Violet Eyes

by John Everson

  The night only got hotter from there…as Rachel showed him how much more amazing she could be.

  They didn’t fall asleep until after the blue LED of the alarm clock read 3:00.

  Chapter Forty-Three

  Tuesday, May 21. 12:43 a.m.

  Innovative Industries managed a lot of micro-sites.

  Most of them were clandestine. All of them were testing biological experiments. Many of them were contracted by the government, with a “no questions asked or answered policy”. Innovative Industries had lab sites all over the United States, ranging from island stations to labs quartered inside universities. But none of them had been as clandestine as the test site on Sheila Key. That project had been Top Secret. Even the scientists carrying it out didn’t know the full details of why they were doing it.

  But the charge had been intriguing—combine the lifecycles of two completely different species. Make a spider give birth to a fly…which would give birth to a spider…

  Peter Skiles skimmed the documentation that Commander Stalvert had forwarded to him and shook his head. The scientists who had made this mutation work for the government had never quite grasped why the government wanted it. They were too enraptured by the biology. The challenge of splicing the genes and creating a completely new species was what drove them to create what they did.

  Sometimes scientists were worse than children, Skiles thought. They never looked outside of the beauty of the theory of what they did. That’s why we ended up with atomic weapons. And the reason the government had hired I.I. to perform this little experiment was crystal clear to Peter.

  Biological warfare.

  Release the flies into a troublesome nation, and let them sting their way through the populace and implant their tainted eggs beneath the skin of millions. The eggs would circulate in the blood of those that they had managed to sting and lodge in the head. There was something about the brain that drew their hunger, some latent chemical, and the eggs would be drawn there to hatch. If they hadn’t migrated there as eggs, the fledgling larvae swam their way to the brain on their own anyway, chasing the flavor. They’d grow there, around the skull, suckling along the victim’s braincase until it was time for the swarm to hatch. And when it was, the things took any path to reach the air. They could eat their way through the ear canal, make their way up the sinus cavity through the nose, or simply chew their way through the skull until they found the heat of the sun.

  And then they would spread. Moving across the land to find other hosts to bite and lay their eggs in. From fly eggs hatched the spiders, who netted any biological thing left alive after the flies’ scourge…before their own movement slowed and their abdomens became a cocoon designed to hatch more flies.

  For a government intent on disabling a nation, it was perfect. The things would spread as quickly as a virus. But unlike a virus, their radius was visible. Where the bugs were was obvious, since they weren’t microscopic.

  And Innovative Industries had developed a failsafe mechanism to wipe the things out when they spread too far.

  Because the cycle was all about the spread. At a certain point, they had to stop. They had to be contained.

  The thing was, the containment spray that had been developed didn’t just stop the insects.

  It stopped…everything. It was like an acid melt. Spray it at anything that moved, and you soon had just a puddle of blood.

  Peter had abandoned Sheila Key and called in the containment plan.

  But now, he was looking at reports that said the containment plan had failed.

  The Innovative Industries mutant creatures had spread to the mainland. A town bordering the Everglades was now under siege.

  Peter read the documentation and frowned. Containment was going to be difficult. These things could easily wipe out all of Southern Florida before anyone so much as blinked an eye. The cycle was designed to be virulent.

  The bugs moved and grew that fast.

  That only meant that he and his team had to move faster.

  They had sterilized Sheila Key. But now they had to come up with a plan of containment…and sterilization…that impacted the fewest people possible yet stopped this mutant creation before it spread north. Where it could really do some damage.

  If he had to, Peter Skiles was ready to wipe out the entire leg of Florida if he had to.

  He hoped that wasn’t going to be necessary.

  But if it was…he was ready.

  He picked up the phone and called his contact in Panama City. It was time to set up containment. And they had to act now.

  Sleep seemed like it was going to be a really long time away.

  Chapter Forty-Four

  Tuesday, May 21. 6:14 a.m.

  She had really moved out to the sticks, Anders thought, as he wound his way off the highway and through the small town. The area appeared to be overrun with tent worms…or some such insect—he saw white cottony billows all over the place, extending from the trees to the gutters on the houses. The webbing was way bigger than what the tent worms that he was familiar with wove. Those usually just bound up a branch or two of a tree, while within a thousand little hairless caterpillars inched along and chewed off the leaves. Here, the webs wound around and around the entire leaf area of trees and bushes and extended long sheaths up the sides of some of the houses. If he hadn’t seen a few cars on the main road and in the parking lot of the supermarket, he would have thought the town had been abandoned to the bugs. Who let worms spin webs over the entire side of their houses? He would have been out there with a pressure washer and a big-ass can of insecticide! He noticed even here, on Rachel’s street, there were several homes that seemed enveloped in cotton. One, in fact, was right across the street from where she apparently lived.

  Anders pulled up at the address he’d scrawled on the back of a junk mail envelope. He compared the numbers on the house next to the front door with what he’d written down. Yep, this was the place. Didn’t look like much, he thought. He’d given her a house better than this up in Crestview and what had she done? She’d picked up, packed up, taken their kid and left it behind.

