Slime

by John Halkin

  ‘Anyway,’ she said, ‘there’s the specimen you were looking for, if we can find some way to keep it.’

  ‘A bucket?’

  ‘Under the sink in the kitchen!’

  They ran back to the flat to change into dry clothes. Sue chose jeans and high boots, with a thick sweater and her ski jacket; she was determined to be well covered in case something went wrong. Then she hunted in the lean-to shed at the back of the house and found a spade.

  By the time they returned to the beach she half-expected to discover the jellyfish had disappeared – but no, it was still there, lying close to the groyne.

  Tim went down to the sea’s edge to scoop up a few inches of water in the bucket. ‘Just to keep it alive,’ he explained. Then, after considering how best to approach the task, he took hold of the spade.

  ‘Not with that bad hand of yours – you can’t!’ she cried out in alarm. ‘Let me do it!’

  ‘I can manage, love.’

  ‘For God’s sake don’t drop it!’

  Biting her lip in anxiety, she watched as Tim eased the spade into the soft sand beneath the jellyfish. Very carefully he began to lift it up. As he tried to hold the spade level she saw how his face bore that set, stubborn look she knew so well; she realised he was probably in agony keeping a firm grip with his bandaged hand. All the wrong thoughts flooded into her head. Oh, God, why did she have to leave him? Why hadn’t it worked out?

  Yet it hadn’t, and she’d only be deceiving herself to think they could go on. Not any more; it was too late for that.

  And there was Mark as well.

  Don’t forget Mark.

  The spade was above the bucket and slowly Tim began to tilt it. Sitting – cosily, it seemed – on a bed of two or three inches of sand, the jellyfish refused to shift. Tim tilted it a little more… then more still… and only gradually did it at last start to move. Then, in a sudden rush, the jellyfish and much of the sand slithered into the water at the bottom of the bucket.

  They both stared down at it as if hypnotised by the sight. The ruby centre-piece, shaped like a starfish, appeared to gaze back at them.

  ‘Impossible, of course,’ Tim said, reading her thoughts. ‘Jellyfish don’t have eyes. They can’t see.’

  ‘I wish we knew,’ she whispered.

  Sue insisted on carrying the bucket up to the flat herself. At least she was wearing the rubber gloves she used for housework, whereas Tim had nothing to protect his hands. Yet, glancing down from time to time just to reassure herself, she detected no sign of danger. The jellyfish slopped around in the water, apparently lifeless.

  ‘I’m not having it in the flat,’ she announced firmly after they had looked into first the kitchen, then the bathroom, and decided against both. ‘It’ll have to go outside.’

  To the rear of the house was a rusting metal staircase for use in case of fire, and they put the bucket out there. Tim fetched an enamel bowl from the kitchen to place on top of it.

  ‘Just a precaution. Can’t have it climbing out.’

  ‘Surely that’s not possible?’ She shuddered, her skin tingling with apprehension. ‘Is it?’

  Reluctantly, she began to make a simple breakfast, convinced she had no appetite, what with that jellyfish squatting outside the window in its bucket and the knowledge that somehow – and God knew when, after all this – she had to break the news to Tim that their marriage was over; but once the coffee began to filter through she realised she was hungry after all. She fried two eggs apiece, with plenty of bacon, then dropped a couple of pieces of bread in the pan to use up the remaining fat.

  ‘Nothing like jellyfish for making you hungry!’ Tim grinned when he saw what she was up to.

  ‘I don’t believe half of what you’ve been telling me!’ she declared irritably, feeling the tension building up inside her. ‘If I discover it’s all lies, just to get me worked up –’ She left the sentence unfinished. ‘Oh, sit down and eat your breakfast, will you!’

  ‘Hey, take it easy, Sue!’ He spoke gently, as if he understood what was nagging at her, which obviously he couldn’t. ‘Later on I’ll go out and phone Jane to find out what her sister wants us to do with it.’

  ‘We have to talk,’ she said.

  ‘We’ll get rid of it as soon as we can,’ he assured her, dabbling a fold of bacon in his egg yolk. ‘You don’t think I’m happy with it here either, do you?’

  ‘Not about the jellyfish.’

  ‘What, then?’

