Slither

CHAPTER ONE

"Would somebody explain to me just exactly why this Pritchard's Key place is so special as far as scarlet bristleworms go?" the bikini'd blonde at the end asked. Her name was Annabelle Omart-noon-blue eyes, and a body like a game show hostess's. She hailed from New York, the National Geographic editorial offices. Her body suggested a dedicated regimen of exercisemost likely in upscale fitness salons. The only thing missing was a preeminent suntan. The woman sat demurely, seat-belted in to the helicopter's muster bench.

"It's because of something called a counterstropic rivulet," Nora answered with absolutely no interest. When she didn't elaborate further, Loren Fredrick, her associate, continued, "Which is actually just an uncharacteristic surge of runoff water from the mainland. Gravity and the terrain siphons this water to a single point and a gradient underwater current in the gulf pushes it outward. Pritchard's Key just happens to exist at the same point where the surge begins to disperse."

The army guide wasn't listening, and neither was the cabin master, a gruff warrant officer. They were both looking at the blonde. Every so often, even the pilots glanced back from the cockpit to ogle her.

Professor Nora Craig simply sat there and frowned.

She lapsed back against the cabin wall as Loren attempted to dazzle the others with information about the remarkable scarlet bristleworm. Nora herself let the helicopter's rotor noise lull her away from the creeping trickle of low self-esteem. Why am I letting that blond calendar girl posing as a photographer make me feel insecure? Perhaps it was just a case of raging hormones.

She let her eyes move across the cabin, trying to consider everyone in objective terms. Lieutenant Trent looked more like one of those guys who work in a department store appliance section. Pushing forty, smirking, not much going on behind the eyes except a lack of enthusiasm. Evidently he was assigned to the army's public relations unit, the "PR mouthpiece between the military and the civilian contingent," he'd explained. "Whenever civvies need to be shown around army property, I'm the guy they send." Trent's fatigues were crumpled, which might indicate how often this desk driver wore them. If it weren't for the distraction of the blond photographer's cleavage, he would probably be asleep.

Loren Fredrick was Nora's teaching assistant at the university. Totally unsocialized like many professional academics, he sat as gawkily as a textbook nerd. Tall beanpole physique, knobby knees, and a long neck that showcased what had to be one of the biggest Adam's apples in human evidence. Buckteeth, too, and a mop of wiry dark hair. He sat at the edge of his cabin seat, animatedly explaining the evolution of bristleworms in general and their unique "parapodic" means of loco motion more specifically. He's boring them silly, Nora thought, and he doesn't even realize it.

The army warrant officer was a typical Neanderthal with his green helmet and ham-hock-sized jaw, and the two pilots up front were little different. Somebody peed in the pool, Nora mused over their brute, caveman features. The gene pool, that is. They clearly bore no interest in this excursion, and if they were even listening to Loren's grueling dissertation, it was to look at the blonde sitting next to him. They're just here for the ride and the eye candy, Nora realized.

"Right, Nora?" Loren asked.

Nora blinked, reined her attention back in. "Oh… what?"

"I was telling Annabelle about the reproductive habits of some bristleworms, such as the Eunice didacta."

Annabelle, Nora thought through the bored daze. Oh, right. The blonde. He's calling her by her first name, like they're best buds. "The female didacta will actually ingest the entire posterium of the male."

'Posterium?" Annabelle pronounced.

"'The rearmost tip of the worm's body," Nora defined.

"Which, in the case of this species, also contains the spermatic reservoir-its penis, if you will," Loren finished, grinning. "That's how the Eunice didacta has sex."

Annabelle's eyes grew wide. "How fascinating!"

The huge-jawed warrant officer elbowed Trent. "Ain't that somethin', Luey? The chick worm eats the dude worm's works. That's how it gets knocked up!"

"Charming."

The warrant laughed along with the two pilots, while Trent simply frowned at the image.

"It sounds like such a specialized subject," Annabelle said. She perkily pointed to Loren's T-shirt, which read POLYCHAETOLOGISTS DO IT BETIER! "That word you keep using. Polych-"

"Polychaetes," Loren was happy to reply. "That's the class of worm that your employers have sent you all this way to photograph."

