Goosebumps: The Blob That Ate Everyone by R. L. Stine Page B

jogging!
    “Whoa!” I had to swerve to the curb as a blue station wagon roared toward me.
The woman at the wheel honked her horn and waved frantically to me. Her tires
squealed as she shot around the corner.
    “Everyone is in such a hurry today,” I muttered to myself.
    Then I heard a scream. A man’s scream.
    I pedaled faster. I was a block from town. I could see the awning over the
doorway of Jack’s grocery on the corner.
    I saw two people running past the store. Running at top speed, waving their
hands.
    I screeched to a halt when I heard another scream.
    “Look out!” someone shrieked.
    “Run! Call the police!”
    Two little kids ran past me. One of them was sobbing.
    “Hey—what’s going on?” I called to them.
    But they kept running. They didn’t answer.
    I started pedaling again, standing up. I leaned over my handlebars, trying to
see what all the fuss was about.
    As I reached town, I saw people running down the center of the street. Cars honked. People were screaming.
    “Hey—what’s going on?” I called. “Is there a fire or something? Hey—somebody tell me what’s happening. Somebody—”
    And then I saw what was happening.
    And I opened my mouth in a shrill scream of horror—and fell off my bike.

 
 
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    “OW!”
    I landed hard on my right side. The bike slammed on top of me. The handlebar
jabbed me in the neck.
    A man ran past. “Get away, kid!” he shouted. “Hurry! Get away!”
    I shoved the bike off me and climbed to my feet.
    My heart pounding in my chest, I brushed myself off.
    And gaped at the enormous, pink Blob Monster throbbing on the next corner.
    “Ohhh.” A horrified moan escaped my throat.
    It looks just as I described it in my story! I realized.
    Like a huge, slimy human heart. Pink and wet. With tiny black eyes. And
purple veins knotted on top of its head. And a mouth cut into its belly.
    Throbbing. Throbbing…
    “It—it’s my monster!” I cried.
    Two little girls frowned at me as their mother tugged them away. I recognized her. Mrs. Willow, who lives across the street.
    “Zackie—run!” she cried, pulling each girl by a hand. “It’s a horrible
monster!”
    “I know,” I murmured.
    She pulled her daughters across the street. But I didn’t follow them.
    I took a deep breath and made my way slowly down the street toward the
throbbing Blob Monster.
    I wrote this, I realized.
    Just before I came to town, I typed this scene. I wrote that the Blob Monster
attacked the town.
    And I’ll bet I know what happens next.
    As I stepped closer, I saw the trail of thick slime the monster left behind
it. Its belly pulled open, and I saw its purple tongue darting from side to
side.
    My legs trembled as I stepped even closer.
    People screamed and ran. Cars and vans roared past, horns honking.
    Everyone was running, desperate to escape. But I couldn’t leave. I couldn’t
take my eyes off it.
    I made you! I thought. Horrified and curious and amazed—all at the same
time.
    I created you!
    I wrote this story!
    The Blob Monster stared back at me through its tiny, black eyes.
    Did it know who I was? Did it know that I created it?
    As I stared in amazement, its mouth opened wider. It made sick, sucking
sounds, and the purple tongue scraped the sides of its mouth.
    Thick, yellow drool poured out of the open mouth.
    And the Blob Monster bounced forward.
    Its purple tongue leaped out at me.
    “Hey—!” I cried out. I struggled to back away.
    The hot, sticky tongue wrapped around my leg. Started to pull me toward the
slimy, open mouth.
    “Let go!” I tugged on the tongue as hard as I could. “Help me!”
    Two dark-uniformed police officers leaped in front of me. They had their
nightsticks raised.
    With angry cries, they both began pounding the throbbing creature.
    POUND. POUND. POUND.
    The nightsticks made a soft plopping sound with each hit.
    The Blob Monster uttered a sickening gurgle. And its tongue slid off my leg.
    “Run!” one of the officers