Brian Keene: The Conqueror Worms

“Earl—”

“Save it, fucker. I’m gonna slit you open and gut you like a fish and pull out your insides. I’m going to show you the black stuff inside your belly, and then I’m gonna make you eat it.”

The door crashed open and suddenly there was thunder inside the bedroom. Something exploded, and the flash temporarily blinded me. My ears rang and the air stank of cordite. A splash of red appeared on Earl’s chest, just above his heart. Sarah fired another round, and Earl toppled to the floor. Carl and Kevin rushed into the room behind her.

Carl gave me a hand getting off the bed. “You okay?”

“I’m fine,” I coughed, and prodded Earl’s body with my foot. He lay still. The hole in his chest leaked blood, and there was a matching hole in his stomach.

“Is he dead?” Carl asked.

“I reckon so,” I said, and kicked him hard in the ribs, just to make sure. Earl didn’t move.

Sarah, Kevin, and Carl crowded over his body. Rain poured in through the broken window and the drapes fluttered in the breeze.

“Damn,” Sarah said. “I was aiming for his heart.”

Carl whistled. “That’s still some nice shooting. Only missed it by an inch or so. Remind me to never piss you off, girl.”

“What happened?” Kevin asked.

My shoulders sank and I hung my head, ashamed. “I fell asleep and then Earl broke in. I couldn’t find my rifle in time.”

The bedroom suddenly seemed to spin. I leaned against the dresser to steady myself.

“What was he babbling about?” Carl asked. “Same bullshit as before?”

I nodded. “Something about Behemoth. Apparently, ya’ll were going to be its main course tonight.”

“There’s that name again,” Kevin said. “You starting to believe now, Sarah?”

She frowned. “Can we not discuss it right now, please?”

The dresser trembled against my back.

Sarah moved to the window and looked outside.

“See anything?” Carl asked.

“Nothing. There’s no sign of the worms. I don’t smell them, either.”

Kevin moved to her side. “Could they be gone?”

My legs wobbled and I swayed on my feet. Then I noticed that the others were swaying back and forth, too.

Kevin frowned. “What the fuck?”

On the dresser, the pictures began to rattle. Rose’s framed embroidery, the one she’d made during our first year of marriage, fell off the wall and crashed to the floor. I heard things breaking elsewhere in the house.

Carl braced himself against the wall. “It’s an earthquake for sure this time! Hold on!”

“No,” I told him, “it’s something else.”

At that moment, Earl groaned and opened his eyes.

“Garnett,” he croaked. “He’s coming. Now you’ll see…”

“Shut up, Earl.”

I kicked him again. This time my boot landed right in his groin, just to illustrate my point, and I almost lost my balance in the process. Earl grunted and the air whooshed out of him. More blood bubbled from the hole in his chest. The house continued to shake.

“Look,” Sarah shouted, pointing out the window. “What’s that? Out there beyond the clothesline?”

I turned to where she was pointing and my heart seemed to stop. My skin felt cold.

The thing that should not be…

It hurtled toward the house, a legless, eyeless thing, five times larger than the one we’d encountered before. Its body was milk-white and so pale in some places that it was almost translucent. Slime dripped from the creature’s body, leaving a glistening trail in its wake. It barreled across the yard and rolled over the shed in one segmented wriggle, squashing the building flat.

“What is it?” Sarah screamed again.

“Hell,” I said simply.

“Behemoth,” Kevin whispered. “It’s fucking Behemoth. Leviathan’s big brother.”

Sarah backed away from the window; Earl opened his eyes again.

“Now you’ll see, you bastards,” Earl cackled, blood spraying from his lips. He sat up, grunting with the effort. “This is the hour of His coming. Behemoth! Verminis! The servant of He Who Shall Not Be Named. He is the brother of Leviathan, the son of that old serpent! The Worm from beyond space. The Star-Eater. Behemoth the Great!”

“Shut the hell up, Earl!” Carl shouted. He raised his rifle, drawing a bead on the madman, but the ground shook again and his aim wavered. “Ain’t you supposed to be dead?”

I didn’t wonder about Earl’s miraculous resurrection. I just stared, absolutely transfixed by the monstrous thing bearing down on us.

The worm was colossal, but even that doesn’t begin to describe it. I told you before that I’m no writer. I don’t even know where to begin when it comes to describing that thing. To be honest, I’m not even sure it was a worm. The quivering, jiggling mounds of segmented flesh were leathery and thick, like rawhide.

For a second, I thought back to when the kids had been little. One summer, Rose and I had taken them to Washington, D.C. for vacation, and we visited the Museum of Natural History. I remembered the feeling of awe that had gripped me as we stood under the lifesized replica of a blue whale that hung suspended from the ceiling, and how we’d marveled that such a giant creature could exist on the earth.

The thing slithering towards the house could have easily swallowed that blue whale whole. It was that big. It blocked out the cloudy night sky as it neared the house. The creature opened its mouth and hissed; the sound was like a bomb blast. I felt the pressure on my eardrums.

“Get the fuck back!” Kevin shouted.

“Move out of the way,” Carl told him, still pointing his rifle at Earl.

“Forget about the hillbilly,” Kevin snapped. “We’ve got bigger issues!”

With an incredibly powerful lurch, the monster launched its front segments into the air. It stayed there for a moment, suspended above the house. Then it plummeted downward and plowed into the dirt, sending a massive plume of soil and rock into the air. With a shock, I realized that it was burrowing its way beneath the house. Its gargantuan bulk tunneled into the ground, disappearing from view. I couldn’t see it, but that didn’t matter. It was easy enough to track.

We could feel the creature’s approach beneath our feet. The vibrations sounded like a jackhammer.

Groaning, Earl slowly lurched to his feet. With frightening strength, he shoved Kevin out of the way, knocking him onto the bed. Earl struck Carl’s rifle aside, and Carl took a step backward. Earl’s filth-covered hands clutched at Carl’s throat and Carl’s eyes bulged in their sockets.

“I am born again,” he snarled.

Without even aiming to avoid hitting Carl, Sarah raised her pistol and pointed it at Earl. “Let him go!”

“Back off, bitch,” Earl wheezed, “or I’ll squeeze his goddamn eyes right out of his head.” Blood streamed down his chest and back, and bubbled from his lips. I wondered how it was even possible that he was standing.

Kevin tumbled off the bed, searching for his gun in the darkness. I finally spotted mine, lying half under the bed where it had fallen when I fell asleep. I bent over to snatch it up and a particularly violent tremor rocked the house. As I rose, my head banged into Kevin’s stomach. Kevin fell backward with a squawk, landing on the mattress again.

“I said let him go,” Sarah warned. “Now!”

Carl and Earl spun in a circle, their hands wrapped around each other’s throats. They toppled to the floor, and Earl rolled on top of Carl’s body, sitting astride his chest. Carl’s face was turning purple and the tiny blood vessels in his eyes were rupturing, turning them bloodshot.

I raised my rifle and tried to get a clear shot, but there was too much going on; so instead, I crossed the room, intent on ripping Earl from my best friend’s body.