THE SHORES OF SPACE

Corgi SF paperback, 1965 reissue. Cover artist uncredited,
though I've been reliably informed that it's Josh Kirby (thanks: Mark).

"It was getting dark and he couldn't be sure of what he saw. He stood paralysed and numb, staring with blood-drained face at the thing that moved across the ground towards the man's body; the thing that had a shape, yet not shape, that crept like a current of shimmering jellies. 

A terrified gagging filled his throat. He tried to move, but couldn't. He didn't want to hear the hideous gurgling sound, the turbid bubbling that was like vats of boiling tallow. 

Then the man was gone from the earth. Les stared at the place where he had been, stared at the luminous mass that pulsated there. He stared at it until the man had been completely eaten... 

'Being', one of thirteen extraordinary stories of fantasy and science fiction in this collection by Richard Matheson" 

Contents:

Being

Pattern For Survival

Steel

The Test

Clothes Make The Man

Blood Son

Trespass

When Day Is Dun

The Curious Child

The Funeral

The Last Day

Little Girl Lost

The Doll That Does Everything