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Part 7: Slime by Joseph Payne Brennan
In the leaden light of early dawn, Chief Underbeck climbed into a police car waiting on the highway near Wharton's Swamp and headed back for Clinton Center. He had made a decision and he was grimly determined to act on it at once.
When he reached Headquarters, he made two telephone calls in quick succession, one to the governor of the state and the other to the commander of the nearby Camp Evans Military Reservation.
The horror in Wharton's Swamp–he had decided–could not be coped with by the limited men and resources at his command.
Rupert Barnaby, Jason Bukmeist and Luke Matson had without any doubt perished in the swamp. The anonymous tramp, it now began to appear, far from being the murderer, had been only one more victim. And Fred Storr–well, he hadn't disappeared. But the other patrol members had found him sitting on the ground near the edge of the swamp in the clutches of a mind-warping fear which had, temporarily at least, reduced him to near idiocy. Hours after he had been taken home and put to bed, he had refused to loosen his grip on a flashlight which he squeezed in one hand. When they switched the flashlight off, he screamed, and they had to switch it on again. His story was so wildly melodramatic it could scarcely be accepted by rational minds. And yet–they had said as much about Dolores Rell's hysterical account. And Fred Storr was no excitable young girl; he had a reputation for level-headedness, stolidity and verbal honesty which was touched with understatement rather than exaggeration. As Chief Underbeck arose and walked out to his car in order to start back to Wharton's Swamp, he noticed Old Man Gowse coming down the block.
With a sudden thrill of horror he remembered the eccentric's missing cow. Before the old man came abreast, he slammed the car door and issued crisp directions to the waiting driver. As the car sped away, he glanced in the rearview mirror.
Old Man Gowse stood grimly motionless on the walk in front of Police Headquarters.
"Old Man Cassandra," Chief Underbeck muttered. The driver shot a swift glance at him and stepped on the gas.
Less than two hours after Chief Underbeck arrived back at Wharton's Swamp, the adjacent highway was crowded with cars–state-police patrol cars, cars of the local curious, and Army trucks from Camp Evans.
Promptly at nine o'clock, over three hundred soldiers, police and citizen volunteers, all armed, swung into the swamp to begin a careful search.
Shortly before dusk most of them had arrived at the sea on the far side of the swamp. Their exhaustive efforts had netted nothing. One soldier, noticing fierce eyes glaring out of a tree, had bagged an owl, and one of the state policemen had flushed a young bobcat. Someone else had stepped on a copperhead and had been treated for snakebite. But there was no sign of a monster, a murderous tramp, or any of the missing men.
In the face of mounting scepticism, Chief Underbeck stood firm. Pointing out that, so far as they knew to date, the murderer prowled only at night, he ordered that after a four-hour rest and meal period the search should continue.
A number of helicopters which had hovered over the area during the afternoon landed on the strip of shore, bringing food and supplies. At Chief Underbeck's insistence, barriers were set up on the beach. Guards were stationed along the entire length of the highway; powerful searchlights were brought up. Another truck from Camp Evans arrived with a portable machine gun and several flame-throwers.
By eleven o'clock that night, the stage was set. The beach barriers were in place, guards were at station, and huge searchlights, erected near the highway, swept the dismal marsh with probing cones of light.
At eleven-fifteen the night patrols, each consisting of ten strongly armed men, struck into the swamp again.
Part 7: Slime by Joseph Payne Brennan
Watch the Video: https://youtu.be/5vDC4OYn1bE
In Greek mythology, Cassandra was the daughter of King Priam and Queen Hecuba of Troy. A common version of her story is that Apollo gave her the power of prophecy in order to seduce her, but when she refused him, he gave her the curse of never being believed. Why do you think Chief Underbeck calls Gowse "Old Man Cassandra" ? What does he mean by this?
Prediction. What do you think is going to happen in part 8?
Answers
Some different acceptable answers here, but one example:
Cassandra had always tried to warn people, but no one had believed her. Just like Cassandra, Old Man Gowse had tried to warn people about the monster in the swamp, but no one had believed him.