Bountiful Harvest

ONE

Teddy/All is Past

Run! They’re coming for us all!

Teddy knew Corliss had screamed that some time ago. How long ago, he couldn’t be sure. Was it five or ten minutes?

Standing in Silas’ farmhouse kitchen, Teddy felt exposed. Yet, his mind kept drifting to when he first met Silas and the old-looking man had offered him a good, country dinner. The bright yellow wooden walls, suggesting the comfort of home, held artifacts of another age. Hung on the wall were a rake, a cook’s apron, and a spices rack. A plaque read, Home is where your heart is.

Teddy knew he should be running, but his Nike 2082s couldn’t do all the work, no matter how advanced the sneaker technology.

Isaac, his once-upon-a-time new best friend who was now something of a rival for Corliss’ attention, kept making hugely dramatic faces. He gestured with waving arms punctuating his flapping eyebrows that went up and down in animated panic.

Despite the severity of the situation, Teddy almost laughed. Isaac was, without a doubt, the funniest dude he’d ever known. They met about a week ago at Saint Benedict’s Home for Boys, when Teddy fled the horror scene at his home. That was, in relative terms, a lifetime ago. So much had happened since he took off in his Nike 2082s.

It was quite sad, in fact, how Isaac cried out and made all kinds of signals, yet despite his terrified exertion he might have been under water.

Turning his head, which took an eternity, Teddy saw Corliss waving at him to follow her. The kids from the Bountiful Harvest group were more or less encircling Silas, the old farmer who turned out to be a geneticist taking in those more fortunate than him. That is, they, unlike him, had someone to guide them after their genes had been modified. The other difference was that it was their dissatisfied parents who had mixed and matched their DNA. Silas, on the other hand, had been the foolish volunteer of an experiment by none other than Dieter, the resident mad scientist at Fabled Circus. The experiment prematurely aged Silas, working at a progressive pace that left him appearing like an elderly shell when in fact he was but a young man in his twenties.

Running had been Teddy’s only thought after what he witnessed and became a part of in his home that used to be. Now, though, he felt an eerie calm overwhelm his senses. He felt like a deranged man who willingly walked out from the comfort of shelter into the thrashing arms of a severe storm. The hurricane lashes out with high-powered wind and pelting rain forecasting the imminent wall of water well on its way to covering everything in its wake.

However, water’s not what Teddy was worried about. It was the dancing lasso-like lasers that concerned him. Those were better than the cone-shaped ones. Both came from the alien invaders, but the former just captured its victim, as a lasso made of rope might do. The latter, though, turned humans—skin, bones and all—into a bio hazard stew.

As Teddy gathered near the others, Corliss pointed at something, her face insisting he feel the same panic as her.

In the crack under the kitchen’s door on the side of the house by the barn, Teddy saw the constant pulse of a stomach-churning tomato red light. The sight of it made him aware of a fried scent wafting above.

Teddy knew they were almost out of time, which caused him to think of those who’d already spent theirs.

The strong man Arthur’s wife, Rita, had fallen victim to Dieter’s chilling eating habits. But there was a chance his friends, the other sideshow freaks, were still whole, at least in body. Now the laundry lady, Ms. Fletcher, who was Corliss’ mother, also had a chance to be more or less intact, although she’d been lathered in DNA-reading goo thanks, again, to the predilections of Herr Dieter.

They, along with the others with him now, had made up his new home. Fabled Circus, that Greek mythology-themed troupe within the larger St. Benedict’s Circus of Imperfections, gave Teddy a place and a purpose.

He felt he must keep focusing on that.

Teddy recalled their last grand performance as if it were happening in the present, but the horror scene that had left him an orphan also competed like an insistent spotlight, causing him to stare at the spectacle…

His father, in a magician’s tuxedo, waves an empty hand over his mother trussed on a table like an unwilling pig about to be made the centerpiece of a feast. But there’s only one piece of meat Richard’s interested in which is her heart.

The so-called magician now holds surgical scissors that glint in the spotlight.

I’ll never forget, Mom.

The man with the j-shaped leg, thanks to his clubfoot, straightens as best he can and squints into the darkness where the voice came from.

Teddy feels disembodied. Not only that, he feels he can’t control his body, and while he knows this is a waking nightmare, he can’t help but feel tethered to the past. Someone else, his father whom he can only think now of by his name, pulls the strings then and now.

