The Blob Read Online Free PDF Page B

they gave the Can Man an extra quarter a pound! No, his skillet secret was one he wouldn’t share with anyone. After all, there were only so many cans to go around in Morgan City, and the Can Man had dibs on them all.
    He chuckled as he stared down at the flattened cans. “Good un!” he said, then he looked over at Nixon, his dog. “You gotta do this right, Tricky Dickie, or they won’t pay you that extra quarter!”
    Nixon looked at him with sad eyes; then he yawned and scratched.
    “Huh? Dickie, don’t talk back like that to me! I fed you some good ground groundhogs today, your favorite! So don’t sass the old Can Man!” He picked up the three circles of aluminum and tossed them into a large wire basket near the ramshackle porch of his shack. Then he picked out three more from his sack and situated them on the stump in preparation for his skillet maneuver.
    “Let’s talk philosophy this evening, boy. You tell me, Nixon. How many angels can dance on the head of a beer can?”
    Whomp! Three more flattened cans. He was developing into a regular machine.
    In the twenty-five years since he’d first appeared in Morgan City, Jimmy Nick, aka the Can Man, had become something of a local institution. And in all those years he hadn’t really changed. Today, just as then, he was a grizzled old codger with gray hair, a stubbly beard on a wrinkled face atop a wiry frame. The truth also was that the only rights he had to this land and this shack were squatter’s rights. No one bothered him, however; he was harmless, and besides, he took care of some of Morgan City’s litter problem.
    “Takes a special aptitude, doin’ what we do, having your own business,” the Can Man told Nixon as he threw more flattened cans into their storage bin. “Like I always tell you, boy. Our motto is, Can do!”
    The Can Man was putting out the next three cans to be flattened when it happened.
    The first hint that something was up came from Nixon. The dog let out an odd sort of whiny growl, then jumped up suddenly, his hair sticking up on end.
    Startled, the Can Man knocked over one of the cans. He turned to look over at Nixon, who was now growling at the sky!
    Following the dog’s gaze, he looked up into the twilight, but couldn’t see anything.
    Then he realized that it was a sound that Nixon was reacting to—the sound of a low whine that was rapidly rising higher and higher in pitch. And it was getting louder too.
    He turned to the west, toward the sound, and then he saw the light, a soft glow when he first noticed it, but getting brighter and brighter! And the whine kept growing, too, turning now into a roar.
    Cripes! It’s a flaming chariot! thought the Can Man. Coming down to get him!
    The roar grew deafening as the fireball hurled closer. The Can Man fell to the ground, covering his face and his ears as the fiery thing raced by like an ignited freight train.
    And then it landed, exploding in one huge, scorching blast. Even from a distance the Can Man could feel the heat flowing over him like a river. When the noise subsided, he became aware again of Nixon, barking crazily. Then the dog tore off toward the woods where the thing had crashed.
    Holy shit, I’ve gotta see what that thing is, thought the Can Man, stumbling as he got up, at first forgetting about the skillet still tied to his foot. He wobbled about, his heart hammering in his chest, finally getting the thing off, and then running after the dog, taking time only to grab the hand ax leaning against the shed—just in case.
    There was no problem in finding the thing. It had burned a path straight through the tops of the trees! Thank God it had been raining this week some, thought the Can Man, or the whole forest would burn up in a snap! Instead, the flames were just dancing on the tops of the trees, flickering out.
    The Can Man followed the trail of destruction, noting how some trees had been snapped in half. He could still hear Nixon barking up ahead.
    “Wait up! Wait up,