"And who was it that said that?" he asked.

  "My uncle."

  Alan pondered the whispered response, then thought, Gross.

  "No talking. And keep your eyes closed," she insisted.

  Alan couldn't find much of a reason to disobey. He remained standing, and let her continue with her hands...

  "I ... I don't even know what they are," she said next. Her voice seemed to flow, like some hot, dark liquid. "But it's so wonderful. I feel like I'm coming ... all ... the time ..."

  Alan didn't know what she was talking about, and scarcely cared. He felt her move around him now and lower herself to her knees. Her fingers dragged his trunks down.

  I am having one HELL of a good day, Alan thought.

  "If you open your eyes, I won't do it."

  Alan wouldn't think of it.

  Her mouth felt so hot on him. The slick friction of what she was doing wound Alan up like a steel spring. What had she just said? I don't even know what they are ... I feel like I'm coming all the time. What did that mean? The only thing Alan figured was that she must be on drugs, X or Oxycontin or something. Her mouth tended him so precisely that he was climaxing himself a minute later ...

  Holy shit ...

  He almost fell over. But now that the fun was done, his fears swooped down. Christ! Leona might come out here! She might see!

  Alan wouldn't have guessed that this was the least of his fears, when she said, "My turn now," and next thing he knew, they'd traded positions, Alan kneeling before her, his face in her groin, and then he opened his eyes and saw her fingers splaying over the hairless pubis to bare the tip of her sex-and the strange, pus-colored ticks stuck to her clitoris.

  Pulsing.

  Alan was too revolted to shriek. He tried to pull his face away but couldn't, for her hand clamped to the back of his head, pushing. When she dragged him down and straddled his face, all he could do was squirm beneath her. Her thighs vised his face. Alan could barely breathe.

  "Get with it, lover," she cooed.

  More horror flowed over him when he managed to glimpse upward. My God, her skin! Her skin!

  Carol's skin seemed to be patched with rashes, her suntan ruined by large splotches of the same sickly yellowish white hue of the ticks he'd seen. Worse, somehow, were the red spots speckling the patches. A skin disease or something ... He could see her breasts now, and noticed with heightened disgust that two more of the ticks had fixed themselves to the ends of her nipples.

  She twisted his hair till his scalp barked in pain. "Put your tongue in, motherfucker," she insisted, then vised her crotch down tighter, threatening to smother him if he didn't obey.

  Alan tremored beneath her, and did as instructed.

  He passed out from the sheer revulsion when his tongue slid over still more of the ticks that lined the inside of her vagina ...

  CHAPTER THREE

  (I)

  Big Jaw Swamp, the Everglades

  The woman's name didn't matter. Midfifties but holding up well. Blond hair, great tan, and a fitness club bod. A nip and tuck here, a little liposuction there, and a lift or two to buff out some of the wrinkles, she looked like exactly what she was: a rich, Florida divorcee, who, like so many, refused to let go of the vestiges of younger, wilder days.

  But the liver wasn't what it used to be, and after a couple of Bloody Marys she was certifiably inebriated. That's when she stumbled and fell off the footbridge, into the swamp.

  Don't panic! she panicked. She was a decent swimmer. She splashed around, chin-deep, and finally buoyed herself in a dog paddle. The warm, soupy water did nothing to brace her against the alcohol; if any thing, it worsened the effect. She foundered in the water, seeking some bearings.

  God, how could I have gotten so drunk? She'd been walking back to the Flamingo Campgrounds when she'd happened upon the rickety bridge. Drinking all day and now it was getting dark. It's not that deep, she assured herself, tasting brackish water. just swim back to shore .. .

  She found quickly that she was too drunk to call upon her experience as a "decent" swimmer. Dog paddle would have to do. When she looked for the shore, the sign looked back at her.

  POSTED: NO SWIMMING! WATCH FOR GATORS.

  Oh, shit! Now the adrenaline fluxed with the alcohol, disorienting her. She'd been here all weekend and she hadn't seen a single gator. Don't overreact! she screamed at herself. just GET TO THE SHORE!

  A splash!

  Her eyes tore to the other side of the swamp, where in crisp moonlight she knew she saw an alligator tail disappearing into the water.

  Madness now.