But I’ve gotten past you, Richard. Teddy’s voice strains through the shadows. You’re not what I’m trying to remember.

Then, as if brushed aside by a curtain, the troubling scene is swept away, with Teddy’s attention swerving so he is now center stage, back to that brilliant final performance at Fabled Circus.

Aello, the harpy, rides the back of Chiron, the centaur. It’s a satisfying memory that seems to be reoccurring, bringing not only great joy but great energy as well.

Teddy’s hybrid friends do bring him an overwhelming sense of vitality, awakening powers within that had lain dormant thanks to his father’s insistence on him being a two-eyed reject. Feeling himself a freak due to his different-colored eyes, Teddy was a major disappointment to his father who had gone to a black market geneticist to prenatally plan a normal, defect-free child.

There are several things missing, though, from this otherwise splendid scene. For one, there’s no applause, no laughter coming from the outer edge of darkness. It’s that sense again of being under water. Pressure builds on his eyes as Teddy believes he can no longer hold his breath. The throat falls prey to spasms in this unnatural condition.

Then, there’s Aello’s human-like eye staring daggers of terror. It’s so wide and dilated as if to suggest it could explode from its socket. Also, Chiron’s human mouth is a grim line as straight as the vital sign of a dead patient.

Aello caws like mad while Chiron says, in perfectly plain English, Now’s the time!

Teddy felt someone’s hand shaking him. It was Silas whose rheumy, old man’s eyes matched Aello’s in terror. Now’s the time. Do what you did, you know, to get your friends safely here.

The cuckoo clock above the table kept ticking until the bird came out, its two-dimensional shape trembling as it cuckooed in high-pitched alarm.

Teddy blinked, recalling how he had, in the midst of being pursued by aliens and their flesh-melting lasers, sent himself along with all his friends, to the farmhouse of the old farmer.

That had taken so much out of him, spending all of Teddy’s energy, but he may, in the course of sitting in Silas’ kitchen while getting introduced to Silas and his people, have recovered.

But recovering physically was one thing. Mentally, he still saw himself as a kid. He was a kid. Only seven or ten or however many days ago he’d been worried about a test in civics on the changing nature of a democracy on the rebound from a nuclear threat by anarchic terrorists. Shift to the present when everyone was asking him for not the answers to a school exam but for how they could survive. And that didn’t just apply to Teddy’s friends. This group, Silas’ group Bountiful Harvest, seemed to take on the role of saving the world.

Now is the time, Silas’ mother, a woman in her eighties said, staring at him through the rifle sight provided by her angled nose.

Teddy’s sense of everything in slow motion got jarred by the rush of reality. Now, everything went at high speed, with everyone ducking under the kitchen table or crouching beside the counter by the sink. A cone-shaped laser, glimpsed through a window, bounced harmlessly against the door.

The lasers only affect human or animal skin. That was useful if a person didn’t have flesh or, more precisely, DNA.

But the sinus-clearing radiating heat from that and other laser blasts made it seem they were all in an instant food-pack laser oven. Teddy wiped his brow greased with sweat. He felt as if someone were sitting on his chest.

Silas’ mother, although she indeed was his mother, looked as if she could be his sister. That was due to the extreme aging Silas had undergone thanks to the lies and handiwork of Dieter. Being a geneticist himself, Silas was able to find a way to stem the advancement of his aging process but not before it had pushed him over the edge into senility. Isaac, Teddy’s best friend despite Teddy’s jealousy regarding Corliss, had also been subjected to premature aging tests while at St. Benedict’s Home for Boys.

Luckily for Isaac, if he and the others could manage to escape, Silas could in theory treat the rapidly aging teenager’s condition before he suffered Silas’ fate.

As if Silas knew Teddy’s thoughts, his heavy gaze fell on Teddy. It was a look that penetrated, suggesting a youthful vitality struggling to get beyond its ashen, grey surface.

Silas’ mother, seeming to notice how Teddy regarded her son, wiped a tear. Get out of here! Get into the tunnel before it’s too late.

As if on cue, the kitchen door banged open from a powerful wind.

The tunnel was of the runaway slave variety that Silas told Teddy and the others about earlier. It was where Silas kept the genetically modified kids or gene modders. Thanks to the kindness of Boris, the orphanage’s owner, they had been brought to Silas’ attention. On the other hand, thanks to the evil greediness of Boris’ brother, the circus-owner named Gunther, creatures such as Aello and Chiron were allowed to be created and exploited under the Big Top.

