by Edward Lee
Giant cockroaches, giant frogs. She wondered what Dellin would say when she told him that Adam had all but accused him of dumping some toxic byproduct into Lake Stephanie.
Maybe I should…
But she severed the idea. See if Dellin’s at his cottage today? Go knock on his door and report these incidents to him now, on his day off? In the Air Force, it would’ve been her duty.
Yeah, but this isn’t the Air Force anymore, this is Civvieland, and civvies don’t like to be bugged on the weekend.
She admitted to herself what she was doing: manufacturing an excuse to see him, and verifying Adam’s allegation that she had “eyes” for him.
Well—hell—I do.
But she also knew that bothering him on a day off was the wrong thing to do.
She spent the last half hour of her shift in the office, treating herself to a last glass of iced-coffee and finishing off her logsheet and incident report. The clinic felt weird in its silence; no one was coming in today, not even the janitorial staff. Her footfalls echoed through the long, white hallways as she set the alarm system and left.
The noon heat hit her like walking into a curtain; the sun was high in a perfect blue sky. Even though she was technically on call for the entire weekend, she didn’t have any shifts to fill, and suddenly it struck her that the day was too gorgeous to go home and sleep. She could drive around, see the town. If the alarms went off, the system would beep her. She could go have a little fun.
Then her more diligent half kicked in. You can have a little fun some other time. I just started this job two days ago. The responsible thing to do is stick close to the site, just on the off chance that something DOES happen.
The matter was settled, and she was pleased that her sense of discipline didn’t waver—even with the pocket full of money she still had. She took the Blazer to the front gate, just to make a final security check, then headed back to her cottage.
I wonder who…
She squinted; fifty yards ahead, at the turn to the cottage road, a light-colored four-wheel drive with a revolving light on top had pulled out and turned away. When she made out the crest on the back, she realized it was Adam.
What the hell is that weirdo doing on my road!
She could pursue him, to find out, but—
Forget it. I’ve had enough of that pain in the ass. I’m not gonna let him wreck my weekend.
She kept on her way, and any ill feelings she might have had—about Adam Corey, about what her nightmares might mean, or the grotesque frog and cockroach, about anything—was whisked away when she pulled up in front of her cottage. The elation returned; she still couldn’t believe she lived in this wonderful place, couldn’t believe her sudden good fortune. She left her worries and confusions in the Blazer, and all she took up the front walk with her was her smile.
“Hey!”
Clare turned around at the front door, her keys jingling. Joyce smiled back at her from the end of the walk, in a beach robe, flip-flops, and sunglasses. “Hi, Joyce,” Clare greeted. “Hitting the beach, I see?”
“Yeah. You want to go to?”
The offer sounded tempting. “Well, I really shouldn’t. I should—”
“Go to the beach with Joyce,” Joyce said, coming up the walk. “Come on, the sun’ll be peaking in an hour. It’s perfect. And we’ll probably have the whole beach to ourselves.”
Clare stalled. Actually she wasn’t tired at all, especially after oversleeping the day before. “I—”
“Great!” Joyce declared. “I’ll wait for you while you get ready.”
Clare smiled and opened the front door.
“Don’t walk on your mail,” Joyce remarked.
“Huh?” Mail? Who’d be mailing ME anything? But there was a letter slot in the door, and when they’d entered, Clare almost stepped on an envelope lying on the slate foyer.
“It’s probably your apartment checklist from Mrs. Grable,” Joyce told her and made straight for the kitchen. “Anything that doesn’t work, just check it on the list and give it back to her. She’ll make sure it gets fixed quick. Hey, can I have a banana?”
The question distracted her; she’d bought bananas and peaches yesterday at the store, put them in a bowl on the counter. “Oh, sure. Help yourself.” Then she looked at the envelope that had been dropped in the slot. A checklist… It was just a blank envelope.
“It you don’t have a swimsuit, it’s no big deal,” Joyce commented, peeling the banana.
Just then, Clare remembered—and a delayed embarrassment threatened to make her blush. Last night, when she woke me up from the nightmare… She saw me holding that vibrator—good God! But the fact that Joyce had thought nothing of it only reinforced Clare’s growing self-awareness. I guess I’m kind of a prude… I keep forgetting, it’s the 21st century, people aren’t uptight about sex. Most people, anyway. Joyce had even casually admitted to owning several vibrators herself. She was a fully sexualized woman, and that realization made Clare feel inept. Joyce’s lusty physique seemed to radiate through the beach robe. But it wasn’t just her body that was attractive, it was her attitude, her casual confidence. Suddenly, Clare felt like the librarian sighing in secret envy of the cheerleader.
“Earth to Clare? Scotty beam you up?”
Distractions overwhelmed her. Why was that? Why was that happening so often now? She must think I’m a total airhead! “Oh, a swimsuit? Yes, I picked up a few yesterday at one of those beach shops. Got a big towel too.” Then it occurred to her. “Oh, but—damn it. I forgot to get any suntan lotion.”
