I’m having a problem with snails.
I know. Ridiculous, right? How can you be scared of something so small, something which moves an inch every one-hundred years? It all started a few days ago. Let me explain.
I’m a musician. Well, sort of. That’s what I keep telling myself anyway. In reality, I write shitty jingles for radio ads selling God knows what. I have a small recording studio at the bottom of the back garden. I call it The Summer Haus. It seemed like a good name at the time, and I’ve had a sign made, so I’m not changing it now. Sometimes, when I am working late on a particular masterpiece, I sleep out there. My wife doesn’t like being disturbed after 9 pm. You know what women are like. Always so warm and welcoming. She’s not speaking to me at the moment because she blames me for the dog going missing. I left the front door open, allegedly, and he escaped off down the road. I don’t remember doing anything of the sort. But since when did facts make any difference in a marriage?
Fortunately, I have a put-me-up bed in The Summer Haus. It’s actually quite comfortable. I have to sleep on it, so I thought ‘Hell, why not buy an expensive one with a nice thick mattress.’ It’s great.
Also, I live in England. I forgot to tell you that part. So I’m shit out of luck when it comes to the weather. It’s always cloudy or foggy here. Just the sorts of days that snails love. They like to come out at night too. That’s when they are most active, apparently, and it was a few nights ago when my snail horror began.
I’d just finished mastering a 30-second jingle for dog treats. As is my routine when finishing a project, I took off my earphones, stretched out and felt wholly satisfied with myself. Another classic in the bag. Then, I heard this faint scratching sound. At first, I thought it was interference coming through on my monitor speakers, a rogue current or ground loop problem. But I checked and, as I suspected, I had powered off all the equipment. I listened carefully. It seemed to be coming from the wall on my right. I put my ear against the wall. I could definitely detect a faint scratching coming from the outside of The Summer Haus.
As I stepped out of the French doors, I heard a crunch underfoot. Lifting each loafer in turn, I discovered it was the right one that had the mortal remains of a snail smeared all over it.
At this point, I think I whispered something like, ‘Oh, for fuck’s sake’ or ‘Fucking snail!’
I dragged my foot repeatedly on the lawn until my shoe was clean, then I continued round to the side of The Summer Haus. Being something of an eco-warrior, I have installed a water butt (a water barrel to my American friends) at the side of The Summer Haus to collect rainwater to irrigate the garden. One day, I want to install solar panels on the roof.
Anyway, squeezing between this and the garden wall, I managed to access the side elevation of the building. It’s pretty overgrown in there, but there is plenty of room to move around.
Now, you must believe me when I tell you that there must have been nothing short of ten-thousand snails on that wall, chewing away at my ship-lap. The devastation to the cosmetic structure of the building was immense. Almost as immense as my anger. I stood, wide-eyed, mouthing curses at them and threatening them with a swift and terrible retribution. Unfortunately, I had no idea what form this would take, particularly as it was just after 10 pm. Any retribution would have to be carried out as quietly as possible so my wife wouldn’t be disturbed.
As I considered my next move, my eyes fell on the wheelbarrow that had been abandoned on the lawn for weeks. It was currently piled high with grass-cuttings, but that was easily solved. I squeezed past the water butt again and grabbed the wheelbarrow’s handles. I tipped it to one side and emptied the grass-cuttings all over the lawn. I can’t be certain, but I’m pretty sure that I saw more snails lurking in the grass-cuttings. I wheeled the empty barrow as close to the water butt as I could and picked up the snow shovel that was leaning against the fence. I also grabbed some black-plastic bags. I also made sure I turned off the security light at the back of the house. She didn’t like bright light either after 9 pm.
For the next three hours, and as quietly as I could, I moved backwards and forwards between the side of The Summer Haus and the wheelbarrow, each time depositing a bag full of snails I’d scraped off the wall with the snow shovel. It was a long and laborious job, but eventually I had a wheelbarrow full of bags, and a few more besides stacked to one side. Ten-thousand snails - give or take, bagged and ready to go.
But go where?
At this point, I’d like to explain that I fell out with my neighbour a few years ago and we haven’t spoken since. He complained to the local authority about my music blasting out at all hours. I told him it was my livelihood and he just laughed. Someone from environmental health came round to measure the decibels, and they told me to either soundproof it or stop using it for recording. I sound proofed it at some considerable expense.
