Where did the oil slick come from? Any fan theories?

Whatever it was, it must have been recently birthed, because it was still pretty small when it first drifts over to them, and the story establishes that it gets bigger the more it eats. I read a book once called "The Clone", about a flesh-eating blob that is accidentally created when the ideal elements come together in a storm drain (it was a bunch of chemicals and amino acids from a lab dumped down the drain by a lazy lab tech). So maybe the oil slick monster was like that, the result of some oil, chemicals, and organic material that came together in the water of the lake.

I'll just go with a possible theory that it was a government project that was forgotten. Time to call the SCP Foundation!

"I'll go,because I am Cinema!" - Ben (Man Bites Dog)

My money is on Halliburton being involved and it seemed like it was foreign oil as well.

The "NO SWIMMING" sign suggests it has been there for years, and it probably' can't survive long outside water. Possibly some ancient being, predating the dinosaurs. Primordial soup that couldn't evolve, but became sentient anyway.


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I don't think it's original to King. I remember reading as a kid (1970s) in a horror and sci-fi anthology edited by Alfred Hitchcock, a short story about a creature like this one, dredged up from the ocean floor, terrorizing a beachside community. If I remember, though, the people found it could be killed with fire, or something similar.

The bigger the government, the smaller the citizen.

It's just some waste from our sewage treatment plants here in New Jersey. That stuff is highly toxic.