This story is rated T for strong language including sexually explicit language, gore, and thematic elements.
Wow, my first upload in, what, two years? I SO do not have a good track record on this site. XD Anyway, I hope you guys enjoy this one-shot. Just a quick warning for you stringent shippers out there: there is a mild romance element in the last quarter of this story, but it's more along the lines of a friendship element than a traditional romance element, and it doesn't play a big part in the grand scheme of the story.
Okay, enough of my rambling. Enjoy!
HIDDEN
Nick Colton was not a research assistant at West Virginia University (although the JC Penney tie and cheap sneakers he wore suggested otherwise, which is why he wore them) but Ken Benson's lead virologist in the biogenetics division of Genesis International, U.S.A. According to the clock on the radio, it was 1:34 in the afternoon. Normally at 1:34 on a Wednesday afternoon, he would be at the lab in Pittsburgh, preparing a new viral sample, cross-checking the other researchers' notes, and whatever else Benson wanted him to do. But today he was driving a Jeep Cherokee he'd rented from a shady car place just outside of Morgantown into the heart of Wild n' Woolly West Virginia, driver side window down and the Stones' Let It Bleed blasting through the speakers. It wasn't a bad way to spend the middle of the work week—taking a scenic drive that got you away from the office and your boss's constant bitching about the enzymes! the enzymes, Dr. Colton!–but the drive was long, the price of gas was high, and Nick had serious doubts that Benson or GenIn would reimburse him.
After forty-five minutes of nothing except trees, trees, and more trees, he passed a sign that read, HARDY COUNTY, 5 MILES.
Goddamn finally, Nick thought as he patted the papers lying on the passenger seat. At last his fingers grasped the map on which he'd traced the way from Route 220 to the property he was to investigate and held it up so that he could see both it and the road. Just a right off the highway, a second right onto another highway, and a left onto a dirt road. Piece of cake.
Or at least, that's what he thought until he was actually on that dirt road, going up the gravel driveway to the cabin that was located on the property, and saw a red Trail Blazer parked outside.
What the hell?
No one was supposed to be here. Benson's intel had said that one of the new owners—a guy who worked in the B.S.A.A.—was on assignment, and the other—his sister, who was a spokesperson for TerraSave—hadn't put in for vacation this week.
So who the hell's here?
Probably one or a group of their friends who had asked to use the cabin for the week. In any case, it didn't matter; Nick had thought of a story in case anyone asked him what he was doing around these parts, and he'd even had the foresight to dress the part. Plus, he'd seen Benson do the exact same thing on many different occasions, so he knew how to pull bullshit out of his ass and make it smell like roses.
He pulled alongside the Blazer and parked. After tucking the papers and map under the seat, he got out of the jeep, walked to the front door of the cabin, and pressed the buzzer.
The door opened, and there stood a beautiful young woman around his age, wearing a red tank top, shorts he wished were tighter, and a pair of worn hiking boots. In her hand she held a small hiking pack. She stared at him quizzically.
"May I help you?" she asked.
"Um, hi," Nick said, clearing his throat, "I'm looking for the owners of this property."
"I'm one of the owners," she said. "Who are you?"
Nice work, intel. "My name's Greg Lawson." He held out his hand, which she shook with her free one. "I'm an assistant researcher of Professor Mark Cramer's up at WVU. The Hardy County Department of Forestry shot us an e-mail a couple of weeks ago, asking us to come down here and look at a new strand of fungus that's been affecting the maples. They sent us a specimen, but it was all dried up by the time it reached us, so Professor Cramer sent me down here to find a fresh one. The Department told us there've been lots of reports of it in this area, including one from this property's previous owners. Maybe the realtors told you…?"
"We haven't heard anything," said the woman, her blue eyes fixed on him.
"Oh. Maybe they and the Department are trying to keep a lid on it for now," said Nick. "You know. So they don't freak anyone out. A new fungus is enough to freak out any community that revolves around agriculture as heavily as this one does."
"Right," was all she said.
