Brian Keene: The Conqueror Worms

With her free hand, Sarah dug her fingernails into Earl’s face, slashing at his nose and cheek. Skin peeled away, leaving red racing stripes. Worms burrowed beneath the wounds. Earl tried to scramble away, but Sarah rammed her elbow into the bullet wound in his shoulder.

“Not this time, you son of a bitch,” she snarled. “This time, I’ll make sure you don’t get back up.”

Carl rolled off the couch, dazed and bleeding.

“My God is hungry,” Earl rasped, and then punched Sarah in the face—once, twice, three times in rapid succession. Sarah’s shoulders sagged and blood streamed from her nose. Then, twisting her hair in his fist, Earl forced her head down and marched her past me across the rolling floor. Her body was limp and she put up no resistance. They were heading towards the basement.

I don’t know how he kept moving, how he stayed alive. Earl was in bad shape; a bloody, shot-up mess. But somehow, he refused to die. Perhaps whatever was crawling around inside his body had reanimated him. Taken control. Maybe there really was something to the black magic gibberish he’d been spouting before, or maybe he was just being bullheaded. I don’t know. I can only tell you that it was almost as frightening as the monster digging up through my basement floor.

Earl and Sarah reached the door. He gave her hair another twist, and she squealed.

“Sarah!” Kevin screamed, trying to free himself from the hole.

The rain pattered against the kitchen tiles.

“Carl,” I shouted. “Get up! My leg’s busted and I can’t get loose! You’ve got to help Sarah and Kevin!”

Carl shook his head, trying to clear it. He wiped the blood from his eyes and tottered to his feet.

“Come on, Carl,” I urged. “Move!”

Earl flung the basement door open and Sarah screamed. At the same time, Kevin freed himself from the hole.

I don’t know if it came from the open door or the chasm in the kitchen floor, but the stench was overpowering. It immediately filled the house, choking me with its ammonialike stench. My eyes and nose burned.

But as bad as the creature’s smell was, the sound— my God —the sound was worse. That same forceful exhaling of air that I had heard the other worms make, now magnified tenfold. It pushed against my eardrums, making my head throb.

Sarah teetered at the top of the basement steps. “Let me go, god damn you!”

“My pleasure, bitch!” Earl pushed her forward. Her shriek was cut short, lost beneath the cry of the great worm.

Kevin crept unsteadily past me as the floor began to shimmy again. Enraged, he threw himself at Earl and they both pitched forward into the cellar.

Carl made it across the floor to where I was pinned. Grunting with exertion, the two of us managed to push the table and the hutch aside. My leg and side throbbed when I moved, sending a fresh burst of pain that made further movement impossible.

“Where’s it hurt?” Carl asked me.

“My leg’s broke,” I panted, “and I might have busted a rib, too. I’m not sure. But don’t worry about me. Kevin and Sarah fell into the basement. Help them.”

But Carl wouldn’t listen. He lurched away, looking for something.

“Carl, what are you doing?”

“Finding something you can use for a crutch. Now hush. Just rest.”

I glanced around the kitchen in confusion, staring at the wreckage of my former life with Rose. Amazingly, the only thing that didn’t seem to have been destroyed was the kerosene heater. It had slid a few inches, but remained upright. The kettle had fallen to the floor and rolled away, but the heater itself stood firm.

“Carl, just forget about it!”

He didn’t answer, and passed from my sight.

I dragged myself forward to the doorway—each inch that I crawled was excruciating. Sweat broke out on my forehead and under my armpits, and my body began to tremble. The creature’s stink grew stronger—overpowering my senses as I drew closer. Finally, I reached the basement stairs and peeked over the edge, afraid for what I would find.

I screamed.

The cellar floor was gone, replaced by a giant, slavering mouth—at least twenty-feet wide. It sounds crazy, but that’s the only way to describe it. The entire floor had vanished and Behemoth’s mouth occupied the space where it had been. A small outcropping of concrete at the bottom of the stairway was all that remained. Kevin and Earl struggled on this tiny alcove, while Sarah lay bleeding on the stairs. Below them, the worm pulsed and quivered hungrily, the massive throat convulsing. Its mouth was lined with lamprey-like tentacles, each one tipped with another tinier mouth of its own. These smaller mouths opened, even thinner tendrils emerging from them. Then, rising from the center of Behemoth’s throat, rose a stalklike tongue composed of more worms, blind and wriggling. All of the tentacle-worms chirped greedily, sensing the prey above them.

“I found this—my God…,” Carl gasped behind me. Blood still dripped from the ugly-looking gash on his forehead. He held a baseball bat in one hand, which I guess he’d thought I could use for a crutch.

He gaped at the creature below us. Then, without another word, he turned and fled.

“Carl!” I was shocked and dismayed. I’d known Carl for most of my adult life, and never once had I known him to be a coward.

Earl shoved Kevin toward the edge of the pit. Kevin punched him in the temple. Snarling, Earl punched him back. Kevin dodged the blow, brought his knee up into Earl’s crotch and then grabbed the madman by his neck and waistband. With a single, mighty heave, he threw Earl over the side.

Behemoth roared, as did the small worms inside his mouth.

Earl screamed, twisting in midair. The wormtongues stretched forward in eager anticipation. Pale slime dripped from their mouths. Earl latched on to a jutting piece of floor support and clung to it, dangling over the stinking maw. The earthworms inside of him wriggled from his gunshot wounds and burst through his arms and cheeks. One uncoiled from his ear and plummeted down into the pit.

“I—I worship you,” he cried out. “Lord, please!”

“Kevin,” I shouted as best I could, weak from the pain in my leg. “Sarah! Let’s go.”

Sarah didn’t move.

My leg was starting to swell, and when I coughed blood leaked from the corner of my mouth. Then my ears began to ring and my face felt flushed. I knew enough to recognize that I was going into shock.

“Hurry,” I gasped.

Kevin stood at the edge of the concrete and stared down at Earl.

Earl’s fingers slipped on the concrete and he struggled to hold on. “What are you looking at, boy? Give me a hand.”

“You shot down our helicopter,” Kevin said. “You killed our friends.”

Earl’s arms trembled and his face turned white. More earthworms dug their way out of his flesh. “Y-yeah, but I’m—”

Kevin stomped on his fingers. Hard. Hard enough to make me wince, despite my own pain, and despite everything that Earl had done. Screeching, Earl lost his grip and fell. His scream lasted only as long as his descent—about two seconds.

Then, the worm-tongues inside Behemoth’s throat began to feed. At the same time, the throat muscles contracted and Earl was drawn farther inside.

Kevin picked up Sarah and plodded up the swaying staircase.

Beneath him, Behemoth swallowed Earl with a noxious, gaseous belch. Then the mouth opened again and the tentacles began to slither upward, feeling their way across the bottom stair.

“Please, hurry,” I coughed, and more blood trickled from my mouth. Each cough brought a sharp, stabbing pain in my side.

Suddenly, I sensed movement behind me and saw Kevin’s eyes grow wide. I turned around and there was Carl, wearing a pair of oven mitts and lugging the still hot kerosene heater.