CREEPER

CREEPER

"Neither men nor fence slats but rows of bowed staves or spears or...spines, all shifting and bristling in suspect motion."

"Oarfish was the only choice she lingered on—the only thing long enough—but Colleen knew this was no way an oarfish. Oarfish didn't have spikes near that high and didn't have legs at all."

"A second only or less, but in that flash she saw the lumpy globe at its north end, the two curling tusks that hung beneath it. And she saw the same silver-blue sheen she'd seen off the crust on her downstairs door."

"Not tusks then. Appendages of some kind. If the round part was the head they might be fangs."

Scott Nicolay, after

HAIRLESS PIG-THING

HAIRLESS PIG-THING

“The thing had to be at least a yard high, no ‘coon or ‘possum, too big even for a feral dog. And all weird white hairless. Was it a hog maybe?”

“Still others crouched on all fours like hairless dogs…or pigs.”

Scott Nicolay, Tuckahoe

FLOPPER

FLOPPER
“Some were little more than humping globs.”

“Not Storch or his mother, but things that crept and crawled and could not speak. Floppers. Some came and went and passed him by but others hung and hugged him like lonely lost children, what arms they bore wrapped round his legs or waist. They were clammy and soft and stunk of trash fires and mold…and when they touched him they shared their thoughts, or at least their sight.”

“They bobbed and quivered as if pumped with anticipation. Some lacked a limb or two while others bore more than could be normal or good.”
Scott Nicolay, Tuckahoe

FLAPPER

FLAPPER

“Two herons. Three. What the….? When he saw the third he saw the truth. Not herons. Not birds at all. Bigger, bigger than herons even, with lacy rippling wings like a bats, cheese hued membranes with Swiss cheese holes, lumpy bodies and twisting stalks stuck out for necks to end in equine heads with goggle eyes. How could he ever have thought they were birds? And that was all he had time to register before the first was almost on him.”

 “Storch stared out over the army of creatures that fluttered, staggered, stumbled, stood and slowly shook his head, still smiling. —Well, some the walkers and floppers come from Old Mother Storch. Not so many anymore though. Mostly they come up from the Bottom—floppers, flappers, haystacks, all the others. Ones from Mother Storch used to last longer. Her best could even talk. They got more real blood n’em, like you and me.”

“The flapper next began to wind its snaky neck round Donny’s own neck and head, each twist bringing that ugly horse head closer.”
Scott Nicolay, Tuckahoe

SPIDER-LEGGED FLOPPER

SPIDER-LEGGED FLOPPER

“Storch stared out over the army of creatures that fluttered, staggered, stumbled, stood and slowly shook his head, still smiling. —Well, some the walkers and floppers come from Old Mother Storch. Not so many anymore though. Mostly they come up from the Bottom—floppers, flappers, haystacks, all the others. Ones from Mother Storch used to last longer. Her best could even talk. They got more real blood n’em, like you and me.”

“Mostly they come up from the Bottom—floppers, flappers, haystacks, all the others.”

“Others were whole clumps of heads and limbs a few resembled huge stumpy spiders.”

Scott Nicolay, Tuckahoe

WALKER

WALKER
“Storch stared out over the army of creatures that fluttered, staggered, stumbled, stood and slowly shook his head, still smiling. —Well, some the walkers and floppers come from Old Mother Storch. Not so many anymore though. Mostly they come up from the Bottom—floppers, flappers, haystacks, all the others. Ones from Mother Storch used to last longer. Her best could even talk. They got more real blood n’em, like you and me.”

“He saw several one armed things that met the description, but was Cousin Whatever still here, the one from the Parkway?”

“—Well, some the walkers and floppers come from Old Mother Storch.”
Scott Nicolay, Tuckahoe

XIPÉHUZ (PHASE V)

XIPÉHUZ (PHASE V)
"Their anger appears violent. They clash with motions similar to those one observes when they attack large animals or men, and it is these same battles that have taught me that they were not actually immortal, as I was initially inclined to believe, because two or three times I saw Xipéhuz succumb in these encounters, which is to say they collapsed, contracted, and petrified. I carefully preserved some of these strange corpses, and perhaps they may later be used to discover the nature of Xipéhuz. They are yellowish crystals, irregularly arranged, and streaked with blue lines."

J.-H. Rosny, The Xipéhuz
as translated by Scott Nicolay
Read Scott's blog-post about this story here.

XIPÉHUZ (PHASE IV)

XIPÉHUZ (PHASE IV)

"Here and there among these were other nearly cylindrical Shapes, one thin and tall, another low and squat, all brazen-hued and speckled with green, and all having the same characteristic point of light as the striped Shapes."

J.-H. Rosny, The Xipéhuz
as translated by Scott Nicolay
Read Scott's blog-post about this story here.

XIPÉHUZ (PHASE III)

XIPÉHUZ (PHASE III)

"First came a great ring of translucent bluish cones with their pointed ends upright, each about half the size of a man. Bright stripes and dark spirals streaked their surfaces. Each bore a dazzling star at its base."

J.-H. Rosny, The Xipéhuz
as translated by Scott Nicolay
Read Scott's blog-post about this story here.

XIPÉHUZ (PHASE II)

XIPÉHUZ (PHASE II) 
"Stranger still were the flat sheets that rose behind them, streaked with multicolored ellipses in patterns like birch bark."

J.-H. Rosny, The Xipéhuz
as translated by Scott Nicolay
Read Scott's blog-post about this story here.

XIPÉHUZ (PHASE I)

XIPÉHUZ (PHASE I)
"Regarding the actual phenomenon of their procreation, I have little to say; but that little is characteristic enough. First of all, this reproduction occurs four times a year, right before the equinoxes and solstices, and only on the clearest nights. The Xipéhuz gather in groups of three, and each of these groups eventually assemble themselves into a single extended ellipse. Thus they remain all night and morning until the sun reaches its highest elevation. When they part, vague, vaporous and enormous shapes arise." 
J.-H. Rosny, The Xipéhuz
as translated by Scott Nicolay
Read Scott's blog-post about this story here.

SOFT FROG

 SOFT FROG

"Jaycee saw the reeds spread at their base then spring back as the shape bulged between them. He figured the thing about the size of a baseketball. Capillaries of tiny lightning rippled over the blue-white blob as it moved, making a fitful little humping leap."

"-It's just the soft frogs. They come up from the swamp at night. They're weird but not really dangerous, least not so long as you keep moving anyway. They're not very fast."

"Her theory was the frogs are mutants that evolved to live without skins. Like maybe they got changed by the stuff the big pharmaceuticals are dumping in the swamp."

"So Destiny told us she thought it was the chemicals in the swamp puffed them up nd made them lose their skins, mad them all bubbly and foamy."

"He zigzagged between the flickering blobs."

"He saw beyond a doubt now they had no mouths. Just blunt muzzles of foam and those hateful yellow eyes."

Scott Nicolay, Soft Frogs