"Anyway, I'm sorry they didn't contact you. They said they would, if someone bought the property. If we'd had known they hadn't, we would've phoned right away to ask permission before coming down here."
"It's okay."
"Since I'm already here, would you mind if I took a look around the property?" he asked, indicating the forest behind the cabin, with the most sincere smile he could muster. "I promise I won't bother you or get in your way or anything; it's just that I'd hate to drive all this way and have nothing to take back."
She looked at him for a moment, then smiled and said, "Sure. I can even drive you down the jeep trail, if you want. I was planning to go on a hike, anyways."
"That would be great!" he said. "I'll go get my gear."
"I'll get my keys," she said, and disappeared back into the cabin.
By the time she returned, Nick had dug his bag—which was stuffed with a sampling kit, a flashlight, his old Nikon, and a .42 Magnum he'd bought just for this assignment (in case he actually found what he was looking for)—out of the back of the Cherokee and was standing next to the Blazer's passenger door. The woman pressed a button on her vehicle remote, and the Blazer door locks clicked free. They both climbed in. While Nick dug out the Nikon carefully so that he didn't expose the Magnum by accident, the woman slipped a band off her wrist and twisted it around her long brown hair into a ponytail. She probably didn't realize it—Nick doubted any woman did—but when she did this, she arched her back so that her breasts stuck out like Grandma's Warm Apple Pie on a window seal: delicious and oh-so tempting just to grab. Boy, did he get lucky with this job—and if he played his cards right, he might get even luckier.
As luck would have it, just as he thought this, the woman happened to look over at him. His eyes snapped up to her face.
"I'm sorry, I don't think I caught your name," he said, hoping the hell his cheeks weren't as red as they felt.
She grabbed a pair of sunglasses from the visor overhead and slipped them on. "It's Claire."
"That's a pretty name."
"Thanks," she said as she stuck one of the keys into the ignition and turned it.
The engine roared to life. Popping the gear into drive, Claire steered the jeep around the side of the cabin, across the backyard, and into a less wooded patch of trees where the two telltale dirt tracks of a crude road appeared. As she started down the bumpy road, the cover of the trees thickened, casting the jeep's interior in shadow.
"So how did you find this place?" Nick asked.
"My brother's the one who found it," she answered. "He's a real outdoorsy type."
"It sure seems nice and peaceful," he said before looking over at her. "Pretty, too."
She kept her eyes on the trail. "You must be used to seeing pretty places—forests, and jungles, and grasslands…."
"Not really," Nick said quickly. "I mainly do lab work. Analyzing, recording, that kind of stuff. To tell you the truth, I was happy to get out of the lab for the day. I mean, I like what I do, but it gets old, staying cooped up in a small room with no windows all day."
Claire laughed. "You don't have to tell me. I work at an office, which means I get to spend most of my waking hours in a five-by-five cubicle."
"Sounds like fun," Nick said.
She laughed again. "Oh, let me tell you, it is. I had to fight just to get this week off. So," she said, glancing sideways at him, "You see any of that fungus you're looking for?"
If he hadn't been sitting right beside her, he would have kicked himself for his stupidity. Turning his attention out the window to the trees he was supposed to be looking at, he said, "Oh, no, none yet. Probably when we get further in."
"Okay, but just so you know, this trail doesn't go all the way across the property," she said. "It dead-ends about halfway across it. From there, you have to go by foot on an old hiking trail. And you don't look like you're dressed for hiking."
He glanced down at the professor's-assistant clothes he was wearing and shrugged. "It's okay. Dirty clothes are a small price to pay for science."
She smiled but did not take her eyes off the road.
