Goosebumps: The Blob That Ate Everyone (8 page)

I nodded. “Yes. It’s in my story,” I confessed.

Alex grabbed my shoulder. “Well, what happens next? Tell me. What comes
next?”

“I—I don’t know,” I stammered. “That’s where I stopped writing!”

Alex and I never ran so fast in our lives. By the time we reached my house,
my head was throbbing and my side was aching.

We both gasped for breath as I pushed open the front door. “Anyone home?” I
shouted into the house. “Mom? Mom?”

No reply. She must have gone out.

I turned and glimpsed the Blob Monster bouncing hard over Alex’s front yard.

“No time!” I cried to Alex. “No time! Hurry!”

She slipped inside the house, and I slammed the door behind us and locked it.
Then I lurched toward my room, holding my aching side, forcing my rubbery legs
to move.

I mopped the sweat off my forehead with my arm. Then I dropped into the desk
chair and raised my hands over the typewriter keys.

Alex hurried up beside me. “What are you going to do?” she asked
breathlessly.

“No time to explain,” I choked out.

I heard a thumping at the front door. Then I heard a loud
CRAAAACK.

And I knew the huge pink Blob had broken down the door.

“No time. No time!” I declared. I furiously started to type.

“I’m typing an ending,” I told Alex. “I’m going to type that the Blob Monster
disappears. That it never existed. That Adam and the two policemen are okay.”

SQUISSSSH… SQUISSSSH.

Alex and I both gasped. We heard the Blob Monster’s slimy body, so close now,
moving quickly toward us through the hall.

I knew I had only a few seconds to type the ending.

SQUISSSSSH.

Right outside my bedroom door.

I held my breath and pounded the keys.

Pounded as hard and fast as I could until—

“NOOOOO!”

“What’s wrong?” Alex shrieked.

“The keys are jammed!”

We both screamed again as the Blob Monster bounced into the room.

The Blob Monster’s body heaved up and down. The creature panted, its entire
body bouncing. White slime puddled on the floor around it.

The slash of a mouth in the belly opened and closed, opened and closed. The
purple tongue licked the mouth as the monster’s eyes narrowed on me.

Alex gasped and backed up against the wall. “Zackie—type the ending!” she
screamed breathlessly. “Make that thing disappear!”

“I
can’t
!” I cried. I frantically pulled at the keys. “They’re jammed.
I can’t untangle them!”

“Zackie—
please
!” Alex pleaded.

And then I saw the fat purple tongue leap.

It rolled out of the Blob Monster’s open belly like a garden hose.

“NOOOOOO!” I opened my mouth in a terrified wail as the tongue stretched
across the room. Reached for me…

Reached for me…

No!

The tongue wrapped around the typewriter. Lifted it easily.

I grabbed for it with both hands.

And missed.

My hands slid across the tongue. So hot. Burning hot. And sticky.

The tongue pulled back, snapped back like elastic. And carried the typewriter
into the monster’s gaping mouth.

As I stared in horror, the Blob Monster swallowed the typewriter with a
single
gulp.

I leaped up from the desk chair. And stepped up beside Alex. We pressed our
backs against the wall and watched helplessly as the Blob Monster throbbed and
heaved. Digesting the typewriter.

“We’re doomed,” Alex murmured. “The typewriter—it’s gone. Now there is no
way you can destroy the monster.”

“Wait!” I cried. “I have an idea!”

I dove back to the desk. I searched the desktop.

“What are you
doing
?” Alex cried.

The Blob Monster let out sick gurgling sounds as it digested the typewriter.
Its body heaved up and down in the puddle of slime it had left on the rug.

“The pen,” I told Alex. “The pen—”

I pulled open the desk drawer and saw the old pen in front. I grabbed it and
slammed the drawer shut.

I held it up to show Alex. “The old pen the woman gave me. Maybe it has the
same powers as the typewriter. Maybe I can write an ending with the pen—and
make the Blob Monster disappear!”

“Hurry—!” Alex warned.

The Blob Monster had stopped its gurgling. The purple tongue came darting out
again.

I grabbed a sheet of paper and leaned over the desk. I pulled off the cap on
the pen and lowered the point to the paper.

“THE—”

I wrote one word—and felt something hot and wet slap against the side of my
face.

The fat purple tongue slid against me.

“Ow!” I cried out. And dropped the pen.

My hand shot up to my cheek, and I felt hot, sticky slime.

My stomach heaved.

The tongue curled around the old pen. And carried it to the Blob Monster’s
mouth.

“Noooo!” Alex and I shrieked together.

