Great numbers of police cars swarmed through the streets of the west side of Rocky Springs. Upon hearing the report that groups of slimy monsters were attacking people in the area, the police had wasted no time in coming to the scene. It did not take them long to find what they were looking for, for soon they began to see monsters all over, chasing people out of buildings and causing general terror and havoc. A number of people were found who were lying motionless on the ground, too weak to climb to their feet. They had obviously been hit with the strength-sapping slime that the creatures could spit at long range.
In what was approximately the center of the area under attack, James R. Fields leapt out of the door of one of the police cars. He took one look at the horrific scenes taking place near him, and then breathed in deeply, let his muscles inflate to their full size, and sprang into action.
In the doorway of a nearby apartment building, a mother with a small child was staring in horror at one of the creatures, which was sitting on the pavement several feet away and preparing to spit. James grabbed a metal garbage can standing next to the street, and hurled it at the monster, hitting it squarely. The great force of the blow stunned the creature, and as it lay motionless, James stepped up to it, grabbed it, and ripped it in two, just as he had done to the monster in the sewer a short time before. The mother and child looked away from the gruesome sight. James let out his breath, and quickly scanned the area for further danger. He saw two monsters across the street, which were busy pulling off the door of a building with their tentacles. Shouts of fright could be heard from inside.
James grabbed the lid of the garbage can and rushed across the street, taking a deep breath again as he did so. One of the creatures spotted him, and spat at him. He held the lid in front of himself as a shield, and the cold slime splattered against the metal. The other creature spat at him, and missed. Before they could spit again, James ran up to them, grabbed one of them by the tentacle, and brought it down with full strength on top of the other. Then he ripped both of them in two while they were stunned, and tossed their remains into the street. No sooner had he done this than he saw another monster, which had just emerged from a nearby sewer and was preparing to spit. He immediately released his stored-up air, blowing it across the street and against a wall. He followed it, inflated again, and dispatched it. Then he looked around again. No other monsters appeared to be in the area.
As he let out his breath and paused for rest, a police car drove up, and a policeman came out. He reported to James that bullets did not appear to have any effect upon the creatures. “Apparently when they’re wounded they heal extremely quickly,” he said. “But that doesn’t happen when they’re ripped in half, of course, because it’s not a simple matter of healing then.” He then told James that some dead human bodies had been found which had been partly eaten. “The creatures eat some of their victims after they’ve weakened them with their slime!”
As soon as the officer had said this, however, James spotted a large number of monsters approaching, from different directions! He thought quickly, and, noticing that all of them were coming directly for him and the policeman, quickly motioned for the officer to follow him down the sewer manhole that one of the creatures had come out of. “It’s our only way out of this one,” he told the policeman.
They quickly climbed down the ladder, and to their relief found no other monsters at the bottom. The monsters above started to climb down the ladder and drop down onto the floor of the sewer. But James had inflated himself again, and as one of the monsters was preparing to spit, he blew it, as well as all the other monsters which had come down, into a wall down the tunnel. The ladder was also blown across the tunnel, leaving the monsters on the surface only able to let themselves drop down the hole. James inhaled again, caught a monster in his hands as it was coming down, and ripped it apart before it could defend itself. But the monsters at the end of the tunnel had recovered from their collision with the wall, and began to approach him again. He blew them back again toward the wall, and stunned them a second time. Then he stepped back as more monsters began to slip down into the sewer. When all of them appeared to have come down, James inhaled, stepped forward, and blew them with full force back against the wall. Then he ran to the end of the tunnel, inflated once again, and began ripping apart the stunned monsters before they could recover. When he was almost finished, however, the last one did recover - as he was lifting it up. At the same moment as James ripped it in half, it spat on his chest. As it died, James collapsed, letting out his stored breath.
The policeman, who had been watching James fight the creatures, immediately ran to help him. He helped James to his feet, and supported him as he went to find another way out of the sewer. When they had found one, and the policeman had managed with great effort to get James up the ladder, he put James in his car to recover from the slime’s effect.
“My strength will come back soon,” James stammered weakly. “But how did the monsters know where I was, and start attacking in a large group?”
“I don’t know,” said the policeman. “I’d better call headquarters.”
When he called, he found out from the police chief that the monsters had apparently all left the surrounding area when they had come to attack James. This meant that the monsters in that area were all defeated. “We’ll be on the lookout for more attacks, though,” the police chief promised.
James recovered gradually but quickly, and a little while later he was already back to normal. But as the policeman drove around with him looking for more monsters, they suddenly got a call from the police chief. “Monsters have been found in the subway station in the part of the city where you are,” the chief reported. “Please go there immediately.”To be continued…
This story is a part of the Inflato-Man series.
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