Night of the Goo!

It was the coldest winter night ever and, for some reason, my sister wanted to keep her window open. I didn’t know if she wanted to freeze me to death or wake up a thousand years in the future, but it was getting on my nerves fast. The petrifying breeze shot through her window, across the hall… and straight into my room. I tried to close my door, but my mom simply told me it was “indecent.” Whatever that means! Regardless, I could not stand it any longer. Our poor beagle Siegfried was shaking like a rattlesnake in a dryer, and I was convinced I was minutes away from frostbite. I marched across the hall into her room where she was playing with her new toy, a weird frog in some sort of space suit, part of some dumb new toy line called “the Omicron Defenders.”

“Cassie, you need to close your window!” I yelled at her.

“No! Pickerel is cold-blooded, he’ll die if it gets too warm in here!”

“You’re gonna be cold blooded if you don’t shut your window, Cassie.”

“MOOOM! DANIEL IS THREATENING ME!”

“You little brat!”

I dove forward and grabbed her new toy as tightly as I could and tried wrestling it from her hands. She was surprisingly strong for an eight-year-old, though. I pulled and pulled, but after a few moments I lost my grip as I tore it from her hands and flung it out of the room… right into my mother’s face.

“That’s it! Daniel, stop bullying your sister! Get out of her room, now.”

“But Mom! She’s freezing the entire house!”

“Now, Daniel!”

I huffed and puffed, but there was no way I was blowing any houses down that night, so I stood up and walked out of the room, kicking Cassie’s Pickerel figure on my way out. I decided to storm off into the basement, the one place I thought I could be safe from the cold as long as I stayed right near the furnace. It was an old furnace, like the one from A Nightmare on Elm Street. I never felt safe having that thing in the house, but at the very least I hoped it could keep me warm enough to stave off the imminent hypothermia.

As I sat next to the furnace, I decided to dig around in some of the old boxes lying around in the basement. There were a few uninteresting boxes, mostly baby things, but one, in particular, caught my attention as it was a box of my dad’s old things. It was covered in an unreal amount of dust, and my allergies started going crazy. But anything was better than dealing with my sister’s erratic lunatic antics. Digging through the box, there wasn’t much to find. A couple of journals with notes my twelve-year-old mind could not comprehend, a few photos of a bunch of old people… nothing a kid would find interesting. But I did find some old comic books.

There were a ton of sci-fi comics from the fifties in there. Space Adventures, It Came, Worlds of Fear, nothing that caught my eye, however. There was nothing else better to do, though, so I sat down on the concrete floor and started reading them. It felt like I was reading those things for hours, which may not be that far from the truth given how hard a time I had reading them by the light of the furnace. Eventually, I ran out of reading material in the box, outside of my dad’s old notes. Boring!

As I was packing the comic books back into the box, I accidentally grazed my hand against the side of the furnace and jumped back. It seared my hand, but it was nothing too serious. Unfortunately, I had knocked over the entire box and made a complete mess of the basement. So, really, not much different from what it was before.

I tried cleaning up everything I had knocked over, but as I did, I started to hear a strange bubbling noise nearby. I looked around the room but could not find anything, so I continued packing the box; however, the bubbling continued. I tried looking around the basement more, but it was too dark to see much around; the light from the furnace only helped so much. The bubbling began to grow louder, however, and so I followed it to its source: a strange, black, metal water bottle that had rolled near the back of the furnace.

When I picked up the water bottle, I immediately noticed it had a strange heft to it; it was much heavier than any water bottle had any right to be. I set it away from the furnace and the bubbling subsided a bit. I finished cleaning up the basement, then turned the water bottle about in my hand, wondering what could possibly be inside of it that was so heavy. I tried to twist the cap off but it was on absurdly tight. I headed upstairs, taking the bottle with me to try to find a way to get the cap off. It was much warmer upstairs, so I knew my mom had finally made Cassie shut the window in her room.

