Audrey’s unfinished, sub-reptilian hand stroked his face. Though he reflexively flinched away from its unbearable touch, he tried to force himself to bear it. Audrey was his only hope.
“Oh, I know that, Cullen,” Audrey giddily laughed. “She’s not my child…”
Her stubby infant fingers peeled his eyelids back, forcing him to look down the wide-bore needles of the pair of loaded syringes the amphibian mutant held in its webbed paws.
“She’s my hand.”
When the needles stabbed into the bone marrow of his leg stumps and drove their fluid payloads home, Cullen could not even scream.
***
The poor clinic in San Benito was not as well appointed as the Catholic hospital, with its semiprivate wings and antiseptic wards. A long warehouse of misery with corrugated tin roof and crumbling plaster walls had almost no rooms at all, but a few special cases were kept in darkened closets at the end of the ward.
“We are not as well-equipped as the capitol to deal with such unique cases,” Dr. Grijalva said, as he led the distinguished older visitor with the top hat and silver beard through the crowds of the injured and sick and their hungry children.
“Tell me as much as you can about his case,” said Dr. Barbas. “I had read some in the papers, but who can believe…”
“It’s much stranger than you read,” Grijalva replied.
“The firemen found him in the swamp. He was very badly burned, but his injuries… healed… remarkably quickly. We still have to keep him in a private room.”
Dr. Grijalva unlocked a door at the end of the ward to a tiny room with the windows boarded over. Dr. Barbas choked and covered his mouth and nose against the stench. “He must be a great bother to you…”
“Indeed. And whatever fortune he had in America appears to be out of reach. Trouble with the Yanqui authorities. Poor Mr. Donleavy rests on the mercy of the state.”
They both shared an uneasy laugh, which was stifled when Grijalva turned on the bedside lamp.
Only the patient’s head stuck out from under the sweat-soaked sheet. A hat rack with plasma and glucose IV’s dangled overhead, and restraints of jute rope lashed his arms to the bed frame.
His face was a slimy, shapeless mess, as if his features had somehow been melted, and stirred with a spoon before solidifying again. One poached blue eye stared fixedly beyond the narrow bed and the stained plaster wall.
“Never give up, that’s what I told her,” he wetly wheezed. “Gonna walk out of here, one day.”
Hushing Dr. Barbas with a finger to his lips, Grijalva moved closer and took hold of the sheet. In halting English, he said, “Maybe even today! Good news, Mr. Donleavy!”
“Please, Doctor,” he groaned in halting Spanish, “is it time for my bath?”
“Even better, my friend! The great Dr. Barbas has taken an interest in your case!”
“There is not much I can do with him,” Barbas cut in, “if he is merely ugly…”
Grijalva whipped back the covers. Barbas looked for a bedpan in which to vomit.
As terrible as the “healed” wounds were––a nightmare of rugose, oddly translucent scar tissue that covered ninety percent of his body––nothing could compare to the state of his legs, which could not be described as healed, any more than they were normal.
Below the thighs, each leg terminated in a fat, froglike torso, forelegs and a salamander’s head, with wilted gills and bulbous black eyes. The grotesque amphibian heads puffed their throats in an aggressive display, snapping at each other and at the doctors.
“I’ll take him!” Barbas croaked. “Pack his things.”
“You hear that, Mister Donleavy?” Grijalva crowed. “Dr. Barbas will be taking you into his care.”
“Oh, thank God, at last… What kind of doctor is he?” Delirious, Cullen strained against his restraints to rise from the bed.
Dr. Grijalva could scarcely contain his glee. “Ah, Mr. Cullen, he is not a great scientist like you. Dr. Barbas owns a circus!”
Worm Bait
by Lance Schonberg
Kazuki looked up at the evening sun and realized he didn’t have to look quite as high as on the day they’d arrived. So close to the Arctic Circle, the seasons made sudden turns, and by late August, every day dropped six and a half minutes of light. “Tell me again why we came to Iceland.” Not to mention why they’d picked the small forest of stunted trees to stake out. None of the locals they’d spoken with had said anything special about the spot and there hadn’t been a recent sighting there.
