The Conqueror Worms

Carl asked, “While ya’ll were on Cass Mountain, you didn’t see anything like those worms outside?”

“Not at all,” Kevin said. “That’s why I thought maybe all the weirdness was just confined to the ocean. Obviously, it’s not.”

“We left the observatory,” Sarah continued. “We didn’t have much fuel, but Cornwell had been studying a tourist map during our stay. He figured we could land at some place called Bald Knob, if it was still above water, hole up in the Ranger tower, and figure out what to do next. But right before we reached Bald Knob, we crashed in your backyard instead.”

“Courtesy of crazy old Earl Harper,” I muttered. “May he rot in pieces.”

“Rose wouldn’t want you to speak ill of the dead,” Carl said, “but then again, she didn’t have no love for Earl, either.”

“Who was he, anyway?” Kevin asked.

“Earl?” I whistled through my false teeth, leaned back in the chair, and drained my coffee. “Earl was a local. What you’d call a good old boy, except that there wasn’t anything good about him. He lived over yonder in that shack his whole life, except for a brief stint in the Marines. He got kicked out about two months after boot camp. Never did find out for certain what he did, but I’ve heard he kept threatening suicide and that he even cut his wrists a few times; little, superficial cuts that didn’t amount to anything. Basically, he just wanted attention.

“Anyway, Carl and I had a friend named Hobie Crowley. Hobie smoked all his life and got lung cancer about ten years ago. He didn’t have much family, so he checked into the V.A. hospital over in Beckley. Died there, too, and now he’s buried up at Arlington. While he was in the hospital, Hobie met a fella who had served with Earl in the army, and Hobie told us about it when Carl and I went to visit. According to this guy, Earl’s unit got tired of his fake suicide attempts. He was disrupting things, and all of them were paying the price for his foolishness. Their master sergeant told them to handle it for themselves, so that’s what they decided to do. One night in the barracks, they all got a hold of Earl, dragged him into the showers and cut his wrists for real. He was back here soon after that, living with his parents until they died and staying on over there ever since.

“He lived off welfare mostly, just like half the rest of this state’s population. See, there’s just not much work in West Virginia, unless you can farm or fix cars. That’s what Earl did. He fixed junked cars and sold them for beer money, poached a deer or two or five to put grub on the table. He was your standard redneck hillbilly. Except that Earl was crazy, too.”

“If he was so crazy, how’d he live this long?” Kevin asked. “I’m surprised somebody didn’t try to help him, have him committed. Or else put him out of his misery for good.”

“Oh, folks have tried.”

“They did?” Kevin snorted. “Not hard enough, then.”

“Rose and I, and Carl, and most of the other folks in Punkin’ Center tried to help Earl at one time or another. But we gave up. It was like feeding a stray dog. You’re nice to him until he bites your hand, and then you don’t feed him anymore. The sheriff was out at Earl’s place off and on for the last ten years or so, straightening him out on one thing or another. The Secret Service even paid him a visit one time.”

Kevin sat up straight. “For what? Was he one of these militia nuts or something? The Sons of the Constitution? Did he post something threatening online?”

“No, nothing like that,” I chuckled, “though it wouldn’t have surprised me. I know that Earl thought Timothy McVeigh got a raw deal; thought he was a real patriot. And Earl wouldn’t have known how to use a computer if his life had depended on it.”

“Well what was the Secret Service checking him out for?”

“Monica Lewinsky, believe it or not.”

“Monica Lewinsky?” Sarah’s brow crinkled. “The girl that banged President Clinton in the Oval Office?”

“The same. During that whole big stink, when Ken Starr was investigating the White House and all of that, Earl became convinced that Bill Clinton was the Antichrist. Said he even had the Bible verses to prove it. Now mind you, before President Clinton, Earl swore up and down that it was Gorbachev. Remember that birthmark on top of Gorbachev’s head? Earl thought that wine stain hid the number of the beast.”

“Six-six-six,” Kevin whispered.

“Wasn’t there a movie about that?” Sarah asked. “The Omen?”

“Maybe,” I said. “Never much cared for those horror movies. I was big on John Wayne, and Laurel and Hardy. And a few of—”

Something splattered against the window with a wet thump and Sarah skittered away from the door. It was a wad of slime, clear and viscous. It clung to the glass like phlegm and slowly started to dribble down the pane.

All four of us stared at the slime, and then at each other. In the silence, we heard that now familiar hissing sound—the whistling of a worm, and somewhere close by, too. Kevin and I both ran to the window, but the fog concealed everything.

“Do you see any worms?” Kevin whispered.

“Nope.” My heart hammered in my chest. I turned to Sarah. “Did you see anything come up to the window?”

“No, there was nothing. Just the rain and the fog.”

“Then they can spit, apparently,” Kevin mused. “Maybe that slime is like acid or poison or something.”

I shook my head. “No, I’ve touched some it, had it on my fingers, and it didn’t do anything to me.”

“Sure smelled awful, though,” Carl added, making a face. “Stank to high heaven.”

“That it did,” I agreed. “Like fish and chlorine, put in a blender and mixed together.”

We listened for a while longer, but the noise didn’t repeat itself and there were no more spit attacks. I took Sarah’s place at the door and continued with my story.

“Anyway, Earl reckoned that Bill Clinton was the Antichrist, and before him, Gorbachev. He figured the birthmark on Gorbachev’s forehead was hiding a six-six-six. And before that, it was Henry Kissinger and Ronald Reagan. His troubles with the Secret Service started in the middle of the Clinton impeachment hearings. One night, Earl showed up drunk down at the VFW post in Lewisburg, claiming that if Clinton weren’t stopped, God would destroy America for its wickedness. That got him some applause from the hard-line Rush Limbaugh junkies that do their drinking in there, but not much else. So then Earl wrote an angry letter to Clinton and mailed it off to the White House. He even included his return address. I don’t know for sure what he said, but I guess he made some threats and I guess they took it seriously, because one sunny morning in April, two black SUVs came cruising through Renick, crossed over the Greenbrier River, and started up the mountain to Punkin’ Center. We all got on the horn with each other as they passed by, because everybody knew who they were. You can tell, if only by the official government plates on the back of the cars. They cruised up the dirt road out yonder and eight federal agents knocked on Earl’s door, paying him a less than friendly visit. I guess that eventually they decided he wasn’t a threat, because nothing else ever happened. For a while after that, Earl calmed down, but soon, he was back to normal. He started up again when Gore and Bush ended up in court over the election, and some folks called the Secret Service, but they must have determined he was harmless. Just a lot of hot air.”