I wheeled the bags over to his garden wall. It took me three trips to transport them all. There is something quite exhilarating about doing something you shouldn’t. One by one, I tossed the bags over the wall and into the bottom of his garden, which also happened to be his orchard - he likes to ferment his own cider. I hoped that the trees would camouflage the bags and he wouldn’t notice them for a few weeks. Each bag I lifted seethed with a thousand living gastropods, their shells clacking together loudly. When I had tossed the last of the bags over the wall, I returned the wheelbarrow to the lawn. I washed off my hands under the outside tap and dried them on a pair of old shorts I’d cut up for rags. Then I returned to The Summer Haus to toast the completion of my latest project with a glass or two of red wine.
I climbed into my bed an hour or so later and spent a tumultuous night tossing and turning, calculating how long it might take a snail to pulsate its way between the French doors and my bed. I reassured myself it would be longer than seven hours, precisely the length of time I wanted to sleep for.
When I woke the next morning, my worst fears were not realised. Poking my head round the corner of The Summer Haus, there wasn’t a single snail to be seen. In the daylight, the damage to the outside wall was considerably worse than I had realised. The snails had eaten through the outer cladding of ship-lap and had started in on the OSB board. I repeated the many curses I had made the night before.
I went into the house and contacted John Roberts, a tradesman I know. We agreed a time for him to come over the next day to price up the repairs. My wife still wasn’t speaking to me, but she did serve me a modest breakfast of croissants and coffee. I sat at the kitchen table to eat the meal. She stood silently, leaning against one of the worktops, hugging a coffee and looking forlornly towards the dog’s basket that was conspicuously empty. Then she left and went upstairs to lie down.
The following night was uneventful. I tried to work, but I couldn’t stop taking my headphones off to listen out for any scratching noises. There were no snails to be seen anywhere. I slept fitfully and dreamt of the ten-thousand snails I had dumped into my neighbour’s garden. In the dream, they had escaped the bags and formed themselves into one huge, seething mass. Slowly, the mass reshaped itself into something resembling one giant snail. Their little shells clacked together noisily as the hideous thing slowly moved towards me with evil intent.
I woke early, but decided to wait for John to price up the repairs before starting work again. He arrived about 10 am and I ushered him through the house and out across the lawn. As we got close, he suddenly put an arm across his face.
‘Jesus. What’s that smell?’ His voice was muffled.
‘What smell?’
‘You can’t smell that?’
I had noticed the foetid smell coming from the side of The Summer Haus, but I was trying to play it down in case he refused to take on the job.
‘Oh, yeah. I can. I assume it’s all that silvery stuff the snails left behind on the wall.’
‘Jesus,’ John said again. ‘How much is down there?’
‘A bit.’
When I told him a bit, I actually meant huge amounts of stinking, silvery mucus smeared everywhere.
I showed him the way past the water butt and watched him grimace as he surveyed the damaged area, coated as it was with the glistening slime.
‘Snails did this?’ he said, pointing at the wall with the short pencil stub he held in his right hand.
‘Yeah.’
‘Snails?’
‘Yeah, snails.’
‘Where are they now?’
I decided to lie again. ‘They went away.’
‘Good job,’ he said. ‘Right, let’s see…’
He took several minutes to measure up the area and scribble down some figures in his small notebook. Making mental calculations, he whispered numbers to himself before writing them down. Finally, he seemed ready to deliver the damage. I had this terrible feeling that the latest synthesiser I had my eye on was about to go south.
‘It’s not the materials…’ he began, stepping back.
I think he stepped back a little further than he had intended. He stumbled backwards and disappeared into the bushes. Then, I heard the most repulsive squelching noise and John cried out. He burst through the undergrowth, his face a combination of fear and disgust. When he had squeezed past the water butt, I could see that his left shoe and ankle were covered in a thick, purple substance that looked alien in its origin.
‘What’s wrong?’
He looked at me with unease, as if he was trying to work out if I already knew the answer. Now, when I think about it, he was probably trying not to vomit.
‘There’s something disgusting in those bushes,’ he said. ‘No offence, but I think I’ll leave this job. You’ll have to find someone else.’
