The Thing on the Caravan

The knock on the caravan was sudden and hard.

The man inside reluctantly put down his novel and opened the door. He stared into darkness. There was no one there. He stepped outside into the night and couldn't see anyone.

All he heard was a barn owl screaming blue murder somewhere on the land and sensed a faint whiff of moist soil fading in the growing dark.

Slightly unnerved he resumed his reading on the caravan couch and sipped his glass of sherry.

The knock came again, only this time louder, harder and wet.

The man nearly jumped out of his skin and he threw his book across the coach.

"Christ! Who the Hell are you and what do you want at this God-damn hour?" He shouted as he flung open the door.

Nothing.

There was nobody to be seen.

Just that strange odour of watered earth lingering in the air.

"Bollocks!" he cursed, "Fuckin' weirdos everywhere you go! No peace anywhere! Probably one of those tree-hugging keepers stoned after closing. Yep, a scrotey long-haired zoo-keeper goofing off!"

The man had never liked the zoo opening near his static caravan. The two things just didn't go together. An oxymoron in the Dales. One good. One weird.

"A fuckin' zoo in the country! I ask you! It's for townies. It should be in town!" he'd protested to the council bin-men when it opened. They just stared back at the man, shrugging, the huge wheelie bins on their backs making them sidle like hermit crabs in the morning's icy cold.

That was weeks ago and the zoo had since had problems. He'd read it in the local rag. Staffing, sloppy conditions, even some escapes for God's sake!

The man slept reluctantly and fitfully that night. Despite several more nightcaps, the sherry hadn't settled him after the rapping on his door. There'll be no peace this holiday he feared.

A loud thud violently woke him. He checked his watch. It was 3am.

He could hear something. Something was on the roof of the caravan. He craned his neck to focus but all he could detect was a faint damp crunching sound like a bag of frozen peas being squashed.

Must be a fox or an owl having their midnight snack he decided.

It was when something slowly slid down the side of the van and knocked on his door again that he changed his mind.

"Oh for fucks sake! What is it?" He bellowed, the dread in his voice now peering through.

With a shaking hand he tentatively reached for the handle and gradually opened up.

Again there was nobody out there. Just some odd glistening gloop on the step, which trailed under the van.

"Obviously a sparrowhawk with a fish supper! Of course! It hit the door when it crash-landed with a trout or a carp wriggling in it's claws! Yes, that's it. Fresh fish guts!"

The man clambered back under his quilt and pulled the cover right up to his chin. He left the bedside light on and felt better for it, but sleep came stubbornly and his dreams were torn and ragged.

It was around 6am when he thought he heard the caravan door creak open. He'd forgotten to lock up. He held his duvet tight, so tight that his knuckles turned a pearly white.

A hideous squelching came from the van's front room, a sound which began to move steadily through the kitchen and along the back corridor until it was directly outside the man's bedroom door.

He shuddered with fear. Shivering beneath his quilt there was no way the man could move to check.

He froze solid when something rapped loudly on the door.

Paralysed with terror, his loosening mind oddly obsessing about the strange liquidy nature of the knocking, he saw his door begin to nudge open.

A distinct slurping noise got louder and an earthy, almost sickly smell entered the man's nostrils, as if a cellar door had been hastily prized open.

It was when he saw what was entering the bedroom that he began to scream for his life.

It was a awful blood-curdling scream that grew louder and louder.

Something dreadful crawled eagerly onto his bed and the man now wished he hadn't left the light on.

His final scream was violently muffled by a wet muddy proboscis, which filled the man's straining mouth with thick nauseating, acidic slime.

Soon his entire head was engulfed in viscous burning fluid and the man could actually feel the skin sliding off his whole face and the muscle below being hungrily eaten.

The man howled a silent laugh as he conjured a twisted vision of a jellied eel eating him up and as his skull cracked open he knew instinctively where the rasping mouthlets were hungrily heading.

It was an hour or so later that a witness, on her way to the zoo, was cycling by and thought she heard a very loud gurgling and slurping noise coming from the caravan behind the hedge.

At least that's what she told the Dales Police later that day. Loud gulping and wet munching. And as she turned she thought she saw a huge purple mass as it disappeared down a man-hole to the sewers.

"A horrible sticky thing , massive it was!"

"Yes, yes, I'm sure Officer! As big as a dog!

"It was a terrible gigantic slug with a man's face hanging from it's mouth! That's what I saw!"