“Boy,” Sarah said, “did they miss the call on that one or what?”

“They sure did.” Carl nodded. “Earl got away with talking crazy like that, but I have to fill out a damn stack of forms and wait three days every time I buy a new hunting rifle for deer season. There’s no justice in this world.”

I grinned at Sarah and Kevin. “Don’t mind Carl. He’s just mad because they wouldn’t renew his hunting license last year, on account of his eyesight.”

“That’s because they’re a pack of idiots.” He frowned. “Ain’t nothing wrong with my eyes, and I can see fine to shoot.”

“I hope so,” I said. “Because something tells me there’ll be plenty of shooting before this thing is done.”

Carl’s face grew sullen and grim. I’d never seen him look older than he did at that moment. Or more frightened.

The conversation was sporadic after that, and we remained on topics other than the weather and what the rains had brought with them. I needed a dip bad, and I had to fight to stay awake. I was exhausted, that type of weariness that creeps into your bones and makes your eyes itch. The coffee wasn’t doing anything to help me, either. My daughter, Tracy, had given me some coffee and chicory that she picked up while on vacation in New Orleans. I hadn’t touched the stuff, because it made me jittery, and the doctor had told me to stay off of it. But I seemed to recall that it had more caffeine than regular instant coffee did, and wondered if I could rig up some way to brew it on top of the heater. Doctor’s orders be damned. And I was already jittery. The can was down in the cellar’s pantry.

I grabbed the halogen flashlight, clicked it on, and opened the door that led downstairs to the cellar. Darkness greeted me, along with a familiar smell. That wet, fishy stench was in my basement now, although more muted than it had been outside.

I swallowed and suddenly Sarah was there behind me with the pistol in hand.

“Need any help?” she asked.

“Sure,” I said, a bit too eagerly. “But let’s be careful. You smell it too, don’t you?”

She nodded. “You think they’re inside the house?”

“Not yet. But I reckon they’re close.”

We started down, and my joints creaked along with the old wooden stairs.

An inch of water covered the concrete floor, and pretty much everything that hadn’t been sitting up on pallets was now ruined. Forgetting that Sarah was with me, I cursed, and then blushed when she giggled.

I walked around, shining the light into corners and surveying the damage. A three-inch crack had appeared in one cinder block wall. The fissure ran the entire length of the wall, floor to ceiling. The floor was cracked, too, and the washing machine leaned to one side. I noticed that the concrete had begun to sink beneath it.

Sarah chuckled. “I hope you have flood insurance.”

“Reckon they’ll pay up?” I tried to play along, though my heart wasn’t in it. The damage was new, and hadn’t been here the day before. With the amount of water that was seeping in, I’d have my very own indoor swimming pool within a matter of days. The loss of some of the personal items that had been stored downstairs was hard to take as well—boxes of toys from when the kids were young, old photo albums, and holiday decorations. All of it was waterlogged and damaged. The word processor that the kids had given me was still safe, but the particle-board desk it sat on was starting to puff up. That fake wood stuff soaks up water like a sponge.

“You okay, Teddy?”

“Yeah, I’m all right. Just makes me mad, is all. Some of this stuff was junk, but a lot of it was irreplaceable. Wish we’d had an attic here, rather than a basement.”

Other than the cracks in the floor and the water, I didn’t see any damage. The basement still seemed relatively sturdy. We made our way over to the root cellar, which was separated from the rest of the cellar by plywood and panel walls and a sturdy wooden door. The floor inside the root cellar was just dirt and I had a bad moment as we opened the door. I was expecting to shine the light on an earthworm, sticking up from a hole in the floor. But it was clear, and we stepped inside.

“What do we need, anyway?” Sarah asked.

“There’s a can of chicory coffee down here. I just wanted to grab that. It’s got more caffeine in it than the stuff we’ve been drinking.”

“You needed me to help you carry a can of coffee?”

“No,” I admitted, lowering my voice. “I needed you to come along because I’m a scared old man who wasn’t sure what he’d find down here.”

Sarah smiled and gave my hand a squeeze. “That’s okay, Teddy. Don’t be embarrassed. I’m scared too.”

“It wasn’t just that. You make for a lot prettier company than Carl or Kevin do. So I let you come along.”

She laughed, and the basement seemed to brighten with the sound. “I like you, Teddy. You remind me of my grandfather.”

I smiled. “Then he must have been a marvelous man. And like I said already, you remind me a lot of my granddaughter. She’d have liked you.”

“It feels good to be here. After all Kevin and I have seen, this feels…normal.”

“Well, I’m awfully glad you folks are here, too. I mean, I’m sorry about the circumstances, and about what happened to your friends. But you don’t know how grateful I am to be around people again. I was so lonely. Thought I might be the last man on earth.”

I cleared my throat before she could reply, and tried to change the subject. I shined the flashlight beam over the rows and rows of jars. Rose had canned every autumn since we’d been married, and during the Y2K craze, she’d canned even more, convinced that civilization was going to collapse and we’d run short on food.

“Your wife’s handiwork?” Sarah asked.

“Oh, yes. Rose loved to can. I always had to have a garden, just so she could can vegetables every fall. Reckon we might as well take some food back up with us.”

