"All right, Jesus," she complained.

  "What do we do now, Slydes?" Jonas asked. "We don't grab the weed soon and get out, we'll miss the high tide."

  Slydes grumbled, rubbed his beard. "I know. We only got two choices. Leave now and come back when it's safer-"

  "Let's do that," Ruth dared in the lowest voice.

  "-or wait till that chick at the head shack goes to sleep. Then we grab some weed and go camp out ourselves in the middle of the island somewhere. And wait twenty-four hours for the next night tide."

  "I can't put this off, Slydes," Jonas insisted, shaking his head. "If I don't put more product on the street, I'll lose all my bagmen to the competition. Don't matter how good my hydro is, I'll lose my rep if I can't put the shit on the street."

  "Then it's settled. We wait till later and grab the stuff tonight."

  Ruth's expression showed what she thought of that. "So we gotta sit in the woods for twenty-four hours? With all these snakes?"

  Jonas smiled. "Yeah, baby. Maybe we'll tie ya to a tree and let 'em bite your titties. Or stuff a handful of 'em down those little shorts of yours."

  "Oh, fuck you."

  "Let's go back to the boat and wait a bit," Slydes said. "I need a beer." His thoughts strayed during the walk back. Tonight'll be a hassle but it's worth it, he knew. His brother's hydroponic pot demanded top dollar on the street for its quality, and it was a hell of a lot easier than dealing with that illegal gator meat. All in a day's work, he dismissed. Up ahead, he watched Ruth turn at a crook in the trail, caught a fine side glance of her body. Yeah, she's a big-time pain in the ass, but ... The body was the thing, and her knowing what to do with it; hence, the chief reason he and Jonas kept her around. She'd tied off the T-shirt in a big knot, revealing a belly good enough for one of those ab-cruncher commercials. The night's humidity moistened the cotton fabric, which only divulged more of the large, heavily nippled breasts. As she walked, the bottom of her butt cheeks edged out under the shorts.

  Yeah, he knew. She probably will be gator bait someday ... but ... In fact, a little romp back at the boat might help tone down some of the night's aggravations. I need to tap my love vein, he thought. He knew that Jonas was already sick of her, but as for himself? She's too good-lookin' to kill just yet.

  When they got back, the clouds were breaking well. At least they'd have a little light now. Ruth sat back up on the prow, the breeze parting her hair, while Jonas snoozed in the back fishing chair. The boat rocked languidly in the water. The night seemed serene now: the moonlight fluorescing the woods, the crickets and peepers thrumming their drone. Slydes could appreciate none of this, however, not the transcendental type. He clattered belowdecks, snapped on the cabin light, and reached for a beer.

  "The fuck ..."

  He'd nearly slipped on the ice, which was melting on the floor. The beer cooler had been tipped over. The cover to the map box hung open, and he was sure it had been closed earlier. And when he looked at the toolbox, the tools seemed ... disarranged.

  "Get down here!" he barked.

  Jonas and Ruth rushed down.

  "What?"

  "Which one of you tipped my cooler?" Slydes demanded. "Were ya born in a barn? You knock something over, you pick it back up."

  "I don't drink that shit," Ruth said. "I could use a line of coke, though. Or some crystal."

  "You were the last one to get a beer, Slydes," Jonas reminded him. The fuckin' thing probably tipped over during the trip."

  Slydes gave it some contemplation. He's probably right, but-"The map compartment's hangin' open, too," he added. "I didn't even use a map tonight. And see the toolbox? It's messed up. The rachet's always on top 'cause I use it all the time. I even used it today before we left. Now it's on the bottom.'

  "Like someone was looking through it," Ruth presumed.

  'Me door to the head's open too," Slydes added. "And I'm positive I closed it and put on the latch."

  "Oh, fuck," Ruth groaned. "You guys are scaring me!"

  Jonas' eyes were narrowed as he thought back. "I may have pissed after you, Slydes, and I don't remember if I latched the door, and come to think of it, I may have fished around the toolbox for the stub-head screwdriver 'cause I remember wishin' I had one when I was taking the screws out of the insulation panel I hide the weed behind."

