T.H.E.M

It was a dark and stormy night, when the newlyweds came back from their honeymoon to their newly purchased cottage. They ran to the porch at the back of the cottage with newspapers over their heads. Sharon giggled and said, "I feel just like Brad and Janet from that movie...what was it called?" "Rocky Horror Picture Show" Todd said, rather matter-of-factly. "And that couple wasn't married yet. I am the happiest man in the world! May I carry my beautiful wife over our first threshold?" "Why, of course, my handsome husband! I am the luckiest girl in the world!" Todd lifted her with ease. "He worked out way too regularly, sometimes" Sharon thought. But she also loved being in his strong arms like this. She felt SO safe with Todd! She opened the door as he carried her into their cottage and sat her down and kissed her deeply. Before they found the light switch, they could hear scurrying. Sounded bigger than mice. But when the light was on, there was nothing in sight. "What in the world could that have been?" Sharon had jumped back into Todd's arms. He laughed and said, "They scurried away. They are more afraid of us and will find somewhere to go now that we are home." She slowly put her feet back on the floor. "Will you go check the bathroom so that I can get a shower and clean up, while you bring the bags and stuff in? Then I can unpack and get dressed for our first night in our first little home, while you get a shower." "Sounds like a plan!" says Todd as he struts to the bathroom. He turns on the light and screams like a little girl. Sharon comes running in to see what there was. "Todd was standing behind the door and jumped out to scare her. "I thought you were too scared! If you had been, you would have run to the car, not in here to save me." He said. "But I love my husband and would never send him in where I could lose him without having his back!" Sharon replied. "And that's why I married you!" Todd replied "Now go get my luggage, slave!" she hugged him, giggling at that thought. Todd got their luggage and all was quiet for the next couple days.

Until one evening as they were going to bed, as soon as the lights were off the scurrying noise started again. Every time the light would be turned on, the noises stopped immediately, but there was nothing that they could see. Todd assured her that he would look around in the morning and then he would call an exterminator, if he needed to. Neither of them slept well that night, because the scurrying noises went on most of the night. They climbed out of bed the next morning, Sharon went to make coffee and breakfast, as Todd began his search. He started in the bedroom, under the bed and around, but no signs of anything that would make the sounds that they had heard. He checked the attic, nothing either. When he opened the basement door, there was a smell that wafted past him. It had a very earthy quality. He had not been down there since they got back from their honeymoon, but that smell wasn't there before they left. What in the world could be causing it? He walked down the steps very cautiously. When he got to the basement floor, he found what the smell was, but it only made more questions in his head. There were small areas that looked to be nests of some kind and they were made of different herbal material. He took a canning jar from the shelf and reached down and scooped up what he could of one of the nests and sealed the lid on. It was very strange to Todd that whatever lived in these "nests" was nowhere to be seen. He went back up the steps and showed Sharon. "I will take this over to my friend, George, at the university lab and see what he makes of it, while you call an exterminator and show your find to them."

Sharon got to the university and found George. He was just finishing up with a class and a couple of guys were still there working on an experiment. She hugged him in greeting. They had been friends since second grade. She showed him the contents of the jar and asked, "What do you make of this? Todd found what looked like nests in our basement and collected this." George asked if he could open the jar for a closer look. "Absolutely" Sharon consented. George got a large tray and poured the contents into it and began sifting through them. Then he went and began typing something into his computer. He told Sharon that he would need a couple days to do some analysis. "Apparently, I have many more of these nests in my basement and Todd has called an exterminator. Please call me as soon as you know anything! Here is my new number" Sharon hugged him again after writing down the number. "Please let me know ASAP. Whatever is living in our basement has me scared!" "I will", promised George. After Sharon left, George called the 2 students over and asked, "Do you know anything about this? Does this have anything to do with your experiments?"as he showed them the contents of the jar. They smelled the contents of the jar and examined them, then Sam and Andrew looked at each other with concern. "Well, we were experimenting on what marijuana would do to different creatures", said Andrew. "We tried it on an iguana like they did in that Cheech & Chong movie" laughed Sam "It didn't do anything like that one. So we tried a frog...nothing!" "But I caught a few roaches in my mom's kitchen one morning and POW we had a winner!" Andrew cried, jumping up and down with Sam. "May I have a look at these roaches?" Professor Williams asked. The young men looked at each other again. "How many did you have?" the professor questioned. "We only had about 10, to start with." Said Andrew looking very concerned. "Did they double? Triple?" Sam said, "Not only did they multiply in numbers, they multiplied their size!" holding his hands out to the size of a small dog. "One of them even ate my cat!" cried Sam. "How did they grow so large and WHERE ARE THEY?" the professor was at the end of his rope! "Well, we have a friend that works in a lab where they are experimenting with different strains of weed and different chemicals and effects," Andrew explained. "We kinda just got what we could from her and ground it up and put it in their cage. They ate it up! They started multiplying almost immediately." "Yeah, it was like a roach orgy, man!" laughed Sam. Andrew rolled his eyes and continued, "So we decided to try something different to prevent that. We got a line on this traditional Asian medicinal herb, roots of Astragalus (A.) membranaceus (Leguminosae) and apparently the mix of all the different medicinal herbs, caused them to grow. Just woke up the next morning and they had gotten out of the cage and were gone....except for the one that was eating Sam's cat." "We have no idea where any of them went. We couldn't even catch the one that ate my cat, Dr. Williams." Sam added. Professor Williams said, "Well, I'm pretty sure we know where some of T.H.E.M are living! And we need to get over there and try to round them up!" Sam called a friend who owned a pet store and Andrew called another friend and they rounded up as many pet carriers as they could get and loaded them into the truck, along with nets, traps and nooses to catch them with.

