The Grabblog

GRABOIDS
Graboids hatch from eggs which can lay dormant for as long as 300 years, and possibly even longer. Abnormal heating (geothermal or radiation) of the soil around a Graboid egg can accelerate its gestation and cause it to hatch sooner.

Once hatched, Graboid worms grow very swiftly into 30-foot-long, sightless, underground eating machines that hunt via their extra-sensitive hearing. They can zero in unerringly on the slightest movement or vibration. It's also worth noting that many people who have survived encounters with Graboids have reported that one can smell the stench of a Graboid long before one actually sees its eel-like hunting appendages.

SAFETY TIP: When in an area infested with Graboids, it is important to remain absolutely motionless and silent. If you are in a stopped motor vehicle, do not let the engine idle, and be certain to turn off car stereos and any other sound-producing devices, such as portable CD or tape players with headphones.

SHRIEKERS
After an indeterminate time spent living underground, a Graboid surfaces and undergoes a gory metamorphosis: It divides into 3 to 6 Shriekers — fast-moving, lion-sized bipeds. Though Shriekers, like Graboids, are technically blind, they can track their prey by sensing infrared radiation. They are especially sensitive to temperatures between 97 and 107 degrees F. — the normal range for mammalian body heat.

These extremely dangerous creatures reproduce hermaphroditically — in effect, each Shrieker is "born" pregnant. Shriekers' ability to reproduce is limited only by their access to food. Once a Shrieker has eaten enough food, it disgorges a new, ravenously hungry Shrieker. Consequently, it is crucial that Shriekers be prevented from getting to plentiful food.

Shriekers' prolific reproductive skills make them so dangerous that the U.S. government has decreed they are not a protected species, and should be killed on sight.

SAFETY TIP: If you encounter a Shrieker in the wild, do anything possible to mask your body heat. Thermally insulated blankets are effective camouflage against a Shrieker's infrared senses, but be certain to cover yourself entirely. Your exhaled breath can be a fatal giveaway if the ambient temperature differs from your body's internal temperature.

ASS BLASTERS
Approximately 24 to 72 hours after being spawned, depending on numerous variables, Shriekers metamorphose into winged creatures that Perfection businesswoman Jodi Chang has nicknamed AssBlasters.

AssBlasters are so named because they launch themselves into flight by igniting an explosive mixture of liquids produced in their bodies; they blast off like rockets, then glide for up to several miles. They cannot fly like birds.Like Shriekers, AssBlasters hunt via infrared radiation and are voracious. Also like Shriekers, AssBlasters are considered extremely dangerous and are not protected by law. They should be killed on sight.

An AssBlaster is "born" with a single Graboid egg in its abdomen. It is thought that an AssBlaster's evolutionary goal is to carry its egg as far as possible, to ensure the spread of the species. This, however, is only a theory. Very little else is known about AssBlasters or Shriekers.

One AssBlaster currently lives in captivity in Las Vegas, the property of Siegfried and Roy, who are underwriting research on the creature. It was sold to them by Nancy Sterngood and her teen-age daughter, Mindy, who captured it.

SAFETY TIP: If an AssBlaster is encountered in the wild, it is possible to conceal oneself by masking one's body heat (see the safety tip regarding Shriekers). Another important note is that, unlike Shriekers, AssBlasters do not multiply. If they eat to excess, they will enter a state that survival expert Burt Gummer calls "food coma." If you are unable to mask your body heat from an AssBlaster, attempt instead to sate its hunger with high-calorie foodstuffs until such time as it becomes dormant.