Worm

24

As Fern poured the bleach into the sink, the most amazing and shocking thing happened: something came worming its way out of the drain with a bubbling, foul-stinking black goo. And worming was the right word, she realized, because what came slithering out was indeed a worm.

Not a snake, as she first thought.

A fucking worm.

She jumped back and nearly dropped her bottle of Hilex. As it was, she cried out low in her throat and if her lips hadn’t been sealed tight it would have been a scream. What in the hell is this? What the hell…

The worm came up out of the drain with a convulsive, dying shudder, twisting and writhing. It was about as long as her forearm, but thick in body, fleshy and absolutely disgusting. It flexed with violent muscular contractions, a jellied ooze pouring out of it in a snotty tangle. How something that big around fit down the drain in the first place was beyond her.

The only good thing was that it was not only in considerable pain, it looked like it was dying.

“Mom,” Kassie called from the living room. “Are you all right?”

“Mom?” Kalie echoed.

Shaking, a fine dew of fear-sweat on her brow, Fern realized if she did not unglue her mouth and speak right now, the twins were going to come in and they were going to see what she was seeing and she simply could not have that.

“Ah… yeah, I’m fine. Just cleaning the sink.”

The sound of her own voice gave her a modicum of strength and she stepped a bit closer to the sink. The worm was barely moving by that point. What if I hadn’t poured the bleach down there? Would it have stayed in the drain or would it have come out after me? The questions jumped into her mind and she ignored them.

She poured more bleach onto the worm.

It moved sluggishly and spewed out something like several yellow and tangled, ropy tongues. But as revolting as that was, what was even worse was that it was steaming. The bleach was doing something to it. It was deflating and breaking apart, decompressing into a puddle of slime.

Trying to keep her stomach down, Fern forced its remains down into the garbage disposal with a long wooden spoon and turned it on. She listened to it whir and chew at the remains while a bubble of bile slowly rose up the back of her throat.

She shut the disposal off.

Then she stood there, dazed and sickened, wondering if she had hallucinated it all.