Jonas waved a bored hand. "No, but we can kill her. Maybe I'm just getting old, brother, but chicks are just too much hassle. She'll come back on her own before long. Then we'll take off, and when we're out to deep water,-we'll-just toss her over the side."
Slydes felt too lousy to do much calculating. "If we kill her, who's gonna clean the bathroom back at the house?"
Jonas rubbed his face, nodding. "Good point."
"So get off your skinny, pot-smokin' butt and go bring her back."
Jonas wearily climbed off the boat and staggered into the woods.
Slydes knew they would undoubtedly kill Ruth one of these days-probably on a gator trolclass="underline" no evidencebut not just yet. Not till I tag her a few more times, he resolved. As the sky darkened, the island's noises rose. Slydes felt like throwing up again-the boat was rocking more now as the tide began to draw in-but he knew there was nothing left to upchuck. Don't even feel like drinkin' beer, he realized, and that meant he was really sick.
What'd I come down with?
Then he thought of those things.
Those squishy yellow bugs he'd found on himself last night. Slydes ground his teeth at the image. Had one of them bitten him, and passed him some germs?
Well, shit, goddamn…
A mild fever seemed to be seeping into him now; he was just nodding back off in the captain's chair when he heard…
Sobbing?
That's what it sounded like-like a woman coughing and crying at the same time. Slydes smirked.
Ruth's back, he knew.
Sure enough, just as the realization kindled, a sobbing and very distraught Ruth pulled herself up the side ladder.
"Where the hell you been, girl?" Slydes asked with feigned authority. You been out in the woods all last night and all day?"
Her face looked drained, her hair a mess-that is, more of a mess than it usually was. She collapsed to the deck, then drew her knees up like a scared child. "It was awful, it was awful!" she hacked.
Slydes had no concern whatsoever as to what had traumatized her. "You see Jonas? He just went out a few minutes ago lookin' for your sorry ass."
"I was almost raped, you asshole! And I was almost attacked by these big pink snakes!"
"Big pink elephants is more like it."
"Fuck you!" she belted out, tears streaming. "Didn't you hear me! I was almost raped!"
"Raped?"
"Yeah, fucker! I was almost raped by a yellow zombie!"
The good hard laugh which followed helped Slydes feel better. "Uh-huh. Yellow zombies and pink snakes."
"Twenty-foot-long snakes!" she added hysterically. She dragged herself up, her unknotted T-shirt swaying. Slydes eyed the large unbra'd breasts tossing beneath…
She seemed desperate, searching the deck. "Holy fuck, is there anything to drink on this tub?"
Slydes pointed a serious finger. "Watch what you call my boat, girl."
"I'm dying of thirst!" she bawled some more. "I was burning up in those fucking woods today."
"Why didn't you just come back to the boat?"
Her tense face glared at him. "I was hiding from the zombie!"
Slydes could only nod through another smile. "There's still a few beers downstairs-"
"I don't want beer, I want water!"
"Well, there ain't no water, unless you wanna drink the Gulf of Mexico."
She thumped belowdecks, then resurfaced, chugging half a beer in one pull. Her face blanched, she looked cross-eyed; then she threw up over the side. "Fuck!"
Slydes was not too sick to object. "Don't you be puking up perfectly good beer! I got a mind to bitch-slap you. What's wrong with you?"
"Shit, I'm sick…" Less than ladylike, she spat more bile off the deck with a retching sound worthy of a longshoreman.
Sick, Slydes thought. He scratched his beard. "Did you find any bugs on you?"
Ruth snapped a glare. "Bugs?"
"Yeah, piss-yellow little things, with red spots. Like ticks or beetles, but soft."
"No!" she barked back. "I told you I got attacked by worms! Same color as that one that landed on my arm last night-only fuckin' huge!"
When she bent over the stanchion again, Slydes couldn't help but notice she wore nothing but the fluorescent-pink T-shirt. 'Your bare ass is showin', girl. Where's your shorts?"
That big guy ripped them off!"
"What big guy?"
She bellowed at the top of her lungs, "The zombie! The zombie that almost raped me! And I think he wanted the snakes to rape me too! He laid me out naked in the woods last night when I was passed out-"
Sooner or later the drugs burn your brain, Slydes thought. That's why he stuck to beer. Jonas must've tricked up some of his reefer, he deduced. "I'm tired of looking at your brown-eye. Go put some pants on."
She huddled back down. "I don't have any more! The zombie took them!" Then she cradled her stomach and began to rock.
A thought more serious snapped into Slydes's mind. A big guy. A big zombie. Slydes didn't believe in such tripe, but he did believe in drug-induced hallucinations.
What if this "zombie" of hers was a real person?
One of them photographers…
His tone grated with import. "Hey, girl. When you were out running around in the woods, did anyone see you?"
"The zombie saw me!" she continued to shriek.
"Yeah, yeah-the zombie-I know. But I mean anyone else, like maybe one of those photographers?"
She groaned, shaking her head back and forth. "Holy fuckin' shit-I feel bad…"
"Go belowdecks and get some sleep," Slydes told her. "You're all fucked up. Sleep it off. When Jonas gets back, we'll be going home."
"Oh, good, good," she continued to sob. "I just want to go fuckin' home…"
Breasts swaying beneath the T-shirt, she dragged herself up again, and thunked downstairs.
Crazier than a shit-house rat, Slydes thought. If she didn't have that dandy mouth with the lips all puffed up from that plastic surgeon she'd been shacked up with, Slydes knew he wouldn't be quite so quick about keeping her around.
He wondered if he was feeling a little better himself, then convinced himself he was. But something else nicked at the back of his mind, now that he thought of it. Just before Ruth had gone downstairs…
The chick was in good shape, he'd give her that. Those big implants sticking out like grapefruits and nary a trace of fat on her body.
Slydes scratched his beard again, perplexed as the sound of peepers rose from the woods.
Had it been his imagination, or was Ruth's belly starting to look a little swollen?
CHAPTER TWELVE
(I)
Campfire light shifted on their faces. Nora had dragged the pot off the coals to serve directly, and by now the four of them sat back in the sand, stuffed.
"That's the best lobster I've ever had in my life," Lieutenant Trent proclaimed. Empty shells formed a pile of bright red debris in front of him. "To hell with the C rations."
"Yeah, Nora, they really were good," Loren said, occluding a burp with his fist.
Nora felt stuffed herself. "Freshness is everything."
The only one not to compliment the night's cuisine was Annabelle. Still in her bikini, she sat in a lotus position finicking with a plump tail. "How come these lobsters don't have claws?" she seemed to complain.
"These are spiny lobsters," Nora answered. "Ah, let's see-Panulirus…"
"Panulirus argus, " Loren finished.
"Warm-watered species don't have claws. In fact, most of the world's commercially harvested lobsters are clawless. The meat's all in the tail."
Loren slipped a tube of white meat from his last lobster. "And that's what I call a piece of tail."
"Hilarious," Nora said. She'd also thrown some stone crabs and sunray clams into the pot, all of which were readily devoured.
"You think we could have this again tomorrow night, Professor?" Trent asked.
Annabelle, as might be expected, frowned.