Cryptid Island Read online

  CRYPTID ISLAND

  Gerry Griffiths

  www.severedpress.com

  Copyright 2019 by Gerry Griffiths

  CRYPTID ISLAND

  DEDICATION

  For my brother- and sister-in-law

  Martin and Marlene

  Paradise survivors of the Camp Fire

  PART ONE

  THE BOTANIST

  1

  THE RASH

  Allen Moss’ transformation was not caused by a radioactive arachnid’s bite or exposure to a strange ocean mist, nor was it the result of a heavy bombardment of body-altering gamma rays or the consequence of crash landing on an alien planet. The change occurred when he innocently bent over one day and extracted a seemingly innocuous weed from the ground...

  “So how long have you had this rash, Mr. Moss?” asked the dermatologist.

  “I noticed it yesterday, after I came home from a job.”

  “What is it you do?”

  “I have my own landscaping business.”

  “And where were you working?”

  “Up in Los Alto Hills. My crew and I were clearing out some dense overgrowth for a customer.”

  “That area is notorious for poison oak.”

  “I know, but I rarely get it.”

  “Interesting. Does it itch?”

  “No, it’s more like a tingling sensation. Normally, I wouldn’t have thought much of it but when I showed it to my wife, she said I better make an appointment and have it looked at.”

  “I see.”

  Allen took a deep breath. “It’s not skin cancer is it?”

  “No, I don’t believe it’s melanoma; at least not any case I’ve ever seen,” the physician assured Allen.

  Allen and the doctor took a moment to stare at the emerald swath on Allen’s forearm. Its jagged, leafy edges covered an area six inches long and three inches wide.

  “It does have an odd color,” the doctor said.

  “You don’t think it could be one of those flesh-eating diseases they’re always showing on those TV medical shows?”

  “MRSA? That’s an anti-drug resistant strain of staphylococcus, which is generally accompanied with red bumps or boil-like sores and a fever.” The doctor glanced at Allen’s medical file. “Your temperature was ninety-eight point six when you checked in, which is perfectly normal.”

  “So what do you think it is?”

  “Probably an allergic reaction from the plants you were handling. Before you go home, stop at your local drugstore and pick up some over-the-counter zinc oxide ointment. Try applying it three times a day and see if that works. If the condition continues or worsens, come back and I’ll prescribe something stronger.”

  “So, you don’t think it’s anything serious?” Allen slid off the examination table. He rolled down his shirtsleeve and buttoned the cuff.

  “No, I think in a few days it should clear up.”

  “Thanks, doc,” Allen said and left the examination room.

  ***

  Allen strolled into the kitchen and stood behind his wife, Laney, who was working at the counter. He brushed her burgundy hair back and kissed her creamy freckled neck.

  “You’re home early,” she said.

  “I thought I’d let Carlos and the guys finish up today so I can catch up on some of the billing.” Allen went over and opened the refrigerator. He peered inside. After a thorough perusal—even skipping the tempting six-pack of beer—he reconsidered and shut the door.

  “I’m making your favorite.”

  Allen glanced in the mixing bowl. He saw the preparatory lump of ground turkey meat and dried breadcrumbs for meatloaf. He didn’t have the heart to tell Laney that just the sight of the concoction made his stomach churn.

  “So what did the doctor say?”

  “Said not to worry. Told me this should clear it up.” Allen pulled a small rectangular box out of a white pharmacy bag. “I think I’ll go put some on.”

  “Dinner won’t be for another hour.”

  “That’s fine.”

  Allen went into the bathroom.

  He unbuttoned his cuff, rolling up his sleeve. He removed the tube of ointment from the box. Twisting off the cap, he squeezed a worm-like bead along the spine of the rash. He smoothed the cream with the tip of his finger, covering the blotch entirely with a whitish coating.

