Marvel Monsters Unleashed: Beware the Glop!

by Steve Behling

  So there was a way to stop it!

  “Wait…an open can of WHAT?” Kei said, scratching his head. He checked the entry and read through Elsa Bloodstone’s notes. There was no mention of what exactly the man had used to stop the Glop. Now his mind moved from thoughts of monsters to solving this problem.

  What could have dissolved the Glop?

  IT WAS DARK inside the school, save for the dull red light emanating from the Exit signs. Ben and Cindy had never been inside Kurtzberg Middle School at night, let alone all by themselves. It was a small town, a small school, and there was no security guard after hours. There was no alarm ringing, either. Ben wondered why, then realized—the alarms were probably programmed to trip if a door or window was opened. But not if some gigantic Glop dissolved a hole in the wall!

  The kids padded down the hallway, racing past the closed, darkened classrooms. They looked over their shoulders. In the dark, they saw nothing but lockers lining either side of the hallway. Then they heard a distant sound—like enormous flapping wings.

  “He’s still outside,” said Cindy.

  “Who? Slizzik, or the Glop?”

  “Slizzik. You hear the wings?”

  “Yeah,” Ben said. “So where’s the Glop?”

  As if on cue, there came a gurgling sound. Like a low rumble. The kids could feel the vibrations through their shoes, running up their legs.

  “What is that?” Cindy asked. “Do you see anything?”

  Ben rubbed his tired eyes and squinted. His vision had adjusted somewhat to the low-level lighting in the school. But when he looked down the hallway, he still saw nothing. He turned and looked behind them. Nothing.

  No sign of the Glop anywhere.

  “Nothing!” Ben said nervously.

  They kept walking, looking for a good place to hide.

  Again, the floor rumbled beneath them. They heard a “shlorp” sound, like someone flinging a blob of gelatin at a wall.

  A locker door jangled. Cindy whipped her head around to look at the row of lockers right next to her.

  One of the doors was ajar. Cindy gulped.

  “There!” she whispered, pointing at the open locker door. Ben nodded. Summoning all the courage he had inside, he crept over to the locker door and looked at his sister. She gave him a look that said, What are you doing?! Ben nudged his head toward the locker door, then looked at his foot and wiggled it. Then he pretended to kick the door. Cindy nodded, getting it.

  She held her breath.

  With a loud clang, Ben kicked open the locker door.

  A stack of books and a brown paper bag fell out of the locker and onto the floor. The paper bag came to rest on its side, and an apple rolled out.

  Cindy exhaled, and Ben slumped against the row of lockers.

  “I’d like to go home now,” Cindy said.

  “I’d like that apple,” Ben said. “I haven’t had anything to eat since forever.”

  That’s when the locker doors on the opposite side of the hallway blew wide open, the Glop flowing freely from every single opening.

  “WHAT THE GLOP!” Ben yelled, as he and Cindy motored down the hallway. The Glop was no longer walking upright, like a grim parody of a person. It was now flowing, like a river of sick and disgusting slop. It rolled and roiled behind the kids, chasing after them. It moved along the floor, to the lockers, over the ceiling, to the other side of the hall, back to the floor, always going forward. It crested in waves, an ocean of slime heading closer and closer toward Ben and Cindy.

  As the kids turned the corner, they saw that the hall dead-ended. In front of them was the school gym.

  “Inside!” Cindy said, grabbing her big brother. They pushed the doors open and ran into the gym. Their sneakers squeaked across the floor. Behind them, the Glop gurgled and flowed quickly toward them.

  “Nnnnoooooooo esssssscaaaaaaaaappe” were the words that bubbled from its “mouth.”

  Inside the gym, Ben looked around for anything they might use to slow down the Glop. He saw a balance beam the students used for gymnastics lessons and had an idea.

  “Grab the other end of this!” he said to his sister, and the two pushed the balance beam over to the doors that led inside the gym. Since the doors were the kind you pushed, Ben figured if they could block the door with the balance beam, they could prevent the Glop from opening the door!

  The creature threw itself against the double doors, now blocked by the balance beam. They didn’t open!

