The Blob Read Free

the wooden supports with his foot.
    Yeah, he thought. This should do. The timbers should make an okay ramp. A quick dart up the ramp, then over that thirty feet to the other side. Sure, no sweat.
    Decided finally, he drove the motorbike back the fifty yards or so he needed for a good takeoff. As he listened to the revving sounds of the engine and steeled himself for the jump, he noticed peripherally a figure emerge from the woods nearby, followed closely by another, smaller figure.
    He turned to check them out, then laughed to himself. Shit. Just the “Can Man” and his mangy mutt.
    The scruffy old dude, the Can Man, was a codger who looked as if he’d fallen off the rails in the thirties and decided to stick around. He lived in an old shack up aways, and made his living collecting bottles and cans and whatnot, which he turned in for nickels and dimes. The Can Man was a figure of popular local mythology, wearing all sorts of identities to the minds of youngsters growing up in Morgan City. Brian’s own mother had warned him to stay away from the guy, but when he was only nine, Flagg had actually ventured to the shack one day, where he’d quickly ascertained that the Can Man was just a harmless fellow who didn’t have much to say. Certainly he wasn’t any kind of bogeyman. In fact, Flagg rather identified with him. He was an outcast too. Their bond ended there, however. The Can Man had little to do with anyone or anything except the business of being a hermit and collecting stuff to sell. Brian understood. In fact, he respected that. But his dog—now, there was another matter. That scruffy mutt had already tried to bite him a couple times, so Brian gave the creature a wide berth.
    Now they were his audience. So, fine, he’d show the Can Man and his dog how to jump a gully.
    Flagg took another swallow of beer, then crumpled the half-empty can and threw it toward the Can Man.
    “There ya go, guy!” he snarled. “For your collection.”
    The dog barked and Brian Flagg chuckled. He could still hear the cheering from Morgan City High, and he pretended that they were yelling for him.
    Yeah. Here’s Brian Flagg, Colorado’s answer to Evel Knievel, about to show his stuff to the world. What? A twenty-five-foot jump? With a machine like this one under his butt, why, it would be child’s play!
    “Yo!” he called. “Here goes!”
    He gunned the throttle of the Indian, jammed the bike into gear, and spun out, spraying dirt behind him. The engine roared loud and hard, and the thrill of acceleration added excitement to Flagg’s determination. The wind whipped through his hair, whistling louder and louder as he went faster and faster. He bent his head forward to decrease the drag and yanked the throttle down all the way.
    The field flashed by; the bridge approached. Man, oh, man, this was going to be a rush . . . He was really going to do it . . .
    But then the Indian coughed! It sputtered and it coughed again, just yards from the bridge ramp! Flag gunned it again. What the hell was this . . . ?
    Damn, he wasn’t going to have the speed to make the jump.
    Instantly he jammed on the brakes, but it was too late. The bike skidded, kicking up dust as it veered to one side. Desperately he dug his heel into the ground, fighting his momentum as he reached the lip of the gully.
    For an endless moment he hung, teetering at the very edge of the busted bridge. Brian desperately shifted his weight, lurching back away from the precipice. His muscles strained as the machine tottered beneath him. And then the bike dropped, dragging him along with it.
    It really wasn’t too deep a fall till he hit the side of the gully, maybe five or six feet, and Flagg managed to land without the bike falling on his head. But the jolt was too strong and the pull of gravity too great. Both he and the Indian tumbled and slid ass over elbows, handlebars over axles, to the bottom of the gulch, collecting a goodly amount of dirt and dents along the way.
    For