Slither - Edward Lee [23]
Just as Leona helped him up-
What's that smell? she thought.
"Something's burning!" Howie yelled.
He was up and running toward the Coleman grill.
Holy shit!
Boy, had Leona fucked up! The leaves and sparse brush around the grill had somehow caught fire.
And the fire was crackling toward the shack.
"Jesus Christ, this whole island'11 be on fire!" Howie snapped. "The smoke'll kill us before we can get to the shore!"
Leona stood paralyzed, ludicrous now since she was topless.
Howie pointed to the end of the shack. "Turn on that faucet! I'll get the hose!"
Another second, and the seriousness kicked in. This island, this time of year? It was dry as tinders. A fire could engulf everything ... including them.
Leona sprinted forward, slid to the shack on her knees, and cranked the faucet handle. She grabbed the hose lying there and clumsily aimed the water stream toward the fire. She wagged the hose back and forth, drawing lines of smoking sizzle. The fire had spread out quickly, but just as quickly, Leona had managed to put it all out.
Jesus ... Relief!
But...
She looked around. Where was Howie?
"I found the hose!" he bellowed, running back around the comer. He held the long length in one hand. "Turn it o-" But then he stopped, scanned his eyes at the smoking ashes.
"Howie," Leona croaked. "That thing in your hand isn't the hose ..."
It hung limp until the moment she'd said that, almost as if it had sensed the trigger of Howie's fear. His eyes snapped down. Then the "hose" began to move ...
Vaguely pink, glistening skin. About an inch thick. How long was it? It extended from his hand, behind him, its other end still on the other side of the shack. Howie tried to drop the grotesque thing, but it was already too late. In the space of that synaptic second, the creature energized and wrapped around Howie's upper torso so fast it was but a silent, pinkish blur in the air.
Then Howie was dressed in the thing, wearing it like a corselet. His scream was severed when more of its length coiled about his neck. Howie fell over. - -- --- - - - - - - - - - -
His eyes still registered images as his vision clouded, and then the thing's head made itself plain: slightly tapered, less like a snake and more like a worm.
A pink hole dilated-a mouth opening?-then a thinner pink tube of something fleshy slipped out and"Howie!" Leona screamed.
-slithered down Howie's throat.
Leona stood, uncomprehending, glaze-eyed, as this twenty-foot-long living thing that appeared to be a snake relaxed the pressure of its coils ... and began to pulse.
Leona wasn't quite sure what she was seeing in those last few moments before her paralysis snapped, but before her feet mindlessly began to take her away into the woods, Howie's body seemed to be filling up with something.
Something that the snake was pumping into him, through the fleshy, ringed tube that was its mouth.
(II)
Ruth Bridge's lips looked like she'd been punched in the mouth-hard-if one were cynical enough to look closely; her face, in fact, would easily have been pretty were it not for the permanent, uneven swelling. She'd asked the doctor for "Lips like Pam Anderson!" but received something significantly less. She wasn't even aware of it, though, so what did it matter? A positive self-concept was sometimes more important than the truth.
Her body, on the other hand, looked damn good for a gal worn out by thirty-nine years of dope, booze, and onthe-run living. And her breasts? It had been a Miami plastic surgeon who'd done the work-for free, because Ruth had been his sideline plaything for most of her latter twenties. The doctor's name was Levin, and the manner with which he'd inflated Ruth's meager 32-As to prominent 36-Cs was worthy of a certificate of achievement. Dr. Levin had tired of her, though, after so many hotel rendevous, after which she'd ventured to Beverly Hills for a change of scenery and the pesky warrant for check kiting. Here she'd hooked up with another plastic surgeon, one Dr. Winston Prouty, who, in return for Ruth's pleasures, offered a free lip