Worm Read online

  Ever since Leonard died, she came out of her big old house only rarely and mostly at night when her neighbors could not watch her.

  She did not like to be watched.

  Or listened to.

  Or even noticed.

  When the muck rose from beneath the earth and laid waste to her yard, she was really not that surprised. In the back of her mind she had been expecting catastrophe for years.

  Through carefully parted Venetian blinds, she watched it flow and gurgle.

  It would be dark soon. She knew what would happen then: the monsters would come….just as they came for her when she was a little girl shivering in her bed. Long-armed and red-eyed, they’d come creeping out of the darkness, slithering and hungry.

  When Ivy Desjardins screamed, distracting the others, Eva kept her eyes on Mr. Green out in the road, fighting his way from his stalled car in the mud sea. She was the only one on Pine Street that saw him go under for the last time just as she was the only one that saw what grabbed him.

  Monsters. There are monsters in the muck.

  5

  At the Albert household, Tony was on his ass.

  The house had not only shaken, it had shifted…and enough to knock him off his feet. Earthquake, it had to be a goddamn earthquake. His bladder still full and Stevie yipping like the little pansy he was, Tony got up and carefully walked over to the window. He stepped lightly as if his weight would bring the house down around him.

  Holy shit.

  He saw the black muck oozing in the streets, flooding and surging and slopping through yards. There was wreckage in the neighborhood. Porches damaged and picnic tables flipped over, lots of assorted junk floating in the mud sea—everything from inflatable pools to bird feeders to clumps of decorative shrubbery.

  A mudslide? Is that what this is?

  It was the first thing he thought. Like out in California where heavy rains washed out entire hillsides and the houses built atop them. But for something like that to happen there had to be a whole lot of rain to create enough mud for a slide in the first place, and they hadn’t gotten much of that lately.

  Then what? What?

  Stevie yipped at his heels.

  “Shut the fuck up,” Tony told him.

  The mud was everywhere, flowing and sluicing, seeming to rise as he watched. Where the hell was it all coming from?

  The cordless rang. He saw on the caller ID that it was Marv O’Connor from down the block. “You seeing this shit, Tony?”

  “Am I ever. What the hell is it about?”

  “I don’t know, but I think our pool game is canceled for tonight.”

  Tony laughed. “You’re lucky. I was going to show you a few moves.”

  “I bet you were.”

  It was an inside joke: Tony had lost fourteen of the last twenty weekly games. He owed Marv over two hundred bucks, but Marv knew he’d never get it just as Tony knew he’d never pay it. They were both okay with that.

  “Well, you get bored over there, put on your waders and come over. Fern is making steak sandwiches. I’m providing the beer.”

  Tony grinned. Marv brewed his own beer. It was strong stuff. The last time Tony drank some—an odd coconut-flavored concoction—he got so drunk he fell off the porch and threw up on himself. Twice.

  “Sounds good, but if I come, I have to bring Gollum with me.”

  “Ah, the kids love Stevie. Bring him over.” Marv laughed. “You know, you two are closer than you think.”

  Tony set down the phone and, right away, his cell rang. Grand Central Station today.

  If it was another political call, he was going to puke. Vote for me because I am honest and hardworking and middle-class just like you. I am not a money-grubbing prick taking money under the table and dry-fucking the people who put me into office. There is not one drop of corporate jism on my chin.

  But it wasn’t another desperate politico, it was Charise calling from her office. “Tony…oh my God…do you see what’s happening out there?”

  “Yeah. I’m looking at it right now.”

  “It’s going on all over town. They’re saying it’s coming up from below.”

  “How can that be?”

  “That’s what they’re saying. You better get out of there.”

  He laughed dryly. “Really? And how am I supposed to do that? There’s got to be three feet of black, runny shit in the streets. My little Celica would bog-down in ten feet.”

  “Is Stevie okay?”