I grabbed mason jars full of green beans, beets, strawberries, peas, collard greens, corn, and squash, all grown in our garden, and applesauce made from the fruit grown on the tree in our backyard—the tree that the rains had now uprooted. The cans I’d taken from Dave and Nancy Simmons’s place were still upstairs, and I figured these would supplement them well. I found the coffee and chicory, too, and put everything in a cardboard box. Sarah reached down into the potato bin and pulled out a few big ones that hadn’t rotted yet and then grabbed a jar off the shelf and looked at me in a mixture of puzzlement and disgust.

“Is this what I think it is?”

“Deer meat.” I nodded. “From a six-point buck I got last year. You should have seen how long it took Carl and me to drag it out of the woods. Don’t know if you noticed, but we’re not exactly spring chickens.”

“I’ll bet you were tired,” she said, and as if to stress her point, she yawned.

“You can go on back upstairs if you want. I’ll finish things down here.”

“I don’t mind. I can wait.”

I grabbed a few more items, and then we waded through the ankle deep water and made our way back up the stairs. The flashlight beam started to falter, and I reminded myself to change the batteries. Wouldn’t do to be without light if those things attacked us during the night.

Could they get in? I wondered. They could certainly tunnel well enough; Carl and I had seen proof of that. But could they dig through a concrete floor? I thought about what we’d found at Dave and Nancy’s house, remembering the destruction and that bright red smear of blood on the wall. Then I recalled Steve Porter’s hunting cabin and Carl’s own missing house. Yes, I decided, they could indeed tunnel through concrete—or at least, dig around it enough so that a building collapsed into the ground.

How did you protect yourself against something like that? The answer was that you didn’t. There was no way.

So I tried to put it out of my mind.

When Sarah and I got back to the kitchen, Carl had assumed watch duties again and was telling Kevin about how he’d gotten poison ivy over every inch of his body after he lay down in a patch of it with Beverly Thompson back when we were teenagers. Both of them were laughing, and Kevin had tears streaming down his face as he clutched his stomach. The sound of it chased my fears away.

I fashioned a crude filtering system out of paper towels and used it to brew the chicory. It was nasty stuff, sort of like drinking hot tar mixed with cat piss, but Kevin and Sarah seemed to enjoy it. Carl took one sip, made a face, and left his mug untouched.

We agreed that it was pretty much pointless to stand at the window and keep watch. The darkness outside was overwhelming, and we couldn’t see more than a few feet beyond the carport. The little worms were still there and I couldn’t believe my eyes when I saw their growing numbers. They were two feet deep in most places now, the pile so high that the ones on the edges of the carport spilled out into the wet grass. The ones around my truck came up over the tires, and were working on covering the bumper.

“If things ever get back to normal,” I laughed, “I’m going to gather those things up and open a bait and tackle shop down by the river.”

“Not me,” Carl said. “After what we saw today, I’m never baiting a hook again.”

I wondered again where they were all coming from and what could be chasing them to the top. Was I right in my hypothesis? Was it something worse than what we’d already seen?

We moved into the living room and talked for a bit more, but the yawns were contagious and soon we were all rubbing our eyes. Exhausted, we agreed that we seemed to be relatively safe for the moment and decided to discuss our escape plans in detail in the morning, and try to come up with some other options. Then we all retired for the night. Carl took one bedroom and Sarah took the other. Kevin sprawled out on the couch and I fixed him up comfy with some extra blankets and pillows. We posted a watch, just in case.

Carl drew the first shift, which was uneventful. I relieved him at midnight. I didn’t want to disturb Kevin, so I sat in the kitchen doing my crossword puzzle in the soft light of the kerosene lantern. I was still stuck on a three-letter word for peccadillo, something with an “i” in the middle, when I heard the soft whisper of flannel behind me.

“Sin,” Sarah said over my shoulder. “S-I-N. Three letter word for peccadillo.”

“Well I’ll be,” I whispered, grinning in the lantern’s glow. “I would have never figured that out for myself. Been trying for days. I’m mighty glad you folks dropped in.”

We both laughed quietly, and then a troubled shadow passed over her face. She stared out the window, in the direction of the crash site. We couldn’t see the wreckage. It was too dark. But it was there, just the same.

“I’m sorry,” I said. “That was a bad joke. I didn’t mean ‘dropped’ of course.”

“No, don’t apologize. It’s okay.”

In the living room, Kevin stirred uneasily on the couch. He called out for Lori and then turned his head and went back to sleep.

“Poor guy,” I muttered. “He’ll live with that for the rest of his life.”

Sarah nodded.

We sat in silence for a few minutes, listening to the rain because there was nothing else to listen to, except for the occasional snore from Carl, drifting down the hallway like a ghost.

“Why don’t you go back to bed,” Sarah said gently. “I’ll take watch for awhile.”

“Oh, that’s all right,” I replied. “I haven’t been sleeping too good anyway. It’s the nicotine withdrawal. Gives me nightmares.”

“I can’t sleep, either. I dreamed about Salty and Cornwell and the crash.”

“Well, I reckon we can keep each other company then.”

“It’s quiet,” Sarah said. “You’d think the sound of the rain would lull us to sleep, but it doesn’t.”

“Nothing friendly or comforting about that rain,” I agreed. “It’s unnatural.”

“So you definitely agree with Kevin’s theory?”

“I’ve been thinking about it some more since dinner. I agree that these events weren’t the result of global warming or some other ecological disaster. As for the spell book he mentioned, it could be, I guess. There’s weird stuff in this world. We’ve all seen it. Goes back to prehistory. People in the Bible practiced black magic. I don’t pretend to understand everything in our universe, but I know there are things that science can’t explain. Call it paranormal or supernatural or whatever, but it exists. My own mother had a book called The Long, Lost Friend. Lots of folks in the Appalachian Mountains had a copy back in the old days. It was a spell book, but mostly harmless stuff—how to cure warts and deworm your cattle and protect yourself from the evil eye—things like that. Folks back then, even God-fearing Christians, swore by it. All I know is the stuff worked. I remember one time, when I was little, we were all out chopping wood. My granddaddy cut his leg with the ax and my grandmother put her hands over the wound, said a few words out of the book, followed them with a prayer, and the bleeding stopped—just like that. So it did work. You don’t see it much these days, because now everything is explained and cured by science. Maybe that’s why we’re in the mess we’re in now—because of our reliance on science. Maybe we lost touch with something else. Our spiritual side. The part that still believes in—and needs—magic.”