Behind him, Tony sighed. “You pulled the Worm out of the jar.”
“I should have put it back. Scotland was warmer. British Columbia was nearly tropical next to this. There are lake monster legends all over the world. Why Iceland?”
“No one’s ever really tried to study the Worm.”
“That is patently untrue. There are any number of—”
“It was your handwriting on the slip of paper.”
Kazuki slumped and turned to find Tony watching him, hands stuffed in his coat pockets. “What are we possibly going to accomplish in only two weeks?”
Tony cocked an eyebrow. “More than we would have accomplished sitting in the lab waiting for the new semester to start. Unless you count War-crack.” He pulled one hand free, reached in through the SUV’s open window, and yanked his pack out of the back seat. “Besides, we had just enough funding for plane tickets, a car rental, and two weeks room and board.”
Kazuki pressed his mouth flat. “In this arctic wasteland.”
“It’s not that cold.”
“It is for August.”
Tony shook his head. “And the Lagsflotidor Worm really hasn’t been studied all that much, not compared to Nessie, or Ogopogo, or a lot of the other lake monsters in warmer places, partly because it isn’t all that warm here, I’ll bet.”
Rolling his eyes, Kazuki gave in, sort of. “Lagarfljót. Lah-ga-fl-yoat. Lagarfljót. Didn’t you listen to any of those MP3s on the flight?”
Tony shouldered his pack and laughed. “I can order a beer and ask for the bathroom. Beyond that, most of the locals speak a little English. I’m sure I’ll manage.”
Kazuki picked up his own pack with a sigh. Oblivious. How many westerners had the same ignorant attitude? “You could have tried, at least.”
“How much could I have learned in eight hours?” Tony held up a fist. “Lizard-Spock?”
“There’s a difference between north and south?” Kazuki shook his head. “Go where you want, I’ll take the other.”
Tony turned south. “Suit yourself. I’ll face the sun.” He grinned over his shoulder as he shuffled off. “Don’t take too long. I want to go to the pub again tonight. Margaret’s expecting me.”
Kazuki turned his back to his friend and the low-hanging sun. “Margret. You might have learned to pronounce her name properly, at least.” The bright red tape marking the first camera cluster was only about a dozen metres away.
***
A forest shouldn’t be so quiet.
Slipping the seventh cache of memory cards into a slot in his belt pouch, Kazuki wondered where the birds were. And the rodents. He’d settle for anything larger than the small biting insects periodically crawling under his coat. There should be some wildlife around at the end of August, even in Iceland, but he hadn’t seen or heard anything more than a fly’s buzz since he’d left Tony and the SUV.
He hated being cold, not that it was truly cold here. He could admit that without Tony around. But his parents had settled in California when he was fourteen, old enough to ensure he’d never pass for a native-born American, and he hadn’t moved to Michigan until beginning his Master’s. Michigan had too much cold and snow for part of the year, but at least had something like a real summer. A peak of only fifteen degrees seemed stingy.
Kazuki set out for the next camera cluster, thankful he had only three more to go, but realized he’d be lucky to finish before the sun touched the horizon. Why had th
ey waited until after dinner? Half way there, Kazuki finally heard something other than his own footsteps or wind brushing through the stunted trees. A stick broke behind him as if someone had stepped on it.
Kazuki sighed. “Don’t you have work to do, Tony?” Surely his partner couldn’t have finished all ten clusters and had time to catch up to him? “I thought you wanted to go to the pub. Enough jokes, please.” He looked around, listening as hard as he could, but heard only the gentle wind through the birch and aspen. “Fine. Have it your own way, but don’t be surprised if I throw a rock at you.”
Another hundred metres of scuffing through the dirt and undergrowth brought him to the eighth cluster, four cameras glued about chest height around the trunk of a peeling Northern Birch tree, each pointing in a different cardinal direction. Camera by camera, he swapped out the rechargeable batteries, dumping the old ones in his shoulder pack, then repeated the process on a smaller scale with the memory cards.