A silence fell between them after that. Nick thought it'd be best to act as though he was doing what he'd said he was doing and asked her to stop every now and then when he thought he'd spotted "a patch of fungus" on a tree. When she stopped the jeep, he'd get out, take a few pictures, and scrape a piece of the "fungus" (discolored bark or, in one case, bird shit) onto a slide in his sampling kit as he slapped away the mosquitoes. (So far, he had two bites on his right arm and one bite on his collar bone.) While he took the "sample," he skimmed the foliage and treetops for signs of what he'd really been sent here to find: a B.O.W. that GenIn had acquired sometime in the late 90s. Nick didn't know the details, but apparently the thing went missing a few months ago during a security breach that, Benson believed, was instigated by the B.S.A.A., and he wasn't the only one. The popular theory among all of the Higher-Ups at GenIn Pittsburgh was that the B.S.A.A. had taken it and were holding it somewhere. For what reason they didn't know, or else didn't say; Nick just knew that they wanted it back, and they wanted it back badly.
So why Benson had volunteered to send his own research team, most of whom had never even seen the thing (Nick had received only a description of it himself), instead of the investigative operatives he had hired to acquire the names of the B.S.A.A agents most likely involved—which apparently included Claire's brother—to investigate the land properties of said B.S.A.A. agents most likely involved was beyond Nick. Maybe the operatives wanted more money. Maybe Benson was afraid they'd kill the B.O.W. instead of just observing it and reporting back to him. (If that was the case, then the joke was on him; Lyle Gibbons, the gene-splicing expert whom Benson had sent to Syracuse a week ago, had told Nick that everyone whom Benson put up to go on one of these little missions always went armed.) Maybe they just didn't want to get caught selling out their services, especially to a case like this one. But Nick wasn't going to complain—not when it gave him an opportunity to fuck a woman as hot as the one waiting for him back in the jeep.
Speaking of which! He'd already taken the supposed "samples," and now he was just jacking around, looking for broken branches, monster shit, and oversized reptilian footprints that weren't there. He should probably head back before Claire came looking for—
…hello.
Lying on the ground behind a creek bank was the carcass of a deer—a very messy carcass of a deer. Most of the torso area was gone, and what little remained was a splayed, bloody pile of limbs and bones.
Benson had said that erratically mauled animal carcasses would probably be lying around in the B.O.W.'s vicinity….
Nick snapped a few photos of the carcass, then moved around its side to snap a few more.
"What are you doing?" came Claire's voice from behind him.
He was sure to keep his eyes behind the Nikon and the Nikon pointed at the carcass. "Oh, I found this weird animal mauling and thought the guys in the zoology department would be interested."
Claire shrugged. "It's just a coyote attack."
"Coyotes did this?"
"Yeah, there're lots of them around here. Food's been scarce for them this year. I'm surprised there's anything left."
"Hmm," was all Nick said. He slapped a mosquito that had landed on his neck.
"Well, come on," Claire said as she started back for the jeep, "unless you want to wait for them to come back."
The joke was not lost on Nick. Nonetheless, it motivated him to go back to the jeep and get the hell away from the leftovers.
As they continued down the trail, the rocking of the jeep worsening the deeper into the forest they got, his mind wandered back to the deer. He wasn't a zoologist by any definition of the word, but something about the way that carcass had been mutilated didn't sit well with him. It was probable that Claire was right, that it was just a hungry coyote going all-out—but Nick reckoned it was just as probable that Claire's B.S.A.A.-brother had decided to stash the B.O.W. in the woods and it had gotten loose. He'd keep an extra-close eye out when they started down the hiking trail.
And speak of the devil, there it was. Claire pointed out the pile of boulders that marked the trail's starting point as they pulled out of the canopied forest and onto an open, circular plateau. There she parked and got out, and he followed.
The descent turned out to be a smooth one; they just followed a narrow but steep path along a winding, rocky ridge down to a small river, and from there they followed the river upstream to an equally small waterfall, crested by a rainbow.
"Isn't it beautiful?" Claire said, wiping the sweat off her forehead.
"Yeah, beautiful," panted Nick as he stood behind her, eyes combing the river bank before moving to the trail he'd just descended. Jesus, I need to start working out again.
"It's so peaceful and just away from everything, you know?"
He swatted a mosquito that landed on his arm. "Yeah."
Turning from the waterfall, she said, "Well, this is the end of the trail. Did you get all the samples you needed?"