Nora felt negligent by not contributing to the conversation. "The scarlet bristleworm, for example. Scarlata is the genus, or type, Polychaete is the class, and it comes from the phylum known as annelida-which covers all segmented worms." -- – - – - – - – -

"Oh," the blonde said, then returned her attention to Loren. "So that word on your shirt-"

"Polychaetologist," Loren explained, "is a scientist, such as myself and Professor Craig, who- specifically studies this type of worm. That's our job."

"Great job," Trent said, dimly astonished.

The WO called to the pilot, chuckling, "Hey, Flappy, you hear that? These two here are worm scientists!"

"And the overall study of worms," Loren continued, "is called helminthology."

"Wow," Annabelle said.

Nora couldn't believe it. He just told her that he's a worm specialist… and she's impressed.

"I'm just a photographer," Annabelle chatted on. "But listening to a -real scientist-it makes me feel so dumb!"

You are, Nora agreed. She's got the high-paying job, and she's got the looks, but… at least I've got a better tan.

"What I'm looking forward to most of all," Annabelle prattled on, thrusting her bosom forward against the straps, "is getting a tan. I work out so hard in the gym to keep my body fit… I guess while I'm in Florida, I should take advantage of the sun, too. Look my absolute best."

Unbelievable ego, Nora thought. She winced out the window. Even if I DID look like her, I KNOW I wouldn't be an asshole about it.

As for the trip itself, the university had sent Nora and Loren on the excursion, since they were local and their credentials were unmatched. The whole affair had been chartered by National Geographic, no less. It sounded exotic.

It's a shitty little island with no beach and it's uninhabited, Nora's cynicism kicked in. And we might have to stay there for a week or more. I'll miss Desperate Housewives just so this bimbo can snap some pix of a Polychaete scarlata. Annabelle was one of the lauded magazine's professional underwater photographers. NG needed a new picture of the scarlata, one of the world's rarest marine worms. And it's a hell of a lot cheaper to go to Pritchard's Key than a threethousand-foot-deep trench in the Mediterranean. It was Nora's and Loren's job to locate the exceptional worm for Annabelle, for a pictorial on segmented marine bottom dwellers, and since Pritchard's Key technically remained a military reservation, however nonoperational, Trent was sent as the team's official escort.

Hence, the circumstances that had planted Nora's derriere on the hard troop bench of an old helicopter.

What a festival of joy my life has become…

"Crabs, fish, sharks, even killer whales," Annabelle distinguished. "I've photographed them all, at some pretty deep depths." She hitched in her seat, to shed an imaginary discomfort, but Nora knew it was a pose. She's sticking her tits out so the grunts will get all riled up. Nora felt certain of it. She's the tribal queen and she's marking her turf, showing the skinny girl that she's got no chance.

"But I've never shot marine worms," the blonde went on. "What's so special about this one?"

It infuriated Nora the way Annabelle focused her questions toward Loren and not Nora herself, who was the more qualified expert.

"It's the rarest Polychaete," Loren answered. "And it's probably also the most stunning to look at. Brilliant red stripes run between its parapodia-the rings around its body."

Now a hint of concern came into Annabelle's tone. "How big is it? The idea of, like, really big worms? Yuck. That would gross me out. Spiders, roaches, and big worms. That's it for me."

"Then have no fear, because the Polychaete scarlata never grows more than a couple of inches long."

"That we know of," Nora pointed out.

Did Annabelle actually glare at the comment?

Loren laughed it off. "Oh, Professor Craig is only kidding, Annabelle. It's impossible for a warm water worm such as this to get any longer than an inch or two."

"Oh, thank God!" the blonde laughed, but when she brushed a tress of hair off her brow, she did it with her middle finger.

A display for Nora's benefit?

Nora put her cheek in her hand. This is going to be a peachy trip.

The aircraft noisily touched down on a long-since overgrown helipad carved into one edge of the island. "Oh no! The little lizards!" Annabelle fretted at the window. Nora smiled when she peeked out, saw the helicopter's air-blast blowing countless dozens of little anole lizards out of the palm trees.

"They're so cute!" Annabelle continued to object. "We're killing them!"

Shut up, you airhead, Nora thought. If those things were bigger, they'd eat you alive.

"Debark! Heads down, single file!" barked the warrant officer.

