Slither - Edward Lee [128]
"Not unless we want everyone to think we're crazy," Nora added. "Our authorities will think the RTG melted down, that's all. It'll get pushed to the last page of the newspaper."
Loren shrugged, eyes ahead to the sea. The boat bobbed as the current claimed it. They'd probably drift back to the mainland in an hour or so.
Loren looked at her in subtle shock. "But something just occurred to me."
"What?"
"We're alive."
Nora let the two words sink in. Yeah. How do you like that?
"Oh, and I have to be honest enough to admit something," Loren remembered. "I lost the bet."
.The bet?" Nora blinked, trying to remember. "Oh yeah. I bet you dinner that Annabelle would put the make on you. Did she?"
Loren gulped. "Oh yeah. So where do you want your free dinner?"
Nora gave the matter some serious consideration. I almost got killed by aliens today. I didn't but ... I'm still a virgin.
"My place," she said.
"I was hoping you'd say that," Loren replied.
They slumped down next to each other, hips touching, and let the sea carry them away.
EPILOGUE
Bad luck had pursued Ruth for essentially every living minute of her life, so ...
Why should it stop now?
The small skiff she'd found lashed in a secluded lagoon had indeed seemed like a turn of her typical luck. She'd managed to get it out to the gulf in spite of the lower tide, and next thing she knew the current was gliding her back toward the mainland. I don't fuckin' believe it! she thought. After all she'd been through, she managed to escape. She could never be aware of the irony, though: that the selfsame skiff that saved her life had once belonged to a young man named Robb White ... before he'd turned into what Ruth continued to believe was a zombie.
Her luck only lasted another half hour, however. That's when the skiff began to sink.
What the fuck?
She peered down in terror, only now noticing the tiny holes in the skiffs aluminum hull. Those fuckin' worms again! They ate holes in it, just like they ate holes in Slydes's engine!
So much travail for poor Ruth. She'd survived giant worms, zombies, and two redneck psychopaths but fate still had not finished toying with her. The boat took water very slowly, which only worsened the truth: first to the tops of her feet, then to the tops of her ankles, inching coolly upward while Ruth just sat there jerking glances at the water which would eventually claim her. When the skiff was finally swallowed, Ruth bobbed like a buoy, gasping, "Fuck, fuck, fuck, fuck, fuck, fuck, fuck!" as her feet paddled manically.
She snorted salt water, her eyes stinging. She could see a stretch of beach on the mainland, less than a mile away. It seemed like a mirage, rising up and down with her vision, whispering to her: Swim! Swim! It's not that far!
Ruth swam, as best she could given her clinical exhaustion, dehydration, and extreme malnourishment. One too many adrenaline dumps left her limbs enfeebled, her consciousness winking in and out.
Would a shark get her first, or would she just drown?
Ruth expected both to happen at once, with her luck. Dizziness swept a grainy veil over her eyes. Her heart was missing beats. How much farther?
When she could move no more, she thought Fuck ... one last time, and sank into the sea's green depths-
She tumbled beneath the surface, like clothes in a washer. Any energy left in her body seemed fit to burst along with her lungs.
The grainy veil turned black ...
And there was only stillness.
Voices chattered above her: "Somebody go get help!"
"Is-is she dead?"
"Somebody get one of the seniors!"
The chattering sounded like little girls. When Ruth's eyes opened, she eventually focused on a ring of little chipmunk faces peering down.
"Who the fuck?" Ruth croaked through a parched throat.
"She said the F word! She said the F word! I'm telling the Den Mother!"
"Shut up," someone else said.
They're little girls, Ruth finally realized. I washed up on the beach and these little girls found me ...
The girls all seemed between ten and