Late summer
I'm so excited I can hardly move. I hardly dare to write this or even think it, afraid I'll jinx it somehow. But here goes: I think I might—just might—get rescued!!
This morning I was dozing, mostly submerged, in a patch of cattails by the band camp when a strange sound began to seep slowing into my consciousness. At first I thought I was dreaming. Then I groggily pondered what the sound might be. Then I realized what it was and nearly jumped out of the water.
It was a human voice!!
It seemed to be coming from the science camp, so I swam quietly over there. And indeed, a human was walking around outside the building, talking loudly to itself.
I'd almost forgotten what different kinds of humans looked like. After looking for a while, I sorted out the characteristics: female, middle-aged, kind of thick-bodied, light skin, brown hair, glasses. Ordinary for a human, but not like anything I had ever thought to see again. I nearly screamed with excitement.
She sounded excited too. But she didn't seem to have seen me, so I wondered what she was talking about. I swam closer, to listen.
"...and DNA scanners and state-of-the art fusion inducers, oh I remember when those were the new breakthrough, Angy, if only you could see what we have now, you could have taken this so far, even farther than you imagined and—what's this?"
She had seen me. Before I could swim away, she rushed to the water's edge, grabbed my arms and hauled me onto shore. I writhed madly but she stood like a boulder, holding my wrists in a powerful grip and looking me over thoroughly. Since my clothes had fallen apart long ago, I would've been embarrassed if I hadn't been so scared.
"Well, aren't you the most fascinating creature! Duck feet, salamander gills, frog skin with fish slime, why I've never seen so many creatures combined. Oh, Angus was a genius! Did he make you?"
"Huh?" I said.
"Mmm, I guess you do look too young to have been created by him. It must have been one of his brighter students."
"Who's Angus?"
"Why, Angus Spear, the founder of this camp!" She pointed to the nearby sign. "He was the world's greatest geneticist…and he was my boyfriend in college. We were going to get married, after he'd got the camp fully established and could support my research. I'm not the teaching type, though he could ignite young minds like nobody else!" She sighed. "But then he made an alligoater—an alligator-goat hybrid, you know—that chewed through its cage and swallowed him. What a terrible loss to the world!"
My brain and mouth jammed. "Um."
"Other people took over his camp for a few years before it ended. Were you a specimen? Or a camper who experimented on yourself?"
"Uh, neither. I went to Camp Wannaweep over there"—pointing--"and I went swimming in the lake."
Words came easier. "And the lake was polluted with crud from the science camp which you can see coming out of the pipe right there, and it turned me into a monster and I've been trying to survive here for I don't know how long and it's been years since I got stuck here and lost everything, all because of your stupid Angus!" The end was a shout.
"You poor thing! All alone in the woods for years! You must be a very tough boy indeed, young—what's your name?"
"Gill."
"How perfect! With those cute little gills of yours! Well, Gill, I'm Amy and I'm going to take you home."
"What? Why?"
"You don't like the body Angus's people gave you, do you? I'm a geneticist, too. I can turn you back."
I jerked like I'd gotten an electric shock. Could it be? No, I couldn't dare hope. She was trying to kidnap me for some twisted experiment. "Uh-uh. I've had enough science done to me."
"I promise I won't hurt you. I'm very experienced in combining and separating animals. Like this Otter-fly." She touched a big gray pin on her shirt, shaped like an otter with dragonfly wings.
"No."
"I'll let you go anytime you ask. And I'll give you good food."
"I'll dry out and die if you take me away from the lake."
"OK, I'll bring some water for you to ride back in. You can live in my pool. At least come have a meal. You must be starving."
Oh, the temptation! I didn't think she would make me human again. She was in cahoots with the people who mutated me in the first place, and I didn't trust any of them. But what did I have to lose? A smelly cold lake and a life of endless lonely hunger.
"OK."
"Wonderful! I'll be back in a half-hour or so." She hurried off.
