Mute (42 page)

Aaron hadn’t been swayed on that last part, but
when he spied the fumes wafting from the skiff’s hull and heard that frying
sound, he realized that they would qualify as more insane than the Lagoon
Watcher if they sat there for another second.

He remembered the boats the police had dragged out
of the lagoon. They had been doused with acid and stripped of metal—both under
the hull and topside. Now he understood how that could happen. The colony must
contain enough mutants to capsize a boat, or something much larger. Even if
they could avoid them, the acidic water would eventually drag the boat to the
bottom of the lagoon. Aaron didn’t feel like making a swim for it, especially
with precious little oxygen left in his tank. Swartzman and his shorts wouldn’t
last ten seconds in the toxic water.

“These are astonishing.” The professor gawked over
the photos. “Could you pop back down and get a DNA sample? I bet the genomes in
the colony are even more exotic than the possessed animals we’ve sampled.”

“Back down? Did you see what just happened?” Aaron
felt like a flimsy fishing rod the professor decided he’d try out on a mako
shark. He wouldn’t have asked any self-respecting human being to plunge back
into that death trap. Aaron wondered whether his professor had saved him from
the mutants only because he carried the camera with his precious evidence.

“This is a once in a lifetime opportunity. Heck,
it’s more than that,” Swartzman said. “This is a whole new classification of
life form that survives in a drastically different environment.”

 
“Yeah, and
it wants us the hell out of its environment.”

“I’m sure you’d rather hit the beach with your
surfing buddies than take on a challenge like this, but this isn’t just about
you, Aaron. It’s my career too. It’s about all of the people in this county who
are under attack by that thing down there.”

The last sentence sounded like an afterthought.
Swartzman didn’t concentrate on solving the murders in his lab, probably
because he feared that would lead him to implicate his friend. He worked so
feverishly on this case because he got a rush from making bold discoveries. He
must get a hard-on when he fantasizes about his articles on the cover of
scientific journals, Aaron thought. What did the professor care if a flunky
student got roasted along the way? The professor could thank him posthumously
in his liner notes.

“If I go down there, I’m not coming back up,” Aaron
said. “The Lagoon Watcher told you how smart these things are. They won’t let
me approach them a second time. You know how they feel about eliminating
witnesses.”

The professor nodded in reluctant acceptance of the
student’s conclusion. “Or possessing them, apparently,” Swartzman said.

Aaron couldn’t argue. After seeing this bio machine
and how it conquered the human mind, he couldn’t imagine how Mariella could
have avoided it during a night along the water. The moment he got ashore, he’d
call Moni and warn her. The girl hadn’t harmed her as far as he knew, but if
her microscopic buddies tell her about Aaron’s little escapade, Mariella might
show a darker side of herself, Aaron thought.

Swartzman fired up the motor and steered the skiff
south toward their home base in Fort Pierce. A few seconds later, his cell
phone rang to the tune of “Sgt. Pepper’s Lonely Heart Club Band.”

“The detective is responding to your e-mail pretty
quick,” Aaron said. “Good. Maybe he can send a chopper and get us out of here.”

“That’s not Sneed.” Swartzman checked his phone
with one hand as he steered with the other. “It’s my tracking alert for the sea
turtle we tagged. You know; the one with the purple tumor. It’s come within a
thousand feet of us.”

“The infected sea turtle? Dude, that’s not good.”

“I wouldn’t worry. It’s coming down from the north
at 30 miles per hour. That’s blazing fast for a turtle, but it doesn’t have a
propeller like we do.”

As Swartzman revved the skiff up to 55 miles per
hour, Aaron wondered how long their propeller would last in the increasingly
acidic water. He heard the acid chewing away all around the boat, especially on
its metal.

“Maybe we should just find a dock somewhere around
here,” Aaron said from his seat in the rear, just in front of the engine. He
clung to the railings so the choppy water didn’t toss him. “How about someone’s
backyard?”

“The acid releases have been confined to small
areas,” Swartzman said from behind the console. “I doubt this one goes past the
causeway up ahead.”