Nora was first off, and so slight in frame that the rotor wind almost knocked her down. They all jogged away from the riotous noise.

"So this is Pritchard's Key," Annabelle remarked.

"It's a lot bigger than it looks," Trent added. "Ten square miles, and dense. I'll bet there are parts of it that no one's ever set foot on."

"But I still don't understand what the island has to do with the military."

"Some kind of radar station, I think," Nora said. She had to shield her eyes from the bar of sunlight flashing like a guillotine blade. Palm trees clotted with the greenest underbrush seemed to explode everywhere she looked.

"No, a missile station," Loren corrected. "The locals over in Clearwater used to call it Nike Island."

Annabelle's brow creased. "What do sneakers have to do with missiles?"

Nora laughed out loud.

"The Nike Missile Program wrapped up in the mideighties," Trent explained. "It was an army tactical airdefense missile that was first deployed in NATO countries in the late fifties, designed to shoot down enemy aircraft. As the missile became obsolete we started pulling them out of Europe and planting them in the continental United States. Our biggest fear back then was Leonid Brezhnev and his new Backfire Bomber. The Nike was no longer the fastest antifighter missile, but it still had great range against potential bomber threats. The army put fifteen Nikes right here on this island, to protect MacDill Air Force Base and the army's munition depot in Jacksonville. Fortunately, the dreaded Backfire turned out to be the biggest claptrap hunk of junk the Soviet Union ever put in the air, and now there's not even a Soviet Union anymore so we don't need them anyway."

Annabelle seemed alarmed. "You mean there are nuclear missiles on this island?"

"No, no, the Nikes here were never armed with nuclear payloads. The army took them all out of here by 'eighty-five."

The blonde sighed in relief. "Oh, wow, for a minute I thought you were going to tell us that there were radioactive things on the island."

Nora couldn't have been less interested, but by accident she noticed a strange pause in Trent's monologue, as if he were taken aback. "Nope. The Nike was strictly defensive, and we don't need them now. Now we've got the Patriots that take care of the whole ball of wax."

"Not much of a beach," Loren commented of the island's shoreline. Black boulders the size of compact cars seemed to ring the key. "Just a bunch of rocks."

"Yeah, big rocks," Annabelle said.

Almost as big as the ones in your head, Nora thought.

Annabelle hitched at her aqua-blue bikini top. "I was hoping to get a tan in between shoots, but how can I? There's no beach!"

Nora shook her head. Oh no! Dollface can't get a tan! Poor, poor struggling Dollface!

"There's a strip of beach on the other side," Trent told them. "It's blocked up by more rocks but there's enough room to lie out. But before we do that-a word to the wise." He passed everyone an OD-green aerosol can as well as a neon-green rubberized repellent bracelet. "This island is Bug City. Let's spray ourselves with repellent every chance we get. And put on your bracelet. They don't smell that great but they work."

"Oh, great. Mosquitoes, you mean?" Annabelle looked like she had a mouthful of lemon juice as she sprayed her arms and legs and put the bracelet on her wrist.

"The mosquitoes aren't that bad," Trent went on, "but there are ticks and chiggers."

"Even worse. I want to get a tan, not Lyme disease."

You're so pompous and annoying, Nora thought, the ticks won't come near you. When she was done spraying herself off and donning her own bracelet, she asked, "We're only a couple of miles off the coast. Why go to the expense of the helicopter trip when we could've taken a quick boat ride?"

Trent pointed to the boulders. "Those rocks encircle the island, it's very hard to get a boat ashore, and the current's so quick if you anchor out there and swim in, you might lose your boat. Sure, every now and then some kids get on, use the place to camp out and party. The only reason I know anything about Pritchard's Key at all is 'cause I have to fly out here and check it once a month. Make sure no one's gotten on and done damage."

Nora and Loren traded a glance. What the hell does the army care about a missile site that doesn't have missiles anymore? Nora had to wonder. The only authority interested in vandalism would be Florida Natural Resources.

The WO and pilots frowned as they carried boxes of supplies off the helicopter.

"Where will we be sleeping, Lieutenant?" Loren inquired.

"Bivouac tents, of course," Trent told them. "And we'll be eating C rats."

"Rats!" Annabelle almost shrieked. "What are you talking about!"

