Worm

7

Glub-glub-glub.

More of the vile black drainage dropped into the sink. There was a good five or six inches of it in there now. Tessa did not believe it was all coming from the tap. Much of it, in fact, most of it, was gurgling up from the drain.

Though that was hardly her biggest concern.

Because there was something in there and it was alive.

It had not moved in the past ten minutes or so that she had been staring at it. She was beginning to seriously wonder if she had imagined it all. Maybe she had. Maybe—

There was a gurgling sound from deep within the black slop. It roiled and splashed, a few bubbles rising to the surface and popping one by one. Tessa stood there watching it, nearly transfixed. Her throat felt dry and her limbs felt weak. She wanted to get away from whatever was in there, but she seemed to lack the strength.

More gurgling.

A chunk of something about the size of a steel wool pad bobbed to the surface. It seemed to have the consistency of solidified grease. Whatever it was, it was disgusting.

Her stomach shifted unpleasantly.

It was times like this that she really missed Charlie, though she supposed she missed him just about every hour of every day. Tessa was old-school. If there was a creature in the house then it was the man’s responsibility to do something about it. She had no problem with traditional duties. The cooking and cleaning had always been her department—last thing she’d ever wanted in a kitchen was a man—and the fixing, sprucing, and creature-killing had always been Charlie’s.

But Charlie had been in the ground these long seven years.

Tessa knew she’d have to handle this, whatever it was. The idea sickened her. Last year when the mice came to visit, she could barely keep her stomach down when she removed their broken little bodies from the traps. Somehow, whatever this was, she figured it would be worse.

The slop moved again and this time it was from the motion of whatever was in there.

Tess felt faint with panic.

Perspiration beaded her brow.

She could hear people outside, calling to each other from porches. They were like shipwreck survivors shouting to each other as they clung to bits of wreckage. They couldn’t help her.

If you want this critter out of your sink, old woman, then you’re going to have to do it. Nobody but you.

Gah. The idea was appalling. The only thing that gave her strength was that the monster was in the sink, in the kitchen, and the kitchen was her domain. She trucked no interference from intruders here.

A weapon.

There was a bag of old plates and utensils she was sending to Goodwill. She plucked a roasting fork out of there. It was nearly as long as her arm and would do quite nicely. If what was in the sink had come up through the drain, then it was small. It would be no match for the roasting fork.

But just to be sure, Tessa dug out a tenderizing mallet. With the fork and the mallet, she was armed like a medieval knight.

All right, whatever you are, I’m ready.

She wasn’t and she knew she wasn’t, but there was no choice. Trying to keep her stomach down, she prodded the floater with her fork. Just the motion of doing that disturbed the slop and ripened the already horrendous gaseous odor emanating from the sink. It made her think of dead, waterlogged things afloat in stagnant ponds.

She prodded it again.

It looked very much like a piece of greasy meat, though stained darkly from the muck soup. Clenching her teeth, she jabbed the fork around in there and felt the tines scraping off the bottom of the sink.

Maybe there wasn’t anything in there after all.

She jabbed around in there a few times.

Something moved.

She felt it brush against the fork, making waves of revulsion roll through her. She withdrew the fork… but, dammit, this was her kitchen! She was not going to be scared off by some stupid fish or whatever had swam up the pipe.

Getting angry, Tessa jabbed the fork around in there until… until with a physical shudder she felt it pierce something. Something thick. It felt like she had speared a summer sausage. It had the same sort of resistance to it as the tines went in.

Meaty was the word that popped into her mind.

Whatever it was, she had it. The crazy thing was, if it indeed was alive then why wasn’t it moving? Shouldn’t it be squirming with pain or something?

Sucking in a breath between clenched teeth, she lifted up the fork. The thing was weighty, a few pounds at least. She lifted the fork up quickly out of the soup before she could change her mind.

What she saw made her freeze.

It looked like a snake. That’s what she thought in an instant of absolute atavistic terror. It was maybe two feet long, but swollen, thick-bodied, maybe big around as a can of beer. It was coiling with slow, oily undulations, dripping copious amounts of inky slime.

With a cry, she dropped it.

