by Edward Lee
Her sweat soaked the crinkly forest bed beneath her. Jory pounded on. If her feminine real estate were a flower bed, Jory was digging it up from the roots, weeds and all. Her ecstacy was devouring her, and her first orgasm exploded. Jory’s sexual capabilities reduced her to a small, warm, wet thing whose only purpose in the world was to squirm in the dirt and feel pleasure.
As much as she hated the suggestion, she whispered up between thrusts: “Honey, you’re gonna have to hurry! Caleb’s gonna come looking for us—”
Jory, ever the romantic, immediately pressed his palm across her mouth. Hard. “Quiet, bitch. I’m tryin’ ta get it.”
Now Kari Ann could only breathe through her nostrils. The rough and rude treatment offended her…for about five seconds, and then her pleasures seemed to only be heightened by this gesture of abusive disregard. Her eyes bulged upward into the night. Through the sprawling heads of palms trees overhead, she could see the moon, and the moon seemed to look back at her just as intently, as if monitoring her, a silent voyeur that was content to witness her pleasures.
She just writhed and writhed as further climaxes burst deep up inside of her.
In her bliss, she managed to think, Poor fat little Caleb. I hope he’s having fun with his fishing rod.
««—»»
Caleb winced at the slight twinge in his back whenever he cast. He tried to adjust his fat on the lake’s sharp ebb, but that just brought more spider webs of pain. The osteopenia was a bitch, but aside from that, he couldn’t complain. He was so fortunate to have cracker-rich folks and a nice double-wide. And thank the Lord for my wonderful, loving girlfriend, he thought. Plus my great new best friend, Jory. See, Caleb was a humble guy, and he didn’t take anything for granted. Then again…
I wonder what’s taking ’em so long…
All he’d done was send them back to the boat for some more jiggers and bigger weights. Turned out the lake had a lot more chop than he’d expected; Caleb was gunning for some of the famed Crackjaw Eel, and this lake supposedly had them, but he needed a deeper sinker. He’d had his fill of saltwater fishing—he could catch grouper and sheepshead in his sleep—and he’d fished most every pissant lake in the whole bay area. Caleb needed some new digs, and that’s why he decided to chance it and come here, here being Lake Stephanie, Lake Stephanie being a protected lake on a federal fish and game reserve.
Jory had helped him with his gear; he’d also made short work of the fence with the boltcutters. This form of trespassing was a federal offense, sure, and it was perfectly likely that anything Caleb might catch would be a protected species.
But Caleb was a big ballsy redneck, see? A tough guy who wouldn’t be thwarted by any No Trespassing sign. He was a man’s man, and by God if he wanted to fish this lake, he was damn well gonna fish this lake. If fact, Caleb was sure that his masculinity and lack of respect for the law was what turned Kari Ann on about him. Oh, and his sturdy good looks too. There was a lot of muscle under that beer gut.
Kari Ann and Jory were good sports to go along with him; they weren’t into fishing much, and Caleb understood that. Fishing was like bowling, an intricate sport, a hobby for a man with brains. It was really nice the way they were always so eager to help him out in his disability. They were true friends. Caleb knew he’d ask Kari Ann to marry him soon, and of course Jory would be the best man.
Ain’t nothing out there more valuable than a good woman and a good friend.
Moonlight floated on the ripples in the water. It lulled Caleb, made him drowsy. The eight cans of Keystone Light were helping out a bit, too, but that didn’t matter. Damn it, he thought, and looked around. They still ain’t back? If I didn’t know better, I might suspect ’em of…
No need to even finish a perverse thought like that. Caleb knew there was about as much chance of Kari Ann cheating on him as there was the sun forgetting to rise tomorrow.
But his lures just weren’t getting down there; they weren’t holding. Crackjaw Eel, Graysby Catfish, Scamp Trout—they were all waiting for him in this lake, and he sure as hell hadn’t come all this way to leave with an empty cooler. I need heavier rigs in this chop!
Guess I’ll have to pick my big ass up and go back to the boat myself, he resolved. Kari Ann and Jory must’a got lost.