  He was putting the cap back on the tube when the patch on his forearm lit up like a fiery torch. “Jesus Christ!” He shook his arm to put out the invisible flame. “What the hell!” Allen never felt such pain. It was like someone jabbed his arm with a red-hot branding iron.

  He twisted the spindle for the cold water all the way to the left, shoving his forearm under the faucet.

  The water washed away some of the cream. His arm still burned. Frantically, he vigorously scrubbed his forearm until all of the ointment was gone.

  Laney flew into the bathroom. “What’s wrong?”

  “I don’t know. I think I had an allergic reaction to the cream. As soon as I put it on the rash it felt like my arm was on fire.” Allen kept his forearm under the running tap.

  “Does it still hurt?”

  “No, not now.”

  “Let me see.”

  Allen turned off the spigot. He grabbed a towel from the rack, dabbing his forearm. He held up his arm so Laney could see the rash.

  “Kind of looks like one of those pine tree car fresheners.”

  “Yeah, it does.”

  “How does it feel now?”

  “It still tingles. You know, this might sound strange but it’s like the rash didn’t want to be covered up.”

  “Allen, that’s silly.”

  “Yeah, you’re right. I better get some work done before dinner.”

  ***

  “You haven’t touched your food.” Laney was unable to mask the disappointment in her voice.

  “I’m sorry. I just don’t have an appetite.” Allen placed his unused knife and fork on the folded napkin by his plate of meatloaf and mashed potatoes.

  “I worked so hard.”

  “Maybe we can have sandwiches later.”

  “Okay. How come you have your arm in your lap?”

  “Promise you won’t freak out.”

  “Allen, what’s wrong?”

  “It’s spread.” Allen raised his arm and laid it on the table.

  “Oh my God!”

  “Don’t panic.”

  “Allen! It’s taken over your entire arm!”

  “It’s a little more than that.” Allen unbuttoned the front of his shirt, exposing his mantis green chest.

  “Doesn’t it hurt?”

  “Actually, the tingling sensation is almost pleasant.”

  “Allen, you’re scaring me.”

  “I’m scaring you. How do you think I feel? I’m turning into the Jolly Green Giant!”

  “We need to get you to the hospital!” Laney pushed away from the table. She was about to get up when Allen waved her back down.

  “If the dermatologist doesn’t know what it is, what’s the point of going to the hospital?”

  “Oh, Allen.” Laney covered her mouth as tears flooded her cheeks.

  “Honey, please don’t cry.” Allen got up. He went around to Laney’s side of the table, putting his uninfected arm around her. “Don’t worry. I’ll be fine.” He grabbed the pitcher from the table, chugging the water down to the last drop.

  2

  METAMORPHOSIS

  “Something’s come up, Carlos, and I need you to run things for a few days. No, everything’s fine. You’ve got the schedule, so if you need help with anything, just give me a call. No, I’m not sure how long. Okay. Thanks. Talk to you later.” Allen closed up his cell phone and laid it on the patio table.

&nb
sp; The Moss’ backyard was secluded with a six-foot tall redwood fence and plenty of shrubs, so there was no immediate threat of any of the neighbors peering over and seeing Allen shirtless, wearing only a pair of gym shorts.

  His skin was asparagus green.

  “How are you feeling?” Laney sat in a wrought-iron chair across from him. She had her laptop computer in front of her on the table, browsing different websites for information on what might be causing Allen’s condition.

  “The sun feels great.” His eyes were closed, legs stretched out, basking in the sunlight.

  Laney leaned forward. She watched the teal hairs on Allen’s body undulate like grass swaying in a breeze, the tips straining up towards the sky.

  As his wife, she should have been appalled. For some strange reason she wasn’t sickened at all by the transformation. Something very bizarre was happening to Allen. It was up to her to help him figure it out. No matter what happened, Laney would never abandon him. “I have some theories,” she said, astonished how Allen’s skin was semi-hardening into what resembled the outside of a lime.

  “What’s that?” Allen reached down and grabbed the end of the hose. He put the spray nozzle over his head and gave himself a spritz. “Man, that feels good.”

