The Blob (21 page)

“Shit,” said Brian. “Okay, you want to eat me? Eat me! But you’re gonna have to eat five tons of snow first!”

Snow still spouting, he shifted the engine into gear and popped the clutch.

He turned the wheel so that the vehicle was heading straight for the cannonballing monster.

His repositioning put the snow dead center back onto the Blob, and the creature didn’t like it, not at all. With soundless, quivering fury, it struck forward at the machine, lifting it up and hurling the truck and the cab and Brian into the air, turning them over like a child’s toy.

Brian could feel the cab disengaging from the rest of the snowmaker, ripped away from the snow chute and the tanks of water and liquid nitrogen, and skidding off onto the pavement.

The cab spun over, and the snow stopped.

Brian Flagg found himself upside down. Desperately he tried to unbuckle the belt. He could see the stuff of the monster rolling around him like steaming, half-solid sewage.

He heard the metal groan as the monster
squeezed.

As the stuff of the creature rolled past the window, Brian could also hear it slipping over above him.

As he hung there, desperately working at the latch to the seat belt, he saw half-digested bodies float by.

Oh, jeez! There was Deputy Briggs!

And one of the soldiers, in one of the plastic suits.

Skeleton fingers clacked onto the glass as spiderwebs of cracks appeared . . . death, knock knock knocking to get in.

The belt unlatched.

He dropped down to the ceiling of the cab, struggling to get up and onto his feet.

The cab squealed, as though caught in a crusher.

But then, just as he got himself upright, a length of bare metal crunched in, cracking him across the forehead.

Brian Flagg fell, unconscious, as the Blob squeezed on the cab of the snowmaker, pushing to get at this new bit of food.

I
t was hungry. So hungry.

But now it knew other sensations.

Much less pleasurable sensations.

The Blob
hurt

These bits of food . . . Somehow they had hurt it with the terrible waves of cold they sprayed at it.

Primordial fury swept through primitive synapses and it turned on its enemy and stopped it.

The hurt stopped, too, and the other sensations swept in.

It was hungry again.

Hungry.

First, Meg Penny heard the engine motors outside, and then the squeal of air brakes.

Then the roof of the Town Hall shook even harder, as though the monster had suffered some kind of paroxysm.

Then the shaking stopped.

The streamers of the Blob withdrew.

Meg could hear the creature slithering away.

It left a gaping hole in the front door. Detaching herself from her family, Meg ran out through the hole and onto the steps, still slimy and gooey.

She could see the snowmaker clearly now, spouting its load onto the cringing Blob.

And she could see who was in the cab.

Brian Flagg.

“Brian!” she cried, and she ran to help him.

“Meg!” called her mother behind her. “No!”

But the call did no good. She had to go and help Brian. That thing had to be stopped. Determination and pure anger swelled up in Meg Penny.

Yes, that monster had to be stopped!

But even as she ran toward the snowmaker, she watched helplessly as the Blob hurled itself at it. She watched as the vehicle was lifted up like a bobbing boat and torn asunder. She watched as the Blob poured over the cab, trying to get at Brian.

“No!” she cried. “No!”

Desperately she looked around the ground by her feet.

Wreckage everywhere.

But just a few yards away the half-dissolved body of a soldier attracted her attention.

The soldier still held his M16 rifle in a death grip. Attached to his back was a belt which held a package just like the one the colonel had ordered to be lobbed down into the manhole. What had he called it?

Oh, yes. A
satchel charge.

First, Meg Penny peeled back the fingers of the dead man and pulled the rifle away. Then she detached the belt with the satchel charge and swung it over her shoulder.

It had always been just her tiny bit of flesh and willpower against that terrible mass of rolling putrefaction.

But now she had something to fight it with.

She ran around to where the creature was pouring over the cab. Nearby the detached tanks of water and liquid nitrogen lay. The Blob had not poured over these. They were no longer spraying snow at it.

Brian was in that cab. She had to distract the thing, right away.

She had watched the soldiers work their guns, and this one was already cocked. She held it up and fired at the monster.

