Worm

30

“Watch it in there!” Fern heard Marv call to her from the living room and she didn’t need to be told twice. She knew damn well what to watch out for. That worm in the drain had been no bizarre evolutionary accident, but one of many. The muck was infested with them.

Kassie was crying and Kalie told her to knock it off. Fern did her best to soothe both of them. They were trembling and so was she. Tony and Marv were shooting and shooting, trying to turn back the tide of the wriggling invaders.

Then… Donna screamed.

She fell back, kicking her leg in the air. One of the worms had gotten into the dining room. Its teeth were buried in her ankle and it was chewing, simply gnawing with a grating sound of knives against bone. Its body undulated with convulsions as it gulped down what it tore loose.

“One side!” Bertie Kalishek said, pushing past Fern and the twins. “One side!”

By then, Donna was nearly out of her mind with pain and hysteria.

Bertie took it all most calmly. She stepped forward, lighting a Lark 100 and pulling two good drags off it as she lowered herself to her knees—no easy process at her age—and took hold of Donna’s thrashing leg. When she had it still, she pulled off the cigarette again until the cherry was glowing bright orange… then she stabbed it right into the side of the worm. There was a sssstttt sort of sound and the worm reacted immediately, dropping free and writhing on the carpet.

“Don’t care for that much, do you, you little vermin,” she said, pulling herself to her feet with aid of the dining room table. When she was up and steady, she stamped down one rain boot on the worm and it burst open in a flood of cold jelly. About six inches of the tail end disengaged itself, squirming wildly about.

“Oh, no you don’t,” Bertie said and smashed it under her boot. She smashed the head end, too, which was opening and closing its fanged mouth like a fish gasping for air.

Fern called out to Marv that they were okay as she dashed into the bathroom for the first-aid kit.

By then, Donna was looking very pale and very sickly. She was laying flat on the floor, her eyes glazed and barely blinking, her mouth trembling as if she wanted to speak. She was in full view of the twins, of course, who stared down at her with wide eyes. When she made a moaning sound, they cringed and held on to each another.

Fern got back and began to dress Donna’s ankle. There was a great deal of tissue damage and she’d lost a lot of blood. About all Fern could do under the circumstances was pour some disinfectant on it—which made Donna cry out like she had been scorched with a branding iron—and wrap it up good. She needed real medical care and soon. Fern didn’t want to think of the worm’s filthy mouth and what sort of germs were already breeding in the wound site.

“Listen,” Bertie said. “You hear that?”

They were all hearing it. The worms were massing outside, hissing and making that weird hollow croaking noise. They could hear them sliding along the outer walls of the house and Fern was almost sure there was one on the roof… a really big one.

“I’m of the opinion we’re most definitely in the shit here,” Bertie said.