Brian Keene - Deluge - The Conqueror Worms II

THE CONQUEROR WORM: II

Brian Keene

COPYRIGHT 2008-2011 BRIAN KEENE

About The Author

Brian Keene is an American author, primarily of horror, crime fiction, and comic books. He has won two Bram Stoker Awards.

Keene was born in 1967. He grew up in both Pennsylvania and West Virginia, and many of his books take place in these locales.After graduating high school, he served as a radioman in the U.S. Navy aboard an LPD. After his enlistment ended, Keene worked a variety of jobs before becoming a full-time writer. Among them were stints as a foundry worker, truck driver, data entry clerk, dockworker, telemarketer, customer service representative, repo man, bouncer, disc jockey, salesman, store manager, daycare instructor, custodian, and more. In interviews, he credits this diverse background as the key to the characters that populate his books.

Keene has won two Bran Stoker awards, One in 2001 for non-fiction Jobs In Hell and one in 2003 for best first novel The Rising . He is also the recipient of the 2004 Shocker Award for non-fiction Sympathy for the Devil as well as many small and regional awards.

In 2004 and 2005, Keene spearheaded a Books For Troops program, in which various horror authors supplied free, signed books to American troops serving in Iraq, Afghanistan, and elsewhere around the world. Keene was honored for this in 2005 by the 509th Logistics Fuels Flight Squadron based at Whiteman A.F.B. in Missouri.

In 2006, three stories from Keene's Fear of Gravity were adapted in the graphic novel Brian Keene's FEAR . The stories were "Castaways", "Red Wood", and the award-winning "The King, in: Yellow". In 2008, Marvel Comics announced that Keene would be writing for them. His first project for the company was the four-issue MAX series: Dead of Night: Devil-Slayer . Keene has since gone on to write for DC Comics, Antarctic Press, and others, as well as media tie-in work for Hellboy, Doctor Who, and other franchises.

In 2004, The Rising was optioned for film and videogame adaptations. In 2005 City of the Dead was optioned for the same. In 2006, Terminal was optioned for film. In 2008, the short story "The Ties That Bind" was optioned for film, and it has its world premiere on April 4, 2009 at the Garden State Film Festival. In 2009 "Dark Hollow" was optioned for film by director Paul Campion.

Ghoul was made into a TV movie directed by Gregory Wilson and starring Nolan Gould and will debut on the Chiller Network in 2012.

In 2011 "Darkness at the Edge of Town" was optioned, and "Castaways" was optioned by Drive-In Films.

Keene currently lives in Pennsylvania.

INTRODUCTION

This book is dedicated to you, my faithful readers.

Deluge: The Conqueror Worms II is a sequel to The Conqueror Worms. (You probably guessed that from the title). It is being presented as a free, semi-weekly online serial. It is a thank-you to my readers, all of whom continue to purchase my books during these hard economic times. I will do my best to post a new chapter each and every week. Deadlines and other professional responsibilities may preclude this, so I thank you in advance for your patience and understanding.

A note on this format. While this e-serial is indeed being offered for free, it is also protected by all applicable copyright laws. It is copyrighted 2008-2009-2010-2011 by Brian Keene (that’s me). Posting excerpts or chapters elsewhere is not allowed, without my explicit permission. Failure to abide by this will result in me sending Ob over to your house to eat your face.

You should definitely read The Conqueror Worms before beginning this e-serial. Our tale picks up exactly where the first book ended, and because of the frenetic pace, very little back-story will be given. It is my expectation that readers will already be familiar with the characters and their situation, as well as the worms, Behemoth, Leviathan, the White Fuzz, and the inclement weather. if readers are not familiar with any of the above, then they are pretty much screwed as far as understanding what’s going on here. Reading this e-serial without first reading The Conqueror Worms would be like viewing Return of the Jedi without knowledge of Star Wars and The Empire Strikes Back.

So, if you haven’t already, click HERE, scroll down, get yourself a copy of The Conqueror Worms, and read it first. We’ll be here when you are finished.

In fact, even if you’ve already read The Conqueror Worms, it might not be such a bad idea to go back and read it again. I’ll wait for you. And when you’re done, we’ll hook up with Kevin and Sarah, who when we last saw them, were fleeing Teddy’s house in an old pick-up truck and being chased through a flood by a bunch of giant, carnivorous worms. Their situation has grown even worse since then.

Here’s what happened next…

Brian Keene

PART ONE - DELUGE

CHAPTER 1

“Why are we stopping?”

Kevin pointed through the truck’s rain-streaked windshield. “There’s a worm in the road.”

At first, Sarah didn’t see it. The downpour severely limited their visibility. But then she spotted a flash of movement amidst the rain—an elongated, gray and white form, glistening with slime and mud. The creature was easily the size of a large dog, but much longer. Its body stretched across the gravel lane, digging furrows in the road. Neither its front nor hind end were visible. The worm seemed oblivious to the idling pick-up truck. Or maybe it just didn’t care.

Maybe it had already eaten.

“Run it over,” she said.

“Are you kidding? Look at the size of that thing. If we hit it, this old truck is liable to—”

“Run it over,” Sarah insisted. “We sit here any longer and…”

She didn’t finish the sentence. She didn’t have to. They both knew what would most likely happen to them if they didn’t keep moving.

Gripping the steering wheel, Kevin stomped the accelerator to the floor. The truck’s engine sputtered and groaned, and then the old vehicle lurched forward, splashing through puddles. The tires rolled up over the creature, and both of them were jostled around the cab. Sarah’s head banged hard against the passenger’s window and a seat spring poked Kevin right between his shoulder blades. Old country and bluegrass cassette tapes tumbled out of a compartment under the dashboard and clattered at their feet. The tires spun, losing traction, and for a moment they thought they were stuck. But then the truck shot ahead. The back-end fishtailed, but Kevin regained control before they ran into a ditch.

Sarah glanced in the rear view mirror, and wiped the condensation off the glass. The moisture felt cool on her fingertips.

“Did we kill it?” Kevin asked.

“Sort of.”

Sarah shuddered. Their passage had sliced the worm into three pieces. Each segment was still wriggling. Beyond the carcass, she spotted the feint outline of Teddy’s house, barely visible through the fog. She couldn’t be sure, but it looked like the building was sliding down into the sodden ground.

“We should go back.”

Kevin rubbed his whiskered face with one hand. “First you want me to floor it. Now you want to go back.”

“They’re old, Kevin!”

“And they’ve both got more balls and guts than you and I put together. There is no doubt in my mind that they can kick that thing’s ass. We’re gonna do like we promised them. We keep going, and meet up with them at the ranger station when it’s all over.”

“But what if they—”