They...

I stepped right up next to the edge of the waterline, the hyper toxic creek trickled past me with a quiet and soothing sound. The liquid was a burnt and grotesque yellowish-orange with deep violet crusty edges ringing the shorelines and rocks that protruded above the waterline. I thought about how primordial the scene was, how this place had existed like this for hundreds of millions of years untouched and unchanged. I thought that in some way I was standing at the birth of life on Earth, that these hot twisted pools of filth contained the words that made the language of our DNA. She came over and asked if I saw any yet.

I said: “No nothing… what am I looking for again?”

She said only: “Them”.

She asked me why I never chose to study science and do field work on things that interested me instead of whatever the hell it is I do now. I gave her my stock answer: That I was young and stupid and cared more about making out with girls then doing my homework… that I was sure I’d become a rock-star drummer like Tommy Lee and that the math was simply above my head after the basic ideas of physics and thermo dynamics. And well, that although I didn’t know it when I was young, I was destined to become germaphobic as an adult, and doing “field work” sounded dirty and gross.

Some time pasted and the bright sun light began to fade a bit. She said that if we had no luck seeing them in the wild that we could go back to the outpost and see the captive ones they had in large tanks. I agreed and we walked up the jagged and curiously shaped outcrops of sandstone and shale back to the field lab.

The lab was typical as far as remote science outposts go, a few tubular shaped trailers connected by a rather large plastic circus tent looking structure that housed the tanks she spoke of. A few 4 wheelers and a Jeep caked in dried mud and flaked paint from the acidic environment were at rest in no apparent order just outside the 2 stepped porch. Each had their keys dangling from the ignition… No one steals vehicles out here I guess. Inside the lab the smell of chlorine and ozone hit my face like I was standing next to the exhaust of the CTA bus in the summer; hot on hot with a blast of hot. I rounded the corner into the open circus tent area and saw the large in-ground pools filled with what I surmised to be the liquid from the primordial creek just down the mountain side. Only the liquid seemed brighter, more like a swimming pool I guess. Must be from the white walled swimming pool container the liquid was housed in. The creatures were easy to see against this sterile backdrop. They were greenish shadows moving around fluidly in the water with what looked like little or no bone structure. Sometimes they appeared large and then a split second later very small. I remember thinking they must be flat like a mantra ray. They reminded me of the demons from hell in the movie Ghost with Patrick Swayze. They would just shift and move at impossible angles. No animals or fish I’d ever seen moved in the water with this kind of precision. One second tiny and flat, then 6 foot long and turned at a right angle, then wide and round. They shimmered in the liquid more then swam I guess.

She looked at me watching them and said: “Would you like to go get one?”

My eyes never left the pool when I replied: “Sure you have a fishing pole or what?”

She grabbed what looked like a human sized condom from below the desk and started to unravel it a bit, tossed a small weight into the bottom and gently placed it into the pool like she’d done this a thousand times before. I remained quiet but I could tell she could tell I was completely lost.

She said: “You have to be careful not to touch the fluid, it’s extremely alkaline and burns flesh rather severely. On cue she held a large and uncooked turkey leg above the liquid until my face told her I was comprehending what she was about to do, and then lowered it into the liquid. It fizzed and popped for a few seconds and I could see the tension in her smooth and girlish forearm as she tried to hold the end steady in the tumult of the angry acid pool.

Upon lifting the cleaned and bare bone out of the water I quipped: “I’m cool, you go get one… I’ll watch from here”.

I started to look back at the doorway as if to plan my quick escape if things turned all horror-flick on me. She slipped down into the human condom carefully and began to navigate the liquid into the center of the pool. When she got there she held out a chuck of raw meat and They began to swirl around her. I could feel my neck tense up and I knew that I was now sweating more then I like to around girls doing more manly things then me.

I said: “Maybe you have a net? We could just fish um out from the edge over here”

She smiled and said: “It’s okay, they just like to play around with me for a few minutes before they concede.”

I was beginning to panic and looked around for something sharp or a gun or something. I mean this is science fiction right? Something around here should say: In Case of Emergency (Or Weird Fuking Demon Slug Attack) - Break Glass. Nothing but mundane science and office supplies were within reach though. I tried to think of different ways I could kill things using a Bic Pen and a plastic clip board as a shield. In my panic I failed to witness her scooping up one of Them and bringing it over to the side of the pool. She asked for my hand to help her out but I froze just staring at the creature she was holding like a baby waiting to be burped slung over her shoulder.

I stuttered: “di- di- does it burn you? Wha-?”

“No it’s fine, it’s the liquid that burns not their skin”. She interrupted.