  “Score one for the good guys!” Ben said, a little triumph in his voice.

  Which is when the doors slowly began to dissolve. The large Glop oozed through the now open doorway and into the gym.

  “So much for that bright idea,” Ben said, as the kids raced across the gym floor. All they had to do was make it to the door on the opposite side of the gym to escape the Glop.

  They ran as fast as they could, but somehow the Glop was faster, always faster. It spread itself like an oil slick across the gym floor, causing the kids to slip and slide on the hardwood.

  Ben and Cindy picked themselves up as the Glop continued to slime its way across the gym floor. They were only about twenty feet from the door. But between them and the door now stood the Glop. It had oozed back into its hulking, walking form.

  “We’re not getting out that way,” Ben said, his heart pounding. He looked around, his mind reeling.

  “What are we gonna do?” Cindy said. “If we try to run back to the other doors, it’s just gonna trip us up again! And then what? Eat us?”

  Ben craned his neck, scanning the gym for some other way out. That’s when his eyes noticed the climbing wall.

  And the air vent above it.

  “Climb the wall, NOW!” Ben yelled to his sister, as he ran for the other doors.

  BEN WAVED HIS ARMS and whooped and hollered as he ran toward the other doors. If the Glop had any emotions, it was probably all too happy to follow him. It seemed attracted to all the commotion he was making.

  And it seemed hungry.

  “Over here, Sloppy Joe!” he taunted. The creature complied, sliding and slipping along the gym floor, leaving gloppy splotches along the way. The thing seemed to pay no attention to Cindy, as she made it to the climbing wall.

  And she climbed.

  Fast.

  Ben was nearly at the other doors when the Glop suddenly flowed up and around the doors themselves. It blocked the exit, burbling and bubbling at Ben. He looked behind him and saw Cindy climbing. She was nearly at the top of the rock wall, near the vent!

  Cindy saw her brother bravely confronting the Glop. She was so proud of her brother…but she would never tell him that! I’ll never hear the end of it, she thought. Ben had bought them time to escape from the gym, given her a chance to get to the vent. Maybe they’d be able to escape through it and crawl to safety.

  Now it was her turn to help her brother. She made it to the top of the rock wall, to the air vent, grabbed the grate that covered it with a free hand, and gave it a hard yank.

  It barely budged.

  “Whatever you’re doing,” Ben yelled to his sister, “can you do it faster?”

  The Glop spat out a massive glob of goo at Ben, who managed to duck out of its way. The slime plopped onto the gym floor, dissolving a giant hole in the wooden planks. That blob grew bigger as it absorbed the wood, then rolled back to join the Glop…who seemed even larger.

  Cindy pulled on the grate even harder, but it just wouldn’t move. She looked at it again and saw that it had been painted over. Hundreds of times, it looked like. She doubted anyone this side of the Hulk could yank it off.

  That’s when it hit her.

  “Hey!” Cindy called down below. “Glop! You’re gross! And you smell! A lot!”

  Ben’s eyes went wide with terror for his sister. She was actually calling it over to her! What was she thinking?!

  “Cindy, no!” Ben screamed, as the Glop forgot all about him. It reared its ugly, amorphous “head” and spat another wad of
sticky, gloppy goo…

  Right at Cindy!

  THERE WAS NOTHING Ben could do. It was too late. The Glop had gone after his sister, and there she was, hanging at the top of the climbing wall—helpless! The stream of slime seemed to take forever to arc through the air. Ben felt like he was moving in slow motion as he sprinted across the gym floor. He knew there was no way he could reach his sister before the Glop got to her. But he had to try.

  He never took his eyes off Cindy. The Glop was almost upon her when she did something Ben didn’t expect.

  She let go of the climbing wall!

  Cindy dropped a few feet before she managed to catch another set of handholds. She looked up, just in time to see the Glop splatter right where she had just been…

  Covering the air vent!

  Down below, the Glop let out a garbled sound, as if it were angry, almost frustrated. Sure, Ben thought. Of course it’s frustrated. It’s hungry and the two things it wants to eat the most keep running away! Ben stared at the Glop on the wall as it dissolved the grate that covered the vent and dropped back down to the floor to join its master, narrowly missing Cindy on the way down.

