Todd almost choked on his lunch when she said it.

“I’m sorry, say that again?”

“I said, they’re everywhere. It’s absolutely unbearable.”

“Excuse me, Mrs. Benton, but did you say you had purple snails?”

There was a pause. “Yes…yes, purple. At least, that’s how they look to me. Jeb, my husband, thinks they’re more a lavender color though.”

Todd put his sandwich down and tried to make some sense what he’d just been told. She couldn’t have seen purple snails. This sweet little old lady he was speaking to must be senile or have bad eyes or something.

“Okay, so how many of these…snails are there?”

“Like I said, they’re everywhere – the living room, the kitchen, the basement…it’s terrible.”

“That sounds like some infestation you’ve got there.”

“Can you help?”

“Um…yeah, I’ll come take a look. Give me your address.”

She complied and he wrote it down. After he hung up with her, he traced the numbers on the paper thoughtfully. Was this a prank? No, kids prank-called businesses, not little old ladies.

Then they must be seeing them wrong. There’s no such thing as purple snails. But if there were…it would certainly be one helluva find.

He looked up at the clock. It was lunchtime and he was the only one holding down the fort at the moment. He had six people that worked under him and usually they were the ones to go out and investigate. As the manager, all he had to do the paperwork and delegate duties to the employees. His secretary was even out to lunch for the next twenty minutes or so.

He studied the address again – 1453 Seabay Road. That was roughly five or ten minutes away. He could just wait until someone comes back for him to send out. After all, what’s twenty minutes? It wasn’t like the snails would get up and leave in that time frame.

But what if they were some new kind of insect breed? What if he was looking at the find of the century? His name in the papers would look a lot prettier than one of his coworkers.

He glanced at the clock. It was more than enough time for him to go out, have a look, then set them up for an appointment and be back before the rest of his staff came back. Worst case scenario, the old lady was color blind and he’d be back before the cushion in his chair got cold. Best case scenario, he’d be at ground zero of one of the most amazing discoveries known to man.

He grabbed the keys to the van and set out for The Benton’s vacation house. Mrs. Benton had told him that they had come up from Charlevoix for their summer vacation and when her husband opened the house, they discovered the infestation. As he drove, he imagined that it probably was just a few snails under the floorboards or around the foundation of the building, no big deal. He could probably have someone out there the same day for something like this.

Seabay Road was one of the few roads on the island that was literally off the beaten path. It twisted and turned through the hillsides that overlooked the island and Lake Huron and was known for its cabins and isolated vacation spots. This time of year, plenty of people started coming up from the lower peninsula to stay up in these hills to “rough it”.

It was also the most isolated and rural place on the island. Every summer, there was an article in the paper about some family losing a child or a dog somewhere up in the surrounding woods. It was a beautiful place to visit and the perfect place to get lost.

He navigated the van up through the hillside and onto Seabay Road until he reached The Benton’s place. The house was a beautiful two story building that sat only a mile or two away from a bluff that overlooked the lake. As he pulled into the driveway, he imagined that a person could see for miles and miles from the back porch.

Sitting in the yard next to the driveway was a large RV. As he pulled up, the door opened and out came an elderly woman. “Hello there!” she waved.

As Todd got out of the van, she started navigating her way down stairs leading out of the RV. She was bent over so much that she had a large hump laboring her gait and had to use a cane to walk. It looked like a painful trip, but she appeared to be managing without a complaint.

“Hello,” Todd responded. He saved her a few steps and walked up to her as she stepped onto the driveway. “You must be Mrs. Benton. My name is Todd. I’m from Extermicide?”

“Yes, yes. Of course. Won’t you meet my husband, Jeb?” She turned partway until her face was towards the RV. “Jeb? The exterminator’s here.”

A muffled; “I’m comin’,” came out of the RV and Betty turned back to Todd.

“I can’t thank you enough for coming out so quickly,” she said. “This whole thing has got us so distressed. You know, when you go on vacation, you just want to relax for a little while. It’s such a hassle to have to deal with this sort of trouble.”

“Well, hopefully, we’ll have this problem solved in no time.”

The door opened and an equally elderly man came walking out. He looked to be in better health than his wife. Jeb walked upright down the steps with no trouble and he greeted Todd with a clear, uncomplicated smile.

“Nice to meet you,” he said, shaking his hand firmly. “Let me show you the house. Betty, why don’t you go back inside and rest? I’ll show him around.”

“All right,” she said and turned back towards the stairs.

“Where’s your equipment?” Jeb asked as they made their way up the walk.

“Oh, I’m just the manager. All my guys are out to lunch, but your wife sounded so upset, I thought I’d at least come out and take a look.”

