Slither - Edward Lee [91]
"Came here to party?"
She nodded, and forearmed sweat off her brow.
"We need you and your friends to take us off this island," Loren told her. "Where are they now, and ... Why were you under that tarp? It must be hot as hell under all that thing."
Her eyes looked dull and lost when she gazed back at him. "My friends are all dead. I was hiding here."
"Hiding from what?"
She spared a sardonic chuckle. "You have no idea what's going on here, do you?"
The remark seized Loren. "Well, I think I do-at little, at least. Were you hiding from the worms?"
"Yes!" she cried. "You know about them? And those little yellow bug things?"
"They're called motile ova," Loren explained. `They're the worm's eggs. The worm itself is a kind of parasite that we've never encountered before. We think that these worms as well as their ova can infect humans."
"You think right," Leona asserted.
"So your friends were killed by-"
"Yes-Jesus-yes. The worms were actually growing inside them. And I saw other bodies too; there was a group of students who came out here several weeks ago. I'm pretty sure I'm the only one left alive. The only thing I could think to do was hide here; I was hoping someone would just ... find me, eventually." She looked around groggily. "I hid under the tarp-I didn't want those other guys to see me."
Loren's brow shot up. "What other guys?"
"There's military people on this island, too. I think they put those worms here to see what they'd do to humans. They've got these little cameras all over the place-they're monitoring us, for God's sake. It's like we're part of some scientific test."
Now, here was some news. Military, Loren thought. Cameras ... one of the things Nora found ... "And you've seen these military men yourself?"
"Yes, a couple of times," she murmured. "They never confronted any of us-they just kept back in the woods. We'd catch glimpses of them. I even saw one of them taking pictures of one of the bodies-after it had been infected by the worms. They're in gas masks and black suits with hoods."
"Well, how did they get on the island themselves? Do they have a boat too?"
"I don't know," she said. Her shoulders drooped. "And I don't care." She began to choke back sobs. "I just want to go home."
"Don't worry, we'll get you home..." Then Loren looked down at the boat, and blinked at the incongruence of what she'd just said. "How come you're still here? If you knew your friends were all dead, why didn't you just take the boat out of here yourself?"
"No keys. Alan's got them, and he's long gone."
A hope glimmered. "Where's his body? We can still get the keys."
"He's out rotting in the woods somewhere!" she whined. "I don't know! You want to go digging through a dead man's pockets when he's full of those things?"
She's right about that, he realized. "We don't even need the keys. We can push the boat out of the cove if we have to, let the current take us-one way or another, we're getting out of here. Come on, I'll take you to where my friends are."
Leona stiffened. "I-I don't think I want to do that. I'd rather stay here."
"You'll be perfectly safe," Loren assured her.
"How do you know your friends aren't infected by now?"
"They're not, trust me. I just saw them a little while ago--
She was shaking her head. "You don't understand. Those little yellow things are all over the place. They'll fall on you from the trees if you're not careful. And some of the worms are really big. I'm not going back into those woods; I'm lucky enough to have made it this far without one getting me." She paused, eyeing him. "Why don't you and I leave right now?"
"That's impossible," Loren told her. "My friends aren't infected. I guarantee it. But I can't just leave without them."
"I think you should," she said, fingering the gun.
Oh no. This is going to be a problem, Loren realized. Should he go for the gun? Loren knew his karma didn't