Professor Lowson looked up as it towered over him, astride him like a colossus. He knew without a doubt that he was going to die.
It seemed to hover over him for an eternity. He saw it as a grotesque stone gargoyle, motionless except for the occasional drip of slime which ran down the scaly countenance and fell to the ground. Some dripped on him, and he felt its coldness burning into him like acid, painful yet at the same time invigorating. His veins coursed with fire at its touch and for a brief moment he imagined the sensation of bathing in it, covering his whole frame with invincibility, with power. He closed his eyes at the thought.
Suddenly he was airborne. The Slime Beast was swinging him aloft above its head crushing his ribs in a powerful grip. Liz's scream projected Gavin from the state of self-hypnosis into which he had drifted. Everything was so unreal. Perhaps he preferred to dream after all.
The flame-gun was in his hands. His cigarette lighter usually efficient, refused to spark at the first flick. Valuable seconds were lost. Then the paraffin fumes were belching forth flame. He adjusted the licking tongue of fire to its maximum length. There was no point in going any closer to this horrific creature than was absolutely necessary. Then he broke into a run.
Professor Lowson was already dead, yet the Slime Beast was not finished with him. Some instinct told it that within its grasp was an enemy more deadly than those who had attacked it in the village. It began to roar. One claw held the dead man by the waist whilst the other sought and found the scraggy neck. It braced itself and pulled. There was a loud crack followed by a tearing sound, as head and body parted. It tugged again and snapped the remaining sinews.
Perhaps only then it realised that it was not alone. The reptilian mouth opened to emit another bestial roar, but it was too late. The searing flame took it straight between the lips licking viciously up the wide nostrils and eating at the fish-like eyes. Rivulets of slime sizzled and steamed with the intense heat.
Burned, it struck out with mighty blows but its attacker was already behind it guiding the flame on to its broad back. It whirled round and then Gavin had the flame gun en its torso and belly.
The roars were now screams of fear. Steam obliterated most of his target but Gavin did not ease up. Out of the corner of his eye he noticed that Liz had fainted It was better that way.
Suddenly Gavin saw that his foe seemed much smaller: a head and shoulders shorter than himself. As realisation dawned upon him he felt his stomach heaving with revulsion. He vomited as he attacked, fearing to pause lest the Slime Beast should take advantage of even the smallest respite,
It had neither head nor shoulders now. Yet still it lived! Twisting and turning, lashing out in an attempt to avoid the flame which was eating it away.
Now its arms were gone. Just a trunk on two legs remained, belching forth clouds of putrifying vapour. It was being consumed by the second, but it refused to keel over and die. It knew no surrender.
Two legs. Independent. Upright. Steaming. Wriggling. Then claws. Not even webbed.
Finally nothing. Not even a pool of slime on the marshy ground. It was finished. Disintegrated. It might never have existed. Only the bloody mangled decapitated body of Professor Lowson convinced Gavin that it had actually happened. A few yards away the bearded head stuck upright in the mud. The eyes were open, sightless, in an expression of defeat A lifetime's ambitions had been dashed in a matter of seconds:
Gavin switched off the flame-gun and knelt beside the still form of Liz. Her breathing was regular. Soon her eyelids nickered open.
'Is ... is ...' her lips moved as she struggled to sit up. He moved his body so that she could not see what lay behind him on the narrow track.
'Yes,' he murmured, kissing her. 'It's all over. Finished.' She was silent 'Uncle's dead.'
'Yes,' he replied. 'But he brought it about by his own hand. Do you feel well enough to walk back to the village?' She nodded.
As she stood up her feet caught against something in the long spartina grass. It was a small glass bottle. Gavin bent down, grasped it and held it up to the eastern sky which was now yielding to the coming dawn.
'My God!' he gasped. 'So that's what the Professor was doing. Taking a sample of the slime.'
They gazed at the thick liquid within the container.
'Are you going to take it back for analysis?' Liz asked. 'I mean, that's the only thing that's left of the Slime Beast isn't it?'
Gavin shook his head. Then he uncorked the bottle, holding it at arms length in order to avoid the obnoxious odour. Slowly he turned the bottle upside down and they both watched the fluid ooze out and drip into the reeds. Then it was all gone, the last of it glistening on the tops of the rushes before evaporating into nothingness.
Gavin glanced at the empty bottle in his hand and hurled it as far out into the dense reed-bed as he could. They heard the resulting 'plop' and their eyes met.
Gavin slipped his arm around Liz's waist to support her and slowly they set off in the direction of the sea-wall.
'Well,' he sighed deeply. 'That's the end of the Slime Beast and I can't say I'm sorry.'
'Me neither.' She squeezed his hand tightly.
'Amazing. Too amazing for words.'
Chief-Inspector Harborne looked across his desk at Gavin and Liz and shook his head for the umpteenth time, 'Your story tallies with everything that has happened in this macabre business! Mr Royle, scientists will argue over it for a decade. A multitude of theories will be expounded concerning the origin of this creature called the Slime Beast. Whether it came from another world or originated in the mud of the Wash will never be known. The business of the shooting star and those charred fragments of an unidentifiable metal would seem to suggest the former.'
'Are we free to return to London now, Inspector?' There was an eagerness in Liz's voice.
'Most certainly you are,' Harborne smiled. 'Now that the inquest on your uncle's death, and those other unfortunate people who were killed when the beast went on the rampage, is over, there is nothing further to detain you here. As they walked out into the street where the Land Rover was parked at the kerbside, stacked with all the equipment which they had brought with them, Liz heaved an audible sigh of relief.
'Oh to be in London,' she murmured. 'We won't ever have to come back here will we Gavin?'
'Unless you fancy the Wash for a honeymoon!' he joked and she punched him playfully. 'I don't ever want to set foot on the beastly place again,' she said. 'Not even to look for old King John's treasure. It can stay where it is forever as far as Fm concerned.'
'It probably will.' he replied. 'They say it brings ill-fortune to those who seek it. It certainly has this time. Too many people have died as an indirect cause of our excavations.'
'D'you think the world's seen the last of the Slime Beast?' she asked. 'I mean, wherever it came from, d'you think they're likely to send any more?'
'If they do,' and his face held a serious expression, 'then I pray to God we're not around. I only hope, if a race of them exists on some planet somewhere, that they've decided that Earth isn't the place for them after all!' He opened the passenger door for her to climb in. Suddenly a wild clamouring sound filled the air, a sound of musical honking, gaggling.
Sedately, in a perfect 'V formation, the skein of wild geese passed over the village and began to lose height as they approached the mud-flats. This was their domain. The marshes of the Wash.