Worm

13

Kathleen stumbled into the house, slamming the door shut behind her.

Filthy from the muck, tears welling in her eyes, her entire body shaking, she dropped onto the carpet, hugging herself, absolutely manic with terror.

I saw it. Outside in the muck, I saw it. A snake. A giant snake. It must have gotten Pat. It must have killed him.

These were the words that kept rolling through her mind and she couldn’t seem to stop them. They came unwanted and unbidden, hammering home the very thing she feared most: being alone. Alone with some horrible serpent even then circling the house, looking for a way in.

She had to breathe.

She had to get control.

She couldn’t come apart like this.

She brushed tears from her cheeks, leaving dirty streaks of war paint on her face. Standing uneasily, swaying from side to side, she stumbled into the living room and grabbed the cordless and dialed 911 after two or three tries in which her fingers simply would not cooperate.

When the 911 operator answered, she let it out in one mad torrent: “My name… my name is Kathleen Mackenridge… I live at 2112 Pine Street in Camberly. The mud is flooding us… my husband was killed by a snake… a giant snake… it came out of the mud…”

The 911 operator, obviously used to hysterics, said quite calmly as she had been trained: “Ma’am, listen to me. I want you to relax. Emergency services have been activated and neighborhoods are being evacuated even as we speak. Stay indoors. The mud is not expected to rise much higher. In fact, it may—”

“DID YOU HEAR WHAT I JUST SAID?”

“Ma’am, I realize that—”

“YOU DON’T REALIZE SHIT!”

“Ma’am, please, you really have to—”

“LISTEN TO ME, GODDAMMIT!” Kathleen shouted. “MY NAME IS KATHLEEN MACKENRIDEGE AND I’M AT 2112 PINE STREET IN CAMBERLY! YOU GOT THAT? GOOD! MY HUSBAND IS MISSING! I THINK HE WAS KILLED BY A GIANT FUCKING SNAKE THAT CAME OUT OF THE FUCKING MUD! YOU GOT THAT? NOW WHAT THE HELL ARE YOU GOING TO DO ABOUT IT?”

There was silence for a moment. A crackle of static. “Did you say ‘snake,’ ma’am?”

Kathleen realized at that moment she was very, very close to an absolute nervous breakdown. She was crying. She was dirty. She was getting black muck all over the goddamn carpeting. Her heart was trying to slam its way out of her chest and her scalp was trying to crawl right off her head. And this idiotic bitch was not listening. She was just not fucking listening. Kathleen had a mad, almost itching sort of desire to break out into laughter over the absurdity of the entire situation.

“Ma’am? Are you there?”

“YES, I’M STILL FUCKING HERE! I’M TRAPPED IN THIS FUCKING MUD! MY HUSBAND HAS DISAPPEARED! I THINK A SNAKE GOT HIM! WHERE IN THE MOTHERFUCK DID YOU THINK I WAS GOING TO GO?”

“Okay, ma’am. Now here’s what I want you to do,” the operator told her, addressing her like she was a melodramatic seven-year-old. “First, I want you to sit down and take a deep breath and then I—”

“FUUUUUUUCK YOOOOUUU!” Kathleen screeched, throwing the cordless as hard as she could at the brick fireplace hearth and nearly squealing with childish joy when it shattered into a dozen pieces of cheap, Asian plastic.

You’re on your own, you’re completely on your own, a voice in her head told her in no uncertain terms. What you do, you’ll have to do for yourself. So, first off, do not fucking sit down and take a deep fucking breath. Go directly upstairs and get Jesse. Lock yourself in with him. Get Pat’s shotgun, load it. Call Marv or Tony or Donna or Geno or somebody. Get the neighbors over here. Now… move!

She grabbed a fireplace poker, turning a blind eye to the framed photographs on the mantel of her happy, little life with her happy, little husband and son and mother and friends… all of which had become very unhappy by this point.

Feeling so wired with hysteria and fear, she thought she might short-circuit at any moment, she stumbled over to the stairs, gripping the railing and trying to breathe, trying to get some oxygen up to her head before she blacked right out.

She couldn’t go on like this.

Jesse had slept like an angel through the whole thing, but he would sense it on her the way babies always can. They’re hardwired to their parents’ emotions. She had to put on a brave, calm front. Whatever else she did, she had to manage that… some how or some way…

Except there was something dark circling in her head.

Something very wrong.

Then she knew what it was.

Jesse.

Jesse never sleeps this long.

No, no, no, no, no… not that…

Kathleen jogged up the stairs and charged down the hallway, making in nearly halfway down its length before she stepped in the oozing black muck that had flooded out from the bathroom. Her feet went up in the air and she came down hard, smacking the back of her head on the hardwood floor.

When she opened her eyes, it could have been two minutes later or twenty minutes for that matter. Her vision was blurry and unfocused for a moment or two, her mind slowly sweeping the cobwebs away. She was lying in a pool of the horrible inky drainage, sopping wet with it. It had coagulated and clotted around her like thickening, wet concrete.

She sat up, her head spinning. There was a dull throb at the back of her skull.

God, she was covered with the stuff.

Jesse. Get to Jesse.

She pulled herself to her feet. She saw that the bathroom was nearly drowned in muck. It was dark and slushy and smelling. A slimy trail of the stuff led down the hallway toward the door at the end which was Jesse’s room. The nursery, as Pat’s mother had called it.

Oh God no…

Grabbing up the poker, she ran down there and charged through the doorway, praying, hoping, calling out for any god that would listen to help her, help her now. It had never been so important. So vitally important. She made it maybe three steps through the door when she tripped over something, going down face-first, her poker clattering across the floor.

What is that… what did I trip over… something soft…

As she pulled herself up, she saw with grim and fateful clarity all the black slime on the crib, how it dripped and ran down the spindles and dropped to the floor—plop, plop.

Kathleen screamed and raced over to it, gripping the side as she looked down in there and saw… nothing. It was empty. The crib was completely empty, save for the black filth all over the baby blankets and bumper pad, something that looked like a foul mix of mud, seeping rank water, and moist black clotted leaves from the bottom of a pond.

As the scream came out of her mouth and the room seemed to spin round and round, her heart thundered in her chest and her own breathing sounded like wheezing bellows in her ears. The room was dimming as the sun set and her face was rinsed of color. She felt the blood drain out of her head and trunk and down into her lower extremities. Darkness filled her brain and she dropped to her knees, devastated by fright, completely numb and senseless. This was the aftereffect of absolute horror, of looking the worst-case scenario dead in the eye.

How much time passed before she was able to move or process even the simplest rational thought, she didn’t know. Shadows were beginning to crawl across the floor. The light coming in through the blinds was negligible.

She began to move.

She had to turn on the light and proceed very calmly now. A voice in her brain was giving her the same pep talk as when she went to look for Pat. She knew beyond a doubt that something very dirty and hideous had come into this room and snatched her son. She did not know what it was, but her mind kept telling her it was the snake that had gotten Pat.

Now it was in the house.

It was in her house.

It had killed her husband and now her infant son. Though part of her wanted to rage and scream, she did neither. There was no point in screaming. Screaming was to vent horror and to bring help, but there was no valve that could release the horror inside of her and no help to be found.

What she would do, she would do alone.

The snake was here somewhere and she would find it.

There was nothing left inside her now but the need to hunt the thing and bring about its doom.

Yet, for all her hate and all her resolve, she sank to the floor, sobbing… at least until her mouth opened and a wailing voice came out: “WHERE’S MY BABY? WHERE IS MY BABY?”