Page 65 of Love vs The Ooze Monster!
“Go or you’re fired.” Mabel interrupted.
The men obediently rushed forward. Boyd might be twice her size and armed, but only idiots pissed off the woman who wrote their paychecks. And Mabel Ann Harrison didn’t employ idiots.
She just married them.
Mabel glowered at her moronic husband-to-be’s back, as he and the other men trooped across the dry lakebed. “I assume this was the sort of insane plan that won you those commendations for valor?” She didn’t bother to wait for a response, because she already knew the answer. “It’s a miracle you lived to see the Armistice, Boyd.”
“Sanity just holds you back.” He called over his shoulder. “Nobody survives a war without a little bit of craziness.”
She leaned against the side of the car, exasperated with him. “You aresucha difficult man.”
“Which is fortunate for us both. You wouldn’t know what to do with some normal, uncrazy, law-abiding type. He’d bore you to tears, I suspect.”
That was probably true.
“If you die, I’m going to get married without you.” She informed him. He was almost to the opposite shore, so she had to raise her voice. “The wedding is already on the schedule and I’m not changing it.”
“Oh, I’ll be there, doll.Nothing’sgonna keep me away.”
Mabel relaxed a bit at that reassurance. It had been dicey, there for a minute, but now they had the situation back on track. Boyd was safe. Rico seemed to be dead, since the woods were silent. They’d confiscated the beer, so no one got poisoned. Everything was under control.
She allowed herself a sigh of relief.
…And that’s when the ooze monster appeared from beneath Wheeler’s Pond.
Chapter Nineteen
Walk Down the Middle Aisle: (1920s slang) Get married and live happily ever after
Boyd fully intended to walk down the middle aisle in less than twenty-four hours.
Tonight, he was going to sleep next to his fiancée, after they’d had world-melting sex, in at least three different rooms.
He’d already gotten it into his head to take Mabel on a honeymoon to Havana, come September.
By this time next year, he hoped to be a father.
All of those plans were set in stone. He was fully converted to the wonders of keeping to a schedule, when it was full of stuff he actually wanted to happen. He sure as hell wasn’t going to die at the Pioneer Picnic and miss all the fun activities he had booked for his future.
Unfortunately, the ooze monster seemed determined to screw up his plans.
“Boyd, behind you!” Mabel screamed.
He turned to face the middle of the lakebed, watching in shock as orange goo seeped from beneath the parched surface. Apparently, the creature had worked its way from the town’s sewers into the area’s countless subterranean springs. Gelatinous slime surged upwards through the deep cracks in the earth, where the water had once disappeared. Wheeler’s Lost Pond was suddenly overflowing with jiggling slime.
A second later, the ooze monster bounced back into its familiar round-ish shape. It kind of looked like a jellyfish again, only it was even bigger than it had been the night before.Muchbigger. It nearly filled the dry basin, dozens and dozens of partially-digested skeletons clearly visible in its monstrous, translucent body.
And it was so fucking close Boyd could have reached out to touch it.
“Holy moly.” Ross breathed, gaping up at the monster and not moving a muscle. “It’s a subnatural vampire.”
The other guards seemed equally frozen, which was probably a good thing. They were all standing way,waytoo close to the creature.
For possibly the first time ever, a gangland war had saved lives, though. The civilians had already fled, because of the firefight with Rico. Otherwise, the Pioneer Picnic would be a buffet for the monster. The beer that had seeped into the earth had drawn it like a lodestone.
Boyd had no clue how the beast hunted, but making any sudden movements or loud noises seemed like a pretty dumb idea. Last night, it had been feeding off people as they fled, like it was attracted to their panic.
“Don’t shoot at it. It won’t work.” He whispered fiercely to the men. “Whatever you do, just don’t move.” They weren’t going to be able to outrun the creature. Not at this distance. It would instantly catch them with its tentacles.
