Snails - Flash Fiction from my Prosthetic Amalgams collection

Snails

(from Prosthetic Amalgams)

by

Kenny A. Chaffin

All Rights Reserved © 2014 Kenny A. Chaffin

The fluoride in the water did it, caused the snails to grow bigger and more intelligent than ever before. Soon they were invading homes, their fortified shells impossible to crush leaving a trail of glittering slime everywhere they went. Maybe you’re skeptical, you should be, intelligent snails you ask? I assure you it is true, not only that but they appeared to be able to communicate and coordinate their.... what other word can I use, but.... assaults. Because that is what they were, they could devastate a kitchen overnight, consuming and transporting anything of worth to their underground bases. The invasive pest people consulted with the wildlife biologists to try and figure out how they were communicating but were stymied until they brought in engineers who determined they were communicating with microwaves using the tiny antennae on their heads. Attempts were made to jam the signals but nothing seemed to work, the snails were using a coded frequency-hopping system that was both indecipherable and impossible to jam.

They began feeding in waves across the country. Attacking and consuming the elderly, the homeless and the incapacitated. It was beyond biblical proportions. Then someone noticed that in all the devastation, all the destroyed kitchens and cities, the one thing they never touched was salt. Cities began laying out rivers, moats, mountains of salt and they were saved. The air force began slurry bombing with salt-water and the crisis was averted.  But clearly these were no ordinary snails, they had only retreated to their underground bases, biding their time, evolving, building saline-resistant shells, growing more intelligent and preparing to dominate the Earth, to take their rightful God-given place stamping their massive feet upon the soil, the sea and the salt.

[ If you enjoyed reading this there is much more like it in my Prosthetic Amalgams Collection at Amazon. ]