Chapter 1: Intruders – Slugs of Dale Cannon

The wooden planks of the living room creaked under the weight of Rystole Whitlock’s work boots. Normally he’d have to take them off at the door, a time-consuming process of unlacing the shoes. But there was no time for that.
He was worried he was already too late.
He’d heard the screams from the barn and rushed over with the first tool he could find a pitchfork.
The door had been cracked open, but not busted down with force. It matched all the reports from others who’d experienced the same intrusion.
The wooden stilt house wasn’t big, they’d built it just last year, a few kilometers outside of town where the buffcows could roam on the wild prairies of Dale Cannon.

Across from the front door where Rystole stood were the closed doors of two bedrooms. One room Rystole shared with his sisters, the other belonged to his parents.
For months Rystole had lobbied for an extension, a room or area to call his own, if they were still on Feldman’s station he’d be getting his own apartment by now. But there was no time on the ranch. That problem never seemed more apparent to Rystole than right now.
The living area had a kitchen and a living room. The living room was to his right, a stone fireplace with shelves built into the wall around it. The room itself was filled with wooden benches and chairs and a short table for board games in the evening.
The kitchen was on the opposite side of the fireplace, it had a horseshoe counter, a small icebox, and a solar-powered range.
The kitchen was where his parents were. The room smelled like his father’s vegetable curry and Rystole was reminded the last thing he had was a sandwich during his early lunch period at school.
His parents were in the kitchen. His father, who wore an apron over his collared work shirt and thin khaki pants, was swinging his best cooking knife at the intruders. He seemed out of breath and far from effective.
At least a half dozen slugs, big enough to wrap themselves around Rystole’s leg, crawled across the floor of the kitchen and on the wooden counter. Their skin was dark brown like wet dirt and spotted with light brown rings that constantly changed their shape and size like ripples in a puddle.
Despite what others at the town hall meetings had said these weren’t the grossest thing Rystole had ever seen. Nonetheless, he wanted them out of his house. Away from his family.
Rystole’s mother lay on the ground, unconscious, a giant slug crawled over her exposed arm. She wore the same thing as Rystole, canvas pants, and a short-sleeved shirt.
She’d come inside a few minutes ago, Rystole had promised her he’d take care of docking the tractor and the drones, even though she normally did it.
The obvious thing missing from the room was his siblings.
A few slugs crawled towards the door of the kids’ room and Rystole watched the light at the bottom of the door get snuffed out. Proud of his sister’s response to the situation he knew she was barricading any small gap the creatures could slip through.
In the lounge room, he twisted the pitchfork in his hand and aimed the slugs headed towards the bedroom.
He stabbed harder than he would if he was moving hay for the buffcows and he sunk the tool into the flesh of the slug. A satisfying thud of the tines hitting the wooden floor meant that the slug was pinned for good.
Except the little slime ball reacted unlike anything Rystole had seen before. The body of the slug separated from the four prongs of the pitchfork making gaping holes in its blobby body.
The holes moved down its body as the slug crawled out from under the fork. Rystole stabbed it again but the slug repeated its reaction quicker than before.
Rystole wasn’t stupid, if piercing wouldn’t do anything then he’d switch tactics and beat at it with the handle of the tool.
The slug moved slowly across the floor of the lounge room. It didn’t dodge the attacks like it did the stabbing and Rystole was putting as much force behind the swing as possible. Breaking the good pitchfork would be a worthwhile price for killing these monsters.
On Rystole’s fifth swing the handle buried itself into the slug’s body. The slug continued to crawl but Rystole couldn’t free the tool from its back. It was as if the pitchfork was a spoon buried in a jar of strawberry jam.
He dropped the weapon as he noticed two more slugs were crawling his way. They’d lost interest in the bedroom and seemed interested in helping their ally. Not that it needed the help.
They backed him into the stone fireplace of the lounge room.
His mother was still lying on the floor, unmoving. She’d suffered the same fate as others who’d been touched by the slugs.
Two slugs were pursuing his father who’d crawled onto the icebox to get the high ground over the slugs but Rystole didn’t know what good that would do because one of them was crawling vertically on the freezer’s face.
The wall Rystole was backed into had open shelves on either side that stored games, canned food, and various technologies they needed for day-to-day life inside the cabin.
The slugs advanced towards him. They crawled over the short table in the center of the room and the wooden rocking chair his mother often sat in.
Rystole began slinging anything from the shelf he could lay his hands on. A wooden box, filled with board game pieces his father carved, hit the slug on the table. Rystole didn’t know or care if it was the same one that’d been stabbed with the pitchfork.
And the slug didn’t seem to care much about the box that hit it. The game box opened leaving a mess of pieces scattered on the ground.
Rystole hefted a dense statue his sister made in school at another and missed. The thud shook the cabin’s hollow floor.

He slung the family’s radio at the converging slugs and immediately regretted his decision. He could have used it to call for help. It wouldn’t have saved his own skin but it would have helped his siblings.
But by the time he realized the mistake the radio hit the ground. The metal antenna snapped off with the impact and the plastic body snapped open exposing the inner electronics.
It landed in the center of the group of slugs and there was no way he could retrieve it to call for help. It lay on the ground damaged, but hopefully not beyond repair.
Unexpectedly the slug’s approach towards Rystole became chaotic. They weaved away from the radio giving it a wide berth before advancing back on Rystole.
Their change in approach gave him space to grab the broken radio and once it was in his hand again he flipped it on to begin transmitting.
Immediately he heard a deafening shriek like radio static. He realized the device wouldn’t do him much good until he reattached the antenna that had busted off.
Looking around to find the antenna he found the shrieking wasn’t coming from the radio but the slugs themselves. They were backing away from him.
He approached holding the radio out in front of him like a talisman warding away evil. The slug moved away from him faster than he knew they could.
He had a way of corralling them, and a herd of slugs couldn’t be much different from a herd of buffcows.