Brian Keene: The Conqueror Worms

“Drop!” Sarah shouted, and I did.

Flashlight in one hand and her pistol in the other, Sarah opened fire, pausing only long enough to draw a bead after the weapon pulled to the side with each shot. Brass jackets rained into the mud at her feet. The worms squealed behind me, but I didn’t turn to look.

“Now run,” she called. “This way!”

Pushing myself to my feet, I loped towards her. Sarah put an arm around my waist and I tossed mine over her shoulder. She half guided, half dragged me back to the yard. I felt the wet sidewalk beneath my foot.

“Wh-what about the worms?” I gasped.

“They’re gone,” she said. “Damn things squirmed away as soon as I started shooting. I don’t know if I killed them or not, but I bet they think twice before trying to have us as a midnight snack again.”

“Not those,” I wheezed. “The—the ones on the carport.”

“We’ll have to wade through them.”

“No.” I stood up on my own and held a finger to my lips. “I heard something there when I came outside. Something banged against the truck. It could be another of the big kind. Let’s go around back instead.”

She nodded and we cut through the yard to the back porch. Once we were safely inside and verified that the worms were indeed not giving chase, Sarah wheeled on me.

“What the fuck were you doing, Teddy? You could have been killed. You almost were!”

“Sshhh,” I cautioned her. “No need to wake up Carl and Kevin.”

She shook her head. “I can’t believe they slept through the shooting.”

As if in confirmation, Kevin grunted in his sleep, called out for Lori, and then turned over on the couch.

“What were you doing out there?” she asked again, lowering her voice this time. “Why were you so far from the house?”

“I told you, I had to pee. I guess I just got turned around in the dark.”

“Bullshit, Teddy. You were in the field.”

My shoulders slumped. “I was looking for Salty’s cigarettes. I wasn’t thinking clearly.”

“I’ll say. Jesus Christ…”

We both slipped out of our wet coats, and I took my muddy sock off as well. Then I sat down next to the heater and warmed myself. Sarah stood over me, scowling.

“You really scared me out there. That was an incredibly stupid thing to do.”

“I know,” I admitted. “But at least we learned something tonight.”

“What? That you’re literally willing to die for a cigarette? I didn’t need to know that.”

“No, I’m not talking about that.”

“Well, what else did we learn, professor?”

“That bullets are effective against those things.”

“I don’t know.” Sarah peeked in on Kevin and then sat down next to me. “I hit them, yes, but I don’t think I hurt them very much. If I remember correctly, worms have segmented bodies. You can cut part of them off and the severed portions will still function. If anything, we just scared them off.”

“Well, that’s better than nothing. Hopefully they’re gone for the night and things won’t get worse.”

“I don’t—”

Sarah was interrupted by a dull thump from out on the carport, something bumping against metal. The same sound I’d heard earlier. Then it was repeated.

We both froze. She stared at me, her eyes wide. She reached for the pistol.

“My truck,” I whispered, and grabbed the shotgun. “I parked it at the edge of the carport when Carl and I came back yesterday. When I checked it earlier, the worms were up over the tires.”

“So?”

“That sound was something striking metal, and the truck is the only metal thing out there. That’s the sound I was telling you about.”

We kept listening. Silence, followed by another thud, and then a harsh, raspy voice.

“And God said to Noah, ‘The end of all flesh is before me; for the earth is filled with violence through them; and I will destroy them with the earth.’ ”

We gaped at one another.

It was Earl Harper. The crazy bastard was alive, and having an old-fashioned revival meeting right outside my house.

“That’s in the Bible!” he shouted. “Genesis six, verses thirteen to seventeen. That cunt of a wife of yours wasn’t the only one around here who knew her scripture, Garnett! Bet you didn’t think I was paying attention at Bible study, did you?”

“Is that who I think it is?” Sarah asked.

“Yeah.” I nodded. “It’s Earl.”

“What are we going to do?” Sarah whispered.

Silencing her, I got up and crept across the floor, gripping the rifle as tightly as I could.

“Garnett! You awake in there? Answer me, you son of a bitch!”

Carefully, I peeked out through the window in the door. There was no sign of Earl, and the carport was deserted. The worms were still there, two feet thick in most spots. The old picnic table and my truck were islands in a sea of wiggling, churning, elongated bodies. But there was no Earl.

“And behold,” he continued preaching, “I do bring a flood of waters upon the earth and everything that is in the earth shall die! That’s from the good book too. Old Earl Harper knows his Bible!”

It sounded like he was standing right outside. I pressed my face against the cold, damp glass and stared, but I still couldn’t see him. Earl’s voice was muffled, like he was underground, but close by. Something thumped against the truck again and I froze.

Then, the worms around the truck began to move, slowly rising like there was a helium balloon trapped beneath them. They swelled upward and then started to fall off, sliding back down to the pile of their brethren. As they slid away, they revealed Earl.

He had hidden underneath them. He’d concealed himself beneath their bodies.

When the big worm was chasing us all, he must have made it as far as the carport and burrowed underneath the night crawlers, lying beneath them and waiting until he was sure it was gone or that our guard was down.

Earl stood up and brushed the remaining worms from his shoulders and head and arms. Then he saw me gaping at him through the window and he grinned—a smile that seemed to split his face wide open, flashing yellow teeth and curling his lips back into a grimace. Cheshire Earl.

“I am their priest,” he shrieked. “I speak for the worms! Come and listen to their gospel. Listen to the true Word. The gospel of Behemoth!”

Sarah said, “Oh, shit.”

I took a deep breath. “This night just went from bad to worse.”

But I had no idea just how bad it would get before it was over.

No idea at all…

CHAPTER THIRTEEN

Sarah pressed up against me, trying to see over my shoulder. When she caught sight of Earl and the worms dropping from his body, she gave a muffled cry. Earl began to laugh.

In the living room, Kevin finally woke up. He called out in the darkness. “Teddy? Sarah? What time is it? What’s going on?”

“We’ve got trouble,” I yelled. “Go wake Carl up and let him know that Earl’s back. Tell him to bring his gun.”

“Say what?” He rolled off the couch and sprang to his feet, rubbing the sleep from his eyes.

“Listen to me,” I shouted. “Just go!”

I turned back to Earl. He was wading towards the door and I swear to God the worms were moving out of his way, clearing a path for him, like Moses parting the Red Sea.

“These are God’s creatures,” Earl hissed through clenched teeth. He bent over, picked up a handful of worms, and then let them slip through his fingers. “They talked to me while I laid here. All day and all night long, they told me things. Told me their secrets, Garnett. You wouldn’t believe the things they know about. The worms know what lies at the heart of the maze—’cause that’s what it is at the center of the earth, a big maze. They crawled into my ears and they whispered to me inside my brain. They told me of the things that live under the ground. The things that should not be. He who shall not be named.”