Unwillingly I reached my fully rigor mortis ridden arm out to her. She pulled my body forward as her weight lifted out of the body condom and onto the edge of the pool. I braced myself backwards to balance her one hundred and five pounds and she popped up with a smile on her face and the primordial companion against her chest. It turned what I guess was it’s head a full 180 degrees and looked at me with tiny black eyes. His back then turned into his chest as he turned himself inside-out to accommodate his heads new position. He didn’t turn around in her arm, he just ‘became’ facing forward. I say ‘He’ because it just looked like a male for some reason. He was forest green and slightly fuzzy, and very flat and completely dry.

I said: “You’re growing flat jellyfish Kermit the frogs?”

She giggled cutely and said: “Oh these are no amphibians, they’re much better…”

Then she told me… They… were the end of the world. They were the first things here and the last things left. They were from what she could tell cyanobacteria that evolved into a community capable of instant adaptation to whatever surroundings it found itself in. They started out with the other blue green algae around 3 billion years ago but these particular creatures adopted an ability no other creature before or since could: The ability to adapt and change instantly, not over successive generations thru mutations like ever other living creature on Earth. These were literally super creatures. You throw them in acid, they swim around in it like an otter, you toss them into a fire and they cozy up to the glowing hot ambers, you throw them in the freezer and they set up camp right next to your ice cube tray. These were extremophiles in a macro cellular form. They could be the size of a dime or the size of a bus, it didn’t matter to them. They could grow or shrink depending on the situation at hand. I was blown away and wondered why they (and her for that matter) were not on the cover of Time Magazine. This just seemed so huge.

Sensing my amazement she began to answer my rapid fire questions with easy to understand and matter of fact answers.

- There is no name for them
- We are incapable of determining their age
- They have no internal organs and do not seem to reproduce or mate
- They are docile and have no aggression
- They like raw meat but will also eat just about anything else you can think of including Bic pens and plastic clip boards

I was feeling something inside I’d never felt before. I was happy for mankind I guess I don’t know. I mean who gets happy for mankind? That sounds so ‘politician giving a stump speech”. It sounded very Kennedy to me or something. I was just happy I guess; finally something amazing in an otherwise boring life.

I looked down at my watch and it was about 11:30 p.m., where had the time gone today? I glanced up as she was talking to me about the potential implementation and implications of these creatures for humans when everything in my life grind to a halt. While she was talking it had slithered up around her head and was now ‘her’. She was It. It was her, it had blended itself with her. She was smiling and talking normally like nothing was happening but I was looking on in horror.

“It doesn’t hurt Jay, only the liquid they live in does. That liquid is a product of mankind. That's the waste. We come up with hundreds of ways to destroy ourselves in our world but they can take it. They can take whatever we throw at them and they don’t even get angry about it. They’re prefect… and you can be too”.

“I don’t want to be perfect; I just want to be human…” I said, my voice now obviously cracking like a teenager.

“You just say that because you haven’t tried it. You can do all the things you’ve always wanted to do Jay, you can travel to the stars, you can live forever. You can eat fire and walk on water. You can live a million lives any way you want to and never look back in regret. You make a mistake? Start over. You can have everything you want… Come here… just touch them, it’s like heaven”

My mouth was dry, I felt dizzy and I felt myself stumble over the office chair as I backtracked toward the doorway. I couldn’t take my eyes off of her/it. She/It reached out to me with both arms but they were not smooth and girly anymore, they were green and fuzzy and moved fluidly in waves like her bones were gone. I turned and ran thru the trailer until I crashed against the door. Without looking back I busted out into the night and fell off the 2 step porch onto the cold and dusty ground beside one of the haphazardly parked 4 wheelers. When I stood up I could see it’s silhouette in the doorway. The xenon white lab light was now yellow as it haloed her/it in the doorway. She/It looked frightening as her still human shaped body now bent and contorted at impossible angles.

“Jay, where are you going to go? There is nothing left you know. This IS the end of the world. There is no Chicago… There is no United States, there isn’t even any civilization anymore. It’s over, all of it. There is only… Them. Only… Us.”

I looked down at my hand; it was warm and itched badly. The night sky was bright with stars and the moon cast a dim enough light for me to see my hand in detail. It looked fine but had a strange greenish tint to it. I felt it with my other hand and it felt fuzzy and warm. It felt like I was touching Kermit the Frog’s puppet skin. I stood up and looked at the jeep with the keys dangling in the soft night breeze.

She said: “There is no where to go Jay. Come back inside before They get angry with you”

“I- I thought you said they didn’t get angry”

“Come back inside Jay”