Slug Teeth

My legs were on fire. Well, that's what it felt like. I forced my eyes to open. It was dark and I was outside.

How did I get here?

I pulled myself up, screaming from the pain. I looked down at my legs to see chunks of them torn away. My pants were ripped to shreds.

I needed to get out of there.

I stood up and looked around.

When had I come to a forest?

I tried to remember where I was last but it was all a haze. Then I looked down at my clothes.

I was wearing a bright neon vest. It was hard to see much else in the moonlight. I must have been out hunting. If that were true I would have brought my gun. I looked around. It lay beside me, mangled and ruined, gleaming in the moonlight.

What could have done this?

My legs really hurt to stand on but I needed to move. But where was I to go? Thankfully I had my phone. I pulled it out. I had no service. I tapped on the maps app. I turned the GPS on and it zoomed in, locating my position. I couldn’t tell where I was. I pinched the screen to zoom out and then panned around. I saw a road I always took to get out to my hunting spot. I turned toward it and started hobbling forward. From the looks of it on my map, I was about a quarter of a mile away from where I hoped my truck would be.

It was slow work but I managed to keep walking through the pain. Then I started hearing weird sounds.

It was some kind of animal sound, but not one I had ever heard. I kept moving. I could tell it was off to my left and getting louder. It was a low growling sound like a bear, but paired with a high pitched squeal. Like two animals in perfect sync with each other. I didn't want to find out what it was so I started walking faster. Pain raged in my legs but I kept moving. I had a sneaking suspicion the sound came from whatever had wounded me.

It was getting close now. I stopped and listened. It was headed my way but I thought maybe if I was quiet it would pass on by. I knew my chances of outrunning it were next to nothing, so it seemed like my best option. Even if I could run, I guessed that would excite it to run after me.

I looked around for something to hide behind, but there were only trees. A few feet away I saw a tree with branches low enough to climb up. I made my way to it. I grabbed the lowest branch and pulled myself up. It hurt to stretch my leg up to the next branch, but I needed a foothold. I pushed through the pain. My feet were off the ground. I kept climbing. Whatever was coming after me was slow. I was lucky.

Once I was about 20 feet up I stopped. I sat on a thick branch and looked down, trying to see what was making the awful sound. The high pitched shrieks paired with low growls were now accompanied by a disgusting thick squishy sound. Through the branches, I saw movement.

I couldn't make it out but it was big and the way it moved was really weird and creepy. To my horror, the thing I saw beneath me slid across the forest floor. It looked like a massive slug the size of a small car. It was gelatinous, and green, and gross. It moved at about the speed of a man walking.

Was that the thing that had taken chunks out of my legs? I didn't see how that big blubbery mouth could have injured me, but it looked like there was something inside its mouth. I figured it was a skull. I was soon to find out the terrifying truth.

I shifted my weight while straining my eyes to see the monster. The branch I sat on made a cracking sound. The slug thing stopped.

I didn't move. I didn't breathe.

His big fat jiggling neck craned up toward me. His bulging bulbous eyes locked onto me. His mouth opened revealing rows of daggers for teeth. Then a shrieking high-pitched scream coupled with a low roar boomed out of its mouth.

My body froze. I sat there shaking.

I looked down at my legs and then back at its teeth. It must have been what bit me. I couldn't remember it happening. Fear or shock must have robbed me of that memory. I was glad. Maybe I ran away before fainting. Now I was stuck in a tree with the monster beneath me. It slid toward my tree. I instantly started climbing higher to get away from the thing.

Soon it was at the base of the tree. It slithered it's massive pudding like body up the trunk. Then it stopped and rocked against the tree. Everything swayed. I stopped climbing and held on for dear life. Once it saw it couldn't shake me out of the tree it started up after me.

As it slurped onto the bottom of the tree, it spread its weight out across multiple branches covering any escape route. I couldn't believe it. This was how I was going to die. By a smart, sharp-toothed blob of flubber.

I tried to think.

What if I climb to the top branches and they give way to its weight so it falls trying to get to me?

It was dumb, but I was panicked and I couldn't see any other way out. I kept climbing.

Every time I looked down to secure my footing on a branch there was the green goo coming up after me. Every time it sent a shock of fear through me, pushing me faster up the tree. My adrenaline was racing harder than I have ever felt it.

Once I went as high as I could, I looked back down. The creature was still far below me but making its way up one branch at a time.

I looked around and found some thin branches. I wrapped my legs around the branch I was on and reached up pulling hard breaking a few thin ones off the tree. I wasn't sure how I would defend myself with them, but I needed something. Then I watched it climb.

I was shaking, causing the branch I was on to quiver. The sound of the incessant rattling leaves around me made my nerves even more ragged.

Then it was close. At about five feet below me, I threw a branch down at it like a spear as hard as I could. It slipped into the slimy body and stayed lodged about halfway in. Now that I was close I could see that the monster looked like it was made out of Jello more than a slug.

It was close now. I threw another branch at it. This one slid into its body and made it almost all the way through. I had one branch left. It wouldn't do me any good against its beastly mouth, so I dropped it.

I knew what I had to do. It was going to be the most disgusting thing I had ever done in my life, but it was better than the alternative. I gathered all my courage and stood on my branch. I crouched low, and then jump up off my branch.

I pointed my toes down and fell into the slug monster. My shoes slid into it making a disgusting slapping and then squelching sound. I held my breath and stuck my arms down at my sides. Just like that, I was up to my chest and then my head was in the stuff. It was warm and thick. I felt and heard the monster shriek again. The sound made me want to hide from the world.

I felt my feet hit a branch, and then my head popped out of the bottom of the thing. I started climbing down as fast as I could. I was slipping a lot from the slime that covered me, and I smelled like a garbage can full of snot, but I made it to the bottom.

I jumped down to the sweet earth and then threw up all over the ground. I gathered my strength and started running for my truck. My legs hurt so bad but terror pushed me forward.

I looked back only once to see the abhorrent thing slurping down the tree after me. I had survived.

I ran.

The sound of my truck engine starting up was the definition of euphony. I pulled away and headed home for a hot shower, vowing to never visit those woods again.

THE END

Thank you for reading my short story Slug Teeth. For more about me check out my website where I blog about my writing journey, write and podcast book reviews, and have links to many more free stories both in eBook and audio book formats: www.DanDanTheArtMan.com

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