  Only instinct was left to propel her but, lo, she was just too drunk. Sheer horror and about a .08 blood alcohol content dragged her down, into sultry wet blackness.

  It was true what they said: Her fife did indeed flash before her eyes, and she saw now what a shallow life it had been. Cocktails and yacht clubs and fancy jewelry and a supersharp divorce lawyer. That was pretty much it for the woman about to drown in Big Jaw Swamp.

  After the life-flash: more blackness. Her brain was misfiring. Did she hear someone shout? Did she hear a loud clack? Like her name, none of this mattered. Bub bles exploded from her mouth and then she bucked like a fish on a pier as her lungs filled with water and the frenzied thuds of her heart ... stopped.-

  Now the blackness-hell, perhaps-was all-pervading.

  Impressions, then. A splash in reverse. Something tugging at her. Hands? Who knew? She was dead.

  The-vomited water. Thrashing, and a coughing fit that threatened to tear her chest out.

  "Got her." A voice seemed proud. "Got her back."

  "Ya don't say?"

  The woman's eyes shot open in the brightest moonlight. She shivered, heaving, on the floor of a flatboat. A longhaired man with a kind face knelt aside, tending to her.

  "You all right, lady?"

  Her brain refit the scattered jigsaw puzzle that was her consciousness. Drenched, she hacked up more water, and sucked in hard breaths. Eventually, she figured what happened. "My God ... you saved my life ..."

  "Sure enough did, ma'am. Pretty fancy piece of work if I may say so."

  More sentience gathered. Providence had given her a second chance! She leaned up and looked around. The longhaired man held her hand. At the other end of the boat, a stockier, bearded man was hauling a limp alligator aboard with a grappling hook. The moonlight crisped the image; she saw a hole in the animal's head-the same animal that would've eaten her. A bullet hole ...

  What a stroke of luck. God had thrown down a lightning bolt to save her. As she was drowning-and was about to be chopped apart by gator jaws-this pair of poachers had happened by.

  "How can I ever repay you?" she sobbed, hugging the longhaired man.

  "I'd say you're damn lucky."

  "Oh yes, I know! And I'll repay you, I promise."

  The bearded one had stacked the dead gator atop of several more. "Lady, you must not know about Big Jaw Swamp. They call it that for a reason."

  She nodded absurdly, still partially disbelieving that she was still alive. "Thank you, men. Thank you, thank you..."

  "You're a long way off from the campground, a damn sight. And this swampland, Big Jaw? It's been closed to campers for years-too dangerous."

  The longhaired one: "That's why we're here."

  To poach, of course. "Oh, I understand. And I wouldn't dream of telling anyone what you men were doing out here."

  Silence.

  The woman looked at both men, who remained stone-faced.

  "I'd say you're damn lucky," the longhair repeated, "if it was anyone else that pulled you out, I mean."

  "Whuh ... what?" she pleaded.

  "Nice jewels." Her diamonds were pulled from her fingers. A hand rummaged through the big pocket of her shorts, extracting her soaked cash, ID, and cards. "Um-hmm. ATM card."

  Before she could reckon more, her top was torn open. She shrieked, spitting water. Rough hands twisted the six-thousand-dollar pair of implants. "Yeah, she's a looker, all right, for an old one."

  "Old one's more seasoned!"

  Aghast, she was flipped over on her belly and her shorts were hauled off.

  "Please, please!" she tried to reason. "It doesn't have to be like this! I'll do anything you want, and give you

  "Um-hmm."

  A hand was laid so hard across her buttocks the sound could've been a bullwhip. She shrieked, then shrieked again when that same pinkened buttocks was bitten hard.

  "What you gotta understand, lady," the longhaired one said, "is we ain't got time to fuck around. Just some quick fun and we're gone."

  "That's fine, believe me," she pleaded more as her spirit turned dark as the water, "that's fine. We canwe can-I'll do anything you want."

  The other one sat toward the rear of the boat, near the hulk of fresh-killed gators. "Ain't no fun to poke 'em cold anyways."

  They took turns, chortling as they splayed her middle-aged body into shapes she'd never imagined. Gentle lovemaking this was not. The longhair's hand continued to crack her skin like a whip. She yelped as soft flesh was bitten for effect: the buttocks, her nipples, her face.