Jeb snorted. “Well, you might want to strap on some equipment if you have it with you and take care of this. I’m not about to wait around another day for this to be resolved.”

Todd chuckled. “With all due respect, these are snails we’re talking about, right? How bad could it be?”

Jeb just glanced at him as he fished his keys out of his pocket. “You tell me.”

When they reached the porch, Jeb unlocked the front door and walked inside. Despite the fact that it was noon, the living room was almost totally dark. Todd couldn’t see very much from the doorway.

“You might want to wait a second “til I find the light switch,” Jeb said from inside. Todd waited and stood on his side of the threshold. A second or two later the light came on…and Todd nearly fell over from shock.

The floor was covered with a sea of tiny purple shells. They moved slowly among each other making the floor appear to pulsate like a large purple rug.

“Oh…my…God…” Todd fell to his knees and peered down at the creatures. The shells were nearly transparent…but the color of the shell was definitely a light purple.

“I don”t believe this,” he said to no one in particular. “They’re…actually purple!”

“I’d say they were more a lavender color,” Jeb said, “but that’s not neither here nor there, is it? Can you get rid of them?”

Todd reached out and picked one up by the shell. The structure bent inward under the pressure of his fingertips.

“Yeah,” he said. “But…well, are you sure you want an exterminator? I mean…this is, like, a scientific find or something. We’re probably looking at a whole new species here.”

Jeb frowned at him. “Well, who do you suppose I call, then? The zoo?”

“Maybe. I dunno. I just…you can’t just kill them off–”

“Listen, son. I don’t really care if these are the only purple snails on the face of planet earth. All I know is that the little bastards are in my rug and all over my kitchen. I need them gone and I need them gone now. Now, if you can’t do it…well, I’m sorry. I’m gonna have to go with another company.”

“That won’t be necessary, Mr. Benton,” Todd said with a reluctant look back at the snails. “I’ll take care of them…all I ask is permission to take one or two of them with me…if that’s okay with you.”

“That’s fine with me. Just clear the rest of “em out of my house.”

Todd walked back to his truck and prayed he had a jar or something to carry a few of them with him. This was too amazing and if he had to wipe them off the planet, then he had to find a way to take some of them with him.

Fortunately, there was an old fast food box burying in the back of the van. He grabbed a rag and cleaned it out as best as he could, then put on his gear and set to work on the house.

As he stood at the door”s threshold, he looked down at them all. He’d be famous for this. As soon as he got back, he would call the local news, maybe even the national news. When word got out about this…

He picked up as many as would fit in his box, then set the box outside on the window ledge for later. Then he put on his mask and lifted the nozzle of his poison tank.

“Sorry, little guys,” he said with a sigh. Then he started spraying.

To his surprise, the snails melted under the liquid almost instantly. He moved through the living room, spraying away the delicate creatures by the horde. They all melted away as if they had been made from sugar or some other water soluble substance. By the time he was finished with the living room, there was nothing left, but purple puddles all over the room.

He moved on to the kitchen. The snails here were a little darker and took a little longer to melt, but, just as they had in the living room, they all disintegrated under the strength of his poison.

When he was finished, he moved to the basement door. The husband hadn’t mentioned it, but the wife had, and if it made sense that if they got into a sealed house at all, it was probably through a crack in the basement wall or something. He opened the door…and was taken aback by what he saw.

There were hundreds of them – on the ceiling, on the walls, on the stairs. They pulsed in the dark making the stairwell to the basement look less like a stairwell and more like a giant mouth.

“Jesus H. Christ,” he muttered as he looked at them all. He reached in to find a light switch, but his hand only touched cool hard shells.

“Okay,” he said, reaching into his pocket and pulling out his flashlight. As he shone his light over the wall of snails, he saw that these were larger than the ones in the kitchen and the living room…and their shells were darker.

“Wow.” He debated taking some of them out to the box on the window ledge with the others, but decided against it. The faster he got this job done, after all, the sooner he would be able to get his article in “People”.

He started spraying and as he expected, these took a little longer to melt than the ones in the kitchen and a lot longer than the ones in the living room, but like the rest, they all still disintegrated.

He started spraying the steps, stepping down once a step was clear. He continued to do this until he was about halfway down and he happened to look up. The walls above him were starting to become covered again with the snails. The sight sent a shiver through him. The snails slid across the wall like water, sliding at a speed that he’d never seen any snail move.

“Wow,” he whispered, though something in his gut was giving him warning. He sprayed the ones that had slid back on the wall again, then started back to spraying the stairs. He sprayed the next step, only to find that the snails weren’t disintegrating. He tried again, but the poison just glistened on the dark purple shells without any effect.