Silas scooted along the floor to kneel beside his mother. It was like watching a bag of sticks trundled awkwardly along. Mom, you’re not thinking of—

Silas’s mother was positioned over the counter near the cutting board where she’d recently sliced tomatoes. I’m staying in my home. I’d only get in the way, an old woman like me. Besides, it’s not me they’re after.

One thought and Teddy knew what he must do. He remembered Corliss’ mother, Ms. Fletcher, all lathered in DNA-reading goo, and then, there was no way he was going to allow Silas’ mother to be at the mercy of those aliens.

He’d never been inside the tunnel, but Teddy could hear the whinnying and cawing of Chiron and Aello, respectively. They were inside Teddy’s head, but those were more than animal sounds. They were giving Ready Teddy a mental picture of the entrance located just beneath the barn where Chiron and Aello were staying.

He could visualize a tunnel just tall enough for Chiron, his human head just inches from the top. Worms wriggled, creating s-patterns in what was a living ceiling.

But besides seeing what it was like, Teddy could put himself there as the centaur or harpy. The air was a rich, heady mixture of soil and all the components therein. He could detect rocks and minerals from ages long ago. Also, decaying organic matter spread throughout to give a sense of an inter-connected web of past lives feeding the present.

The imprint of this on Teddy gave him that strange build-up of energy and confidence he’d felt before.

Knowing he had precious seconds before Dieter’s silver eyes came leering through the window in the door, Teddy grabbed Silas’ mother, told everyone else to join hands, and summoning all the strength he could muster, closed his eyes and dreamed of Chiron and Aello, strong and beautiful under the Fabled Circus tent. It was only as the matter around him began to dissolve and reform at a new destination that he realized Silas’ mother had slipped from his grasp.

CHAPTER TWO

Dieter/Hungry Pursuit

Get them, a voice echoed not from outside but inside Dieter’s head. Initially, it was a voice like none he’d ever heard, but now he couldn’t imagine living without it. It was a drug conditioning his entire being to respond in kind to its orders.

The boy is the key to Global Communion. You must find him and the others.

The voice was not wholly human. It was like a combination of many different creatures, giving a sense of insects, sea monsters, eels plus other worm types, and a disconnected, suffering human.

Of course Dieter wanted to obey his master. Yet, it was difficult to take his tongue out of the skull he’d placed it in. The razor-sharp spikes jutting from the suction cups on his tongue carefully released the nearly bone-dry human brain. It was like getting a finger caught in the lid of a cookie jar. With a jerk, he was able to free himself from his dinner.

The little girl couldn’t have been older than five, but the younger the food, the better. That was when their DNA was still fresh, sending out signals of a future that will never be. The hole in her head wasn’t larger than the circumference of a toilet paper tube. From the right angle, she might appear to be okay but for an ashen complexion that put a damper on her otherwise-smiling face.

She’d been unaware of the invasion and apparently of the genetic vampire attacking her.

Dieter found the girl slung on the ground from the force of the merry-go-round on the playground. She’d done this to herself, an innocent pleasure indulged in by many children. Making one’s self dizzy, causing the world to go out of focus and balance was pure fun.

A strange sensation traveled the lengths of his arms. Was that goose bumps? As he got them, Dieter’s sense of smell betrayed him. Instead of the rich, heady scent of brain matter, which was like a fermented cabbage, he detected something cloyingly sweet. Was that cotton candy, something he hadn’t had since he’d been a child?

Of course, Dieter thought with a huff. The odor came from a stain on the child’s clothing. She’d probably been eating it before she got on the ride.

Dieter wondered why he cared about all this but couldn’t help as his thoughts turned to the reason the girl had been alone. Were her parents cowering nearby?

He sniffed and didn’t have to look around to know the girl was indeed alone.

How strange that she had come to the playground during the invasion, unaccompanied. Maybe the girl’s parents had been caught in the crossfire of lasers, and she had run deliriously to a place of comfort.

Dieter straightened his body and smoothed the girl’s wrinkled pink shirt with a unicorn on it. A trace of a similar memory buzzed in his hybridized mind, but it spun away causing momentary disorientation.

There, there, this world’s no longer for you, anyway.

A sympathetic, human tone came from Dieter which surprised himself. He hadn’t felt human for some time. What had caused these emotions to surface? Did they coincide with his contact with the boy, Teddy?