"Rats as in rations. You'll be surprised how good they are. And we do have a field shower, so no one will be getting too stinky."

"There's a domestic water line running out to the island?" Nora questioned.

"No, no, the old missile station has a good old army water purifier and desalinator," Trent explained. "And a generator too, so we'll have some lights."

So we won't be living out here like total aborigines, Nora realized. "Loren and I would like to set up a field lab somewhere so we can catalogue worm samples for the college. We have to use a tent for that?"

"There are fifteen empty head shacks," Trent said. "You can use one of those. It's got lights, electricity for your laptops, whatever you need."

Loren inquired, "Head shacks?"

"That's army lingo for the old launchpads. A head shack is a missile bunker. The missile on its launch rail is called the missile `head,' so that's where head shack comes from. You'll see them in a few minutes. You might have to sweep one out, though. All I do is stick my head in them once a month to make sure there's no squatters."

And ten to one this head shack is chock-full of spiders and God knows what else, Nora considered.

"Could you show us around the island now?" Annabelle asked Trent, a camera slung around her neck. "I'm dying to see it. It looks so exotic."

Trent led them toward. a trail. "If you're a tropical nature buff, you'll find this place pretty interesting."

Nora frowned, lugging two suitcase-sized field kits, while Loren carried the laptop and a bigger bag of collection and indexing gear. Annabelle bopped along with her big Nikon bouncing off her bosom. "It's so beautiful," she said wistfully.

You think it might be nice of you to carry one of these for me? came Nora's sarcasm again. She sputtered. Fat chance.

Various types of palm trees formed a maze before them. Nora didn't walk ten feet before she noticed three different kinds of geckos, two kinds of parrots, and a squawking gull-billed tern. Just as they entered the trail, a sedate marsh extended, mangrove roots jutting upward like weird plumbing. Clumps of water locus seemed to shiver as they passed; owls looked down at them from high nests in cabbage palms. A minute ago they'd been baking in the sun, but now the woods seemed to draw them into a labyrinthine coolness. Nora oddly felt as though she were traversing worlds.

KEEP our! a red-lettered sign warned. THIS IS A U.S. ARMY RESERVATION AND IS UNDER SURVEILLANCETRESPASSERS WILL BE PROSECUTED ACCORDING TO THE CIVILIAN STATUES OF THE UNIFORMED CODE OF MILITARY JUSTICE AND ALSO FLORIDA STATE LAW.

"That's what I call a welcome," Loren joked.

"You've got surveillance cameras out here?" Nora asked.

"Not anymore," Trent said, bored as he strode forward. "The sign's all bark and no bite, but it usually does the job."

"A heyday of regional flora and fauna," Loren commented next. A marsh rabbit shot away through brush at their approach. Swamp lilies and wild purple petunias bobbed their heads, and Spanish moss hung like mop heads off low branches.

"There are also leatherback turtles, peregrine falcons, and big-eared bats."

"I'll have to get pictures of those," Annabelle assured them.

"Hate to tell you," Trent went on, "but most of the wildlife out here is so unused to human contact, you'll never see them."

"What about alligators?" Annabelle asked next.

"There aren't any here. But even if there were…" Trent indicated the pistol on his hip. "I'm a qualified army pistol expert."

Dirty Harry in green, Nora thought.

Ahead she noted a long wall of sunlight beyond more trees. It seemed uncharacteristic until they broke through. "Wow," someone said. Now Nora saw what had been done: A clearing the size of a football field had been cut into the woods and in it had been erected Trent's drab cinder block "head shacks." They didn't look like shacks at all, more like blockhouses. Fifteen such structures in even rows, forty feet long, twenty high, and twenty wide. Gray-painted metal roofs sat atop each.

"Those are about the ugliest things I've ever seen on an island," Loren remarked.

"In the army," Trent said, "the ugliest is the most efficient. It doesn't matter what it is. A truck, a garbage can, a tie, or a head shack-the army will go out of its way to make it as ugly as possible. Even the Nike missiles themselves were ugly."

"But you said there's no missiles here now?" Annabelle asked.

"Not a one. Like I told you earlier, they were dismantled at the end of Reagan's second term and I think we gave them to Israel."

"Lucky them," Nora said.

