by Neil Leckman
only the thing that escaped there posed a much greater risk than this creature, so the company focus was on minimizing the possible damage there. This facility would be on its own.
Two miles away, inside a drainage pipe that ran under the county road the snake slept. It had found a cat prowling the fields and eaten it, after a futile fight. Tracy Spooner, who heard her cat fighting, went out to investigate, and when she saw the snake swallowing the cat had screamed. The snake grew an appendage that whipped out and wrapped around Tracy’s throat, cutting of the scream. After crushing her throat, it pulled her lifeless body towards it, and absorbed her too. That done it had crawled to this pipe to rest as it grew again. The design of the special enzyme to digest food with had made quick work of both meals, dissolving them into a nutrient rich pool of liquid that it ingested. Based on input from the part of it that had stayed behind at the facility it morphed into a more defensive creature. Spikes appeared down the ridge of its back, and it developed a tongue that allowed it to throw wads of its digestive juices at victims. It contained a special poison that paralyzed prey almost in an instant. Besides the legs it had, it grew two additional claws that sprouted from the sides of its neck, to tear food apart. This was not necessary to prepare the food, but for some reason it found joy in tearing its prey apart. Fear was something it had not experienced before, and it liked it, when it absorbed the mind of its food it was like a drug.
Once it was out in the fields, it converted to a mouse and ran. An owl spotted it running out in the open and swooped down to grab it. When it did, the mouse wrapped around one of the owl’s claws and burrowed under its skin. In panic, the owl screeched and crashed into a large tree limb, breaking its neck. It plummeted; limp, to the forest floor below. The corpse squirmed around, the feathers in constant motion, until they all dissolved into a lump of tissue. An eye appeared and rolled back inside, a beak followed that, and then it sat motionless. Moments later, it turned into a large rat and continued its journey. When it reached the drainage pipe, it ran into the body of the snake, merging with it. The snake sprouted two small wings, which laid flat against its back. A shimmer ran down the snake’s body as it processed the new DNA, and it changed. The face of Tracy Spooner appeared, with an impossibly large mouth, forked tongue darting out between its fangs. Talons appeared at the end of its arms, three fingered, with large serrated claws. Chitinous armor formed in interlocking segments down its back, with a spiked ridge running down the spine. It flapped the newly formed wings, but found them ineffectual, so it increased their size, and changed them from feathers to a thin membrane of leather. Several more attempts failed, until it got the size right, but it soon discovered that the wings were far too close to its head, throwing it off balance. It worked at it all night, and as the sun rose above the wet fields, morning mist rising in the heat, so too did the snake. People in town noticed a strange shadow pass overhead, but when they looked up it was gone.
Tim Mathews was the first to notice the change in the creature’s configuration; he went and informed the Major of the new development.
“Wings, now that is interesting. Has it been made aware of Ruby’s existence yet?”
“No sir, the two remain unaware of the others existence. In the town, we had placed her in; Ruby appears to have wiped out the entire population. A man traveling through has discovered some of what happened, and is getting ready to leave. Ruby discovered she can migrate out of town by attaching an egg sac to the man’s car. He is just about ready to leave. Do we stop him, or allow her to migrate?”
“I think we should allow her to migrate, and make the snake creature aware of her existence, link the two hive programs, but not their goals. I still want Ruby to focus on elimination of pests, and the snake to focus on evolving into a meld of life forms for ultimate functionality.”
“Sir, what if the snake absorbs Ruby, or one of her offspring? It could potentially become a threat!”
“If that happens, we’ll just shut them both down with an EMP. That is of course only a last resort; I do not think it will come to that. You can still modify the root program, correct?”
“Yes sir.”
“Good, proceed as directed.”
“Yes sir.”
Tim walked back into the command post, and pulled up the Ruby program. The monitor showed that she was still shadowing the traveler and would attach herself to a wheel well any moment. He had just placed the gas pump handle back in its cradle and was climbing into his car. Once again, he took out his cell phone, but still there was no signal. Not surprising since Tim had blocked all of them. Rapidly typing across the keys, he linked the two programs, making them aware of each other, yet not merging the two into one.