  Ben was now at the climbing wall, heading up to join his sister. He hadn’t stopped running, hadn’t stopped moving. He couldn’t. They couldn’t. Cindy had tricked the Glop into opening the blocked air vent for them! They had to make it through now. They had to!

  By the time Ben reached the top of the climbing wall, Cindy had already clambered inside the air vent.

  “Come on, give me your hand!” Cindy shouted, and she helped pull Ben up and inside the vent. Below, they heard the ominous gurgling as the Glop dissolved more of the gym in a fit of anger. Now that Ben was safe inside the vent, both he and Cindy looked down. They saw the creature “eating” the bleachers and the floor, growing larger. It looked up at them.

  “Ssssssssoooooon wwweeeee willlll eeeeeaaaat yyyooooou…annnndddd yoooouuuuuu wwwwilllll jooooooooiiiinnnnnnn usssssssss!”

  KEI’S FINGERS FLEW across the computer keyboard. Every other letter he pressed was wrong, and he found himself typing a message that read even worse than the one written by benthemonsterkid.

  Kei looked at what he had written, shook his head, and took a deep breath. He hit Delete, then retyped the message slowly, more carefully:

  He pressed Return to post the message to the thread.

  Then he crossed his fingers for good luck. At times like these, Kei wished that Slizzik could talk, or that he was telepathic or something. It would be awesome to have a way of really communicating with him. Moon Girl is lucky, he thought. When she had to, she could somehow transfer her mind into the body of Devil Dinosaur, her companion. If Kei could have done that, he would “be” Slizzik, and would be helping benthemonsterkid right now!

  But as it was, all he could do was wait. Kid Kaiju hoped that the monster kid would get this message, and that he’d be able to do something with the information.

  Before it was too late.

  “THIS WAY!” Cindy called as she moved along the cramped air duct on her hands and knees. Ben was right behind her. He couldn’t help glancing over his shoulder every other second or so, looking for any signs that the Glop was catching up to them.

  So far, no sign. No nothing.

  Was that good?

  Or was it bad?

  “We have to get out of the air duct, Cindy—we have to find a way out of here and the school, get back to Slizzik! We have to get back in touch with Kid Kaiju!”

  They crawled down the air duct, not knowing exactly where they were. Finally, they came upon another vent and looked through the grate that covered it.

  They saw the cafeteria.

  “If the Glop makes it to the cafeteria, we’ll never find it,” Ben said, serious.

  “What do you mean?” Cindy asked.

  “I mean it’s going to blend right in with all the gross cafeteria food,” he replied.

  Both kids laughed.

  “Wait!” Ben exclaimed, as the phone in his pocket buzzed. He checked it and saw an update from Kid Kaiju. His eyeballs darted back and forth as he scanned the message. “For real, I know where we are and where we need to go! We have to make it to the next air vent!”

  “What’s the next air vent?” Cindy asked, as Ben squirmed around her and crawled faster and faster down the duct. “Where are we going?”

  “The art room!” Ben yelled behind him.

  “Aaaaaaaand why are we going to the art room?” Cindy asked. “Maybe we could make a prison for it out of macaroni and shells?”

  “One more kick oughtta do it,” Ben said. Both he and Cindy were all bent up inside the air duct, their backs against one side and their feet pressed against the grate covering the vent before them.

  “One…two…THREE!” Ben called as he and Cindy slammed the soles of their feet against the grate. It came off and landed on the floor with a loud CLANG! They looked through the now open vent and saw the darkened art room. The vent was right above Mr. Pierce’s desk.

  Ben slipped out of the vent and landed on the desk. He looked up, and his sister jumped out, landing on her feet atop the desk.

  “That was pretty cool, what you did back there in the gym,” Ben had to admit.

  Cindy smiled at her big brother. “Thanks. I guess it was pretty cool how you almost sacrificed yourself for me. So now what?”

  “Kid Kaiju! His last post. Remember how he said that the stuff covering the Glop was like paint?”