  So this was what providence had saved her for, to bring her back from the dead, for this.

  "Yes sir!" the bearded one reveled. "She's a party, all right!"

  "Been out in this hot swamp three days. I'll tell ya, this is just what the doctor ordered!"

  More revel. The woman was raped again, for posterity, perhaps.

  Drained by terror and exhausted, she lay pasty, naked, eyes wide in the next inevitable contemplation.

  A Buck knife was put to her throat, her ATM card flashing before her stare. "PIN, lady."

  She told him without hesitation.

  The bearded one appeared to be urinating over the side. Then he dragged up his overalls. "Three more out there. Guess they smell the old bitch's fear."

  "They do that, I heard."

  She could hear more gators splashing into the water, homing in on the commotion.

  Of course, they'd let her go! They know I have friends at the campgrounds! They won't kill me because they know they can't get away with it!

  "I'll punch her ticket, and then we can leave," the longhair said, hoisting a crowbar over her head.

  "No," the beard said.

  Thank God! she thought. See, they weren't that stupid.

  "Throw her in alive. More fun that way."

  No! No! No!

  Recompense for a life of deceit and shallow sin? Or just some pretty damn bad luck?

  Like the woman's name, it didn't matter.

  She didn't even have time to scream when she was tossed nude and thrashing into the water. The gators converged.

  "We got a full load anyhow," the beard said. "Let's head back."

  "Good idea. After all that, I could use a cold beer ..."

  They watched for a few moments as the woman was hacked apart chunk by suntanned chunk. Then the boat's motor was started and off they went.

  "Good goddamn! Life is sure good to us, ain't it?"

  .You got that right ..."

  The longhaired's name was Jonas. The bearded one's was Slydes.

  (II)

  "It just seems kind of bizarre is all I'm saying," Nora cited, setting out a row of specimen jars along the makeshift table they'd set up in the head shack. They'd already put up their tents at the campsite, and Annabelle had decided the light wasn't ideal for much photography today. Fine with me, Nora thought.

  Loren plugged in the small field microscope, clicked the switch several times to make sure it worked. "You're not yourself today, you know?"

  Nora winced. "Oh, bullshit, yes, I am!"

  "All right, all right, forget I said that. So what is it? What's so bizarre?"

  "Well, for one, the army guy. Trent. He's acting weird, isn't he?"

  "No."

  "Oh, bullshit!" she snapped.

  "Hey, you asked." Loren's facial expression seemed a meld of amusement and confusion. "How can he be acting weird, Nora? You don't know him. So how do you know the difference between him acting weird and him acting normal?"

  Nora slammed down an empty case. "Oh, blow me! You'd have to be a moron to not see it!"

  "Well, I think my 159 IQ might contravene your assessment. What's your IQ, by the way?"

  "Oh, blow me!" She huffed over to the next case of equipment. Nora's was 158, and Loren knew that. "Don't forget, buddy, I am your boss. You're my T.A. That stands for teaching assistant. You're still working on your doctoral degree and--oh, how do you like that? I already have mine, which is why I'm the professor and you're my assistant."

  Loren laughed. "You do realize I was just joking."

  "Yes!"

  "So tell me, then. Why, exactly, is it your analysis that Lieutenant Trent is acting weird?"

  Nora sighed. He's right. I'm not myself today, and I'm fully aware of that. "I don't know. The scenario, I guess."

  "The scenario isn't exactly atypical, Nora," Loren pointed out. "We're zoological experts sent by the college to escort a field excursion, in this case a photographic one. National Geographic no less. That's pretty cool. They didn't ask anybody else in the state to do it. They asked us to do it. Any other time, you'd be so into this you'd be spinning like a top. But no. You're pissed off instead. You claim that Trent's acting weird. Well, I don't think he's acting weird at all. I don't know where you're coming from."

  Nora paused a moment, rubbing her eyes. Stop going nuts, she ordered herself. "I think it's weird, Loren. This place. It's army property that the army has abandoned. It's a missile base with no missiles anymore, right?"

  "Right," Loren agreed, still trying to contain his smile.