“But they’re stronger this…”

Aaron forgot his point when the professor’s phone
sang that Beatles tune again. Swartzman checked it. His jaw dropped.

“What?”

“That’s a healthy sea turtle all right,” Swartzman
said. “Too damn healthy if you ask me.”

He swerved the boat to the right so hard that Aaron
nearly catapulted over the rail. Glancing behind them, he saw a dark green
shell cross their wake. It headed off their turn. The professor pulled the
skiff the other way, but the sea turtle didn’t react like a lumbering armored
car like it should have. It burst from the water as if it were a missile with
its flippers extended in flight. The purple tumors formed a grisly mask over
its face and neck. They smothered its eyes, but no physical vision guided this
creature. It honed in on Swartzman. Screaming, he turned and hunched over. The
reptile smashed his hip with its infected snout. Aaron reached across the
skiff. By the time his hand made it far enough, Swartzman had careened into the
acidic water under the weight of a near 400-pound sea turtle that carried a
thirst for the iron in his blood and the brain in his skull.

“Hold on!” Aaron screamed as he scrambled to the
console and steered the boat around. They had landed 40 feet from the point of
impact. He spotted it by the fumes rising from the lagoon as if a fresh batch
of frozen fries had been dropped into a fryer.

Professor Swartzman had been the only teacher who
showed any faith in Aaron. Sure, he had his selfish reasons, but he had
recognized his talent and given him a shot. Aaron realized that most of his
scientific knowledge, and the most fun he’s had on missions, came from the man
with the infectious enthusiasm for marine biology. His father didn’t care how
he did in his life’s passion, but Swartzman did. Aaron thought he could please
his professor. He thought he’d be grateful that they reached the spotlight
together by cracking this case. Instead, it’s come to this…

Aaron slowed the skiff so it came to a drift along
the site where Swartzman had landed. He didn’t see the turtle. He didn’t see
the professor either. He spotted one of his shoes bobbing in the water. It
looked like it had been taken for a stroll over burning coals.

He should have looked away then. He should have
given up. Soon, he would wish that he had.

Aaron peered into the depths of the lagoon as it
grew clearer from the acidic concentration. He recognized his professor’s brown
eyes gazing back at him through the blurry water. They weren’t surrounded by
eyelids. Swartzman’s face had been stripped to its bare muscle and bone. Aaron
saw the muscles and tendons of his jaw framing his teeth and gums. When he
opened his mouth to scream, his tongue melted. His hair had whittled away,
along with the skin on his scalp. Aaron saw his professor’s breastbone and the
cartilage between his ribs. His intestines fanned out like tentacles and then
burst open, splattering their gooey contents into the lagoon. Swartzman’s arms
dangled through the water as the acid boiled their lean meat alive. Finally,
his microscopic tormentors decided that he had suffered enough. Swartzman’s
head tumbled off his shoulders and plunged to the bottom of the lagoon. His
blood was consumed before a drop could reach the surface.

Chapter 41

Aaron heaved everything in his stomach over the
side of the boat. The stench of his own vomit bounced back in his face as the
acidic water feasted on it and spewed out the revolting fumes. He crumbled onto
the floor of the skiff and buried his head in his gloved hands. Feeling the
slight sting from the acid residue, Aaron recoiled and wiped himself off with
the towel, which had also been burned.

He couldn’t escape it. It surrounded him. They
surrounded him. Just when Swartzman started believing in Aaron, he found out
that he should have never relied on him. He had failed the man who trusted him
with his life. No. Failed wasn’t a strong enough word. He had ruined him. He
had obliterated him. The brilliant mind that had sparked so many amazing
discoveries had been delivered into the hands of the monsters he had fought
against. Swartzman’s head would become the mantelpiece of their colony. The
mini cyborgs he had studied would rule his brain.

 
“I screwed
up.” His voice choked with tears. “Oh, I screwed up big time.”

As he sat on his ass and listened to the acid
munching on his boat, Aaron chided himself for not reacting faster. If he had
shot the turtle with the rifle instead of cowering in the back of the boat,
Swartzman would still be with him.

