Alan's probably bofng her right now. Hell, Howie's probably in on it too. She's got them in a three-way, the ho! And here I am, cooking hamburgers in the woods with my tits out!
She shrieked as something scratched up her bare shoulder. She imagined the most disgusting bugs, but when she flung it off, she saw that it was only one of those little green lizards.
"Oops. Sorry," she said.
The lizard landed on one of the burgers. When it tried to run off the grill, it got about two inches before the heat claimed it.
Gross… A few moments later, the smoking remains fell into the grill. She looked at the burger it had landed on, then decided, That's Alan's.
"Come and get it!" she yelled at the top of her lungs. Some birds cackled back at her, as if inconvenienced by her shout. "Where are you!"
Sexual excitement wasn't the only thing that hardened Leona's nipples. Anger did too, and said nipples stuck out firm as coat pegs when her gaze fumed back into the woods. They're out there laughing at me, the fuckers! And Carol, that sleaze! Some best friend. I know she's doing both of those guys-
She screamed hard when two clammy hands landed on her bare back and shoved at her. Instinct made her grab the spatula for a weapon but just as she would take a swipe-
"Howie?"
Howie collapsed against a tree.
My God! When her own shock wore off, she was seized again merely by the look of him. Hair pasted to his brow by sweat, and more sweat drenching his shirt. There was something else on the shirt, too…
Did he… puke on himself?
He stared up openmouthed for a moment, silent, shaking.
"Howie! What happened to you? And where's Carol and Alan?"
"Carol, Carol," he stuttered, "out in the woods, I had to leave her. She had these-these-these things on her, and-"
"What things?"
"Ticks or something, I don't know-"
Leona didn't process the information very well. "You left her in the woods!"
"I-I-I-I had to, 'cause-'cause she passed out, and these ticks, er, well, I don't know what they were, but they were this really disgusting yellow color with red spots on them and I think they were poisonous or something-"
Leona fell to her knees and shook him by the collar. "And you left her? You asshole!"
He yammered on, eyes wide open and bloodshot. "Had to come to get Alan, I couldn't carry her by myself but then-then-then I found a dead body-"
"What!" Leona bellowed.
"I got lost trying to find you and Alan, and there was another inlet with a boat, not Alan's boat, but just a little boat, and that's where I saw the body floating in the water. It was some chick just floating there, her eyes out of her head, and-and-and there was a really long snake wrapped around her, and oh Jesus God, I think it was one of those girls who disappeared a few weeks ago!" And then Howie's torment-twisted face fell into his hands, and he sobbed aloud.
Dead bodies. Ticks. Missing persons.
This… was too much for a girl like Leona.
"Howie! You're on drugs! Look, I know lots of peo ple at school are doing the Ecstasy and crystal and this Oxycontin stuff-"
"No, no, no," he blubbered. He hadn't even seemed to notice that Leona was topless as she leaned over to talk to him, the orbs of her breasts practically bumping his face. "Do you remember?" he stated more declaratively. "A couple, three weeks ago. It was in the local papers and the paper at school-"
"What?"
"Robb White." He cleared his throat, rested his head back against the tree. "Do you remember that name?"
Do I remember him? Shit, she thought, embarrassed. I fucked him. Robb White was one of the classier jocks at school, nice guy for a jock, and, yes, Leona had hooked up with him at the Easton dorm mixer several months ago, after Alan had petered out after too much tequila.
"The papers said… he was officially missing," she recounted. "He and a bunch of other kids from school disappeared."
Howie shoved a piece of paper in her face.
What? It was a -credit card receipt, for gas at the marina.
"I found that in the boat," Howie declared.
"In our boat?"
"No, no, no, in his boat. A little skiff anchored at one of the other inlets on this island. It's here now, Leona. And that receipt is from three weeks ago, when he and his pals disappeared. I think that corpse I saw with the snake around it was one of the girls he was fooling around with."
Leona's mind ticked further… rather slowly, but at least it was functioning. Corpse, she thought stonily. Snake.
"And-and… what about Carol?" she asked. What had he said? Ticks?
She had ticks on her tits. Yellow ticks…"
The idea, the very image, made Leona swoon in disgust.
.But that's not all. After I found that body, I saw… this guy-"
Leona's anger rose. She was too confused. "What guy? Robb White, you mean?"
"No. A guy in a gas mask and hood. Military."
Yes, this was much too much…
"I don't know what the hell's going on…" Howie's shock was finally wearing off; he was getting his reason back, and this was a good thing for Leona. "We have to start somewhere."
"We have to get off this island!" she blurted back.
"I know. But first we have to find Alan and we have to find Carol, and we need to do that now."
Just as Leona helped him up-
What's that smell? she thought.
"Something's burning!" Howie yelled.
He was up and running toward the Coleman grill.
Holy shit!
Boy, had Leona fucked up! The leaves and sparse brush around the grill had somehow caught fire.
And the fire was crackling toward the shack.
"Jesus Christ, this whole island'11 be on fire!" Howie snapped. "The smoke'll kill us before we can get to the shore!"
Leona stood paralyzed, ludicrous now since she was topless.
Howie pointed to the end of the shack. "Turn on that faucet! I'll get the hose!"
Another second, and the seriousness kicked in. This island, this time of year? It was dry as tinders. A fire could engulf everything… including them.
Leona sprinted forward, slid to the shack on her knees, and cranked the faucet handle. She grabbed the hose lying there and clumsily aimed the water stream toward the fire. She wagged the hose back and forth, drawing lines of smoking sizzle. The fire had spread out quickly, but just as quickly, Leona had managed to put it all out.
Jesus… Relief!
But…
She looked around. Where was Howie?
"I found the hose!" he bellowed, running back around the comer. He held the long length in one hand. "Turn it o-" But then he stopped, scanned his eyes at the smoking ashes.
"Howie," Leona croaked. "That thing in your hand isn't the hose…"
It hung limp until the moment she'd said that, almost as if it had sensed the trigger of Howie's fear. His eyes snapped down. Then the "hose" began to move…
Vaguely pink, glistening skin. About an inch thick. How long was it? It extended from his hand, behind him, its other end still on the other side of the shack. Howie tried to drop the grotesque thing, but it was already too late. In the space of that synaptic second, the creature energized and wrapped around Howie's upper torso so fast it was but a silent, pinkish blur in the air.
Then Howie was dressed in the thing, wearing it like a corselet. His scream was severed when more of its length coiled about his neck. Howie fell over. – - -- – - – - – - – - – -
His eyes still registered images as his vision clouded, and then the thing's head made itself plain: slightly tapered, less like a snake and more like a worm.
A pink hole dilated-a mouth opening?-then a thinner pink tube of something fleshy slipped out and"Howie!" Leona screamed.
– slithered down Howie's throat.
Leona stood, uncomprehending, glaze-eyed, as this twenty-foot-long living thing that appeared to be a snake relaxed the pressure of its coils… and began to pulse.
Leona wasn't quite sure what she was seeing in those last few moments before her paralysis snapped, but before her feet mindlessly began to take her away into the woods, Howie's body seemed to be filling up with something.