“I’ve got plenty of that,” Joyce dismissed. She dropped the banana peel in the wastebasket, then pointed to her bag. “Plus I got a big jug of sun-brewed iced-tea. You’ll love the beach we’ve got here. It’s a private beach, so you know what that means, right?”
“What?”
“Swimwear is optional.”
Clare could think of no response. Does that mean she’s going to sunbathe in the nude? She didn’t feel comfortable enough asking. Eventually she stammered, “That’s probably not my style. And right now most of me is whiter than the sand.”
“Oh, we’ll fix that. Why don’t you go get ready and then we’ll get out there.”
At once Clare figured out that she was politely being told that she was dawdling. She scurried into the bedroom, disrobed hurriedly. From the few swimsuits she’d bought, she slipped into a maillot-type Lycra one-piece, a soft mint-green. As she ran a quick comb through her hair, she wondered: Should I tell Joyce that Dellin asked me to the beach yesterday?
But immediately she frowned the idea off. Why do that? Joyce might get the wrong idea. In some catty, girlish way, it might sound like Clare was bragging. The thought occurred to her simply because Dellin’s sudden offer had taken her by pleasant surprise, and he’d even suggested that they might go to the beach together sometime in the future.
Then an even better thought popped up: Maybe he’ll even be out there today…
“Hey, Clare? We’re just going to the beach, not the prom!”
“Be right there!” Towel, beach bag, she reminded herself. Am I forgetting anything?
If she was, she’d find out when she got there. She donned her sunglasses, stepped into her flip-flops, and was about to head out—
Oh, the envelope…
She’d left it on the dresser. She was inclined to leave it, look at it later. But what if it’s not what Joyce thought. What if it’s something else?
She opened the envelope, extracted a single sheet of paper.
And stared.
The layout of the print was off-angle on the page, and the print quality was quite poor—obviously a multiple photocopy of a photocopy. But what snagged Clare’s concern most of all was the item’s nature.
Clare had seen things like this before.
It’s a notification of criminal charges…
From: Office of the Judge Advocate General
The Pentagon, Washington, D.C.
T
o:MILPERS Detachment
Fort James K. Polk, Akron, Ohio
Re: NOTIFICATION OF INTENT TO PROSECUTE
1) JAG HQ posts this inter-branch FYI: Log and process the following ITP’s with the MILPERS Registrar, via provisions of Army Regulation 201-173, Paragraph F, of the UCMJ.
So far, Clare knew what everything meant. MILPERS meant “military personnel,” and UCMJ referred to the Uniform Code of Military Justice, the military code of law. This was a list of criminal arraignments being sent from the military’s highest legal authority to be officially input into the U.S. Army’s judicial database. It was a list of people the Army intended to try for crimes.
The rest was the actual alphabetized list, of Army personnel a being slated for prosecution. About a third of the way down the sheet, a particular name hooked her in the eye:
DANIELS, DELLIN, K.
Captain O-3/MOS: 45C20 - Molecular-Targeting Technician
DUTY STATION: Fort Dietrich, Maryland, (BWS)
FORWARDING CHARGE(S):
a) Unauthorized redeposition of potentially hazardous/potentially classifiable materials.
Good God, was all Clare could think. But her next thought spiked her: Adam!
It couldn’t have been anyone else but Adam who slipped this into Clare’s mail slot. Jesus Christ, I just saw the guy driving out of here fifteen minutes ago! Her dislike for Adam sparked her first emotive reaction: The son of a bitch is trashing Dellin ’cos he knows I’ve got a crush on him. He’s trying to steer me AWAY from Dellin and TOWARDS him.
But that was the least practical reaction and she knew that after another moment’s thought. What it all meant was something much more important.
His motives don’t matter. Adam was right. Dellin’s got a crooked past. We’ve got something mutating the local animal wildlife, probably from toxic chemicals being illegally dumped…and now I’m looking at an official document charging Dellin with the exact same thing…
At once, she was depressed. She’d read Dellin all wrong, and this undisputable truth had just completely sabotaged her infatuation with him. She couldn’t do anything about it, of course. Possessing the document itself represented a clear violation of Dellin’s right to privacy, and even if the police investigated under the table, there’d be nothing they could take to court without genuine evidence. I could even be charged myself, for having this document, and just because I know that Adam was the one who put it here, I’ve got no proof of that. With my OWN military record?
Clare knew that even acknowledging this information would just get her fired from a great job and cause more trouble for her.
Damn… Whenever something good happens, something comes right along behind it to screw it up…
“Clare? I think I’m turning forty out here.”
She grabbed her things, rushed out. She tried to seem unaffected but guessed it would show. “I’m ready. Sorry.”
“Great!” Joyce’s smile beamed. “You’re gonna love this beach!”
They walked out the back, took a small path that worked through the palmetto bushes and thinning trees that lined the beach. Joyce was practically trotting in her enthusiasm; Clare only wished she could share in it now.
