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The Leech
by
“Doesn’t seem to be generating heat,” he said to Conners. “Did you notice any the first time?”
Conners shook his head.
Micheals picked up a clod of dirt and tossed it on the object. The dirt dissolved quickly, leaving no trace on the gray-black surface. A large stone followed the dirt, and disappeared in the same way.
“Isn’t that just about the damnedest thing you ever saw, Professor?” Conners asked.
“Yes,” Micheals agreed, standing up again. “It just about is.”
He hefted the spade and brought it down smartly on the object. When it hit, he almost dropped the spade. He had been gripping the handle rigidly, braced for a recoil. But the spade struck that unyielding surface and stayed. There was no perceptible give, but absolutely no recoil.
“Whatcha think it is?” Conners asked.
“It’s no stone,” Micheals said. He stepped back. “A leech drinks blood. This thing seems to be drinking dirt. And spades.” He struck it a few more times, experimentally. The two men looked at each other. On the road, half a dozen Army trucks rolled past.
“I’m going to phone the college and ask a physics man about it,” Micheals said. “Or a biologist. I’d like to get rid of that thing before it spoils my lawn.”
They walked back to the house.
* * * * *
Everything fed the leech. The wind added its modicum of kinetic energy, ruffling across the gray-black surface. Rain fell, and the force of each individual drop added to its store. The water was sucked in by the all-absorbing surface.
The sunlight above it was absorbed, and converted into mass for its body. Beneath it, the soil was consumed, dirt, stones and branches broken down by the leech’s complex cells and changed into energy. Energy was converted back into mass, and the leech grew.
Slowly, the first flickers of consciousness began to return. Its first realization was of the impossible smallness of its body.
It grew.
* * * * *
When Micheals looked the next day, the leech was eight feet across, sticking out into the road and up the side of the lawn. The following day it was almost eighteen feet in diameter, shaped to fit the contour of the ditch, and covering most of the road. That day the sheriff drove up in his model A, followed by half the town.
“Is that your leech thing, Professor Micheals?” Sheriff Flynn asked.
“That’s it,” Micheals said. He had spent the past days looking unsuccessfully for an acid that would dissolve the leech.
“We gotta get it out of the road,” Flynn said, walking truculently up to the leech. “Something like this, you can’t let it block the road, Professor. The Army’s gotta use this road.”
“I’m terribly sorry,” Micheals said with a straight face. “Go right ahead, Sheriff. But be careful. It’s hot.” The leech wasn’t hot, but it seemed the simplest explanation under the circumstances.
Micheals watched with interest as the sheriff tried to shove a crowbar under it. He smiled to himself when it was removed with half a foot of its length gone.
The sheriff wasn’t so easily discouraged. He had come prepared for a stubborn piece of rock. He went to the rumble seat of his car and took out a blowtorch and a sledgehammer, ignited the torch and focused it on one edge of the leech.
After five minutes, there was no change. The gray didn’t turn red or even seem to heat up. Sheriff Flynn continued to bake it for fifteen minutes, then called to one of the men.
“Hit that spot with the sledge, Jerry.”
Jerry picked up the sledgehammer, motioned the sheriff back, and swung it over his head. He let out a howl as the hammer struck unyieldingly. There wasn’t a fraction of recoil.