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 46: Bob thought about the small amount of salt it took to destroy the other slug.
Bob thought about the small amount of salt it took to destroy the other slug. His bag held quite a lot of salt. ‘But I don’t know how many slugs there are or how fast they will come at me.’ Bob expected than in a fight he would quickly be overwhelmed.
‘Best not to fight.’
Still he had to figure out where they were going. He kept a cautious distance but followed them into the Old town. He passed his office and as he did he realized the thought of walking to work never even occurred to him as a possibility.
‘Not really a possibility when cars are on the road. And from home I’d have to leave really early to get here on time.’ Walking to work wasn’t feasible, but at the moment he found himself feeling odd about having walked to his office. It made the day feel slightly more surreal. Like his normal day had been warped.
‘Except it is Saturday so I wouldn’t normally be working on a Saturday.’ His office building was closed and dark. He did notice that a section of the building looked a little different. With a start he realized that it might have been one of the damaged buildings the slugs repaired. As his building was slightly higher than the old town, the parking lot routinely giving him a view of it, and the parking lot was softened by the placement of small planting beds that would provide some concealment, Bob decided to take a look at the building.
He slipped into the lot, hugging the planting beds and darting across the open spaces only when he had to. At first he moved towards the edge of the lot, wanting to see where the slugs were headed before inspecting the building. ‘After all the building isn’t moving.’
Bob reached the edge of the lot. Here there was a giant flowering bush. He had no idea what it was called but it tended to have pinkish flowers when it bloomed. At the moment it wasn’t blooming but the leaves were still thick and full. The leaves never really fell away from the plant making it look green and glossy year round. He suspected that is why whoever installed it put it there, the flowers just being a seasonal bonus. When he was standing the bush came up to chest high on him so he ducked down behind it.
Bob eased forward peering through the bush to the town down the hill. He watched the procession head into town. ‘You have to be kidding me,’ Bob thought as he looked down into the darkened down below. There was still some light in town as evening wasn’t that far along, but it was the time of evening when lights started to flicker on. The street lights came on and Bob thought they were on some sort of timer. The buildings remained dark.
‘Except for one.’
Bob watched as the slugs headed straight for the building.
The Bowl-a-Rama. The sign was lit. The neon bowling ball and its lights looking like the ball was rolling into the pin that got knocked down. Then the ball jumped back, the pin popped up and the cycle began again. The building hosing the bowling alley was lit and in the parking lot Bob could see rows of stretchers. They filled the parking lot, with small empty lines slightly larger than the width of the slugs floating disks between the rows.
There were more people than the parking lot could hold and Bob saw the stretchers were lined up in adjacent parking lots as well.
Ten til Midnight 