Of course, she couldn’t tell Joyce about this either—she couldn’t tell anyone. She had no idea how she would react the next time she saw Adam. She could only hope she didn’t see him.
“Grab a chair. Isn’t it gorgeous?”
Several folding lounge chairs were stacked at the beach’s rim. Joyce grabbed one and was striding out ahead of her.
The beach was gorgeous. The sand was perfectly white, and the green-blue waves of the surf lapped serenely just ahead of her. Across the mile-wide bay inlet, she could see the island’s first spur and the high sun radiating on the water. It might have been the most beautiful vision of her life.
But one she barely recognized now. Her crush on Dellin was demolished. It was hard to recall a deeper disappointment.
I sure know how to pick the guys to like. A military convict…
But there was something else too, an unpleasant concern that seemed to dig at her like an insect bite right in the middle of her back, one that couldn’t be scratched.
Something about the list…the acronyms, maybe.
Her distraction was so complete she actually set out the lounge chair facing the wrong direction.
“First time at the beach?” Joyce said and started to laugh. “I guess you really want to soak up that stunning view of your back porch.”
“I’m a real dunce today,” Clare replied. “I just remembered what I forgot. My brain.” She righted the chair, but her thoughts were still in a fog.
Yes. The acronyms. There was one…
She stretched out on the chair, staring out at but not really seeing the gentle surf. That’s when she remembered the acronym that bothered her. Just under the listing for Dellin’s name on the document, it listed the location of the infraction. Suddenly she remembered precisely what it said:
Duty Station: Fort Dietrich, Maryland, (BWS)
The abbreviation at the end was the one that flagged her.
BWS, she thought in perplexion. BWS…
She knew that she’d heard that before. Whatever sort of department or technical specialty it was, she was sure the Air Force had one too.
Damn it! I HATE that! It’s right on the tip of my tongue!
But in a few moments her aggravation turned into a pallid shock—when she finally remembered what those three letters stood for.
Biological Weapons Section…
(II)
They would be mad at it for being out here like this when it was the light part of the day. They didn’t want regular people seeing it, so it was supposed to stay down in the pipe. But sometimes it came out anyway, because it liked to see what things looked like when the light was on them.
Yes, it liked the way things looked.
It liked just sitting here like this. It sat in some bushes, looking out. It knew that it should go back in the pipe soon but it didn’t want to yet.
Last night was exciting. It watched the long-haired man flip-flop and howl on the lake shore.
The things in the lake had gotten him.
It was fun watching him die.
When the long-haired man had stopped moving and howling, it walked over and picked him up and then threw him back into the water. It liked the things in the lake, and it liked to feed them.
The long-haired man had come up on the beach side; that’s when it had first seen him. He was digging in the beach sand, pulling things out and putting them in a bucket. It didn’t know what the things were. They were whitish and sort of round. They were sort of the same shape as the part of it between its legs that the little skinny dirty girl had taken away from him the other day when she was trying to get away in the boat.
It hurt a lot when she did that, but it didn’t matter.
The part of it that she’d taken off was already growing back.
Later the little skinny dirty girl got taken away in the truck with the funny popping lights. It wished she hadn’t gotten taken away because it liked doing it to her.
They were mad at it because she got taken away.
It wasn’t allowed to kill the girls, just the men. It knew they needed the girls to put in the special room. That’s all it knew—that they liked to put the girls in that room.
They were also mad at it because of the buckets.
The stuff in the buckets.
It was supposed to empty the stuff in the buckets into the lake but a couple of times it had forgotten.
It would set the bucket down for a minute to pee, or catch a snake to eat, and then it would forget about the bucket.
They yelled at it when it did that.
It would forget where it left the bucket!
It knew that it would have to do better.
It sat there now, looking out. It felt full. Now that it was thinking of buckets, it remembered the bucket from last
night, the one that the long-haired man was using. He was filling it up with the whitish round things he dug up in the sand.
After it had thrown his dead body back into the lake, it ate all the little white round things in the bucket.
They moved around in its mouth before it swallowed. They tasted good and filled it up. It liked snake better, though. It would bite the head off and suck out the guts. It ate lots of bugs too. It liked the way they crunched.
It was getting anxious now.
It needed a woman to do it to. It needed one soon.
It didn’t know where the little skinny dirty girl was now but if it did it would go and get her and do it to her hard.
Yes, it needed a woman bad, and it hoped one would come soon. Sometimes they came at night with their men. It knew that it wasn’t supposed to take the women in the tan clothes with the shiny plates. It wasn’t allowed unless they said so. There were two of them, and they were real pretty. It was too bad that it wasn’t allowed to take either of them.
It knew what they wanted. They wanted women from the outside.
It knew that if it got them a woman from the outside, they would be real happy with it.
It really hoped that one would come.
Maybe one would come tonight.
It started thinking about the two pretty women in the tan clothes. It liked the shorter one the best, the one with the hair that was the color of the sand on the beach.
Yes, it really liked her.
It wished it could kill her and do it to her while it was killing her.
It didn’t know why it felt that way.
It just did.
