They are coming…

The snail made a splash as it entered the sea. To drown or to be eaten alive? the professor wondered. He was waist-deep when he stumbled, waist-deep but head under when the snail crashed down upon him, and he realized as the thousands of pairs of teeth began to gnaw at his back, that his fate was both to drown and to be chewed to death.

(Patricia Highsmith, The Quest for Blank Claveringi)

Cool!

via Fark. I have that story in an ancient and mouldy Alfred Hitchcock anthology, and an excellent and creeptastic suspense-filled read it is, too. Everyone loves to watch a bore get what’s really coming to him, no matter how long it takes to get there.

It appears if he lives in Barbados, it’s already arrived. AP reports on the invasion of Giant African snails:

A breed of giant, ravenous snails that first appeared in Barbados five years ago has thrived on the tropical island, destroying crops and prompting calls for the government to eliminate the slimy pests…

“We saw snails riding on each other’s backs and moving in clusters,” said David Walrond, chairman of the local emergency response office that organized 60 volunteers for the hunt…

Ah, but were they the hunters or the quarry, my friend? Let us hope that these comparatively peaceable, although potentially fatal and certainly voracious, snails never call upon their aquatic cousins, the deadly Cone Snails, one of the most poisonous creatures to crawl across the beslimed and horror-struck face of the planet. One message carried through the briny vastness to Rl’yeh and an army of vengence could be unleashed!

In fact, they may already be on their way, streaming towards Barbados by the thousands.

Just. Very. Slowly.