“Shit.” These must be the adults, he thought. Now he would have to call for backup. He turned around to go back up the stairs…

The staircase was covered again. As quickly as it took for him to turn his head, the walls, the ceiling and the stairs he’d just left were covered with the dark purple snails. He stood in the large pulsating mouth of the stairwell for a moment, debating. Then he looked down at the step he’d been standing on to see the snails moving over his shoes at a supernatural speed. He tried to grab the rail to shake them off, but as he reached for it, he crushed hundreds of snails under his hand. The slime made holding onto the rail like holding onto ice, but he managed to keep his grip, stomping on as many of them as he could to back up to the kitchen. Soon the stairs were slippery with dead snail carcasses and slime and, much to his dismay, he just couldn’t keep his balance.

Todd went tumbling down the staircase, crushing snails as he went along until he hit the basement floor with a thud.

“Fuck,” he said. He sat up and looked down at the purple slime that covered his overalls and his hands. He struggled to get up, but quickly realized that his legs weren’t responding…and his hands were starting to tingle.

What the…hell? He hadn’t fallen that hard. Why couldn’t he feel his legs?

He tried crawling back towards the stairs, but the snails were starting to cover the floor around him. They surrounded him like rushing water, crawling up his arms and legs like a creeping virus. His arms started to numb as they crawled up to his shoulders.

“No!” he yelled, as the ones on his legs moved up to his torso. He looked up into the pulsing mouth of the stairwell with desperation.

“Help!” he yelled at the top of his lungs. “Somebody help me!”

By the time the snails were up to his shoulders, he’d lost all feeling in his arms. He screamed as he fell into the sea of purple beneath him.

“Help me! AAAHHH! SOMEBODY HELP MEEEE!!!” He was screaming hysterically now as they moved up his neck and over his face. He was still screaming as they found his way into his mouth. He spit them out and continued to scream until he couldn’t feel his tongue…or the inside of his mouth. He screamed, his mouth loose and open from the numbness. He kept screaming as they filled his mouth and moved down his throat.

The last thing he heard as he tried to force air out of his lungs was the sound of sizzling. It wasn’t until he couldn’t scream anymore that he came to the realization that he was being dissolved from the inside out…

***

Jeb hung up the phone and sighed heavily. The deed was done and they’d skated through another year. There was only one thing left to do.

“Is it done?” Betty Benton said from the back.

“Yes. It’s all set.”

“Good.” She came hobbling out, the hump on her back making her move slowly through the trailer. She was dressed in her nightgown and a robe, ready for a long well-deserved sleep.

“What did you tell them?” she asked Jeb.

“Told them he never showed up and that we were very disappointed with their service. They won’t bother us.”

“Good,” she took a deep breath. “Let’s get this over with, then. I’m exhausted.”

Jeb helped his wife out of the RV and into the night. As the made their way up the walk, she started to shiver under the night air.

“We’d better hurry. I don’t want them to freeze.”

“They’ll be fine,” Jeb reassured her.

In the house, Betty stopped as she entered the living room, the remnants of the snails splattered all over the floor in dried purple puddles. “Oh…my…”

“Don’t fret,” her husband said patting her hand softly. “It was a necessary sacrifice. We never would have gotten him in here if the babies weren’t first.”

She nodded in understanding and they kept moving towards the basement.

As they walked down the basement steps, the snails moved out of the way to allow them passage. Jeb held her hand as they descended down into the cellar. “Watch your step. It’s still a little slippery.”

When they got to the foot of the stairs, the husk that was once Todd’s body was lying face up, its face turned to the sky. His skin had taken on a petrified appearance. His eyes were gone, leaving nothing but holes to stare blindly into oblivion. His mouth was stuck open in a silent scream, yet there was nothing left inside.

Jeb took out his hunting knife and cut open the overalls still covering his husk. Then sliced open his chest. Todd’s skin crunched under the blade as a slow hiss of air escaped his insides.

“Okay, Betty,” he said, waving his wife over. “Come on.”

She hobbled over and knelt down next to Todd with her back to him. She unbuttoned her nightgown revealing her hump. It pulsed slowly, purple-tinged life moving under her skin.

She took a deep breath. “Okay. I’m ready.”

Jeb sliced open her hump and instantly hundreds of eggs slid out and into the hole Jeb had cut into Todd’s body husk. When her hump was empty, Betty Benton slid her nightgown back up over her shoulders and stood up straight, her mobility restored.

“Oh,” she said, stretching out. “That’s so much better.”

Jeb wiped his knife off on his jeans. “Thank goodness, it’s over…at least for another year.”

“Yes. I’m going to bandage up my back and get some sleep,” she moved towards the stairs. “Make sure to turn the heat up tonight. I don’t want our babies to freeze.”

“Of course, dear.” Without another word, they left the basement and went to bed.