  Cindy nodded.

  “Well, if it’s like paint, then he said we need something like paint thinner. You know, something that can dissolve paint! Maybe that’s the Glop’s weakness!”

  “Maybe?” Cindy said.

  “‘Maybe’ is better than ‘We have no plan whatsoever except to become the Glop’s next meal,’” Ben replied.

  The kids looked at each other and nodded. The idea was far-fetched, but no more far-fetched than a giant, gloppy alien blob chasing them all over town and through their school. What did they have to lose by trying?

  In the dark art room, Ben and Cindy went to the sink and the cabinets beneath it. There, among various empty bottles and paint cans, they found several jars marked PAINT THINNER. They started grabbing at them.

  Then they heard a gurgling sound.

  “Was that your stomach? Please tell me that was your stomach,” Cindy said, remembering how hungry her brother was.

  “It was not my stomach,” Ben shot back.

  Again, they heard the same gurgling sound. A second later, a stream of sickening goo erupted from the sink!

  THE GLOP EXPLODED from the sink, and Ben and Cindy fell to the floor. They looked up and saw the creature’s disgusting form roll along the ceiling before landing on the floor and taking shape inside the art room. It looked bigger than ever! As it rose up on its two “legs,” the Glop hunched over—it had to, in order to fit inside the room!

  The kids were so distracted by the creature’s sudden appearance that neither noticed they had let go of the jars of paint thinner. They rolled along the floor, coming to rest against a nearby sculpture.

  “Nnnnnooooowwwwwwhheeerrrrrrre toooooooo rrrrrrunnnnnnn,” the Glop spat, tiny flecks of goo flying from its “mouth.” The drops landed on the floor, dissolving little holes in its surface.

  With surprising speed, the Glop reached for Ben. He tried to leap out of the way, when he saw the alien’s other hand block his path.

  “This is a terrible time to realize I dropped the paint thinner!” Ben shouted, probably to Cindy, but really to no one in particular.

  Ben was cornered. The Glop was right—there was nowhere left to run! He was caught between the Glop’s two massive hands, which were coming closer…and closer…and closer.…

  “INCOMING!”

  Cindy.

  Ben heard her voice and looked up. A big jar of paint thinner was flying through the air, right toward him. He shot up his hands and snagged it.

  Right before the Glop’s third
hand slammed on top of its other two hands, effectively trapping Ben inside.

  “Wait!” Ben cried. “Now it has THREE hands? I don’t have three hands. This is so not fair!”

  But that didn’t matter. What mattered was that Ben had a jar of paint thinner. He was trapped by the Glop, but at least he had a chance to defend himself.

  Maybe. After all, the paint thinner was only a theory, and an untested one at that. But there was no time like the present. Ben could hear all kinds of commotion from outside the walls of his gloppy prison. It sounded like the thing was going after Cindy now! He could hear his sister running from one side of the room to the other. At least, that’s what it sounded like.

  That’s when he heard a splash and a scream!

  But it wasn’t Cindy screaming.

  It was the Glop!

  “Ben!” Cindy yelled, her voice muffled by the sound of the Glop’s multiple “hands.” “The paint thinner—it works!”

  Ben quickly opened the jar, removing the lid. Then he splashed the contents of the open container at the “hand” that was closing in right in front of him.

  The Glop shrieked in pain!

  Almost immediately, the “hand” that had been hit by the paint thinner seemed to dissolve. The goo flowed away, creating an opening large enough for Ben to dive through, which is exactly what he did.

  He was free!

  Well, free from the gloppy prison. But still stuck inside the art room with a giant gloppy Glop!

  Ben saw Cindy standing on the opposite side of the room, hurling the last of the paint thinner jars at the Glop. Wherever the paint thinner struck the creature’s body, they saw the goo flowing away, like it was running from the chemical. Or like it was being dissolved? Gloppy goo from the creature’s body flowed to cover these wounds, struggling to make the Glop whole again.

  The Glop screamed. The paint thinner definitely hurt the alien. The creature shuddered, its massive form shaking as it rose.