I gave him some rags to wipe off his foot and showed him to the front door. He got in his van and drove off without saying another word. I walked back across the lawn, determined to find out exactly what it was in the bushes, but the closer I got, the more my resolve weakened. I had all but convinced myself that I was definitely not going to go poking around in the undergrowth when I remembered that I had to sleep in The Summer Haus that night, right next to whatever it was that was lurking in there.
I had no choice. I had to go in.
I squeezed past the water butt, my stomach lurching. I turned towards the area that John had stumbled into. It was clear now that the smell was coming from the undergrowth and not the silvery slime coating the wall behind me. Gingerly, I parted the shrubs with both hands, and looked down. I saw it lying there. And it was an appalling sight.
The bulk of the revolting mass was an indistinguishable lump of partially digested meat, fur and bone. Lying a small distance away from the glistening accumulation of bloated, dark-purple, rotting organic matter was the head of the thing, presumably decapitated by John’s size 9. Eyeless, and frozen into a sickening grimace, I stared at it with macabre fascination. Slowly, ever so slowly, the gruesome reality dawned on me. The hideous remains were those of our dog, Benji. He was missing no more. Mystery solved.
Leading away in all directions from his ravaged corpse were the tell-tale silvery trails.
‘Moth-er-fuck-ers!’ I cursed slowly under my breath.
Though angry, my outburst was driven more by the anxiety I was suddenly feeling at the prospect of telling my wife that her dog had been eaten by snails. Perhaps, I shouldn’t tell her. I could bury Benji and let her go on believing that he was enjoying a new life somewhere else with new owners. I resented bitterly the dilemma those little fucking molluscs had put me in.
I decided to bury Benji. Though I wasn’t as close to him as my wife, we did share some good times together.
As there is no time like the present, I fetched my shovel and one of his favourite balls. I worked quickly, using the shovel to chop a hole big enough in the tough, fibrous soil. When I had dropped Benji and his ball in the hole, I refilled it and flattened the ground with the shovel, making sure it looked as undisturbed as possible. My wife was unlikely to stumble into the bushes anytime soon, but just in case…you know.
I shouldn’t have bothered being so considerate of her feelings. By the time I went into the house again, it was nearing noon. I washed off my hands at the kitchen sink and flicked on the kettle. There was a folded note on the kitchen table, addressed to me, and I knew before I’d even read it what it was likely to say…
Gone to stay with Paula for a few days. Need some time on my own. Don’t know when I’ll be back. Ring me if Benji comes home, please. Otherwise, don’t.
I had to admire her honesty. When she had something to say, she could really go for it. Paula lived about 50 miles from us, and I did think about going over there. But…I reasoned it would only end in an argument, so I decided to give her the space she wanted. I went back into the studio for the afternoon and worked on some jingles. It was one of those dull, overcast days, but I worked with the patio doors wide open so I could get some fresh air.
Around 5 pm, I shut the equipment down and decided on a glass of red. When I pulled one of the patio doors closed, I felt my heart go into arrhythmia. There was a single snail on the outside of the glass pane. From the trail it had left behind, it had come from the direction of the bushes. I watched its slimy, little foot pulsate its way across my glass door. I went outside, prised it off by the shell, and threw it over the fence to join the others.
That would teach my neighbour to mess with me.
I overindulged on the red wine. Subconsciously, I might have been numbing the pain of my wife leaving. Consciously, I rather enjoyed having the run of my own house for a change. As I was unlikely to be doing any more recording that night, I locked up The Summer Haus and retired to our marital bed. I slept on and off, but by 2 am, I was in the wide-awake-club. I lay on my back, staring up into the darkness, trying to discern the patterns on the Artex ceiling. A kaleidoscope of images played randomly through my mind. The horrific image of poor Benji kept lurching out of the blackness at me.
Then, a terrible thought struck me, making the hairs on the back of my neck go up: If snails could do that to a dog, they could do it to a human. I let out a long breath, feeling suitably reassured that I had done the right thing disposing of them in my neighbour’s orchard. It might be a long time before he discovered my crime, and by then, the ten-thousand snails would have suffocated in the black plastic bags.
Wouldn’t they?
A slowly evolving terror began to build in my mind. What if the snails had escaped the bags? Where were they now? What were they doing? I tried to shake off my fears and sleep, but, of course, that was impossible. I could already feel the adrenaline coursing through my nervous system.
