Slither (7 page)

"What's that?" she droned.

"We're smarter than everyone else, which makes
us-" He cut a toothy grin and pointed at her like a
gun. "Superior."

Superior, Nora thought. That was the last thing she
felt. I'm thirty years old now and my nickname is still
Pipe Cleaner. I'm still a virgin, and in Florida? That
makes me more rare than afucking Gutenberg-Bible.-

"Another thing to consider," Loren rambled. He
rambled a lot. "Of course, we're smart. Our IQs, in addition to the fund of our general knowledge, probably
puts us in the top two percentile of the population, and
I mean the advanced-educated population."

Nora winced. "Loren! We're a couple of egghead
misfits! We're the sore thumbs of the modern American societal mainstream! We're dorks! If we walk into
a singles bar, we don't even know how to pull up a
stool and order a drink!"

Loren ignored the judgment, continuing, "Aaaaa-
aaand, I might add, with specificity, you and I in all
likelihood probably know more about polychaetes than
anyone else in North America."

Nora felt like slapping him. "That and six bucks will
get you a cup of coffee at Starbucks ... maybe."

.You are the queen and I am the king of our field.
We're marine zoologists of the first water. It may even
be-and I mean no arrogance when I say this-that we
may be the best polychaetologists in the world. So.
That's something to be happy about, isn't it?"

Now Nora had to laugh. "I appreciate your positivity,
Loren."

"Good. Revel in your life! Celebrate your essence of superiority in the void of the soul-dead hoi polloi."

"Whatever," she muttered, and forced herself to her
feet. "Let's go find G.I. Joe and the Barbie doll, try to
keep this day from turning to total shit."

"Well said!"

They left their cinder block lab, headed back toward
the campsite. Nora knew she had to snap out of this
mood. There was no reason for it. Midlife crisis and
I'm not even middle-aged, she thought. What a ripoff.
But was that it, or something else?

The woods pressed in on them as the trail narrowed.
"And another thing," she remembered. "That big pot
plant."

"What about it?" Loren said, following her up.

"That's pretty weird, isn't it? Something like that,
growing here?"

.You heard Trent. He told us right off the bat, sometimes kids sneak on the island to make whoopie. Some
kid dropped a seed and-presto-it grew."

"Um-hmm, and how convenient an explanation."
She glanced over her shoulder at him. "Or maybe I'm
right. Maybe Trent really is hiding something."

Loren's chuckling floated forward. "You really have
a problem with Trent."

"Think about it." Subconsciously, her eyes roved
through the forest's plush vegetation. Searching for
spiky plants? "Secluded location, abandoned government land. And the only authority is our buddy Lieutenant Trent. He could have a veritable farm of pot
growing out here, and who would know?"

"And it must be pretty good weed, too, because
you've obviously had a few bowls already today."

"Oh, kiss my ass, Loren!" she snapped back.

"Drop 'em and I will."

"You wish."

"No, you wish."

"No! You-" But then Nora dropped it. Listen to us!

"I know," Loren said after the contemplative pause.
"We sound like a couple of kids in junior high."

"Yep. And you know why, don't you? Because that's
about as far as we've evolved socially."

"How wonderfully pathetic!" Loren cheered. "But
you're not really serious about Trent, are you? Please.
Tell me you're not."

Nora didn't say anything, trudging on down the trail.

They stopped at a marshy pond that stretched off to
their right. A reddish brown bird with a white head
pecked at the water.

"Fresh, not brackish," Nora noted.

"Looks like a brown noddy, too. Haven't seen one of
those for a while."

Their presence seemed to agitate the bird, which
then flew off, yacking. Nora pointed to a scurry of tadpoles in the water. "Southern cricket tadpoles?" Nora
questioned. "What's that? Gryllus dorsalis?"

Loren stooped to one knee. "Maybe, but look at the
flake of the eyes. Probably a Hyla cinera."

Nora squinted. "Yeah, you're right. The Gryllus
doesn't get the gold till the tail falls."

Loren stood back up. The oddest stasis seemed to
take hold of them.

Finally Nora said, "This is depressing, Loren. We're
looking at a pond and identifying the tadpoles by the
Latin classification. That's pretty fucked up, isn't it? I
mean, really, that's not normal."

