by Steve Cole
“But you were sssoaking in it for quite sssome time.” Snap sniggered. “If the Great Gator eats you, he should ssstill be put to sssleep!”
“No way!” Zill shouted.
“While I have SSSabre there is always a way!” Snap turned to his pet. “Fetch me Plog – in as many pieces as you like. Fetch him NOW!”
Chapter Ten
CRUNCH TIME
With a fierce growl, Sabre streaked towards the platform like a scaly torpedo. But as if reacting to the sudden movement, the Great Gator lunged forward, opened his jaws around the scaly gator-wolf – and then slammed them shut.
“NO!” screamed Snap, as the Great Gator started to chew. “Ssspit SSSabre out! Quickly! Please!”
But the monster just burped in Snap’s face.
Zill gasped. “Did you see that?”
“I wish I hadn’t,” Plog admitted, feeling sick.
“Super-gross,” Danjo agreed.
“Uh-oh,” said Furp. “Look, those gators I put on ice – the blast must have thawed them out!”
While Snap gnashed his teeth and wailed with sorrow for his pet, his reviving army gazed up at the Great Gator in awe. “Hail the Great One!” they cried. “Hail the scaly king!”
“I don’t think those little gators should get so close to their Great One,” said Furp, closing his eyes. “As we’ve just seen, in the natural world, grown alligators are very happy to eat—”
CHOMP! GULP! SCROFF!
“– smaller alligators,” Furp concluded. Plog grimaced as the monster advanced and slurped up the lab-coated figures as if they were tasty morsels in sewage soup. He tried to keep track of Snap in all the chaos, but it was no good: the Duke had disappeared. Some of the little mutants splashed around in a panic, trying to swim to safety, but the Great Gator was too fast and too deadly.
Suddenly, as if gripped by a terrible thirst, the huge beast started washing down his meal with the gloopy water around him. GULP! GOLP!
“I don’t believe it,” Danjo cried. “He’s draining the sewer dry!”
“Do normal alligators drink as much as that?” asked Zill. “He’s getting bigger all the time!”
Plog saw that she was right – the Great Gator was inflating. His bogey-coloured skin was stretched tight, ready to burst. He looked more like a giant scaly balloon than a real alligator.
“The power surge in the machines must have boosted his growth,” said Furp. “His new body still craves energy – so he’s eating and drinking anything in sight.”
“I think you’re right.” Plog gulped as the Great Gator turned his horrible head towards them. “And what’s more . . . I think we might be next on the menu!” The overstuffed beast began lumbering in their direction. “Time to shift – NOW!”
Making the most of their new-found powers, the Squad attempted their escape. Zill scampered away along the side of the sewer wall like a poodle-skunky bug. Furp squirted jets of hot slime from his heels to propel himself clear. Danjo spat out a slime-line at the ceiling and swung away. All three pitched up in the middle of the muddy sewer-bed.
But Plog tripped as the metal bucket slipped off his foot. He landed flat on his snout! At once, his exposed foot began pumping out thick smelly slime. The Great Gator blundered closer, his huge jaws snapping . . .
“Enjoy your trip, Plog?” Like a super-athlete, Danjo swung down on another slime-line and scooped up his grateful friend. “I’ll take you on another!”
And a split-second after Danjo had whizzed Plog out of reach—
SMASSSSH!
The Giant Gator bit right through the platform and gulped it down, controls, equipment and all. He even swallowed Plog’s thick puddle of slime. But then his scaly skin broke out in black blotches, and another massive belch escaped from his gaping mouth.
Danjo landed with Plog beside Furp and Zill. “What do we do?” Zill panted. “We’ll never outrun that thing.”
“Perhaps we can slow him down,” said Furp. “That gruesome gator’s stuffed himself sick – and Plog’s disgusting super-slime seems to be giving him indigestion. If we could only feed him some more of it . . .”
Plog kicked off his remaining, mangled boot. “Well, there’s plenty to spare – but how do we get the slime down his throat?”
“Like this!” Danjo spat out another slime-line and swung with Plog right over the Great Gator’s head. As he opened his jaws, Plog shook his feet and showered him with slime. The beast spat and hissed, his tongue inflating like a balloon.
“Plog, I can’t hold you if you wriggle like that!” Danjo yelled.
“Let him drop,” called Furp. “I’ll give him a slimy crash mat!” As good as his word, he sprayed out a chunky mound of slush beneath Plog – who landed SPLAT! in its middle and skidded wildly across the sewer-bed on the slimy ice. As he went, he started kicking out his legs as if dancing the can-can, and his shoe-goo flew down the Great Gator’s throat in thick yellow blobs.
“Grab my tail, Fur-boy!” cried Zill, racing alongside him. “I’ll give you a tow!”
Plog did as she asked. As the Great Gator tried to bite him in half again, Zill hauled him away with her black and white brush – and dragged him right up the wall! Holding on for dear life, Plog waggled his feet again. A slimy shower rained down on the gator, but in his keenness to devour Plog his jaws stayed open. As the yellow gloop trickled down his throat, his legs grew larger, his belly bigger, his thrashing tail more and more titanic. The whole sewer shook and shuddered as the Great Gator’s bloated, bulging body began to smoulder and smoke, until finally –
KER-BLAMMMM!
The alligator blew himself apart, and his freaky flesh turned instantly to ashes. The dark flakes scattered like confetti over the length of the dried-out, crumbling tunnel.
For a while, all Plog, Danjo, Furp and Zill could do was stare in wonder and disbelief.
Then they cheered!
Zill lowered Plog to the ground, Danjo swung down and passed Plog his mangled footwear. Furp hopped across to join them on another hot blast of slime.
“We did it!” Danjo beamed.
