The house was situated atop a hill, and that made it easy to run down. Sprinting along the grass took the runner to a concrete fountain in which tadpoles swam. The frogs had been at it until their babies were bred. The frogs, which lived only a short time, did their best to procreate. It was as if the spirit of the gods was in their little amphibian bodies.

The little boy Michael, big for his age and carrying extra weight around his belly and legs, waddled down the hill to see the tadpoles. Despite the heat of the day, he wasn’t sweating. Because it was before noon, the heat that had gotten bottled up over the horizon was holding back for now, biding its time. Michael noted this lack of heat and reveled in it.

He reached the tadpole concrete bowl, then ran his hand in the water. It was warm. The tadpoles were there, ensconced in a curvature that seemed infinite. They were waiting to transform. Once they became frogs, they would relocate to the creek that lay between the meadow and the small town to the west.

Now that Michael could see them, he realized there was something glinting silvery in their edges. For a moment, standing by the edge of the concrete fountain with the tadpoles swimming in it, he thought it was an illusion. Gingerly he put his hand in the warm water and cupped a tadpole. It was shifting and changing shape. That felt awkward and weird in Michael’s hand, so he put it back. It kept changing shape with a silvery sheen to it. First the tadpole looked like an ocean torpedo, then it resembled a brown cigar with specks of silver in it. Then it was back to classic tadpole form. Watching this and feeling afraid — the fear came from nowhere specific — Michael resolved to tell his big brother about it. Andy would know what to do.

Andy slept in his hot bedroom until he could sleep no more. Shadows, writhing on the corners of the wall, cast by bulky wooden furniture, gave the look of doorways to a black dimension. Andy put a hand over his forehead and then removed it. It came away slick with sweat and was uncomfortably warm to the touch. As long as Michael was outside, Andy could relax.

But then Michael came rushing into the room. That gave Andy a start. He sat up; the bed creaked under his form and the shadows seemed to morph into something new. “What is it?” he asked his younger brother.

“It’s the tadpoles down the hill!” Michael cried. “They’re changin’ shape!”

Andy looked over at Michael, his brow furrowing in confusion, and Michael responded by smiling bashfully.

“No, really,” Michael said softly. “Please come look, Andy. Tell me what you think.”

“I don’t want to leave the room,” Andy said. “It’s too hot. It’ll be hotter outside.”

“Forget the fan.” There was a fan whirring in the corner of the room. “Come look. Please.”

“Oh, o — kay.” Michael threw off the cold-water-soaked sheet that had been cooling his chest, his arm briefly stuck on the fabric. His eyes were hooded and serene, a vista that revealed little of his emotions but showed he was a serious boy. He was older than his brother Michael but not that much older. Too weary of the summer break to care any more, Andy leveraged himself out of bed and, locking his feet on the floor, stumbled to his sandals to slip them on.

The tadpoles were changing. Michael had been right.

While the light was sucked under the water, the tadpoles were morphed into something new. They looked larger, somehow. And all silvery. Michael put his hand in the water, cupped something, and came up with a tadpole that looked just like a tadpole. Then it began to change.

“See!” Michael cried triumphantly. “It’s becomin’ something new!”

Andy stared at the tadpole with aghast fear. “Put it back! Quickly!”

“No, I’m gonna hold it till it changes, feel it change.”

It’s becomin’ something new.

Andy crowded close to his brother, was reassured for a moment, then felt fear return to him stronger than ever. The tadpole was developing teeth. Little biting teeth. As Michael cupped the amphibious baby in his palm, not knowing what he was messing with, the tadpole rotated its body to get a closer feel to the boy. It bit down.

Michael wailed and tried to throw the tadpole back in the concrete fountain. Michael noted that the other tadpoles had gathered, watching. They had little red eyes. They looked like spectators at a football stadium during the big game. The tadpole in Michael’s hand — currently sunk halfway into the flesh, trying to drive in deeper — was pushed off by Andy, but it did no good — the creature was stuck to his little brother like glue on paper. It kept biting, biting.

The other tadpoles began to change shape, to merge into one form. They formed a giant snake with brilliant crimson eyes and a long lashing tail. The snake-mass-tadpole thing leaped out of the splashing water, joining their little tadpole-with-teeth on Michael’s hand. Andy looked on, appalled. There was nothing he could do. The snake crawled up Michael’s body before coming to rest around his neck. There, it began to strangle him.

Andy, gripping the snake with one hand, pulled but to no avail. Michael had been knocked to the ground, and all the tadpoles were out.

The snake split in two. With its iridescent body shimmering on the stone patio — which ran in a loop back up the hill to the house before terminating at the main front doors — the second snake slithered to Andy’s feet. Andy shrieked like a little girl and skipped back. Softly suckled on Michael’s flesh was the first snake. Kicking at the second snake did no good; it kept coming. Then the second snake broke apart and returned to tadpole form; a dozen of them were climbing up Andy’s shins and biting all the way. The two boys died as the clock struck noon in the house while feeding the tadpoles with their flesh.