Crumple Horned Snorkacks Novels & Stories

He capsizes his own boat. Thousands of bubbles rise to meet me as I crash and flail underwater. Now I’m treading, fighting back panic. Some of the oversized polliwogs have gotten stuck to my hair and arms and they’re all squirming to be free and far from the commotion I’ve stirred up on the surface. The creatures emit tiny, dying squeaks as they burst at my touch, rapidly clearing the water within a one-meter radius of me. I know I should propel myself to the riverbanks but before I can put thought to action, the corpses reach out of the water with their tender, wrinkly hands.

“Sorry. You caught me off guard and that was what I was thinking about.” “It’s fine. But what were you saying about hitchhiking?” “Oh! Crabs and amphipods have been found riding on top of or inside of their bell and young jackfish can be found swimming in and out of their tentacles. The jellies don’t mind them because they only eat other types of jellies.” She was surprised he actually cared to hear more about her totally random fact about an animal he had never heard of. But she supposed with a statement like that someone would want elaboration so they weren’t confused.

It sizzled against the wool of his coat. "Move!" Tristan shouted, shoving Saoirse forward. The ceiling exploded with movement. Five pale, spindly shapes dropped from the darkness. They were humanoid, but elongated. Their limbs were too long, with extra joints. Their skin was translucent, showing the black organs pulsing beneath. They had no eyes, only gaping mouths filled with needle-teeth. Crawlers. One landed directly on Jora, the scout. It didn't bite her; it wrapped its long limbs around her, crushing her ribs with a sickening crack.

he said, moving next to me to squint at the tank. Something swam in the murky water. They looked like tiny lobsters would look if their claws hadn’t fully formed. Instead, ropy appendages swirled next to them, probing the sides of the tank. I sprinkled some of the food in. The creatures sped to the surface to feed. There were too many to count, but I realized with horror that there would soon be less. They were fighting over the food, attacking each other with a ferocity that was scary even for such tiny creatures. “Holt shit,” Matt whispered. “Look at the little cannibals.”

Through the spray of the water, I saw the first of the Skarn pull itself from the earth. It was horrifying. It looked like a massive, subterranean centipede, the size of a transit bus. Its body was segmented with thick, jagged plates of black volcanic glass, and its multi-jointed legs stabbed into the soft earth like steel pistons. It had no eyes, only a massive, circular maw lined with rows of crystalline teeth spinning like a drill bit. The creature let out a deafening, vibrating hiss, its mandibles snapping blindly toward the nearest human triage tent.

Beyond that, the planks stretched out over open water toward a stub of side pier we hadn’t taken. Something was thrashing in the water there. At first, in the fog, it just looked like a pale shape tinged with color, bobbing, and jerking. Then, the waves parted enough to show a face—white, cracked paint, red flaking lips pulled into a permanently stretched grin. Another clown. Not on a piston this time. This one was attached to something long and snakelike under the surface, its body more like a grotesque anglerfish’s lure than a proper animatronic.

Breaking the Surface The sea creatures screamed in silence. Ronan felt their terror ripple through the currents like knives. Schools of fish darted and spun with no direction, their bodies colliding in blind panic. Larger predators lashed at shadows, their instincts unraveling, unable to read the ancient maps etched into tide and current. Even the smallest creatures—sprats, krill, the hidden plankton that lit the dark with secret luminescence—twitched and dimmed, their pulses erratic, confused.

As they passed more yachts, quite decent in his opinion, suitable for getting on them at all, he concluded that it didn’t matter much. At this point, the only thing that mattered was the size of the toilet, because he didn't think he needed more to be happy besides this space. A large toilet where he could sit comfortably on the floor, stretch his legs freely with his head in the toilet bowl. This was the immediate prospect. Unfortunately! He watched the passing units carefully. Some were quite impressive. Their interiors, small fragments of which he could admire, looked better than many apartments. On the lowest decks of larger yachts there were water scooters and specialized diving equipme

I walked over to see what had their attention. Bubbles were forming all over the dried-out bed of shit. Twinkling in the sunlight and smelling bad enough to curl the hairs in your nostril, the bubbles burst. Out of each one came another bunnicorn. They landed on the grass with a flump, looked around, saw one of their own kind staring back, and charged. They would get close to stabbing each other in the face, but a flick of the head and the two horns would clash, knocking both jousters aside.

“I’m leaving. Mom and Dad are taking a nap. They want you to run to the store and get some butter.” “Okay, Hannah,” I snapped. “I’m trying to play.” “And what’s that smell? Are you cooking something?” The zombies cornered us in the abandoned warehouse. “Hannah, no! Just go. I’ll get the butter.” She said something, but my eyes were glued to the TV. My thumbs ached from the controller. “Great,” Frankthetank14 screamed. “We lost.” I slammed the controller down and palmed my face. “Same time tomorrow? I’ve got to go to the store for my parents.”