Slither - Edward Lee [20]
Splap!
She smacked the flipper against Trent's back, but Trent was already jumping up, tearing off the green fatigue shirt. "Jesus! Would somebody tell me what was crawling on my-back?"-
"Not sure," Nora said, and took the shirt. She spread it out on the tabletop.
"It was a spider!" Annabelle. "Maybe poisonous ..."
Trent looked outraged. "No way!"
"Loren, did that look arachnoidal to you?" Nora asked.
Loren was checking Trent's back. "No. I didn't see any appendages and the body definitely wasn't bisectional." He slapped Trent on the shoulder. "And, Lieutenant, I'm happy to say you don't have any bite marks."
"Jesus!"
It didn't look like a beetle, and it was too big to be a tick," Loren added.
Nora was examining the shirt. "But it was definitely motile."
Trent was clearly upset. "What's that mean? Speak English!"
"It means it was moving," Nora defined. "And if it didn't have ambulatory appendages, it must be monotaxic."
Trent appeared as though his entire world had become upheaved. Though not overweight, he was in desperate need of some sun, black chest hair matting on white skin. "What are you talking about!"
"Lieutenant, relax, you weren't bitten by anything," Nora reminded him while she and Loren pored over the shirt. "Slugs, limpets, snails, and leeches move by means of what's called a monotaxia 'foot'-"
"The slime pad," Loren simplified.
"-and that's probably what was propelling your little friend here."
"I'll bet it was a leech!" Annabelle continued to overreact.
Trent looked on the verge of vomiting. "Shut up!"
"No, not a leech," Nora informed. "Leeches are just another type of segmented worm-an annelid-and I got a good enough look at this to see that it wasn't segmented."
"And this thing's body wasn't ovated," Loren added. "It was circinated."
Trent and Annabelle stood aside, mystified, as Nora finally found the splatter on the shirt. "There, see?" she said. "It's not insectoid, no exoskeleton."
"Well, I guess that means it wasn't a tick." Trent seemed relieved. "I don't need any of that Rocky Mountain oyster fever."
Nora shook her head, bemused.
"Maybe it was a pebble snail," Loren said. "That's about the only monotaxic animal I can think of that has a circular body."
This was definitely circular, Nora remembered. "It almost looked nodulous or ovumular."
"Actually it did," Loren agreed, "but we both know that's impossible."
Trent sneered. "I think it would be really nice if you would drop the college professor talk, and-"
"Ovumular," Nora specified, "or like an ovum-an egg cell. Some marine worms, for example, as well as many marine creatures, have ova that move about by their own means of locomotion once they leave the female's body. These species are mostly parasites; therefore, once the fertilized ovum has been dispersed, it seeks some other form of animal life in which to nurture itself and grow. And nodulous-like a node. Some of these motile ovum are actually carried around in a self-contained node` that protects it and helps it get to a host."
The prospect of "parasites" and "nodes" didn't overjoy Trent. "How do you know that thing wasn't one of those?"
"Because they're microscopic," Loren said.
Trent and Annabelle leaned over now, to get a closer look.
Whatever had been on the lieutenant's back was now just a viscid splotch. What Nora had seen had been about the size of a large-shelled peanut, but circular, like a hazelnut. And yellow, like butter.
"Here's the skin of whatever it was." She pointed, moving the flattened thing with the tip of her pen.
"And, look." Loren squinted, leaning closer. "It's yellow but has tiny red spots."
"Some kind of epidermal pigmentation," Nora said.
"Another vote for a slug, but ..." His thoughts trailed off.
Nora chewed her lip. "I know. I'm not familiar with any species of land slug that's yellow."
"Oh, yuck!" was Annabelle's next contribution. "That big splat is its insides?"
"Yep." Nora was secretly pleased by the photographer's revulsion. "I'm not seeing anything that looks like the remnants