(I)
Slydes got back to the boat after noon. Was it his imagination or did he still feel sick?
Imagination, he hoped. He'd felt so lousy the past day or so, but wishful thinking told him that maybe it was just the flu or something. Trekking back to the boat he quickly got lost-the island was a labyrinth of vegetation-but for the entire time he kept glancing at his arms… to see if his skin was beginning to yellow.
Like Jonas.
Like a nightmare, he thought.
But he'd seen what had happened to his brotherthe most morbid infection-and he'd seen the worms himself. He hadn't stayed around long enough for a detailed look. The simple glimpses of the long, pink, hoselike things had been enough.
Ruth wasn't bullshitting…
The air was still, the heat beating down when he climbed back aboard. He swatted at mosquitoes, squinting through sweat.
Part of him still couldn't believe what he'd seen…
Ruth lay sprawled across the dingy cot downstairs, either sleeping off the oppressive heat or…
The thought seized Slydes.
She ain't dead, is she?
He had to jostle her a full minute before she came awake.
"Wake your ass up," he ordered. "It's time to leave."
Her face, arms, and legs looked tacky. Her eyes puffed up… almost as bad as her lips. When she managed to reclaim some awareness, she said, "Did you bring Jonas back?"
"No. Jonas is… sick. We're leaving without him-"
"What!"
"And we'll bring back a doctor," he told her. How could he tell he the truth? We're leaving without him 'cause he got infected by the worms, and he turned yellow-with red spots-and he'll try to pass that shit on to us.
Slydes wasn't prepared to say that.
Ruth didn't argue with the lie-her true face. She didn't care anymore, and neither did Slydes. "I just wanna go home," she half sobbed.
"We're gonna do that, right now." Slydes helped her up the steps. The long pink T-shirt was pasted to her flesh now, her blond hair darkened from so much sweat. When he grabbed her arm, the skin felt slippery, but…
It don't look like she's turnin' yellow, he observed, and me neither. That's all Slydes could hope for.
Abovedecks, the hot air stood still, and the sun glared off the water so harshly he could barely see. "The tide ain't high enough, but we're going anyway."
"Good, good! Just start the motor and go!"
The shrill exclamation grated his nerves, only to be answered by a sound even more shrill when he turned the ignition key. The engine chugged as metal shimmied.
"What the fuck's wrong now?" Ruth wailed.
Slydes barked back-with more nervousness than authority: "Sounds like there's no oil in the damn crankcase!" and then he hauled open the engine compartment on the back deck.
Smoke rose.
When Slydes hunkered down and looked, his heart fell into his belly like someone dropping a stone off a high bridge.
"Whatever it is-fix it!" Ruth screamed.
But there'd be no fixing this.
"Someone fucked us good," he conceded to the sight. "The engine's grenaded."
Ruth crawled forward on bare, scraped knees, the dark circles under her eyes like charcoal smudges. "What? What?"
"Someone drilled holes right through the valve covers into the cams…"
Ruth didn't want to believe it. "Who would do that? Why would someone do that?"
A relevant question, but the answer wouldn't do them any good.
The V -8s valve covers did indeed exhibit several holes, but the closer Slydes looked the more it occurred to him that they weren't drill marks. The tiny holes varied in diameter, their edges… irregular.
Slydes put his face right up to a cover. "Looks more like something burned through the metal…
"Fuck!" Ruth blurted. She began to sob again. "What-what's that down there?" A dirty finger pointed to the bottom of the engine compartment.
Slydes saw it at once.
Curled up in the oily bilge were several dead worms.
(II)
Annabelle threw her snorkeling gear down in the sand. "That was really gross. Did you see that?"
"Sure did," Trent said. He sat down to rest, trying very hard not to overtly stare at Annabelle's almost totally naked body. "Looks like those little pink parasites made mincemeat out of your bristleworm nest. Chalk one up for the good old order of nature."
