Tim Curran - Worm

It was getting pissed.

Its segments were ballooning, the mucus oozing from them coming out in a brown, gushing foam. It coiled. It wormed. It bulged like a bicep.

But in the end it wasn’t as stupid as he had hoped for.

Gasping, nearing the end of his strength and clearly no closer to victory or even to driving it off, he swung the broom handle, trying to brain it, to smash its head to sauce… but the worm had secreted so much mucus by that point it was pointless: the broom handle glanced harmlessly off it. No matter how he hit it and at what angle, it simply glanced off the thing as if it was coated with cooking spray.

With his last valiant effort, the broom handle once again skated over the worm… and flew from his hands.

Shit… oh shit… oh fuck…

The lips peeled back, the teeth slid out and Geno felt piss run down his leg as the worm darted at him, teeth slashing. He ducked out of its way once, then twice… then he tried to seize it in his hands, but it was like trying to take hold of a canned ham thick with aspic jelly… his fingers just slid over its bloated, slimed segments, its bristles cutting into the palms of his hands.

He thought it would bite him, tear his face off, but it didn’t. The mouth closed and the bulblike head snapped forward like a fist, striking him in the chest and flattening him. The wind knocked out of him, he hit the floor, dazed and confused. It felt like his sternum had been split open like a dry sheaf of corn.

When he opened his eyes, the mouth was inches from his face.

The teeth were gleaming like scalpels.

A hot, toxic steam blew out of the worm’s throat, coating his face with a greasy, rancid mist that stank of the sunless, necrotic, polluted holes it had crawled up from.

Geno managed a weak scream.

Then out of the mouth came a yellow, stringy tangle of thrashing cords that must have been tongues. The ends were sharp like tent stakes and they jabbed right into him. They went into his throat, his lips, they impaled his tongue… right away, he was numb. The worm had paralyzed him, anesthetized him and he just sat there, back against the fridge, limbs limp, eyes glassy and rolling in their sockets.

I won’t feel it… at least I won’t feel it.

And that was the best he could hope for. The head arched back and went right at his left kneecap, the teeth sliding from the pushed-out, glossy-pink gums. They pierced his knee like ice picks, sinking in a good inch or more. He was aware of the impact of the mouth, the pressure of the teeth… but that was about it. When his kneecap came off in a bloody spray of tissue and ligament, he felt only the pulling and the snapping, but none of the pain. In fact, he didn’t even realize his knee was gone until he saw the beast spit it from its mouth in meaty, clotted mass.

It was as it went for his face that Ivy started to shriek.

Then she attacked it.

Kathleen stumbled into the house, slamming the door shut behind her.

Filthy from the muck, tears welling in her eyes, her entire body shaking, she dropped onto the carpet, hugging herself, absolutely manic with terror.

I saw it. Outside in the muck, I saw it. A snake. A giant snake. It must have gotten Pat. It must have killed him.

These were the words that kept rolling through her mind and she couldn’t seem to stop them. They came unwanted and unbidden, hammering home the very thing she feared most: being alone. Alone with some horrible serpent even then circling the house, looking for a way in.

She had to breathe.

She had to get control.

She couldn’t come apart like this.

She brushed tears from her cheeks, leaving dirty streaks of war paint on her face. Standing uneasily, swaying from side to side, she stumbled into the living room and grabbed the cordless and dialed 911 after two or three tries in which her fingers simply would not cooperate.

When the 911 operator answered, she let it out in one mad torrent: “My name… my name is Kathleen Mackenridge… I live at 2112 Pine Street in Camberly. The mud is flooding us… my husband was killed by a snake… a giant snake… it came out of the mud…”

The 911 operator, obviously used to hysterics, said quite calmly as she had been trained: “Ma’am, listen to me. I want you to relax. Emergency services have been activated and neighborhoods are being evacuated even as we speak. Stay indoors. The mud is not expected to rise much higher. In fact, it may—”

“DID YOU HEAR WHAT I JUST SAID?”

“Ma’am, I realize that—”

“YOU DON’T REALIZE SHIT!”

“Ma’am, please, you really have to—”

“LISTEN TO ME, GODDAMMIT!” Kathleen shouted. “MY NAME IS KATHLEEN MACKENRIDEGE AND I’M AT 2112 PINE STREET IN CAMBERLY! YOU GOT THAT? GOOD! MY HUSBAND IS MISSING! I THINK HE WAS KILLED BY A GIANT FUCKING SNAKE THAT CAME OUT OF THE FUCKING MUD! YOU GOT THAT? NOW WHAT THE HELL ARE YOU GOING TO DO ABOUT IT?”

There was silence for a moment. A crackle of static. “Did you say ‘snake,’ ma’am?”

Kathleen realized at that moment she was very, very close to an absolute nervous breakdown. She was crying. She was dirty. She was getting black muck all over the goddamn carpeting. Her heart was trying to slam its way out of her chest and her scalp was trying to crawl right off her head. And this idiotic bitch was not listening. She was just not fucking listening. Kathleen had a mad, almost itching sort of desire to break out into laughter over the absurdity of the entire situation.

“Ma’am? Are you there?”

“YES, I’M STILL FUCKING HERE! I’M TRAPPED IN THIS FUCKING MUD! MY HUSBAND HAS DISAPPEARED! I THINK A SNAKE GOT HIM! WHERE IN THE MOTHERFUCK DID YOU THINK I WAS GOING TO GO?”

“Okay, ma’am. Now here’s what I want you to do,” the operator told her, addressing her like she was a melodramatic seven-year-old. “First, I want you to sit down and take a deep breath and then I—”

“FUUUUUUUCK YOOOOUUU!” Kathleen screeched, throwing the cordless as hard as she could at the brick fireplace hearth and nearly squealing with childish joy when it shattered into a dozen pieces of cheap, Asian plastic.

You’re on your own, you’re completely on your own, a voice in her head told her in no uncertain terms. What you do, you’ll have to do for yourself. So, first off, do not fucking sit down and take a deep fucking breath. Go directly upstairs and get Jesse. Lock yourself in with him. Get Pat’s shotgun, load it. Call Marv or Tony or Donna or Geno or somebody. Get the neighbors over here. Now… move!

She grabbed a fireplace poker, turning a blind eye to the framed photographs on the mantel of her happy, little life with her happy, little husband and son and mother and friends… all of which had become very unhappy by this point.

Feeling so wired with hysteria and fear, she thought she might short-circuit at any moment, she stumbled over to the stairs, gripping the railing and trying to breathe, trying to get some oxygen up to her head before she blacked right out.

She couldn’t go on like this.

Jesse had slept like an angel through the whole thing, but he would sense it on her the way babies always can. They’re hardwired to their parents’ emotions. She had to put on a brave, calm front. Whatever else she did, she had to manage that… some how or some way…

Except there was something dark circling in her head.

Something very wrong.

Then she knew what it was.

Jesse.

Jesse never sleeps this long.

No, no, no, no, no… not that…

Kathleen jogged up the stairs and charged down the hallway, making in nearly halfway down its length before she stepped in the oozing black muck that had flooded out from the bathroom. Her feet went up in the air and she came down hard, smacking the back of her head on the hardwood floor.