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!
She smacked the flipper against Trent's back, but Trent was already jumping up, tearing off the green fatigue shirt. "Jesus! Would somebody tell me what was crawling on my-back?"-
"Not sure," Nora said, and took the shirt. She spread it out on the tabletop.
"It was a spider!" Annabelle. "Maybe poisonous…"
Trent looked outraged. "No way!"
"Loren, did that look arachnoidal to you?" Nora asked.
Loren was checking Trent's back. "No. I didn't see any appendages and the body definitely wasn't bisectional." He slapped Trent on the shoulder. "And, Lieutenant, I'm happy to say you don't have any bite marks."
"Jesus!"
It didn't look like a beetle, and it was too big to be a tick," Loren added.
Nora was examining the shirt. "But it was definitely motile."
Trent was clearly upset. "What's that mean? Speak English!"
"It means it was moving," Nora defined. "And if it didn't have ambulatory appendages, it must be monotaxic."
Trent appeared as though his entire world had become upheaved. Though not overweight, he was in desperate need of some sun, black chest hair matting on white skin. "What are you talking about!"
"Lieutenant, relax, you weren't bitten by anything," Nora reminded him while she and Loren pored over the shirt. "Slugs, limpets, snails, and leeches move by means of what's called a monotaxia 'foot'-"
"The slime pad," Loren simplified.
"-and that's probably what was propelling your little friend here."
"I'll bet it was a leech!" Annabelle continued to overreact.
Trent looked on the verge of vomiting. "Shut up!"
"No, not a leech," Nora informed. "Leeches are just another type of segmented worm-an annelid-and I got a good enough look at this to see that it wasn't segmented."
"And this thing's body wasn't ovated," Loren added. "It was circinated."
Trent and Annabelle stood aside, mystified, as Nora finally found the splatter on the shirt. "There, see?" she said. "It's not insectoid, no exoskeleton."
"Well, I guess that means it wasn't a tick." Trent seemed relieved. "I don't need any of that Rocky Mountain oyster fever."
Nora shook her head, bemused.
"Maybe it was a pebble snail," Loren said. "That's about the only monotaxic animal I can think of that has a circular body."
This was definitely circular, Nora remembered. "It almost looked nodulous or ovumular."
"Actually it did," Loren agreed, "but we both know that's impossible."
Trent sneered. "I think it would be really nice if you would drop the college professor talk, and-"
"Ovumular," Nora specified, "or like an ovum-an egg cell. Some marine worms, for example, as well as many marine creatures, have ova that move about by their own means of locomotion once they leave the female's body. These species are mostly parasites; therefore, once the fertilized ovum has been dispersed, it seeks some other form of animal life in which to nurture itself and grow. And nodulous-like a node. Some of these motile ovum are actually carried around in a self-contained node` that protects it and helps it get to a host."
The prospect of "parasites" and "nodes" didn't overjoy Trent. "How do you know that thing wasn't one of those?"
"Because they're microscopic," Loren said.
Trent and Annabelle leaned over now, to get a closer look.
Whatever had been on the lieutenant's back was now just a viscid splotch. What Nora had seen had been about the size of a large-shelled peanut, but circular, like a hazelnut. And yellow, like butter.
"Here's the skin of whatever it was." She pointed, moving the flattened thing with the tip of her pen.
"And, look." Loren squinted, leaning closer. "It's yellow but has tiny red spots."
"Some kind of epidermal pigmentation," Nora said.
"Another vote for a slug, but…" His thoughts trailed off.
Nora chewed her lip. "I know. I'm not familiar with any species of land slug that's yellow."
"Oh, yuck!" was Annabelle's next contribution. "That big splat is its insides?"
"Yep." Nora was secretly pleased by the photographer's revulsion. "I'm not seeing anything that looks like the remnants of an organ system."
"Jesus," Trent said. "It looks like someone hocked a loogie on my shirt, that's what it looks like."
Then Loren brought a hand to his brow. "Oh, shit, I know what it is! It's a spumarius, Nora. Right after molting."
"A what?" Annabelle looked to him.
"An insect called a froghopper," Nora said. She was a little agitated with herself for not thinking of that first. "The larval form of something in the cicada order."
"They're the same size and the same color," Loren said.
Nora handed Trent back his soiled shirt. "Good job, Loren. The mystery is solved. An immature froghopper."
"Are they poisonous?" Trent asked warily.
"They're-absolutely harmless."
"Not if you're a shirt," Loren said of the mess.
"Christ, this shirt's blown," Trent said.
"I'm sure Uncle Sam will spring for a new one."
"Are you kidding? We have uniform rations in the army. Can you beat that for cheap?" And then Trent walked off, presumably for a clean shirt.
Nora rolled her eyes when she noticed Annabelle's hand on Loren's shoulder as she talked. "Wow, you really know your stuff, Loren. Of all the things it could've been, you identified it in a minute."
"Aw, it was nothing," he chuckled.
Make me puke, Nora thought. Look at her cozying up to him…
Eventually, Annabelle walked off again with her camera. "See you guys later, for dinner," she said.
Which I hope you choke on, Nora thought.
"Well, so much for the big excitement of the day," Loren said. "A friggin' froghopper. Shit, I almost wish it was something interesting, like a rhino beetle or a black widow."
But Nora had already turned toward the woods. "Do you… smell that?"
"Smell what?"
"Something in the air…
"You mean the pot that Trent just burned?"
"No, no." She felt sure. "The breeze is blowing south, and this is coming from the north." It seemed vague but very familiar. "I can swear I smell something cooking. Like hot dogs or hamburgers."
Loren sniffed the air, then shrugged. "Beats me. I don't smell anything."
Must be my imagination, Nora concluded.
CHAPTER FOUR
(I)
Leona flipped the burgers on the grill; at least, she guessed she was doing it right. She pulled another Zima from the cooler, then looked into the woods.
Where are those assholes?
The burgers sizzled, their aroma eddying into the trees. Leona wasn't much of a cook. How long per side? she wondered. This weekend party had sounded like a great idea…
Damn them!
Leona did a good job hiding her insecurities, but the truth was she couldn't stand to be alone. At once she felt foolish, dressed only in flip-flops and her cutoffs. I'm cooking burgers topless and I'm by myself! What happened to the party? Her thoughts trailed back to Alan. Sure, he was cute, popular, and seemed very connected to her, but she'd always had the tiniest suspicion that his true interest was Carol.
My best friend, Leona reminded herself.
All was fair in love and war, she knew, but she also knew Carol, especially after a couple of drinks…