The major went silent for several moments. "Don't mince words, Sergeant. You mean you think he's out there fucking one of the populace."

  "I suppose it's possible, sir. Just based on some comments he's made."

  The major shook his head, blank-faced. A blank face, the sergeant knew, was worse than a tirade from any other officer.

  "If anything botches this mission, Sergeant, we'll all be ruined. The colonel won't stand for it. He'll be busy for a while so ... let's suit up. We've got to find the corporal ourselves and get him back here."

  "Yes, sir." But the sergeant groaned to himself. This was one of the worst things that could happen. -- -- --- - - - - -- --

  He grabbed his protective hood and mask, thinking of the corporal. I should've known. I'll kill him myself, if the major doesn't beat me to it.

  (III)

  Part of him felt gypped. These people here were obviously into some bizarre sexual shenanigans. The blonde was hanging on the tree, already naked.

  All ready for me, the corporal thought.

  He knew it was risky ... but he also knew there was no way he'd end this mission before getting a piece of her. At least he wouldn't have to fight with her-she was hanging there for him, like a suit of clothes in a closet. Less time fooling around. I'll be able to get right to the goods ...

  But her nakedness did make him feel a little gypped. One thing he'd been looking forward to all this time was the thrill of ripping her clothes off.

  Neither of them had seen him watching. The man was on his knees, getting to business. That's when the corporal stepped out and jacked him in the head with his service tool.

  The blonde had seen him in that last second. The look in her eyes was delicious: pure horror. Yeah, the corporal thought. He liked that. She'd only had a second to scream when-

  Clack!

  The corporal jacked her out, too. She hung limp from the tree now. Had he killed her?

  Who cares?

  The corporal had to make this one quick, real quick. The sergeant thought he was out pulling in some field equipment, but the corporal had already done that. If I got caught out here, that would be it for me.

  But this blonde was too much. Some things were worth the gamble .. .

  There were other risks, too-the worms and ova, especially. But his field suit and hood would protect him. The thalate and ethylene fibers in the fabric would repel the worms like tear gas, at least that's what they'd been told. The corporal unzipped the front of the suit down to the crotch.

  He degloved, too. He had to touch her.

  Oh, man, this is some prize, he thought, kneading the plump breasts. His hands slid down her sides, reveling at the sensation of warm, damp, tight skin. He could stand only a few moments of this before he lifted her down and dropped her to the ground.

  The rape was simple and precise. No frills. Too bad you won't be conscious for the best fuck of your life, he thought. He just climbed on and did it. One, two, three.

  For some reason, it was always more satisfying when it was against their will.

  Now you have something to remember me by.

  She hadn't moved a muscle throughout. Again, he thought she might be dead, but then after he made a last grab on her breasts, he felt a heartbeat. The idea of killing her crossed his mind, but the corporal knew he didn't even have time for that. I better get back to the field station before the sarge gets wise. He zipped his suit back up and redonned his gloves.

  Yes. The corporal really liked these field assignments.

  He took a last look at the blonde, who lay crumpled and spread-legged, wrists lashed over her head.

  No, he decided. I won't kill her. I'll leave her for the worms instead.

  He was about to make tracks back to the station, but stopped cold. He thought he'd heard a sound.

  A metallic click.

  Then came the last sound he'd ever hear.

  Bam!

  The corporal collapsed right on top of the blonde, dead from the bullet that had slammed into the middle of his back.

  (N)

  Gun smoke stung Loren's eyes. He couldn't believe what he'd just done; he hadn't even given it a thought.

  Holy fuck! I just shot a guy in the back!

  Only after the pistol pumped out its round did Loren remember he'd never fired a gun in his life. The weapon kicked so hard, it flew out of his hand .. .

  He stared through vertigo for several moments, listening to his heart beat. Annabelle's rapist had collapsed right on top of her. When Loren snapped out of it, he rushed over, yanked off the motionless assailant, and tended to Annabelle.

  Ohno...

