He left the house, and walked into the street. Will made a show of putting his gun away and shoved his hands into his pockets. He then hunched his back and tried to look as small and pathetic as possible. He’d done this a few times when he was young and small in the hopes of attracting the eye of a bully in the schoolyard. After all, they couldn’t blame him for a fight he hadn’t started.
After a few minutes of this, Will groaned with frustration and stood up tall. He thought about heading to the portal and shooting until he either freed the town or a tail detached. But Natalie had had a point, those things came out of nowhere and chances were, he’d end up paralysed.
An idea occurred to him. He broke out into a jog and headed towards Tom and the Doc.
Will burst through the front door and heard Tom shriek from upstairs.
“It’s just me,” Will said.
He jogged up the stairs and found Tom’s room empty.
Natalie stuck her head out from a few rooms down. “In here.” She said and disappeared again.
William strolled into the room.
“What’s all this?” He asked, taken aback.
Natalie had transformed the room into a makeshift lab. Test tubes and small, whirring devices covered the desk. Various screens were propped up around the room. On the couch, covered in a blanket was the dog. Natalie was decked out in safety glasses, her lab coat and gloves. Even the kid had gloves on as he patted Wolfgang’s fur.
“Did you get the sample?” Natalie asked.
William gritted his teeth together. “No. But I will. I need the kid.”
Natalie looked at him, her eyes piercing. “What for?”
“Do you want the stinger or not?”
“I don’t know-” Natalie began.
Tom jumped off the couch, flung his gloves onto the floor and walked over to William. “I can help!” He said.
Will ushered the kid out of the room. “He’ll be fine.” He said over his shoulder.
Will lead the kid outside and shut the door behind them. He bent down.
“Alright kid, you want to get your parents back right? And help the dog?”
Tom nodded, his was face earnest but his eyes were darting all over the place.
Will pat him on the back. “Good. Come with me. Stay close now.”
He walked out of Tom’s street, so that the Doc wouldn’t catch wind of his plans and stop them. Will looked for a good vantage point. The kid was shaking beside him. He picked a side walk in the next street over, with a large tree he could climb. A couple of feet away from the tree he stopped and crouched down in front of the kid again.
“Alright, all you need to do is stand here and whistle or something. You know how to whistle?”
Tears flooded Tom’s eyes as he shook his head. “I’m sorry.”
Will shook his head. “It’s fine. Just hum, can you hum?”
“I can!”
Will scanned the street. “Good, good. Just wait here kid, I’ll be over there. Don’t get scared.” He met Tom’s eyes. “I won’t let anything happen to you.”
Tom swallowed but nodded.
Will nodded back and then stood. He jogged over to the tree and jumped up, grabbed the lowest branch and pulled himself up into it.
Tom was staring up at him, his arms wrapped around his middle.
“Don’t look at me, kid. Look over there,” Will pointed across the street. “And hum. Look busy.”
Tom turned away from Will and started to hum.
There’s a good lad.
Will pulled his gun and scanned the street. He felt an odd sense of pride watching the kid out there on his own. That took real guts, guts that not many men had, let alone boys. He scanned the street again, straining his senses so that he wouldn’t miss anything. When he looked back at Tom, he was gone.
“What the hell?” William yelled.
He leapt out of the tree and tore down the road. There was a trail of slime on the ground leading down the street. He had only looked away for a few seconds and the kid hadn’t made a peep. Will pushed his legs to go faster as he turned off the street and saw a glimpse of the kid on the ground. Something had ahold of him.
“Hold on Tom!” He yelled.
Will put his head down and pushed his legs. He was a few meters from the kid now, so he leapt and grabbed onto his ankles. Keeping his grip with one hand he aimed his gun and shot into the darkness ahead. There was a screech, metallic and alien but the creature didn’t slow. Will aimed at the tail and shot again and again until it blew a hole so big it detached.
