Kort Sci Fi berättelse där människor går och utvecklas till en slags multi-creature

Jag försöker identifiera en novell som jag läste för många år sedan (tidigt / mitten av 80-talet kanske?)

Historien publicerades ursprungligen på spanska som "La Nueva Prehistoria" i kollektionen 1967 La Nueva Prehistoria och Otros Cuentos av den colombianska författaren René Rebetez (René Rebetez-Cortes, Wikipedia-sidor på Spanska och Tyska ). En engelsk översättning av Damon Knight , med titeln "Den nya förhistorien publicerades först i Magazine of Fantasy och Science Fiction , juni 1983 , tillgänglig på Internetarkiv . Det har blivit antologiserat i Penguin World Omnibus of Science Fiction ( Sam J. Lundwall och Brian Aldiss , eds.) Och Världskassan för science fiction ( David G. Hartwell , red.). Det finns en recension av James Lecky på Tales from the Computerbank . Utdragen nedan kommer från den ursprungliga engelska publikationen i F & SF , från och med redaktionell blurb:

René Rebetez is well known in Latin America as a writer, lecturer, and documentary film maker. He travels a good deal between Mexico City and Bogota, where he grew up. He is at work on his first novel. This story is very short, but it lingers like a vivid nightmare.

där människor som congregated tillsammans på något sätt gick med i "utvecklade" till nya blob-varelser - jag tror inte att det var ett val, utan det började bara hända dem.

Det börjar med en filmbiljettlinje:

I felt a sudden chill; somehow I knew what was about to happen. A fat lady had grown tired of waiting, even though she was only twenty paces or so from the ticket window. She took a step, another, a third; the line curved with her. She turned her head indignantly, tried to break free; she ran and the line straightened again, dragging the poor woman back in spite of her struggles.

Now panic spread; they were all trying to break loose at once. The long line undulated in wild contortions, as if shaken by a gigantic hiccup. People were struggling, screaming and shouting. Tempers grew heated; there was a flurry of blows.

Around the newborn monster, a crowd was gathering. That was another custom in the cities, congregating to look at things: cranes, wrecking machines, blasting crews. Airplanes. Military parades. Political rallies. Crowds looking at billboards. Crowds looking at anything.

Myself, I had always hated crowds and lines of people. Not that I was antisocial, not at all; it was simply that I disliked humanity in the mass. Never had I dreamed that things would take such a turn, or that I would witness this transformation.

Dessa nya blabba varelser försökte lära sig att kontrollera sig själva, och jag tror att de kanske kämpade varandra.

I don't remember how many days and nights I wandered those streets. Thousands of monsters of all sizes were roaming in the city. The lines at bakeries and bus stops had produced little reptiles of ten or so vertebrae each; the same for the lines at banks and confessionals. Larger ones had come from the lines at phone booths, movies, theaters, and other public places. The amoebas came from street crowds and public gatherings; they were spreading everywhere.

The strange ligature that had fastened the people together was really unbreakable. I saw one man who tried to cut it; the attempt ended in his painful death. The links that died by accident hung like dead leaves, without breaking the human chain. I saw a busload of people that had turned into a single mass. Unable to get out of the bus, they began destroying it. Whole buildings were being demolished by amoeba-crowds imprisoned inside. A shouting throng had formed itself into an immense clotted mass that swept away obstacles, filling the streets like a river: that one came from a political rally.

The few persons who were still separate scurried like rats to avoid touching the new organisms. All the same, most of them were being absorbed.

Jag tror inte att det fanns mycket plott eller skäl för denna "utveckling" som ges.

Det finns ingen förklaring alls.

Berättelsen berättades från en persons synvinkel, som tittade och dokumenterade metamorfosen. I slutet tror jag att han insåg att han inte hade något annat val än att gå med.

Nej, berättaren förblir ledig i slutet av berättelsen:

I suspect the day is not far off when they will build their own airplanes and limousines, as long as railway cars, or rounded and flat like flying saucers. The time will come, too, I have no doubt. when they will play golf.

But I don't want to know anything about that. I always hated crowds and lines of people. I cling to my human identity, to my own individual and separate personality. It's not that I'm antisocial; not at all, I repeat. But masses of humanity are distasteful to me. Never did I dream that things would take such a turn, or that I would witness this transformation.

I sit among the ruins. In the distance I can hear a gigantic chorus: the voice of the new prehistory. A new cycle is beginning.

Det låter som en historia från Clive Barker's Books of Blood vol 1.

"I bergen, städerna"

Jag minns inte huvudpersonen som dokumenterar någonting, men det passar mycket av dina andra parametrar.

Two gay men, Mick and Judd, take a romantic but strained vacation in Yugoslavia. In an isolated rural area, two entire cities, Popolac and Podujevo, create massive communal creatures by binding together the bodies of their citizens. Almost forty thousand people walk as the body of a single giant as tall as a skyscraper. This ritual occurs every ten years, but this time things go wrong and the Podujevo giant collapses, killing tens of thousands of citizens horribly. In shock, the entire population of Popolac goes mad and become the giant they are strapped into. Popolac wanders the hills aimlessly. By nightfall many of the people who make up the giant die from exhaustion, but the giant continues walking.

Mick and Judd come upon the smashed bodies of the Podujevans in a ravine awash with blood. A local man tries to steal their car to catch up with Popolac and reason with it before it collapses and destroys the people who compose it. The man explains the truth of the situation to Mick and Judd, but they do not believe his story. They seek shelter at a remote farm, where Popolac blunders into the farmhouse, killing Judd accidentally. Mick and the elderly couple who own the farmhouse are driven mad with fear. Mick wants to join Popolac. He climbs up the tower of ropes and bodies, and is carried away as it walks into the hills.

Det här låter som "Four In One" av Damon Knight. Människorna är omhändertagna och absorberade av en blob-varelse. De har bara sina hjärnor kvar. Två av dem försöker döda de andra två, men elimineras. De återstående två lyckas skapa nya kroppar från protoplasmen.