Cineverse - Bride Of The Slime Monster Part 18

IT HAS TO BE A PARTICULARLY PAINFUL DEATH.

Roger's slight hope evaporated instantaneously. She kicked the door open and dragged him outside before he could further react to the bad news, once again circling both her hands around his neck.

"Oons!" she continued almost cheerfully. "Norts gebort. Minsky providentially voola- voola shebang!"

COME. EVERYTHING IS READY. IT IS PROVIDENTIALLY COINCIDENTAL.

THAT SOMEONE HAS LEFT A BOAT.

Roger caught a quick glimpse of his surroundings as he was tossed outside. There was indeed a small rowboat at the edge of the lake, but it looked in worse repair than the woman's shack, like the faded memory of a craft that once, in the distant past, before six holes had appeared in its hull, could have conceivably floated on the chill gray water.

The pressure left his throat for an 'instant. Roger felt his hands being tied tight behind his back, and then the choke-hold was back. In a matter of seconds, he had been dragged down to boatside.

Liv said a single word: "Krensk."

The subt.i.tle, however, was much longer.

I THINK DEATH BY DROWNING IS ALMOST PUNISHMENT ENOUGH.

DEATH BY DROWNING AFTER BEING TRAPPED IN A BURNING BOAT.

IS EVEN BETTER.

Roger was tossed roughly into the boat, which was filled with dry twigs and leaves.

Liv smiled as she pushed the boat out into the lake, then lit a match which in turn ignited an oil-soaked rag.

"Lars!" she called as she tossed the rag into the dried brush. "Tootles!"

Roger struggled, but his hands were firmly tied, the ropes digging cruelly into his flesh. The brush caught fire energetically at the other end of the boat-a fire that would reach him in a matter of seconds, if the ancient, leaky craft didn't sink first.

Oddly enough, the only thing Roger could think of at that moment was that Liv hadn't used the knife.

That's when she threw it at him. He saw the s.h.i.+ning blade headed straight for his chest, its cutting edge pa.s.sing cleanly through the single word of Liv's last subt.i.tle: goodbye.

^ ^ 14 ^ ^

"DREAD COINCIDENCE!".

"Plssm grrsmm!" the gang leader mumbled. "Blssm grssm!"

"You play one more guitar chord,'' the thin gang member elucidated, "and we'll use our blades on your guitars."

"Yeah!" another of the gang added heavily. "And not just the strings, either!"

Bix Bale and the Belltones stopped strumming abruptly.

Delores stared at the approaching gang, smirks on their faces and weapons of destruction in their hands, Her companions gathered around her, ready to confront this newest threat with everything from royally jungle-trained muscles to canine Wonder Teeth.

But confrontation was not the answer. There had to be some way out of this pattern of battle after battle. If they did nothing but fight, how would they ever find Captain Crusader?

That's when the sand rose up before her. The gang stopped.

"Oh no, you don't," a deep, all-too-familiar voice intoned. "Delores is mine."

The figure was vaguely man-shaped, although slightly taller than most men. Beyond that, Delores could tell nothing, for the figure was entirely coated with sand.

"Scffmmm prfffss drrrtt!" the fellow who mumbled ordered.

His unpleasantly skinny sidekick added in his most sarcastic tone: "The Mumbler wants to know if you guys are scared of a pile of dirt!"

The entire gang jeered at that. Those among the mob intelligent enough to talk added a few comments of their own: "Yeah-dirt!"

They advanced again.

"Dirt needs to be stomped!"

They brandished knives.

"We'll bulldoze 'im!"

They swung chains.

"We'll ex-ex-uh-excavat'e 'im!"

They pounded bra.s.s knuckles into b.l.o.o.d.y palms, the pain apparently not reaching their small and distant brains.

"We'll throw him into the ocean and turn him into mud!" the unpleasant skinny fellow added as the gang formed a semicircle half a dozen paces from the sand creature.

But all the monster did was laugh. "I am more than a pile of dirt. Beneath this sandy exterior lurks a heart of pure slime!"

The gang stopped to look at each other.

"Sliffmm?" the Mumbler demanded.