Will and Tom came to an abrupt halt. Will got to his feet and pulled the kid up by his shoulders. The reason he had been silent was that the alien had wrapped its tail around his mouth. Tom’s eyes were wider than any human eyes Will had seen. He yanked the tail from the boy’s face and attempted to wipe some of the slime from his cheeks.
“Good work kid,” Will said.
Tom nodded.
Will dug around in green slime and picked up the tail. “You did it, mate.” He said to Tom.
Seeing the tail, Tom’s eyes refocused and a wide grin spread across his lips. He grabbed the tail from Will and looked at it, fascinated. He pulled it through his hands and stopped at the black stinger.
“Don’t touch that bit,” Will said.
“Let’s give it to Natalie so Wolfgang can wake up.” Tom said.
Will clapped him on the back and lead him to Quagmire st. At the sight of his front door, Tom bolted. Will hurried after him. Inside, Tom ran up the stairs, almost stumbling on the top step. He ran into the office. Will reached the doorway and smirked.
Tom thrust the tail into the air towards Natalie.
“We got it! We got it!”
Natalie grinned at the boy but then her face fell. Will noticed that Tom was covered from head to toe in green goo. The red marks across his cheeks and a scratch on his forehead.
Natalie’s eyes widened and she looked at Will.
“You wanted your stinger, you got it,” Will said.
“You used him as bait?”
Will shrugged. “He wanted to help. Plus it worked, didn’t it.”
Natalie took the tail from the boy. “Thanks Tom, you did great,” She said.
Tom skipped over to Wolfgang and grabbed his face in his hands.
“We got it Wolf, we got it!” He repeated.
Natalie shot a nasty look at Will.
“What?” He asked.
“I can’t believe you,” She said, her tone low and irritated.
Will shrugged and wandered into the room. He glanced at the equipment and lowered his hand to press one of the buttons.
“Don’t even think about it.”
8
The office was quiet but for the whirring of analytical equipment. The serum had taken nearly half an hour to synthesise. Natalie had just injected Wolfgang with it. She stood close to him and patted his head as she waited for the chemical to circulate his body. She’d done all she could to get the serum right, but she wasn’t a vet or a venom expert. Tom held his breath, the ends of his blue gloves sagged over his fingers. Will lingered in the doorway, his strong arms crossed and his eyes glazed. Wolfgang’s ear twitched and Tom gasped. The dog’s limbs twitched and then began to move. As soon as he was able, Wolfgang got to his feet on the couch and licked Natalie and Tom’s waiting faces.
Tom threw his arms around the dog and cheered.
Natalie grinned as relief washed through her. “Good boy, Wolf,” She said.
“Okay, it works. Time to go,” Will said from the doorway.
Natalie’s smile faded. “If you just give me a minute. We can go to the portal with a plan. Have you ever heard of a plan?”
“I work alone.”
“I don’t care.”
Natalie went back to the genetics results.
“That’s strange,” She murmured.
It was a unique genetic code. Not completely foreign to her but distorted in a way she hadn’t seen before, li
ke it was corrupted somehow. She checked the sample she had run from cell scrapings of the tail, the results were the same.
“So, the green slime, it’s an adhesive and a lubricant. Meaning, it helps the creature travel along the ground as well as vertically, like a snail or a slug. The genetic results suggest a simple organism as well.”
“So it’s a bunch of slugs. How does that help?” Will said.
“So… That would imply a certain kind of intelligence level. Instinctual and basic. Especially with this paralytic venom. These are primal means of hunting, it’s not cognitively based.” Natalie held up a finger to stop Will’s snarky comments before they began.“But, and get this. Tom said that they came back to clean up their own trails. That is highly unusual. That suggests-”
“Intelligence.”
“Right. Self-awareness, planning. These aren’t your regular kind of slugs. Their intelligence does not match their evolutionary level of development.”
“You’re thinking with Earth logic. How do you know what’s best for them in their world?”
