By Mithra Stubbs
(Yes, this obituary title sounds rather a lot like a children’s story, perhaps it will become one in the fullness of time…)
“I know exactly what I’m doing,” she said. Perhaps she did, but clearly the giant slug also knew exactly what it was doing. They often do, and this is by no means the first reported case of one eating a person. Island veterans will know that giant slugs ate three people last time they appeared.
The unseasonably warm weather and dry spell have of course caused areas of land to dry out. Vegetable plots are especially hard hit. And as is inevitably the case, when the land dries, the soil cracks open in slightly disturbing ways and then the giant slugs emerge and we have to deal with them.
I remind you all to stay away from the cracks and to carry at all times something you can use to fend off the giant, flesh-hungry slugs.
Susie’s plan involved salt from sea water, which I grant you would have had the desired effect on our regular slug population. And it acts as a sort of marinade which may make them fractionally less disgusting to cook. Giant slugs, it turns out, are not especially troubled by salt. As they emerge only in the hottest conditions, they seem unbothered by drying out, or by flame attacks. Perhaps it’s because of all the blood they consume. Susie was a particularly healthy islander with a reputation for her vegetable based diet. I can only assume this will have made her an especially nutritious snack for the slugs and that as a consequence, this lot will be worse than the ones who were feeding on the shrivelled bodies of longer-standing denizens.
They have of course also eaten everything in her vegetable patch, but I do not think this will change their fondness for flesh, sadly. If only vegan principles might be absorbed from within, we would all be safe from further predations!
Whether there is anything left of Susie that we might bury is at present unknown – no one wanting to take their chances with a well fed slug at this point. It seems a pity not to have a funeral of some sort, so we’ll need some collective consideration of the objects that both best represent her and have least use for anyone else, and we will of course bury those with all due ceremony.
Find the first giant slug incidents here – https://hopelessvendetta.wordpress.com/2009/08/21/beneath-us/
And part 2 here – https://hopelessvendetta.wordpress.com/2009/08/28/the-horrors-continue/
And the kickstarter responsible for the carnage (but not eating the remains) is over here – https://www.kickstarter.com/projects/countrostov/tales-of-hopeless-maine