"Nah!" the thin fellow exclaimed. "It can't be that bad."

The gang approached the sand-covered creature, perhaps a bit more tentatively than before.

"I have warned you," the monster replied solemnly. It turned its featureless head toward Delores and her band. "If you would stand a little farther back, it would insure you are out of the line of sludge." The creature took a deep breath, then continued hurriedly. "I dedicate this new work to you, Delores. I call it 'Gang Covered by Slime.' "

With that, the Slime Monster lifted up what might have been its arms, or possibly its tentacles-it was hard to tell underneath all that crusted sand. The gang rushed forward. One of them whipped a chain across the creature's shoulder. The metal links landed with a dull thud. The monster did not seem to notice.

"I begin!" the creature announced, and sludge burst forth from the twin points the thing had raised, more like dual hoses than fingers.

Brownish-gray slime covered the gang in a matter of seconds. When they moved, they slipped. When they slipped, they fell. When they spoke, they said only "glub" or "gurgle."

"My work is done," the creature declared proudly.

"Gang Covered by Slime?" Delores asked.

The monster nodded its sand-covered head (if head it truly was). "It is my latest creation. I understand that there are those who do not appreciate my art. But I have no choice. It is the artist within me. I must express myself through slime."

"Hey, that's great!" one of the tanned, swimsuit-clad lads called. "You put the Mad Mumbler and his Motorcycle Mob in its place! I think that calls for a song!"

The band started tuning up again. The monster turned to regard the speaker.

"Not unless you want to be covered by slime."

The guitars ceased strumming even more quickly than they had last time."Thank you," the monster replied. "Sometimes my art requires silence."

"Glub," the gang members remarked as they rolled around, so that their own, personal slime became sand-coated as well. "Gurgle."

"You have seen one of my pieces before-the one I t.i.tled 'Doctor Dread Covered by Slime,' " the monster continued. "It is so difficult to display my work. Slime is such a transitory form!"

"Not when you add sand!" Zabana observed wryly.

"Gurgle," the gang members added from where they still struggled to rise. "Glub."

"That is true," Edward mused. "I had never thought of adding other things to the slime. It gives me whole new sources of inspiration. This could be the first of many.

We could call it my 'dirt period.' And it's all because of you, Delores."

Delores didn't know how to answer that. She stared moodily at the gang members. A couple of them had collected enough sand on their persons so that they could finally stand without sliding, their "glubs" and "gurgles" m.u.f.fled by the extra coating of dirt.

She realized, though, that she was only avoiding this Edward thing, hoping against hope that the monster would simply go away. What should she say to this creature to make him understand? For that matter, what did you say to a slime monster under any circ.u.mstances?

Edward spoke again before she could come to any decision, a wistful tone to his voice. "It was too bad you had to leave that time we were in the city together, when you were being chased by an incredible number of bad guys, before you could see the work I t.i.tled 'An Incredible Number of Bad Guys Simultaneously Coated by Slime.' It may have been my masterpiece-at least of my early, slime-only period."

"Slime as art?" Delores managed at last, knowing that she had to say something. "It is a sobering thought."

"I knew you would see what I was trying to do!" the monster enthused. "Oh, why can't the critics be more like you? Why must the petty art world misunderstand?"

"Is Law of Cineverse!" the jungle prince answered.

The standing gang members had managed, while only falling down once or twice again themselves, to help the rest of their sand-covered fellows to their feet. The entire crew shuffled away from the Slime Monster, in the general direction of the ocean.

"Yip, bark!" Dwight the Wonder Dog interrupted as he leapt about enthusiastically at Louie's side. "Bark, yip, arf!"

The dog's outburst brought Delores back to her senses, beyond slime monsters and sand-covered gang members. They had come to this world for a purpose. Wasn't Captain Crusader supposed to be here someplace?

Louie once again interpreted. "Dwight says that Captain Crusader's been all over this place!"

"He has?" Delores asked, almost too excited to go on. After all this time, and all those worlds, had their quest finally succeeded? "Where is he?" She looked around at a beach full of startled surfers. "Don't anybody move!"