  Her hands were tied and lay limp over her head. Her legs were disarrayed. Loren felt encased by dread when he put a finger to her throat to check for a pulse. After what seemed a minute, he found one and sighed in relief. He jostled her around, gently slapped her face, but she remained out cold.

  "Goddamn, what the hell happened?" Lieutenant Trent had just come to. He sat up, a hand to his head, then stared in disbelief at the scene.

  "That guy in the suit raped Annabelle," Loren's voice cracked. "So I ..."

  Trent saw the revolver on the ground. "You shot him?"

  "Yeah. Uh, in the back."

  Trent instinctively checked his gun belt, found his own pistol intact, then leaned over the man in the suit. "Man, this is really fucked up. Who is this guy?"

  "I don't know but that gear he's wearing looks military to me," Loren said. "We need to get out of here right now and find Nora. That guy's got colleagues who are going to be looking for him."

  "You're right ..." Trent grabbed the gas-masked man's shoulder, to look at him. "He's military, all right, but I can't tell what branch." The mask's eye portals were mirrored. Trent yanked at the hood but couldn't get it off.

  "Help me with her," Loren said. "We need to leave." He picked the revolver up and stuck it in his waistband.

  "Where'd you get that?"

  "Long story, I'll tell you on the way."

  They each shouldered one of Annabelle's arms and stalked off.

  "This is crazy," Trent muttered. "Military personnel in decontamination suits?"

  "Yeah, and surveillance cameras in the woods and our cell phones and your radio being electronically jammed. Plus a parasitic worm that looks like a genetic hybrid, a damn gene-splicing experiment or something-all on an island nobody knows about."

  "I'll bet that guy's with the Army Research Command. We walked right into the middle of one of their black projects by accident."

  It sounded too coincidental, but after he thought about it, Loren had no choice but to agree. "I can't think of anything else it could be," he said. "We're in the middle of it, all right, and now we have to get out before we wind up dead. Other people have died on this island-"

  "The body you said you saw in the water-"

  "Not just that. This pistol I have I took off a dead college girl. She'd committed suicide with it, after telling me that other people have been killed by the worms."

  "What?"

  Loren sighed. "Just wait till we find Nora. I'll tell you the whole story."

  They huffed through more brush. Annabelle didn't weigh much, but under these circumstances, the burden-was wearing both men out.

  "Stop!" Trent said in a sharp, sudden whisper.

  "What?"

  The lieutenant stared at Loren. "Did you hear that noise?"

  Loren looked desperately about, listening. "I ... I don't think so ..."

  "Something rustling." Trent seemed sure. He looked up into the trees. "It sounded like it was above us."

  Loren looked up, too. "Probably, uh, probably one of those big iguanas, or a tree-nesting bird."

  "Yeah," Trent muttered back. "You're ... probably right."

  Before Loren's perceptions could register, something fell from the tree, as if unraveling. He thought of a hose being dropped: pink hose, and that's essentially all he could think before the two-inch-wide, twenty-foot-long worm unfurled from unseen branches, deftly coiled about Annabelle's chest, and began to lift her upward.

  "Holy shit!" Trent yelled.

  "Hold on to her!"

  Annabelle's unconscious body was being lifted as if on a towline. Trent lashed his arms around a thigh, while Loren grabbed her feet, but then-

  "Fuck!" Trent shouted.

  They began to rise too; the worm was lifting all three of them. Trent and Loren, out of futility, dropped back to the ground. Trent drew his service weapon and fired several stray shots higher into the branches. "It's like trying to shoot a piece of rope!"

  Annabelle's nude body disappeared upward.

  Loren shook off his shock and still not really thinking jumped up for some branches. His flip-flops scuffed against bark as he tried to hoist himself up.

  Trent grabbed his shoulder. "Forget it, man."

  "We can't just leave her!"

  "She's gone. There's nothing we can do to help her. What? Climb the tree? You'd never get up there, and even if you could, how are you going to shoot a worm that moves faster than a sidewinder?"

  Loren knew he was right, but he still couldn't break his instincts. He tried to pull himself up again: useless. He hung off a short branch like a kid trying to do a pull-up.