Caleb was about to get up when—something hit.
He set his hook, began to reel ’er in—
Pound and a half, two, maybe, he judge by the pull. Trout? Didn’t feel like it. There was barely any fight at all. He reeled it in, and—
“Well, ain’t that the screwiest thing…”
What hung off his rod, alive and kicking, was a lobster.
Caleb loved lobster, and this was a good sized one at that. But there was a big problem. Lobsters were saltwater decapods, and Lake Stephanie was a freshwater lake as sure as Florida oranges were orange.
“Hmm. Don’t that beat all.”
Not a man for much deep thinking, Caleb dismissed the fluke and put the frisky, tail-clapping creature in the cooler. It would never occur to him that what he’d caught wasn’t really a lobster but a crawfish—twenty to thirty times larger than normal.
“Dang!”
Another hit, a hard one right after he’d recast. When he set the hook—
“Double dang!”
—his rod bowed like he was hauling in a brick. Got me a big one! It’s about dang time! Eight beers and osteopenia notwithstanding, he stood up now to reel in his prize.
Then his “prize” bucked back so hard, his fishing rod was jerked right out of his hands.
Caleb couldn’t believe it.
The rod flew back and landed in the water. What the hell could THAT have been? Caleb wanted to know real bad, and he also wanted his rod back. He could see it floating there, several yards out, by the float on the handle.
With difficulty, then, he waded out into the water, knee-deep, then hip-deep. That rod’n works cost a good two-fifty. Ain’t gonna give it to the drink. And what kind of fish could that have been? In freshwater?
“Had to be something real big—”
Caleb suddenly stopped in the water.
Something real big brushed against him.
Don’t panic.
He stood stock-still, hands poised.
Behind him, again, something big—something six or eight feet long—swam against him.
Fuck the rod’n reel. I’m gettin’ OUT of here—
He turned very slowly, so not to agitate the water, raised one foot to take the first step forward back to the shore, and—
WHAP!
The water surged. Foot-wide jaws hit Caleb right in the crotch and clamped down. He fell over, screaming, splashing, reeling a frantic circle in the water as his predator reeled with him: an eel—yes—ten feet long and a foot in girth. The great jaws locked down harder; Caleb was paralyzed in agony, incapable of responsive action, incapable of even heaving out one last scream before the creature’s sheer weight and crude animal strength hauled him beneath the water, into—
Silence. Blackness. Terror.
Caleb’s brain impulses were still firing away, though all human reason was gone now. He would simply drown in this cold frenetic horror, with this thing gnawing on his groin. He would never fish again. He would never slug another Keystone. He would never make love to Kari Ann again, and he had slapped his last high-five with his good friend Jory.
Then, just as he would die—
A hand grabbed his collar and pulled him out of the water.
“Jory, thank God! Get this fuckin’ thing off me!”
Eventually the eel let go, the gnawing gristly pain abated, and Caleb heaved breaths in a nearly mindless relief.
I’ve been saved! I’ve been saved!
Back on shore he collapsed in exhaustion, looked up at Jory, and…
It wasn’t Jory.
Caleb wished he was back in the water again, with the eel, when he got a look at the face of the thing that had pulled him out.
««—»
»
Kari Ann lay naked and blissfully exhausted on the forest’s soft carpet of fallen palm leaves and moss. She was the little love-sprite of the woods, a tropical Venus lounging in her plush domain. Her hair tousled, her skin shellacked in sweat, she breathed in the warm night air, gazing up dreamy-eyed to the stars. So peaceful, so natural, so beautiful…
Jory urinated loudly a few feet away, and during the same process he also belched, cleared his throat and hocked, and cut a long fart.
To seal the romantic moment, Kari Ann bid: “Sweetheart, I’m going apeshit I’m stringing out so fuckin’ bad. Get the pipe; let’s get all fucked up.”
“I’m peein’, girl!” he griped back to her. By the sound of it, he was starting a new estuary. She could see him aside, between the palm trees, hands on hips and back arched—whizzing away. What a man… So handsome… It’s too bad Caleb has so much money, ’cos I’d—
The thought squashed her. Shit! How could I forget? “We were supposed to get those thingies out of the boat, Jory! Caleb’s gonna be here any minute!”