  ‘Afterwards.’ She sighed. ‘We’ll talk afterwards, Tim. But it’s important. Don’t make it too hard for me.’

  When they had finished, he wanted to help her with the dishes but she packed him off to do his telephoning, preferring to get on with it alone. She needed to think. This jellyfish business made the whole thing seem so much more difficult. She’d hoped to have him completely to herself this weekend so she could choose her own moment, but with Tim nothing ever went the way she planned it.

  She started to fill the sink with hot water, squirting washing-up liquid into it, and covering the greasy plates with foam. She’d eaten too much as well, she reflected. Nerves, probably. That was the way it always took her, even before a show. While other actresses could never eat anything, she was always tucking into a doughnut. Or a sandwich. Never put on weight though, luckily; by the last curtain she was always starving again.

  From the kitchen, a glass-panelled door led out on to the fire escape. Glancing out, Sue noticed a ginger cat on one of the steps, approaching the old galvanised bucket inquisitively. She opened the door.

  ‘Away from there!’ she scolded. ‘Shoo! Shoo!’

  The cat retreated down a step or two, then turned to gaze at her with disapproval.

  ‘Off you go!’ Sue insisted. She took a pace towards it. ‘Ssssh!’

  The cat fled, and Sue went back into the kitchen, leaving the door open in order to get rid of the smell of frying. She washed the plates and was putting them in the rack to drain when she heard a sudden clatter outside. She swung around in time to see the enamel bowl rolling and bouncing down the steps. The bucket had tipped over and the cat, one paw outstretched, was about to investigate its contents.

  ‘No!’ Sue yelled.

  It was too late. Before she could even grasp what was happening, the ginger cat let out a strangled screech which jarred right through her. It turned and shot past her legs, through the kitchen and into the front room. Draped over its neck and back like a cloak was the speckled pink jellyfish.

  Hardly knowing what she was doing, hardly even daring to believe what her eyes were telling her, Sue went after the cat. It was rushing around the room, jumping on to the sofa, then over the back, then crawling underneath, mewing pathetically as it emerged once more having failed to brush that thing away from itself. For a few moments it cowered on the hearthrug.

  She took a step towards it. Luckily she’d been wearing the rubber gloves again for the washing-up; if only she could get hold of the jellyfish. One more step… The cat backed away; then it turned, scrambled over the armchair, and sprang towards the window which she had opened earlier.

  The gap at the bottom was no more than about four inches, but that was enough for the cat to squeeze through. Sue got there as it landed on the crumbling stucco of the front portico below. In two more jumps it was down on the steps; then, with another terrible screech, it dashed crazily along the road, swerving, doubling back and then on again as though possessed, with the jellyfish still firmly wrapped around it.

  Sue threw open the flat door, descended the stairs two at a time, and ran out after it. Somehow she had to do something to help – yet what? It all seemed too improbable. Tim had warned her and she’d hardly believed him; now she’d witnessed it herself she realised he had been speaking the truth after all.

  But he’d managed to pull the jellyfish away from his hand, hadn’t he? Which meant it could be done.

  The cat had disappeared down a side road. She hurried on. At the corner she stopped; the
re was no sign of it anywhere. Opposite was Mrs Wakeham’s dowdy little shop, the words ‘General Stores’ hardly readable on its faded paintwork. The door stood open and she could hear Mrs Wakeham’s voice.

  ‘Oh, you poor little thing, have the children been teasing you, then? Never mind, I’ll take if off. Just keep still a mo’. Isn’t it naughty of them tying a – oh!’

  The sudden note of fear was unmistakable. Sue sprinted across the road and burst into the shop.

  ‘No, Mrs Wakeham – don’t touch it!’ she screamed.

  Horror-stricken, Mrs Wakeham was emitting a series of low, inarticulate moans as she stared at the pink jellyfish she held in her hands. Her eyes were bulging with terror. On the counter in front of her lay the ginger cat, stretched out and obviously dead, its neck naked and raw.

  ‘Keep calm now, Mrs Wakeham.’ Sue forced herself to speak quietly, although she was shaking all over. ‘Let me take it… slowly… ’

  But Mrs Wakeham was not listening. Suddenly stirring herself out of her trance, she cried out at the top of her voice and attempted to fling the jellyfish across the shop in disgust.

