The Ooze

A camping trip is interrupted by a strange, black fluid in the path. It's got other plans.

When the jeep pulled to a sharp stop, Melanie jerked awake. One of the massive trees lay across the dirt path. Blinking persistent grogginess from her brain, she tried to get a grasp on the situation.

Jimmy groaned, “Seriously? So much for getting to our spot.”

Ian said, “What about that path we saw back there? It was wide enough for the jeep.”

“Right. You’re not the one who has to drive your baby down the freaking unexplored path,” Jimmy said.

“Aw, come on, Jimbo, where’s your sense of adventure?” Melanie patted him on the shoulder

He returned her invitation with a withering glare. Leslie tittered from the passenger seat, nodding her head in agreement.

“Fine. But, if my baby gets scratched up or we get stuck, you’re the ones who have to take care of it.” He threw the jalopy into reverse and stared out the back as he guided his metal love down the dusty lane. After about ten minutes, the side path opened up. With a heavy sigh, he turned onto it.

“Ooh, adventure time!” Leslie bounced up and down in her seat, clapping her hands in excitement.

Jimmy mumbled something under his breath, but began the careful drive down the unfamiliar road. After a half an hour, he asked, “Does this freaking thing have an end?”

As they rolled around the forested turn, he slammed on the brakes. The answer to his question lay in the road before them.

“What is that?” Leslie asked with disgust.

“I don’t know, but I am not driving my jeep through that muck!” Jimmy turned off the shuddering beast.

They clambered out of the vehicle, approaching the slick black puddle in the middle of the path. The surface shimmered like oil on water and a few bubbles gurgled around the edges.

“That is so gross.” Leslie grimaced and grabbed Jimmy’s shoulder, hiding her face in his bicep.

He shook her off and broke off a stick from a nearby bush.

When he squatted by the puddle, Melanie said, “Hey, I don’t think you should do that. What if it’s like toxic or something?”

He ignored her and poked the stick into the goop. It made a shlop noise and sticky strands stuck to the stick as he jabbed it some more.

“Jimmy, knock it off.” Melanie’s words were still ignored. She glanced over at Ian for support.

He shook his head and shrugged his shoulders. Their friend had always been known for his stubborn desire to do what he wanted and disregard others’ warnings. This wasn’t new.

Jimmy’s foot slipped out of his precarious squat position. For one painfully long moment, he balanced right on the edge of the puddle. Then he fell.

They ran to his aid. He pushed his black covered face out of the mud with a string of swear words interrupted by spitting noises. When Ian stretched to help him, he waved him off with a grumble.

“Baby, are you okay?” Leslie cried out, reaching for him but unwilling to actually touch him.

“Do I look okay?” He snarled and stood up, wiping gunk from his face and clothes. “Dammit, I have to get back in the jeep like this. We are not driving her through it.”

“It’s alright,” Melanie said, “I think we’re ready to head back anyways. Obviously, we’re not meant to go camping this weekend.”

“Obviously,” Jimmy said as he swiped more ooze off his skin.

His girlfriend rubbed the air over his arm, trying to look concerned but still not willing to touch him. He grabbed a towel out of their gear and spread it out over the driver’s seat.

“This freaking sucks. I don’t even know what it is,” he said, swiping more of the tar off his arms.

Ian and Melanie met each other’s smirks and tried not to laugh.Certainly not their plan for the weekend, but oh, the teasing material they now had for months to come. They piled into the vehicle and Jimmy began the slow, backward drive down the path..

About twenty feet back, Jimmy collapsed against the steering wheel, convulsing and frothing at the mouth. The jeep stalled out and Leslie screamed. He quit moving, his blue eyes frozen on his panicked girlfriend.

“Dude, you okay?” Ian asked, leaning forward to feel for a pulse.

Jimmy blinked and sat upright. His head turned so he stared at Leslie without rotating his body. A cruel smile twisted across his features.

In a voice too high, almost feminine sounding, he said, “Oh, this is going to be fun.”

