Muck in the Mocha

‘Can I get a caramel frappuccino with soy milk, low-fat cream, chocolate flakes, and one of those matcha brownies?’

Elliot nods, barely listening as he goes through the motions.

The customer taps her manicured nails against the counter, then flicks her hair into place. Elliot recognises her. Tabitha. Works in media. She shows up every morning before her shift, hoping to bump into the city’s biggest celebrity: Captain Valor. This is his favourite coffee shop, after all.

Luckily for her, he hadn’t shown up yet this morning.

The TV blares on the opposite wall. Elliot hands her the order, takes a breath, and braces for the next customer.

On the screen is a red-faced reporter, panting and bouncing on his toes. ‘He’s done it again! It’s incredible!’ An explosion booms behind him.

‘Double espresso, please.’

‘Sure.’

The screen cuts back to the studio. A woman in a hot-pink pantsuit shuffles papers and begins to read.

‘Having now saved the city dozens of times, we here at News 5 can’t help but wonder—how does he do it? And will Captain Valor ever run out of luck?’

Elliot presses the button. The machine hisses and clicks, sending whisps of steam curling around his face. He waits for the coffee to pour.

And waits.

Elliot frowns, swiping at the steam. He peers at the funnel. Instead of the rich, nutty stream of Colombian coffee, something else oozes out: thick, black, stinking goop.

Elliot gags and takes a slow step away from the machine.

Maybe John has been slacking on the cleaning again. But it would take a hell of a lot to cause this.

Elliot’s frown pulls tighter. He keeps his back to the customers as his mind whirrs.

An echoing clatter. And then a smash. Elliot flinches.

‘Hey! What did you put in my coffee?’

He turns. The girl with the manicured nails is on her feet, dark goop streaming from her shattered coffee cup onto the floor.

Someone laughs nervously. ‘Maybe it’s, like, a new syrup?’

Another customer peers into their cup and recoils. ‘Ew! No, it’s in mine too.’

‘And mine!’

‘Yeah, same here!’

The room buzzes with uneasy chatter. Chairs scrape back. Cups tip over, one after another. The black muck slops over rims and begins to spread.

Elliot’s heart pounds. A bead of sweat breaks out on his forehead. He looks back at the machine. What’s going on?

‘Hey.’ A manicured nail taps against the counter. ‘What exactly are you going to do about this?’

As Elliot scrambles for a response, the goop continues to move. Thick and relentless, it spreads across the floor, merging into a single writhing puddle at the cafe’s center.

People start to notice. The coffee house falls silent.

Like a living being, the goop pulsates as if keeping time with a heartbeat. It slowly but surely gathers itself. At first, it becomes a shimmering, bowling-ball sized lump. Then it stretches, writhes, and swells, shapes pressing outward as though someone trapped inside was clawing to get free.

After what feels like hours, the thing stands. Humanoid. It has dripping legs, sagging arms, and a head marked with two eye-like pits and a misshapen, oozing nose.

A stench rolls over the cafe, smothering the beautiful scent of roasted beans with that of rot, compost, and death. Elliot gags, as do his customers.

The manicured girl is the first to let out a scream. She bolts for the door, heels clattering on wood, as others surge after her. She reaches the glass doors and goes to yank them open as a sharp stream of goop channels past her ear, gluing her hand in place.

‘Eek!’ she shrieks. ‘What do you want from us?’

A gravelly, grumbling roar ripples through the cafe. ‘Valoooooor!’

Elliot’s stomach drops. Of course, it wants Valor. And where better to find him than his favorite cafe?

The girl struggles with the door. ‘Let me go!’

A man rushes to help, attempting to pry the goop from her ruined nails and escape.

The blob grumbles. The cafe trembles. It lashes out a gloopy arm, and another stream of slime shoots toward the man. It hits him square in the stomach, slamming him into the door and cementing him in place, further crushing any hope of escape.

With the blob distracted, Elliot ducks behind the counter, burying his head in his hands and rocking back and forth. His heart hammers. More shouts and screams come from above. People running, people getting swallowed in goop.

Elliot’s shaking fingers find his phone. He starts dialing emergency services when an earth-shattering crash reverberates through the cafe, infinitely worse than the goop’s grumbles. There’s a moment of silence before a very loud, very over-confident voice cuts through the chaos.

