Slither - Edward Lee [71]
"Great, a worm. That's even more disgusting.'
But Nora wasn't disgusted at all; she was intrigued. The bands of the coelum matched those they'd examined last night with the microscopes.
Again, her observations were verified: This was not a species of annelid that she recognized.
Nora got her wish: a bigger specimen to examine.
"What's that stuff coming out of its mouth?" Trent asked. From the tip of the worm's eyeless head floated a plume of something nearly granulated and yellow.
"Ova," Nora said. "Motile ova. They're underdeveloped versions of those yellow things that were in here two days ago."
.You mean the worm's eggs?" Annabelle asked.
"Carriers of the worm's eggs," Nora corrected. "Once mature, they can move about independently. Some invertebrates don't lay eggs that hatch from a stationary nest, they disperse the eggs. Moving hairs called cilia or rings of muscle called parapods enable the ova to find its own hatching place. In the case of a parasitic ovum, the hatching place is another living thing, like a lobster, for example."
"Or a human?" Trent asked.
"With this type of worm, I don't think so," Nora felt confident in saying. "Not mammals of any kind. Once a worm or an ovum like this entered the bloodstream of a mammal, the macrophages in our immune system would kill it immediately. I don't think we have to worry about infections ourselves. The main thing I'm worrying about is getting in a thorough examination of this before it decomposes."
Nora looped the dead worm over her pen and lifted it up. Now I have something to do today!
CHAPTER FIFTEEN
(I)
Slydes barely slipped back into the woods in time; he'd just finished checking the head shacks where Jonas grew his pot, when-Goddamn! Not her again!-the skinny woman in the black one-piece turned the corner. Slydes ducked behind the trees. If he'd been a second slower, the woman would have seen him.
What the fuck is she doing in there?
She seemed intent on something, a half smile on her face as she bopped up to the first door. She's spending an awful lot of time in there ...
Slydes noticed that she was holding something. It looked like a piece of pink string draped over her pen.
"Come on, worm," she absently remarked. "Let's see what you're all about." And then she went into the building.
Worm? Slydes thought. Is that what she said? So the pink string was a worm, obviously a dead one. But now that Slydes thought about it, the worm was the same color of the thing that had landed on Ruth two nights ago, and the same color of the worm they'd stepped on in Jonas's dope shack, but a lot longer.
And...
Ruth said something about snakes, too, didn't she? Giant snakes that were ... pink .. .
Giant pink snakes? Or maybe giant pink worms .. .
He caught himself. Don't be an ass. There'd be all kinds of worms on an island like this. Not to mention that Ruth was fried crispy from drugs. The dumb-ass girl had hallucinations all the time.
He couldn't ignore the coincidence, though. Ruth harped about pink snakes, and now here was this skinny chick with the frizzed-out hair walking into the head shack with a pink worm ...
Longest fucking worm I've ever seen .. .
He felt too lousy to dwell on it, though. He had a doozy of a fever now; his nose was running and stuffed up, and the headache throbbed constantly. He was out here trying to find Jonas so they could get out of here, but there'd been no sign of him yet. Fuckin' low-life pothead brother, fuckin' everything up. We wouldn't be out here now if it weren't for him and his damn souped-up dope. He slipped away from the old missile buildings. If we'd never come to this damn island, I wouldn't be sick ...
But he knew he couldn't go anywhere until he'd found his brother.
Slydes searched for another hour, branches swiping at his face, vines threatening to trip him. Toward noon, the humidity was soup-thick; Slydes poured sweat.