Jory pulled his jeans on, then seemed to fiddle with something. “That fat puddin’? He’s fishin’. Fuck him.”
“But, Jory—”
Faint orange light briefly turned Jory’s rugged face into a flittering mask. He was firing up his pipe!
“Jory! You’re gonna share that with me, right?”
Jory made a sharp huff. “What do I look like, Santa Claus? You want dope, fuck a dealer.” He inhaled briskly, in hot hitches. “Get some from your fat lover boy.”
Kari Ann’s frown was as deep as the night. Men. What a bunch of bastards. After you give ’em what they want, they crap all over ya. It was a sad resignation, but one she was quite used to. She lay back again, her fingers laced behind her head. Staring up at the sky. Even Jory’s rudeness couldn’t destroy this moment of beauty for her—
thwup…
It was the tiniest sound, but…strange. Something had hit the ground. A coconut or something? No, Jory had probably just thrown her clothes at her, the rude prick.
She sat up, looked down—
And screamed so loud her lungs burned.
Cross-eyed and tongue sticking out, Caleb stared right back at her—Caleb’s severed head, that is.
The head had been dropped in the area of leafy space between Kari Ann’s spread legs.
Locked in horror, she pumped out quite a few more screams, so high and loud that birds lifted from the trees and lizards skittered for cover. Jory was walking toward her, and in her mostly paralyzed mind she reasoned that he was coming to help her.
But he was walking kind of funny, dragging his feet, and it looked like he was bringing something over, carrying something in his arms, and now he was standing right in front of her, and that’s when he dropped what he was carrying.
He dropped it right into Kari Ann’s lap.
An armful of his own innards.
The hot entrails slapped right into her, splattering her, and Kari Ann’s response to the gesture was reasonable: she screamed higher and louder.
Jory fell over, the slit in his belly yawning as more of his lower g.i. tract spilled out.
Kari Ann kicked and screamed as the large unseen hand dragged her by the hair slowly and steadily into the woods.
But the evening still had much in store for her.
(III)
“You didn’t wash, did you?” the huffy overweight woman asked in a rather insulant tone.
“No, ma’am,” Clare replied.
The ma’am seemed to calm the panel leader down at once. It was actually three overweight women who sat before her at the table, and Clare was incredulous when she noted the little plaque that read OFFICIAL SNIFFING PANEL.
“The reason I ask is that—and don’t take offense, dear—but people like you have a tendency to disregard instructions.”
Another fat woman kind of chuckled. “Then again, people like you don’t wash all that much anyway, right?”
People like me, Clare realized. Homeless people, people on the skids. Bums.
“Don’t listen to her, dear. We understand your plight; that’s why we allow a few of you to take advantage of the opportunity to take part in our tests. You know, to help you out a little.”
Clare ground her teeth and took it. “I appreciate it very much, ma’am.”
“Good. Now please remove your shirt and raise your right arm.”
Clare did so, self-conscious that her poor diet had actually shrunk her breasts to the point that her bra sagged.
Each woman walked by and sniffed her armpit, then sat back down.
I can’t believe I’m doing this. I’m letting fat ladies sniff my armpit for money.
“Very good, dear. Now put your shirt back on.”
“That’s it?”
“For now, yes.” The leader’s triple chin jiggled a bit when she took a fast glance at her watch. “It’s ten o’clock now. Your next sniffing is at noon, then you’ll have another at two.”
“What should I do in the meantime, ma’am? Stay in the lobby?”
“No, no, dear. Go walk around in the sun.”
“And don’t wash!” another woman added.
“After the two o’clock sniffing, you’ll get your twenty dollars.”
“Yes, ma’am. Thank you, ma’am.” Clare paused in thought. I just thanked a woman…for sniffing me. Jesus.