Sarah stared at me with a bemused look. “Why Teddy, I didn’t know you were a philosopher, too.”

I laughed quietly. “Only one in Punkin’ Center, unless you count young Ernie Whitt or Old Man Haubner down in Renick—and he ain’t been the same since his horse kicked him in the head.”

“And where are they now?” she asked. “Ernie and Haubner?”

I shrugged. “Gone off with the National Guard. Dead, maybe. I don’t know. During your travels from Baltimore to here, did you see any signs that our government was helping folks? FEMA settlements or tent cities or anything like that?”

“No. There was nothing. There’s not a lot of dry ground left, at least in the places we flew over. Like I said earlier, just the mountaintops. Everything is flooded.”

“And it’s still raining,” I said. “Guess it’s just a matter of time before the waters reach us.”

“Unless the worms do first.”

“Well, I don’t think much else will happen tonight, but just in case, you ought to get some sleep.”

“You need it more than I do,” she said. “Why don’t you go to bed? Let me take over?”

“No. If I go to bed now, I’ll just lay there having a nicotine fit.”

She laughed softly. “I thought Salty had been bad when it came to needing a cigarette.”

I stopped breathing. During his story, Kevin had mentioned that Salty was a smoker, but I’d forgotten all about it.

Could there be cigarettes outside?

“I reckon he ran out of them, too.” I was on the edge of my seat, waiting for her response.

“Salty? Oh no. We raided a gas station in Woodstock that was still above water, and he hauled out as many cartons as he could carry.”

“Huh. Good for him. He thought ahead. Wish I’d done that.” I kept up the small talk and tried not to give myself away, to reveal what I was thinking. Because what I was thinking wasn’t just crazy. It was downright suicidal.

And I was going to attempt it anyway.

I waited a few minutes and then I said, “Begging your pardon, Sarah, but I’ve got to go to the bathroom.”

“Out there?”

“Well, just out onto the back porch. Don’t want to use the carport, on account of all those worms on it. But the back porch is close enough to the house. It should be safe.”

“Couldn’t you just pee in the sink or something?”

“At my age? Shoot, I’d be lucky if I could aim it that high. Besides, that’s just downright unsanitary.”

“Well,” she said reluctantly, “just be careful. I’ll wait here and stand guard.”

“Okay. Be back in a bit. This might take me a few minutes. And no peeking. It doesn’t always work as quick as it did when I was younger. I think he gets stage fright sometimes. Especially if there’s a pretty young woman staring at him from the window.”

She giggled. “I’ll watch through the window pointing out at your carport. How’s that?”

“Much better.”

I put on my rain gear and walked to the back door. The fog was thick and I couldn’t see more than a few feet away from the house. I listened, but the only sound was the rain. I checked the rifle and made sure a round was chambered.

Taking a deep breath, I stepped out onto the porch and closed the door behind me. It wasn’t just black outside. It was obsidian. With no power or lights, and with the stars and the moon blocked out by the perpetual haze, the darkness was a solid thing—a living creature. It seemed to cling to me. Combined with the fog, it made sight almost impossible. I’d forgotten the flashlight on purpose, because I didn’t want Sarah to know what I was doing—and because I didn’t want to attract the attention of anything lurking out there in the night. Now I wished for the flashlight, for a lighter, for anything to push the darkness back.

“Teddy Garnett,” I said to myself under my breath, “you are a damned old fool, and you’re about to get yourself killed.”

I stepped off the porch and my boots sank into the mud with a squelching sound.

“Well, I’m tired of being old and I always was a fool.”

I started for the crash site.

“And I don’t have much of a life left anyway.”

The raindrops echoed in my ears.

CHAPTER TWELVE

I glanced back at the house to make sure that Sarah wasn’t watching me from the window, but I could barely see it, even from a few feet away. The heavy fog and the darkness had swallowed up the house as if it had never been there. I tried to breathe, but the lump in my throat was too big. I don’t know that I’ve ever been more scared in my life than I was at that moment, but it was too late now. The plan was already in motion.

Forcing myself to calm down, I crept through the mud and made a direct line for where I thought the tool shed should be. My plan was to duck behind it, hiding myself from view of the kitchen window (just in case Sarah could still see what I was up to, even through the mist). Then I would cut across the yard to the field.

I’d only gone maybe another twenty or thirty feet when I realized that I didn’t have a clue where I was or what direction I was heading. As impossible as it sounds, I was lost in my own backyard. I’d lived here for a good part of my adult life, built the house and shed with my own hands, mowed the lawn thousands of times—but now it was an alien landscape. I glanced around in confusion, looking for something familiar, some recognizable landmark. But there was nothing. The darkness and the rain had swallowed it all, and the ground was torn up from the worms.

Pressing on, I listened for some sign that the worms were nearby, but all I heard was the rain, beating against my hat and slamming into the ground. It seemed to grow stronger with every breath, as if feeding off my fear. I wandered in the darkness—wet, cold, and afraid.

The insistent craving for nicotine grew worse with each step I took, now that the possibility of actually getting some existed. The addiction had overridden every ounce of common sense and instinct for selfpreservation that I possessed, and the only thing that mattered now was getting to that helicopter wreckage and finding Salty’s leftover cigarettes. I wondered what I’d do if I got there and couldn’t find them, or worse, if they were destroyed in the crash. I briefly considered turning around and heading back to the house, but then I pushed the thought from my mind. I’d come too far already and my body was humming from the promise of the tobacco to come. If I had to, I’d hunt down the worm that ate Salty and cut it open and fish his last pack from its belly.

