Slither - Edward Lee [100]
She rushed back over, grossed out. "Let's just get out of here. You said all we had to do is find one of the other boats."
We will. In a minute." He grabbed her hair and shoved her toward the shed.
"Fucker!"
"Now come on," he ordered, "and quit being a pain in the ass." Jesus, this is too much work, he thought. Right now her pretty backside ain't nothing but a ball and chain ... He followed her as she stumbled forward.
The heat was crushing them; Slydes felt like slowcooking meat in his jeans and boots, his shirt drenched. Ruth's pink T-shirt looked like wet tissue paper pasted to her bosom and belly. Pretty soon there won't be any water left in me to sweat out ... He didn't know much about medical stuff, but he could imagine that in this heat, with no water, they wouldn't last much longer. In spite of his physical strength, each step reminded him how weak he was getting. Ruth looked like she'd keel over any second.
"Fuck! Look!" she yelled next.
Crawling very slowly down the shed's front wall were half -a dozen yellow ova.
Those fuckers! Slydes thought. He remembered them well. Some of 'em have baby worms in them, and some of 'em ... What had Jonas told him? Stuff inside that changes you when they bite. "Just steer clear of them," he told Ruth. He flipped open the cooler sitting out front.
Aw, shit!
It was full of worms and ova. They seemed to be percolating in there, incubating. They must like heat, he considered.
He flipped the lid closed. "Nothing in there."
"Oh yeah!" Ruth seemed delighted. She bent over a portable Coleman grill next to the cooler. Dried-up burgers lay on the ground, but next to them lay a barbecue fork. Ruth wielded it like a sword. "Now we can defend ourselves!"
Slydes winced. "All that bong resin's clogged your brain. What are you gonna fight with a barbecue fork?"
"The worms! Next time one sneaks up on us, I'll jab it with this."
"You do that." Slydes dismissed her banter. "Let's just look inside."
Ruth stepped back from the door. "Slydes, I'm fuckin' serious. I don't wanna go in there. The zombie might be there."
"Ruth, if the zombie's in there, I'll shove his head up his ass, okay? Then I'll stick him with your barbecue fork, and that'll be that."
Her puffy lips pressed together. "You don't even believe thereis a .zombie, but -I don't give a shit."
"Fine. Now let's go in. I'll even go first." He opened the creaky door, then-
Oh, what the hell?
-grabbed Ruth by the hair and shoved her in first.
"You're a fuck, Slides! You're a lyin' piece of fuck!"
"Yeah, yeah." He stepped in after her, looked around. At least it was cooler in here, out of the sun; the little windows were open, letting in a bit of a cross breeze.
"See, pea brain? No zombies in here."
Ruth gusted out a relieving sign. 'And-shit!' Her dirty bare feet thunked to the corner. "Food!"
Some plastic bags lay on the floor, full of potato chips and cheese curls.
At least that's somethin, Slydes thought. It was the closest he'd come to thanking the Fates. "Any sodas in them bags, any bottled water?"
Ruth bumbled through the bags. "No. But at least we've got something to eat." She ripped open the cheese curls. A moment later, her cheeks looked stuffed as -a chipmunk's.
If we don't get some water soon, we're gonna die, Slydes thought point-blank. He didn't dare voice this to Ruth, though. He opened a bag of chips and began munching. But if I could get that little gas grill lit outside, I could boil some of the creek water. That would kill any worms or ova. "You got a lighter on you?"
"Fuck no," she said, crunching more curls. Her fingers and puffy lips were orange.
"You gotta be shitting me. You smoke pot like they're cigarettes and you don't have a lighter on you?"
Ruth glared. "Well, I had one, Slydes, but like I told you, before the zombie tried to rape me he tore off my shorts! And the lighter was in my shorts! Does it look like I got any pockets to carry a lighter in?" She faced him arrogantly in the drenched T-shirt, then flapped the damp hem up. "See any lighter, Slydes? Huh?"
"All I see is your