Toady Tales

Dev scanned the newspaper as usual not reading anything. He sighed. If not for the fact that he owned the steel plant, he might have called in sick. But that was never an option.

A small write-up caught his eye. ‘Lakes are drying up in the town’ it said. That piqued his curiosity. He held the paper closer. The town had many lakes and there was never a time when they had dried up. The news talked about the water level reducing in four of the lakes and but there was no explanation. It didn’t surprise him that no one had investigated it further.

On the way to work, something was off. An eerie silence prevailed and he realized that the birds had stopped chirping. Lost in thought, he almost didn’t see it. On the road, was a large toad that seemed intent on cutting across his path. He braked hard and stopped a few inches short. The toad paid no heed to him or to the fact that its life had almost ended. It continued on its way like it was late for an important appointment.

At the plant, the security guard waved him through. A large order had come in the previous week and he was eager to get it processed. It would mean a lot of money for the workers. After the divorce, this was his life and he only cared about the workers and the plant.

A few workers were talking in earnest. They approached him. “Something not right, Dev,” Kripal the foreman said. Kripal was a task master with a big heart.

“What is it?” Dev asked, his chest tightening.

“Lots of toads everywhere,” Kripal stated.

Dev didn’t understand what that meant. He thought there was a problem with the plant. “What do you mean, toads?” he questioned.

“Yeah, haven’t seen so many,” Kripal responded.

That didn’t answer Dev’s question and he asked again, “You are all talking about toads, like the frog kind?”

Kripal was known for being unperturbed even when the worst calamity hit the plant “Yeah, Dev, they are coming into town in large numbers.”

He sounded a bit worried and Dev remembered the toad from the morning. He was still full of questions. “Large numbers , like how many?”

Kripal shook his head. “Hundreds, maybe more.” He walked away.

A call came from the police station an hour later. “Dev, we need you here.”

Baldev’s tone was urgent. Baldev was the police chief, a big ruddy man with a ready smile. He was loved and respected by all and yet maintained law and order in the town.

There never was an urgency in Trimapur.

“I don’t have time to explain. Come to the police station,” the chief repeated, then hung up. His voice had held an edgy note.

Dev wondered what had made Baldev so anxious. He headed to the station. Along the road, he saw the toads now, hundreds of them, heading from the lakes. The usual tranquility of the police station was broken by a huge mass of humanity.

Dev wrestled his way inside. Baldev was standing in the center looking like a preacher with his flock. The tense expression on his face eased on seeing Dev.

“They are everywhere,” one of the land owners complained, as Dev pushed through the crowd to Baldev.

It had started that morning. Toads had overrun the town. The smallest gaps in houses were fair game and children woke up to toads on their beds and in the bathroom. The sole supermarket was infested. The two hospitals were overrun with the toads.

He and Baldev were a formidable combination and they succeeded in reducing the hysteria. Dev commanded respect in the town and people listened when he spoke.

Their only hope was the retired school principal, Digvijay Singh. His house was like a science lab and he was always experimenting with medicines and gadgets.

The toads were already at the police station by then. Screaming and shouting, people started stamping around in panic. Baldev ordered his men to get everyone out and use the fire extinguishers on the toads that had gotten in. Some semblance of normalcy returned.

They found Mr. Singh in his house. Toads had already got in but he was unmindful of them.

“I have a cure,” he proclaimed as if he was expecting them. He pointed to a contraption that looked like a flamethrower. “There’s a virus in it which we can spray on these fellows. It spreads in minutes and kills them instantly.” His confidence was reassuring.

“What virus?” Dev asked.

“Ranavirus,” Singh said in a dismissive tone. “A special and potent strain I have perfected.”

Dev didn’t want to ask how he as he had a bigger question “How did you happen to have a toad killing virus ready?”

Singh smiled. “Six months ago, you diverted our river for your steel plant. I did a detailed analysis of our underground water flows. The river’s new path emptied the lakes around our town. Did you know that we have one of the largest concentration of toads in the country?”

Dev was stunned, not about the toads but for the fact that he had caused this infestation. There was no accusation in Singh’s voice; rather he sounded like a news reporter talking about the current events.

“I knew this day will come, just not when. I started preparation the moment I found out about the lakes.” Singh smiled.

The retired principal had built a dozen of the virus flame throwers. Baldev took them to the police station. They could hear the squelching noises as the jeep’s tires squeezed out life from the sea of toads on their way.

The virus worked wonders. The town was happy with the lesser challenge of cleaning up thousands of dead amphibians.

Two weeks later, Digvijay Singh stepped into his basement. His bath tub sat there teeming with life. He smiled with admiration of his own work. The next generation tadpoles were immune to the virus.

This story was created for a writing prompt on toads that take over a town