When they arrived at Sharon and Todd White's cottage, the exterminator was already there, but was just getting ready to go into the house to begin his evaluation. The professor took him to the side to explain what he knew and asked the man to be "hush hush" or it could cause him too much trouble. "Would you like my help?", the man asked. "Do you have any live traps and knowledge of catching aggressive wild creatures, that may also be toxic?", the professor asked. "I have the traps and you can have them, if you just bring them back. I don't think I'm up for more than that. I have a wife and kids to think of.", the man said. "I completely understand and appreciate the traps. I will get them back asap. Do you happen to have some concentrated solution to kill roaches that I can buy from you, just in case?", the professor replied. The man got him a sprayer and filled it with the killer. "I hope this helps...it's on me." and he got in his van and left. "What was that about, George?" Sharon asked. "We need to talk. Can we go inside and discuss this?", he replied.

Sharon made coffee and then they sat around the newlywed's new kitchen table and started to explain. Sharon and Todd were horrified that they had been living in the dream home for a week with these creatures! Sharon said, "George, you and your students can stay here until you completely rid my home of these things! We will be at my mother's house, if you need me." Sharon's mother's was only 5 minutes away, but it was away from here. Sharon and Todd packed as George and his students began to set traps in the basement and try to figure out where the creatures went when they weren't in their nests. Sharon called down the stairs, "we are leaving now! Please be safe!" They sure hoped they could!

They set all the traps and went upstairs for some lunch. Todd came running in and said, "We have another nesting! When we got to Sharon's mother's house, she was in the yard in hysterics!! She said a creature inside was eating her poodle, Baby Boo. I went in and couldn't find the creature or the poodle, but went into the basement and found the same nests! Not as many, but the same!" George and his students looked VERY worried. There was NO way that these were the only homes infested. It was going to be a LONG day!! :-(

Once George and Todd canvassed the neighborhood and Andrew and Sam set up traps in the 3 other basements where there were nests, they all settled in at the local motel and strategized until morning. They went back to each basement and had caught a couple of the creatures in each one. They took those back to the lab for examination and experiments, then they cleaned all the nesting material up, and burned it, just in case there were eggs. And they sprayed the homes with the concentrated killer. They went back 2 days later and sprayed again, even though there were no new nests. They gave each of the home owners, they green light to go back home and George left his card, just in case any nests were ever found again. Then they went back to the lab to finish the autopsy they had started on the one creature that they euthanized with the concentrated killer, just to make sure it was what would do the job on the other's. They found a very highly toxic blood in the creature. It was even more toxic than the concentrate that they used to kill the creature. "What in the world could have caused that to happen?" the professor enquired. Andrew pondered for a few moments and said, "Perhaps some of the "experimental" herbs that were all mixed together caused a chemical change in their blood?" "Do you have any of those herbs left?" the professor inquired. "I think there is still a small bag in our dorm room. I'll go get it." Andrew said as he ran out the door. When he arrived at the dorm room, Sam was baked on the couch with the bong still smoking on the coffee table. Andrew looked where he thought he had left it and all around that area too. He asked Sam, "Do you know where those herbs are that were left over from our T.H.E.M experiment are? I left them right here." Sam began to laugh really hard and said, "That must be why I have the wildest buzz I have ever experienced!! I've been smoking them!" and he passed out. Andrew grabbed what tiny bit there was left and put it in his pocket. Then he threw Sam over his shoulder, carried him to the car and threw him in the backseat. He carried him into the lab, still out cold and laid him on a cold autopsy table. That woke Sam quickly! Andrew told the professor what had happened and asked what kind of affect would that have on Sam. "I am afraid it might have the same affect. That's why pot brownies and smoking pot have the same affect on someone." "WHAT?" screamed Sam. "I'm gonna turn into one of those creatures?!?" "NO!" said the professor. "They were creatures when you fed them the stuff, then they grew and became toxic. They basically continued to be what they were, other than that fact. We will begin testing Sam's blood to find out if and when he begins becoming toxic." As the professor drew the first tube of Sam's blood, Andrew asked, "Is that how they overpowered the cat and the poodle? They bit and poisoned them?" "We never found any evidence in the way of waste after the meals, nor blood or anything left behind. But that is what I suspect probably happened", answered the professor. All of the sudden, Sam began to grow! It was not a gradual thing. One minute her was a normal 6 foot tall college student and less than 5 minutes later, he was as big as the Jolly Green Giant! He was still sitting up of the table, his knees were at least a foot past the end of the table and his head almost reached the ceiling. "Good thing you hadn't stood up, Sam" said Andrew. "You would have gone right through the ceiling or would have hit your head HARD!" The professor drew another tube of Sam's blood. He took both to his lab for analysis. When he returned, he said, "Just as I suspected. The first vial was completely normal and the second is toxic. Do you feel any different, Sam?" "I feel very hungry. Like I could, literally, eat a horse!" "Hell, you are so big, you could eat 2 and still not be full!" laughed Andrew.

They decided it was put a lid on this experiment and find an antidote for Sam. They went ahead and just took the documentation on the autopsied creature and put it in safe keeping, along with the blood and a few tissue samples. The professor took Sam's toxic blood vial and went to make an antitoxin from it. Andrew used to last of the concentrate and killed the few that they had saved and hoped that they would never need anymore! The professor came back and gave Sam the antidote and he shrank back to his normal sized. They also tested his blood again and there was no toxicity. Their adventure was over until...