Wet now, Annabelle's bare skin shone in the high sunlight. "Those little worms looked just like the ones in my lobster, and you know what? I think they're just baby versions of that really big worm I found in the shower. -I think they'rethe same type of worm."
Trent's eyes followed the line of her legs. "Could be, I don't know from worms."
"It's just gross," Annabelle emphasized. "That shower worm was over a foot long. They're probably all over the island but we just don't know it… along with those yellow ticks-or whatever she said they were."
"Nora said they were worm eggs, I think. Ova. I don't know what you're all bent out of shape over. They're just worms, Annabelle. You see a worm, you step on it."
Annabelle made a sour face at the recollection.
Now Trent was staring at her fat-free abdomen as she bent over to get something from her bag. The way her breasts hung down in that pose…
Trent was grinding his teeth. Those things should hang in the National Gallery of Art…
Annabelle pulled out her flask and took a long hit.
Trent swatted at a few mosquitoes, then withdrew some repellent from his own bag. "What are we going to do now?"
Annabelle frowned toward the gulf. "I don't know about you, but I think I'll get drunk."
Now you're talking, Trent thought. She was a prize, all right, and more so when she had a few in her. He rubbed the repellent on his arms and neck. "That sounds like a plan, but I need to do a radio check with my post first. I've been doing it with my cell phone, but there hasn't been any reception all day."
"Mine-crapped- out earlier, too."
"So did Nora's. You can't trust technology these days, but one thing you can trust is an army radio. I've got a portable in my tent."
They meandered back to the campsite, trading hits on the flask. Annabelle's anxiety over seeing all those worms seemed to recede as the rum worked into her. Aw, Christ, Trent thought. I am one lucky son of a bitch… She had her arm around him as they made their way down the trail, her damp body bumping against his. She sure as shit makes it easy getting into her pants, he thought. She never wears any… When they got back to the camp, though, she pulled on a tube top.
Damn.
– – - – - – - – Trent quickly came back from his tent, bearing the weighty handheld radio. He switched on the service frequency.-
Annabelle sat idly on the picnic table, wagging her legs.
"Jay One, this is Area November calling for radio check," he said into the unit. "Do you copy?"
When he released the transmission key, all that came back was throbbing static.
"I'm going to go take a nap," Annabelle decided and got up.
Trent was pissed. "I thought we were going to get drunk."
"I changed my mind." Moments later, she was getting-into her tent.
Moody bitch, Trent thought. Always jerking guys around. Frustrated, he rekeyed the radio. "Jay One, this is Area November. Do you copy?"
Just more throbbing static.
This is really fucked up, he thought. Cell phones were one thing, but this was a secure military radio band.
He frowned, and still couldn't shake the inexplicable notion: I'll be damned if that doesn't sound just like a jammer…
(III)
Loren snorkeled concentric circles around the largest body of coral. Any evidence of bristleworms was just as disconcerting as before. They were all either bloated… or emptied out and dead. His flippers languished, then stopped when he happened upon a thorny starfish. The creature didn't move when he picked it up. Is it dead? he wondered.
When he flipped it around, he saw a stream of tiny pink worms exiting the aperture that was the starfish's mouth. With his finger then, he flipped over a common urchin, and found its underside pocked with tiny yellow ovum.
Jesus! The parasites are all over the place!
He came up for air a few more times, finding more and more evidence of infection. The worms attack any invertebrate in their path…
He floated around more incrustations of coral, and found himself looking straight down the slope of the trench.
In the water, it looked like a long black gouge in the sea floor. Can't hurt to go in just a little, he told himself. He knew his earlier warnings of moray eels and sharks were exaggeration; both creatures rarely attacked humans. Loren wanted to see if their odd pink parasite had ventured into the trench, too.
He entered slowly and turned on his flashlight.
A one-second glance was all it took.
Bubbles erupted from his lips. He shot to the surface and immediately began to swim to shore.
What he'd seen lying in the mouth of the trench was a human corpse with slabs of dough-white flesh hanging off its bones.