  It clung to her. Although she managed to free one hand, it settled on the other, snugly embracing her wrist. Again she screamed, shaking her arm violently to rid herself of it, but it did not move. It seemed to have grown on her like a new, gleaming skin.

  ‘Mrs Wakeham, please,’ Sue repeated. ‘Hold yourself still and I’ll be able to get it off.’

  ‘What… what is it?’ She was whimpering like a child, her lip quivering. She gazed, stupefied, at her wrist. ‘Take it away. Oh, I don’t like it.’

  ‘Steady now,’ Sue instructed. ‘Steady…’

  Despite her rubber gloves, Sue was quaking as she grasped the jellyfish in both hands and slowly peeled it off. Skin and flesh came with it, although the poor woman didn’t seem to feel anything; probably her arm was paralysed by now, just as Tim’s had been. Keeping the jellyfish at arm’s length, Sue backed away from the counter, uncertain what she should do with it.

  The tentacles wrapped themselves around her fingers… probing… seeking a way through the thin rubber. At any moment they might succeed in piercing it, and in that case…

  Sue threw the jellyfish down on the worn floorboards and began to stamp on it furiously with the heel of her boot, knowing that somehow she had to destroy it. She’d no choice: that glistening pink-and-red creature was evil and must not be allowed to live. Yet her foot merely slid over the tough gristle without making any impression on it.

  Desperately, she searched around in the shop for some sort of weapon. The best she could find was a long knife, but to use it would mean she’d have to crouch down within reach of those tentacles. She hesitated, but the sight of poor Mrs Wakeham helped her make up her mind. Such a nice woman she was, never doing any harm to anyone, yet now she lay in a dead faint on the floor behind the counter, her wrist bleeding profusely.

  Sue gripped the knife. The jellyfish hadn’t moved. Its ruby star seemed to mock her, challenging her to do her worst. She aimed for it with her first blows, stabbing into it with all her strength. The point of the blade went straight through, sticking into the old wooden floorboards, but she tugged it out in order to drive it once more into the centre of that jelly-gristle.

  ‘Don’t like that, do you?’ she demanded through clenched teeth, her heart full of mixed hatred and fear. ‘Can see you don’t.’

  The outer fringes of the jellyfish began to twist and curl, sending shivers of apprehension right through her. She drew the knife across the whole width of that speckled pink medallion; but the more she attacked it, the more violent became its convulsions.

  ‘Sue, love! What on earth are you doing?’

  Tim’s voice behind her. She dropped the knife and turned to bury her face against his jacket. ‘It won’t die!’ she sobbed in sheer relief that he’d come back. ‘Oh, Tim, I can’t get it to die.’

  He put his arm around her, holding her tight. ‘But what’s been going on?’

  ‘Mrs Wakeham…’ She struggled to regain control of herself. ‘It’s… killed… Mrs Wake… ham…’

  At first Tim seemed unbearably slow in understanding what she was trying to say. Then he saw Mrs Wakeham’s body and stooped to feel for a pulse. She was still alive, he said, but before anything else they should try to stop the bleeding. Miraculously, he knew exactly what to do; under his instruction, she tied his handkerchief around Mrs Wakeham’s arm to make a tourniquet, pushed the stick of a washing-up mop through the knot, and twisted it.

  ‘I’ll phone for an ambulance,’ he said, standing up. ‘I imagine there’s a phone in the back?’

  She nodded, remaining on her knees beside the poor woman and attempting to make her comfortable, though she was still unconscious, her face deathly pale. On the other side of the counter – Sue couldn’t keep the thought out of her mind – lay the fragments of the jellyfish she’d cut up, the largest of them pinned to the floorboards by the knife she had dropped, and all of them still pulsating the last time she had looked.

  On whatever the jellyfish had touched it had left a smear of slime which at first, in the heat of the moment, she hadn’t noticed. Now, while waiting for Tim to finish phoning, Sue became very much aware of it: on her own rubber gloves, over the top of the counter, on Mrs Wakeham’s hands and jumper. And it seemed to glow, with a pale, green-tinged light.

