"What the army doesn't know won't hurt them, huh?" Nora goaded.
"Something like that." Trent shook his head. "Shit."
"The army'll know now," Slydes spoke up, "'cause this bitch'll tell 'em." He whipped out his Buck again. "Lemme just kill her right now."
Trent drew his gun. "You're not killing anyone, Slydes."
"Can't believe you're pointing a gun at your own brother!" Slydes growled.
"Speaking of brothers, where's Jonas?"
"He's dead," Slydes said.
Trent looked astonished. "Dead? Are you sure?"
"He was sure as shit dying when I left him. Them yellow things got him. They're, like, eggs. He was coughing them up, and turnin' yellow. He told me to split before his mind went and he tried to infect me."
"Same thing'll happen to you," Nora interrupted. "Soon."
"Bullshit! I'll cut your skinny throat!"
"Just shut up!" Trent yelled. "I've got to think!"
"There's nothing to think about," Nora said. "One brother's dead and this one's dying of the same thing."
"Don't listen to the bitch! She's lyin', tryin' to turn you against me!"
Nora's face lit up in a cynical grin. "Lieutenant, he just passed a pound of ova out his bladder." She quickly pointed to the mound of dead ova.
Trent stared at it, then at Slydes. "You fucked everything up, Slydes. You should never have come here. I don't know what I'm going to do now."
"First thing you can do is let me turn this bitch into cold cuts. Then we can get out of here."
"Where's that girl with the funny lips you always got with you?"
"Dead, too," Slydes told him.
"No big loss there."
"Some big guy got her. He was all yellow, looked like he was rotting. Even looked like he was changing underneath his skin."
"Mutagenesis," Nora cut in. "It's not an uncommon trait among certain nematodes. Their ova will attack a potential host with a DNA-changing virus, to make the host's living body more habitable for the worms." She pointed to Slydes again. "That'll be happening to you real soon. It's already happening."
Slydes stepped toward her with the big knife. "I'm skinnin' her right now, so help me!"
"Back off, Slydes." Trent cocked his pistol. "I'm not thinking too clearly right now, so just… back… off."
Slydes stepped back, grinding his teeth.
"Did you examine the body of the man that Loren shot?" Nora asked.
Trent looked grim. "Yeah…"
"And it was no man from this planet, was it?"
"You know?"
"Loren and I got into the old control station. It was full of all kinds of alien shit," she said. "They turned the place into a field lab and were implanting worms into humans. And that thing in the trench we thought was a submersible… it's hovering over the island right now."
Just as Nora had said it, a dark spot drew over them, like a cloud moving in front of the sun.
They all looked up.
What they saw appeared inexplicable: a long rectangular dark spot whose covering had turned sky-blue. "It can camouflage itself," Nora said. But running underneath the object was a bright glowing white line. "And that line of light can only be its propulsion system."
Trent and Slydes just stared, dumbfounded.
"It means they're getting ready to leave," Nora added.
"Well, that's good, isn't it?" Trent said.
"No, Lieutenant, that's bad, real bad. They've planted some bombs on the island-"
"Bombs? You're shitting me."
"Wish I was. And God knows how powerful they are."
Trent was chewing his lip in confusion. "Where's Loren?"
"He's probably waiting for us at the campsite, to take us to the boat," she told him.
Slydes finally snapped out of his daze. He looked at them both and said very slowly, "What the fuck is going on here?"
"Some really fucked-up shit, Slydes."
The bearded brother looked upward again. "And that thing is-..
"It's an alien spacecraft," Nora put it bluntly. "And those guys in the black suits and masks are its pilots. We think they created a new species of parasite by genetic manipulation."
"What the fuck for?"
"Oh, I don't know. Maybe to decimate the human race. The worm grows hundreds of times faster than any other parasite, and it can live on land and sea, and anyone it infects becomes a concealed carrier. They're not doing it just for shits and giggles."
Sunlight moved back across their faces as the macabre object in the sky hovered past.
"Looks like it's going to the control center," Nora figured. "To pick up its crew and their research. Then they'll leave and you can bet your ass those bombs'll go off."
Trent rubbed his face. "Holy shit, l don't know what to do."
"Kill this clown so we can go!" Nora shouted.
"He's my brother!"
"He's infected, Lieutenant. And if you don't kill him, he'll infect you."
Trent and Slydes stared at each other without blinking.
"You're one low-down slimy shit-house rat to even think about killin' your own brother," Slydes said, "I ain't infected, I peed 'em all out! And even if I didn't, once I get back to the mainland, I can go to a doctor and get an antidote or somethin'."
Nora laughed at the bombast. "It's an alien parasite, you asshole! Penicillin won't cut it."
"She's right, Slydes," Trent groaned.
"Our daddy'd be ashamed if he saw you right now, ho-1-din' a.gun on your own brother."
"Our daddy was a thieving cracker scumbag, Slydes," Trent intoned. "Just like you."
Slydes pointed a big finger. "Listen here, little brother. The only person you're gonna be killin' is this skinny smart-mouth bitch. Now quit pointing that gun at me 'foreI shove it up your ass."
Trent didn't lower the gun.
"Kill him," Nora implored. "He's infected. The longer you wait, the more he changes."
Trent's confusion made him cross-eyed. "Then how come we're not infected? We've been on the island longer than him."
"Mosquito repellent, suntan oil, these things on our wrists, who knows?" Nora said.
"And where are all these damn worms? You're making it sound like an epidemic. How come I've only seen a few of them?"
"These worms are obviously spawning," she answered. "And when worms spawn, particularly roundworms and similar species, they tend to nest."
"Where?" Trent demanded.
"Either out in shallower water where the temperature will be higher, or some place on the island's surface-any place that's moist and warm. There have got to be thousands of them on the island now, and the bulk of them are probably nesting. That's why we're not seeing a lot of them. But you've seen the ovathey're all over the place. At least half of those ova contain infantile worms."
"I don't know what to do!" Trent yelled, face reddening.
Nora looked right at him. "You better do something fast, because we probably only have a few more minutes to get out of here."
Trent just kept staring at Slydes, the gun still pointing.
"You always were the pussy of the family," Slydes challenged. "You ain't got the balls to drop that gun and go man to man with me."
"Shut up, Slydes."
"I kicked your pussy ass when you were a kid, and I'll kick it now. Daddy always knew you were the weakest of the boys."
Trent smirked. "I'm the only one who made anything for himself."
"Shit. You? The army? You ain't never had the balls for nothin', and you know somethin'? You ain't got the balls to pull that trigger."
Trent sighed. "I'm glad you said that, Slydes-"
Bam!
The round Trent squeezed off hit Slydes right in the nose and flipped him over backward. By the time he landed on his belly, he was dead. In only moments, ova could be seen exiting his mouth.
"Now let's get out of here," Nora said.
But Trent stood still through the veil of gun smoke. Now the pistol was trained on Nora.
"Oh, come on!" she yelled. "What? You're afraid I'm going to tell your superiors that you were letting your brothers grow pot out here? I don't care about it! I won't say anything! Let's just go!"