  “You’ve turned green because for some unexplainable reason you have a high concentration of chlorophyll in your body...”

  “So you’re saying, I’m becoming some kind of plant-thing?”

  “You don’t believe me, look!” Laney reached over and stuck a sewing needle—one she appropriated from her basket strictly for the test—into Allen’s hand, which apparently did not cause him any pain.

  Allen opened his eyes. He glanced down at his hand. A jade liquid oozed from the pinprick.

  “I have green blood?”

  “That’s right.”

  “Are you serious?”

  “It’s also why you have to keep hydrating yourself and the reason you crave sunlight so much. Your body is fueling up; getting its energy from photosynthesis. Which might explain your loss of appetite.”

  “I told you we could have sandwiches later,” Allen quipped, but to be honest, he knew he couldn’t eat a thing.

  Laney read a few more facts on her laptop. “I don’t know what’s going on inside your body but I’ll bet you’re absorbing carbon dioxide right now and giving off oxygen.”

  “That’s crazy.”

  “I’ll prove it. Give me your arm.”

  Allen stretched his arm out. Laney poured her glass of water over it.

  “If you look close, you can see tiny bubbles. That’s oxygen coming out of your pores.”

  “That is amazing.”

  “How’s your skin feel?”

  “What do you mean?”

  “Touch it,” Laney said.

  Allen felt the back of his right hand. “It feels prickly.”

  “Let me feel.” Laney dabbed a finger on Allen’s wrist. “Ouch!”

  “What?”

  “It’s like getting poked by a stinging nettle.”

  “Well, that’s not good.”

  “Sure it is. Your body’s formed a protective shield. Like a plant would do, to keep insects off and animals away, so they won’t eat it.”

  “What am I, a vegetable salad?”

  “I want to try something.” Laney picked up the newspaper on the table. She rolled it up into a cylinder.

  “What are you going to do with that?”

  “This!” Laney swung the rolled up newspaper, causing Allen to flinch, putting up his guard as she walloped him across the arm.

  “Like that hurt,” Allen smirked.

  “You were ready for me.” Laney looked down at the newsprint. “Jesus, Allen, look what you did!”

  “What are those?”

  “They’re spines.” A dozen three-inch long green spikes impaled the wadded newspaper.

  “Those came out of me?”

  “Nasty looking things wouldn’t you say?”

  “Awesome. Now I’m a frigging porcupine.”

  “You’ve devised your own defense system. Your skin’s become super sensitive; air movement, barometric changes, any of that and your body reacts.”

  “Swell.”

  “Let’s try—”

  “Jeez, Laney, shouldn’t you be careful? What if this is contagious?”

  “Oh, crap. I got so excited, I didn’t even think about that.”

  “Maybe we better sleep in separate rooms tonight.”

  “If I don’t have it by now, I doubt if I’m going to catch it.”

  “All right, if you say so.”

  “But no sex, not until we know what we’re dealing with, and I mean it.”

  3

  CLOSE CALL

  Allen awoke in the night, dying of thirst. “Laney, you awake?” Laney was in a deep sleep next to him, her back turned. Even though it was dark in their small bedroom, he could make out the outline of her slim figure; the dip of her side under her T-shirt, the curve of her hip, and the downward slope of her thigh and leg.

  Not wanting to disturb her, Allen quietly slipped out of bed. He plucked the seat of his green plaid boxer shorts from the crack of his butt. He padded barefoot out of the bedroom and down the hall into the kitchen.

  He opened the fridge. He took out a plastic bottled water.

  Laney had left her laptop on the kitchen table with the screen flipped up. The power light was still on. Allen sat down at the table. He twisted the cap off the bottle, taking a deep swig of water. He pushed the enter button. The black screen illuminated the last website Laney had been consulting. He scanned the page, pushed the page down button to read some more. He was taking another drink when he saw an article making him almost choke. “Oh, no!”