  That’s all right, he smiled, grimly. She couldn’t leave him behind that easily. She had never been able to say no to him for long. She’d gotten away with this one because he’d been working so much lately, and she’d gone to the lawyers and settled it all before he’d even known what was going on. Then she’d gotten the police involved, and he couldn’t do the things he knew would have nipped this all in the bud. Because it wouldn’t help matters at all if he’d ended up in jail. He’d had to bide his time, and wait for the opportunity. When everyone thought crazy ol’ Anders had calmed down and given up.

  Anders never gave up.

  Thing was, Anders knew she loved him. He remembered how she melted when he rubbed his hand across her lower back. How she moved against him when his hand slipped lower, and how sometimes, without him even asking, she’d kneel down, undo his belt buckle and take out his cock to suck. She’d look up at him like a girl with a lollipop, all doe-eyed and happy. Eager to please.

  And hungry. God, she’d loved playing with his cock. And before Eric had come, she used to wear him out. It was like she could never have him inside her long enough. After he’d kissed her for a while, she’d rip her shirt off, push him down on the bed and sit on top of his crotch. Slipping inside her was always a quick motion; she’d be open and ready before he’d so much as fingered her.

  Those nights were good, but she really seemed to get off on it when he pushed her around a bit, and acted like her “master”. He’d grab her by the hair and push her down on her knees and demand that she suck his balls or lick his ass or feet…and if she acted hungry those times when she started cocksucking on her own, she was fuckin’ ravenous when Anders “forced” her into it. She was a woman who needed a hard man to push her. She craved it. And he’d pushed her to do all sorts of kinky shit.

  He remembered watching football one Sunday afternoon several years ago
with Jake and Ed. The Dolphins were down by thirteen in the fourth quarter and Rachel had been working in the kitchen, cleaning up after their halftime dinner. It was still really too hot for football, and the air conditioner was on the fritz. Everyone was sweating, and the beer was going down fast.

  The Dolphins missed a first down again, and Ed crumpled a Miller can and launched it to bounce off the front door. “This fuckin’ sucks,” he’d complained. At that moment, Rachel was walking through the room. Sweat stained the front of her thin aqua-colored tank top that boasted Miami Dophins in faded orange across her chest. The shirt clung to her skin nicely. She didn’t say a word, but she bent over to pick up the can.

  “No,” Anders said. “That right there sucks.” He pointed at Rachel. He was feeling mean today, and a little fuzzy around the edges after a six pack or more. “She sucks and fucks really good.”

  “You’re a lucky man,” Ed laughed, and popped the tab on a new beer. “At least you’ll get something good after this pathetic game. I’m just gonna go home pissed off.”

  Anders stood up. Watching Rachel bend over and seeing her breasts push against the low cut front of the tank top had given him an idea. “I wouldn’t want that,” he’d said. “Give the boys a little show, baby…something better to look at than this fuckin’ game.”

  Rachel had seen the danger in Anders eyes, and wisely didn’t say anything. She smiled a little nervously and tried to duck from the room, but her husband had caught her. “I want you to make sure my friends have a good time today, and the Dolphins aren’t helping,” he’d said, with one hand holding her arm in a vise grip. “Be a good hostess.”

  She struggled against him, but Anders slipped a hand around her waist, crushing him against his side.

  “Rachel never danced in one a’ them clubs,” he said. “But she sure as hell could have. So maybe today, we make this our own private club and enjoy her, heh? My treat.”

  He yanked hard on her cotton tee with his free hand and in seconds, she was standing there in her small pink bra and gray shorts, perspiration shining on her tanned cleavage.

  “Dance, baby,” he commanded. When she’d refused, he’d slapped her ass. “You think I’m joking around with you here?” he’d said, and then belched. “We need to see something to take our mind off the game.”

  Rachel had given him a dirty look, but then she’d begun to dance as he suggested, running her hands up and down her sides and bending over to shake her pink bra in their faces. She held Ed’s knees as she did, and then moved next to him, to shake her tits in front of Jake.

  “Let me help,” Anders had said then, and slipped his hand up her back to pop the latch on her bra.

  “Anders, seriously!” she’d said, standing up to wrap her arms across her bare breasts.

  “I said I wanted a show,” Anders had demanded, and depantsed her as she tried to hid her tits from the boys.

  Then he pushed her to the floor in front of Ed and Jake.

  “Hell with the dancing,” he said. “Ed said the game sucks, but I said you suck. And the way you suck is not a bad thing at all. I want you to show the boys what suckin’ is all about. You can start with Ed. He’s lonely, ya know.”

  Anders’s friends had protested.