“I thought of that but the logic still stands. The more intelligent a creature is the more likely it will devote evolutionary progress towards the advancement of intelligence, at the cost of more physical or primitive ways of surviving. It’s been seen across dimensions.”
Will nodded and Natalie saw a flash of something like respect in his eyes.
“Alright Doc.”
The door creaked open downstairs. Natalie’s heart leapt into her throat. Her eyes widened and she opened her mouth to speak when Will looked at her hard and put a finger to his lips. Wolfgang let out a low, deep growl.
There was a crash downstairs and Tom whimpered. Will rushed over to him. He pointed to the closet in the corner of the room. Tom, on shaking legs he went over to the closet and let himself in. Natalie patted her leg and Wolfgang was by her side in an instant. Will appeared beside her too. He pulled his knife from his boot and handed it to her and then pulled his gun. He stepped out of the room and looked behind him, motioning for Natalie to follow.
They crept out into the upstairs hall and paused to listen. There was another crash in the kitchen, like lots of objects had fallen. Natalie jumped but managed to stop herself from crying out. Will motioned for her to follow as he snuck onto the stairs. Wolfgang kept close to her leg. She could feel his fur bristling.
Will aimed his gun over the banister. He motioned for her to follow. They headed down the stairs slowly, weapons raised.
An eerie growl reverberated out from the kitchen. Wolfgang started to bark. Natalie tried to quiet him but he leapt down the stairs and bolted into the kitchen. Before she could think, Natalie raced after him, knife raised.
Pots and pans littered the kitchen floor. All of them dripping with green slime. Natalie struggled to keep her footing as she ran across the tiles and into the connecting dining room. Wolfgang was barking hysterically at the dining table. Natalie ran to his side but she couldn’t see anything. She held the knife ready and turned in a circle. Before she could react, she hit the ground. Something was wrapped around her ankles. Wolfgang growled and bit the tail and it retreated. Natalie scrambled to her feet, trying to work out what to attack. There was something on the roof, big and moving fast. It let out a wild screech. Wolfgang was leaping up and down, barking.
A loud bang pierced through the air as Will fired off one shot and then another. The screeching intensified. The alien moved so quickly, Natalie couldn’t keep track of it. It whirled around the walls, shrieking in an fractured way. It was dark green, mottled with brown. The bottom of its body was like a snail or a slug. But it was a meter and a half long and half a meter wide. It had a large bulbous head that seemed both too large for its body. It had two large black eyes, an open mouth and most strangely of all, two twig thing arms with hands.
It flung its long, ropey tail outwards, Natalie dove out of the way of its black stinger. When she got to her feet, two more of the slug aliens had shot into the room.
Natalie slashed her knife in the air as one approached. Wolfgang leapt and grabbed it, shaking his head violently. Will was firing off shots, sending explosions of green slime and blue alien blood across the room.
But no matter how many times he hit them, or Natalie cut them, they didn’t slow or stop. The walls, roof and floor, as well as the dining table and chairs were all quickly coated in green slime. William had been grabbed around the wrist of his shooting hand.
“Throw me the knife,” Will yelled.
Natalie saw that Will had been grabbed around the wrist of his shooting hand. She chucked the knife and he caught the handle, making short work of tail. But then another wrapped around his waist and another around his neck and then both arms. They were targeting him. With a yell of fury Will fell to the ground. Three stingers immediately rose and pierced into his flesh. Natalie rushed over to him and began pulling at the tails. Will struggled and then grew still. Natalie grabbed Will’s knife and his gun. She fired a shot at a nearby slug alien, but hit the roof, sending a shower of plaster raining down. She turned to cut the tails around Will but they were already retracting. There was a sound outside, like a high pitched siren and then and slug aliens dashed out of the open window. As suddenly as they had appeared, the room was still, but for the dripping slime.
Wolfgang barked and clawed at the window frame.
Natalie bent down and looked into Will’s eyes. “Are you okay?” She asked.
Will’s eyes moved around, Natalie could feel his fury. So, he couldn’t be that hurt.