A volley of bullets tore into the thing, ripping out divots of protoplasm. The weapon’s recoil pushed her back, but she recovered and gave the thing another round.

Then she moved over behind the tanks. She had an idea.

“Come on, you pile of shit!” she screamed at the top of her lungs. “Come on and try to get me!”

She pressed the trigger and more bullets sprayed into the Blob.

The thing shifted its bulk. A part of it collected into something that could almost be a “head.” The “head” peered down through sightless eyes.

She let another burst rip through the roiling protoplasm, and then she scrambled up to the tanks lying on the ground by the cab.

It was working!

The Blob was releasing the snowmaker’s cab. It sensed easier prey—or had it indeed been maddened by the bullets and her challenge?

“You can do better than that!” she jeered. “C’mon!”

She emptied the chambers of the M16 and then threw the rifle itself at the advancing Blob.

Then she pulled the satchel charge up by its belt and looked around. Right there . . . between those two massive tanks of liquid nitrogen. Meg Penny was a skier, and she knew exactly what these things were, what incredible
cold
was locked away in the metal, under extreme pressure . . .

She wedged the satchel charge down between the tanks. Now, how had that soldier done it?

She looked up, gauging how much time she had before that rippling stuff rolled over these tanks.

“Come to Mama, fucker!” she whispered.

She looked back down at the satchel charge, and its dangling ripcord. Hopefully you had to adjust it to make it a short fuse, which meant this one was a
long
fuse.

She’d have time to get away, time to get Brian out of that cab.

She pulled the cord.

The satchel charge started ticking.

The Blob crawled toward her, like the upended contents of a witch’s cauldron.

Good enough! she thought, as she prepared to jump from the tanker to the ground.

But her boot snagged on a piece of twisted metal sticking out from the tanker’s hull. She could feel herself tripping, body hurtling out but leg staying in place. With a breathless whoosh she found herself swinging upside down from the tanks, dangling.

As she swayed back and forth, she could see her father and Moss running toward her from the Town Hall.

“Stay back!” she cried. “Stay back, it’s gonna blow!”

Above her she heard the ticking of the satchel charge.

She couldn’t pull herself up. This was it!

At least her death wouldn’t be meaningless, she thought. If that satchel charge blew, so would the tanks. And the tanks would—

But she didn’t give up. She strained up, trying to yank her foot from the boot.

Straining, straining . . .

Suddenly something caught her around the shoulders.

It twisted her, and it pulled her straight down, sliding her bloody foot out of the boot.

The Blob! It had gotten her with one of its tendrils . . . !

But as she tumbled to the ground, she quickly discovered that she wasn’t covered by slime.

She was covered by Brian Flagg.

But not for long.

“C’mon, get up!” he ordered as he got up and hoisted her to her feet.

She heard the satchel charge ticking, ticking, ticking . . .

The next thing she knew she was running.

Running for all she was worth, back toward Daddy and Moss and Town Hall and . . .

She ventured a look back.

The Blob had covered the tanker fully now, and it was advancing after them, rolling over the machine.

“Goddammit!” she said. “It’s supposed to blow up!”

But nothing happened!

And the monster was on the loose, coming after them!

B
rian Flagg woke up.

The first thing he realized was that he was in pain. Not just his aching leg, which he’d hurt in his bike spill.

No, his head hurt, real bad. He could feel the blood seeping out, dripping down his face.

And then Brian remembered. He remembered where he was, and what was crushing in upon him.

He looked up, expecting the gunk to spill in on him at any moment, to engulf him, to fill his mouth and his nose and his ears with burning acid, to burn away his eyes . . .

But there was nothing outside the windows. Just a residue of slime.

He didn’t wait a moment. He propelled himself against the door, hitting the handle.

The door opened, and Brian Flagg spilled out of the up-side-down cab.

It took a moment to collect himself, but as soon as he had, he looked around. Immediately saw the mountainous creature, pouring across the tanker.

And there, hanging from the tanker, her boot caught, was Meg Penny.

