I thought the first part of this story was way too weird for anyone to like it, but in response to that cool but unexpected thing called Popular Demand, here’s some more…
I went into the lab on Monday, having recovered from my unexpected and overwhelming encounter with the tree. My colleagues, all research students like me, were excitedly poring over a flood of emails and faxes about the sudden spate of these curious, stunted trees that had started to appear all over the Midlands.
“What’s up?” I asked. Gail turned around and grinned at me.
“Have you heard about these weird trees?” she said, waving a printout at me. “They’re popping up all over the place. Nobody seems to know how they’re spreading so fast.”
Gail was the friend of mine who had told me about the tree in the first place. She was definitely the most intelligent amongst us, with a brilliant, forensic mind that could cut through irrelevancies and see patterns in evidence quicker than any of the rest of us. She was good-looking, plump, with strong features and long brown hair that she kept tied behind her head in a ponytail. She played down her own attractiveness by always wearing horn-rimmed glasses, sensible sweaters that looked much too tight on her, shabby jeans and work boots, but even clothes like these couldn’t quite hide her voluptuous, rounded figure. She was just not interested in her own sexiness – every so often, late at night in the university bar, one of us would drunkenly try to chat her up, but she would always laugh, and throw beer at us.
Gail had been unwittingly responsible for my assault by the tree, and ever since it had happened, I had wanted to show her what it was like. Now I realised I had my chance.
“Yeah, there’s one down by that bog I was at last week,” I said casually. “I had a look at it. I think I know how it does it.”
“How?” she said eagerly. “Does it have male and female forms? No, they’re too sparse for that. Airborne seeds? No, I know, it’s got to be a succulent, right? Is it a succulent?”
“I’m not sure,” I said, trying to keep a smile off my face. “Maybe you should come and have a look. You’d be able to explain it better than me.” Gail rolled her eyes in mock exasperation.
“I have to do
everything
round here,” she complained. “All right, surfer boy. Get the car round the front. I’ll meet you out there.”
Ten minutes later, I was driving Gail out of the city and into the flat, featureless countryside of the Midlands. She kept on talking about the trees and expounding her theories about their method of reproduction. I nodded and made the occasional encouraging remark, but I knew how the trees reproduced – at least, with men – and I told myself that what I had planned was in the spirit of scientific enquiry. The fact that Gail didn’t know she was my test subject was unfortunate, but it was also necessary, if we were to gain a true understanding of the tree’s physiology.
After a couple of hours, we had reached the bog. It was another hot, cloudless day, the midges dancing low over the brown water. Gail clambered out of the car and set off towards the tree. I got the video camera out and hoisted it onto my shoulder, to make a permanent record of the proceedings.
“Is this it?” said Gail, pointing at the lone, twisted, thick-trunked tree, standing at the lip of the bog.
“That’s it,” I said, pressing REC and putting the eyepiece to my eye. Gail skirted around the bog and walked quickly towards the tree, stepping carefully to avoid the pools. I followed her, and soon we were standing fifteen feet away from the tree.
“So what’s the big secret?” she asked, wiping the sweat from her brow with the back of her hand. She was red-faced and hot inside her thick woollen sweater and muddy jeans.
“Well,” I said, still videoing her, “if you go up close, there’s a sort of vertical crack, at about head height. Have a look at it.”
“Where?” she said, taking a step forward.
Suddenly, with a kind of SCHLOP! sound, a melon-sized gob of yellowish slime was spat out of a knot in the bark of the tree, flew through the air and splattered over the front of Gail’s sweater. She stopped, amazed.
I was amazed, too. She looked down at the mess across her chest, looked at me and grinned hugely.
“Did you
see
that?” she whooped. “It spat at me!”
“Careful,” I said. “Maybe it’s poisonous.” Gail examined the yellow slime and sniffed it.
“Don’t think so,” she said. “It smells just like resin. I think it might be – hang on…” She dabbled her fingers in the mess of yellowish goo, and a look of wonder spread across her face. Taking the sides of her sweater in both hands, she pulled gently, and it limply came apart across her chest. The sweater had just melted away where the slime had touched it. She dropped the ruined sweater on the ground.
“Weird,” she breathed. “Looks like it can dissolve vegetable fibres.” She scooped up some more slime and rubbed it on her shirt-front, and sure enough, the shirt seemed to liquefy and fall apart at the front. She pulled off her shirt – underneath, she was wearing a one-piece black swimsuit.
“Polyester,” she grinned at me. “This should hold up.” She stepped forward again, and this time there was a SCHLOP! SCHLOP! as two more huge gobs of yellow goo were fired at her, splashing over the lap of her jeans and the top of her swimsuit. She laughed.
“I don’t think it likes me,” she commented, as her jeans fell apart, falling down her legs. She sat on the ground and pulled off her boots and socks, then threw her ruined jeans away. “We have more clothes in the car, right?” she asked, wiping the slime off her chest. Her heavy breasts were bulging in the swimsuit.
I had to swallow – my mouth was dry. “Yeah,” I said. Gail nodded, and stood up again. Now she was dressed only in her tight black swimsuit – her plump, bare arms and legs were exposed for the first time since I had known her. She eyed the tree carefully, and stepped forward again.