  "Forget it, man," Trent repeated.

  The realities began sinking in all at once. Loren didn't know what to think, but he did know that Annabelle was gone.

  He dropped back down, and the two men ran off as fast as they could.

  Nora, pondering some bizarre realities of her own, stumbled back to the campsite just as Loren and Trent sprinted into the clearing. The three of them nearly collided with one another.

  "I found the dead body in the water," Nora announced. "And it was full of worms. At least now we know. These things do attack and infect humans."

  Trent sat down at the picnic table, winded. "You can say that again."

  "Annabelle's ... gone," Loren said.

  "What do you mean?"

  "A worm got her," Trent said.

  Nora tried to cogitate. "I saw four of them in the water, and they were all over ten feet long."

  "This one was twenty, at least," Trent confirmed.

  Loren was getting his breath back. "It could've been longer than that. It was impossible to tell how far it went up the tree."

  Here goes, Nora thought. "I also found a submarine."

  Loren and Trent stared at her.

  She recited the experience in detail.

  "I saw that trench," Trent said. "A submarine couldn't fit in it."

  "No, no," Nora explained. "Not like a nuclear submarine full of missiles. It was a lot smaller-"

  "Like a submersible?" Loren said. "A research submersible? The military uses those all the time. They use them to map transport routes for the navy."

  "That's more like what I'm talking about," Nora said. "And I'm certain it wasn't a pipeline or anything like that. It was a submarine. It even had some fins on the side."

  "Were there windows?" Trent asked.

  "I didn't have time to look over every inch. There were still plenty of worms down there. One of them almost got me ... till I cut off its head."

  And, next, Loren and Trent explained their own encounter.

  "A man in a decontamination suit and gas mask?" Nora questioned. "Every new thing we discover looks more and more like a military experiment of some kind."

  "And you can bet there are more of those guys on the island somewhere," Trent offered.

  "But where?" Loren questioned. "On the submersible?"

  "Maybe, but I'd guess they've got their own field station set up out here somewhere," Trent said. "And another thing you can bet on. Whatever this experiment is they're doing, it's definitely a top-secret project. They're not giving a flying fuck about any civilians who get killed. It's almost like they're hoping for that-"

  "Right," Nora picked up. "That's what the experiment's all about. To see how vulnerable humans are to the worms and ova."

  "A potential antipersonnel weapon," Loren posed. "The girl I got this gun from said she came here with several friends, and one by one they'd all been infected by the worms. She said these military guys seemed to be surveying them, which makes sense because of all those tiny cameras out here."

  `As far as the military is concerned," Nora said, "we're expendable."

  'Yeah," Trent added, "and we're being jammed and there's no way off the island."

  Loren sat bolt upright. "Shit! I forgot! There is some good news in all of this."

  Nora and Trent looked at him.

  "We can get off the island. Because I know where there's a boat."

  "You're pulling our legs?" Trent said. "We could never be that lucky, not after all this shit."

  "Well, we are that lucky. There's a Boston Whaler anchored in one of the coves. No keys to start the engine, but we can push it out of the cove and drift back to the mainland. It'll be tough if the tides aren't right."

  "I'll drag the fucking boat out with my teeth if I have to," Trent said. if we stay here much longer, we'll be worm food."

  "I guess we should leave now..." Nora's eyes widened on the others. "But ... I don't feel right, about-"

  "Annabelle," Loren said.

  "Should we try to find her?"

  Loren and Trent both slowly shook their heads. "There's no way she could've survived," Trent said. He seemed reflective suddenly. "This is a stupid thing to suggest but . . ." He stared off.

  "What?" Nora asked.

  "I'm really curious about something. I think we should take a chance and stay for at least another hour. The tide'll be higher then anyway, easier to get out." He took out his gun, checked the slide. "I want to have another look at that guy Loren shot."

  "What the hell do you want to do that for?" Loren objected. "I thought we wanted to get out of here ASAP."

  "We do, but I really want to check that guy's dog tags, see what branch of service he's in."

