Slither (6 page)

Big Jaw Swamp, the Everglades

The woman's name didn't matter. Midfifties but holding up well. Blond hair, great tan, and a fitness club
bod. A nip and tuck here, a little liposuction there, and
a lift or two to buff out some of the wrinkles, she
looked like exactly what she was: a rich, Florida divorcee, who, like so many, refused to let go of the vestiges
of younger, wilder days.

But the liver wasn't what it used to be, and after a
couple of Bloody Marys she was certifiably inebriated.
That's when she stumbled and fell off the footbridge,
into the swamp.

Don't panic! she panicked. She was a decent swimmer. She splashed around, chin-deep, and finally
buoyed herself in a dog paddle. The warm, soupy water
did nothing to brace her against the alcohol; if any thing, it worsened the effect. She foundered in the water, seeking some bearings.

God, how could I have gotten so drunk? She'd been
walking back to the Flamingo Campgrounds when
she'd happened upon the rickety bridge. Drinking all
day and now it was getting dark. It's not that deep, she
assured herself, tasting brackish water. just swim back
to shore .. .

She found quickly that she was too drunk to call
upon her experience as a "decent" swimmer. Dog paddle would have to do. When she looked for the shore,
the sign looked back at her.

POSTED: NO SWIMMING! WATCH FOR GATORS.

Oh, shit! Now the adrenaline fluxed with the alcohol, disorienting her. She'd been here all weekend and
she hadn't seen a single gator. Don't overreact! she
screamed at herself. just GET TO THE SHORE!

A splash!

Her eyes tore to the other side of the swamp, where
in crisp moonlight she knew she saw an alligator tail
disappearing into the water.

Madness now.

Only instinct was left to propel her but, lo, she was
just too drunk. Sheer horror and about a .08 blood alcohol content dragged her down, into sultry wet
blackness.

It was true what they said: Her fife did indeed flash
before her eyes, and she saw now what a shallow life it
had been. Cocktails and yacht clubs and fancy jewelry
and a supersharp divorce lawyer. That was pretty much
it for the woman about to drown in Big Jaw Swamp.

After the life-flash: more blackness. Her brain was
misfiring. Did she hear someone shout? Did she hear a
loud clack? Like her name, none of this mattered. Bub bles exploded from her mouth and then she bucked
like a fish on a pier as her lungs filled with water and
the frenzied thuds of her heart ... stopped.-

Now the blackness-hell, perhaps-was all-pervading.

Impressions, then. A splash in reverse. Something
tugging at her. Hands? Who knew? She was dead.

The-vomited water. Thrashing, and a coughing fit
that threatened to tear her chest out.

"Got her." A voice seemed proud. "Got her back."

"Ya don't say?"

The woman's eyes shot open in the brightest moonlight. She shivered, heaving, on the floor of a flatboat.
A longhaired man with a kind face knelt aside, tending
to her.

"You all right, lady?"

Her brain refit the scattered jigsaw puzzle that was
her consciousness. Drenched, she hacked up more water, and sucked in hard breaths. Eventually, she figured what happened. "My God ... you saved my
life ..."

"Sure enough did, ma'am. Pretty fancy piece of work
if I may say so."

More sentience gathered. Providence had given her a
second chance! She leaned up and looked around. The
longhaired man held her hand. At the other end of the
boat, a stockier, bearded man was hauling a limp alligator aboard with a grappling hook. The moonlight
crisped the image; she saw a hole in the animal's
head-the same animal that would've eaten her. A bullet hole ...

What a stroke of luck. God had thrown down a
lightning bolt to save her. As she was drowning-and
was about to be chopped apart by gator jaws-this pair
of poachers had happened by.

"How can I ever repay you?" she sobbed, hugging
the longhaired man.

"I'd say you're damn lucky."

"Oh yes, I know! And I'll repay you, I promise."

The bearded one had stacked the dead gator atop of
several more. "Lady, you must not know about Big Jaw
Swamp. They call it that for a reason."

She nodded absurdly, still partially disbelieving that
she was still alive. "Thank you, men. Thank you, thank
you..."

"You're a long way off from the campground, a
damn sight. And this swampland, Big Jaw? It's been
closed to campers for years-too dangerous."