  Is Stevie okay? Yeah, this woman was precious, all right. She had a tipped uterus and couldn’t have children, so she pressed her maternal, adoring, totally fucked-up mother love onto that hairball. It would have been funny if it wasn’t so goddamn pathetic. Like some crazy, dried-up old bag lady pretending her dolls were real children or the thirty stray cats in her living room were some kind of extended family. He didn’t even like to think about all the times she’d embarrassed him in public because of that damn dog. Other women (ones that weren’t fucking nuts) would show pictures of their kids and Charise, true to form as the bug-job she was, whipped out pictures of that mangy little turd on her iPhone. Stevie napping. Stevie playing with his ball. Stevie with his faggoty winter sweater on. Stevie sitting on her lap (probably afraid that Donna Peppek’s aged feline—Buttercup—would kick the piss out of him). Dear God. All the other women would get that look on their faces—sympathy and remorse for Char’s decaying mind and barren womb, and the guys would just turn away. Poor Tony, he married a real head case.

  “Tony? Tony? Is Stevie okay?”

  No, some gerbils beat the hell out of him and then gang-fucked him. Sorry, hon. Now how’s about we get a real dog? One that I don’t have to feel ashamed of?

  “He’s fine. He’s pussying up in the corner as usual.”

  “Tony!”

  “Be nice if you asked about me sometime.”

  “Be serious,” she said.

  “I thought I was.”

  She sighed heavily. “Well, just sit tight. They’re supposed to be evacuating people.”

  “Tell ’em to hurry. The only meat in the house is your fucking hamster and he’s going on the barbie at five sharp.”

  “Tony! You can’t—”

  Crackle, crackle.

  “Charise? Char?”

  Nothing. No bars. No service. For once, he was thankful for their shitty cell provider.

  Stevie yipped and Tony threw the phone at the miserable little rat-dog. More yipping. More hopping and nails scratching over the tile floor. Keep it up, you little fairy. Mama ain’t nowhere around. You get out of line and you’re going out into the muck. Stevie seemed to understand; he quieted right away.

  Well, since there was nothing to do but wait it out, Tony lit a cigarette and sighed with satisfaction. Charise didn’t allow smoking in the house. Too fucking bad. What did it matter now? Goddamn place was sinking like a brick.

  Glug, glug.

  As he watched, some oily black ooze dripped from the faucet and splatted into the sink. Not good. Well, Charise was right then: it was coming up from below.

  Pulling off his cigarette, Tony went over to the head to drain the vein. Maybe circumstances were dire, but there was no need to suffer with a full bladder. He pulled himself out and started to pee. There. That was better. When he finished, he flushed…and left the seat up. Most men generally forgot, he knew, and pissed off their wives. Then there were the other guys who did it on purpose because their wives were infatuated with butt-ugly dogs and—

  What the fuck now?

  The toilet flushed, making a weird gurgling sound like it was choking on what it had swallowed…then it barfed up something: a black, shifting mass. It was stuffed into the siphon hole at the bottom rear of the tank. Something shiny like wet rubber. His first thought was that Charise dropped a real bomb and it had come slinking its way back up, but, no, it wasn’t that at all.

  Hell is that?

  Stevie yipped.

  “Quiet,” Tony grumbled.
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br />   Now, if it was your ordinary large but inoffensive turd down there, it would slowly, through suction, be drawn farther into the siphon. But the reverse was true. This…object…was pushing its bulk into the tank, not being pulled out. It had to be more of that crap coming through the lines. The water began to darken like India ink.

  The mass at the very bottom continued to expand.

  Tony’s eyes widened.

  That shiny mass began to look very much like a blunt snout.

  He stepped back as the snout pushed its way into the bowl with a slow, oily, corkscrewing motion. It was alive. It was moving. Not being moved by the water or suction, but moving on its own accord.

  Shit.

  He thought of those stories about snakes getting into the plumbing. Maybe they weren’t urban legends after all.