She stifled a smile, which made William’s eyes bulge.
“Oh relax, I’ll get the serum,” She said.
Natalie left Will where he lay and went over to the window still holding the gun. She closed and locked it.
“It’s alright Wolf, calm down,” She said.
Wolfgang stopped barking and whimpered. He sniffed her hand and then went over to Will and sniffed him too. Wolfgang licked his face and Natalie couldn’t help but let out a laugh. She covered her mouth, not sure how she could be laughing. She had to have reached the point of hysteria. She was holding a knife and a gun and had been attacked by hostile aliens. Natalie walked over to Will and looked down at his frantic eyes.
“Just sit tight okay, I’ll go and get the serum and make sure Tom is alright.”
She stepped over him and almost slid on the slime as she exited the dining room. Natalie ran up the stairs, with Wolfgang at her heels.
“It’s alright Tom, they’re gone,” She said, once in the office.
Natalie grabbed one of injectors loaded with the serum and activated it. She was about to head downstairs when she paused.
“Tom?”
Wolfgang was at the closet door. He was scratching the door and whimpering. Natalie put the injector down and walked over to the closet. A drop of slime fell from the roof onto her shoulder. They’d been here.
She opened the doors but the closet was empty.
“Tom?” She yelled.
But she knew he was gone.
9
Will’s body was gone. He could hear and see and taste the slime leaking into his mouth, but he could not move anything. He burned with anger but all he could do was stare at the roof of the kitchen. The dog was making a racket upstairs, Will couldn’t work out what was taking Natalie so long.
Will’s thoughts began to race away from him. There had to be something other than a paralytic in the venom.
He wasn’t in the room anymore.
He was on his bicycle and he was sixteen, cycling home after a long shift at the pizza place. It was a frosty night, on the edge between autumn and winter. But his right hand was hot as he balanced a pizza box on it, as he rode. Will felt tired but happy, he was excited about eating the pizza with his parents and little brother. They were always so excited when he brought home surprise pizza. Thinking of them and thinking of being warm in front of the television, he cycled harder. He thought about his brother James and wonder
ed what new creation he had made that afternoon. Though Will would never say it out loud, he was impressed by his brother’s skills. James made big bugs and other creatures out of stuff he found in the yard. Glueing them together and filling in the bodies with plasticine. It was a cool hobby and Will secretly treasured the ones that James gifted to him.
Will cycled onto his own street. He let the slight hill propel him forward. Will yawned and turned into his driveway, his body bracing for the small bump over the gutter. He stopped his bike and chucked it onto the front yard and finally looked up at the space where his house should be. But it wasn’t there. Will didn’t understand what he was looking at. Where was his house? Where was his family?
Will was back on the floor in the kitchen. His insides twisting with fear and grief. He silently cursed Natalie for taking so long with the serum. He wanted to yell out to her to hurry the hell up, but his mouth wouldn’t obey.
After what felt like hours her face appeared in his line of sight.
Her face was pale. She looked scared.
“It won’t take long to work,” She said.
Natalie disappeared again and Will once again, had no idea what was happening. He didn’t feel the needle he assumed was going into his arm. He waited for his body to return to him. Finally, he felt his finger tips on his right hand and moved them. The feeling spread up his arm and then rapidly through the rest of his body. With feeling, came pain.
Will managed to sit up. He spat onto the ground and raised a clumsy hand to his face, wiping the slime from it.
He felt Natalie’s hands around his arm, urging him to his feet. He felt like he had to control every muscle separately as he hauled himself upwards. Standing, he shook off her hand.
“What took you so long?” Will slurred.
“Tom is gone,” Natalie said.
Will took a step forwards and slipped back onto the floor.
“Give it a minute to work,” Natalie said.
Will grunted and got back to his feet. He forced his tight, aching muscles to move and ran up the stairs. His gun was resting on the desk, he grabbed it and went over to the open closet. It was empty.
The Missing Town Page 4