David Bischoff: The Blob

“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.

The 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.

The preacher preached.

From a makeshift pulpit atop a creaky platform he ranted and cried out, warning these poverty-stricken people of even worse days approaching.

“The will of God is written in the sky in fingers of flame! Wormwood falls from heaven, consuming sinner and saint alike!”

The preacher preached to his audience of black people, white people, rural farming people, people who lived on the outskirts of wealthier society. They sat in their old wooden folding chairs, intently listening to the Message being hurled down on them like fire from the skies.

The preacher preached, and no longer were his words soft and comforting, as they had been in the days of his delusion, back in the old church.

Back in Morgan City.

His name had once been Reverend Meeker, but he had changed it to something that felt more like the name God wanted him to have. Now his name was Reverend Storm, and now, when he preached, his words hailed down upon the listeners, shot through with lightning and thunder.

“Woe to the inhabitants of the earth and sea, for the Final Days are upon us!” he said, ejecting a fine spray of spittle with his words. No longer was he the cherubic little man full of good cheer, brimming with pastorly peace. Now his eyes burned with a manic gleam. The white fringe of hair around his head had grown out scraggly and long. It bounced and waved as he jumped up and down, propelling his words out to the fascinated audience.

“By the Lord’s word,” he yelled, “the Earth shall be cleansed, the disease burned out, and the temples of the prophets shall fall!”

Hallelujahs and amens rippled through the audience as he leaned forward on the pulpit, staring out at the flock of rural folk.

“There’s no more time for forgivin’! No more time for salvation! Who among us shall be raised to Rapture when the Judgment Trumpet blows?”

He scanned the audience, savoring the silence. A vein in his neck—just below the swath of scar tissue from his burning—throbbed.

“Only the faithful, brothers and sisters. Only the faithful!”

He was emptied of his message, spent.

He spun and walked off the platform, fatigue waving over him. He’d given his message, and now he needed rest. Needed rest desperately.

As he pulled aside the canvas flap that separated the stage from one of the two trailers that served as his traveling revival show, Sister Martha and Brother Abner were stepping into place before the worn old microphone.

Soon he could hear the sounds of their singing echoing through the makeshift hall of the tent.

“When that day arrives, sweet Jesus,” they sang. A good hymn, thought Brother Storm, heading for his room to rest. They’d sung that song back at the Lutheran church in Morgan City, back before God had delivered His Message to the reverend. But he’d never realized its full import.

Now he opened the door of his little study and collapsed into a cheap folding chair. He left the door open. It was hot outside, and the room had poor ventilation.

Before him was a card table, with some books he’d been using for study that morning. Off to one side of the room was an old surplus army cot.

He closed his eyes, weary.

But he knew that strength would return with rest. And then he would preach another message this evening, another message to more people, come to hear the Word.

On the table before him was a bottle of whiskey.

Before the time of Reckoning had arrived at Morgan City, he’d never drunk alcohol. But God had told him that it was all right to drink from time to time. To calm his nerves…

He poured a few ounces into a glass, tilted the contents, and drank.