  The thing…snake, worm…whatever in the hell it was, twisted itself out of the siphon. Tony tripped over his own feet and fell backward, thumping the back of his head against the tub and seeing a few stars.

  Flat on his back, he heard Stevie come padding in.

  Stevie looked down at him as the thing splashed around in the bowl. What’d you do this time, fool? the look in Stevie’s eyes seemed to say, but Tony was not very interested in what Stevie was thinking or not thinking because he saw the snout of the thing peeking up over the rim of the toilet like a cobra rising from a snake charmer’s basket.

  Stevie cocked his little head and yipped.

  Tony made a gasping sound in his throat, pulled himself up on his ass and shoved Stevie back into the living room. By the time he found his feet, scrambling to them with white fear breaking loose in his chest, the thing had filled the toilet…and then the toilet exploded.

  It went off like a bomb with a thundering eruption, porcelain flying in shards, water and filthy goo spraying up the walls and flooding the bathroom floor.

  The thing was loose.

  Tony saw it coiled among the remains of the bowl. He figured it was probably an easy three or four feet in length, stout and evil-smelling. It writhed and looped like an earthworm in the sun, dirty brown going to slate gray, its segmented body exuding a clear slime.

  It had no eyes.

  But it did have a mouth.

  With a hissing sound, the mouth opened, seeming to shrivel back from pink jaws lined with long, needlelike teeth…many, many teeth. So many, they were like the spokes of a bike tire.

  It was getting ready to strike.

  With a cry, Tony tossed the clothes hamper at it just as it moved. It bought him bare seconds but no more. It was not stopped by the hamper, not in the least. In fact, it drilled right through it, corkscrewing with immense velocity and punching through the wicker in a cloud of fragments.

  Tony managed to throw the door shut behind him.

  But he had no time to secure the lock.

  The creature hit the inside of the door with such force that it slammed shut. It hit it again and put a dent in it, the wood splintering as it split lengthwise. Then, from the other side, a sound like the claws of a dozens rats scratching manically…but Tony knew it was not claws but teeth. The thing was chewing right through the fucking door.

  Stevie was yipping.

  Tony was speechless.

  He stood there uneasily, tense with fear and anxiety, his own voice droning in his head: Am I seeing this? Am I really fucking seeing this? A monster from the toilet? A beast from the bowl? But by then those teeth on the other side had eaten through, tearing a hole right through the door. The hole wasn’t big enough for it to fit through, not just yet.

  But it was determined.

  Unbelievably, savagely determined.

  Tony knew he had to keep pressure against the door or the damn thing would knock it right off its hinges, but there was no way he was pressing his back against it. He could just about imagine what that thing would do to his unprotected back if it went through the hamper that quickly and chewed a hole in the door itself.

  Christ, he didn’t want to think about it.

  Stevie continued to yip and Tony shouted at him to shut up, which, as usual, only got him yipping that much louder and that much more shrilly.

  The worm—Jesus, it had to be a worm because it sure as hell wasn’t a snake—kept hitting the door with maximum thrust. The door was only a cheap panel job. Something designed to look nice, but with absolutely no tensile strength. It was cracking open. Chips of paint and wood splinters were flying in the air.

  It gnawed another hole through.

  Tony was glad he pissed or he would have gone right down his leg by that point.

  Think! Think! Think! There’s gotta be something you can do!

  But he knew there really wasn’t. To do something meant he’d have to quit pushing against the door and as soon as he stopped doing that, Mr. Worm was going to tear him a new asshole. Literally.

  Stevie yipped louder.

  The door was coming apart.

  Tony was scared shitless.

  Another hole appeared, this one down by his knee. He saw the bulblike snout of the worm press through. A ribbon of black slime hung from its mouth like drool.

  Then it withdrew.

  It stopped pounding itself against the door.

  Tony listened.

