Cynthia adored her garden. It was a slice of Eden, tamed and kept. Everything in it was edible, gorgeous, or both. Her favourite were the artistically planted, soft-leaved lettuces.
She hunted down all pests, squashing aphids between her fingers, chopping slugs in half with the trowel. One day she found five snails and crunched them beneath her slipper, then scraped the remains onto a bird feeder.
She didn’t remember her dreams that night, but woke unrefreshed and irritable.
In the garden were more snails. She disposed of them, but found another on the bird feeder, cannibalising its departed comrades. Cynthia hurled the snail into Brian Finton’s garden, hoping it would warn other snails to keep out, or get eaten by that yappy dog.
That night she dreamed of unseen pursuit.
The next morning she found twenty snails, munching on decimated marigolds. In a fury she went between them, wielding her trowel like a gladius until every trespasser lay dead.
In her dream she fell into a deep, soggy hole. She saw the first snails glide over the pit edge. A few at first, then a wave, a thousand soft bodies and crisp shells descending. Some dropped and she stomped them into the mud, but thousands more…
She woke with a gasp.
Outside her garden was overrun by snails, thousands of them. Her lettuces were sad, green stumps, encased in shells. Brian next door was woken by the screaming. He went to complain, but was hit by an airborne snail. He left her alone.
Cynthia eventually fell asleep in her ruined garden, surrounded by crushed and bisected snails. She opened her eyes in the hole, her body already covered as more crawled towards her. Tiny tongues rasped like a cat lick, rough, but painless at first. They didn’t stop.
I really enjoyed writing this one. Just look at those scheming little slimeballs in the picture. I’d watch out if I were you.
Not really sure what genre this fits best, if any.
Writing In The Balance 