With superhuman speed, he grabbed a handful of Leslie’s hair and began yanking. She shrieked and clawed at his hands. Ian and Melanie tried to tug his fingers, which were curled in an iron tight fist, away from her hair.

“Let go!” Melanie screamed, banging at his hand, but Jimmy didn’t acknowledge them.

With a sickening crunch noise, he twisted his hand and ripped the handful off with a chunk of flesh. Leslie sobbed, patting the skin near the scalped patch. Blood bubbled up and trickled down the side of her face.

Her hands clamped over her mouth, Melanie fell against her seat. Jimmy took advantage of their horror and grabbed another handful. Chaos erupted again. They dug at his hands, leaving deep blackish-red furrows in his flesh. He acted as if they weren’t touching him.

Another violent crack accompanied the hair being torn off her head. His bloody, hairy hands gripped Leslie’s cheeks. Before they had a chance to register what he was doing, he gave a sharp wrench and snapped Leslie’s neck. She slumped against him.

The sudden silence making Melanie’s ears ring.

“Oh my gawd, what have you done?” Melanie broke the quiet, tears burning her eyes.

Jimmy turned his head until his inhumanly cold, blue eyes met hers. His face, speckled with blood, crinkled as he broke into another smile. Just as he lunged at her and Ian, they jerked their doors open and launched out of the jeep.

Ian raced around and shoved Melanie into the nearby brush. He grabbed a rock and shouted, “Run!”

But, she was not about to leave her boyfriend to face Jimmy on his own. After a quick study of the surrounding forest, she found a thick branch. Without a word, she stepped in behind Ian.

Jimmy stood between them and the jeep, and laughed. “What? I mean, really. What do you two think you’re going to do with a rock and a stick?”

When he charged at Ian, he swung the rock at him. WIth a disjointed maneuver, he ducked the blow and gripped his friend by his throat. With Melanie shrieking at him, Jimmy lifted the young man into the air by his neck. Ian brought the rock down full force into the side of Jimmy’s head.

He threw his head back and laughed, blackish blood oozing down the side of his face from the flap of skin peeled back.

Trying to get into a position where she could hit Jimmy without connecting with Ian, Melanie struggled through the underbrush. Before she could reach him, he clenched his fingers. Ian collapsed on the ground, his bloody throat still dangling from Jimmy’s fingers.

The man lay on the dirt, his hand reaching towards the gaping wound in his neck. He gurgled and rasped, his blood soaking into the path.

Melanie froze, too stunned to even scream.

Blood running down his hand and the knob of cartilage grasped tight in his fingers, Jimmy turned his attention to her. The grin deepened. “Guess it’s just you and me, Mels.” He tossed the body part into the foliage like a beer bottle.

Terror laced her voice when she asked, “What’s wrong with you? Why are you doing this?”

Somehow, his smile stretched his face even more. He leaped. Instinct kicked in and she brought the thick limb behind her. With all her strength, she swung. The wet thump of the wood connecting with her head made her wish to be deaf.

The force of the blow threw him on his back on the dirt road. His head bent at an odd angle on his shoulders a lump of bone jutting under the skin.

She crept forward, the branch held like a bat, ready to strike again if she needed to. Pain nipped at her palms, where the bark scraped her when she hit Jimmy.

His eyes rolled towards her and he flashed a bloody smile. The high-pitched voice chuckled out of his lips, “You didn’t really think it was going to be that easy?”

Her shriek bounced against the trees around them. The branch smashed down, again and again. Still screaming, she bashed the wood against the side of his face. His skull caved in and glistening gore clung to the rough surface.

Only then did she kneel, the stick held in front of her as support to keep her from collapsing. Before her, something not recognizable as Jimmy, had black ooze ribboned into the chunks of his brain, the blood an unnatural shade.

Alone, with the bodies of friends she was supposed to be camping with, she started bawling.

Her desperate sobs did not muffle the high-pitched voice floating through the air, “This has only begun.”