John Halkin - Slither

With a sudden flick, whiplike, three of the worms reversed direction in the sewer and sped towards Matt’s hand. They were at least eighteen inches long, like snakes, as fat as his wrist, dead straight and as swift as arrows. They looked just as dangerous too, their skins glowing with a weird beautiful luminosity even under the glare of the lights.

Matt had been groping around in the sludge for the light meter he’d dropped. Before he was able to pull his hand out of the water the first worm’s teeth bit sharply into the ball of his thumb. He staggered back, gasping with shock at the pain.

It didn’t let go. It didn’t even curl or wriggle. Those sharp teeth held him vice-like, tightening.

He tried his best to straighten up on that slippery, narrow ledge where he was perched but he was too tall. The buttress curved forward as it met the vaulted roof of the sewer and there wasn’t enough room for him to stand upright. Around the foot of the buttress three deep streams of effluent met together, swirling and foaming. One false step and he’d be in it up to the knees. The other worms, four of them now, had already gathered there, waiting for him.

‘Ah!’ The cry escaped from him involuntarily as a fresh wave of pain shot through his right hand and arm.

He stared at his hand, disbelieving. The worm hung there, occasionally convulsing but for the most part motionless. It was forcing its teeth deeper and deeper into that pad of flesh, biting it in just the same way that he might attack a roast leg of chicken. Eating it! But what sort of animal devours living flesh? And from a human being?

For a few seconds he was paralysed, all will-power gone, until the rational part of his mind told him urgently he must fight back, do something to save himself, survive…

With his left hand he grasped the worm just below its head. He couldn’t pull it away, that was too painful, so instead he squeezed it with all the force he could muster in order to get its jaws open. The worm gulped and undulated between his fingers, straining to free itself from their throttling pressure.

Then it tried a new tactic. Its eyes moved and sought his in a hard relentless challenge. He caught his breath and for a moment felt himself weakening; then he willed himself to look away and tightened his grip. In a last spasm of resistance the worm unexpectedly curled upwards and attempted to lash against him, uselessly. And suddenly it slackened. Its jaws relaxed and he prised them apart. The mouth was red with his blood; shreds of his flesh clung to the teeth.

The dead worm dangled limply from his fingers, its eyes now two stony, lifeless buttons. He became aware the others were watching, waiting, and he flung the corpse down to them contemptuously. In a flash they’d surrounded it, greedily tearing at it with their teeth, and diving down to grab any piece that dropped.

After the recent rains the effluent was as clear as pure drinking water and he could see every move. He stared at them, fascinated and horrified, for a brief moment forgetting his wounded hand. But his blood dripped down, and each time the worms whipped around to suck it into their mouths before it could dissolve. Then they looked up for more, expectantly.

His eyes misted; he felt himself swaying. ‘Mustn’t faint,’ he told himself firmly. Aloud he suddenly shouted the words, ‘ I … must … not … faint!’

His voice echoed and re-echoed through those long Victorian London sewers until it lost itself somewhere in the distance. He was alone down there on his buttress island surrounded by the deep channels of effluent. With one great stride he might have crossed back to the safety of the walk-way where his camera stood on its tripod, the lights on their stands, everything normal as it should be. But he couldn’t do it. Something inside him screamed he’d never make it.

That’s just what the worms wanted, what they were waiting for…

Everything was in a haze, unsubstantial, shifting… The narrow ledge where he stood offered no firm foothold; it was covered with slime and he was afraid to move in case his feet slid from under him and…

That’s how the accident had happened in the first place. He’d felt himself slipping, grasped at the brickwork of the buttress for support, and dropped the light meter. It had slithered across the ledge and into the water. Only had it a week, too; a birthday present from Helen. Must have cost her… Well, now he’d have to leave it there.

‘Anyone around?’ he called out.

Anyone around, around, ound, nd… the tunnels were alive with murmurs, whispers, mocking him … ound, ound, nd…

But there had to be somebody…

‘Anyone?’

Matt knew it was his own stupid fault, the whole thing. Matt Parker, TV film cameraman, aged thirty-six and beginning to feel it in his bones. He should never have accepted this film in the first place. All his instincts had screamed out against it the moment he’d heard it involved spending a week in the sewers beneath the City of London. It was not even a feature film. No re-make of The Third Man or that sort of crap — he’d be so lucky! No, just another bread-and-butter TV documentary about urban growth through the centuries, starting with a section of Roman wall and ending eight tedious episodes later with shots of concrete jungle graffiti.

Low budget, of course. Educational.

But then, Matt thought bitterly, he was a low budget, bread-and-butter sort of cameraman. In spite of it all. As a kid, from the day he’d first come across the existence of films and cameras he’d thought of nothing else, done a gruelling paper round every day before school to save enough money for a secondhand 8mm. Kodak, and carried on with the papers afterwards to pay for film stock and everything else he needed. When eventually the opportunity came to join a TV company as a trainee assistant film cameraman he’d jumped at it.

Opportunity? He’d lived film every waking minute of the day, even dreamed about it at night, only to find others promoted ahead of him, picked out for the big drama productions while he was left with run-of-the-mill documentaries shown at off-peak hours. ‘You’re a first-rate cameraman,’ they’d told him not all that long ago. ‘Just the sort of person we need for some of our less experienced directors. Keep them on the right track. Stop them making fools of themselves. You know what you’re doing. They don’t.’

Well, cameramen can’t be choosers, as he’d said to Helen when he’d told her about the sewers.

His own bloody fault.

And now he faced a slow, painful death. Or, if he survived, a vegetable existence, mutilated and unrecognizable. Perhaps even unable to walk, his arms and legs stripped of flesh, dehumanized.

‘I need help!’ he called out in desperation, hearing the fear in his own voice. ‘Help!’

Help, help, elp, lp … the tunnels replied. The vaulted Victorian brickwork looked like the set for some horror movie. His own lights dazzled his eyes, emphasizing the darkness beyond.

It would be another fifteen minutes or so before the crew came clattering back. ‘Ready, Matt?’ they’d call out. ‘Can we go for a take?’ Andy Page, the latest young director, hardly out of his university nappies, would rub his hands together and try to give the impression he was in charge. They’d joked about him that morning, he and the crew, while his back was turned. From bright young directors and things that go bump in the sewers, Good Lord deliver us! someone had intoned. Oh, if only they’d come back early. Or if only he’d said no.