"Actually, I'd like to take a look around while we're down here," he replied. "Fungus grows best in moist places like this."
Claire climbed up on a nearby boulder and sat down Indian-style. "Look away," she said.
While she sat seemingly staring at the waterfall, Nick moved to the other side of the river and continued his search. So far he'd found a couple of dead tree branches that looked as though they'd been broken off instead of fallen off by themselves, but that was it. Every now and then, he'd glance over at Claire to see if she was watching him, but for the most part she kept her head turned towards the waterfall. One time when he looked over, she was laying down on the rock, legs crossed and hands folded over her stomach. She looked totally at peace. This amazed Nick, because he was anything but at peace: he was sweaty and tired from the hike down and not looking forward to the hike up; bugs were swarming him (he now had about eight bites); and worst of all, he'd found no solid proof of a B.O.W. Normally he wouldn't regard this as terrible—quite the opposite, actually—but this trip would make the ninth that Benson had sent one of his men on. Benson was an unpleasant person as it was, and the missing B.O.W. had made him even more so, but these failed trips to find it…well, let's just say "unpleasant" didn't begin to cover how they made him. Just last week, he'd thrown a set of unresponsive altered proteins at Ron Jenkins, the guy who'd engineered them, and then made Jenkins clean up the mess. Nick didn't want to imagine what he'd do to him if he went back empty-handed.
As he brushed aside a thicket of plants with his foot, he heard a loud noise that sounded a hell of a lot like a big animal roaring echo through the forest. He whirled around to see Claire sitting up straight as a board, her head turned towards the waterfall.
"What was that?" he asked.
"It's probably just one of the geysers in the area. There's a couple about a half-mile away," she said shakily.
Very shakily.
No. Fucking. Way.
Could she be in on it?
"Geysers?" he repeated.
"Yeah." She smiled, quite forcibly. "It startled me a little. They don't go off very often."
"Mind if I take a look up there?" he said, pointing at the top of the waterfall.
She looked at it and then nodded. "Sure, if you can climb up and get yourself down."
"I think I can handle it."
"Climb away, then," she said.
The ascent to the top of the waterfall proved a lot more difficult than he'd thought it would. The rocks were so steeply stacked that he had to actually climb them instead of stepped from one rock to the next, and they were slippery to boot. Twice he almost fell on his ass. He was pretty sure that Claire was laughing at him silently.
By the time he reached the top, he was panting so hard that he had to stop to catch his breath (Christ, do I need to start working out again), and the gnats were swarming his head. Slapping them away, he pulled the Magnum from his bag and started to look around. A little ways upstream was a big rock in the middle of the river, across which he stepped to the other bank. Twice Claire called up to him to ask him if he was okay, and he called back that he was.
As he searched the other bank, he wondered if maybe he'd read too much into her reaction to that noise. He didn't want to rule anything out, especially after he'd found that deer carcass, but…well, it had been an awfully startling noise, and it wasn't like he knew what a geyser sounded like, anyways. He just knew that they were loud and supposedly sounded like an animal roaring—and that's what that noise had sounded like. And Claire…well, he knew better than most that you couldn't correctly judge someone by their appearance, but she didn't seem like the lying, steal-a-monster-and-hide-it-in-the-woods type.
Plus, it wasn't like he was finding jack-shit up here to suggest otherwise.
After dicking around for a few more minutes (and smacking more mosquitoes—the goddamned things), he stuffed the Magnum in his bag, made his way back to the waterfall, and started to climb down.
When he was about eight feet from the ground, he went to place his foot on a small outcropping of rock right beside the waterfall, but he slipped, lost his grip on the wet rocks, and fell screaming into a space behind it.
"Hey! Hey! Are you okay?" he heard Claire yell over the roar of the falling water.
"Fine," he answered.
Climbing to his feet, he looked up and saw a big, black hole in the rock.
A cave.
"Are you okay?" said Claire behind him.
"Yeah, I'm fine." He pointed at the cave. "Did you know this was back here?"
She looked from the cave to him. "Yeah. The realtors told us when we bought it."