My mom heard me as I walked through the living room to get to my room.

“Daniel, you need to go and apologize to your poor sister. You’re her big brother, you need to set a good example for her to look up to.”

“Ok, mom.” I rolled my eyes and walked down the hall.

In my room, I tried to wedge the cap off with my survival knife from the one summer I spent as a scout. It took a lot of finagling with that darn cap, but after a few minutes of struggling against it, I finally flicked the thing off… and sliced my own thumb open in the process. Ow!

There was no time to address that though because just as quickly as I had flicked the cap off, a green, sludge-like goo started to race out of the bottle! I panicked and shoved the cap back onto the bottle to stop the flow, but some of the Goo had already escaped and was wriggling throughout my room.

“Hey! Get back here!”

I tried to grab the Goo, but when I did, it stretched itself out and wrapped itself around my hand. Naturally, that scared the heck out of me, so I tried frantically to smack it away and peel it off of me. It did not want to come off, but eventually, I pulled it away and tossed it to the ground. To my shock, the cut on my thumb had been completely healed!

“Whoa, what the heck is this stuff?”

I grabbed a nearby cup and shoved it on top of the Goo to trap it, piling some books on top of the cup so there would be no escape.

“What are you doing?” Cassie scared the crap out of me.

“Hey, stop snooping in my room!” I yelled at her.

“I’m across the hall from you, Daniel. I see everything you do!”

“E—everything?”

She rolled her eyes at me. “So, what’s that?” She pointed at the cup.

Begrudgingly, I moved out of the way so she could see the Goo. It was jumping around the cup trying to escape to no avail. She was utterly fascinated by it, as was I.

“That’s so cool! Where’d you get it? Did you make it? Is there more? Does it have a name? Are you—”

“Cassie! Slow down, you’re going a mile a minute. Honestly, I have no idea what the heck it is. I found it in this water bottle downstairs in a box of Dad’s old stuff.” I showed her the water bottle and she promptly snatched it right out of my hands. “Hey, give it back! It’s mine!”

“Nuh-uh! You said it was in Dad’s old stuff! That means it’s his!” She stuck her tongue out at me. Absolutely infuriating.

“Dad’s not here anymore, Cassie! That makes it mine by default. Finders keepers!” I snatched it back from her hand. “Losers weepers!”

“Dibs!” She yelled at me.

“What? No! I found it! That’s better than dibs.”

“Too bad I called dibs.”

“You can’t do that!”

“I did!”

She made me want to tear my hair out. Which I may have done if she hadn’t snatched the bottle from my hand again and ran away with it!

“Hey! Get back here!”

I chased her down the hall and through the living room and into the basement. Being as dark as it was, Cassie tripped at the bottom of the steps and landed face first in a pile of boxes.

“Cassie!” I shouted as I went to her side. “Hey, are you ok? Did you cut anything?”

She was crying a bit, but through the tears she said “Yeah, I’m ok.”

“Good,” I said. I then quickly slapped her on the hand.

“Owww!”

“Calm down, it wasn’t that hard.”

“Yeah it was!”

“No way! Look!” I slapped myself in the face roughly as hard as I’d slapped her. “See? Nothin’!”

She slapped me in the face.

“Ow! What the heck, Cassie!?”

“You slapped me!”

We started smacking at each other’s hands while trying to slap each other when all of a sudden there was a terrifyingly loud bubbling noise. I heard Siegfried barking and growling behind me, having not noticed that he had followed my sister and me into the basement.

“What’s wrong, bud?” Cassie asked.

I shooshed her when I noticed that Siegfried was barking at the furnace.

“Cassie, stay here.”

Cautiously, I crept toward the furnace. The bubbling was growing louder by the second. Suddenly, a tsunami of Goo leapt up from the other side of the furnace, overtaking everything in the basement.

“Run!” I yelled to Cassie.