The longhaired one: "That's why we're here."

To poach, of course. "Oh, I understand. And I
wouldn't dream of telling anyone what you men were
doing out here."

Silence.

The woman looked at both men, who remained
stone-faced.

"I'd say you're damn lucky," the longhair repeated,
"if it was anyone else that pulled you out, I mean."

"Whuh ... what?" she pleaded.

"Nice jewels." Her diamonds were pulled from her
fingers. A hand rummaged through the big pocket of
her shorts, extracting her soaked cash, ID, and cards.
"Um-hmm. ATM card."

Before she could reckon more, her top was torn open.
She shrieked, spitting water. Rough hands twisted the
six-thousand-dollar pair of implants. "Yeah, she's a
looker, all right, for an old one."

"Old one's more seasoned!"

Aghast, she was flipped over on her belly and her
shorts were hauled off.

"Please, please!" she tried to reason. "It doesn't have
to be like this! I'll do anything you want, and give you

"Um-hmm."

A hand was laid so hard across her buttocks the
sound could've been a bullwhip. She shrieked, then
shrieked again when that same pinkened buttocks was
bitten hard.

"What you gotta understand, lady," the longhaired
one said, "is we ain't got time to fuck around. Just
some quick fun and we're gone."

"That's fine, believe me," she pleaded more as her
spirit turned dark as the water, "that's fine. We canwe can-I'll do anything you want."

The other one sat toward the rear of the boat, near
the hulk of fresh-killed gators. "Ain't no fun to poke
'em cold anyways."

They took turns, chortling as they splayed her
middle-aged body into shapes she'd never imagined.
Gentle lovemaking this was not. The longhair's hand
continued to crack her skin like a whip. She yelped as
soft flesh was bitten for effect: the buttocks, her nipples, her face.

So this was what providence had saved her for, to
bring her back from the dead, for this.

"Yes sir!" the bearded one reveled. "She's a party, all
right!"

"Been out in this hot swamp three days. I'll tell ya,
this is just what the doctor ordered!"

More revel. The woman was raped again, for posterity, perhaps.

Drained by terror and exhausted, she lay pasty,
naked, eyes wide in the next inevitable contemplation.

A Buck knife was put to her throat, her ATM card
flashing before her stare. "PIN, lady."

She told him without hesitation.

The bearded one appeared to be urinating over the
side. Then he dragged up his overalls. "Three more out
there. Guess they smell the old bitch's fear."

"They do that, I heard."

She could hear more gators splashing into the water,
homing in on the commotion.

Of course, they'd let her go! They know I have
friends at the campgrounds! They won't kill me because they know they can't get away with it!

"I'll punch her ticket, and then we can leave," the
longhair said, hoisting a crowbar over her head.

"No," the beard said.

Thank God! she thought. See, they weren't that stupid.

"Throw her in alive. More fun that way."

No! No! No!

Recompense for a life of deceit and shallow sin? Or
just some pretty damn bad luck?

Like the woman's name, it didn't matter.

She didn't even have time to scream when she was
tossed nude and thrashing into the water. The gators
converged.

"We got a full load anyhow," the beard said. "Let's
head back."

"Good idea. After all that, I could use a cold beer ..."

They watched for a few moments as the woman was
hacked apart chunk by suntanned chunk. Then the
boat's motor was started and off they went.

"Good goddamn! Life is sure good to us, ain't it?"

.You got that right ..."

The longhaired's name was Jonas. The bearded one's
was Slydes.

"It just seems kind of bizarre is all I'm saying," Nora
cited, setting out a row of specimen jars along the
makeshift table they'd set up in the head shack. They'd already put up their tents at the campsite, and
Annabelle had decided the light wasn't ideal for much
photography today. Fine with me, Nora thought.

Loren plugged in the small field microscope, clicked
the switch several times to make sure it worked.
"You're not yourself today, you know?"

Nora winced. "Oh, bullshit, yes, I am!"

"All right, all right, forget I said that. So what is it?
What's so bizarre?"

"Well, for one, the army guy. Trent. He's acting
weird, isn't he?"

"No."

"Oh, bullshit!" she snapped.