The worst part is that I knew just how unreasonable and stupid I was being, but I didn’t care. The cravings were controlling me now, and I was helpless—completely under their whim. I slopped through the mud, hoping that I was going in the right direction. The wet rifle was cold in my hands and my fingers grew numb.

Suddenly, I heard a noise to my left, the sound of something striking against metal. I froze and my body’s demand for nicotine vanished, replaced with a cold, paralyzing feeling of dread. I stood there waiting for the sound to be repeated again, waiting to hear that telltale worm hiss, but neither came. I tried to judge where I was and what the noise could have been. If my calculations were correct, then the carport was to my left. Maybe the metallic noise was something brushing up against the truck. But I couldn’t be sure. If it was, then I was heading in the right direction, but had placed myself between the shed and the house, rather than going behind the shed.

Could it have been one of those cow-sized worms, sneaking up on the house, or worse yet, creeping along behind me? I didn’t know.

Rather than standing there in the darkness trying to figure it out, I kept going. Soon enough, the ground beneath my feet changed from muddy yard to muddy field. It was rockier, more uneven, and I knew that I was going in the right direction. I paused, sniffing the air, and caught a faint hint of oil and burned metal. I smelled something else, too—that familiar fishy odor.

I was close to the crash site, but so were the creatures. Which meant they were also close to me.

There was no sound, no hint of movement, but I could feel them just the same.

I went even more carefully now, and each footstep seemed to take an eternity. The stench from the wreckage grew stronger as I got closer to it. My pulse quickened and a headache bloomed behind my eyes. I could taste phantom tobacco on my tongue, and the mixture of anticipation and fear threatened to overwhelm my senses.

Not that I had any sense left. I was convinced of that now. Common sense had been thrown right out the window the moment I’d decided upon this hare-brained scheme.

As I proceeded, I found myself wondering how the worms hunted. Was it sight or smell, or did they sense our vibrations through the earth? I thought back to the first one I’d seen, the one that had eaten the bird. It had leaped from the ground. The one in the shed had been concealed beneath the floor, but had it known we were there before Carl started stabbing it? The creatures that had come slithering out of the woods were above ground, so that seemed to indicate that they had seen Carl. But then the big one, the granddaddy of them all, had come straight up out of the earth, tunneling towards us from below. How had he known we were there? Maybe he heard the gunshots and the helicopter crash, or sensed us walking above him? Or, was it possible that the other worms communicated with him somehow, maybe through some kind of telepathy, and let him know that lunch was served?

And why did they eat us, anyway? Their smaller cousins ate dirt, if I remembered correctly. They drew their nourishment directly from the soil, absorbing the nutrients and minerals and expelling what they didn’t need. Why couldn’t these big ones do the same and just leave us alone? Lord knew there was plenty of dirt around, now that the floods were killing off all the vegetation. Why couldn’t they just eat that?

Once again, I found myself thinking that, while I may have been the smartest man in Punkin’ Center, West Virginia, I sure didn’t know a whole lot about worms.

My heel came down on a shard of metal, and then I stumbled over another piece. I’d found the crash site. More wreckage loomed out of the mist, twisted into sinister shapes by the darkness. The rain pelted it all, clanging softly off the steel and fiberglass. The feeling of being watched increased, and the little hairs on the back of my neck stood up. The ammonia stench grew stronger.

I heard a weird sound then, trickling water, like there was a stream nearby. But that didn’t make sense. The closest creek was down at the bottom of the hollow, almost a mile away—well past the place where I’d searched for teaberry leaves. Still, I looked down at the ground, and sure enough, there was a stream of running water at my feet. I wondered how that was possible, since I was standing in a relatively flat field.

I took a few more steps and then I could see the debris scattered all around me, pieces of the helicopter and personal belongings that had been tossed out by the impact: food, empty water bottles and soda cans, a cracked wristwatch, scorched clothing, a ripped tent, broken survival gear. I spotted the cockpit seat, but it was empty. The worms had eaten all three portions of Cornwell, even his scraps and guts. Even his blood was gone, washed away by the rain.

The sound of running water grew stronger now, and the current licked at my heels. Debris washed by me. I still couldn’t see where the stream was going, but the flow increased and I started to get a bad feeling.

Then the ground suddenly gave way beneath my feet.

I teetered on the edge of a great hole, the one left behind by the worm that had eaten Salty earlier in the day. The water was pouring down into the chasm, and the mud along the sides of the hole collapsed underneath me. My arms pinwheeled helplessly. I started to slide and took a step backward, plunging the rifle stock into the ground to stop my fall. I took one faltering step backward, then another. More mud slipped into the hole. A plastic water bottle floated by and disappeared over the edge.

Hyperventilating, I cursed myself again for being such a stupid, weak old man, driven by his need for a chemical fix. I’d almost fallen into that hole and there was no telling how far down it went. I could have been killed, or worse yet, I could have hit bottom and broken my hip or some other bone. I imagined what it would be like to lie there at the bottom of the crevice, shivering from the cold and the pain and unable to move or see. Would the walls have collapsed on me—smothering or crushing me to death—or would I have stayed alive long enough to hear something slithering towards me in the darkness while I lay there helpless and paralyzed?

This quest was idiotic, and I knew that now. I was thinking clearly again and all of my nicotine dreams had fled, replaced with a healthy dose of pure terror. I decided to turn around and head straight back to the house. Sarah would be getting worried by now. I’d been gone for far too long. I couldn’t risk her coming out into the night to look for me.

I started back in what I thought was the direction I came from, and that’s when I spotted it—a carton of cigarettes, lying half submerged in the mud.

Instantly, I forgot all about dying, all about the worms and their burrows. My fears vanished. This idea hadn’t been stupid or pointless. It had all been worth it after all!

I knelt down in the stream, sat my rifle aside, and pulled the carton from the mud. The cardboard fell apart in my fingers, but the cigarette packs themselves were sealed in cellophane. I held my breath as they fell out.

Oh please be dry! Please be dry! That’s all I’m asking…

I picked up a pack and it turned to mush in my hands. The water had soaked through the cellophane, making them useless. I tried another pack, but it was ruined, too.

