Frankenschnail

by kris on 31/05/08 at 6:24 pm

Chapter I- Dr. Frankenschnail

by Happy Trails

I’ve had a lot of cases in the big sim, but there is still one that makes me wake in the night in a cold sweat. It’s time I told the story, for my own sanity.

We snails have our own med school here in town; a good one too, with a large research department. The university is the hope of the future for the snail community; a light at the end of the tunnel, so to speak. Then came young Dr. Frankenschnail.

Oozeff Von Frankenschnail was one of those Swiss snails who moved here after the big leaf famine of ’07. Smartest snail I ever met. He kept talking about chemical compounds with high doses of energy that could reanimate dead cells. I’d say ‘Huh?’, and he would laugh, then pull a few different bottles out of my wet bar, mix them together, drop in a frogs leg and connect a hot wire to it. Now this isn’t your normal ‘make the frog jump’ gag- this leg would dance you an Irish Jig and then glide smoothly into a waltz. Oozeff was a genius.

Now Oozeff was engaged to my sister, Shelly. That’s how we came to get acquainted and be good friends. He was also one of the volunteers in ‘Revenge of the Snail’. With so much going on that night, no one really paid much attention to the fact that Oozeff walked out of there with a bag over his shoulder. That bag wasn’t there when he came in.

One night as Escargot and me were swapping slime, the phone rang it was Shelly.

"Happy, I need you to come over right away- it’s Oozeff. He went down to the lab last night and never came back."

"Ok, sis, I’ll be right there". I looked as Escargot and said "Sorry Babe, gotta go. Might have a new case- Oozeff is missing."

Escargot sighed and flopped back in her chair. I remember the curtains waving in the light evening breeze as she sat there.

When i got to Shelly’s she was pacing back and forth…at a snail’s pace. She pointed to the cellar, where Oozeff had his lab. I slithered slowly down the stairs, flashlight in my hand. Something happened here- something big.