Brian Keene - The Conqueror Worms

“Don’t listen to her!” Sarah snapped.

“Get away from me.” Juan shoved her backward.

Sarah stepped toward him again and Juan slapped her hard across the mouth. Reeling, she brought her hand to her lips. Her fingers came away bloody. Juan pushed past her, toward the edge of the roof.

“Fuck this,” Sarah growled. She reared back and then lunged for him. One hand darted between his legs, grabbed his balls, and squeezed. Howling, Juan collapsed to his knees, dropping the rifle. Sarah picked it up.

“Everybody get back,” she yelled. She stepped to the edge and swung the rifle downward. The thing in the water directed her song towards Sarah, and her aim wavered. Then, slowly, she started to swivel the weapon back around towards us.

“What’s wrong with Sarah?” Anna moaned. “It’s not supposed to work on women. That’s what you guys said!”

“Don’t listen to it, Kevin,” Lori urged me.

Hands over my ears, I stepped off the ledge and back onto the roof and ran towards Sarah. She’s gay, I thought. She prefers other women. Maybe that’s why it’s working on her.

The M-16 continued its turn towards us. Sarah’s eyes were vacant.

I grabbed her wrist. “Block it out, Sarah, and shoot the bitch!”

Gritting her teeth, Sarah shook her head, focused, and then squeezed the trigger. She missed—on purpose or not I’ll never know.

“Somebody stop me,” she pleaded.

Her face grew clouded again and she turned back towards us. Before she could aim, Lashawn and Lori jumped on her, wrestling Sarah to the ground. Lee, Mike, Juan, Taz, Ducky, and Salty all moved towards the edge, and Malik and James were following close behind.

The mermaid’s voice crept into my head again and I could feel her picking through my brain—invisible fingers that poked and prodded, trying to control me. Mentally shrugging her off, I pulled my pistol, aimed as best I could, and fired. The first two bullets missed. The third, fourth and fifth didn’t, immediately silencing her song and obliterating one bobbing breast and most of her head. She sank beneath the waves in a crimson froth.

Nate never resurfaced.

“You killed her,” Lee rasped, holding his head.

I nodded, unable to speak.

Lashawn and Lori let Sarah up. Panting, she rose to her feet, slammed a fresh clip into place and stepped away from the edge.

“Can I have my gun back?” Juan asked her.

She handed it to him without a word, blood trickling from her split lip.

“Sorry about that,” he apologized.

“Don’t sweat it,” Sarah said. “She was in my head, too.”

Juan pointed at the still smoking Sig in my hand. “How many shots did you fire?”

I shrugged. “Five, I think.”

“That means you’ve got two left. Keep that in mind when we go next door.”

“Okay.” I wasn’t sure what I’d do once the gun was empty. Throw it at the Satanists, maybe, and hope I knocked one out?

Wincing, Taz pressed his fingertips into his forehead. “Damn, yo. My fucking head hurts.”

“Mine too,” I sympathized. “It’s like she was inside my brain.”

“Poor Nate.” Anna shook her head sadly.

“Shouldn’t we look for him?” Lori asked.

Nobody answered her.

Juan tilted his head from side to side, cracking the joints, and then turned to me. “All right, let’s go. The darkness is coming quick.”

Using the telescope, Lee checked on the Satanists and reported that they were still making preparations. He, Mike, Sarah, and Salty dropped the raft into the water, and we all held our breath. It started to sink, and then bobbed back up again, floating aloft on the waves. Mike untied the rope, securing it to the roof.

We said our good-byes. I noticed that while Lashawn hugged Taz, she was simultaneously staring at Ducky over his shoulder. Moving away from the others, Lori and I embraced, and she started to cry again.

“I’ll come back,” I whispered to her, and didn’t believe a word of it.

“You better,” she whispered back, and I could tell that she didn’t believe it, either.

We clambered out onto the raft. It rocked under our weight, but stayed afloat. Ducky and I each grabbed an oar and began paddling, while Juan and Taz positioned themselves at opposite ends, their weapons at the ready. We pushed off from the building and struggled against the current. For one harrowing moment, I was convinced the waves would smash us against the side, but then we were free and it became almost easy.

The sun’s gray silhouette vanished in the sky and the water turned black.

Ducky shifted his weight and the raft rolled. “So, what the hell was that thing back there?”

“You saw what it was,” Juan said.

“A bitch with a fish tail. A mermaid.”

“Yep.”

“That’s fucked up, dawg. That’s really fucked up.”

“Lori and I were talking about that earlier,” I said. “It’s like fantasy and reality are blending now. The rain, I could accept. But a mermaid?”

“Yeah,” Ducky repeated, “that’s fucked up. Some goddamn Walt Disney shit.”

Thunder rolled across the sky and the rain fell harder.

“Ya know what’s fucked up?” Taz said. “Back in the day, when I was dealing, at the same time, I was part of the neighborhood watch. Even got a commendation for it. How fucked up is that?”

“That’s pretty fucked up,” Juan admitted. “What are you now?”

Taz grinned in the darkness, raindrops running down his face. “Shit, dawg. I’m still the neighborhood watch. We all are.”

Juan laughed. He looked out at the choppy ocean and said, “This is our hood now.”

Cloaked by the rain and the darkness, we drifted towards the Trade Center and the confrontation that awaited us there. My breath hitched in my throat and the others heard it.

“It’ll be cool, Kevin,” Taz assured me. “You ain’t gonna cry or nothing, are you?”

“I can’t cry,” I said. “I don’t know how.”

“That’s pretty fucked up, too.”

The rain beat against the raft and we drifted on in silence. It took us about twenty minutes to reach the Trade Center, each second seeming like an hour. A heavy fog rose from the water, obscuring everything, and we fretted that we’d miss the building completely or worse, drift past it and out into the open sea. Just as we were about to admit defeat, the bonfire erupted to our left. It was close. Closer than we’d realized. We still couldn’t see the building, but the bright orange flames were hard to miss, impossibly shooting sparks up into the heavy downpour.

“I’d still like to know how the fuck they get that shit to burn in the rain,” Taz commented.

We drifted closer.

“Okay, let’s do this,” Juan hissed. “Everybody knows the plan, right? Taz and I lay down a distraction while you guys rescue the others.”

Taz and Ducky nodded. I smiled, trying to look self-assured but feeling scared and foolish and very small. My sphincter muscles contracted and my balls shriveled up to the size of raisins. I flipped the wet hair out of my eyes, took a deep breath, and tightened my fingers around the pistol.

Then, suddenly, directly in front of us, the building emerged from the fog like some island cliff face. Upraised voices drifted through the mist, echoing around us. Chanting words that I’m sure weren’t part of any language spoken on Earth. I shivered; wet and cold and miserable.

Juan leaned forward, peering through the rain. “Anybody see Louis and Christian’s boat?”

Silently, we shook our heads.

“Maybe the Satanists took it inside,” Ducky suggested. “Put it with their surfboards and shit?”

“Could be,” Juan agreed. “Keep an eye out for it. We might need it to get everybody back home, if there’s a lot of prisoners.”