Tramp tramp tramp, we marched without stopping. The fanatic Colonel at the front raved about glory and the necessity of keeping on, while the rest of us just wanted a drink of soda. Any brand would do: Jolt, Mountain Dew. We weren't fussy. Anyways, we came to the ridge of a tremendous dune, out there in the desert, and looking down from the dune's summit, all we could see was this huge bowl formation in the sand, sort of like an inverted cone or Chinese hat. It stretched out for miles in front of us. For some reason, I felt uneasy looking at this sand bowl, as if there was something about it which was unpleasant, perhaps you might say evil. The rest of the men felt it too, because when the colonel made to march down the side of the bowl, no one was going to follow him.
"Come on, you cowards!" he yelled, "It's only a lot of sand!" He even threatened to shoot one of us if we did not go down with him. Finally, he turned on his heel and started smartly marching down the incline by himself. We watched him as he marched, then began to slide, losing foothold on the loose sand. Before you knew it he had fallen over and was rolling into the centre of the vast depression.
I'll never forget what happened next. Out of the centre of the sand erupted this huge set of claws, and the head of this monstrous bug. The Colonel saw it too, and managed to stop rolling, getting enough hold of the sand wall to start climbing as fast as he could the other way. However, the monster threw scarfs of sand at the Colonel, washing his struggling body down into the centre and into the waiting jaws, which closed with a terrifying "snap!"
(c) Jack Ruttan, 1998