It arrived and looked so small in its tank. Tucked in the corner, a hard shell and a curious, snapping head. Our little terrapin, Gary, held our hearts and imaginations for a year. Then, as Gary’s mass grew larger, and his marine home grew smaller, our interest in him began to wane.
Terrapins are good pets. Minimal care. Minimal mess. But they’re not the most entertaining beasts. After a while, we got Maisy, our cocker spaniel. Almost a dead opposite. Active. Wild. Maisy needed a lot of time, care and attention. Daily walks, three feeds, letting out. All the while, Gary watched on from his tank in the corner of the kitchen, as our family extended and prepared to go further afield.
It was the summer before I left for university that Maisy went missing.
We thought she’d run off at first. But our village is small and nearly everyone knows everyone. She wouldn’t have gotten far without someone ringing us. After a week, we started to think she’d been stolen. I couldn’t fathom why anyone would want to steal our dog. My father said she was a thoroughbred and worth a lot. My mother said the neighbours were always complaining about her barking. My brother and I were distraught, finding that no amount of explanation could soothe our grief.
We didn’t find her until the middle of July, in a particularly long heatwave. Well, a local farmer, Andy Gree, was the one to find her. Smell her.
The heat and the wildlife had done their best to strip the flesh from her little bones. What was left was black and sagging, hardly recognisable as a once-living thing, hissing on the dry dirt. But the brass tag around the rotten collar was dug out of her and presented to us like a medal.
The police said maybe a large fox had gotten to her and dragged her out there, or she’d ran after something and tangled with a mother badger. Certainly, an animal had gotten to her, before or after her death.
The days after were awful. I considered delaying university. I couldn’t bear the thought of meeting all these new people after seeing what any one of them could be capable of. I mean, it had to have been a person. What else was capable of such calculated hatred? Certainly not foxes or badges. My mother continued to suspect the neighbours. My brother and I began to list all the horrible little cliques from school and college. My dad was adamant that it was Andy Gree. He thought the convenience of finding Maisy in that field was far too simple.
In our fervour to find some meaning in the act, a deep well of pain began to flood our home. We stopped eating together. That was the first major sign. You might think common tragedy would unite people, but I think it fills the spaces where joy should reside. The communications get jammed in its viscous substance. At some point, my father casually remarked that Gary was going to need a bigger tank. ‘Then why don’t you fucking buy one?’ my mother snapped. That was the end of that thought.
Then, at the start of August, Andy Gree went missing.
People assumed the usual. Run away with another woman. Got into money trouble and bailed on his debts. Perhaps the Maisy incident had disturbed him. My father assumed it was guilt. I was almost inclined to agree until they found his body two days later.
The news was quick to sensationalise it. Andy Gree’s body was covered in hundreds of cuts, as if someone had gone at him with a pair of scissors. His throat had been punctured just below the chin. They assigned a detective to the case, a DCI Cleverly, which helped to fan the flames of speculation.
In all the chaos, you tend to lose track of little details. My father’s comment came back to me one night, as I lay awake. I went downstairs to check on Gary, which I hadn’t done in a long time. His tank was there, obviously, but I was surprised to see the dark mass floating within. He filled the whole space. He could hardly move his little flippers in the bubbling waters. I stood there, staring at him in mute horror. How could we have allowed this? Ignored him for so long. Poor little Gary, all grown up. Do terrapins get that big? I suppose they must.
But despite my shock, I said nothing the next day.
Later that week, DCI Cleverly was reported missing from his hotel.
A slow-rolling panic made its way across the village. Were we dealing with our own, rural, jack-the-ripper? The police got very serious at this point. A curfew was enforced so that more officers could be committed to patrolling the streets and searching the surrounding areas. All had to be home by eight o’clock. We made national news. Then, by the time the disappearances started in earnest, the international news.
It started with Lucy Parsons and her brother Nick. Then the owner of the night shop, Theresa Cadwell. Within a few days, we were losing three or four people a night. The army was called after a week. The whole village was quarantined while they searched for whatever was snapping away the lives of its occupants. A cult, some thought. This couldn’t be the work of a single person, surely.
By this point, I am ashamed to admit, I had worked it out. Gary was getting more reckless. He was leaving giant trails of blood that ran through our kitchen and across the dashboard. I spent the nights cleaning it up before my family could awake and discover the evidence of his sin. The acrid reek of bleach clung to me as fast as my guilt. But they could not know. No one could. Who would believe me? Yes, officer, the mass killing spree is being committed by my terrapin. And yes, I was beginning to doubt my sanity. Perhaps I was the killer and I was only projecting my guilt onto little Gary. That doubt lasted until he broke the confines of his tank.
The village was evacuated in September. By that point, Gary took up the entire back half of our kitchen. No one spoke about it. Before the trucks came to pick us up, we ate our final breakfast in that house in complete silence, while the enormous reptile watched over our shoulders. We could not look at each other. Or Gary.
He made no move to stop us. We took our things and left, never to return. Not that there is any choice.
Gary controls the North West of England now and his power grows daily. The army is fighting a losing battle. The Navy and Air Force have deployed all but their most devastating weapons. Perhaps the nuclear option is on the table now, as it's evident his growth isn’t stopping by itself. The top of his shell sits higher than the tallest building in Manchester.
He is making his way South, inevitably getting closer to denser populations. The cities along his projected path are being evacuated. An international council, The Gary Project, has been assembled in The Hague. Who knows what terrible options lie before them now? Perhaps they will write-off the whole of mainland Britain.
The future, as it always was, is uncertain. Will humanity survive Gary?
And through all this insanity, only one thing is left clear to me: We should have bought Gary a bigger tank.
Paddy Dobson
20th August 2020