When the foliage moved, Charlie dropped the clippers.

He’d been joking, for God’s sake.

But no, the thing trembled until the camouflaging leaves had fallen away, revealing a dark, oleaginous, egg-shaped thing standing absurdly on the pointy end in defiance of sanity.

Charlie whispered frantically, “Get back, back away! Run!” But the other two men merely stared, fascinated, as the thing stretched and unwound and bent until it had assumed a zigzag shape as tall as Ray.

“What’s it doing?” Ray asked, scratching the ashy stubble on his chin.

“It’s formed a letter ‘M’! Run, for God’s sake!” Charlie shrieked and fled as quickly as his knobby knees could manage.

“An ‘M’?” Marty asked Charlie’s back. He turned back to Ray – maybe he’d misheard – and that was when the thing whipped around and-

Oh, Marty loathed himself later, even when Charlie reassured him that he’d have only doomed himself if he’d tried to save Ray.

But he ran, ran after Charlie, leaving an old friend to a sad fate.