Keys jangled. "Say hello to your new field lab," and then Trent opened a black-and very ugly-metal door. Hinges grated. He stepped in and felt around the wall. "At least we should have electricity."

"Should?" Nora asked.

"A maintenance crew was supposed to come out here yesterday to fuel the generator and purifiers. The generator runs on diesel fuel."

Suddenly light bloomed, and then everybody jumped an inch off the ground at a series of loud twangy pops!

"What was that!" Annabelle exclaimed.

They all moved inside, Trent looking up. "Not as bad as I thought. We only blew about a third of the bulbs."

Nora saw rows of large hooded lightbulbs mounted along the structure's metal roof. "It's good enough," she said. And she didn't see any spiderwebs or wasp nests. "A little moldy but it'll do."

Annabelle gazed down the length of the building. "So, twenty years ago there was a missile in this building?"

"Yep," Trent said. "And if the crew had ever had to fire one, a motor would crank the roof open, the missile rail would rise, then off it goes."

"They'd fire it from in here?" Nora questioned. "Wouldn't there be back-blast, exhaust gases?"

"The crew would actually launch from the missile station, not from any of these head shacks."

"Where's the station?"

"On the other side of the island. I can show it to you if you want, but…"

.Who needs to see another ugly army building?" Loren supposed.

"Exactly."

Nora set down her field case and looked around, trying to come to grips with the environment. This is going to be a pain in the ass, but I'll at least try to have a decent time. "Well, everything appears to be in order, Lieutenant. I guess we might as well get started setting up our gear."

"I hate to leave my cameras and dive gear in here," Annabelle fretted.

"I can guarantee that your valuables and important equipment will be perfectly safe," Trent said. "It'd be really tough for thieves to get on the island."

Nora wasn't sure but she thought she heard Annabelle whisper to Trent something like, I trust you and Loren but… She glanced briefly at Nora, frowned, and turned away.

You DICK! Nora thought.

"Before you get the rest of your gear come along with me to the other clearing," Trent suggested, marching them forward. "It's a perfect campsite."

Nora groaned and left the bulky field cases. The team filed down another trail, through more woods. Nora frowned at Annabelle's bouncy steps as more jealousy percolated. All women are NOT created equal, she cursed the Fates. She followed last in line, forced to face Annabelle's hourglass physique anytime she looked up: the tight rump churning in the skimpy bikini bottoms, athletic legs flexing. I hope she breaks all her nails…

Down the trail a ways, Annabelle pointed, enthused. "Look how yellow they are!"

A dozen large, bright yellow butterflies clung to the brambles, their brilliant wings barely moving.

"A southern dogface butterfly," Loren said. "Colias cesonia, at least I think it is."

"But I'm sure Professor Craig knows for sure." Annabelle glanced over her shoulder to Nora. "She is the professor, right?"

Nora ground her teeth at the blonde. "It looks like, well, let me see, like a fucking yellow butterfly, Annabelle. And beyond that I wouldn't know because I'm a specialist in segmented marine worms, not fucking butterflies."

Annabelle grinned at her jab, then complimented Loren, "You're really a smart guy, Loren."

I do not believe this bitch, Nora thought.

"Well, I could be wrong," Loren deflected. "There are thousands of different species of butterflies from six different families."

"How many different kinds of worms are there?"

"Oh, tens of thousands-"

"And fifty-four hundred Polychaetes alone," Nora struggled to contribute, "but it's estimated that there may still be hundreds more that haven't been discovered yet."

Annabelle wasn't listening anymore, lapsing instead into less specific chatter with Loren.

"I did my OCS bivouac training out here," Trent commented. "Had to live on this island for two weeks. Here's where we camped." He'd taken them to another clearing that caught a welcome breeze. "There's plenty of room in the center if we feel like having a campfire."

"Sounds like fun," Annabelle said. "I should've brought marshmallows."

Nora groaned.

Trent pointed up to a tree. "And there's something else we can roast, for any of you who feel adventurous."

Annabelle squealed and began snapping pictures. Lounging on a branch was a long, scaly iguana.

"That's pretty much all I lived on during my survival training."

"Tastes like chicken?" Loren asked.

"Nope. Tastes like… crap."