  "That's actually a good idea," Nora offered, "if it's not too risky. I'd like to know who exactly is behind all this."

  Loren maintained his protests. "What difference does it make? Army, navy-who cares? If there's a submersible out there, it's probably the navy. I don't give a shit. Nora, one of those worms lifted Annabelle up into the trees!"

  "We'll be careful," Nora said, hoping she wasn't being too naive. "I'm curious about something too. While the lieutenant's checking out that guy in the gas mask, you and I can go check something else."

  "What?" Loren asked.

  "The other side of the island. Where the original control station is for the old missile site."

  CHAPTER `I wENTY-ONE

  Ruth grabbed Slydes's beefy arm, her eyes wide in trepidation. "We're not going in there! Fuck that shit! I'm not going near that place!"

  Slydes frowned as he sized up the old utility shed. "Keep your voice down," he gruffed. "And what's your damn problem now?"

  "That's where I fell asleep the other night! Then the zombie dragged me out and dropped me in the woods, for the worms!"

  The zombie again. What could Slydes do? It wasn't a zombie, he knew, but it was almost as bad: an infected human. "The zombie ain't here, Ruth. And there might be food in that shed. We ain't eaten anything in a couple of days."

  "I ain't fuckin' hungry! Let's go!" she pouted.

  "Plus, I'm dyin' of thirst, and don't tell me you ain't either." Slydes pointed through the trees. "There's a cooler right there. Maybe there's something in it we can drink."

  "There's nothing in it!" she kept complaining. "And even if there is, it's hot by now. That thing's been there for days." She jerked around, pointing down. "Look, there's a stream. We can drink that water. Then we won't have to go into that fuckin' shed." Animated, she rushed to the narrow brook, got to her knees. She was about to cup some water into her hands, but-

  "Fuck," she muttered.

  Slydes smiled.

  The stream was full of tiny pink worms.

  "Yeah, you go ahead and drink that, Ruth. Go ahead."

  She rushed back over, grossed out. "Let's just get out of here. You said all we had to do is find one of the other boats."

  We will. In a minute." He grabbed her hair and shoved her toward the shed.

  "Fucker!"

  "Now come on," he ordered, "and quit being a pain in the ass." Jesus, this is too much work, he thought. Right now her pretty backside ain't nothing but a ball and chain ... He followed her as she stumbled forward.

  The heat was crushing them; Slydes felt like slowcooking meat in his jeans and boots, his shirt drenched. Ruth's pink T-shirt looked like wet tissue paper pasted to her bosom and belly. Pretty soon there won't be any water left in me to sweat out ... He didn't know much about medical stuff, but he could imagine that in this heat, with no water, they wouldn't last much longer. In spite of his physical strength, each step reminded him how weak he was getting. Ruth looked like she'd keel over any second.

  "Fuck! Look!" she yelled next.

  Crawling very slowly down the shed's front wall were half -a dozen yellow ova.

  Those fuckers! Slydes thought. He remembered them well. Some of 'em have baby worms in them, and some of 'em ... What had Jonas told him? Stuff inside that changes you when they bite. "Just steer clear of them," he told Ruth. He flipped open the cooler sitting out front.

  Aw, shit!

  It was full of worms and ova. They seemed to be percolating in there, incubating. They must like heat, he considered.

  He flipped the lid closed. "Nothing in there."

  "Oh yeah!" Ruth seemed delighted. She bent over a portable Coleman grill next to the cooler. Dried-up burgers lay on the ground, but next to them lay a barbecue fork. Ruth wielded it like a sword. "Now we can defend ourselves!"

  Slydes winced. "All that bong resin's clogged your brain. What are you gonna fight with a barbecue fork?"

  "The worms! Next time one sneaks up on us, I'll jab it with this."

  "You do that." Slydes dismissed her banter. "Let's just look inside."

  Ruth stepped back from the door. "Slydes, I'm fuckin' serious. I don't wanna go in there. The zombie might be there."

  "Ruth, if the zombie's in there, I'll shove his head up his ass, okay? Then I'll stick him with your barbecue fork, and that'll be that."