2
“Ruby”
I was traveling across a part of the state that was sparsely populated, only a few small towns along my route. Mom and pop grocery store/post office/police stations with a tiny cluster of businesses usually composed the downtown area, with distant ranches composing the main population. I had just finished a nice stretch of flat empty road, the kind that even lacks vegetation of any height, just low scrub, and packed dirt, and I was running low on gas. I hoped that the next town had a gas station to fill my tank up as I watched the needle on the gas gauge bounce near an eighth of a tank. I slowed way down when I saw the reduced speed limit sign, because I do not want to be some financing option for a backwater sheriff’s new car. Coming over the low hill into the town something seemed off a bit, even small towns have activity on a Saturday morning, and there was not a soul in sight. There was a gas station ahead called Phil’s, that was the typical gas station/post office/police station, and it appeared to be open so I pulled up to the pumps. Getting out to gas up, The first thing I noticed there were no credit card slots, or self serve pump options, the pumps look like they are throwbacks to the 1970’s, just a nozzle, locked into place on the side of the pump by a slide handle. Standing there, I looked towards the station expecting someone to come out and help me. While I stood there waiting I looked around at the town, and was a little disconcerted by the complete lack of any sound or activity. Finally, I walked over to the grimy dust coated glass door that led into the station, and walked inside. It was stifling hot inside, and nobody stood at the little register surrounded by locked cabinets full of cigarettes.
“Hello, could I get somebody to help me turn on pump number two?”
Complete silence answered my question, muted by the stifling heat. I walked over to the cooler to grab something cold to drink while I waited, and because I was beginning to sweat in the heat. As I got closer the first thing I noticed was the smell, the gagging funk of dairy products gone bad, and something else that was so bad my eyes began to water. It was a standing cooler with sliding doors, and lights were flickering, making it hard to see inside the case. As I approached the case, I could see that ice cream had melted out of the cartons, flowing over the items beneath, and it was evident that this occurred enough time ago that a dark, putrid thick mold now covered it, and I gagged at the smell of it. Mold that was so old that it had grown stalks with fertile pods, full of spores hanging from the tips, ripe and ready to burst. In the case next to the freezer a package of hotdogs had burst open, exposing the now shriveled, dry contents also covered in a dense yellow mold. Milk cartons had burst as the got hot and the pressure from the contents going bad finally burst the seams. Along the floor with a viscous thick brownish pool of liquid on top, thoroughly soaked in the goo, was a pair of jeans, and a plaid shirt. Two shoes leaned a kilter against the cooler, a dirty white sock draped inside. Oddly, out of place in the middle of the puddle sat a Timex watch face down. I started to get a creepy feeling as I felt the hairs on my neck rise, I could hear the rhythm of my breathing, and even though it had to be, almost 100 degrees inside the store a cold chill ran down my neck as goose bumps covered the flesh of my arms. Feeling nauseous from the fear that was now rapidly rising in my throat, gagging me, I choked out,
“Hello, is there any
body here?” I called out and the silence seemed to eat the sound, muting it.
There was a glass door that separated the store from the post office portion of the building so I slowly opened it and walked in. A small desk with a postal scale, and several rows of PO boxes was all that made up the post office, not untypical for a town of this size. Behind the desk, In front of a swinging door was a puddle of that strange liquid, with clothes and shoes, just like the store. There was a sweet sour smell of rot in the air, but it was curious that there was no mold of any kind growing on either puddles. A couple of letters were scattered on the floor and covering the remaining letters with the thick liquid, a crazy thought was forming in the back of my mind. The police station was next door, but was not directly connected to the post office so I walked out the glass front door, and walked over to the main entrance to the tiny police station. Obviously, crime was not a big concern in a town this size, so there was only one vehicle parked out front, and it was more than ten years old. I noticed that the driver’s side door was open, and once again, I saw that same display of clothes and goo, what could that