Weird Science

The moon once more passed behind the clouds, like a switch darkening the misty night yet more. My shoes slosh in the soggy marsh... I am wet up to my knees, and it is cold. My heart pounds within my chest... I have been running through these dark woods... from what? I know not why my mind seems as foggy as the dark landscape surrounding me. Then a hideous screech echoes behind me... and I remember it all! "Harold, what have you done?" I asked him. "You, of all scientists, should know better!" The thing in the cage stares at me with evil bottomless black eyes. Genetically altered, information fused, an ungodly creature he has created. That night it escaped... of Harold all I found was his left shoe with his foot still in it. The double doors were sprung from their hinges and the creature was out in the dark. I grabbed the tranquilizer gun and followed the spoor into the night. I was not prepared for its immense strength nor its evil intelligence. I had not gone more than twenty yards but found to my chagrin that it had lain in wait for anyone who dared to follow. One flick of its tail and the gun was gone. Another and blood coursed into my left eye from the gash on my forehead. I turned and ran. Like a cat playing with its prey it stalked me... not yet hungry enough to make a meal, yet game to tease me as it wished. Several times I fell between its gigantic paws, but each time it simply glared at me and drooled and stepped back to let me go. Now I felt it was at last hungry again. I summoned the last of my strength and ran... but I had picked the wrong direction. Like a trapped rat I was at the edge of a precipice... the cliff edge upon which Harold's laboratory had been built. Another screech behind me, coming closer. I could almost feel its fetid breath warm upon the back of my neck. I turned, and there it was. It looked from side to side to see where I might run. Satisfied that I had nowhere to go, it closed in Without hesitation, I turned and leaped from the cliff... 1-3-2002Written on the spur of the moment in response to a challenge. Written January 4th, 2002 © on Jan 03 2002 06:20 PM PST, Heinz Scheuenstuhl    0 • 10