"Slime"
Joseph Payne Brennan (1918-1990) is still another great pulp writer about whom I know too little, and of whose stories I have not read nearly enough. I haven't even seen any of of his Lucius Lefting stories, for example, and I have a weakness for occult detectives.
Of his short horror yarns, the ones I have read are strangely haunting in a quiet, understated way. They remind me of well-told accounts of urban legends. "The Green Parrot" and "On the Elevator" both have this quality. "Levitation" (where a stage magician's heart attack has unfortunate results) reads much like something you would read in THE FORTEAN TIMES as a reportedly true account; "I'm Murdering Mr. Massington" on the other hand, is rather like a Robert Bloch crime story, with a twisted punchline that slaps you across the face.
But "Slime"... egads. This was in the March 1953 issue of WEIRD TALES (toward the end of that magazine's original run) and it's an all-out no-fooling Monster On the Loose story. Brennan drops his subtlety and carefully suggestive word choice to let us have it full blast.
There's no sly build up of hints and shadows before we see the creature, either. Right in the opening sentence, we're introduced to a huge black mass of protoplasm skulking around on the ocean floor. The "hood of horror" is shapeless and without internal structure, sending out tentacles as needed, contracting or expanding as suits the moment. It's very old, too. "It had been formed when the earth and the seas were young; it was almost as old as the ocean itself." The monster's only motivation is hunger, and it has no natural enemies... anything it can get near, whether a great shark or giant squid, is quickly absorbed and digested.
So there it is, like the Blob of the drive-in movies but much worse because it can move with terrifying speed. The Slime never rests or sleeps. It just prowls the sea bed killing and eating. Nothing for us to worry about, of course. Walking around up here in the sunlight and fresh air, we have no idea such an abomination exists. Well, until an underwater volcanic eruption causes a huge tsunami which flings the Slime up to the surface and hurls it ashore in a swamp not far from human habitation. (Thanks, Mother Nature! You're a real pal!)
Not far from the swamp where the Slime is happily eating frogs and snakes and muskrats is the town of Clinton Corners. a derelict named Henry Hossing finds a ten dollar bill. With this unprecedented wealth, he eats three square meals, buys a quart of rye and sets out to the swamp to build a fire and bask in a cheerful alcohol haze. Well, at least fate has made his last day in this life a pleasant one.
One by one, people start to disappear. The Slime is genuinely frightening. It seems to be just another pool of black gook until it heaves up like a wave and engulfs you. It can roll toward you faster than you can run, and bullets don't even get its attention. An increasing number of townsfolk come to a grisly end. ("Now, as Fred watched, literally paralyzed with horror, it spread itself over and around the form of Luke until he was completely enveloped. The faint writhing of his limbs could still be seen. Then the thing squeezed, swelling into a hood and flattening itself again, and the writhing ceased.")
As you might expect, the initial scoffing and disbelief of the townspeople evaporates as more of them end up digested and sightings of the Slime add up. Chief Underbeck shows that he's no stereotyped rustic fool.. he calls in the state police and the Army at Camp Evans. As night falls, three hundred soldiers, police and volunteers set out to search the swamp, armed with everything they can carry. But don't be too sure which side to bet your money on making it until dawn.
I only wish I had read "Slime" at the age of eleven or so, when I had my first science-fiction and fantasy reading frenzy. If I had devoured this story at that age, it would have burned itself into my neural circuits as indelibly as Theodore Sturgeon's "It" or Frank Belknap Long's "The Space-Eaters" (*ack!* to both of them). As it is, even in my advanced years, reading this story showed I'm not nearly as jaded as I had thought and that the ol' sense of wonder is still ticking. Thank you, Mr Brennan.
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