As he clicked the last tiny panel shut, something moved behind him and Kazuki heard rustling leaves and a living branch spring back. “I am not impressed, Tony. You can go back to the SUV and wait. I will be there when I am finished and not before.” Another branch quivered as he tucked the memory cards into his belt and waited, without turning, for Tony to grab his shoulder and shout “Boo!” An odd scent, unpleasant, like mustard and dill pickles together, curled into his nostrils. Just like Tony to find a handful of mushrooms or some smelly plant to torment him with.
He folded the weather shield down on the camera. No point in neglecting his work for Tony’s amusement. But nothing else happened, save the smell getting stronger. Kazuki sighed heavily and breathed deep as he turned around, ready to berate his partner’s childishness.
***
Tony sat in the SUV, waiting. He looked at his watch, then up at what was left of the sun. A tiny sliver of it sat above the rough hill past the far shore. Looking back down at his watch, he made a face. The time hadn’t changed. Still quarter to nine and still no sign of Kazuki.
This was the third time they’d made the twice-daily rounds to swap out batteries and memory cards. Tony had finished first on both of the other runs, but only by about five minutes. Kazuki wasn’t slow, he was just very careful and very thorough. Except this time he was slow. Very slow. Tony had slipped into the driver’s seat more than twenty minutes ago.
He began drumming his fingers on the steering wheel, staring across the lake, or river, or whichever it was right here. Thinking about the little he knew of local geography, Tony tried to decide if the group of lights already in shadow were the village of Egilsteader or Fellaber. No, he didn’t have either of those names right. Where was Kazuki when he actually cared what the right word was?
They’d come from Egilstather—that was closer—on this side of the water, so he had to be looking at the other town. And it did look farther away. That settled it. Fallaber it was, however it was pronounced.
The last bit of sun disappeared behind the hill and Tony started to wish they’d worked cell phones into the budget. Sure, thirty bucks a week was expensive, but that just meant a little less beer at the pub, and it would have been nice right now to find out when Kazuki might be coming back. At least it would keep him from being so bored. Tomorrow, he’d bring the laptop so he could have something to read, just in case.
He heard footsteps behind the SUV and saw a flash of dark jacket in the rear view. “Finally.” Tony turned to complain to Kazuki’s reflection in the side mirror, but the only thing he saw was the big, grey rock just before it smashed into his face.
***
Tony’s head hurt. Thick bands of pain stretched from his forehead through his skull and down into his neck. He remembered bad hangovers in his undergrad days, but couldn’t quite picture one to rival how he felt at the moment. The rest of his body was stiff and rigid, like he’d gotten not quite enough sleep in the back seat of a small car.
Something pulled at his waistband. He tried to swat whatever it was, but his hand wouldn’t move. He tried to talk, but his mouth felt like it had been filled with cotton or maybe leather. When he tried to lick his lips, he realized it had been.
Tony lifted his head, the only part of his body he seemed free to move, and forced his eyes open. He lay on the ground, spread-eagled, wrists and ankles tied to what looked like wooden stakes. The tugging at his waistband proved to be Kazuki trying to cut through it with scissors. The glove stuffed in his mouth reduced his string of curses to a meaningless growl.
The other man didn’t look up from his fashion efforts. “What the fuck, Kazuki? Is this some kind of sick joke, Kazuki? You know I never mean anything by it, Kazuki? Get me the fuck out of this, Kazuki.” He smiled, still focused on the scissors. “You’re tied to the ground, Tony. No, it’s not a joke at all. I know you never mean anything by it; you’re not a bad fellow, just rather insensitive. And I’m afraid I can’t release you at the moment. Is there anything I’ve failed to anticipate?”
Trying to push the glove out of his mouth, Tony growled again.
“Ah, that sounded very much like, ‘What the fuck, Kazuki?’ What the fuck, indeed. Where to begin. Oh, I know.” He pointed to his left, towards the lake to judge by the slope of the ground under Tony’s back. Tony lifted his head higher, as high as he could, then squeezed his eyes shut and let his head fall.
“Ha! Ten years looking for a lake monster and you don’t want to see the one you finally find. How typical.”
He raised his head again, trying to take in what he saw. Without the fur, Tony would have thought it a giant snake. It had the right shape, coil upon coil of limbless body overlapping itself, stretching beyond what the meagre dusk let him see. Glistening green otter-fur covered every visible bit of its body. Its head reminded him of a snake again, two very large garden spades cupping a smaller space in between.