With the Goo chasing after us, we sprinted as quickly as we could up the stairs. Siegfried kept barking at the Goo on the stairs instead of running away, so I shot down the steps and picked him up. He squirmed around in my arms, making it very difficult to see where I was going while trying to carry him upstairs. I tripped over a step on my way up but luckily rebalanced myself before I could fall into the pit of Goo below. After reaching the top of the stairs, I set Siegfried down and slammed the basement door shut as hard as I could.

“What is going on here?” My mom stormed over to us, clearly not happy with the ruckus my sister and I were making.

“Nothing! Nothing at all!” I lied. Not even a kernel of truth in there.

“Why are you blocking the door, Daniel?”

“What door?” I was not good at lying.

My mom rolled her eyes and moved me out of the way.

“Mom, no!!” I yelled.

She did not listen to me as she opened the basement door. In an instant, the Goo was shooting out from the basement onto my mom. It quickly pulled her down into the basement and swallowed her whole. Before I had time to move, she had been devoured. The Goo started to pour all throughout the living room, taking over the house and turning it into a bubbly green fortress.

I grabbed Cassie’s arm and ran off into the hall. We stared down the Goo, and we watched in horror as it consumed the living room. We watched as the ugly lamp my mom had bought a year prior was covered in Goo before coming to life and hopping toward us.

“How is that even a thing!? That’s so unfair!” I yelled.

I tore a photo from the wall and tossed it at the evil Goo lamp which did absolutely nothing. The lamp continued hopping menacingly toward us, and Siegfried started barking at it.

“Siegfried, no!” I shouted.

That dog did not listen to me at all. Instead, it started rushing toward the Goo lamp, jumping at it and biting it. The lamp did not even stumble as the Goo shot out from its side and swallowed Siegfried, and we watched as a whining Siegfried-shaped lump was pulled back down into the basement.

“Siegfried!!” Cassie cried out. She tried to chase after him, but I knew there was nothing she or I could do, so I gripped her arm tighter and dragged her down the hall into my room and slammed the door shut.

“Cassie, I need you to help me with this.”

Cassie and I started pulling my dresser and desk over to the door to block it off. We could hear the Goo surging forward through the hall just outside, quickly making its way to us. We listened closely as it sloshed against the door, pounding on the other side in an attempt to make it inside the room.

“Well, now what do we do?” I said as we sat in the corner of the room.

“I know! Pickerel can save us!” Cassie started digging around in my closet and pulled out her toy.

“Why was that in my closet?”

“I hid it there to scare you!”

“How was that supposed to scare me?”

“Well… I dunno.”

“Whatever. Pickerel won’t do anything, Cassie. Stop messing around.”

“Shut up!” Cassie said as she smacked me.

There was an abrupt clinking noise that startled both of us. I went to investigate, and soon found the Goo sample I’d left under the cup trying its best to escape.

“Ahhh! Daniel! Get rid of it!” Cassie yelled and hid behind me.

“Calm down, Cassie. It can’t escape from there. We’ll be ok.”

She settled down a bit, holding Pickerel close to her chest and she inched forward to get a closer look at the Goo sample.

“Don’t get too close. We don’t want that stuff getting out of there,” I told her.

“I’m not gonna do anything!” She snapped back at me as she did something, knocking the stack of books and the cup over, releasing the Goo Sample, which lurched forward immediately. She dropped Pickerel as I grabbed her and tried to shield her from the Goo Sample, but it had no interest in her any longer. Instead, it smothered itself all over Pickerel, bringing it to life just as the rest of the Goo had done to the lamp before.

I grabbed my survival knife and held it out, trying to threaten the toy.

“Get back! You stay away from us you… you… uh… thing!”

“Good one, Daniel!”

“Shut up!”

Goo-Pickerel did not listen to me. It marched forward, stopping just in front of me. Completely catching me off-guard, it then saluted me.

“Um... hello?” I said.

It waved at me. It. Waved. At. Me.

