This year I am working on a story called Bob vs. The Alien Slug Monsters. Instead of an outline I have a basic list of plot points I want to cover between meeting Bob and sending him off to fight the king of the slugs. There is more of a cast of characters than an actual outline, so we will see how the story develops. And with that intro we continue with Bob Versus the Alien Slug Monsters…
Day 33: Bob worked his way towards the back of the property and saw that in one of the back cottages, something was laying on the ground half in and half out of the doorway.
Bob worked his way towards the back of the property and saw that in one of the back cottages, something was laying on the ground half in and half out of the doorway. He looked around. Still nothing was moving. There were five other cottages left for him to check other than the one with the mass in the doorway.
Bob decided to check them out first, leaving the one that looked strange for last.
‘If anyone is hurt in the other cottages then making sure they are taken care of before investigating the strange thing seems reasonable,’ He told himself. Bob moved to the next cottage to investigate, his eyes continuing to flick towards the dark mass.
The cottage was empty. He quickly moved through it and the remaining four. All were empty. Nothing moved save himself and the dark mass remained motionless. With all but that one final cottage cleared. Bob swallowed hard. He looked at the mass. It remained motionless half in and half out of the doorway. Staring at it, Bob realized he would have to step over it in order to get into the cottage to search.
‘But all these cottages have back doorways letting out onto their small porches.’ Behind each cottage was a concrete pad. Some left it bare and ignored it. Others added potted plants and deck chairs. They also had sliding glass doors.
‘Even if the back door is closed, I can see through the glass and it may give me more information before I step over the thing.’ Deciding it was worth a shot, Bob left the relative security of the current cottage and worked his way around to the back of the cottage with the black blob on it’s doorstep.
The concrete pad was decorated with a plethora of lawn gnomes and spinning things that caught the wind. The spinning things were all fabric pinwheels in a multitude of colors. There was a lot of movement, but there was, mercifully no sound. As Bob remembered the many arguments regarding his Aunt Margaret’s wind chimes, he could understand why all of the spinning things were soundless.
The cottages were too close together to add noise makers and in the end even his Aunt Margaret had relented and taken the chimes down. Bob half smiled at the memory. Margaret only conceded defeat after her nearest cottage neighbor installed a loud and obnoxious sounding doorbell that could be heard easily from inside her house. The man claimed he was hard of hearing hence the volume of the doorbell. He said it with malicious glee and as he had been the main complainer about her wind chimes, there was little doubt why he chose the bell.
In the end they both removed the offensive items. Bob moved carefully through the field of gnomes and pinwheels as he stepped closer to the glass door. As he expected, the glass did give him a good view of the inside of the living room and the inside of the front door. The shape remained a motionless blob, but from this distance he could pick out a few details, like the three fingered hand of the slug monster.
‘So that’s why one of the disks was empty.’
The creature had not moved since his arrival. ‘And he is the only slug not accounted for,’ Bob thought. He wanted to see more and reached for the handle of the sliding glass door. To his amazement, it was unlocked.
Ten til Midnight 