David Bischoff: The Blob

More rustling. This time, however, it was closer. It seemed to come from the trees to his left.

A twig snapped, and Brian paused, holding his breath as he listened. He heard nothing more.

Flagg slipped the ratchet into his back pocket and flipped the ratchet box closed. Then he flicked on the motorcycle’s headlight and panned it across the base of the trees and the surrounding field.

Nothing.

Damn, this was creepy, although nothing to get upset about, of course. The night was always full of odd sounds, and this valley could do weird things with sound, thought Flagg as he clicked the light off. That sound could be coming from—

He turned around and found himself staring into horror.

Wild shrunken eyes… An open mouth, silently screaming… Crazed tangle of hair…

Flagg gasped and stepped back. It was the Can Man, and he looked as if he’d just been through a meat grinder!

Abruptly the scream broke loose, wretched and hoarse, from the Can Man’s mouth. He brought up his arms into the moonlight and Brian could see that one held a rusty hand ax and the other…

The other hand was wrapped in something weird and smooth, something reddish with speckles and sparkles. Flagg didn’t get a good look because the Can Man turned and held the hand out. He took the hand ax and made an erratic swing at his own arm. The ax blade glanced off the forearm, doing not much harm. But, God, was the guy nuts? He was trying to cut off his own hand!

Another scream ripped from the Can Man’s lips and he pulled the ax back again for another try.

God, he had to stop the loon! thought Flagg, racing up and catching the ax. With several hard yanks he managed to wrestle it out of the old man’s grip. He hurled it away into the brush, where the guy couldn’t get at it again.

The Can Man screeched again, shuddering with agony. As Brian spun him around, he could see the guy’s eyes actually rolling with the pain. It was that thing on his hand… What the hell was it?

“Hey, old guy! Be still, I’m tryin’ to help you!” he cried, surprised at the scrawny man’s strength.

Flagg managed to raise the arm up into the moonlight to where he could get a good look at it. Boy, the old lunatic had done some damage with the ax. The forearm was shattered, mangled. And on the hand…

Oh, Jesus, what was that ?

The old man’s hand was cocooned with a thick, oozing mass. Translucent, it looked like a jellyfish wrapped tightly and stubbornly, with a strange glitter to it, an odd pulsing. But inside… Flagg felt his stomach churn. This translucent gunk was colored a queasy pink. And through the pink showed what was left of the Can Man’s hand: skeleton, with just a shred of muscle, a faint wrapping of vein.

Even as Flagg stared down, transfixed with revulsion and horror, the mass moved sluglike up to the new slash the man had inflicted with the ax, staunching the blood and clogging the dent.

There was a faint sucking sound.

The Can Man howled.

Flagg, distracted, no longer had a good grip on the old man, so he was able to break free. Off balance, stunned with what he had seen, Flagg staggered back as the Can Man charged off back into the woods, screaming like a madman.

Flagg recovered. He had to help the poor guy. He’d never seen such dreadful suffering!

“Wait!” he cried. “You need help!”

The Can Man just kept going, so Flagg chased after him, the image of the horror on that man’s arm still vivid in his mind.

As he entered the woods, he could hear the Can Man blundering about in the undergrowth up ahead like a blind, maddened bull.

“Wait!” he cried again, as he caught sight of the man in the moonlight, clutching his hand to his chest, whimpering and moaning with shock and horror.

Adrenaline-pumped moments passed as Flagg ran through the woods, getting closer. Up ahead he could see the ribbon of Route 9, snaking toward Morgan City. The Can Man was making toward the road, but he seemed to have no particular destination. He was just running, wildly, as though running would stop the pain he was clearly experiencing.

Flagg just hoped that…

He heard the motor first, and then he saw the lights, moving along the road at a good clip.

“Oh, shit!” he said. “Old Man!” he screamed. “Watch out—!”

But the Can Man did not hear him, did not heed the words. He loped out into the road.

Brakes screeched, like a banshee’s call of doom.

Paul Tyler gripped hard at the wheel of his dad’s Toyota Celica, trying to get control of himself. God, he was pissed. He took a deep breath as the car barreled through the night. He reached over and turned the radio to the local rock station, letting the power chords of Def Leppard pound from the speakers in the rear. A bright moon floated in the clear sky above. The dense forest hurtled by to either side of the car.

After a long silence Meg Penny finally spoke. “I’m really sorry about my father. I’ve never seen him like that!” Clearly she was just as embarrassed as Paul about what had happened, and just as eager as he to get this date back on track.

Paul nodded, then exhaled slowly. “That’s okay. Just a misunderstanding. I’ve made better first impressions, that’s for sure!”

“Well, no harm done, I guess,” she said, loosening up a bit and leaning back to enjoy the night air rushing through the open window.

“Wrong!” said Paul. “Scott Jesky’s gonna die!”

Meg chuckled.

“You like the idea of the imminent death of a football player, Miss Rah Rah Rah?”

“No. The humor of it all is just starting to sink in. The look on Daddy’s face! The look on your face! Priceless, just priceless.”

Paul sighed and began to untense, allowing himself to smile. “Yeah. I guess maybe it was pretty funny. To think, your father, Mr. Straight, selling condoms! And thinking… whew, talk about being hoist by his own petard! Still, Scott is going to pay!”

Meg changed the subject. “So tell me about this restaurant that you’re taking me to. You know, I had to pass on Mom’s meatloaf tonight. This better be good.”

Paul laughed. “Oh, yeah. My parents and I go to this place a lot. It’s over in Clendal Pass. Called the Overlook. They get a lot of the resort business, and also passersby on the highway looking for a nice place to eat. They say the chef actually met Julia Child once.”

Meg laughed.

“No, the food isn’t bad, and the view is nice, and there’re candles, and Dad knows the owner, so we can maybe get a glass of champagne or something. I thought it would be a nice quiet place—I dunno, to just talk. It’s not very quiet back at school, and there’s always class to go to, or practice or other distractions. It’s just that… well, I’ve always felt that maybe you and I… well, maybe we had a lot to talk about.”

“Oh? What makes you say that, Paul?”

Paul took in a deep breath. “Well, I read a lot. I’m a good reader and a quick reader, so I can put away a book in a day or two, and I’ve been reading since I was about four years old. And every day, Meg, every day, I see a different book under your arm. So, anyway, now I’ve got these whole different worlds my head travels in, worlds I really can’t talk about to other people. And I thought maybe you had worlds, too, and maybe we could share those worlds.”

Meg was quiet for a moment. “Paul, that’s a wonderful thought. Yes, I do like to read. And these days, you don’t get too many people who enjoy immersing themselves in books. But is that the only reason you asked me out?”

“Heck, no!” blurted Paul. “I think you’re the sexiest, most wonderful girl in school!” He was immediately embarrassed and he was glad of the darkness, because he knew he was blushing.