SAVAGE GILL-MAN STRIKES AGAIN
4 DEAD IN EVERGLADES MASSACRE
Florida City--Four are dead in the wake of the latest attack of the so-called "Gill-Man." Names of the victims have not yet been released pending the notification of their loved ones.
The four were killed by the Gill-Man while sunbathing at Pelican Cay yesterday afternoon. None of the victims knew each other, according to eyewitness accounts.
"It came out of the swamp like a thing from hell itself," said Maribel Frost, a vacationer. "I recognized the awful thing from the newsreels. Those eyes! The claws! It tore through those people something terrible. Just sliced them up for no reason at all."
Citizens of south Florida are calling for more action from the authorities. Chief of Police Hayrock Tamshill says his department has called in a "special expert" to assess the situation, but refused to comment further . . .
"You're sure you know what you're doing?" asked the police chief. He had a hard time looking at the strange little man next to him, who must have been sweltering in his long overcoat and black fedora. The sun beat down mercilessly on the asphalt.
Jack Griffin tittered behind the bandages wrapped around his head. "Why am I here again?" he asked, his voice half-muted by the thick cloth.
Tamshill cocked his head down at Griffin. "The brass up at Miskatonic said you had the talent and the moxie to take care of the Gill-Man. You don't remember?"
Griffin clapped his bandaged hands together. "Ah! The creature from the black lagoon, yes! Gill Man, Gill Man, pray thee take a pill, man! Ha ha! Wondrous, yes. Take care of my things, will you?"
With that, Jack Griffin tossed his hat to the ground and shrugged out of his overcoat. Piece by piece, he removed his clothing: vest, shirt, slacks, shoes. Beneath these accoutrements his entire form was wrapped tight in those same white bandages; a pair of dark glasses covered his eyes.
Tamshill asked no questions. He'd learned it was best to stay quiet and obey orders when strangers came down from Miskatonic. If they thought this eccentric little man could rid Florida of the creature, he wouldn't argue.
But when Griffin handed over his glasses, Tamshill gasped involuntarily, staggering backward and nearly losing his balance. For where Griffin's eyes should have been there was only darkness.
Griffin tittered again.
"Look into a man's eyes and see his soul!" Griffin said. He reached behind his head and began unwrapping the bandages.
Griffin had no head! Tamshill took another step back. As lengths of cloth coiled on the road, more and more of Griffin's essential nothingness was revealed. He had no visible form at all, as if his clothes had been placed on a mannequin of perfect glass, glass so fine it reflected not, refracted naught.
"I'm the invisible man!" cried the nothingness where Griffin had once stood. "I'm the invisible man! Incredible how you can see right through me!"
There was a splash. Tamshill snapped his gaze in the direction of the sound, and saw ripples in the swamp water--ripples with no observable cause. After a moment, some air bubbles percolated to the surface; they popped silently, and then the water was still.
Tamshill sat cross-legged on the edge of the road. He'd been told to watch. So watch he would.
Gradually, the sun sank over his left shoulder, casting longer and longer shadows. Soon it was just Tamshill and the darkness and the silence; not even the insects were stirring.
Even at night, the heat was oppressive. There was no escape from it, so Tamshill stewed in his own sweat, his uniform sticky and cloying.
He fell into a fitful sleep, his head hanging down against his chest. He dreamed that his eyes were gone, but he could somehow see the empty sockets when he looked at his face in a mirror. His wife saw this and wailed, her body stiffening and then transforming into water, which held her form for a second and then crashed to the bathroom floor, washing down an air vent that was for some reason covered in moss.
Tepid water splashed him in the face, and Tamshill woke to horror.
The Gill-Man stood before him, shrieking in uncanny rage and pain. The monster's green skin had turned translucent; Tamshill could see thing thing's internal workings. Massive emerald lungs, a thick, dark, five-lobed heart, and a yellowish sac that was the stomach...which as now, too, turning invisible to reveal the half-digested parts of a human figure, a man--a man with a face frozen in terror, with bulging eyes, the freshly dead--
Griffin. The Gill-Man had eaten Griffin.
Tamshill couldn't move; he was frozen in the early morning heat, eyes agape as the Gill-Man stomped and thrashed and clawed at it's own head. Something in Griffin's body must have infected the Gill-Man not only with his invisibility, but his madness.
Was that Miskatonic's plan all along? Suddenly Tamshill knew it was so. But why? Why transform an already dangerous creature into something insane and unseen? There could be no hunting the Gill-Man now. It wouldn't be long before the Gill-Man was not merely transparent, but as utterly invisible as Griffin had been.
Tamshill drew his revolver. The Gill-Man had shrugged off bullets before, but there was nothing else he could do. Maybe he'd get lucky. He held his pistol in both hands, still cross-legged, aiming at the monster's left eye. Shooting at the creature's centre mass was futile; perhaps even the eyes were tougher than lead.
Tamshill fired. The bullet sang as it ricocheted off the monster's scaly skull. The creature roared even as it faded away to complete invisibility. Tamshill might get one more shot. He fired at where the monster had been. The bullet chased the horizon.
Tamshill scrambled to his feet. His only chance now was to dash for his cruiser, parked about a half-mile away where the road curved sharply from east to south.
The sun was rising in the east. At least he'd seen it one last time. One last caress from the divine before one last caress from the demon.
He could hear the Gill-Man's webbed feet slapping against the road in pursuit. He was only a few feet behind. No way could Tamshill dive into the cruiser before he was caught.
Sweat clouded Tamshill's eyes, stinging them, blurring his vision. He saw two lights suddenly hove into view behind the cruiser. A large vehicle--a moving van--
Tamshill realized he was running down the middle of the road. He dove aside with a scream.
There was a wet thump behind him as the van slammed into something. It careened off the road, burying its cabin in the swamp before bursting into flames.
Tamshill rolled from belly to butt, crawling backward toward his cruiser. The Gill-Man's wet footprints ended where the van's skid marks began. The van's engine sputtered and died, and then there was only the sound of crackling flames--suddenly broken by an anguished scream that ended with a bloody gurgle.
Tamshill fled to his cruiser. A moment later, he was gone.
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