Worm

26

“One foot in front of the other,” Donna told Bertie. “That’s all we have to do. It’s only two doors down.”

“Maybe that’s nothing to you,” Bertie said, “but when your my age, that’s a goddamn long way, missy.”

Donna had to give her that one. The mud was deep and it was like trying to wade through oatmeal. The fact that she had gotten Bertie out of her house in the first place was a minor victory. All they had to do was make it down to the O’Connors’. On an ordinary day, it was a two-minute walk. In this muck with a frail, stubborn old woman with her, it was like the Bataan Death March: endless.

Bertie almost fell again, but Donna caught her and held her up.

“See no reason for any of this,” Bertie said. “Could have stayed at my house. I knew this was a bad idea. I knew I shouldn’t have listened to you.”

And your newfangled ideas, Donna thought. She was just waiting for Bertie to say that like some cantankerous curmudgeon in an old movie, Walter Brennan maybe. The idea made her smile.

“We couldn’t stay there, Bertie. The place was falling apart.”

“Like hell it was.”

Donna decided she wouldn’t argue. They were over halfway to the O’Connors’ and they were not about to turn back. The fact of the matter was that the house was falling apart. The muck had made it shift. Things had fallen from the walls. A window in the kitchen had broken. And even Bertie couldn’t deny that cracking noise they heard coming from the foundation.

“Just a little farther now.”

Bertie snorted. “A little farther, my ass. We’re going to die out here. Well, I got one up on you: I already have my gravesite bought and paid for. I picked it out ten years ago. All they have to do is carve my death date onto it.”

She seemed very proud of the fact and Donna could only sigh.

What was that?

Donna stopped them there in the muck. For a few seconds, she barely breathed.

A great rippling passed through the mud just ahead of them as if something quite large had passed beneath it.

“Well, what the hell now?” Bertie asked.

“Just wait a minute.”

“I don’t have a minute to wait. I’m near dead now.”

Donna ignored her.

She heard the rippling again.

This time it was behind them. Now off to her right. It was like they were being circled by something under the mud. And as crazy as it seemed, the first thing that jumped into her mind was shark, even though that was perfectly ridiculous. Sharks didn’t swim in mud and they sure as hell didn’t live in fucking Wisconsin.

Yet… that eerie sense that they were being circled did not lessen. It increased.

Behind them, there was splashing… as if something had surfaced and then dove again.

“C’mon, Bertie, we have to get over there. It’s not far.”

“Isn’t that what I’ve been saying?”

Donna tried to move faster in the mud, but that only got Bertie bitching at her all the more. They had to move fast. Donna couldn’t explain it—and she sure as hell did not have the time to—but something out there was closing in on them.

Something very big.

Above, the full moon came out.