“Thanks to Furp,” said Plog proudly. “Without his cures we’d still be slimeless.”
“I muddled things up, though, didn’t I?” said Furp, looking down ruefully at his icy hands.
“If you hadn’t,” said Zill, “we’d never have taken Snap by surprise.”
“Hey, what happened to Snap, anyway?” said Plog, peering around. “Where’d he go?”
“Nowhere pretty.” Danjo pulled a face and pointed further along the dried-out, ashy tunnel. Plog saw that while the Great Gator’s life had been brief, the beast had still had time to do a poo. The brown mess was lying on the ground. And sticking out from inside it were a few scraps of cloak and a diamond-topped cane . . .
“Ugh!” Plog looked away. “What a horrid way to go.”
“Snap was hungry for power,” said Furp quietly, “but his newborn beast was just hungry!”
“After that little workout, I’m feeling kind of hungry myself,” said Danjo. “Come on, the Slime-mobile’s waiting outside . . . last one back has to clean out the lav-lab!” He coughed and spat and jerked his head to zing out a slime-line – but nothing came out. “Hey, what gives? Don’t tell me my slime’s gone again?”
Zill tried jumping onto the wall – and immediately fell down in a heap. “Oh no! Furp, you never said your cure wouldn’t last!”
“I don’t understand. Let me test mine . . .” Furp jumped up high on jets of fiery slime – until they spluttered and stopped.
“Whoaaaa!” He flailed about in mid-air, but then touched the sewer wall with his fingers – and stuck tight! “Hey, my real slimy powers . . .” He quickly scuttled down the wall. “They’ve come back!”
“I wish mine would.” Zill cleared her throat – and a tiny thread of slime flicked out of her poodly jaws. “Hey, d’you see that? I wonder . . .” She shook her head, gave an enormous, hacking cough – and a thick, strong slime-line whoo
shed out to splat against the wall. “Yayy!” She grabbed Plog in a hug. “My spit’s back in business!”
“Fascinating!” Furp beamed with delight. “It would seem that our natural slime varieties have reasserted themselves.”
“Mine haven’t yet,” Danjo grumbled, staring into his pincers. “Come on . . .” He heaved and strained as if pushing out a plop. “Come on!” Suddenly both pincers unblocked in a steaming rush of hot-and-cold slime, squirting Danjo in the face so hard that he fell over. “Oh, YES!” he spluttered, wiping his eyes. “I’ve got the old magic back too!”
“I’m so glad we’ve regained our powers.” Plog smiled. “But in a way, I’m pleased we lost them for a while. It proved that however bad things get, we’ll always have each other.”
“You betcha,” said Danjo.
“We’re a team,” Furp agreed.
“Now and always.” Zill high-fived her three friends. “Whatever we face, whatever the odds . . . it’s the Slime Squad for ever.”
Plog smiled. “And will we be beaten? NEVER!”
Also by Steve Cole
[ASTROSAURS]
Riddle of the Raptors
The Hatching Horror
The Seas of Doom
The Mind-Swap Menace
The Skies of Fear
The Space Ghosts
Day of the Dino-Droids
The Terror-Bird Trap
The Planet of Peril
The Star Pirates
The Claws of Christmas
The Sun-Snatchers
Revenge of the Fang
The Carnivore Curse
The Dreams of Dread
The Robot Raiders
The Twist of Time
The Sabre-Tooth Secret
The Forest of Evil
Earth Attack!
The T-Rex Invasion
The Castle of Frankensaur
[ASTROSAURS ACADEMY]
Destination: Danger!
Contest Carnage!
Terror Underground!
Jungle Horror!
Deadly Drama!
Christmas Crisis!
Volcano Invaders!
Space Kidnap!
[COWS IN ACTION]
The Ter-Moo-nators
The Moo-my’s Curse
The Roman Moo-stery
The Wild West Moo-nster
World War Moo
The Battle for Christmoos
The Pirate Moo-tiny
The Moogic of Merlin
The Victorian Moo-ders
The Moo-lympic Games
First Cows on the Mooon
The Viking Emoo-gency
The Udderly Moo-vellous C.I.A. Joke Book
Astrosaurs Vs Cows in Action: The Dinosaur Moo-tants
[SLIME SQUAD]
Slime Squad Vs The Fearsome Fists
Slime Squad Vs The Toxic Teeth
Slime Squad Vs The Cyber Poos
Slime Squad Vs The Supernatural Squid
Slime Squad Vs The Killer Socks
Slime Squad Vs The Last Chance Chicken
Slime Squad Vs The Alligator Army
Slime Squad Vs The Conquering Conks
For older readers:
Z. Rex
Z. Raptor
Z. Apocalypse
THE SLIME SQUAD vs THE ALLIGATOR ARMY
AN RHCP DIGITAL EBOOK 978 1448 17485 0
Published in Great Britain by RHCP Digital,
an imprint of Random House Children’s Publishers UK
A Random House Group Company
This ebook edition published 2014
Copyright © Steve Cole, 2011
Cover illustration and cards © Andy Parker, 2011
Map © Steve Cole and Dynamo Design, 2011
Illustrations copyright © Woody Fox, 2011
First Published in Great Britain
Red Fox 9781849413978 2011
The right of Steve Cole to be identified as the author of this work has been asserted in accordance with the Copyright, Designs and Patents Act 1988.
This ebook is copyright material and must not be copied, reproduced, transferred, distributed, leased, licensed or publicly performed or used in any way except as specifically permitted in writing by the publishers, as allowed under the terms and conditions under which it was purchased or as strictly permitted by applicable copyright law. Any unauthorized distribution or use of this text may be a direct infringement of the author’s and publisher’s rights and those responsible may be liable in law accordingly.
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A CIP catalogue record for this book is available from the British Library.
