Page 66 of Love vs The Ooze Monster!
“Boyd, don’t move!” Mabel shouted, unknowingly echoing his words. She was still by the car, on the other side of the lake. The ooze monster was positioned between them.
The creature didn’t exactly have eyes or ears, but it must have been able to see and hear. Boyd could sense its attention swing Mabel’s way. Something about her interested it, because its house-sized body jerked in her direction.
Shit!
Boyd craned his head to see Mabel around the gigantic orange blob. Hopefully, she could tell that he was silently signaling her to stay still and far away from the man-eating, jellyfish creature.
Mabel’s eyes met his, understanding his warning, even over the distance separating them. Being Mabel Harrison, she could read his mind. …Only being Mabel Harrison, she promptly decided to ignore his instructions.
“Here, monster, monster, monster!” She called, like the damn thing was a cat. Climbing up onto the car’s running board for added height, she waved her hands over her head, trying to get its attention. “Come this way!”
The creature lurched towards her and Boyd felt his heart stop. “No,don’tgo that way!” He shouted, automatically taking a step after it.
Rather than send those colossal tentacles whipping out to trap Boyd, the ooze monster kept moving towards Mabel. It couldn’t focus on anything except her.
“I think it’s my hat.” She called. “It ate my last one, remember? And this one’s got orange flowers. That beast is a sucker for hats and orange flowers.”
The hat was drawing it towards her? “Take it off!” He roared.
She didn’t listen. The creature kept heading straight for her and Mabel did nothing to evade it. Still balanced on the running board, she braced her palm on the square roof of the car for balance. Her back leaned on the coach-style door and she waited to be devoured by the monster.
“Shit!” Boyd ran for her, but the ooze monster was ahead of him and traveling fast. Genuine panic filled him. “Mabel!”
“Just move the men that way.” Mabel pointed to the left. “I have an idea.”
The men were eager to follow her orders. They took off in the other direction, clearing the path.
Boyd wasn’t going anywhere, except closer to his fiancée. “Mabel, get the hell away from…”
“Cassiday!” Rico shrieked from behind him. He staggered from the tree line, his signature white suit covered in blood and dirt. “Did you think I’d die that easy, you son of a bitch!”
Boyd had much more pressing issues than that asshole. The revolver was still in his hand. Aggravated by the interruption, he turned and emptied the gun right into his former employee.
Even after the night before, Rico still must’ve thought Boyd would talk, or threaten, or give him more than half a second’s attention before firing. He was wrong. Boyd never much cared for arguing with an enemy, when killing them worked just fine.
A shocked expression crossed Rico’s face, as the bullets ripped through him. He toppled backwards onto the grass, his final breath rattling out. At long last, the man shut the hell up.
Boyd barely noticed Rico’s death. His eyes were already cutting back to Mabel. Unfortunately, in the heartbeat of time he’d looked away, Mabel had finally moved. Ducking into the car, she scrambled across the front seat of the Rolls Royce and turned to reach through the chauffeur’s window to fiddle with something in the passengers’ compartment. Then, she climbed behind the steering wheel.
The ooze monster had reached the grassy incline of the lakeshore below the Rolls Royce. Mabel stepped on the gas and aimed the car right for the slimy creature.
Boyd’s eyebrows compressed in bafflement. What was she…? And right then he recalled the back of the Rolls was filled with baking soda and vinegar. Mabel was about to turn Lew’s Silver Ghost limousine into a torpedo. A torpedo that she wasfucking driving.
“No!” He bellowed, his mind filled with horrific images of the ooze monster swallowing up the love of his life.
The Rolls Royce sailed forward, its engine powerful and nearly silent. It careened down the hill, towards the lake, on an unstoppable trajectory. Halfway to the bottom, Mabel pushed open the backwards-facing door and threw herself out of the car. She rolled for several feet, before coming to a stop and lying facedown on the grass.
Boyd raced for her, ignoring the runaway car and the slime beast. All he could focus on was Mabel’s still form.
The Rolls Royce drove on, right into the ooze monster. The globular creature didn’t waiver at the jolting impact of the car. Its gelatinous body absorbed the Rolls, encasing the work-of-automotive-art in thick orange gunk.
Boyd reached Mabel’s side and dropped to his knees beside her. “Mabe? Can you hear me?” His hands swept over her, searching for injuries. “Are you hurt?”
She let out a low groan and pushed herself up on one elbow. “I’m alright.” She blew a clump of straight, shiny hair from her eyes.
“What the hell were youthinking?”
“I was thinking I needed to stop the ooze monster.” She picked up her glasses off the ground and set them back on her nose. “Did it work?”