  "The map compartment could've just fallen open," Ruth said.

  "What about the cooler?" Slydes asked.

  Jonas laughed. "You're worrying about bullshit, man. A swell probably came through when we were on the island, tipped the fucker over."

  Slydes mulled it over. "Yeah, I guess you're right," he finally conceded. He picked some beers off the floor and followed his brother and Ruth topside.

  In truth, however, Slydes was right. Someone had rooted through the cabin when they'd been out.

  But he was wrong about something else ...

  The thing that had landed on Ruth's arm earlier wasn't a baby pine snake.

  (II)

  "I repeat, zero-zero. Three more are on the island. Tho males, one female."

  The radio line seemed to stall over the information. "I don't understand this. The island's supposed to be uninhabited."

  "It's not now."

  "Is the latest group military?"

  "Negative, zero-zero. All three are civilians. They're acting discreet, though." Transients, the sergeant guessed. They're up to something. Why would they have Dome to the island at night?

  "Be extra cautious." A hesitation. "We can't take chances at this point. If any of them see you, kill them."

  "Roger, zero-zero."

  "Out."

  The sergeant stood in the brambles, thinking. He didn't know if this was good or bad. The more people who came out here, the more test subjects for the specimens, and so far that phase of the operation was working. Each day they were getting a more accurate picture of gestation periods, ovatic dispersal and function, mobility efficiency, etc. This was a lot of effort and expense for a biological feasibility study ... but it was working. It was proof that genetically transfected hybrids could be used as weaponry.

  So long as we don't get caught out here.

  The sergeant didn't particularly like to kill civilians.

  The corporal was finishing up with the cameras; they needed to monitor more of the island's outer perimeters.

  "All done," the corporal announced.

  "Good work."

  "What did the major say about the new ones?"

  "He didn't like it, and neither do I. All of a sudden this deserted island is getting crowded. And if any of them see us, we're supposed to kill them."

  "No problem," the corporal remarked, looking around.

  They already knew that the transfected species was perfectly compatible with the environment. He suspected that Research Command had a lot to do with it now. They want to know what it's doing to the civilians . . we've infected-.

  They moved back to the head shack area; the door was still open at the first unit, the lights on.

  What is she doing in there? the sergeant thought.

  "How come you went on the boat that docked earlier?" the corporal asked.

  "Just a quick check for weapons, and I disabled their emergency radio."

  Then the lights went off at the first head shack.

  The corporal pressed up against a tree. "Look. There she is again ..."

  They could just see her in the moonlight. The woman with the frizzy short dark hair came back out and closed the door.

  "She's finally going back to the campsite. Now we can get a look in there and see what she was doing all this time."

  The corporal's face shield turned. "Hey, Sarge, she doesn't look too bad, you know?"

  What is WRONG with him? "None of that."

  "Why? The major just said we can kill them."

  "With discretion, and only if we're seen. You'd fuck an animal if you had to. You know what happens if you get written up."

  "You'd write me up for that?"

  The sergeant just looked at him.

  No sense of duty, he thought.

  When the woman disappeared down the trail, he was about to proceed toward the head shack, but the corporal grabbed his arm.

  "Wait, Sarge. Look. They're back again."

  They pulled back behind the trees. It was the three that had arrived tonight. They'd staked this area out earlier but then left. What are they up to?

  They were loitering at the farthest head shack, then ...

  They opened the door and light bloomed.

  The lights were already on in there. The sergeant mulled the fact over, and couldn't imagine why.

  Then the three civilians went inside and closed the door behind them.

  "This is getting pretty interesting," the sergeant commented.

  "I really like the girl-"

  *Shut up."

  I'd really like to know what they're doing in there, the sergeant wondered. He had a feeling this was going to be a long night.

  (III)

  "There's my babies," Jonas said. There was pride in his voice. They all looked up at the twenty-foot-tall marijuana plants growing out of their urns.