I was completely speechless. How do you respond to your little sister’s possibly-evil Goo-possessed toy coming to life and waving at you? Not with words, that’s for sure. So, I just fearfully waved back.

“What is it doing?” Cassie asked me.

“I have absolutely no idea,” I said. “But—”

Before I could finish that thought, my dresser and bed started violently shaking. The Goo was starting to seep its way in underneath the door and was wrapping itself around the bed. Cassie and I scrambled to the other side of my room trying to get away, and Goo-Pickerel followed us.

The Goo-covered bed began to come alive and slide toward us. Cassie and I screamed in terror. Out of nowhere, Goo-Pickerel began to grow before our eyes, with his head nearly reaching the ceiling! We watched on, our mouths gaping open as the gooey toy slammed its fist into my bed, sending it through the wall and into the hallway. It turned back to us and gave us a thumbs up. We returned the favor.

“So… is he our friend?” Cassie asked.

“Go Pickerel!!” I jumped up and cheered.

The Goo began to recede off of my bed and back into the hall, but more Goo-infested objects started to charge toward us. The lamp, the couch, the TV, you name it. If it was in our living room, it was green, gooey, and entirely after us. Goo-Pickerel did not back down though, and he continued to beat down on the furnishings to keep them from getting to us. We followed behind him, hoping he could keep us safe from the ever-encroaching Goo terror.

He smashed our television, dismantled our couch, snapped our lamp in half, and demolished our chair. It was a glorious sight to behold as Goo-Pickerel did everything in his power to keep us safe.

Unfortunately, the Goo wasn’t done yet. Boxes and silverware from the kitchen started to storm in from all around the house to fight back against our ally. He fought them off as long as he could, but he was no match for the sheer numbers the Goo had already conscripted into itself. After a few more minutes of incredible defensive maneuvers, the Goo smashed Goo-Pickerel from behind by surprise with my sister’s possessed bed, sending him flying across the living room, shrinking in mid-air. He slammed into a window, breaking it, letting the horrible winter air in once more.

There was an ear-shattering screeching sound as all of the Goo in the house started to flail hysterically about before it depossessed Cassie’s bed and threw it at the wall to block off the window.

Cassie and I ran away down the hall again, hoping to put some more distance between us and the Goo.

“Daniel, what do we do!?” Cassie cried as she hugged my leg.

I had no idea what to do, but as I watched the Goo continue to pile objects in front of the window, I felt something click inside of my head.

“Cassie! Quick, we need to break every window in the house!”

“But I thought you hated the cold.”

“I do! But so does it.” I pointed down the hall into the living room.

Cassie quickly understood what I was saying. She was smart like that (sometimes.) I ducked into the bathroom next to us and grabbed us a couple of towels.

I handed one to Cassie and said “Wrap this around your arm so you don’t hurt yourself.”

She nodded, and we made a mad dash throughout the hallway, yet to be retaken by the Goo thanks to Goo-Pickerel’s defense, desperately smashing every window we came across. Cassie destroyed the one in her room as I took care of the small one in the bathroom. I shattered my own window as well.

The freezing cold air bellowed into the house once more. The Goo tried to flow down the hallway, but the freezing air proved to be too much for it, and we watched as it quickly shriveled and froze up.

As the cold air continued to flow into the house, the Goo further receded back towards the basement, freeing up the upstairs once more. Cassie and I hurriedly went through the house and broke every window and throwing open every door we saw to let in even more cold air. I ran into our entryway to grab us some winter clothing to keep us warm, as well.

Cassie and I slowly approached the basement door, staring down at the bubbling pool of Goo below. The cold was doing virtually nothing to slow it down or force it to recede any further, but we knew that somewhere down there was Siegfried and our mother.

“How do we get down there?” Cassie asked as the Goo angrily bubbled trying to reach us.

“I’m not sure,” I said. “There’s gotta be something we can do, right? The cold hurts it, but it’s got the furnace down there. What can we do to freeze it up?”

