Crocodile Morph

"Okay, Rachel," I whispered. "Focus. Do this fast!"

I felt the changes begin almost immediately. And I saw them happen. I saw the skin on my arms turn a yellowish green, then a darker, almost black-green. My skin began to crack. You know how the bottom of a dried-out lake looks? Where the mud cracks and forms big, irregular patches? That was my skin. Patterns of cracks raced across my arms and up and down my back.

I could feel the skin growing hard and crusty all along my back. It was softer, but still stiff all down my front. It didn't hurt - morphing never really hurts - but there were still things I could feel. The thickening, hardening, and cracking of my skin. The way my spine stretched and stretched, longer and longer, making little strained-bungee-cord noises. The shortening of my arms and legs.

My legs quickly grew so short I couldn't stand any longer. I fell forward, facedown in the sand.

The big crocodile was staring. At me now, rather than the little boy.

The little boy was coming to. His eyes fluttered. He moved his hands and legs. And as he moved, I could see the big crocodile's eyes focus back on him. Back on his prey.

Then my face bulged out. Out and out and out, like some awful pimple. My teeth and gums itched incredibly as new teeth appeared and old teeth grew long.

Soon I could see my own green scaly snout pushing out ahead of me. It was unbelievably long, and already I could sense the incredible power of those jaws.

Okay, Rachel, get ready! I warned myself.

I knew what was coming next. As the physical changes were completed, the crocodile mind would appear.

It's part of morphing. The mind and instincts of the animal exist right along with your own mind and thoughts. And sometimes they can be terribly hard to control.

Sometimes, control is almost impossible.

The crocodile brain didn't rush at me. It didn't do anything quickly. It was slow. So slow.

But it was slow the way a supertanker may be moving slowly, but still be impossible to stop. It rolled toward me: utter simplicity. No complex thoughts. No doubts. Just hunger. Only hunger.

I felt it bubbling up inside my own head, like a slow-motion volcano.

Resist!

But the crocodile mind had evolved millions of years before the first monkeys had swung in the trees. The crocodile mind had survived, unchanged, while dinosaurs went down to extinction and the first birds flew. It was old. Old and simple and clear, and it rolled across me, sweeping aside my fragile human thoughts.

The crocodile knew two things. There was prey - the little boy. And there was an enemy - the other big crocodile.

My eyes looked out of the sides of my head. It was good, clear vision, not much different than my own. I could see almost all around me at once. Just behind me, to my left, something struggled and moaned. I could practically taste the blood in its veins. I could sense its heat.

Just ahead of me was a big male crocodile. Just like me. He was stalking the same prey.

Simple equation: two crocodiles of equal size stalking the same prey. I either had to fight the other croc, or lunge for the prey before the enemy could act, or back away.

I spun left, fast as a snake!

I opened my jaws so wide that my own snout hid part of the prey from view. In a second I would close my jaws on that squirming, moaning little boy and . . .

Sudden movement! I was being attacked!

The big crocodile rushed at me with amazing speed. I whipped my tail and turned to meet him. The momentum carried me off the sandbar into the water. Water! Now we could really move!

The other crocodile dived, trying to get below me to rip open my soft underbelly. I squirmed and rolled. A tail lashed through the murky water. I snapped.

Yes! My jaws closed on something and squeezed.

Then, pain! A sudden searing pain in my left hind leg. There was blood in the water. The other croc had my leg. I had his tail. We churned the water to foam, rolling and tightening our jaws.

Slowly, slowly, like I was climbing up out of a well, I felt my own mind, the mind of Rachel, start to emerge again.

I was too stunned and exhausted by the battle to resist the crocodile's cunning. It had the power of total focus. It had the power of utter simplicity. It killed, it ate, and it didn't care about anything else.

We rolled insanely in the shallow water, two genetically identical crocodiles fighting a battle for dominance. Fighting to see whose mighty jaws would close on the human child.

I saw flashes of horrified onlookers up above. I saw flashes of the child starting to crawl away. I saw flashes of the other crocodiles, slithering toward the water. They hoped to take the child while the two bigger crocs were busy fighting.

I needed to win this fight to stay alive. And I needed to do it quickly to save the little boy.

I did the thing the crocodile couldn't do very well. I thought. I used my intelligence.

I let go of the tail at the same second I pulled my hind leg forward with all my strength. It was a slingshot effect. The enemy crocodile shot backward, I saw his pale belly go by, and I struck hard and fast.

He rolled away, defeated. I slewed to my right, cutting off the crocodiles who were heading for the boy. Then I raced for the sand and motored up into the alcove, out of sight of the crowd above. The boy backed away in terror.

I had no choice. I had to take a chance. I spoke to the little boy in thought-speak.

<Hey, kid! I'm the good crocodile, all right? Climb on my back!>

Fortunately, he was a cool little kid. Small enough not to question the fact that a crocodile was talking to him.

He climbed on my back like I was a pony. I slithered to the water and carried him across to the pile of fake rocks where he could climb to safety. Crocodiles can do lots of things, but they can't climb.

I raced back to the alcove and morphed back to human just as half a dozen zoo trainers armed with tranquilizer dart rifles and nets came rushing in.