Loren scratched his head, cruxed. "Are we really
that nerdy?"

Simultaneously, they looked back down, eyed their
reflections in the water. Like a carnival mirror, the water made Loren's buckteeth look like horse teeth, and
his Adam's apple as big as a popover. Nora stood five
four, but in this mirror of water she looked seven feet tall and bent, a big frizz-mopped ball for a head jutting
from a stick: a geek scarecrow. The knees on her
broomstick legs looked grotesque: Elephant Woman,
she thought.

Are we really that nerdy? Nora repeated the grim
question in her mind. "Let's get out of here before I
friggin' throw up," she said. They crunched away down
the trail, silent.

Neither of them noticed the bloated corpse just a few
yards past the edge of the pond. Its mouth squirmed
vigorously with shining pink worms.

"God, it's hot!" Annabelle remarked, stepping into the
campsite. She unslung the expensive Nikon from
around her neck, set it down on a rickety picnic table.
Humidity had dampened her blond hair, showing
roots. She stretched and took a deep breath, flexing her
arms over her head. The pose maximized her toned
physique, breasts thrusting outward in the blue bikini
top. Her flat stomach stretched, rivulets of sweat trickling down. Her coltish legs shone.

Nora frowned. That prissy New York phony is doing
that on purpose. Loren's eyes were hijacked.

"I thought you weren't going to take pictures today,"
Nora recalled.

"Nothing underwater." At the height of her stretch,
the edge of one nipple showed. Nora was certain she
pretended not to notice, for Loren's benefit. An absolutely unmitigated TEASE!

"The best light would be gone by the time I got set
up," Annabelle went on. Eventually she fixed her top.
"But I did want to get some front shots of the island interior and the shoreline. Tomorrow morning we'll start
the water excursions. You and Loren can make some
test dives, scout some areas first."

It sounded like an order to Nora. I'd like to kick her
real-hard,- right in the ass .. .

"And the hunt for the scarlet bristleworm will begin," Loren said. "We probably won't even need our
tanks. Snorkeling will do the job."

That sounds great, Loren," Annabelle beamed.
Then she started stretching side to side, hands on hips.

Yeah, Nora thought. Real hard ...

"Looks like the army's new drug czar," Loren said
next. Trent came out of the trail, sweating mightily in
his fatigues. He was dragging the marijuana plant,
which he'd obviously cut down. "Didn't see anymore,
but tomorrow I'll have to check more of the island. I already called this one in."

"Bullshit," Nora said under her breath.

"What are you going to do with it, Lieutenant?"
Loren asked.

"Burn it, of course." Then Trent dragged the plant to
the other end of the site, began to hack it apart with his
knife. It was a substantial plant; once cut up, its pieces
formed a pile. Trent began to douse it with lighter fluid.

Loren smiled to Nora. "There goes your theory."

"Don't be an idiot."

"Nora, he's burning the plant with us watching him.
What more proof do you need? If he was secretly
growing the stuff out here, would he be burning it
right in front of us?"

Nora couldn't believe his naivete. "He's doing it for
our benefit-like we're stupid enough to fall for that."

"You're a laugh a minute, Nora. You really believe
he's growing pot out here in secret?"

"Could be." But Nora felt certain. This little burning
session's just for show. "He's probably got hundreds of
plants out here, on the most secluded parts of the island. Who would ever find out?"

Loren just shook his head, chuckling.

Flame leaped from the pile, crackling. "Don't stand
too close, Lieutenant," Loren called out. "You don't
want to get high in the line of duty."

What they smelled more than anything were fumes
from the lighter fluid. Trent backed up, watched it
burn down.

Nora felt bored silly already. She looked to Loren
but caught him staring more at Annabelle as she continued her "twisting" exercises. Trent, too, stole some
glances back at her. Queen of the May ... in a Calvin
Klein bikini. Nora smirked through the thought. I
think I know how she got that fancy job at National
Geographic.

The plant burned up in minutes; Trent upended a
pail of water on the cinders, then sat down at the table,
wiping off his hands.

"I've done a lot of strange things in the army, but
that's the first time I've ever burned up a pot plant,"
'he said.

"I'm sure you were right," Loren added. "Some kid
dropped a seed a long time ago and it sprouted. It's
been growing there for years, and it's probably the only
one out here." Then he elbowed Nora.