It splashed into the muck… and came right back out like a rocket.

Tessa had enough time to hold her arm up to protect her face before it hit her, the roasting fork dropping from it and clattering across the floor. It seized her wrist in its mouth, clamping down with a savage biting/sucking pressure and she clearly heard her wrist bones snap like green twigs.

First she screamed.

Then she went wild with hysteria.

Barely staying on her feet, she spun around, waving her arm up and down and to both sides to throw the thing. And as she did so, she felt more agony in her wrist. It was not just biting, it was chewing. Raging and flailing her arm, just wild with panic and pain, she managed to throw the thing. It thudded against the face of the cupboard, leaving a nasty brown-black stain like a splattered turd, and then dropped, hitting the breadbox and rolling off to the countertop.

It was not moving now.

Just sort of vibrating, trembling.

Tessa looked down at her wrist and nearly went out cold. It had eaten right through her skin to the muscles and tendons below. Blood ran down her arm, dyeing her hand red. She heard it striking the floor: plop, plop, plop.

She staggered and swayed, feeling light-headed. Whether that was from shock and trauma or loss of blood, she did not know. She tried to keep on her feet. She tried to keep conscious. She knew that everything depended on what she did now. Stumbling over to the stove, she pulled a towel from the bar and wrapped her wrist in it, then wrapped another around it until it was swaddled like a baby.

But the blood… dear God.

It was all over her. It was on the floor. There was a crazy whorl of it on the wall, spattering the needlework GOD BLESS OUR KITCHEN hanging. There was dark irony there and she knew it. She had to call an ambulance before she bled out.

The muck… the muck in the streets! They’ll never get through it… not in time.

No, but her neighbors. The Desjardins, the Mackenridges… she’d seen them out on their porches watching the flooding mud. They would help her. But she had to get to them.

She started toward the kitchen doorway, her slippered feet crunching over the remains of her mother’s tea set.

She began to get woozy right away.

Her mouth tasted dry and sweet.

Her vision was blurring.

Oh, she was feeling it now and more than just her throbbing wrist. She was seventy-seven years old and she’d been jumping around like she was fifteen. Her back was filled with needles, her knees aching, and her left hip felt like it might pop out of its socket at any minute.

The phone.

She fumbled it from its cradle, leaving a bloody smear over the stainless steel face of the oven. She leaned against the counter above the dishwasher. She thumbed a few buttons. No, dammit, try again! But she couldn’t make her mind focus. For the life of her she couldn’t remember anyone’s number. The O’Connors. Yes. Just up the block. Their number was scribbled on the edge of the dry-erase board. She had bought Girl Scout cookies from their daughters.

The phone was picked up right away.

“Fern,” Tessa managed. “Help me… I’ve been attacked…”

The phone slid from her bloody fingers.

The thing wasn’t on the counter by the sink anymore.

God, where is it? Where is that awful thing?

A dirty black trail led across the counter, past the spice rack and right over to—

It was less than six inches from her right arm.

It was no snake, she saw that much now.

A huge, fat-bodied worm that was reddish brown in color, finely segmented like a millipede, and completely eyeless… yet it seemed to be looking at her. Its rear section coiling and uncoiling, the anterior end rising like a rattlesnake preparing to strike.

Tessa took all this in within microseconds.

She saw the forward segment of the anterior end pull back like a set of lips, revealing a gaping maw that was pink as bubble gum and set with rows and rows of hooked teeth that were sharp as roofing nails. They were stained with her blood.

This was what she saw.

The worm made a hissing th-th-th-th-th-th sort of sound.

Then it vaulted up and bit into her face. The next thing Tessa knew, she was on the floor and the worm had her. As it bit down again for a better hold, the liplike segment rolled back even more and the teeth slid farther from the gums like a shark chomping down on meat until Tessa’s face was firmly impaled.

She was barely conscious by that point.

Moaning, groaning, trembling… but little more.

From somewhere distant, it seemed, she could feel the teeth digging in deeper, chewing and chewing, and the enormous suction of the worm’s mouth as her left eye was sucked from its socket with a moist popping noise.

There was no pain. Just the gulping, slobbering sounds of the worm itself as it fed on her.