  He heard a distinctly appalling slithering sound, which must have been the worm sliding across the tile floor. There was a splashing, wet sort of noise and he dared to hope it had gone back down the pipe. But the thing was so furious and relentless in its attack, the idea seemed ludicrous. Things like it did not give up until they got what they were after.

  It was quiet in the bathroom.

  He heard water dripping, nothing else.

  Even Stevie had quit yipping.

  Toilet water flowed under the door and Tony was standing in a rank, chill pool of it. He waited. A minute, two, then three. Gradually, he eased off on the door. He expected the worm to batter it, but it didn’t.

  It was absolutely silent in there.

  He looked over at Stevie and the little mutt cocked his head in that way Charise thought was so cute. But he was not trying to be cute, Tony knew. The cocked-head thing was the dog’s version of what the fuck? That’s all it was and all it had ever been, despite Charise’s human need to pretend otherwise.

  His heart thudding in his chest, Tony moved away from the door.

  Damn, it looked like it had been hit repeatedly by hammers. Big fucking hammers. It was hard to believe that a single—albeit large and freaky—worm could cause that much damage. Worms were soft-bodied creatures and maybe somebody needed to remind this thing of that.

  It was still silent in there.

  Stevie looked up at him with the same WTF look and Tony gave it back to him. What the fuck, indeed. He felt a curious camaraderie with the little mutt. They’d always actively despised each other, but he felt that had somehow changed now. Common desperation and common fear had linked them together in a universe of mutual need. Wouldn’t Charise be surprised—and hurt—when Stevie started hanging out with him?

  Tony crouched down by the dog and ruffled his fur.

  “I hope to God that thing is gone,” he whispered to the dog. “Either way, we better get the hell out of here before it gets back.”

  So that was the plan. But plans required action and action meant moving and that meant turning his back on the door and he did not like the idea of that at all. But it was silent in there and he didn’t honestly believe the worm could play possum quite that well.

  He stood up slowly.

  He wrinkled his nose at the foul stench coming from the bathroom. He couldn’t put a finger on what it was exactly, some kind of weird, dank smell of shit and piss, fungal rot and maggoty decay. Horrible.

  “Stand guard, Stevie. You hear anything in there, yip your head off.”

  He pretty much thought he was talking to himself, but as he backed away into the hallway, Stevie stayed right there, fixing the door with a steely, resolute glare. Tony jogged into the bedroom and p
eeled off his wet socks. He pulled off his joggers and slipped into some jeans, threw on a hoodie and put dry socks on. That was better. He got his backpack out of the closet. He’d stuff bottled water and food in there. Enough to last them until they got free of town anyway.

  When he got back, Stevie was still manning…or dogging…his post.

  Tony threw on his gum rubber snow boots and grabbed his softball bat out of the closet. Maybe it wasn’t the best weapon, but it was hardwood and it could easily split skulls and, hopefully, worms.

  “Okay, Stevie,” he said. “I’m going to look in there. I think it’s gone but I have to know for sure.”

  Stevie gave him one of his looks. What? You want the worm to eat you?

  Tony went to the door and, without hesitation, opened it, a white bolt of fear digging down deep into his belly.

  Nothing.

  The bathroom was an absolute mess, but he saw no worm. Nothing in the tub. Nothing in the sink. The toilet had pretty much exploded, nothing left but its base, which was bolted securely to the floor, and the black, ugly outgoing pipe and its flange.

  Tony sighed, releasing his death grip on the bat.

  It was a fluke. That worm was some mutant that had been growing in the putrid darkness down there for years. One of a kind.

  It’s gone back and will probably die out before anyone else ever sees it.

  This was what he told himself and it made him feel better. Much better, in fact…though he knew he’d never be able to sit bare-assed on a toilet again, exposing himself to subterranean, worming horrors.

  “Okay, Stevie, let’s be sheep and get the flock out of here,” he said. “Let’s go visit Stephani or drop in on the O’Connors.”

  Then, from the pipe, there was a splashing sound. It was more than just water and he knew it.

  “Shit,” he said.