  Rachel had protested. Actually she’d screamed at him and tried to run from the room, clad only in her panties. But a quick slap across the face had shut that down. When Anders got an idea, he didn’t let it go easy. And right then, he thought it’d be pretty funny to show Ed and Jake just what kind of an awesome cocksucker he’d landed. He’d told ’em about the things she did plenty, and he knew they were jealous. And he’d knew she’d like it too, once he pushed her over the hump. She loved it when he forced her to do dirty shit. And at that moment, he wasn’t taking a no from the whore. She was his, to use as he wanted. She needed to know that…

  Anders sat in the car rubbing his crotch and staring at the quiet South Florida house where his wife was now living as he remembered that crazy day when he’d made Rachel give head to both of his friends. She’d finally given in after a few slaps and by the time she’d sucked down Ed’s and Jake’s thick dicks, she’d given in to the experience and let herself get pretty horny. She’d come over and unzipped her husband’s shorts all by herself, no prodding. Then she’d pulled ’em down and fucked Anders cowgirl style right in front of them, slutty and sweaty as could be while Ed and Jake sucked down another beer and the Dolphins finally walked embarrassed and beaten off the field.

  That was when Rachel had understood her place. And enjoyed it.

  The Dolphins may have lost, but it was a great game day as far as Anders had been concerned.

  “That’s a good wife for ya,” he’d told his friends as she worked him with her crotch, bumping and pumping a little sideways, slowing it down and then pounding it up faster ’til the sounds of her skin slapping on his filled the room.

  She’d pretended to be angry at him after that incident, but Anders knew she wasn’t. Not really. She loved him to do shit like that. She needed to be used. She was a real man’s woman, and Anders liked to think he was a real man. She needed him, and he gave her what she needed.

  Since she’d become a mom, he hadn’t forced her to do shit like that very much; a couple times he’d had her suck him off in the back booth at Hellion’s Bar when they’d had a babysitter and a night out. But mostly, he’d just used her at night, in their bed, and let her tend to the child the rest of the time. Sometimes, he even let her roll over when she said she really didn’t want it. And looking back, maybe that was the problem. He’d let her have her head too much these past few years, and lost his hold on her.

  So maybe he couldn’t even blame Rachel entirely for leaving. He’d gotten soft.

  “I can fix that,” he said to himself in the cab. He reached behind the driver’s seat and came back with a .38 Special.

  Then he stepped out of the Chevy. He shoved the gun into his waistband, covering the handle with his gray T-shirt.

  “Honey, I’m home,” he murmured, and stepped up the curb to approach the house.

  Chapter Forty-Five

  Tuesday, May 21. 6:28 a.m.

  Rachel woke up to the sound of pounding. She ignored it at first, still in the grip of a dream that warmed her heart. When she drifted into consciousness, she could feel how widely she was smiling. But as soon as she opened her eyes, the happy images retreated, and she couldn’t even say what they had been…though she thought that they were connected to the strong bare shoulder that lay partially uncovered on the bed next to her.

  Terry.

  She took in a deep breath and could smell the faint scent of him. Of them, really. Her smell and his had mingled to change into something rich. The reminder of their sex in the early morning hours clung to the sheets and Rachel’s groin throbbed at the memory.

  Then she heard the pounding again and was reminded of why she’d woken up. She looked at the clock on the small end table next to the bed. 6:28 a.m. it read.

  Who the hell would be pounding on the door this early in the morning?

  Then she remembered everything that had gone on last night with Eric and which had led Terry to stay over.

  Damn. She should have been up already to check on her son.

  Rachel slipped from beneath the sheets, trying not to wake Terry. He moved anyway, rolling sluggishly onto his back. His eyes squinted open. As soon as he saw her, his lips split into a broad smile.

  “Someone’s at the door,” Rachel explained, pulling on a T-shirt and stepping into her gray jogging shorts. It was hard to take her eyes away from him lying there in her bed, between her sheets. Her chest warmed as she looked at him there, one long foot sticking out to hang over the floor at the one end, and his face, arm and chest exposed by the rumpled sheets at the other.

  “Be right back,” she promised, and forced herself to dart down the hall.

  She stuck her head into Eric’s room for a quick peek; the boy was still sound asleep, lying on his
side. He looked angelic with his pink lips half open, and one round cheek visible above the covers.

  Rachel slipped back out and hurried down the hall and around the corner to the front door. The pounding was more insistent now. At first it had been knock-knock-knock, pause, knock-knock-knock. Now it was just a fist pounding again and again and again and again without stop. It didn’t sound patient, or friendly.

  The intensity frightened her a little. And so instead of just opening the door to see who was outside, Rachel stepped over to the couch, and carefully drew back the curtains on the living room windows and pressed her face to the glass, struggling to peer to the right.

  “Shit,” she whispered, as she recognized the faded jeans and loose black shirt that hung from the shoulders of her ex.

  “What the hell are you doing here?” she added to herself. She ducked away from the window before he could see her and stood in place, trying to come up with a plan of action. She couldn’t let him into the house. Not with Terry here. She knew Anders too well to allow that. He’d freak out and do something that all of them would regret.

  No. There was no way she could answer the door. Instead, she leaned her back against it, and whispered, “Go away.” The fist pounded on the other side, each rap reverberating through her shoulders and chest. All of the warm feelings she’d had upon waking were gone now. Replaced with something far more primal.