  "Yet they got this guy 'Dent-some sort of liaison officer-who comes out here every month to check the island for damage. What's to damage?" She pointed to the wall. "These ugly-ass brick buildings that are empty?"

  "All right, I guess that seemed a little strange at first-"

  `There! See? You agree!"

  "Not really. Trent's an army gofer, an errand boy. And it just happens to be part of his job to keep tabs on army land that's no longer in use. You heard him. He said they get squatters out here sometimes, and college kids partying. It doesn't matter that the army's not using the land for anything right now. These empty buildings belong to the friggin' army, and so do the water purifiers and the generator and whatever else is out here. Trent spot-checks the place to make sure nobody's screwed with his employer's property. Simple. It's a busywork job, and the military is full of stuff like that."

  "I think Trent's hiding something," she finally said.

  Loren shook his head. "He's not hiding anything, Nora, and that's not really what's bothering you anyway, is it? Either somebody pissed in your granola this morning--and I happen to know you don't eat granolaor you're having some giant PMS, and that can't be the case either because you had that two weeks ago."

  Listen to what he's saying, she told herself. Be honest. "All right. You're right."

  "So what is it?" and before she could answer, he raised a finger. "Ah, but let me guess. The photographer."

  Nora's face felt clamped in a cheese press she was frowning so hard. "Yeah, I guess that's it-that priss photographer, and, yes, I know it sounds juvenile and insecure but she really pisses me off."

  "That's no secret, the way you were glaring at her for the entire trip over."

  She sat down on a collapsible field stool. "How else am I supposed to feel? You saw the way the pilots were gawking at her. And Trent, too. Nobody ever gawks at me."

  "I do." Loren winked, and made a lewd pelvic gesture. "Hubba-hubba. Any time you want to make the smartest babies on earth, let me know."

  Nora sighed. "I'm serious, Loren. It's depressing. What do I need to get some notice? A boob job? A platinum-blond wig?"

  "I don't know what you're talking about. You're a good-looking woman. In fact, you're the best-looking female polychaetologist in Florida."

  Nora didn't hesitate to give him the finger. "Loren, you know damn well I'm the only female polychaetologist in Florida."

  "Well ..."

  She plopped her chin in her hands. "I'm a nerd, Loren."

  "Don't feel bad. I'm a nerd, too. I can't get laid in a whorehouse with a fistful of fifties. And you know what? I don't care. Sure, Nora, we're nerds, we're geeks, but you know what else we are?"

  "What's that?" she droned.

  "We're smarter than everyone else, which makes us-" He cut a toothy grin and pointed at her like a gun. "Superior."

  Superior, Nora thought. That was the last thing she felt. I'm thirty years old now and my nickname is still Pipe Cleaner. I'm still a virgin, and in Florida? That makes me more rare than afucking Gutenberg-Bible.-

  "Another thing to consider," Loren rambled. He rambled a lot. "Of course, we're smart. Our IQs, in addition to the fund of our general knowledge, probably puts us in the top two percentile of the population, and I mean the advanced-educated population."

  Nora winced. "Loren! We're a couple of egghead misfits! We're the sore thumbs of the modern American societal mainstream! We're dorks! If we walk into a singles bar, we don't even know how to pull up a stool and order a drink!"

  Loren ignored the judgment, continuing, "Aaaaa- aaand, I might add, with specificity, you and I in all likelihood probably know more about polychaetes than anyone else in North America."

  Nora felt like slapping him. "That and six bucks will get you a cup of coffee at Starbucks ... maybe."

  .You are the queen and I am the king of our field. We're marine zoologists of the first water. It may even be-and I mean no arrogance when I say this-that we may be the best polychaetologists in the world. So. That's something to be happy about, isn't it?"

  Now Nora had to laugh. "I appreciate your positivity, Loren."

  "Good. Revel in your life! Celebrate your essence of superiority in the void of the soul-dead hoi polloi."

  "Whatever," she muttered, and forced herself to her feet. "Let's go find G.I. Joe and the Barbie doll, try to keep this day from turning to total shit."

  "Well said!"

  They left their cinder block lab, headed back toward the campsite. Nora knew she had to snap out of this mood. There was no reason for it. Midlife crisis and I'm not even middle-aged, she thought. What a ripoff. But was that it, or something else?