Page 18 of Love vs The Ooze Monster!
“Death.” More than anything else, the stink of bodily fluids and decaying biological matter flashed him back to the war. “You shouldn’t be in here with it.”
“No, I mean the chemically scent. Underneath the rest.” She’d always had a good nose, which greatly aided in her stellar liquor recipes.
Boyd focused for a beat, trying to battle back the memories of the trenches. “Formaldehyde?” He finally guessed, noticing it. “It must have come from the booze.” He gestured to the shattered bottles behind the bar. There was a baseball bat lying there, too. He wasn’t sure why. “Really stupid bootleggers add it to their mixtures, sometimes.”
“Wood alcohol.” Mabel pursed her lips. “I knew it.”
“Too much methanol will kill a person.” Boyd agreed. “But, it doesn’tmeltthem. There has to be more mixed in than just that.” He edged farther into the room, careful not to let the ooze touch him. “I’ll get a closer look.”
Mabel chewed her lower lip. “Whatever you do, don’t touch anything.”
“Believe me, I won’t.” He crouched down next to the bottles. The smell of formaldehyde was stronger the closer he got to them and they all seemed to have orange labels, featuring a cartoon tombstone. “None of this is our product. It’s moonshine.”
“Thank God! If someone corrupted my gin recipe, I would be infuriated. I’ve worked so hard on it.” Mabel was very serious about her science experiments with fermentation.
“Ever hear of RIP Distillery?”
Mabel’s forehead creased in thought. “No. It’s not connected to us or to the Irvings.”
Boyd scowled at that news, because he really wanted Sylvester to be guilty. Still, that prick had fucked Boyd over with those jugs of vinegar and he apparently wanted to steal Mabel back. Death was coming for him, either way.
“Patrick O'Shaughnessy burned so many bridges with the bigger wholesalers, because he refused to pay bills.” Mabel surmised. “RIP is probably a smaller organization. Some home-brewing business, trying to get started.”
“Well, they should quit now, because they’re terrible at this job.”
“Successful bootlegging does take skill.” Mabel agreed without a drop of modesty. “You know, whoever made this swill must have had access to quite a bit of formaldehyde. A lot more than most people would ever buy. That might help us track them.” She began ticking off possible sources of the chemical. “Hospitals. Taxidermy shops.”
“Mortuaries.” Boyd glanced back at her. “Which fits the RIP theme, too. Doesn’t that long-necked nimrod you live with work in a funeral home?”
“Norris isn’t a bootlegger.” She rolled her eyes at the very idea. “And I don’tlivewith him. I told you, he just lives in the same house as me. Very different.”
“Uh-huh.” Boyd still didn’t like the guy. He didn’t likeanyguy having access to Mabel, except him. If he couldn’t pin this mess on Sylvester, Norris was a satisfactory substitute. He was ready to convict him, in fact. “That dope has got a look about him that I don’t trust.”
“Norris does smell of formaldehyde quite often.” Mabel admitted thoughtfully. “It’s very off-putting during tea. And a funeral home would be an excellent place to bootleg, wouldn’t it? No one goes poking around in a funeral home.”
“So we should go poking around.” Boyd stood up, dusting his palms together. “If Norris is behind this, I’m going to wrap his scrawny ass in cement and take him for a boat ride.”
“That’s your solution to everything.”
“Yep. Amazing how many problems it solves.” He stepped back and immediately got ooze on his shoe. “Aw hell.”
“I told you not to touch anything!” Mabel scolded in a concerned tone. “Get that off before it burns you!”
Boyd wiped his spat on the floor. There wasn’t enough to melt him, but he knew the goo was going to stain. Shit. He glanced over to see what exactly he’d stepped in and something new caught his eye.
“Hey, there are footprints over here, in the slime. No.” He squinted down at them. “Madeof slime.” Drying ooze discolored the floor in the distinctive pattern of size nine loafers.
How was that possible?
Mabel seemed equally confused. “Was the ooze covering someone?”
“It must have been.”
“Well, where did that someone go?”
“No clue.” Boyd checked the ceiling, because he was out of better ideas. “And where did this orange shit come from? The sky? It wasn’t in the bottles, because even drunk people would’ve noticed that it’snotmoonshine.”
He could see Mabel thinking it all over. “The slime must be a reaction to whatever else is mixed in with the formaldehyde. Some other chemical that,” she made a vague gesture with her hand, “causes people to ooze.” Almost instantly, she shook her head, changing her mind. “No, because that still doesn’t explain how the rest of the patrons got ripped apart. Norris says pieces of them were missing.”