"Yeah," Trent said. "Never knew what the big deal
was with pot anyway. I tried it a couple times when I
was a teenager. All it did was make me hungry and
stupid."

When Trent turned around toward Annabelle, Nora
elbowed Loren back, and silently mouthed the word
Bullshit.

"Isn't it legal for cancer patients, though?" Annabelle said.

Loren replied, citing the latest from the New England
Journal of Medicine. "It has been proven to drastically reduce intralobular pressure in the eye as well as negate
nausea symptoms in various antitumor therapies ..."

Nora let the rest of the conversation drown out.

What is wrong with me? she asked herself. She knew
she was a smart, perceptive person-an academician
and a credible scientist. Here, though, all of a sudden,
she felt as though she didn't fit in. Doesn't matter how
smart I am. That's not what the big picture's all about.
She bit a nail. I'm not PART of the big picture .. .

The environment enthralled her: This was her element, a tropical island rung with marine life. It's the
blonde, she knew.

Annabelle was just as professional as she, but also
vivacious, beautiful, socially magnetizing ...

Nora simmered in more envy, eyeing the photographer's pose near the table. Showing off her body, sure,
but also part of the crowd, engaging ...

Fitting in.

The curvy, limber body radiated vitality, not just sexual, but something deeper. She was a picture of health,
charisma, and moreover, acceptance.

And I'm not, Nora realized. I can spout my sour
grapes at her all I want but it doesn't change the truth.
I'm a virgin curmudgeon, a gawky nerd who's so socially disconnected it's a wonder anyone wants to be
around me at all, even Loren. She felt frumpish in the
baggy khaki shorts over the drab black one-piece swim
suit. I'll probably make a terrific old maid. Now all I
have to do is wait about thirty fucking more years-

"-not that I'm in favor of legalization, mind you,"
Loren was saying, still plugged in and animated in the
discussion, "but from the cold scientific standpoint, it's
hard to argue with a clinical physical addiction rate of
zero, even as opposed to the roughly fifteen percent for
alcohol."

"Yeah, but every long-term pot smoker I know,"
Annabelle offered, "is kind of . . . a moron."

"Plenty of statistics on that side of the fence too,"
Loren stated. "Pot smoking goes hand in hand with an
incontrovertible reduction in longand short-term
memory, thematic apperception. Plus, it remains the
leading cause of amotivational syndrome."

"What's that mean?" Trent said.

Nora finally snapped out of it and offered, "It makes
you a moron."

"See?" Loren laughed. "The professor speaks! I told
you she didn't slip into a coma when we weren't looking."

/eez, Nora thought. I really am the life of the party,
huh?

"What about you, Professor? Have you ever smoked
it?"

Nora blinked. The question had come from
Annabelle. "I ... uh . . ." Then she smirked. "No."

"I think it's a bunch of silly crap," Trent said. "Call
me a redneck, but I'll take a can of Bud any day."

"Still big money in it, though," Loren posed. "I'll bet
that plant you burned was worth hundreds of dollars
on the street."

Nora couldn't resist. She wanted to watch Trent's reaction. "Secluded island like this? Inaccessible?" She
feigned a laugh. "Shit, Lieutenant. You could start your
own little enterprise out here, and make ten times
more than Uncle Sam pays you."

"No, with my luck, it'd be ten times less," Trent
replied, "spending the next ten years in an army
prison," and then he laughed himself.
- - - - - - - -- - -

Nora had to admit, her comment didn't seem to jilt
him one bit. I guess I'm wrong about everything, she
thought.

Then
Annabelle
shrieked.

Every face jerked toward her. Annabelle shuddered,
tensed up, her fists at her bosom.

"What's wrong!" Loren exclaimed.

Annabelle pointed to Trent. "There's-there's-"

"What is that?" Loren said.

Trent snapped, "What the hell's wrong?"

"There's-there's-there's-" Annabelle stammered
some more-

'Something on your back," Nora said.

Trent's eyes bugged. "What? A fuckin' tarantula?
What?"

Nora saw it easily. Hmm, she wondered, but she
didn't want to take any chances. She grabbed one of
her scuba flippers, and-

Splap!