James Axler – Watersleep

Doc would flee the guest room in tears.

Now, with the horror of the mutated leech directly under his bare feet, Doc would gladly have take a baker’s dozen of the small leeches his aunt Mary had carried around in her glass jar.

The leech was on Doc before the old man ever knew what had happened. Stirred up from slumber by his walking along the river’s sediment-covered floor, the creature was nearly eight feet in length. The wormy mutation was vibrantly colored in shades of red and turquoise against black.

Already one posterior sucker had softly attached itself from below to Doc’s unprotected foot, and now, using the anchor his flesh provided, the other end of the leech elongated up out of the river from behind. The pseudopod stretched around and above Doc’s shoulder, a tentacle intent on finding another haven of flesh to attach to.

Unfortunately for Doc, the widest possible area was his unprotected face.

The first attaching from the disklike sucker below the river’s surface was as gentle as a baby’s kiss as it clung to the upper part of Doc’s bare foot and calf. The many jagged teeth centered inside the other, front sucker came into play as they oozed over and down upon his unsuspecting face.

Watching from the shore, J.B. didn’t comprehend what was occurring since his vision was still less than reliable from the mist covering his glasses. It took Doc’s sudden shout of horror—and the abrupt ending of his cry—to alert J.B. that something had gone ter­ribly wrong.

Hearing the scream, the others on shore raced to­ward the river. Ryan’s keen eye spotted the problem immediately as the old man stumbled back and forth. He hadn’t fallen down in the water yet, but it was only a matter of time before he lost his footing.

“Bloodsuckers,” Ryan murmured. “Fireblast, but that’s the biggest one I’ve ever seen.”

“Christ, Ryan, what kind of leech is that?” Mil­dred asked in disbelief.

“Mutie. Drain a man dry in minutes.”

Dean raised his Browning to fire, but Krysty slapped it down.

“No, Dean. The bullets will tear right through that horror. You might hit Doc!”

Ryan had already dropped his blasters. He’d drawn his panga and run toward the river as soon as he heard Doc’s panicked voice ring out. But J.B. was closer. The Armorer had cast aside his Uzi and the Smith & Wesson M-4000 scattergun and was preparing to dive into the water when Mildred cried out a warning.

“John, don’t go in. There’s bound to be more of them!”

J.B. hesitated, but only for the span of a second, only until Ryan kept moving past him and went un­der, choosing to swim. As the one-eyed man took the lead, J.B. jumped in after him. However, J.B. chose to keep his body above water, wading out toward the struggling Doc as his old friend swam below. The Armorer had also pulled his own blade, a keenly honed Tekna knife.

In the dirty haze of the river, Ryan was soon able to spot Doc’s legs, and pushed his body closer while trying to keep alert to the presence of any more of the huge mutated leeches. Or worse yet, any other kind of mutations that might approach, attracted by the commotion.

Behind Ryan, J.B. kicked up dirt and silt from the river bottom and was rewarded with a bloodsucker of his own. The orange-and-yellow creature had been lying in wait, disturbed at first by the other leech’s efforts to ensnare Doc, and now by the vibrations and the stirring up of the muddy floor of the river.

The beast slithered toward J.B.—eyeless, blind— drawn to him as the other had been drawn to Doc by the vibrations in the water. The freakish creature came up, undulating around and behind the Armorer, slith­ering its anterior end up under his leather jacket.

J.B. felt the movement and tried to crane his neck around to see what was on his back. As he turned his head one way and then the other, he spied the lower part of the vibrantly colored leech extending down from under his coat. Each ringlike segment was quiv­ering obscenely as it slid farther and farther into his clothing.