Slither - Edward Lee [2]
That's not our boat....
It was just a skiff with a little outboard in back. This must be one of the other inlets Alan was talking about, Howie realized. The small boat rocked gently in the water. So ...
There was someone else on the island.
Howie stepped aboard the skiff, hoping dismally to find a radio, a cell phone, even a flare gun, but there was nothing. He picked up a small card on the floor.
CENTRAL FLORIDA WEST COAST TIDE TABLE, it read.
Makes sense, Howie thought. Someone else came out to the island to party, just like we did. Naturally they'd have a tide table because you couldn't get a boat in here during anything but high tide.
Howie frowned at the card. It was last month's table.
He picked up a slip of paper in the console. Credit card receipt. Herbster's Marine Exxon. The captain of the skiff had obviously filled his tank there. Same place Alan filled up this morning, Howie remembered. But this receipt was dated three weeks ago. The card holder's name was Robb White.
The gears of Howie's brain turned. Robb ... White ... Recognition. That guy on the football team, a senior, he recalled with a rising dread.
Dread because Robb White and some of his friends had been reported missing ...
Three weeks ago.
Not cool, Howie thought. But this was just more to process; Carol was the priority. Howie scanned the skiff one last time for a radio or cell phone, came up with nothing, then turned to step off the craft.
Awwwwww, SHIT!
The corpse of a young woman floated languidly just beyond the bow. The way her sable-hued hair fanned out over the water was almost pretty.
The rest of her wasn't so pretty.
She was probably naked, but that couldn't be totally discerned for what was wrapped around her like a pink garden hose: something that had to have been a snake. It coiled about her upper thighs, waist, and bosom, then her neck, and it glistened intricately. Sickening enough as it was, what sickened Howie more was the creature's color: pink, like the inside of someone's cheek. The woman's eyes no longer existed within their sockets but instead floated free, suspended by tendrils of optic nerves. The thing's tail roved listlessly between her wax-white legs, while its head ...
Howie gaped.
The thing's head burrowed into the woman's mouth, and its elongated body seemed to pulse ... as if pumping something down through her esophagus.
Howie had had enough. Gotta-get-OUT OF HERE! But as he leaped off the skiff, something snagged his vision on the other side of the quiet inlet.
His eyes flicked up-
A man was standing between some trees. He wore some sort of black jumpsuit with integrated mittens.
And a gas mask and hood.
Military, Howie thought.
When he blinked, the man was gone.
Howie ran back into the woods as if he were being chased by demons.
CHAPTER ONE
"Would somebody explain to me just exactly why this Pritchard's Key place is so special as far as scarlet bristleworms go?" the bikini'd blonde at the end asked. Her name was Annabelle Omart-noon-blue eyes, and a body like a game show hostess's. She hailed from New York, the National Geographic editorial offices. Her body suggested a dedicated regimen of exercisemost likely in upscale fitness salons. The only thing missing was a preeminent suntan. The woman sat demurely, seat-belted in to the helicopter's muster bench.
"It's because of something called a counterstropic rivulet," Nora answered with absolutely no interest. When she didn't elaborate further, Loren Fredrick, her associate, continued, "Which is actually just an uncharacteristic surge of runoff water from the mainland. Gravity and the terrain siphons this water to a single point and a gradient underwater current in the gulf pushes it outward. Pritchard's Key just happens to exist at the same point where the surge begins to disperse."
The army guide wasn't listening, and neither was the cabin master, a gruff warrant officer. They were both looking at the blonde. Every so often, even the pilots glanced back from the