Some time ago in the Hatrack forum, a writing challenge was issued: write a 450 word short story that began with “The sea was filled with angry monkeys.” Who can resist? Here’s mine:
The sea was filled with angry monkeys.
Watching it, Dr. Rounder felt ice creeping up his spine.
From the top of the lab’s observation tower he could see the mass of furious, snarling primates moving in swells and waves, cresting over each other to crash against the rocks below.
And the sight was nothing compared to the horrifying sound of a million throats howling at once. Rounder shuddered.
“Was this what we paid for, doctor?” came a voice from behind him. Even shouted over the simian roar the voice managed to convey scorn and disgust. “You promised me instant soldiers, not an endless supply of chimps! Explain this, before I have you shot!”
Rounder turned from the surging tide of monkeys to face the general. “The pod was only supposed to generate twenty skilled men, not… not this!” he yelled back, embarrassment and horror swirling over his face. “My breakthrough in instantaneous phylogeny, and it… it…” He looked over his shoulder. The sea was rising. “You saw it work in the lab! You saw it, Hammond! We used human DNA, this shouldn’t have happened! Maybe the sea water–”
“What I see is my career getting flushed!” The general shoved the scientist roughly against the railing. “What I see is the man who ruined me! What pathetic monkeyboy DNA did you use?”
“Mine,” Rounder sobbed, broken.
Hammond sneered at him from an inch away. “No wonder,” he said.
And then he pitched Rounder over the side.
The scientist screamed all the way down, but Hammond had stopped thinking about him as soon as he let go. Right now he needed deniability and distance, and fast. He marched towards the door, intent on getting the hell out of there and utterly oblivious to the fact that the howling had stopped.
The labs were empty. Obviously Rounder’s people were smarter than he was, Hammond thought, and he set to work. Within minutes all the papers and computers and other evidence of the experiments were aflame.
He hurled himself out the front door as the first explosion hit. That’s that, he thought. The monkeys will die or kill each other, and I’ll be–
Hammond stopped, confused. The furry sea was calm, like a lake on a windless day. He took a hesitant step forward, and only years of combat survival kept him from crying out when a towering wave of monkeys suddenly surged up, bearing Dr. Rounder aloft like a pudgy Aphrodite. A hundred yellow eyes glared at him, waiting.
“Guess what, general!” Rounder cried. “Turns out I’m their alpha male! And you know, despite the taxonomical contradiction, they make excellent gorilla soldiers after all!”
And the wave broke over the general’s screams.