  Allen jumped up from the table. “Laney!” he yelled, running down the hall and into the bedroom. He flipped on the light switch. He rushed to the bed. “Laney, wake up!” he screamed, rolling her over and shaking her by the shoulders but her eyes wouldn’t open. He put his ear up to her mouth to see if she was breathing. Nothing. He shook her again. “Laney! Wake up!”

  Laney didn’t stir.

  Allen scooped his wife up in his arms. He carried her over to the bedroom’s sliding glass door, unlocking it. He slid the door open. He laid her on the back lawn. “Oh God, Laney breathe!” He placed his palms over her chest and began CPR. “Breathe, damn it, breathe!”

  He wanted desperately to call 9-1-1. But what would he do when the responding paramedics showed up? How would he explain his appearance?

  Allen kept pumping her chest. “Please, Laney—”

  Laney opened her mouth, taking in a big hungry gulp of air like a hooked fish gasping on a boat deck.

  “Thank God.” Allen pulled Laney into a sitting position.

  “What happened? Why are we outside?” Laney looked around somewhat bewildered.

  “Something we didn’t consider before we went to bed.”

  “What?”

  “We didn’t finish reading about photosynthesis. During the day, I’m converting carbon dioxide into oxygen, but at night, my body does the opposite. I was absorbing all of the oxygen out of the bedroom and converting it into carbon dioxide. I wasn’t affected but you were running out of air. Laney, I almost killed you!”

  “Honey, it wasn’t your fault. We didn’t know.”

  “We do now.”

  “These are precautions we need to be aware of.” Laney smiled at Allen.

  “My God, what’s happening to me?”

  “I don’t know, but I’m a firm believer that everything happens for a reason.”

  A wet blob landed on Laney’s thigh.

  “Allen, are you crying?”

  “I think so.”

  “I love you.”

  “Laney, I don’t know what I would have done if something—”

  “But it didn’t,” Laney reassured him. “Hey, if you carried me out here, how come my skin isn’t irritated from you touching me?”

 
; “I don’t know.”

  “Wait a second; I think I do. I wasn’t a threat to you, like when I swatted your arm.”

  “Are you saying what I think you’re saying?”

  “I think subconsciously, you can control this thing.”

  ***

  The following day it poured down rain and they couldn’t go outdoors. It seemed especially gloomy inside the house. Allen was feeling depressed. When he first got up, he was a vibrant forest green. He sat at the kitchen table, watching Laney eat a bowl of bran flakes for breakfast. He still had no appetite for real food.

  By late afternoon, he’d noticed his skin coloring had changed from dark green to a much paler shade, almost bordering on autumn brown.

  “Looks like your batteries are running low. You need some sun,” Laney told him.

  Allen stood by the sink. He leaned on the counter in front of the kitchen bay window with two shelves of potted plants. He stroked the Boston fern’s leaves.

  Something remarkable happened: the plant’s leaves turned brown as Allen’s fingers became green. “Oh my God, are you seeing this?” Allen was jubilant as an explorer discovering a new land.

  Laney stared in awe. “That’s parasitic behavior. You’re actually robbing the plant of its nutrients.”

  “So I’m killing it?”

  “Yeah, stop that. I love that fern.”

  “Sorry.”

  ***

  The next day the rain stopped and the nourishing sun was ablaze. Allen took advantage of the warm weather. He spent the entire morning in the backyard, raking up leaves to recharge his batteries.

  Not too long after, Laney opened the sliding glass door and called out, “Allen? Could you open this jar for me?” She glanced about the yard. Allen was nowhere to be seen so she went outside to look for him. She placed the jar of pickles on the patio table. She started to walk across the lawn. She tripped, falling on the grass. She immediately got to her knees, looking back to see what she had stumbled over. The garden hose was coiled up by the faucet.

  Did she just hear footsteps?

  She got up and brushed off her knees. “Allen? Where are you?”