But the eyes. No snake had eyes like that. Nothing that kept its bones inside its body should. Wasp’s eyes, menacing, all-seeing, and thousands of times larger than any insect could ever be. Two pointed in his direction and he could just see two larger ones on the sides of its head.
They laughed and joked and told everyone they specialized in lake monsters. Sooner or later they had to find one, right? If not them then someone else. There were just too many stories. But suddenly Tony wished he’d found Bigfoot more interesting, or Yeti, or Chupacabra, or anything far, far away from Iceland.
Lake monsters. Lake Monster.
The back of Tony’s head hit the dirt and he screamed, a sad, muffled sound that didn’t make him feel any better.
Kazuki patted his forehead twice. “There, there. It’s okay, Tony. But now you see why I stuffed your left glove in your mouth.” He went back to the scissors at Tony’s waist and Tony tried to twist away. Kazuki tsked, shaking his head. “Don’t be silly, you’ll wind up getting stabbed or sliced. Hold still and things will go better. Besides, don’t you want to understand?”
Tony took a deep breath. The air stuttered from his lungs when he exhaled. Not that understanding would matter. He knew he was Worm food, but nodded and squeezed his eyes shut again.
“Much better.” The scissors cut through the waist of Tony’s jeans. “Ah, there we are. It’s quite simple, really. She needs a host for her young.” Tony’s eyes popped open as Kazuki continued cutting. Cold air touched more of his leg with every word. “Surprising, yes? She’s been here for more than a thousand years, watching and learning. How much she knows about us is not something I’ll likely ever understand, but the important thing is that she’s decided to stay. It’s time for her to lay the eggs she came with.
“You might be thinking of the legend that her appearance is said to foretell great misfortune or natural disaster.” Kazuki sopped cutting long enough to smack himself in the forehead. “That’s right, you don’t actually do research, so that will come as news, but it might be true for you nonetheless.” He winked. “You know, I think that’s probably enough on that side.”
&
nbsp; Tony watched his friend, his lab partner, the man who used to be both, step over him and start working on the waistband on the other side.
“This would have been much simpler if I’d taken your pants off before I tied you down, wouldn’t it? Ah, well. Much too late, and I didn’t want to risk having you wake up. If I’d had to hit you again, I might actually have done some damage.” The other side sliced almost instantly. “Ah, perhaps I held the scissors incorrectly. That was much easier. As I said, she needs a host. She’s going to implant a hundred or so eggs in your abdominal cavity where they’ll hatch, grow, and chew their way out when they’re about this big.” Kazuki held his thumb and forefinger apart about the width of his smallest finger, then went back to cutting. “Roughly a month from now. It will be uncomfortable, but she thinks it likely you will survive the experience.”
Tony shook his head back and forth as the scissors moved past his knee. He kept working at the glove out with his tongue, but couldn’t get enough leverage.
“Now you may be wondering how I know all this.” Kazuki stood, smiling, and peeled back Tony’s jeans. He hadn’t quite cut all the way through on either side, so they flopped down over Tony’s boots when he let go. “Why Tony, I never would have thought you the boxer-brief type.” He winked again. “The poison gas she breathes isn’t poison.”
A deep, rumbling growl came from the Worm.
“Ah, well. I guess that’s all I can tell you for now. She’s getting impatient. A thousand years waiting, and now she’s impatient. Oh, for what?” Kazuki grinned and waggled his eyebrows. “She’s from a much colder place than most of Earth and wants her children to be a bit more adaptable to the climates available here. So she needs a DNA sample to modify the eggs with.” He bent down to pat Tony’s cheek. “I’ll be sure to say hello to Margret for you. Don’t stay out too late.”
Kazuki waved as he walked away. Before the soft footsteps faded, Tony started thrashing against his bonds, but the knots were boy-scout-tight, and Kazuki had obviously taken the time to drive the stakes far into the ground. He was well and truly screwed, and the panic he’d barely held off began to rise.
Dead Bait 3 Page 3
