Minutes to Burn

She hadn't realized how long his hair was since the bandanna took up most of its length, but seeing it now unbound, she would have bet it reached his shoulders in the back. For a man over fifty, Savage was in remarkable shape. His back was grooved with muscle, his calves firm knots. When he turned, Szabla was shocked by the definition of his chest and shoulders. A patch of hair spread across his pectorals. The hair was neatly contained; it didn't climb back over his shoulders.

Her eyes traced over his naked body as he stood, slapping the sand from his feet. A scar compassed his right arm at the peak of the biceps. Her transmitter vibrated silently beneath the skin of her shoulder, sur-prising her. She started and had to step to regain her balance, her foot plunking loudly in the water. She looked up anxiously, standing in full view of Savage.

He was still naked, holding his undershirt. He didn't look up, but he smiled as he bunched the shirt in his hands and pulled it over his head. "Tell 'em I'll be there in a minute," he said, not raising his eyes. He made no effort to cover himself.

He had known she was there all along. The thought filled her like a chill and she took a step back. He still didn't look up.

He leaned over to grab his pants, his dick visible beneath the hem of his shirt. Szabla moved quickly back across the boulders. When she was safely out of view, she leaned back, resting her head against the cliff wall, waiting for her heartbeat to slow.

She waded back to the flat lava, her wet cammies heavy around her thighs, and began to jog back to base.

Cameron recognized Szabla's distinctive run from a distance. Szabla arrived winded, her breath coming in gasps, and she doubled over before Derek's glare, leaning heavily on her knees. "Savage is…Savage is coming," she gasped.

"What were you two doing?" Justin asked.

"Jealous?" Rex interjected, raising an eyebrow.

"Yes," Justin said. "I've been desperately pursuing Savage, but he won't give me the time of day."

Savage approached the group, making no effort to speed up. Noting Derek's irritation, Cameron checked her watchface. 0759. Savage pulled up within the minute, calmly swept his hair back under his bandanna, and smiled at Derek innocently.

"All right," Derek said. "Diego, why don't you lead the others to the village so they can set base camp? I'm thinking we should set down in the eastern pasture, the one across the road from Frank's old camp. The village is deserted except for one family."

"A husband and wife," Diego said. "The woman is embarrassed."

The others looked at him, nonplused. He stared at the sky, checking his English. "Pregnant," he corrected. "She's pregnant."

"Frank Friedman disappeared without bothering to pack his belongings," Derek said. "And he'd ordered a huge freezer to store specimens of some sort. Something weird went down around there."

"You don't buy that superstitious nonsense, do you?" Rex asked. Cameron smirked-now that he'd put some distance between himself and Frank's camp, Rex was feeling tough and scientific again.

"You're the one with the missing colleague," Derek said.

"It's important that we not lose focus of our objectives," Rex said.

"Christ," Szabla muttered. "He's turned into Cameron."

"Frank probably got stuck in a lava tube somewhere or shot in Guayaquil," Rex continued. "I hardly think the tree monster got him."

"Tree monster?" Tucker asked.

Savage let his breath out in a quiet hiss of a laugh. "Tree monster," he said. "I've seen a few of them before."

"Tall tales have been trickling in from this island for years," Diego said. "But this tree monster is a new one."

"I want you to exercise caution," Derek said. He rubbed his temples, as if staving off a headache. "Stick near to camp, maybe scout the area a little bit. Me and Cam'll assist Rex with the first GPS unit, and we'll muster at the base in a few hours." When he looked over at her, Cameron was taken aback by the dark circles beneath his eyes.

Rex removed the equipment he needed to set one GPS unit, and he, Derek, and Cameron left the others grumbling around the gear. It would be a tedious hike for them, given that Tank could barely walk and would be unable to carry his share of the load. Diego gamely declined to join Rex, offering to help the others move upland.

After navigating the narrow trail up the cliffs, Rex headed west, occa-sionally consulting his Brunton compass and squatting to tap the ground with his rock hammer. Over his left shoulder, he'd looped one of the circu-lar nylon bags. Derek bore a tripod base in similar fashion, using the leather strap attached to one leg as a sling. Cameron hauled a backpack full of additional gear. They waited patiently as Rex started and stopped, assessed and thought. He spent at least ten minutes at every fissure, jotting down meas-urements in a small notepad he kept wedged in his shirt pocket.