"It'd make a good hiding place. For fungus," he added quickly. "Mind if I take a look inside?"
She was quiet for a moment, then said, "But I thought you were looking for tree fungus? You're not going to find any in there."
There it was again: that shakiness in her voice. In fact! Now that he thought about it, she'd been looking in the direction of the waterfall while he was searching the area below the trail, and when they'd heard that weird roaring noise. He didn't want to jump the gun—he was too much of a scientist to make assumptions—but….
Somehow, he just knew that if there was anything to find in Hardy County, West Virginia, it'd be right here, inside this cave.
"We think it's tree fungus," he said. "I found some samples today that suggest it can grow on other types of plants and in the soil. And like I said, fungus likes to grow in moist places. In fact, I bet this cave has all kinds of fungi in it."
She didn't say anything; just continued to stare at him through her black-tinted sunglasses.
"What's the matter?" he asked with a grin. "Afraid the boogeyman's going to get me?"
"No," she said, "it's just that copperheads like to nest in places like this. A bite from one will kill you in less than twenty minutes, and it'd take me that long just to hike back up the trail. You'd probably be dead before I even got to the jeep."
"I'll be careful, I promise."
He ducked inside the cave before she could say anything else. It was dark, but there was just enough light streaming in from outside to see that the cave was narrow—about seven feet across—but deep and winding. Bending onto one knee, he set his bag on the ground and began to root through it.
"Do you have a flashlight?" her voice echoed from behind him.
"That's what I'm getting now," he said.
Actually, a flashlight and the Magnum were what he was getting, but he wasn't going to tell her that. As he twisted sideways to re-zip the bag, he slid the gun into the deep jacket pocket on his shadowed side and hoped she wouldn't notice the bulge when he stood up. (She didn't, thank God.)
Swinging the bag back over his shoulder, he said, "Maybe you should wait here," and proceeded into the cave. He kept expecting her to say something, but she didn't.
About fifteen or twenty feet into the cave, the tunnel turned sharply to the left, then to the right, and then left again. The air was cold and the ground and cave walls were damp, but there was nothing unusual about that.
He was about to give up the ghost and turn back when his eye caught a furry, brownish blob just up ahead. It was a rabbit—a half-eaten one, with patches of skin and whole chunks of flesh missing. Bending down, he picked up a twig that was lying on the ground and turned the rabbit over.
There was a deep fang mark in the remains of the flank.
Benson's B.O.W. had fangs.
Jackpot.
"Hey, are you doing okay in there?" Claire's voice echoed through the cave.
"Fine," he called back as he pulled the Magnum out of his jacket pocket. "Just found a possible specimen, that's all."
"Okay, just making sure," was her reply.
He had just placed his hands on the ground to push himself onto his feet when he heard a soft thud! somewhere up ahead. By the time he'd gotten the flashlight and Magnum up and pointed ahead, whatever it was that had made the noise was gone.
Slowly, he made his way forward and around another sharp left turn.
"Hey, wait! I'm coming in after you!" Claire yelled.
He twisted his head around to say, "That's all right!" but stopped mid-twist when he heard another soft thud! right in the front of him. He turned his head back in time to see a copperhead, about four feet in length with a body bigger around than his upper arm, coiled on the ground and about two inches away from striking at his leg.
"Shit!" Nick screamed, and jumped back against the cave wall right as the copperhead struck. He screamed again and pointed the gun and flashlight at the snake as steadily as he could. The snake just hissed at him, its long fangs shining in the light. His finger tightened around the trigger.
"Are you okay?" Claire called out. She sounded like she was only a few turns away from him.
Nick kept the gun trained on the snake a few seconds longer before grudgingly lowering it and slipping it back into his jacket pocket. The copperhead hadn't gotten him, and he couldn't afford to blow his cover now just because a snake (albeit a fatally poisonous one) had taken a nip at him.
"Hey," said Claire as she appeared around the turn, her sunglasses now on top of her head. He must have looked scared shitless (and let's face it, Nicky, you are), because next she said, "What's wrong?"