  All three of them squinted in the long room's strange, silverish glow. Sheets of aluminum foil lined all four walls. Stranger was the incessant drone, like a bubbling hum, from the airstones and their small aerator pumps connected to each.

  "I love these rooms," Ruth said, stepping forward toward the erect, green-spiky rows. "The sound, and the silver light. It's like mellow acid."

  Slydes rolled his eyes. "Our little hippie."

  "Look at 'em." Jonas grinned upward. "They're busting twenty feet, I'll bet. They don't even get that big in nature, under the best circumstances."

  Forty such plants filled the former missile silo, and they had forty more in the next head shack, too. "I'm getting nine, ten ounces of the highest THC content pot per plant, every three months. Average asshole only pulls two to four."

  "Look at the flowers!" Ruth celebrated. "They're beautiful!"

  "Yeah, baby, they sure are. And they're big. The bigger, the better. There's more THC in my pot than anyone's.'

  "Quit bragging and let's get on with it," Slydes complained. He was tired, and they'd missed high tide going out. Which means we gotta stay on this island till tomorrow night ... The skinny bitch in the first head shack had stayed there for another fucking hour. They hadn't counted on that. Shit, it's past one o'clock now...

  Hydroponic homegrowers had several methods to choose from. Jonas used the "wick system," with ebb and flow urns; this was the best system because it grew the biggest plants, but the least popular because it consumed the most water and electricity. Water and electricity weren't a problem here, of course, because Jonas simply tapped into the army's unmonitored supply; hence the brightest lights round the clock, and unlimited fresh water. His only expenses were airstones and aerator pumps, Perlite, Pro-Mix, coconut planting fiber, and a lot of aluminum foil, which doubled the photosynthesis effect by bouncing back the light. That's why Jonas's plants were bigger and more concentrated. The average grower was limited to closets and basements, but with ceilings this high-and all this free light-Jonas was giving the plants more than even nature could provide. Charging a little more for superior pot was only good business. His customers just wanted more.

  They checked the next head shack where, if anything, the plants grew even hardier. Then they moved to the third head shack.

  "A damn good thing you have some ready to go," Slydes grumbled.

  This was where they did the cutting, drying, and weighing. Jonas had tables and chairs set up for the various tasks, plus cartons of plastic baggies.

  "That's because I always think ahead," Jonas bragged. "You always have your next delivery ready in advance. You know, Slydes, if you ran your poaching business like I run my pot business? You might actually make some money."

  "Bend over real hard and blow yourself, brother."

  Ruth giggled. "That I'd like to see." But then her eyes opened wide when she looked at the cement floor, and she shrieked, "Fuck!"

  The men walked over.

  "What the hell's that?" Jonas queried.

  On the floor a small, bright pink worm squiggled across the cement. It was about three inches long.

  "Ain't no earthworm, that's for sure," Slydes noted. "Not movin' that fast."

  The worm made more tracks, leaving tinseled slime. It had traversed half the width of the head shack in the time they were looking at it.

  "Well, ain't that just the shit?" Jonas said. "There better not be any of these things on my plants."

  "It just looks ... disgusting," Ruth said and glared. "Somebody kill it."

  Jonas seemed very concerned. "What the fuck is that? A corn worm?"

  Slydes stepped on it. "Nope. It's a dead worm. Now let's quit fuckin' around with worms and get the fuck out of here."

  When Slydes lifted his shoe, all that remained of the worm was pink slime.

  Jonas grabbed a plastic bag full of a pound of trimmed marijuana, then snapped off the lights.

  Before they left, none of them happened to notice that the squashed remains of the worm were sizzling.

  CHAPTER EIGHT

  (I)

  Why did she feel so unsettled? Weird night, Nora dismissed. She'd expected the sounds emanating from the woods to help lull her to sleep; instead, they'd annoyed her. She supposed they'd all need to be up early tomorrow, for Annabelle's shoot, but now, going on two o'clock, it would be impossible to get in a decent night's sleep.

  The little polyester tent pressed in like a coffin. She'd tossed and turned in the summer-weight sleeping bag. Each time she tried to clear her head of the day's aggravations, her temples began to rage in a headache. She'd drifted off once but was then bolted awake by, of all things, a sexual dream.