Cassie lit up like a firework and sprinted outside, leaving me with no choice but to follow her. On her way out the door, she grabbed a couple of her shoes. I watched as she ran into the cold winter night, scooping snow into her shoes.

“Cassie, what in the world are you doing?” I asked her.

She simply smiled at me and ran back inside. I chased after her, and when we got back to the basement door, I watched her start to empty her snow-filled shoes all over the Goo in the basement. To my amazement, it was working! Albeit incredibly slowly, the Goo began to recede as she poured the snow onto it.

“Cassie, you’re a genius!” I yelled. “Let’s try the kitchen, though. Maybe we can use some pots or something to gather more snow with.”

“Great idea, Daniel!”

We scurried into the kitchen, gathering the largest pots we could find in the cabinets, making trip after trip outside to gather more snow to toss on the Goo. It took dozens of trips, so many I completely lost count (and any idea of time I had leftover) but we kept at it until, finally, the Goo was low enough for us to be able to make it into the basement.

We both filled up a couple of extra pots and cups with snow to use as defense in case there was any leftover Goo we couldn’t see, and we crept down the steps into the dark basement.

In the depths below, the Goo was sprawled out all over the floor. We sprinkled snow onto it and watched as it continued to recede closer and closer to the furnace that was fueling it. I frantically scanned the basement, trying to find my mother and Siegfried. Though it was hard to see in the darkness of the basement, I managed to locate them, both sitting in the corner of the room. Sprinkling snow on the remnant Goo along the way, I rushed over to them to make sure they were ok.

“Mom! Siegfried! Hey!” I shouted. “Are you ok? Did the Goo get you?”

My mom started groaning, but finally, she turned to me and said “Daniel? What happened? Why are we in the basement?”

I responded by tossing a whole pot’s worth of snow on her… just to be safe.

“What the heck, Daniel!?” She screamed at me, clearly angry. But I didn’t care, I jumped forward and hugged her, Cassie running behind me to join in, as well. The moment was short-lived, though, as Siegfried started barking next to us. I turned to see him yet again barking at the Goo by the furnace, bubbling up again. Cassie and I hurried forward, tossing most of the snow we had left on the Goo, watching it go back to receding. I turned the valve on the furnace to completely shut it off, and then Cassie and I sprinkled the remaining snow we had onto the Goo to trick it into receding back into its bottle once more. We tightened the cap as much as we could get it, then set it on the opposite side of the room away from the furnace.

“Ok,” our mom said as she stood up. “You two have some serious explaining to do!”

A few months later, once the ground had thawed, Cassie and I decided to dig a hole in the backyard to bury the Goo bottle in.

“We need to make sure nobody ever finds this thing again! It’s way too dangerous… whatever it is,” I told Cassie.

“For sure!” She agreed.

After we dug a hole nearly two feet deep, I sent Cassie back into the basement to grab the Goo bottle. She came out with it after a few moments and, as we got ready to toss it in the hole, she stopped me.

“Hey, Daniel, look at this,” she said.

“What is it?”

“There’s a tiny crack on the cap right here,” she pointed to the bottom of the cap.

“Huh, weird. Must be where I flicked it off with the knife.”

“Do you think it’s safe?”

“It hasn’t gotten out all this time, so I’m sure it’ll be ok.”

“Yeah, you’re probably right!”

We tossed the bottle into the hole and started to cover it with dirt. Our mom peeked out the door to call to us.

“Kids,” She yelled to us. “You need to come inside! The news says there’s a heatwave coming soon, and I don’t want you dying of heatstroke.”

“Coming, mom!” I shouted back. “C’mon, Cassie. Let’s finish burying this and head inside.”

“Okay!” Cassie said back.

We finished burying the bottle in the dirt and walked back inside, leaving the Goo which tormented us months before to be hidden away as it always should have been, leaving it all alone to be battered by the elements once again.

THE END…?