Without thinking, I said, “Damn it!”

Something hissed in the darkness.

Instantly, the fish stench became overwhelming. I froze, peering into the mist, not wanting to see it but looking just the same. The creature hissed again from somewhere to my right and I heard it wriggling through the mud. My hands began to tremble and the last soggy pack slipped from my fingers and floated away in the current.

The worm snorted, sounding like a bull getting ready to charge.

Please Lord, I prayed in silence. Please, Lord, get me out of this. I’ve lived a good, long life, and I’m willing to come be with you and Rose and the rest of my family whenever you see fit to take me, but don’t let me die like this. Not this way. Don’t let me die inside the belly of one of these things. That’s no way to go. I promise you I will never pollute my body with this crap again. Even if I ever do find some, I won’t let a dip pass my lips, if you’ll just send that thing away. It can’t end like this. What’s the point, God?

“Teddy?” Sarah’s voice echoed in the distance. The fog seemed to distort it. “Are you okay? You’ve been out here for ten minutes.”

The worm snorted again, and began to splash around in the mud. My hand crept slowly towards my rifle.

“Teddy? Teddy, are you out here?”

It started slithering away from me. I still couldn’t see it, but I could hear it as clear as day.

“Teddy, where are you? Answer me!”

The worm moved faster now, making a beeline for Sarah’s voice. Here was proof that they hunted at least by sound.

So I let it know exactly where I was.

“Sarah! Get back inside the house! They’re coming!”

My voice sounded small and weak, and the fog seemed to mute my words. I wasn’t sure if Sarah heard me or not, but the worm certainly did. It hissed angrily, and two more answered it from either side of me. The ground trembled with their approach.

“Sarah, run!”

Jumping to my feet, I seized the rifle and ran. I ran like I hadn’t run since I was in my twenties. I ran like a rabbit being chased by a pack of beagles. I didn’t look back, and even if I had, I wouldn’t have been able to see much in the darkness, anyway. But all around me were sloshing sounds as the worms gave chase.

The cold air wheezed through my lungs, burning my throat. My knees and calves groaned in protest. I’d been pushing my body hard the last few days and now it was letting me know that it was unhappy with the situation. My muscles rebelled and a fresh burst of pain spiraled through my limbs.

I slipped in the muck, fought to keep my footing, and lost precious seconds, allowing one of the creatures to gain on me. It lunged out of the darkness on my left, covering the distance between us in seconds. Its pale body was obscenely swollen and coated with glistening slime. I skidded to a halt. As the thing bore down on me and opened its maw, I raised the rifle and fired. The blast lit up the night for a second, but then the light was gone, along with what was left of my night vision. The shot ripped into the quivering, rubbery flesh, and stinking fluid gushed from the wound. The worm writhed, from what I guess was pain. Its entire body contorted with spasms.

Without waiting to determine just how much damage I’d done, I set the rifle stock against my shoulder and fired again. Convulsing and enraged, the worm spat at me. A wad of warm phlegm landed on my shoulder, and the stench made me gag. I worked the bolt and got off a third round. Its back end lashed towards me, showering me with mud. I dodged around the convulsing monster and continued running.

My boots churned through the mud. Sweat broke out on my forehead and my breathing hitched as pain radiated throughout my chest. Behind me, I could hear more worms giving chase. I coughed and tasted warm, salty blood in the back of my throat.

I realized then that I wasn’t going to make it. The knowledge settled over me with a strange, almost calm sense of certainty. Either the worms would catch me or I’d drop dead of a heart attack—or just plain old-aged fatigue. I halted again, pointed the rifle barrel behind me, aiming blind in the darkness, and squeezed the trigger. Then I dashed away again.

I stumbled and my foot came down hard, sinking into the ground. Ice cold, muddy water flooded my boot. I tried to move, but I was stuck. It felt like my boot was embedded in a slab of freshly poured concrete.

Something barreled down on me from behind. I cast a frightened look over my shoulder and screamed. Three more bus-sized worms were slithering towards me. I wrenched my foot free and began running with one boot and one muddy sock.

Then, like a beacon in the night, a flashlight beam speared through the darkness.

“Drop!” Sarah shouted, and I did.

Flashlight in one hand and her pistol in the other, Sarah opened fire, pausing only long enough to draw a bead after the weapon pulled to the side with each shot. Brass jackets rained into the mud at her feet. The worms squealed behind me, but I didn’t turn to look.

“Now run,” she called. “This way!”

Pushing myself to my feet, I loped towards her. Sarah put an arm around my waist and I tossed mine over her shoulder. She half guided, half dragged me back to the yard. I felt the wet sidewalk beneath my foot.

“Wh-what about the worms?” I gasped.

“They’re gone,” she said. “Damn things squirmed away as soon as I started shooting. I don’t know if I killed them or not, but I bet they think twice before trying to have us as a midnight snack again.”

“Not those,” I wheezed. “The—the ones on the carport.”

“We’ll have to wade through them.”

“No.” I stood up on my own and held a finger to my lips. “I heard something there when I came outside. Something banged against the truck. It could be another of the big kind. Let’s go around back instead.”

She nodded and we cut through the yard to the back porch. Once we were safely inside and verified that the worms were indeed not giving chase, Sarah wheeled on me.

“What the fuck were you doing, Teddy? You could have been killed. You almost were!”

“Sshhh,” I cautioned her. “No need to wake up Carl and Kevin.”

She shook her head. “I can’t believe they slept through the shooting.”

As if in confirmation, Kevin grunted in his sleep, called out for Lori, and then turned over on the couch.

“What were you doing out there?” she asked again, lowering her voice this time. “Why were you so far from the house?”

“I told you, I had to pee. I guess I just got turned around in the dark.”

“Bullshit, Teddy. You were in the field.”

My shoulders slumped. “I was looking for Salty’s cigarettes. I wasn’t thinking clearly.”