Loren stepped closer to the trees. "Well now, what have we here?" A tall spiky plant was growing out of a patch of sawgrass. "A nettle plant from the Canna- baceae order, more specifically Cannabis sativa, I do believe."

"What?" Nora said.

Annabelle squinted. "You mean-"

"A great big pot plant," Loren said of the blooming, six-foot-tall specimen.

"What's a great big pot plant doing on a tropical island?" Nora asked.

Trent walked up to it. If that's not the damnedest thing…"

"I don't know much about marijuana," Nora offered, "but I'm pretty sure it's not indigenous to tropical environments."

"It's not," Loren said. He looked to Trent. "But, Lieutenant, didn't you tell us earlier that kids sneak out to the island a lot to party?"

"Not a lot. More like once in a blue moon, when they're lucky enough to have the tides just right. But, yeah, they do get out here every so often."

"Mystery solved. Some kid was rolling a doobie and a seed fell out. By the looks of this plant, it's been growing for some time." Loren grinned, eyeing the others. "Hey, I won't tell if you all won't."

"Sorry, Easy Rider, but no one's touching the plant," Trent said. "I'll have to report this. Christ, that would look great in the papers, wouldn't it? Marijuana farm on army property. The damn air force would have a field day."

"Shucks," Loren laughed.

"I've never smoked pot in my life," Annabelle said. She giggled. "I'm too afraid of the munchies. That would ruin my body."

Nora wanted to gag.

Trent shook his head at the tall plant. "Well, it'll give me something to do while you guys are worm-hunting. I'll have to look around to see if any more of these things are growing here."

They headed back. What's wrong with me? Nora wondered. She knew she was letting herself become aggravated by Annabelle; she also knew it was a juvenile and unsophisticated emotion. Then I guess I'm juvenile and unsophisticated! she finally unloaded on herself, still forced to walk behind the photographer and be reminded that she was purely and simply more attractive than Nora.

Floozy. Thinks she's hot shit with her big boobs and designer bikini. The more Nora tried to let it go, the more she realized she couldn't. Back at the landing pad, the crew had off-loaded all the supplies. The peninsular-jawed warrant officer announced to Trent, "I guess we're done, Luey. Just give my top a call on the radio when you want us to pick you back up."

You got it. Thanks for the lift. I guess we'll be here a week," Trent figured. He looked to Nora. "How long will it take you to find this worm for Annabelle to photograph?"

Nora sat down exhausted on another field case. "It'll take as long as it takes. The scarlata lives at depths of up to sixty feet but prefers clear, shallow intertidal zones. If we're lucky we'll be able to make do with just snorkeling. Loren and I are experienced divers."

"Oh, don't worry, Professor," Annabelle bulled in. "You won't have to show me the ropes. I'm certified to three hundred feet and even have an instructor's license." She flipped her hair in the sun. "Do you have an instructor's license, Professor?"

Nora sighed and looked up at her. "No, Annabelle, I don't, but-"

The blonde grinned at Loren and Trent. "So who knows? Maybe I'll be the one showing you where the worms are."

And maybe when you do, Nora thought, too tired now to even be mad, I'll be the one to shove the worms up your ass.

"The worms are all yours," Trent said. "I'm not going in the water, and I'm not looking for worms. Not in my job description. I'm just here to show you all around."

"It's gonna be fun," Loren promised. "An adventure!"

"Whatever," Nora said.

Loren grabbed armfuls of rolled tents. "I'll take these to the campground. Then we can start setting up our lab."

"Okay by me." Nora looked around, depressed at the remainder of their gear: diving equipment and several more field cases, weighty stuff for a 110-pound woman. I can't carry all this junk. She looked to the warrant officer and the two pilots. Maybe if I ask nice…

Annabelle rushed ahead, her body blaring in the string bikini. "Oh, sir? Do you think you and your men could help me carry my dive gear and equipment?" She stood erect, hands on hips, giving the helicopter crew an eyeful. "I'd really appreciate it."

"Aw, sure," the warrant officer said. "Come on, boys. Let's give the lady a hand."

A minute later, Annabelle was leading a caravan back toward the head shack.

Nora sat alone now on the shore, mortified. "Well, fuck you all very much!" she said. Eventually, she grabbed a pair of cases and began to drag them toward the access trail.