"Hey, you asked." Loren's facial expression seemed a
meld of amusement and confusion. "How can he be
acting weird, Nora? You don't know him. So how do
you know the difference between him acting weird and
him acting normal?"

Nora slammed down an empty case. "Oh, blow me!
You'd have to be a moron to not see it!"

"Well, I think my 159 IQ might contravene your assessment. What's your IQ, by the way?"

"Oh, blow me!" She huffed over to the next case of
equipment. Nora's was 158, and Loren knew that.
"Don't forget, buddy, I am your boss. You're my T.A.
That stands for teaching assistant. You're still working
on your doctoral degree and--oh, how do you like
that? I already have mine, which is why I'm the professor and you're my assistant."

Loren laughed. "You do realize I was just joking."

"Yes!"

"So tell me, then. Why, exactly, is it your analysis
that Lieutenant Trent is acting weird?"

Nora sighed. He's right. I'm not myself today, and I'm
fully aware of that. "I don't know. The scenario, I guess."

"The scenario isn't exactly atypical, Nora," Loren
pointed out. "We're zoological experts sent by the college to escort a field excursion, in this case a photographic one. National Geographic no less. That's pretty
cool. They didn't ask anybody else in the state to do it.
They asked us to do it. Any other time, you'd be so into
this you'd be spinning like a top. But no. You're pissed
off instead. You claim that Trent's acting weird. Well, I
don't think he's acting weird at all. I don't know where
you're coming from."

Nora paused a moment, rubbing her eyes. Stop going
nuts, she ordered herself. "I think it's weird, Loren. This
place. It's army property that the army has abandoned.
It's a missile base with no missiles anymore, right?"

"Right," Loren agreed, still trying to contain his smile.

"Yet they got this guy 'Dent-some sort of liaison
officer-who comes out here every month to check
the island for damage. What's to damage?" She pointed
to the wall. "These ugly-ass brick buildings that are
empty?"

"All right, I guess that seemed a little strange at
first-"

`There! See? You agree!"

"Not really. Trent's an army gofer, an errand boy.
And it just happens to be part of his job to keep tabs on
army land that's no longer in use. You heard him. He
said they get squatters out here sometimes, and college
kids partying. It doesn't matter that the army's not using the land for anything right now. These empty buildings belong to the friggin' army, and so do the water
purifiers and the generator and whatever else is out
here. Trent spot-checks the place to make sure nobody's screwed with his employer's property. Simple.
It's a busywork job, and the military is full of stuff like
that."

"I think Trent's hiding something," she finally said.

Loren shook his head. "He's not hiding anything,
Nora, and that's not really what's bothering you anyway,
is it? Either somebody pissed in your granola this
morning--and I happen to know you don't eat granolaor you're having some giant PMS, and that can't be the
case either because you had that two weeks ago."

Listen to what he's saying, she told herself. Be honest. "All right. You're right."

"So what is it?" and before she could answer, he raised
a finger. "Ah, but let me guess. The photographer."

Nora's face felt clamped in a cheese press she was
frowning so hard. "Yeah, I guess that's it-that priss
photographer, and, yes, I know it sounds juvenile and
insecure but she really pisses me off."

"That's no secret, the way you were glaring at her for
the entire trip over."

She sat down on a collapsible field stool. "How else
am I supposed to feel? You saw the way the pilots
were gawking at her. And Trent, too. Nobody ever
gawks at me."

"I do." Loren winked, and made a lewd pelvic gesture. "Hubba-hubba. Any time you want to make the
smartest babies on earth, let me know."

Nora sighed. "I'm serious, Loren. It's depressing.
What do I need to get some notice? A boob job? A
platinum-blond wig?"

"I don't know what you're talking about. You're a
good-looking woman. In fact, you're the best-looking
female polychaetologist in Florida."

Nora didn't hesitate to give him the finger. "Loren,
you know damn well I'm the only female polychaetologist in Florida."

"Well ..."

She plopped her chin in her hands. "I'm a nerd,
Loren."

"Don't feel bad. I'm a nerd, too. I can't get laid in a
whorehouse with a fistful of fifties. And you know
what? I don't care. Sure, Nora, we're nerds, we're
geeks, but you know what else we are?"