He recalled how he’d met Teddy. The boy had gone sniffing after his hybrid creatures’ waste. He and that little girl, whatever her name was, came looking for their creator, and Dieter had sensed something right away about the kid with heterochromia or two different-colored eyes. The hovering specimens in his jars brought a delicious sense of dread from the young man which the scientist feasted upon—not literally, but so much was implied.

But that wasn’t all it dredged up in Dieter. He thought of how at Teddy’s age he’d viewed the world as filled with marvels that only needed to be unlocked, rearranged, and put back together again to realize the abundance of possibilities when nature and science combine.

It struck him now, this memory, as if it were a specimen in one of his jars that shifted on its own to stare him in the eye.

When Dieter was only seven years old, he saw a dead body being pumped with a blood-like substance. It was in the basement of Evermore Funeral Home, which his grandfather owned and where his father was learning what had been the family business.

A tube filled with a purplish red liquid was stuck into the corpse’s arm. The lighting was dim with a slightly brighter overhead light shining on the corpse, as if this were a room where surgeries were performed. It caused a bubble of excitement to rise in the gut of a young boy who knew he wasn’t supposed to be there.

Dieter, in his summer pajamas, hugged himself in the chilly atmosphere. Making a whooshing sound, cold air blew from air conditioner vents overhead.

Crouched behind a metal cart, he could see his father’s legs tremble. He was wearing black pants covered by a blue smock.

Another pair of legs, similarly clad, came into view. They belonged to Gustave, Dieter’s grandfather.

This is exciting, Cyril, Gustave said, his tone, full of wonder, communicating as much.

Will this stuff—

Tryphanol, Gustave said, insistent and a bit annoyed. The latest breakthrough in mortuary science.

Last Goodbye was the name used to market Tryphanol, and that campaign had successfully appealed to surviving members who wanted to see their dearly departed alive one more time.

I know what it is, Cyril, Dieter’s father, said, his breathing faster either from exasperation or something else. Will it really make the, um…

Deceased. You’ll be ready for the exam, won’t you?

Of course I will. Deceased isn’t a difficult word. It’s a layman’s word.

"I’m just teasing you, Cyril. You look like you could use some Tryphanol. Are you okay?"

Dieter’s father cleared his throat. He seemed to not know what to do with his hands, which struck his sides at an irregular beat.

From his crouched position, Dieter, in contrast, rubbed his palms on his knees with undeniable excitement.

In the darkness of the embalming room, there was a clashing sense of being at peace and a feeling of foreboding. The strong odors Dieter expected weren’t there. A clean, anti-septic ambience made the area seem cleaner than it should be.

"I’ll say it for you, since you’re having trouble getting oxygen—something this poor fellow will never have to worry about again. This magical fluid, simulated blood in layman’s terms, will temporarily bring about the illusion that the dearly departed is still with us."

Dieter, at seven years, felt his heart pound like an engine working overtime as he realized what his grandfather was saying. He’d experienced the finality of death when his pet rat died. A year before, he had found one in the garbage where he’d been exploring and took it home. He’d even given it a name, Ralph, just before it got zapped by a trap his father had installed. He wondered if, like Dr. Frankenstein’s monster, electricity or a laser could bring his pet back to life.

He felt his own pulse, checking his carotid artery as he’d been taught in school. Man, was he alive! The joyful throbbing was like some creature burrowed under his skin, in the fevered imagination of young Dieter.

I don’t know, Dad, Dieter’s father said. Aren’t we supposed to be easing the transition of the family of the deceased? If they are led to believe—

They know he’s dead. They just happen to be the first family, in this small town anyway, with enough money to pay for the procedure.

It’s not surgery.

No, of course not. It’s a way to see a loved one as if they’re alive for the last time. They might even imagine being able to say one final thing to their loved one.

Dieter could see how his father’s body had been inching away from the corpse all during this conversation. He observed a similar response when he’d shown his dead pet rat to his father. The imposing, tall form shrank, curving in on itself to reveal feebleness.

Dieter’s grandfather patted his father on the back. Cyril, how’re we going to get you over this? This is our business, you know.

I guess I need to find my embalmer’s legs.

There were two competing expressions. One was a high nervous murmur from Dieter’s father; the other, a sigh of difficult resignation, came from his grandfather.

I think I’ve made a mistake, Gustave said, his voice tight with tension. Forcing you to do this was a mistake.

Dieter had heard his mother and father arguing about money and paying bills. He knew his father had only finished a couple of years of college, dropping out to take care of a surprise which would be him.