He turned his attention back to the copperhead. "That."
Her eyes moved to the ground, and she immediately a step back. "Okay, just stay calm and slowly make your way over here—and don't make any sudden movements."
He nodded, then swallowed. Keeping his back against the cave wall and his eyes fixed on the copperhead, he took one step sideways. The snake hissed.
"It's okay," Claire said. "Just keep coming."
He took another step. The snake hissed again.
"That's right, just keep coming," she said.
Slowly, he made his way around the turn and away from the snake. When he was within arm's reach of Claire, she stuck out her hand to him and guided him out of the snake's striking distance.
"Are you okay?" she asked after they'd put at least eight feet between them and the copperhead.
He swallowed, exhaled deeply, and nodded. "I think so."
"There isn't any blood or bite marks on your pants, so I think you're fine." She smiled. "Just don't go rushing into any more snake-infested caves, okay?"
Nick opened his mouth to tell her to fuck off, but thought better of it. Instead, he said, "Yeah, I got that."
Side by side with Nick pointing the way with the flashlight, they walked back to the entrance of the cave. On the way, he caught a glimpse of the half-digested rabbit; the fang mark on its side was about the same size as the copperhead's fang. In fact, now that he thought about it, snakes ate their enemies whole and threw up the bones; sometimes they'd even throw up a half-digested animal if it made them sick. Nick wasn't a zoologist by any stretch of the imagination, but it looked like that was what had happened to the rabbit. It seemed more likely than it being eaten by a monster, especially a monster that had run away from a puny human with a gun, even if that gun was a Magnum. And anyway, it wasn't like a monster could distinguish between guns or fathom what a gun was in the first place; it was just a dumb animal.
Once they were out of the cave and back on the trail, he slapped a mosquito that had landed on his arm and while doing so, saw Claire glance at her watch. He glanced at his own; 3:04, it read. He'd been at this for almost two damned hours, and the only things he had to show for it were slides of bird shit, a fuck-ton of bug bites that were going to itch like hell by that evening, and a near-death encounter with a copperhead. Benson wouldn't be happy if he came back empty-handed, but oh-fucking-well. If he wanted his precious B.O.W. back so badly, he could look for it on his own. As far as Nick was concerned, it was Time To Pack It In.
"I think I've got all I need," he told Claire as she slid her sunglasses back over her eyes.
"Are you sure?" she said.
"I'm sure. Let's get out of here."
She said "okay" and led them back up the hiking trail to the jeep. On the drive back, Nick chatted her up, asked her more personal questions such as how did she like her job (she really liked it, although it kept her busy), why did she pick it (because—he was surprised to learn—she'd lived through the Raccoon City and Harvardville incidents and wanted to help others who'd also lived through biohazards), and if she was married or had a boyfriend (her job was her boyfriend, which meant no).
As soon as she parked the jeep next to the Cherokee, he turned to her and said with the nicest smile he could muster, "Say, why don't we go grab a bite in town?"
"Sorry, but I can't," she said, smiling back. (He couldn't see her eyes because of the sunglasses to tell if it was genuine.) My brother told me he'd call early this evening—he's in the government, so I can't call him, he has to call me—and it's already three-thirty."
"Oh," Nick said.
He started to tell her maybe he'd catch her some other time, that maybe they could exchange phone numbers or e-mail addresses (he had one besides his GenIn address), but she climbed out of the jeep before he could.
She walked to the front door of the cabin and unlocked it. Twisting the knob, she opened the door, moved to the threshold, and turned to look at him.
"Well, I guess this is where we part ways," she said, still smiling. "It was nice to meet you, Mr. Lawson."
"It was nice to meet you, too, Claire," he said.
"Good luck with your research."
And with that, she closed the door.