So now I'm waiting for her to return. Will she?? Maybe she'll forget about me, or decide I'm not worth the trouble. And if she does rescue me, what will happen then? I'm scared, but the other choice was being stuck here forever. Any chance at becoming human is worth the risk. God, I hope she was telling the truth about feeding me.
September 8
The good news: Amy rescued me!! She came back in a pickup truck with its bed full of water in which I rode away, comfortable and hidden.
The bad news: She didn't make me human again. Oh, she tried. Fed me some disgusting potion that only made all my hair fall out. Put me in a machine that zapped me with a gazillion volts of electricity (or something that felt like it) until I toppled out screaming in pain but with everything still intact. So now I'm bald, singed and as fishy as ever. #!!
She sure is a geneticist, though. Her house and lab are full of hybrid animals even freakier than me. Panda-kangaroos, owl-elephants, rhino-rats…you name it, she's made it. Seriously, in a twisted-creations contest, this woman would kick Dr. Frankenstein's butt. Yet for all that, she's pretty nice.
I live in a swimming pool, in a big room under her house. The water is constantly pumps through a filter that removes the slime, which Amy collects daily to "study." She takes other "samples" from me too, sometimes—blood, skin, spit etc. It's sort of annoying, but a small price for clean, warm water.
A bunch of live otter-flies share my pool, separated from me by a solid plastic wall. They're otters with dragonfly wings, just like on Amy's pin—only much bigger and noisier. They like to fly around, wings buzzing like helicopters, and splash into the water. All freakin' day and night. I often want to spit them down, but I can't seem to produce much spit. Maybe it's because I'm not taking in lake-poison anymore. Anyway, I'd get in trouble. They're Amy's favorites; she spends a lot of time over there petting them and feeding them fish.
She feeds me too, and well! Any food I ask for, everything I've been deprived of, she brings. Baked chicken, spaghetti, fresh peaches, cookies…man, it all tastes so good after years of tainted raw fish. The first time I bit into one of her hot, sweet chocolate-chip cookies, I nearly cried. Chewing different foods, with fangs, takes some getting used to. So does wearing a bathing suit, and swimming in a closed area without hitting the walls. But I'm up for it.
God, I'm lucky she found me.
October 3
I'm getting better. And bored. And mad.
When Amy brought me here, I was hungry, tired and weak. Now, after a month of rest and good food, I'm recovering from my time in exile. I've gained weight; my bones no longer stick out. The burns from Amy's botched attempt at humanizing me are gone. I'm full of energy. And I have no use for it.
I swim around the pool in circles. Endless mindless circles like a fish in a tank, but there's nothing else to do. The otter-flies chitter happily to each other nearby, without a care in the world. Amy sometimes comes and talks to me, but she's just as cheerful and boring as they are.
Much as this place is better than the lake, I can't stay here forever. I've tried to imagine it: growing up, growing old, in this little pool, seeing only this room with its gray walls and fluorescent lights. I can't live like that! I've spent too much time outside, with plants and sunlight and freedom, to get used to it. I need to get out. But I have nowhere to go, except the lake, and I don't ever want to go back there again.
In dreams, the lake laps in my ears, its chill seeping into my body and its stench into my nose. I wake trembling to calm warmth, but it returns with the next nap. Sometimes I dream instead of my family, vague visions but followed by wistful joy. I want to see them again, but I can't. That lake took me from them, and it won't get out of my head!
This is all Ron's fault. Remember Ron? The Squeeb who made me stay in the lake until it turned me into a monster? Yeah, him. I've sometimes fantasized, through the years, about making him pay, making him shudder as I do whenever I look at myself, cry as I've cried alone in the cold forest. But I never thought I'd get a chance.
Now, maybe, I can. I'm back in the human world, sort of, with someone who—judging by the number of friends she talks about—has a lot of connections. Somehow, with her help, I might be able to get at the Squeeb. And when I do, he'll have a lot to answer for.
A/N: Any misrepresentation of DNAmy is unintentional. It's been several years since I last saw an episode with her in it.