From the tanker there came a loud ticking sound.

Not sparing any time even to think, he ran to Meg and he jumped up and grabbed her, pulling her down.

They hit the ground, and he urged her on, and they ran, and ran and ran some more.

And then Meg stopped.

And she said something about the tanker blowing up.

“What’s happening?” she said. “I don’t understand. It was ticking . . . the satchel charge!”

“We gotta get away from that thing, now.”

“I’m telling you,” said Meg. “It’s—”

And just as Brian turned to check the Blob’s advance, the rumbling started.

He wasn’t sure if the spark came first, or the rumble, but it didn’t take long before the light that ignited the wavery form of the tanker turned into a bigger light, a very
bright
light that thrust out and up . . .

Turning into a
huge
explosion.

The explosion geysered up, scattering bits and shreds of the Blob’s protoplasm.

A ground-ripping blast of frost, water, and ice waved over him and Meg, knocking them off their feet and onto the pavement.

Beyond them an icy cloud blossomed, rising into the air.

And then bits and pieces rained backed down, splattering onto the ground, tinkling and cracking. Pieces of the Blob, turned into chunks of crystalline matter.

The thing had been
frozen.

Brian, lying dazed in a scatter of frost and icy water, was only dimly aware of this, but he did hear Meg’s voice calling. “Brian! Brian?”

Then he realized that there were people gathered all around them, helping them up.

“Whoa,” said Brian Flagg, looking at the carnage of ice that the monster had been reduced to. “What a rush!”

“Brian!” Suddenly Meg Penny was all over him.

Which he didn’t mind at all. His arms folded around her and his lips found hers and they had a nice long kiss.

The thing was dead. They’d defeated it.

Then Brian looked up. He felt something on his head, looked up, and saw what was coming down.

Little tumbling flakes of white stuff!

“Hey, man,” said Moss, patting him on the shoulder. “Told you we’d get snow.” The black man looked up and smiled. “You gotta have faith!”

Moss wandered over to have a look at the wreckage of the snowmaker. Brian watched as the mechanic kicked a tire.

“I wonder if I’m covered for this sort of thing!” he called back.

Brian grinned. “I think you’ve got plenty of witnesses!”

He looked around at the people coming out of Town Hall. All the people who were still alive! Yes, that thing had killed some, but most were still alive and healthy.

“You saved us, Brian,” said Meg.

“I had a lot of help,” said Brian, but still he felt good. Real good.

Everyone was looking at him, patting him on the back and releasing their fears and pent-up emotions with tears and laughs.

“Gee,” he said. “I guess it’s no more Mr. Bad Guy, huh?”

Meg Penny smiled at him. “No, you’ve spilled your little secret, Brian Flagg. Everyone knows now. Especially me.”

A fireman interrupted their conversation, barging through the crowd.

“Awright, people!” he said. “We’ve got four hours till the sun comes up! Let’s get a bulldozer and a dump truck and get this thing over to the icehouse.”

But Meg was pulling him away from the crowd.

“What do you think you’re doing?” he asked.

“You must be tired! You’ve done your bit, Brian. You need rest!” she said.

“Uh-uh, kiddo.” He pointed down at the ground, at the bits of the Blob scattered all over. “I’m a part of this town now. And I’m gonna help haul this thing where it won’t do any more harm!”

She looked at him with a funny expression.

“But, Brian. You always were part of the town. You just didn’t feel like you belonged.”

He mulled that over for a moment. “Well, guess I’m stuck for a while now, anyway. Bike’s dead.”

She smiled. “That would be nice.”

They kissed again and then turned and pitched in to help clear up the mess.

Maybe Moss could use some regular part-time help.

Yeah, thought Brian Flagg. Maybe he’d stick around Morgan City after all.

T
he preacher preached.

His patchwork tent was pitched at a dusty midwestern crossroads, bordering on flat acres of waving wheatfields. Outside were parked the battered old cars and pickup trucks of the people who’d come to hear him speak of the coming End Times, come to hear his straining voice warning of the approaching chaos.