“I’ll say. Jesus Christ…”

We both slipped out of our wet coats, and I took my muddy sock off as well. Then I sat down next to the heater and warmed myself. Sarah stood over me, scowling.

“You really scared me out there. That was an incredibly stupid thing to do.”

“I know,” I admitted. “But at least we learned something tonight.”

“What? That you’re literally willing to die for a cigarette? I didn’t need to know that.”

“No, I’m not talking about that.”

“Well, what else did we learn, professor?”

“That bullets are effective against those things.”

“I don’t know.” Sarah peeked in on Kevin and then sat down next to me. “I hit them, yes, but I don’t think I hurt them very much. If I remember correctly, worms have segmented bodies. You can cut part of them off and the severed portions will still function. If anything, we just scared them off.”

“Well, that’s better than nothing. Hopefully they’re gone for the night and things won’t get worse.”

“I don’t—”

Sarah was interrupted by a dull thump from out on the carport, something bumping against metal. The same sound I’d heard earlier. Then it was repeated.

We both froze. She stared at me, her eyes wide. She reached for the pistol.

“My truck,” I whispered, and grabbed the shotgun. “I parked it at the edge of the carport when Carl and I came back yesterday. When I checked it earlier, the worms were up over the tires.”

“So?”

“That sound was something striking metal, and the truck is the only metal thing out there. That’s the sound I was telling you about.”

We kept listening. Silence, followed by another thud, and then a harsh, raspy voice.

“And God said to Noah, ‘The end of all flesh is before me; for the earth is filled with violence through them; and I will destroy them with the earth.’ ”

We gaped at one another.

It was Earl Harper. The crazy bastard was alive, and having an old-fashioned revival meeting right outside my house.

“That’s in the Bible!” he shouted. “Genesis six, verses thirteen to seventeen. That cunt of a wife of yours wasn’t the only one around here who knew her scripture, Garnett! Bet you didn’t think I was paying attention at Bible study, did you?”

“Is that who I think it is?” Sarah asked.

“Yeah.” I nodded. “It’s Earl.”

“What are we going to do?” Sarah whispered.

Silencing her, I got up and crept across the floor, gripping the rifle as tightly as I could.

“Garnett! You awake in there? Answer me, you son of a bitch!”

Carefully, I peeked out through the window in the door. There was no sign of Earl, and the carport was deserted. The worms were still there, two feet thick in most spots. The old picnic table and my truck were islands in a sea of wiggling, churning, elongated bodies. But there was no Earl.

“And behold,” he continued preaching, “I do bring a flood of waters upon the earth and everything that is in the earth shall die! That’s from the good book too. Old Earl Harper knows his Bible!”

It sounded like he was standing right outside. I pressed my face against the cold, damp glass and stared, but I still couldn’t see him. Earl’s voice was muffled, like he was underground, but close by. Something thumped against the truck again and I froze.

Then, the worms around the truck began to move, slowly rising like there was a helium balloon trapped beneath them. They swelled upward and then started to fall off, sliding back down to the pile of their brethren. As they slid away, they revealed Earl.

He had hidden underneath them. He’d concealed himself beneath their bodies.

When the big worm was chasing us all, he must have made it as far as the carport and burrowed underneath the night crawlers, lying beneath them and waiting until he was sure it was gone or that our guard was down.

Earl stood up and brushed the remaining worms from his shoulders and head and arms. Then he saw me gaping at him through the window and he grinned—a smile that seemed to split his face wide open, flashing yellow teeth and curling his lips back into a grimace. Cheshire Earl.

“I am their priest,” he shrieked. “I speak for the worms! Come and listen to their gospel. Listen to the true Word. The gospel of Behemoth!”

Sarah said, “Oh, shit.”

I took a deep breath. “This night just went from bad to worse.”

But I had no idea just how bad it would get before it was over.

No idea at all…

CHAPTER THIRTEEN

Sarah pressed up against me, trying to see over my shoulder. When she caught sight of Earl and the worms dropping from his body, she gave a muffled cry. Earl began to laugh.

In the living room, Kevin finally woke up. He called out in the darkness. “Teddy? Sarah? What time is it? What’s going on?”

“We’ve got trouble,” I yelled. “Go wake Carl up and let him know that Earl’s back. Tell him to bring his gun.”

“Say what?” He rolled off the couch and sprang to his feet, rubbing the sleep from his eyes.

“Listen to me,” I shouted. “Just go!”

I turned back to Earl. He was wading towards the door and I swear to God the worms were moving out of his way, clearing a path for him, like Moses parting the Red Sea.

“These are God’s creatures,” Earl hissed through clenched teeth. He bent over, picked up a handful of worms, and then let them slip through his fingers. “They talked to me while I laid here. All day and all night long, they told me things. Told me their secrets, Garnett. You wouldn’t believe the things they know about. The worms know what lies at the heart of the maze—’cause that’s what it is at the center of the earth, a big maze. They crawled into my ears and they whispered to me inside my brain. They told me of the things that live under the ground. The things that should not be. He who shall not be named.”

I made sure the door was dead-bolted and then I checked the rifle, verifying that there was a round in the chamber. The barrel was still warm from the previous shots.

“Earl,” I called through the door, “I’m only going to say this once. Go home! Get off my carport and leave my property. There’s something wrong with you. You need help, and I’m sorry that I can’t help you. But I swear to God, if you take another step, I’ll shoot you dead.”

He stopped and cocked his head to one side. That sneering grin never left his face.

“That’s not very neighborly of you, Garnett. Not very neighborly at all.”

“Neither is shooting down a chopper full of people.” I held the rifle up to the window so that he could see I meant business. “Now get out of here. I mean it. Go on home, Earl. I’m not telling you again. Don’t make me do it. I will kill you if I have to.”

His smile faded.

The worms underneath the doorstep parted, clearing a path for him.

And then Earl charged.

Sarah screamed, “Teddy!”

“Get back, Sarah!”