  It was not until a few hours later when they were back in the flat that she became aware of the bitter irony of it all. Tim had succeeded in getting through to Jane, only to be told that the specimen was no longer needed. A coastguard had brought three to the laboratory that very morning, having fished them out of the Bristol Channel.

  Which meant, Sue realised dully, that Mrs Wakeham need not have died.

  10

  During the next few days, jellyfish attacks were reported from several different parts of the country. A freak of nature, most commentators said. The victims had merely been unlucky.

  Others had died too in the storms which had been battering the coasts of Britain, proving the weather forecasters wrong. A Greek cargo ship had broken up on the rocks off Land’s End with the loss of all hands. Two amateur yachtsmen had drowned in the Solent, caught out by the sudden deterioration in the weather. In the North Sea, a helicopter about to touch down on an oil rig had been swept to disaster by an unexpectedly fierce gust of wind. No survivors.

  The jellyfish incidents were seen as no more than a few tragic stories among many; hardly noticeable, in fact, among the statistics for accidental death.

  Yet they were real enough to those who suffered.

  In Colwyn Bay, North Wales, high waves reared up over the sea wall and smashed across the roadway. Some reached the crown of the road before subsiding and draining back, but the truly powerful ones broke over its entire width. No one caught by that force would have a chance, and Pete Kelly knew it.

  ‘Right then – me first!’

  Jock, the mad bastard, gunned his engine while his girl friend Meg, riding pillion, adjusted the goggles over her eyes. They had come down from Liverpool for the day, the four of them on just the two bikes – Jock and Meg, with himself and Marilyn. It had been great up in the mountains, opening up along those narrow, twisting lanes with the feel of 500cc under him and Marilyn’s knees rubbing against him, her hands on his waist. Both girls had their own bikes, but he was glad they’d decided to come this way. It was more intimate, like.

  Then Jock had to dream up this mad caper. They’d gone into Colwyn Bay for fish and chips and discovered the warning notices diverting traffic away from the coast road. He could get through on the bike, Jock had boasted – and Marilyn had egged him on, which meant there was no way Pete could back out of it.

  One at a time, they decided.

  A giant wave shot over the road in a great arch. As it broke and the water began to run back, Jock roared off. A few seconds later he’d reached the other end. He skidded to a stop and Meg, on the pillio
n, waved.

  ‘Choose your moment, you’ll be all right,’ Marilyn judged, pulling down her goggles. ‘That’s all there is to it, really.’

  Pete chose his moment. A couple of big waves swept over the roadway, then he was off! A third wave broke unexpectedly near him, drenching him with its spray. His wheels slipped a little but he managed to correct it and rode triumphantly through to join Jock and Meg.

  ‘I thought you’d had it then,’ Jock sniggered.

  Marilyn was furious. ‘What d’you mean, thought we’d had it?’

  ‘When that wave hit you – wow!’

  ‘You’d have come off.’

  ‘Who would?’

  ‘You!’

  ‘Try it again?’ Meg challenged. She could be as crazy as Jock when the mood took her. ‘Bet you don’t dare. Bet your Pete peed himself, he was so scared.’

  ‘You’ll pee yourself this time!’ Marilyn sneered back, giving as good as she got. ‘Right, Pete? This time we go first.’

  She hadn’t asked him, yet he couldn’t refuse. Worried, he glanced at the sea. It was rougher than ever, charging up against the road as though it bore a personal grudge. No one in his right senses would want to go along there.

  Meg spotted his hesitation. ‘Told you!’ she crowed triumphantly with a look at Jock. ‘He’s peeing himself now!’

  Pete didn’t bother to answer. He revved up a couple of times, checked to make sure Marilyn was OK, and then waited for the right gap in those raging waves. Within a couple of seconds he thought he saw one – near enough, anyhow – and opened up.

  As he moved off, a smaller wave broke almost in front of him, but he’d reckoned on that and swerved to avoid it. The next – he was almost half-way along by now – took him by surprise. Luckily he saw it coming and was able to brace himself, but the force of water which hit him sent the bike careering over the road, the wheels refusing to grip, the steering all haywire. Behind him, he heard Marilyn gasping and spluttering; her arms tightened around his waist.