Guy Smith - The Slime Beast

'I said we," she snapped. 'What about you, Gavin? '

'I'll probably hang on for a day or two,' he said, trying to appear casual. 'I'd like to see this thing through since we were in at the start of it'

'Then I'm stopping with you. I don't go from here until you do.'

He stood up. 'There's no point. Look at it from a reasonable point of view. The army'll take over no doubt. There won't be any danger.'

'So there'll be no harm in me staying on.'

Gavin wrung his hands in despair.

'All right,' he sighed. 'We'll see what Harborne and Borg have to say. We can't make any plans until we've talked to them.'

Once they had snuggled down in their sleeping-bag their fears seemed to diminish. As they felt each other's naked body the Slime Beast might have been a million miles away, back in his original habitat. Their lips met, tongues probed, and then their hands explored.

Gavin felt Liz stiffen as his fingers found her small neat breasts and teased the nipples to an even greater degree of hardness than they had attained during the whole of the previous night. Then he eased his hand down and she eased her thighs open. Gently he located the soft warm moistness and she moaned with pleasure.

Her hands groped for him and closed over his hardness. It gave her an added thrill to pull him closer and closer to her until suddenly they made contact. She sucked her breath in sharply and then, her desires ruling her reasoning, she pressed his manhood tightly against her.

Gavin eased himself up and rolled between her open legs.

Her heart was pounding and her breath was coming faster and faster. 'Give it to me properly, Gavin, like every woman wants her man!'

Slowly he slid into her and it was only when he had penetrated her fully that he spoke.

'Liz!' he murmured. 'Oh Liz! Believe me, I want to give it you properly but... damn it! You could end up pregnant as it is. 'I'll try and do the same as I did last night. I...'

'No, please no,' she swung her legs round and closed them over his body in a vice-like scissors grip. 'I won't let you draw out. I want all of you ... everything ... inside me... even if I do have a baby!'

He lowered himself down on to her and their lips brushed.

'Liz,' he breathed, 'Liz ... I'm in love with you. I know we've only known each other a few days but... but I'm not doing this just for a thrill. I want to be part of you. I don't ever want to be away from you. I'd ... I'd love you to have my baby. That is, if you really wanted to .. .'

'Of course I want to.' She tried to press him further still inside her. 'I love you too, Gavin!'

She dared not voice her innermost thoughts. It was only then that she realised exactly what she was trying to do. In some ways it frightened her, disgusted her. Wenches who thought there was a good catch in the offing did things like this. She knew full well that she was trying to trap him! She was using a ploy as old as the hills. Eve might even have used the same tactics to secure Adam. Liz despised herself for it. Once she was pregnant Gavin would not leave her. He wasn't the type.

For a long time they were in a world of their own. The Wash, the Slime Beast, Professor Lowson, all were forgotten. Just a gentle rhythmic movement of two bodies, each caring for and trying to please the other. Every so often they relaxed, trying to prolong the greatest joy known to mankind for as long as possible. Liz released her captive grip on her man. It was not necessary. Nothing on this earth would have stopped him now.

Suddenly, neither of them could contain themselves any longer. Rising tensions burst open and then they were both jerking and writhing in unison. Liz felt as though she was being hurled and then suspended in mid-air, before falling into a bottomless chasm. On the downward journey she sensed a beautiful warmth spurting into her with force, engendering a feeling which she had never experienced before.

Totally exhausted, they lay in each other's arms, thinking of nothing except what they had just done.

'I... I never thought I'd ever let anybody do that to me outside marriage,' Liz murmured drowsily. 'Oh, if only we weren't in this terrible place. Gavin I wish we'd never come here.'

'Then, we wouldn't have met each other, would we?' Gavin laughingly replied and kissed her passionately. 'I guess we can thank old King John for this. Blow him, he can keep his damned jewels. I've found some treasure even if the Professor hasn't!

They dozed uneasily. The thought of that monstrosity at large on the marshes did cast a cloud over their supreme happiness. Gavin promised himself that on the morrow he would do everything in his power to bring about its total destruction. If only the police would listen to them...

Chief-Inspector Harborne looked across his desk at the two young people who had just told him the most amazing story he had ever heard in all his years in the Force. He studied them intently before replying.

'Any other time Td ask for you to be examined,' he said. 'It's like something out of a weird science-fiction magazine. Yet, things have happened here these last few days which we are unable to explain logically. For instance this strange trail of stinking slime which the thing left behind it; it evaporated into nothingness before we had a chance to examine it properly. Nobody apart from yourselves has seen the creature, but tell me, why has Professor Lowson not accompanied you here this morning? I should have thought that he would have shown more interest in this matter than he has done so far.'

'Uncle's too wrapped up in other matters,' Liz put in diplomatically before Gavin had a chance to speak. 'He lives in the past He's not interested in the things which happen around him.'

'I see.' Harborne turned to Detective-Inspector Borg who had so far remained silent. 'Naturally we shall make investigations into what these people have told us. However we can't really call in the army yet to deal with some mythical creature which only they have seen. Perhaps then Inspector you would take some men and locate the body of this man Glover.'

Borg nodded and left the room.

'Thank you for coming to see me,' Harborne smiled as he ushered them to the door. 'Please don't think that I disbelieve you. There is something very strange going on certainly. Yet I feel sure there is a logical explanation for it all.'

'Like what?' Gavin fought to control himself. The bloody fool was going to waste more valuable time in trying to find some down-to-earth solution.

'Well,' Harborne coughed and looked away. The idea of something out of space is a bit far-fetched you must admit. We must look for something more explicable. There are creatures on this earth which man has never or seldom set eyes upon. The ocean bed holds many secrets, so do the jungles of the Amazon. Could not some exploration party returning from South America have brought this Slime Beast back with it secretly? It escaped and its owners feared to report it to the authorities. There are many lines of thought available to us.'

Gavin remembered his owe earlier theories and was silent

Professor Lowson had gone off on his own somewhere when Gavin and Liz returned to the blockhouse.

'So much for that,' Gavin mused as they ate sandwiches and drank coffee. 'We've virtually got nowhere. The police don't actually disbelieve us which is something I suppose. Now we've got to wait a few days until the experts come up with something. It'll either be a giant gila monster secretly smuggled into the country or a homicidal maniac who has discovered some kind of slime with which to throw the police off the trail! Whatever they decide it all adds up to one thing—delay. Every hour of indecision means another hour of freedom for the Slime Beast! '

'Couldn't we destroy it ourselves?' Liz lit a cigarette and began clearing the packing-case which they used as a table.