After about a week of this the restrictions were relaxed a bit. Mel had no more difficulty getting around in the outlying fields and the official investigation became concentrated on the area around the house, which was the only place where any of the strange creatures had been seen.
By now, everybody in the immediate neighborhood knew there was something wrong at the Simmons place even if they didn’t know precisely what. The Simmons’s credited that to Eddie, of course, but even Eddie was smart enough not to let things get out of hand. Too much talk, even he realized, could get the sensational press aroused.
“Looks like we not only have two new species to name,” he told Mel proudly, “but two different genera, probably a new class and maybe even a new phylum. There are lots of similarities with our familiar animals but they seem to be caused by adaptation to similar ecological conditions instead of biological relationships.
“That ‘snake’ for instance, is really more comparable to a lizard, except that it’s vegetarian, and in that respect resembles a gopher. But then, only arthropods have so many legs, and only avians have feathers.”
“I don’t know what half the stuff you’re talking about is,” Mel confessed.
Alice, who was sitting there quietly listening, suspected that it was probably Eddie’s intention to make Mel look dumb in front of her. Still, and because she knew Mel wouldn’t take offense, she wanted to satisfy her own curiosity. “Just what do the experts think these things are, Eddie?”
“The ‘experts’ are baffled, Alice. Those little ones, for instance, are not anything like mammals despite the hairlike growth, which is not true hair but modified feathers. We found what we think are fertile eggs in some of them but haven’t had any luck yet in hatching anything.
“The snake? Well, the snake doesn’t seem to have any recognizable reproductive system at all. We probably won’t be able to tell whether it’s male or female until we catch another one. We have been able to analyze the venom, which is unlike anything else we know of. It’s a protein, of course, but that ’s the only similarity it shares with the usual animal toxins. Otherwise it’s different from anything else we’ve ever seen. We’re still studying tissue samples from both species and they promise to be bizarre.”
“Does that mean the poison wouldn’t hurt us?”
“Definitely not, Alice. In fact, it should cause a really horrendous immune reaction. If you ever get near another one be careful, the bite would probably be just as bad as a sting if any of its saliva got into the wound.”
“Where did they come from?”
“From off your farm, Alice.” Eddie shrugged. “That’s the only answer I can give you. Nobody else has seen any.”
Alice and Mel had to be satisfied with that explanation. It never got any better. As time wore on and nothing else happened the eggheads packed up and left, to do what eggheads do best, refine their understanding of things already familiar. To them, these incidents were an interesting but inexplicable experience that didn’t seem likely to be repeated anytime soon. If it was, they promised to return.
Mel and Alice reverted to habit as well. Mel got the corn in shape just in time to harvest their wheat, after which it was time to concentrate on the soybeans. Their strange visitors began losing their reality, becoming more myth than memory—until one night in late October, Halloween arrived slightly ahead of schedule.
Something was wrong outside. Mel was awakened by the foghorn honking of Big George, the gander. From the sound of it George was in some kind of fight.
Mel slid out of bed, just as Alice began to stir.
He had been keeping his twelve-gauge, boots, and a heavy robe by the bed ever since the government people left, and had stashed other weapons at strategic places around the house. A big five-celled flashlight was taped to the gun barrel, positioned so that its beam would coincide almost exactly with the shot pattern. He slipped into the robe and boots, picked up the gun and started for the door.
“Wait, Mel. I’m coming too.” Alice had her own arrangement laid out, though her weapon was a lighter twenty-gauge.
“All right,” Mel answered. “But hurry—it sounds like George is in real trouble.” Actually, he would feel a lot better with Alice along, not only because he would know where she was, but because he couldn’t remember the last time he’d seen her miss.
On the way out they flicked on the extra yard lights, adding to the pool of light from the big fixtures on the poles on either side of the barn.
The noise gave Mel a vector, which he followed to the other side of the barn, where the big elm tree spread out between it and the hen house. He didn’t believe what he saw when he got there.
Big George, far too big and heavy to fly, had somehow made it up into the tree. He was struggling to maintain his balance in the lower fork and was obviously anxious to climb as high as he could. His right wing was drooping, as though it might be broken, and blood was dripping off the tips of the big flight feathers. At the sight of the humans he seemed to relax a little and the frantic honking stopped.
Below, on the ground, now glaring at the approaching humans with eyes that glowed greenish-blue in their flashlight beams, was the strangest looking creature either had ever seen.
It was big, more than three times as large as Big George, covered with what looked like stiff, stubby feathers. It was four footed, but the rear legs were much larger than the front. Both sets were armed with long, curved claws. The tail was as long as the body, flexible, and in constant movement, twitching almost like a tiger’s. There was a spiked ball on the end that looked just like a medieval knight’s mace.
The two humans watched the creature for a while in frank disbelief, but the creature soon tired of this and obviously did not like having the beams in its eyes. It dropped its front paws off the tree trunk and faced them, standing on its haunches like a kangaroo, thirty feet away. It held this posture for about fifteen seconds, then its jaws gaped open, baring fearsome teeth, and it leapt.
That was its first, and final, mistake. Two heavy blasts struck it in unison, both at the center of mass, then the twelve-gauge roared again. The creature was blown in two, the top half falling backward and the bottom half, in an involuntary movement, leaping like a decapitated chicken. The body landed off to one side.
Mel approached to take a closer look at this part. Alice headed for the tree, where Big George had resumed his honking.
“Mel, I think he’s hurt bad, bleeding a lot. We have to get him to the vet.” When she said this she didn’t even know how they would get him out of the tree but she was sure of one thing, if Big George died from his wounds it wouldn’t be because she hadn’t tried to save him.
Alice ran to the barn and got a stepladder, which she propped against the tree. She carefully wiggled a hand under George’s feet to support him, then carried him down to the ground. He could walk, and he moved the wing back up to its normal position without apparent difficulty. It couldn’t be broken, Alice realized, emitting a sigh of relief.
While Mel checked the rest of the grounds for more of these beasts, Alice took George into the house. Along the way she found Brutus, asleep under the back porch, and brought him inside, too. She couldn’t find any of the cats, but reasoned that with their nocturnal adaptations and climbing abilities they would be all right.
There was a worried look on Mel’s face even though he reported that everything else seemed to be OK. The chickens weren’t making any noise and the door and windows on the hen house were intact. He joined Alice inside the house, where she sat drinking coffee and scratching the two dissimilar heads of her animal companions.