SOURCE: "Men Without Bones" (Esquire, August 1954) by Dean Koontz and Kevin J. Anderson

DESCRIPTION: "What men without bones?... They are nothing to be afraid of, actually. It is they who are afraid of you. You can kill them with your boot, or with a stick.... They are something like jelly. No, it is not really fear—it is the nausea, the disgust they inspire. It overwhelms. It paralyses! I have seen a jaguar, I tell you—a full-grown jaguar—stand frozen, while they clung to him, in hundreds, and ate him up alive! Believe me, I saw it. Perhaps it is some oil they secrete, some odor they give out ... I don't know...It was grey and, in texture, tough and gelatinous. Yet, in form, externally, it was not unlike a human being. It had eyes, and there were either vestiges—or rudiments— of head, and neck, and a kind of limbs...a kind of digestive system enclosed in very tough jelly, a rudimentary nervous system, and a brain about the size of a walnut. The entire creature, stretched out, measured four feet...But, as the sun rose higher, the thing liquefied, melted, until by nine o'clock there was nothing but a glutinous gray puddle, with two green eyes swimming in it.... And these eyes—I can see them now—burst with a thick pop, making a detestable sticky ripple in that puddle of corruption...." ("Men Without Bones" by Gerald Kersh)

NOTES: The Men Without Bones are amoeba-like creatures that attack in groups, overwhelming their prey. They can swarm up trees or squeeze through tight places. The Men Without Bones live on a plateau in the Central American jungle. Two scientists discover a spaceship from Mars that crash-landed on the plateau about five million years ago. The man listening to the story assumes the Men Without Bones are Martians. The narrator corrects him. The Men Without Bones are native to Earth, and we are the Martians.

HISTORY: This story is a classic Sci-fi switcheroo. The surprising thing about it is that is did not appear in Galaxy but in Esquire!