The creature sucked the pen into its open belly, and began its digesting
gurgles.

“Now what?” Alex asked in a whisper. “What can we do? It’s going to eat
us
next!”

I jumped to my feet. The desk chair toppled over.

I stepped away from it, my eyes on the doorway. “Make a run for it!” I cried.

Alex held back. “We can’t,” she sighed. “That thing—it’s blocking the way.
We’ll never get past it.”

She was right. The Blob Monster would stick out its tongue and pull us easily
into its drooling mouth.

“Try the window!” I cried desperately.

We both turned to the window.

No way. It was bolted shut because of the air conditioner.

“Doomed,” Alex whispered. “Doomed.”

We both turned back to the throbbing, pink monster.

And then I had one more idea.

“Alex—remember when Adam typed something on my story? And it didn’t come
true?”

She nodded, keeping her eyes on the gurgling Blob Monster. “Yes, I remember.
But so what?”

“Well,” I continued, “maybe that’s because it’s
me
that has the power.
Maybe the power isn’t in the typewriter or the pen. Maybe I got the power that
night in that antique shop when I was zapped by that electrical shock.”

Alex swallowed hard. “Maybe…”

“Maybe it’s been in
me
the whole time!” I cried excitedly. “All I have
to do is
think
what I want to happen—and it will come true. I don’t
have to type it or write it. I just have to
think
it!”

“Maybe…” Alex repeated.

She started to say something else. But the Blob suddenly bounced forward,
squishing over the rug. And its tongue rolled out toward us.

“Ohhhh…” Alex backed up against the wall.

The fat tongue licked her arm. It left a thick smear of sticky drool on her
skin.

“Think fast, Zackie!” Alex cried.

The tongue curled and started to wrap itself around Alex.

“Make it disappear!” Alex pleaded. “Think! Think it away!”

I froze in horror as the fat tongue wrapped around Alex. It lifted her off
the floor.

Screaming, she thrashed her arms and kicked. Squirming frantically, she
wrapped her hands around the sticky tongue—and shoved with all her strength.

But the disgusting tongue squeezed tighter, held her in its slimy grip.

I shut my eyes.

Think!
I instructed myself. Think
hard!

Think
that the Blob Monster is gone.

Gone… gone… gone.

I held my breath. And thought with all my might.

Would it work?

The monster is gone.

That’s what I thought.

The monster is gone… gone… gone…

I silently chanted the word, over and over. Then I opened my eyes.

And the Blob Monster was gone!

Alex stood in the center of the floor, a dazed expression on her face. “It…
it worked,” she choked out.

I
do
have the power! I realized.

I closed my eyes again and started to think.
Adam is back,
I thought.

Adam is back…

I opened my eyes—and Adam stood beside Alex.

He blinked several times, then squinted at me. “What’s happening?” he asked.

“I have it!” I cried happily. “I have the power—not the typewriter!”

“What are you
talking
about?” Adam demanded. “What power?”

I shook my head. “You wouldn’t understand,” I told him.

Alex started to laugh.

Before I realized it, I was laughing too.

Joyful laughter. Relieved laughter.

All three of us stood there, laughing, laughing, laughing—laughing happily
ever after.

“Well? Did you like my story?”

The pink Blob Monster neatened the pages he had just read and set them down
on the desk. He turned to his friend, a green-skinned Blob Monster.

“Did you just write that?” the green monster asked.

The pink Blob Monster gurgled with pride. “Yes. Did you enjoy it?”

“I did,” his friend replied. “Thank you for reading it to me. It’s very
exciting. Very well written. What do you call it?”

“I call it ‘Attack of the Humans’,” the Blob Monster replied. “Did you really
like it?”

“Yes. Those humans are really gross,” his friend replied. “Do you know my
favorite part?”

“What part?”

“When the Blob Monster ate Adam. That was really fun!” the green creature
declared. “But I have just one problem with your story.”

The pink Blob Monster bobbed up and down. The veins on top of his head turned
a darker purple. “A problem with my story? What is it?”

“Well…” his green friend replied. “Why did you give it such an unhappy
ending? I hated it when the human shut his eyes, and the Blob Monster
disappeared. That was so sad.”

“Do you think so?” the pink monster asked, gazing down thoughtfully at the
pages he had written.

“Yes,” his friend replied. “You should have a happy ending, instead. Everyone
likes a happy ending.”

The pink Blob Monster picked up his story. “Okay. You’re right. I’ll change
the ending. I’ll have the Blob Monster eat them all!”

“Great! I love it!” his friend declared. “Now,
that’s
a great ending!”

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