"Thanks," he said to no one.
xxx
Nick drove in silence until he reached Route 220. Once he was back on the highway and going a steady 60 miles per hour, he turned on the radio and listened to it a bit before switching back to Let It Bleed. He thought about the verbal lashing Benson would give him when he got back to Pittsburgh, wondered if he'd cooled down any since tossing the set at Jenkins or if that was just a warm-up throw for the hit that he, Nick, was going to get. He also thought about Claire, about why she'd just brushed him off like that after they'd gotten on so well. Maybe she hadn't been interested. Maybe she'd been interested but was turned off when he'd fallen on his ass and/or screamed like a girl over that snake. (He had to admit, he would have been turned off by that.) Maybe she really did want to wait for her brother to call. Maybe she was just an ice queen-bitch who wouldn't have put out even if he'd bought her a four-course meal at a five-star restaurant. Who the hell knew? In any case, it didn't matter now; his dick was still dry, and Benson's B.O.W. was still missing.
Well, you can't always get what you want, he thought, and fast-forwarded the CD to that song.
A few minutes later, he passed a sign that read HAMPSHIRE COUNTY and left Claire Whatever-Her-Last-Name-Is and Hardy County, West Virginia (which had no B.O.W.s as far as he was concerned) in the rearview mirror.
xxx
The first thing that Claire did after shutting the door was toss the sunglasses onto the kitchen counter and press her eye to the peep hole. Then she watched as Greg Lawson (or whatever his real name was) got into his jeep, drove down to the dirt road and disappeared behind a cluster of pine trees.
When he didn't come back, she went outside and peered through the trees to see if he'd parked anywhere along the road to wait and see if she went back into the woods. He hadn't. Running back to the cabin, she grabbed her hiking pack, climbed into the jeep, and drove back to the plateau.
When she reached the waterfall, she carefully climbed down off the path to the outcropping of rock that "Greg" had climbed up. With one glance behind her, she ducked behind the waterfall and into the cave. Grabbing a flashlight from her pack, she took a quick glance around to make sure there weren't any more copperheads lying around, then took a step forward.
Cupping one hand to her mouth, she yelled, "Steve!"
Only the static fall of water answered.
"Steve!" she tried again.
This time, a guttural moan echoed from farther back in the cave. Suddenly, a large, greenish blob moved into the flashlight beam's path, followed by an equally large, greenish face with red eyes, sharp fangs, and a mop of tangled, brownish-red hair.
"There you are!" she said as she walked to meet him.
Steve greeted her with something between a growl and a moan—the closest to "hello" he could manage in his current state—while she dropped to her knees and started to dig through the pack, the flashlight clamped between her teeth. When her fingers found what she was looking for—a Fed-Ex box containing a stoppered syringe full of anti-virus—she held it up in the light and, taking the flashlight from her mouth, said, "Look what I've got!"
Steve nodded, and it seemed to Claire that the corners of his mouth moved up, as if he were trying to smile.
They moved outside to the boulder on which Claire had sat while "Greg" was looking for "samples." Steve rested his arm face-up on it. He remained quiet while Claire swapped his skin with alcohol and gave only a small wince—which came out more like a purr—when she stuck the needle into his flesh. Afterwards, they settled onto the boulders at the bottom of the trail and watched the sun move toward the western horizon. Claire told him all about "Greg Lawson" and how he'd made every mistake in the How-to-Stake-Out-An-Investigation handbook.
"He said he was an assistant to a professor of botany and wanted to take samples of a fungus affecting maple trees, but the only trees he took "samples" from—" she made finger quotations, "were baby oaks."
Steve laughed (although it sounded more like a choked growl) and continued to laugh as she laid out every mistake "Greg" had made, from the oak trees to his un-botany research assistant-like attire to the fact that he believed her when she'd told him copperheads were fatally poisonous (excluding the part where he hit on her on their way back to the cabin).
"They're getting dumber all the time," she said, because she knew this is what he would say if he could talk, and then added, "Well, it's not like they were the smartest to begin with. Oh, by the way—be more careful about where you leave your kills. He saw one of them today. I told him it was coyotes, and I'm pretty sure he believed me, but just in case…"
He nodded; he'd be more careful from now on.