Dieter’s father looked away from the corpse and rubbed the back of his neck. I, um, enjoy comforting the clients who—

And you’re extremely good at that. You’re likable, my son. And that’s been a boon to us here, except…

Even at seven, Dieter knew something bad was about to happen.

You don’t think I should do this anymore. You don’t think I should be here anymore.

Dieter’s father’s body had stretched up in stress and then hung loose, following the motion of his head, telegraphing his sense of defeat.

Dieter’s grandfather, a burly man with wide shoulders, came in to give Dieter’s father a bear hug. Gustave pivoted Cyril’s tall, lanky form to guide him to the steps leading up to the funeral home’s body reception area. It’s okay. This work isn’t for everyone. I should never have pushed you into this. It’s not what you want to do, anyway.

What about my son?

Don’t worry. You’ve got experience in restaurants.

But my studies—

What studies? Come on, son. You’ve struggled to get through what classes you’ve taken. Your heart has never been in this, anyway. We both know it.

Cyril kept his eyes down but gave a barely perceptible nod.

Moonbeam Restaurant’s looking for a new manager. Luckily for you, the owner’s daughter recently died of a drug overdose. Identity X, the kids call it. It’s the same junk this kid died from.

Cyril already had a foot on the first step leading up to the back of the funeral parlor where they received bodies. He seemed eager to get out of the embalming room. It temporarily changes your personality. Basically, you can be anyone you want to be. I wonder what that’s like? Not that I’d ever want to…

Gustave followed Cyril, his massive body completely hiding Dieter’s father. Do you remember the funeral presentation we gave her? I put the thought in Arnie’s ear at the time that maybe you’d like to work for him.

Dieter didn’t hear the rest of the conversation after his grandfather had guided his father up the steps and away from the embalming room.

Left alone in the room, which seemed to grow darker with only a light above the deceased, Dieter crept closer to the body. Unlike his father, he didn’t mind the way dead people stared with emptiness. He didn’t mind their pale skin drained of vitality and any sense of personhood.

But this corpse, now receiving the Tryphanol treatment, looked anything but dead. A wide-eyed Dieter watched the transformation, like magic, radiate from the cold nose tip of the body to the warm earlobes, red as if they’d been burned by the sun. And when he looked into the corpse’s eyes, he could swear he saw a light.

It was as if something were being dredged from an ice sinkhole. There seemed to be movement, or was that an illusion? A rippling in the air around the face appeared to extend to the lifeless limbs.

Dieter started to see the body as a person. He was a boy or a teenager of around 16 or so, with prototypical blue eyes and blond hair. With a dimpled chin and handsome apple cheeks, he was what most considered ideal. So why would he feel the need to take Identity X? It was certainly beyond the grasp of the seven-year-old Dieter.

Then, Dieter had to blink, but the corpse seemed to be talking to him. He knew it couldn’t be happening, but that didn’t stop the conversation.

You want to know why I took Identity X?

You bet, Dieter said, too cocky-sounding for a seven-year-old, but he was trying to come to terms with what was happening.

The light rising from the dark craters of the body’s eyes now seemed to swirl an inch or two away from them. It gave him a look of hyper-reality, as if it were more than just seeming to be alive. It brought an awareness of death and life combined.

I took it to become someone else. My girlfriend dumped me because she said I had no personality. She said I was just a dead-head, zombie dirtbag.

For a moment, the emptiness of the boy’s eye-sockets put a chill in the space between him and Dieter. Right after, though, the glow returned as if it had never gone away. The talking, however, did go away, leaving Dieter to wonder if he had imagined it. Then, it came back in a morbid version of hide-and-seek.

Changing your identity, the corpse’s mouth moved in exaggerated twitches as if it had been stitched up but was now trying to free itself. Changing your identity is nothing compared to mixing your identity.

Dieter blinked, and the body was again just a cold stiff. That’s not to say the Tryphanol was no longer working. There was more of a rosy sheen to the skin, but he still was well-aware the corpse was a corpse.

Although there was no longer any abnormal animation from the body, just the amazing illusion of life from death summoned forth from the simulated blood, the experience had planted a seed in young Dieter’s mind. That seed grew into wonderful imaginings of the corpse with his rat’s pink nose and black marble eyes. Then, his pet’s whiskers jutted out from the sides of this once-alive human boy’s mouth. The whiskers curled as if being uncoiled. Great floppy ears were being formed as the human ears repositioned themselves to sit on either side of the dead boy’s temples.

