Jan the Intergalactic Aviator: Beware of the Blob

A half hour. A half hour of standing in the general store watching my partner eat everything in sight. It was disgusting, chips, pudding snacks, cans of ravioli and spaghetti, Slurpees, nothing escaped that black hole of his mouth. I think he even chewed on the countertops.

“OK Blob,” I said. “Our half hour Yield is up. We have to get going now.”

“Can’t talk,” he mumbled between chomps. “Eating.”

“You want to be in this race, right?” I asked. “If so, we gotta go.”

“But I’m hungry,” he protested.

“I see that,” I answered. “And I assume you’re always hungry but we have to go and we have to go now.”

“Ugh, fine,” he grunted petulantly. “Where we goin’?”

“We’re taking the Expedition towards the North Pole,” I answered.

“A Ford Expedition?” he asked.

“Yes,” I nodded as I pointed to the vehicle sitting in the lot.

“Wow, a Ford Expedition,” he sighed.

I looked at the driver’s seat, then I looked at my partner’s ample girth, then I looked back at the driver’s seat again. “I guess I’ll drive.”

He started squeezing into the back. “Uh, little help?”

I started to shove him in. Did I mention how disgusting he was? Squishy, gellopolous globs of fat squished through my fingers as I tried to shove him into the back. He didn’t budge.

“Nobody moves the Blob,” he chuckled.

“Come on, get in fatty.”

“Hey, don’t call me fatty, I have a condition.”

“Then just get in,” I growled as I pushed.

“You mean in this Ford Expedition?” he asked.

“Yes! And what’s with this smell? You’ve invented quite an odor here. When’s the last time you took a bath?”

“Heh heh heh, I wash myself with a rag on a stick,” he grunted.

“Ugh. Disgusting.” We managed to get his gigantic, gelatinous body squeezed into the back of the vehicle (with only a small portion of his body squishing out of the windows and back) and were soon on our way.

“Sure do love the ride in the Ford Expedition,” he grinned from the back. “This Ford Expedition is nice and roomy.”

“Funny,” I said into the rearview mirror. The rearview mirror did not offer a pleasant view.

“Yep, this Ford Expedition is certainly a quality vehicle.”

“Why do you keep saying that?” I asked.

“Saying what?” he asked back. “Ford Expedition?”

“Yes, that.”

“Oh, I signed a contract with Ford Motor Company,” he explained. “I get paid to say the name of their car the Ford Expedition. Ford Expedition.”

I whistled. “I’m impressed. You get a nice chunk of change every time you say it?”

“No, I don’t get money for saying Ford Expedition,” he guffawed. “I get a bucket of chicken and a bottle of Gatorade every time I say Ford Expedition. Ford Expedition.”

We made it to where we had to get into the hovercraft. The only problem was that there was no way on Earth that the Blob would be able to ride one of those things. Fortunately, I called in a favor from an old Coast Guard pal of mine and we were soon skipping across the surface like a stone on water.

“Nice ride,” the Blob yelled above the roar of the twin fans. “Almost as nice as a Ford Expedition, heh heh. A Ford Expedition.”

“Hey Jan, maybe when this race is all over you and me could go out for a frosty Yo Joe Cola?” Cutter called out to me.

“Just keep driving, puddle pirate,” I smirked back at him.

In no time at all we were meeting Nick Fury and checking out the crashed space ship.

“Brrr, it’s freezing here,” I shivered.

“That’s why it’s called the North Pole,” Fury replied.

“Ha! The Blob doesn’t get cold.” The Blob looked around. “Hey, check this thing out.”

“Careful with that radioactive material,” I warned as I scanned it with my datapad. “Oh my gosh, I can’t believe this.”

“What is it?” the Fury asked. “What kind of readings are you getting?”

“This ship is from planet Xenon,” I explained. “But Xenon exploded a long time ago. That makes this stuff Xenonite.”

“Yeah so?” the Blob eyeballed the green rock then sniffed it.

“Well who knows what kind of effects the radiation from this planet could have. It could do anything... cure cancer or destroy us all.” I explained. “I just need to run some tests and hey! Don’t eat it!”

“But it smells like bacon wrapped Twinkies,” he mumbled in between loud, smacking bites. He then grabbed his immense belly as a gurgling noise rumbled from it. “Oh oh.”

“You think?” I snorted. “You’re going to have one serious case of intergalactic indigestion here in a moment.”

“I don’t feel so good.” The Blob doubled over and howled in pain as his stomach continued to make awful gurgling noises.

“This doesn’t look good,” Fury shook his head.

Suddenly, fat exploded from the Blob’s pores and tore from his belly. Gooey sludge slid across the snow, coagulating, sliding together. Droplets combined forming larger drops, then they rolled together to form globs, then the larger globs slid into each other, forming one giant “blob,” which then quickly rolled over Nick Fury.

“Ahh! Get it off!” Fury screamed. “It’s burning into my skin!”

“Dammit, that thing is going to kill us!” I growled as I pulled my blaster rifle off my shoulder and charged it. “It’s going to absorb us and keep growing.”

“Kill it!” Fury growled. “Don’t worry about me. If this thing gets away it’ll be the end of life as we know it.”

I fired burst after burst of pulsed energy at it. White goo exploded all over the snow and us. Parts of it burned while other parts withered in the cold.

I helped Fury to his feet. “All in a day’s work, huh?” he chuckled as he wiped white glop off his face.

“Oh no, the Blob.” We rushed over to his no longer huge form curled up on the ground.

“So c-c-c-cold,” he shivered.

I carried the 98 pound former Blob to Ice Station Zebra where I met Professor Xavier.

“Frost bite, shock from sudden, explosive loss of fat, muscle, and body fluids, shock from exposure to the elements,” I said to the Professor. “He can’t move, he’s catatonic.”

“Got any……. Chicken soup?” the Blob managed to mumble before slipping into a coma.

The Professor looked at me but words seemed to fail him.

“What?” I said. “I didn’t do this to him. He ate some of the Xenonite. It was like some kind of life form, some kind of Eradicator, that was going to destroy us all.”

The Professor took a deep breath and let it out. He didn’t say anything, but I could clearly hear the sentence “I need a cognac” echo in my mind.