MuckFlash

Chelyabinsk, RU -2 April 2009- Staff. Residents of rural Russia have often had to cope with the unintended consequences of the rapid industrialization of the Soviet Union, but in addition to decades old chemical spills, dangerous construction methods and severe environmental degradation, there’s a new threat: flesh eating weeds.

As a result of the airborne plume of radiation that traversed much of Russia in the wake of the Chernobyl nuclear reactor meltdown, plants outside of Chelyabinsk have mutated gradually into horror film quality monsters, replete with gruesome orifices packed with razor sharp teeth and vicious barbed tentacles.

Lothar Krazylmenchov, lead city councilman for Chelyabinsk lamented the problem in an interview, but seemed resigned to his town’s fate, equal parts fantasy and macabre. “We have lawnmowers, and the children have learned to spot the man-eaters and crush them with stones,” he said. “What more could we do? The people they killed with the reactor and all the other tragedies are still fighting for notice; who is going to care about some degenerate weeds?”

Other residents expressed similar sentiments, but the weeds, as their monstrous aberrations and pugnacious temperament would suggest, are not as innocuous as the townspeople would prefer. Already, several have been hospitalized with abrasions and cuts deep enough to require stitches. One small boy, who accidentally rode his bicycle into a grove packed with the killer vegetation, had to be rescued by a squad of policemen in full assault gear. Only after they had fired several hundred rounds into the bloodthirsty mutant grove were they able to pull the gravely injured boy to safety.

Boris Yelmytchin, the town doctor and amateur botanist, has been trying for some time to develop a more sustainable defense, but the plants spread quickly and adapt themselves to new chemicals in a matter of days, a by product of surviving the intense nuclear radiation that spawned their hideous evolution. “Carnivorous plants are not so uncommon,” said Dr. Yelmytchin, “But it seems that this new strain, in feeding on larger, more complex animals, has produced a hybrid of abilities. Only brute force is enough to keep them at bay.”

The plants resemble a modular series of barrel cacti surrounded by thick vines, each ending in a razor sharp stinger. “They may look like they’re swaying in the wind, but they are just trying to lure you in,” remarked Dr. Yelmytchin. “They are killers.”