A hand on his back woke Dieter from his reverie. It was his grandfather standing behind him. He worried about getting into trouble for being down in the embalming room, but his grandfather’s fingers were running through his hair in a gentle fashion.

You’d been watching us for some time, hadn’t you, Dieter?

The boy, who had on pajamas much like Teddy when a much older Dieter had seen him at Fabled Circus, turned slowly to look at his grandfather.

His grandfather was a bear of a guy with jowls like that on a St. Bernard.

Dieter started breathing again when he realized a bemused, maybe even proud smile looked down on him.

You, at least, might be suited for the family business. What do you think of Tryphanol? What do you see when you look at our client?

Dieter gave the body another good look. I think he looks like sunshine.

Dieter felt a stabbing pain in his mind, as if hooks struck from inside, causing his brain to jerk back. It was his master who was Identity X personified. Of course, the person demanding access to his thoughts was the supreme alien being of a race that had traveled light years in search of a planet rich in DNA.

I told you to go after them. You must grab the boy. How could you let him slip through your fingers?

The boy, Teddy Fisher, had sent Dieter flying through and out the ceiling of a makeshift laboratory on wheels at St. Benedict’s Circus of Imperfections. So, slip through your fingers wasn’t exactly apropos.

It was at Fabled Circus, the main stage within the larger circus, that Dieter’s marvelous creations were on display. Dieter missed that centaur and harpy which the boy’s friend, a girl named Corliss, had named Chiron and Aello. Those weren’t bad names for they were creatures out of Greek mythology, and a sour taste in the back of his mouth reminded him how much he missed them and wanted to exact revenge on those who took them. Of course, though, the sour taste was actually brain matter from his recent meal.

Dieter felt insect pincers slice through slits on either side of his mouth. Over repeated transformations, his skin in this area and below had become tissue thin as if it were now a sack capable of being distended much like a frog’s balloon-like throat. He’d become not a hybrid of a rat and human as he’d imagined as a boy but a composite of creatures wholly different. The fact that he was aware again of this was somewhat startling.

Should I be worried about your allegiance with the Communion?

Feeling another jolt in his brain, Dieter shook it off and then the sharp pain dissipated. I’m okay, Light of My Being. It’s just residual effects from the boy.

He is powerful, as he should be. The boy will help us harness enough power to complete Global Communion.

Dieter found he grew hungrier for special delicacies like the little girl after these heart-to-hearts with his master.

For the first time, Dieter became aware of how military planes and police hovercrafts had ceased flying overhead. In fact, there was a stillness after the hellish din of war.

You have noticed finally. Perhaps you were just malnourished and the girl’s DNA has brought you back to your senses.

Dieter understood, as if these were his own thoughts, how the humans had retreated, which signaled some new strategy. For their part, though, the aliens, about an hour ago, had retreated in their own way by going into hibernation.

The plan had been to insert ourselves into the invaded planet. Now, we must acclimate to the environment before we can start Global Communion.

But why weren’t the humans trying to take advantage of the inactivity by the Mutatio est Vita? That was their name, clumsily translated into Latin, which the aliens had picked up when they sent a scout here during the height of the Roman Empire. Roughly, it translates as change is life. Of course, it didn’t matter if the humans took advantage of their inactivity since the humans would never penetrate their force shield. Yet, Dieter perceived how the Newly United States Armed Forces wouldn’t just give up unless, that is, they were taking a different tact.

They think the boy and his friends are this world’s last hope. Thus, it is vital that you find them immediately.

Dieter felt his spine crack, still an amazing athletic feat even after having done this a few times, as he lurched to the ground and a snake’s tail formed out of his legs up to below his ribs. The warping of his bones was like being stretched into a pretzel, but it brought an ecstasy likely experienced by contortionists.

The texture of the grass below his slithering body gave a sensuous pleasure that made him aware of his surroundings. Residual morning dew embraced his gliding form, along with bits of dirt, twigs, and leaves.

Seen in that light, Dieter was much like the Mutatio est Vita, who gathered DNA unto itself like a hungry snowball going downhill. It was nature. It was the natural progression of an organism, a quite voracious predator, moving through the jungle.

He thought about how the circus-going rubes were fools to come see his attractions. They felt they were getting tricked when their eyes beheld a centaur and harpy. They probably figured those creatures were at best an illusion brought about through holograms