Page 26 of Love vs The Ooze Monster!
On the grass, near one of the flowerbeds, something was smoking. A twisting mist rose into the air, catching the moonlight. Mabel’s eyebrows compressed and she headed over to get a better look. Orange ooze had been slimed along the white fence and was melting the tasteful pickets. It seeped through the wood, bubbling the paint and burning deeper into the fence slats like acid.
Oh God… Ithadbeen real!
Whatever had killed the people at O'Shaughnessy’s was now at the funeral home. Drawn to the other body parts of the people it killed, maybe? Or looking for the man who’d created it, not knowing Norris was dead. Or just searching for more victims to…
A hand grabbed her from behind and Mabel let out a shout of alarm. She swung around instinctively using the tommy gun like a club.
“Hey!” Boyd caught it mid-swing, narrowly avoiding getting his head bashed in. “It’s just me. What are you doing out here?”
“The ooze monster.” She pointed to the slime on the fence. “I think I saw it. It’s close.”
He scowled and looked around. “You saw it?”
“From the corner of my eye.”
“How big is it?”
“Like… a horse?”
“Fuck. I mean,heck.”
She nodded at that sage analysis of the situation. “Where are Sly and Rico?” Hopefully dead.
“They got away. I’m not sure about Rico, but your asshole cousin climbed down the rain gutter.”
“Step-cousin.” She corrected automatically.
“Asshole step-cousin. Point is, he’s rabbited and all the shooting is bound to draw cops, in this part of town. We gotta get out of here, before…”
The scream was like nothing she’d ever heard. A high-pitched, garbled wail of terror and pain, as if someone was melting and drowning at the same time. It came from the wooded area, on the edge of the property, so she couldn’t see who was making the god-awful noise, but she knew just the same.
It was her step-cousin.
The ooze monster had him.
Sylvester’s agonized cry cut through the summer night like the blade of an old knife, jagged and sawing. Mabel cringed, her whole body recoiling from the horrific sound. She couldn’t see Sly, but she could hear him. Gunshots fired in a hopeless frenzy, as Sly frantically shouted and tried to fight off the jellyfish creature.
Then there was nothing. Just a long silence that was even more ominous than the screaming had been. Sly wasn’t chortling in triumph or calling for help. He was gone. But something huge was still stirring in the brush, causing the branches to sway, as it moved away from the funeral home.
The ooze monster had won.
Mabel looked up at Boyd, her heart pounding.
Boyd’s gaze was fixed on the thicket of trees, his face expressionless. She could read him so much easier, now. See him running scenarios in his head, calculating the odds of them successfully tracking and killing the ooze monster. It was what he must have looked like during the war, when there was nothing except bad choices and death all around him.
“Wait here.” He said at last and took a step towards the trees.
“No.” She grabbed onto his arm. “If Sly couldn’t finish it with his gun, we won’t be able to finish it with ours. We have to come up with some other way.”
“What other way?”
“I don’t know, yet! But, we can’t go charging after it, without more information. We need to stop and think of a better plan.Together.”
Boyd glanced down at her. “Together?”
“Yes! You and I will be able to kill it together. But notnow.”
Sirens sounded from down the street. The police were arriving.