Aaron could hardly move. He knew sitting in the
decaying boat would land him besides Swartzman as part of the colony. Moni
would be left with Mariella, while not knowing how dangerous she is. He’s the
only one Moni trusts. And with Swartzman gone, no one else with a shred of
credibility can reveal the truth about the lagoon.

Aaron got behind the steering console. He cast one
more glance into the water.

“Moni, I won’t let this happen to you.” The words
made his heart tremble.

He pulled his hood down over his head, and strapped
on his scuba mask in case the deadly water splashed him as he raced toward the
shore. He had more business on the mainland, but he was closer to Merritt
Island so he turned the skiff east and headed for the slim southern portion of
the island and its numerous docks. He wouldn’t spend one more second on that
horrid water than he had to.

Aaron aimed for a dock at the end of a pier that
led right onto the street fronting the single row of homes. They had paid a
pretty penny to enjoy water views on both sides, but he doubted that many
members of the Lexus crowd had stayed behind when both bodies of water started
stinking and defacing their yachts. He hoped at least one of them stuck it out
at home. After what he had just witness, he needed a bathroom so bad.

He nearly dumped one in his wetsuit when he saw
what emerged from the lagoon and blocked his path ashore. Its horse legs lifted
its grotesque body out of the shallow water fifteen yards from the end of the
dock. It had the muscular thighs of a stallion, but the scaly snout and toothy
jaws of a gator at the end of its long horse neck. As if the legs weren’t
enough, it had a pair of pale human arms awkwardly jutting from the base of its
neck like parts on a Mr. Potato Head toy that didn’t belong. The black,
rodent-like nails on its fingers didn’t fit either but they gave Aaron the
impression that the cyborgs didn’t give this mutant arms so it could shake
hands. It didn’t have a tail for swatting flies either. Instead, its creators
had played pin the venomous snake on the horsy’s ass.

Now, Aaron regretted taking Mariella horseback
riding. At least he hadn’t brought her to the zoo with the lions and elephants.
This horse-gator-man-snake looked nasty enough with less than fifteen seconds
to think about it. Even with his skiff charging at 30 miles per hour, the beast
stood there like, “Bring it on, punk.”

He popped his mouthpiece in and turned on his
oxygen. Then he realized that diving into the water moments before impact
wouldn’t work out too well. The mutants usually came in teams and the cyborgs
had no shortage of backup. They would have another genetically altered baddie
waiting for him underwater. If he bailed this far from the dock, he wouldn’t
make it.

Aaron eyed the rifle. He doubted it would slow a
creature boasting the size of horse and the constitution of a gator for long.

He could try steering around it. That hadn’t worked
with the possessed sea turtle. Those juiced-up horse legs could probably run
down a Ferrari. If he felt like seeing Moni again—not to mention catching a
wave on the bonsai pipeline one day—it would take a circus trick better than
anything he had landed on his board. The half-baked plan sprouted from his
brain in a flash. Aaron knew that if he wiped out, he wouldn’t paddle back
ashore from this one.

Accelerating to 40 miles per hour, he closed the
distance on the mutant. The creature cracked its massive jaws open and wiggled
a purple tongue that clamored for a taste of his innards. Aaron steered the
ship to the right so hard that it felt like someone had slammed on the brakes.
Except watercrafts weren’t built like cars. The skiff tipped over on its way to
capsizing. Aaron leapt off the tail end of the boat. As he flew through the air
in his scuba gear, the momentum carried him roughly in the direction of the
dock. With a quick glance back, he saw the horse legs flatten the steering
console that he had stood behind a second ago. The mutant tore through his
boat, but the craft carried out a crucial final mission by knocking the hunter
away from its real target.

Aaron splashed chest down in the acidic water. So
much for being like007 and landing on the dock with a martini in hand, he
thought. His head bounced off the strange glassy surface on the bottom of the
lagoon so hard that it cracked his face shield. Aaron stood up in the
waist-high water before anything nasty penetrated his mask. He had overshot the
dock, but he stood as close to the wall of stones lining the shore as he did to
the pier. Seeing that the wood pillars were going crooked as the acid ate away
at their bases, he chose the shore. Aaron prayed that the acid wouldn’t devour
all of Merritt Island too.