Dwight once again put his nose to the ground. He trotted quickly to an area of packed sand directly in front of the raised bandstand where Bix Bale and the Belltones fearfully watched their instruments.

"Bark! Yip! Arf!" Dwight informed them.

"He's getting close!" Louie exclaimed.

Dwight jumped up onto the bandstand, quickly sniffing at Bix Bale and the Belltones before dismissing them as unworthy of Captain Crusader consideration. Delores frowned. Something was wrong here. Why didn't Captain Crusader, hero among heroes, simply step forward? There was something strange about this whole situation.

Did this all have something to do with the Change?

The dog leapt back to the beach, coming within snuffling range of every cl.u.s.ter of surfers and beach bunnies. He galloped over to the Motorcycle Mob, who were was.h.i.+ng away sand and slime in the surf, but their smell came up as negative as well.

The Wonder Canine even, very briefly, sniffed the Slime Monster, but, after one very astonished "yip!" of disbelief, quickly moved on.

Dwight trotted over to Big Louie. "Yip, yip, yip!" he stated at last. "Arf, arf, arf!"

Now it was Louie's turn to frown. "Dwight says he's somewhere nearby, but he isn't here."

Delores looked at the sidekick, then at the Wonder Dog. Yes, this was definitely odd.

It sort of sounded like Captain Crusader was here, and at the same time wasn't here.

So where was he? And who was he? This sort of world, full of sand and surf, didn't seem like an obvious hangout for the active hero type-the surroundings here were just too frivolous.

Which, of course, led to other questions. They had come here to find Captain Crusader, but on whose instructions? Dwight the Wonder Dog's? But Delores didn't even know that for sure. What she did know was that Big Louie was giving the orders, supposedly for the Wonder Dog, but since he was the only one who could understand what the dog was saying, who could say who was the mastermind behind this latest phase of their adventures-a sidekick or an animal?

And how well could a mere dog, even one with a Wonder Sense of Smell, track the person who was turning out to be the most elusive hero in the Cineverse? What if Captain Crusader had changed his image once again, as he was so fond of doing? He could be anywhere. He could be hiding in their very midst without them knowing it. Any one of them-well, she knew she wasn't Captain Crusader; at least, she was pretty sure of it-but any of the others could be the hero's hero in disguise! Doc, Zabana, even Officer O'Clanrahan, had heroic credentials. Or the Captain could be even more heavily disguised as, say, Big Louie, or one of these kids on the beach!

Delores stopped and stared at the panting canine as she realized he could even be- Dwight the Wonder Dog. It was all too confusing. Why were they here? Who was Captain Crusader? She would have to leave all these questions behind if she were to be of any use at all in their search. In the Cineverse, you sometimes simply had to accept things.

"They're called holes in the plot," Louie a.s.sured her, even though she hadn't spoken any of her thoughts aloud.

"Yip yip! Bark arf!" Dwight added.

"Dwight says that this is the right place," Louie interpreted. "We simply have to be patient."

Delores sighed. Now she had both a sidekick and a dog reading her mind. But she realized she might have more immediate problems. The Mad Mumbler and the Motorcycle Mob had cleaned all the sand and slime from their persons and were trudging back up the beach.

"Zabana ready for anything," the jungle prince said as he moved to her side.

"That goesh double for me, misshy!" Doc said as he staggered over to join them.

Oh, no! Delores had feared this very sort of thing. They had been out of action for too long, and something had tipped the balance in the delicate line Doc walked between helpless sobriety and helpless inebriation. She had known it all along, even though she hadn't wanted to admit it: The plot had been too straightforward up to now.

Delores was all too aware of the s.h.i.+fts and surprises that lurked out there, especially since the Change. She thought of men wearing hockey masks, and s.h.i.+vered. The longer they searched for Captain Crusader, the more they invited the products of the Change, and Cineverse disaster.

"I'sh the beach," Doc explained as he tried to stand without swaying. "Jush a shmall cashe of shunshtroke."

He fell down, face first, into the sand. He made a gentle foomph noise when he hit, immediately followed by snoring.