"I think he saw one that you left in the cave, too, but he was probably too freaked out by that copperhead that you threw at him to put much thought into it. But just to make sure, you should lay low for the next week or so. Something tells me that if they do come back—and they will, sooner or later—they won't bother ringing the doorbell."
Steve nodded again with a low moan, and touched one claw to his nose; he was sorry, but he'd had to sneeze.
Smiling, she placed one hand on his scaly forearm. "I know. It's okay. If it's anyone's fault, it's mine for bringing him down here in the first place. I thought if he saw that—well, if he thought that there was nothing down here, they would move on and forget about this place. That was pretty dumb of me, huh?"
With a soft gurgling sound, Steve touched her arm; it was okay—she'd done the best she could.
Now the sun hung half-hidden behind the trees. The sky was a dusty red, and the rainbow arcing over the waterfall had long since disappeared. Claire climbed to her feet, Steve following suit.
"It'll be dark soon. I'd better head back." She turned to look up at Steve. He looked back down at her with such sadness and loneliness that his insectile eyes looked human, but he gave no verbal response—only a forced nod. "I'll come back tomorrow, but I have to leave on Friday to go back to Newark. Rebecca'll get here by Saturday afternoon at the latest, and she'll come down and give you the anti-virus. I've never met her, but I've talked to her on the phone, and she seems nice. Chris says she reminds him of me."
Steve gently placed one monstrous palm on her cheek; there would only ever be one Claire. Blushing, she pulled his hand down and held it between her own.
"Don't worry, Steve. Rebecca knows what she's doing. Chris has confidence in her, and so do I. We'll get through this thing. No matter how long it takes, even if it's another fifteen years, we'll get through it. Okay?"
Sighing, he nodded.
She placed one palm on his scaly cheek and gave him the biggest smile she could muster. The corners of his lips pulled up again as he returned it.
"I'll see you tomorrow."
After she'd climbed back up to the trail, she turned to give Steve a small wave (which he returned), then hiked up to the plateau. As soon as she got into the jeep, the tears of doubt and helplessness that she held in during her visits with him welled up in her eyes. She wiped them away quickly and forced herself take a deep breath, and another, and another. She made herself imagine what Steve would look like when the anti-virus kicked in and he started to change back into himself like she always did (first, his skin would smooth out and turn white; then he'd start to shrink, and the claws and fangs would transform back into regular fingernails and teeth; finally, his eyes would fade to white and regain their green irises, and he'd be good ol' Steve again—that is, if GenIn doesn't come looking for him because of my stupidity—), turned the ignition, and started down the bumpy road.
Claire turned on the radio. Usually the signal didn't come in well out here because of the trees, but today it came in crystal clear:
"…You can't always get what you want, / No you can't always get what you want, / But if you try sometimes, you just might find / You get what you need…"
It was an old Rolling Stones song. Claire recognized it because Chris was a big Stones fan, and he and Dad had listened to that tape all the time when Dad was alive; after he and Mom died, Chris had spent a lot of time in his room listening to it.
Although she'd never gotten into the Stones, she'd always liked this song, and soon she found herself singing along with it. She didn't know what caused it—maybe it was the song's connection to her dad and brother, or the song's message, or both—but she started to feel hopeful—more hopeful than she had in a long time.
Glancing in the rearview mirror so that she could see the trees that hid the trail that led to the waterfall, she turned her attention to the trail in front of her, and smiled.
the end.
QUICK, BEFORE YOU CLICK OUT OF THIS STORY! Since in this story I state that a copperhead's bite isn't fatally poisonous, I feel I must elaborate on that statement and say that while the amount of venom that copperheads inject during a bite isn't enough to kill a healthy, fully grown human, it will most certainly kill smaller animals such as cats and dogs. All the same, if you happen to get bitten by one, don't ignore it-seek professional medical help immediately!
Okay, public health bulletin over! I hope you enjoyed the story, and if you would like to leave any feedback you might have (such as praise, critiques, suggestions, corrections, etc.), please do so! Thanks for reading, and here's hoping my next upload isn't two years down the road. XD