  You've got to be kidding me ...

  She never had sexual dreams ... an odd fact for a virgin. The little bit of dating she'd done in college and grad school had always wound up getting torpedoed by a term paper, a stwly session, or a test. The academician in her always wound up walking on her womanhood, asserting the priority. Whenever a potential relationship would fail, or she'd miss out on a perfectly normal fling, she'd always be satisfied to tell herself: You're not in school to make whoopie. You're in school to get your doctorate. Objectively this was all true, but by now it left little to console her womanhood. Her sexuality felt like something moldering. Her desires were fruit whose seeds would never touch the earth to give root.

  The dream:

  The man's face reminded her of the door knocker at her grandmother's house. It had been mounted on the ornate door's center stile, an oval of tarnished bronze depicting a morose half-formed face. Just two eyes, no mouth, no other features. The peculiar knocker was one of Nora's earliest childhood memories, for whatever reason. Her parents took her to Grandma's house every Thanksgiving; she remembered the knocker but not the rest. Why would that be?

  One sleepless night, at age four or five, she'd gotten out of bed to go to the bathroom. The darkness of the musty hall had confused her; she'd opened the wrong door. This isn't the bathroom, she realized. It's the room Mommy and Daddy are sleeping in. But-

  Her big eyes stared out. Mommy and Daddy weren't sleeping. She didn't know what they were doing-just that they had their clothes off and Daddy was doing something weird on top of Mommy. Nora shuffled away, bewildered.

  The day after Thanksgiving, they'd driven away, and Nora could see that scary door knocker shrinking in the distance. Grandma died the next day.

  And now her dream. The man's face was just like the knocker: half formed, just two blank eyes. He didn't need any more facial features than that, for he was just a body to suit her needs. His arms felt hot beneath her; he was carrying her through teeming woods-these woods?-deliberate footsteps crackling over twigs. He laid her down naked on the forest bed, and stood between her spread legs, looking down. The moon glowed behind him, blocking out the unnecessary details of his face. A face would give him a persona, a humanity, but her desires had taken her so completely, she didn't care who he was, or even how he might feel about the real her. He was only a symbol-of deliverance-just as her body, in this hot, compressed dreamscape, was a symbol-of her own unbridled lust.

  When he turned a moment, the moon cut him into a silhouette of raven black, the outlines sharp as newly cut glass-including a stout, erect penis. Nora whined, cringing atop fallen leaves. Her belly sucked in and out as she stared up at him almost teary-eyed. The sweat on her skin felt slippery as glycerin when she smoothed her hands up her stomach to her breasts and plied her nipples as if twisting screws out of a wall. The pain drilled the most delicious sensations through her belly to her groin, where they all settled like an overcharged battery waiting to be tapped.

  The silhouette seemed content to watch for now. Was the faceless figure touching himself, so incited by her body? Nora hoped so because, next, those electric sensations summoned her hand back down the slick abdomen. She gruelingly held herself back, her fingers never quite being allowed to hit the final triggers that would flatten her right there in the leaves. More and more of those sensations mounted, and soon she was moaning to let them out, but ...

  Not .. yet .. .

  She wanted him to see it all, to bear witness, and then to spend himself on her from where he stood. The live-wire sensations mounted; the moon bathed her glistening skin. Then her guest began to lower himself.

  Yes...

  Callused hands began to massage her. The compounded sensations were driving her mad; the stars blurred in her eyes. As the rough hands kneaded her breasts, her nipples burned hot as embers embedded in her flesh. But just as she thought he'd lie atop her, he pulled back-. . .

  The hands pushed her knees back to her face, and his mouth found her sex. His tongue did things she didn't think possible-she'd never known that the web of her sexual nerves was capable of feeling such things. She closed her eyes and let the frenzy take over. First, one finger entered her, then two, then three; she was biting marks into her knees. The ministrations went on and on. Was her tongue hanging out? Was she shrieking her pent-up bliss?