The Blob

Fran screamed.

She had opened her mouth to cry for help, but a long, hard scream came out instead. Before she knew it, Brian Flagg and the girl had run into the kitchen, and they, too, stood frozen, looking at George Ruiz’s body jerking and thrashing.

God! Something was dragging George down the drain, as if he were caught in a garbage disposal!

“Fran,” said Brian. “Oh, shit!”

The girl gasped.

The sink started to buckle, the pipes started to groan.

Not knowing what else to do, Fran started forward to pull at George’s legs, to stop this insanity. Brian grabbed for her, but missed. She moved over to the other side of the room. “Don’t touch it!” he yelled.

The legs of George Ruiz churned about wildly. The feet were swelling. One of the kicking shoes exploded in a spray of blood. The other foot had kicked free of its shoe. As the body was dragged farther down the drain, the toes popped, splat splat splat. Blood everywhere.

Then, George was… gone!

Fran looked at the damaged sink as a hush descended upon the room, unable to believe her eyes. Had she taken some kind of drug that was giving her hallucinations? A drainpipe just didn’t swallow a full-grown man!

Brian and the girl were frozen too. Fran looked over to them as though for an explanation.

And then hell really broke loose.

Like a column of pus, something heaved up out of the sink, shooting for the ceiling. On and on it unraveled, splattering onto the ceiling and sticking, growing into an upside-down mound of gunk, dripping with blood and steaming fluids. Fran smelled a terrible acid odor, cut with a tinge of the sewer. The thing clung to the ceiling, pulsating and oozing, hanging between Fran and the others.

Brian Flagg held a hand out to her. “Fran. Come on! Over here!”

But as though attracted to the motion of his arm, the bulbous nightmare on the ceiling shot out a web of tendrils extending to the floor, cutting them off from her.

And then the Blob started oozing down!

Nothing that Meg had said in describing what she’d seen prepared Brian for the creature that hung from the ceiling before him. No, it was infinitely worse than what Meg Penny had described.

“That’s it!” whispered Meg. “That’s it, only bigger!”

The hanging tendrils trapped Fran in the corner. Hardly thinking about what he was doing, Brian reached over, grabbed a pan of hot grease, and lobbed it up at the thing.

The hot grease singed, and the pan hit dead center of the thing. That didn’t faze it at all but rather served to turn the thing’s attention onto Brian. The shift helped Fran, but it didn’t do much for Brian. The Blob shot another tendril at him, and he jerked back, bumping into Meg. “Gotta get outta here!” he said.

They turned and ran, even as the mass of blood-clogged protoplasm overhead surged along the ceiling, smashing the overhead fluorescents and twisting the electrical conduits right out of the wall. As they headed through the hallway, plaster crashed behind them, and metal screeched. With a frizzling BANG, an electrical surge blew out every light in the diner. Sparks showered down from the darkness.

The back door! Brian thought. Gotta get outta here.

He held tight on to Meg’s hand as they careened away from the monster in the kitchen. Above them electrical sparks hissed and danced from exploded light fixtures, bathing the hall in a hellish lightning. Brian was able to make out the back door, and he hurtled toward it.

Reached it. Turned the knob.

Locked!

“Damn!” he cried, even as he heard and sensed the monstrosity heaving toward them, squeezing through the hallway.

“Brian!” cried Meg. “Over here! There’s a thick door.”

She yanked open the metal handle of the walk-in freezer. Brian followed her immediately into the chill, banging the door shut behind them.

The interior of the freezer was still faintly lit from its emergency batteries. To either side of them were racks of meat, frozen vegetables, and bags of french fries. Their breaths misted in front of them as they backed up against the cold metal of the room, slipping a bit on ice.

Thump! The thing hit the outside of the door with booming resonance. For a moment there was silence, and then the door began to creak terribly, as the creature pushed in.

Slowly the door bulged in toward them, groaning.

With a gasp Meg grabbed Brian and clung to him, terrified. Brian watched helplessly as the door bowed in a little farther, breaking the seals.

The Blob seeped in, oozing around the straining gaps.

“Oh, Brian!” gasped Meg.

Brian held on to her, feeling helpless. He watched as part of the thing flopped in, then slid a pseudopod across the floor toward them.

This was it, he thought. That thing is going to get us, just like it got George, just like it got Paul and the Can Man and God alone knew who else and—

Suddenly the tendril stopped. It quivered a bit, as though sensing some bad stench. Then it drew back, more slowly than it had come in. The ooze flowed away from the openings of the door, and then the creature was gone.

They stood there for a while, just hanging on to each other, surprised that they were still alive.

“We better wait a bit, make sure it’s gone,” said Brian, shivering with more than the cold.

“Yes… But I don’t understand. What stopped it?”

“I don’t know,” said Brian. “But I sure as hell hope that Fran Hewitt had the sense to get out of here.”

15

Fran Hewitt couldn’t move.

When that horrible thing had smashed through the lights and rampaged off after those kids, she felt as though her whole body had been set into a vise, and she’d nearly fainted.

What the hell was that thing?

Help! She had to get some help, she dimly realized, swaying against a sideboard. With that word nagging at her, she felt a surge of adrenaline charging through her, and she was finally able to move. She didn’t know how much time had passed. Not much, she supposed. But she had to get out, get help, no argument there.

As she darted through the kitchen, she heard a groaning from the back of the diner. Like metal, contracting. She raced through the darkness of the serving area and headed for the door, stubbing her toes only once.

She hit the door, and it hit back.

She went down, breath half knocked from her. What… ?

Of course. George had already locked the door, so that no other customers could come in and stop them from cleaning up. She got up and rattled the door, getting hysterical. George had the key, though. And George was… !

Her senses returned to her. Was there another key somewhere? She was about to fumble her way over to check the cash register when, at the other end of the diner, the shadows began to move.

The light from the neon sign flickered over the tops of the chairs and tables. But the chairs and tables were bobbing, as though on a wave in the sea.

That thing… !

Panicked, she grabbed the nearest chair and hurled it with all her might through the plate glass window to the left of the door. Glass exploded out and Fran clambered through the opening, unmindful of the jagged edges that tore her uniform and scraped her skin.

The breath of hot night greeted her.