I had to know.
I jumped from the bed, threw on some jeans and a tee-shirt, and headed downstairs. I grabbed a flashlight and a small set of ladders from the utility cupboard and pulled on my rubber boots. As I crossed the lawn, I felt the same lurching in my stomach I had felt crossing the lawn earlier in the day. I reached the section of the garden wall where I had thrown the bags over and opened the ladders.
I paused, feeling incapable of taking the first step onto the ladders. But I had to know. I had to. I climbed the steps, turned on the flashlight, and looked over. I swept the light backwards and forwards across the orchard, trying to locate the bags. Finally, I located them.
Or rather, what was left of them.
Shreds of black plastic were scattered everywhere but the snails had gone. They had escaped the bags. And…by the thick, silvery trail leading out of the orchard, it was clear that all ten-thousand of them had decided to head toward the back of my neighbour’s house.
My terror grew. Not least because I had put them there. Without a second thought, I had tossed them into his garden. And now, they had turned their diabolical attentions onto him.
Would I be indirectly responsible for his murder?
I didn’t like the guy, but I didn’t want him dead.
Balancing perilously on the top rung of the ladders, I hoisted myself up and over the 6 ft wall. I dropped down heavily onto a compost heap, which cushioned my fall, even as it disintegrated in all directions. Aware that I was now guilty of trespassing, I decided against the flashlight. Instead, I used the light from the waning moon to pick up the silvery trail. When I was only halfway across his neatly manicured lawn, I saw that the silvery trail inexplicably stopped. Unsure of what to do next, I wandered around, looking to see if the trail picked up elsewhere.
It didn’t.
My relief was tangible. I wasn’t guilty of first-degree murder. The snails had never reached him. Just to be sure, I crept closer to the house, dropping low to avoid detection. I crossed the patio and flattened myself against the house wall, just to the side of his French doors. I could hear voices coming from inside. They were muffled, but I could discern a female and a male voice. I shuffled closer and carefully looked in through the glass. My neighbour was leaning against his ornate fireplace, a glass of red wine in his hand. He was laughing heartily. The woman was obviously sitting in the high-backed armchair that faced away from me. I could see the very top of her head but nothing more. I moved away from the doors and flattened myself against the wall again. I breathed deeply. He was alive and he was fine. It never occurred to me to question why he was still awake at 2 am.
I darted back across the lawn and into his orchard. I had some difficulty negotiating the wall. But after taking a running jump at it, I managed to hoist myself up and over. I dropped back into my garden feeling hugely relieved and gleeful. But something kept nagging at me.
Where had the snails gone?
It was as if they had magically disappeared halfway across his lawn, and that made no sense. They must have gone somewhere. During the last couple of days, I had learnt a lot about snails, mostly through internet searches. I discovered, for example, that they have thousands of microscopic teeth and will eat just about anything. There was something else I had found out about them, but I just couldn’t remember what it was. I slumped against the wall and tried to reason it out. The trail stopped halfway across my neighbour’s lawn, so either they had grown wings and flown off…or…or…Or they had doubled-back into the orchard.
Of course! How could I have been so stupid?
The something else I had read about was the great snail experiment of 2010 which proved that snails have a homing instinct over short distances. Those fuckers were probably already back in my garden.
I rushed across to The Summer Haus and squeezed past the water butt. I turned on the flashlight and crashed into the undergrowth. Almost immediately, I tripped on something and fell headlong to the ground, spilling the flashlight. It spun around on the floor, throwing light in all directions. There wasn’t a single snail to be seen. Relieved, I rolled onto my back and started laughing and laughing and laughing. I had put myself through so much worry during the last few days, and all for nothing. Yes, the snails had eaten part of my studio. And yes, they had partly digested my pet dog, but it was likely Benji was dead long before the snails reached him. In my growing paranoia, I had attributed to the snails a level of intelligence and malevolence that they just didn’t deserve.
I reached for the flashlight and got to my feet, brushing myself down. I felt good. A glass of red was definitely in order. As I made my way through the undergrowth, the flashlight guiding me along the ground, my terror returned. The reason I had tripped over was because someone or something had found Benji’s grave and dug him up, leaving the hole unfilled. Even his favourite ball was gone. I stared at the empty grave, trying to make sense of it. I was the only one who knew he was there.
