The people came exploding out of the theater, and Meg Penny immediately knew why.
The creature was in there.
The monster was in there, and so was her little brother Kevin.
She fought her way through the fear-crazed crowd and through the doors. She smelled the thing before she saw it. The gut-wrenching acidy smell, and the blood, and the taint of the sewer… She looked up the aisle and sure enough, there it was, bigger than before, incredibly big, spouting through the projection-booth openings and pouring down the walls and aisle like oatmeal lava pouring through a flickering nightmare.
“Kevin!” she cried, fighting her way through the crush of bodies. “Kevin!”
There were groans and cries and screams everywhere, dominated by the obscene squelching sound the creature made as it wriggled through, grabbing people in a feeding frenzy.
Meg was knocked over. A man above her tried to run along the top of a row of seats toward the exit. But with a whipping sound a pseudopod lashed around his midsection, tore him away with a yelp, and dragged him back into the main mass of the thing.
“Kevin!” she cried, pulling herself up. But she was immediately knocked down, landing just inches away from the face of a woman who had been half dissolved from forehead to chin.
A scream struggled to break free, but she choked it back. Have to find Kevin, she told herself. Have to find Kevin.
“Kevin!” she cried, getting back up.
“Meg!”
She turned toward the sound of the yell. There he was! Still alive! He and Eddie were cowering in a corner, near the theater’s curtain, as people surged past.
She dodged around a row of seats and struck out toward them. The crowd was thinning out—either the creature had got them, or they’d escaped from the theater. She reached the boys and, taking no time to hug Kevin, wrenched them away from where they stood and pointed toward the side exit. “This way,” she cried.
But even as they ran, Meg saw peripherally the pseudopod lapping toward them over the seats in the strobing darkness.
“Down!” she called, pushing the boys down onto the floor.
The tendril flopped over them at freight-train speed, smashing a plaster angel on the side wall into dust.
“Come on!” cried Meg. “Hurry!”
The boys responded instantly, getting to their feet and running with her to the exit. Meg could hear the surging horror lapping at their feet.
The exit door was the traditional gray metal variety with a heavy-duty lock. Meg and the boys burst through it into the alley. Meg had a glimpse of the thing filling up the short hallway behind them.
She had to close that door! That thing was going so
Meg slammed the door behind her. She heard and felt the thing pound against the other side like tons of dough striking a kneading counter. The door clicked shut, locking behind them.
Meg permitted herself a quick sigh of relief.
“Hurry,” she cried, and she struck off down the alley, along with Eddie.
But where was Kevin?
“Meg! Help!” cried the boy, and Meg turned around.
Kevin was still at the door, and instantly Meg could see why. She’d shut the door so fast, she’d caught the hood of his nylon jacket between the door and the jamb! And now Kevin was struggling to get the thing off… but the zipper was stuck.
She ran back to him.
“Stupid coat!” sobbed Kevin. “Stupid coat!”
God! The door was starting to bulge outward, pushed with incredible force from the creature.
She grabbed the zipper and tugged on its latch. It refused to budge. Tears ran down Kevin’s face, and he mewled softly.
Bubbles of slime squeezed through the bulging door. From the cracks oozed strands of the monster, blindly feeling around for prey. Then, one by one, the bolts on the door burst from their fittings.
Behind her she could hear Eddie yell. “Watch out! Hurry!”
Why hadn’t the kid run?
With a strength born of desperation Meg released the zipper and grabbed the front of Kevin’s jacket. She pulled and ripped it wide open. Immediately she tugged Kevin out of it and pushed him to one side.
The creature spewed from the doorway, slapping across the alley, its deadly steaming tissue just missing Kevin and Meg and Eddie.
“C’mon!” she cried, grabbing them up and turning away from the surging tide of monstrosity.
They ran down the alley. Her lungs were on fire, but she ran for all she was worth. Turned a corner.
Hit a dead end.
“There’s no other way out!” she cried.
She could hear the garbage cans being hit by the creature as it probed out for them.
She looked around, and then down, and caught sight of a manhole cover.
“Here!” she cried. “Help me lift it!”
The boys helped her, putting their fingers in the pryholes and lifting the cover to one side with a clatter.
At the corner a Dumpster, borne on a wave of the monster, smashed into the brick wall, crumbling and spewing trash, which was rapidly covered by the rolling putrescent ooze.
“Down!” she ordered, grabbing Kevin and pushing him into the dark hole. “Come on, you too!” she said, but Eddie needed no urging. He was already jumping down in Kevin’s wake.
The Blob hissed closer, closer.
Meg stepped down the first three metal rungs, ducking down below ground level and grabbing the manhole cover by its side. Somehow she found the energy to pull it back over the hole. It clanged into place, just as she sensed the Blob pouring over it.
She started moving farther down into the darkness, where she could hear Kevin and Eddie moving around.
Something grabbed at her hair.
Strands of acidic slime were leaking down, tangling in her hair! With a scream she jumped, and felt a rip on her scalp as whole clumps were pulled away. She hit concrete piping.
She could hear her hair sizzling above her.
She rolled away, sloshing through the water at the bottom of the round pipe, not even noticing the terrible stench.
She ran into a form and gasped.
“Meg!” cried Kevin. “It’s us!”
Kevin and Eddie were waiting for her at a juncture of the piping, in the dark.
“Which way, Meg?”
She pushed them in a random direction. One way was as good as another, as long as it headed away from that thing dripping down behind them.
Anthony Peters watched in disbelief as the stuff slammed through the theater exit door, cutting his friends off.
What was that thing? The kid watched it as it poured out, assuming a bulbous shape as it rolled after its three intended victims. Anthony was so dazed he didn’t think to just turn and run. Fascinated, he watched the slimy creature squirm down the alley like an inside-out giant worm.
It disappeared around the corner.
“Eddie!” he cried.
Eddie was his best buddy! They were blood brothers, he and Eddie. He couldn’t just leave him!
Anthony ran after the creature. Maybe he could help Eddie and Meg and Kevin.
When he turned the corner, he saw an astonishing thing.
There was the pile of gunk that had chased them all, at the cul-de-sac of the alley.
And it was dwindling in size.
