remembered. "I lost the bet."

.The bet?" Nora blinked, trying to remember. "Oh yeah. I bet you dinner that Annabelle would put the make on you. Did she?"

Loren gulped. "Oh yeah. So where do you want your free dinner?"

Nora gave the matter some serious consideration. I almost got killed by aliens today. I didn't but… I'm still a virgin.

"My place," she said.

"I was hoping you'd say that," Loren replied.

They slumped down next to each other, hips touching, and let the sea carry them away.

Bad luck had pursued Ruth for essentially every living minute of her life, so…

Why should it stop now?

The small skiff she'd found lashed in a secluded lagoon had indeed seemed like a turn of her typical luck. She'd managed to get it out to the gulf in spite of the lower tide, and next thing she knew the current was gliding her back toward the mainland. I don't fuckin' believe it! she thought. After all she'd been through, she managed to escape. She could never be aware of the irony, though: that the selfsame skiff that saved her life had once belonged to a young man named Robb White… before he'd turned into what Ruth continued to believe was a zombie.

Her luck only lasted another half hour, however. That's when the skiff began to sink.

What the fuck?

She peered down in terror, only now noticing the tiny holes in the skiffs aluminum hull. Those fuckin' worms again! They ate holes in it, just like they ate holes in Slydes's engine!

So much travail for poor Ruth. She'd survived giant worms, zombies, and two redneck psychopaths but fate still had not finished toying with her. The boat took water very slowly, which only worsened the truth: first to the tops of her feet, then to the tops of her ankles, inching coolly upward while Ruth just sat there jerking glances at the water which would eventually claim her. When the skiff was finally swallowed, Ruth bobbed like a buoy, gasping, "Fuck, fuck, fuck, fuck, fuck, fuck, fuck!" as her feet paddled manically.

She snorted salt water, her eyes stinging. She could see a stretch of beach on the mainland, less than a mile away. It seemed like a mirage, rising up and down with her vision, whispering to her: Swim! Swim! It's not that far!

Ruth swam, as best she could given her clinical exhaustion, dehydration, and extreme malnourishment. One too many adrenaline dumps left her limbs enfeebled, her consciousness winking in and out.

Would a shark get her first, or would she just drown?

Ruth expected both to happen at once, with her luck. Dizziness swept a grainy veil over her eyes. Her heart was missing beats. How much farther?

When she could move no more, she thought Fuck… one last time, and sank into the sea's green depths-

She tumbled beneath the surface, like clothes in a washer. Any energy left in her body seemed fit to burst along with her lungs.

The grainy veil turned black…

And there was only stillness.

Voices chattered above her: "Somebody go get help!"

"Is-is she dead?"

"Somebody get one of the seniors!"

The chattering sounded like little girls. When Ruth's eyes opened, she eventually focused on a ring of little chipmunk faces peering down.

"Who the fuck?" Ruth croaked through a parched throat.

"She said the F word! She said the F word! I'm telling the Den Mother!"

"Shut up," someone else said.

They're little girls, Ruth finally realized. I washed up on the beach and these little girls found me…

The girls all seemed between ten and twelve. They wore tan shorts and tuniclike blouses with stark, colorful patches.