‘Muck! You again! I won’t let you get away with this!’

Muck lets out a pleased gurgle. Elliot pokes his head above the counter to see none other than Captain Valor, dressed head to toe in sky-blue spandex, beautiful blond hair flapping, and a proud ‘V’ emblazoned on his chest. Elliot fights a groan. Can they not do this somewhere else?

Behind the pair gapes a Valor-shaped hole in the rustic brick wall. People are shoving their way through it, fighting to be the first out. Muck pays them no mind. He has what he came for.

‘Valor,’ the blob hisses. ‘I’ve been waiting for thissss.’

Valor grins. ‘Well, that’s just the thing, Mucky Boy.’ He points a single finger at the blob. ‘So have I.’

Then Valor turns away from the monster, strides a few steps, and raises a clenched fist high. He glances over his shoulder. ‘Do you know what this is?’

The monster grumbles. The vibration ripples through Elliot’s chest. Squinting, he sees Valor pinch a tiny, shiny metallic ball between his finger and thumb. It’s about the size of a nicotine gummy.

‘Of course you don’t.’ Valor turns and holds the ball out with a grin. ‘This is a little something known as “Nano Tech”. Some of the boys at HQ made it for me. You see…’ As Valor embarks on a long, technical, but wildly unscientific explanation, Elliot’s eyes never leave Muck.

It doesn’t appear to be listening. But then again, it doesn’t appear to have ears. Instead, its hand begins to shift. First, it morphs into a ball, before a small cylinder sprouts from its front and the shape angles sharply. Elliot frowns. It looks an awful lot like a pistol.

Valor drones on about his weapon (a ‘super-quick poison’ for Muck’s biochemical makeup), when a lightning-fast tendril of goop shoots from the blob’s hand. Too fast. Valor can’t react.

The bullet-shaped slime collides with Valor’s perfect fingers and sends the miracle silver ball careening through the air. Valor’s story stops dead. The ball arcs high, bouncing off the ceiling before landing perfectly—so perfectly—in Elliot’s empty tip jar. Neither Muck nor Valor notice, of course, as waves of goop lash across the cafe.

Reams of it hammer Valor’s tight-fitting spandex before he can react. Muck unleashes splat after splat, and Elliot’s fear spikes as the hero is pushed against a wall, glued to it like a bug on flypaper. Even with his super strength, Valor can’t break free.

Muck cackles. The cafe rumbles and cups fall from tables. Elliot ignores the chaos and swipes the tip jar from the counter. He peers inside. The ball.

It has to work.

As Muck lurches toward Valor, his legs slopping against the floor, Elliot fumbles for the ball. Warm and vibrating, it hums in his fingers, almost alive.

Elliot eyes the door. He doesn’t have to do this. He could run. He could go home to his tiny apartment and his nightly appointment with a microwave mac and cheese.

But then he looks at Valor. The hero has no way out. Lips tinged blue, he begins to pant under the stress of all the goop, pressing him to the wall like a ten-ton truck.

Elliot clutches the little silver ball, thinks back to high school gym class, and hurls it.

Yet again, the ball flies. It traces a perfect arc, streaming toward Muck’s humanoid back. Then it hits, vanishing instantly as it’s absorbed into the inky blackness of the slime.

Muck screeches—a piercing, high-pitched wail. Elliot ducks behind the counter and covers his ears as coffee cups and plates explode around him. He stays there for a while, counting the seconds, and imagines Muck slipping over the counter, his endless goop poised to smother him.

Finally, all at once, the screeching stops. Elliot unplugs his ears. An unbearable silence hangs over the cafe, thick and heavy.

Elliot blinks, peeking over the counter. The cafe is unrecognizable. There are overturned tables, bits of ceramic scattered everywhere, and pictures ripped from the walls. A giant, person-shaped hole gapes in the far wall. There’s no black slime to be seen. It’s all vanished. Vaporized.

Amid the wreckage, a tall, latex-bound superhero groans, struggling to his feet. Valor takes in a few shaky breaths, wheezing like an old asthmatic as he surveys the chaos. He grunts. Next, he takes a few tentative steps, bracing against broken furniture until he reaches the counter.

Valor locks eyes with Elliot. A small smile returns to his face.

‘Chai Latte, please. Extra sugar.’