Samurai and Other Stories Read Online Free Page B

taking on solid form.  
    But it still wasn’t right.  
    The really good stuff only really started to happen this very night. He played back his previous recordings while keeping the antenna pointed skywards.  
    The plasma roiled.  
    The sounds became louder, more insistent, especially when he pointed at a certain patch of sky.  
    Soon he had a repeating beat going, with a modulated chorus above it that rose in intensity, and rose again as the plasma started to pulse.  
    He set his recorders going and started experimenting, feeding the recordings back to the plasma through his one thousand watt speakers, merging the sounds with the compositions from his dreams.
      Within the hour the globe of plasma was responding to his dream overlays. When he played the recordings back at full volume the plasma swelled. The music grew, the chords overlaying each other in an orchestrated dance.
    Rickman was so excited that he didn’t notice that the walls of his apartment beat in time to the music.
    Nor did he spot that when he turned his back, the plasma ball grew, stretching like an inflating balloon. Cobalt blue colours flashed and it surged.
    Rickman was its first victim.

    *     *     *

    The cops arrived ten minutes later in response to a neighbour’s complaint about the noise.  
    When they burst in the door a plasma ball of rainbow colours rose to dance in the air in front of them, a swirling aura of gold and purple and black.
    The sound started.
    It was low at first, almost inaudible, but it rose to a crescendo until their ears were buffeted with raucous, mocking, piping; a cacophony of high fluting that crashed discordantly over them.
    Then the smell hit them, the foetid, unmistakable odour of death that caught at the back of the throat and threatened to send their guts into spasm.
    The cops ran.  
    They didn’t look back, and all the time the crazed fluting danced in the air around them. They called for help; but each shout only brought a fresh surge in the plasma. The air above the plasma crackled with electricity, blue static running over the formless mass.  
    It dragged itself across the floor leaving a grey glistening streak of slime behind it.
    Within the protoplasm things moved, detached bones flowing, scraps of clothing fused with unidentifiable pieces of flesh. The surface boiled in numerous small lesions that bubbled and split like pieces of over-ripe fruit.
    But worst of all was the source of the fluting. A huge, red, meaty maw pulsed wetly in time with the cacophony.
    The younger of the cops made it to the elevator and slammed the button. He screamed, frustrated, as the doors were slow in starting to move. He let them open just enough to slip inside before he turned to look for his partner.
    She was less than two yards from him, arms outstretched, pleading. He began to move towards her when she stopped and was jerked backwards like a marionette. Her mouth opened wide into a scream and she fell forward, her right hand hitting the down button even as he stretched out vainly.
    The door began to close and, no matter how much he strained at it, he was unable to stop it from shutting completely and he could do nothing but watch the events in the hallway beyond through the small window.
    The plasma had caught her by the ankle. Oily colours flowed across her body, the protoplasm gripping her tight.  
    She struggled hard to no avail.
    Their eyes met, just once. Her mouth opened as if she was trying to speak, and that was when the swirling blob engulfed her head and the noises from her throat ceased to sound human.
    The protoplasm surged again, and suddenly the window of the cab was coated with slime.  
    The cop gagged and fought hard to keep down the bile as a human foot, still trailing bloody threads behind it, floated across his view.
    She was the second victim.

    *     *     *

    The cop spent the next fifteen minutes persuading his superiors that there was a problem in the tower block. In that time the