Through the slit between the door and the jamb a shadow appeared, no thicker than a sheet of paper. It moved to the center of the room. The outlines were blurry. Iggy rubbed his eyes and looked away. He wasn't going to think of it anymore. Probably a temporary delusion.

Before settling back down to his reading, he gave a quick look over his shoulder and that ugly sight had remained in his mind to this day.

Appearing on the living room rug was a huge, colorless glob. What was happening here...what a mess...and what was it? It must have worked its way up from beneath the floor, he thought.

He didn't believe in spooks and spectres, in devils and moaning or creeping things, but this was enough to get the better of anyone.

There was a horrible fascination about the ghostly glob quivering on the rug. It had no definite shape or color and he couldn't describe it as anything he had seen before anywhere - not even in the movies.

He passed a shaking hand over his eyes. He held perfectly still, every sense straining, alert. Then he walked a slow circle around it; shuffled unwittingly down to it; dropped to his knees and groveled apprehensively on the soft carpet. He cursed it. How could he explain this mess to his wife. She would never believe it anyway.

Frantically, his fingers slid over it in a hectic effort at appraisal. Was that glob evidence of extraterrestrial visits to earth? Or was it this old house? It was full of queer noises because of the foundation settling. Several times they had heard disturbances coming from the dining room like the sounds of chairs being pushed back from the table but every time they checked, the chairs were in place.

Iggy now had control over his emotions and grinned. "Hell, the answer is simple - broken pipe in the cellar. I'll check it out."

Returning, his expression blank, he looked over at the frightening glob, then quickly put his arm around the empty chair near him to steady his now shaky legs. He sipped his cold coffee and sat there in semi-darkness and silence for a long while. Was he losing control of his senses? Did he experience all this or was it a bad dream?

That last hour was the longest in his life - alone with a ghastly looking glob.

From a distant room came the sound of the door closing. Marie had come home at last. He called to her in a hoarse, cracked voice, "Come in here quickly, you can't imagine what has happened to our rug!"

His throat was so dry he could barely swallow. He squinted through sweat moistened eyes at her.

"You can't imagine what it's been like, I've had it all," he told her.

Marie's eyes uneasily searched the dimly lit room for an answer. She sank into a chair as though the strength had gone from her body. But being blessed with a good brain, an abundance of common sense and a liberal dash of pluck, agreed to assist him in solving the mystery. She warned him that they might see something that they both would wish they hadn't seen. Marie always broke the mood with her laughter and Iggy began to relax again.

Iggy gave me the briefest mechanical smile, then continued his story.

"The glob did vanish," Iggy explained. "It shrank and shrank, then melted into the darkness of the room, leaving no trace or evidence that it had ever slithered around on the rug."