“You’re a fine, respectful young girl, and since your blood tests are negative for alcohol and narcotics—unlike most of your kind—I’ll sign you up as a regular tester. It’ll mainly be soap, deodorant, and shampoo. If you keep your appointments, you’ll make sixty dollars per week.”
“I’m very grateful to you, ma’am.”
“Good. Run along now. We have to begin our write-up.”
Clare left the office, left the women to—evidently—write down descriptions of the smell of Clare’s armpit. She didn’t know whether to laugh or cry. To her, sixty dollars a week was a lot of money. They tested these new products for skin rashes, allergenic reactions, etc., but she would gladly take the minor risk. And once she started getting more food, she could get her protein-count back up and start selling her plasma too. Then she’d really be rolling.
Outside, back in the blaze of morning sun, she actually smiled. Unconsciously her hand slipped into her pocket, felt the tiny fortune from the cookie she’d found in the trash.
It had promised good things for her, hadn’t it? Strange as it seemed, it was coming true.
Don’t take anything for granted, she warned herself and headed across the parking lot. Sure, it’s going to be hot as hell today, but I’m gonna walk around in it and LIKE it. It should be nothing anyway. In the service, she always maxed out every PT test. She’d do twenty-mile field marches with a full pack and barely break out in a sweat. Today she was actually going to get paid for something.
Yes, it was a good start, and who knew? Maybe it would even get better.
“Clare Prentiss?”
The man had seemed to appear from nowhere, out of the glare of sun bouncing off car roofs. Tall, thirties, sharp-looking in a light well-cut suit. He seemed to have walked away from a shiny Mercedes convertible, a new one.
Immediately, she thought: Cop. Narc, probably. In Florida, they all drove high-priced unmarkeds; they were drug-seizure cars.
“No,” Clare said, and tried to walk by. She had nothing to hide but she just didn’t like this.
“Social Security number 220-75-2516?”
Damn it! Who is this guy?
“Who I am is my business. Have a good day.”
She walked on.
“We simply ran your SS number in the county database; that’s how we knew you’d be here, Ms. Prentiss,” he nearly jabbered, trying to keep up. His Guccis clapped the hot asphalt. ”It’s perfectly legal. Oh, my name’s Dellin.”
“What do you want, Dellin?” she asked without stopping.
“Well, like I said, I want to know if you are Cl
are P. Prentiss, formerly first lieutenant with the Air Force Security Service, 31st Bomb Wing, 1st Security Detachment, MacDill Air Force Base.”
Clare stopped, fists at her sides, infuriated. “Yes!”
This Dellin person took a long look at her, exchanging a glance at her face with what must be a personnel photo on the clipboard he held.
“Wow, I guess…you’ve fallen on some hard times, huh?”
“No, I always dress like this!” She started walking again, fast. This whole thing stunk; she needed to get out of there. There were still vagrancy laws in Florida. Cops down here were well known for trucking stray derelicts to the Georgia border and dumping them off, and there was only one place worse than Florida for a bum to be, and that was Georgia.
“Wait!”
“I haven’t done anything wrong! No, I don’t have an address, I don’t have a job, I don’t have any visible means of support, but I’m not a criminal so leave me alone, officer!”
Then he started laughing. “You think I’m a cop? Do I look like a cop?”
She didn’t answer, just kept walking. Fast.
“Jesus, I’m not a cop, I’m a cortical mitoectonologist!”
Even Clare, in her urgency and anger, had to stop at that one. She frowned, squinting at him. “A what?”
“I’m a—” He waved a hand aside. “Long story. I’m a scientist, that’s all.”
“What the hell do you want with me!”
“Relax, will you, Ms. Prentiss?” The short jog after her left him winded. “All I want to do is offer you a job.”
— | — | —
Chapter Two
(I)
The island was V-shaped, the last of a string of barrier keys that began just off of Clearwater, Florida, and stretched down some twenty-five miles along the Gulf of Mexico. In fact, it was the southernmost island in this region, connected to the remaining line of islands by a single two-lane cantilever bridge, its only access to any areas of population. The base of the “V” pointed at the mouth of Tampa Bay—hence its original purpose as a naval garrison.