Except…I wasn’t.
John Roberts knew that there was something in the undergrowth. He had discovered it, in fact, with his size 9. Had he returned to dig up Benji? I couldn’t believe that. Why would he?
I squeezed past the water butt and opened up The Summer Haus doors. I flicked on the light, half expecting to find the resurrected corpse of Benji looking at me with evil intent.
Empty. Exactly as I had left it.
I turned off the light and dropped down onto the bed to think things through. I must have been unsettled because I didn’t even bother to remove my rubber boots. Though I had no intention of doing so, I fell asleep almost immediately, waking an hour or so later to a strange and unearthly noise coming from outside. I went to the patio doors and looked out. It was still dark outside and the splinter of the Moon had disappeared behind thick clouds. To my surprise, there was a light on in the house. I saw the silhouette of my wife in our bedroom window. And she wasn’t alone. Standing next to her, was the silhouette of a man. Remaining unnaturally still, they both stared out of the window towards The Summer Haus. There was something about the way they were looking out of the window that unnerved me. I couldn’t be sure if they could even see me, standing, as I was, in the dark. Anger rooted me to the spot. I had caught her out. She’d assumed I’d be sleeping in The Summer Haus tonight and had invited her lover around. So much for needing some space.
I don’t know how long I watched them for, standing there motionless in the bedroom window, but eventually I broke the spell. I decided to confront them, but the moment I opened the door, they turned away and the bedroom light went out. I hesitated on the steps leading down to the lawn. The unearthly noise that had woken me had stopped the second I opened the door. From deep within, I felt a primal instinct that I was in danger, that I should not take another step. My heart pounded and I sensed the presence of something else, something very very close.
I looked toward the house. It remained in darkness, but then the patio doors opened and my wife stepped out with the man I had seen in the bedroom.
It was my neighbour!
My anger erupted and I screamed across the garden at him, ‘You bastard! You wait until I get my hands on you!’
He laughed at me. They both laughed at me, mockingly, menacingly.
‘Come and get me!’ he shouted back.
My wife added derisively, ‘You can have your snails back.’
Incensed, I stepped off the last step and heard a loud crunching under my foot. I had stepped in something soft and viscid. I froze, but my previous movement had triggered the security light at the back of the house. It flooded the back lawn with bright light. It took me a few seconds to process the horrific scene that lay before me. I had had no previous experience by which I could relate the abhorrence of what I was seeing. Every inch of the lawn was now covered in a deep, glistening sea of snails. There were so many, in fact, that if I had wanted to get to the house, I would have had to wade through them waist deep. They were as still and silent as the grave, but I swear to you, as true as I am writing this now, every single one of them had pointed their tentacled eyes towards me.
Watching.
I retreated back onto the steps of The Summer Haus, realising with dread that this ocean of molluscs had reached the very boundary of my last bastion. My wife, still laughing, raised a hand and clicked her fingers together. At the sound, a deafening clacking noise rippled across the lawn as every single snail squirmed to attention.
Then, my neighbour raised his hand.
I didn’t wait.
I bounded up the steps and into The Summer Haus, slamming the door shut behind me. I was fumbling the key into the lock when he unleashed his terrible army at me. From a seething mass at the very back, a tidal wave rose and rolled towards me at a monstrous velocity. I watched in horror as it surged closer and closer. I had just managed to turn the key and pull the door curtain across when the huge wave of snails hit The Summer Haus. They clattered hard against the glass and outer fabric of the building in an appalling assault. Wave after wave came at me, each one smashing into the building with a thunderous cracking of shells. Fortunately for me, the dispute with my neighbour meant that I had over engineered The Summer Haus. Extra thick walls and glass.
So fuck you!
I have been sheltering in here for four hours now. My wife has cut the power, and I have no food or water. I am typing this using the last of my laptop’s battery power. She has cut the wi-fi too. I don’t know when - or even if - this post will make it to the site. I guess if you are reading it, then somehow it did. That’s important to me. You will know what happened.
The snails are everywhere now. On the roof, on the walls, and on the doors. I can even hear them underneath me. I have candles, but they are starting to burn low. The air is getting thin. Very thin.
They stopped their wicked bombardment a couple of hours ago. Now all I can hear is scratching.
Scratching and chewing…