Swallowing hard, I rammed the barrel of the gun through the window. Broken glass showered down onto the worms below. It was hard to aim, since I was holding the weapon lower than normal, but I pointed the rifle at Earl and squeezed the trigger. The rifle kicked and the shot went wild. The flash lit up the carport and the yard. For a second, I caught sight of the big worms, out there in the darkness. They seemed to be waiting.

Before I could fire again, Earl was at the door. He reached out and grabbed the smoking barrel. His face twisted with rage and he babbled nonsense words.

“Gyyagin vardar Oh! Opi. Ia Verminis! Ia Kat! Ia de Meeble unt Purturabo!”

Sarah frowned. “What the hell is he saying? It’s gibberish.”

“Ia Siggusim! Guyangar devolos! Verminis Kandara! Behemoth!”

Earl knocked the barrel away from himself just as I squeezed the trigger again. The rifle jerked in my hands, its roar filling the house. Carl and Kevin ran into the kitchen. Carl shouted something, but couldn’t hear him because my ears were ringing. I turned to call for help and the rifle went limp in my hands.

I looked through the hole in the window. Earl was gone again, but he hadn’t gone far. As the ringing in my ears faded, I heard him laughing in the rain. He ran through the darkness, his feet squelching loudly in the mud. The big worms had disappeared as well.

“Teddy,” Carl shouted, “what in the world is going on?”

“Earl’s alive,” I gasped, stepping away from the open window. “He hid beneath those worms on the carport, and whatever was left of his sanity is gone. The big worms are out there, too.”

“He might as well be dead then. They’ll eat him, won’t they?”

I shook my head. “I don’t think so. They seem to be waiting for something—almost like they’re working with him.”

“That’s crazy,” Sarah gasped.

“No, it’s not,” Kevin said. “The Satanists back in Baltimore were working with Leviathan and the mermaid. Maybe something like that is happening here.”

I sighed, and rubbed my tired eyes. “At this point, I’m willing to believe anything, no matter how far-fetched.”

“Well,” Carl growled. “If the damn things won’t kill Earl for us, then let’s shoot him ourselves.”

Rifle in hand, he started for the door.

“No.” I stopped him as he put his hand on the doorknob. “None of us are going outside.”

Carl pulled away from my grasp. “Damn it, Teddy! Why not?”

“Because it’s not safe anymore, and not just from Earl or the worms. The ground is starting to cave in. You can’t see where you’re going out there, between the darkness and the fog. You walk around in the dark, and if a worm doesn’t swallow you, a sinkhole will. There’s a big one out in the field.”

“What are you talking about?” Kevin asked. “How do you know this?”

“While you guys were asleep,” Sarah told him, “Teddy decided to step out for a pack of smokes. He almost didn’t make it back.”

Carl let go of the doorknob and sank into a chair at the kitchen table. He rubbed his red eyes and sighed. “You went outside? I reckon you really did need a dip.”

“Maybe,” I said. “But not anymore. I’m officially cold turkey.”

“I’ve heard that before,” Carl said.

I shrugged. “You can believe it this time.”

“I recognized some of the words that Earl was shouting,” Kevin said. “Ob and Meeble and Kandara. Maybe a few of the others, as well. They were some of the graffiti we saw inside the Satanists’ building, during the raid to rescue Christian and Louis. I think they’re names or something.”

“Names of what?” Sarah asked.

“I don’t know. Demons, maybe?”

“Oh, come on, Kevin. Why—”

“I think he’s right,” I interrupted her. “I don’t know how or when Earl Harper became a magus—to be honest, I’d be surprised if he could even read—but that gibberish sounded a whole lot like some kind of spell. Like they do in the movies.”

Nobody responded.

Finally, Carl tottered to his feet. “Don’t reckon it’s too smart for us to be standing around jawing if Earl’s still out there and on the loose. We’d better stay awake the rest of the night, and keep a careful watch.”

“You’re right,” I said. “Kevin, you stay here. Carl, you take the big picture window in the living room. Sarah and I will each take a bedroom window on opposite sides of the house.”

“What do we do if he tries to get in?” Kevin asked.

“Shoot him,” Carl said. “And if he gets up, then shoot him again.”

We each took our positions. I stood in my darkened bedroom and stared out into the rainy night. There was no sign of Earl or the worms and nothing moved in the darkness. The house was quiet. Occasionally, I’d hear a rustle from across the hall as Sarah moved, or Carl sneezing in the living room, but that was it.

I was exhausted, both physically and mentally, so I sat down on the edge of the bed, careful to make sure that I could still see out the window. I yawned. My head felt thick and my eyes itched. The headache still pounded in my temples and my body cried out for nicotine. It was hard to concentrate and my mind drifted. I thought about Rose and our kids and grandchildren. I thought about my days in the Air Force, and of the war, and the places I’d seen and the things I’d done. I thought about my brothers and sisters, and my parents, and of my own childhood. I remembered sunny days—days without a cloud in the sky. Days without rain.

I awoke to the sound of breaking glass, and cursed myself for falling asleep. I sat up on the bed just as Earl crawled through the window.

“Now you’ll see, Garnett. Now you’ll all fucking see. Behemoth is coming!”

His hand clenched the broken windowpane and a triangular shard of glass sliced into his palm. Earl laughed as the blood dripped between his fingers. A gust of wind blew the rain in behind him, and something else—the all-too-familiar stench of the worms.

Elsewhere, I heard the others shouting. Their footsteps pounded down the hall towards my room. I reached for the rifle, but I couldn’t find it in the darkness.

Glass crunched under Earl’s feet. He glided toward the bed, wet hair plastered to his scalp, yellow teeth glinting in the darkness. He raised his bloody hands, and in them was the machete I had stored in the shed. He must have broken inside and stolen it.

“We’ve got unfinished business, Garnett. Seaton and the others, the United Nations folks, are for Behemoth to eat, but you—you were promised to me.”

Someone hammered on the bedroom door. I heard voices shouting my name.

“Earl—”

“Save it, fucker. I’m gonna slit you open and gut you like a fish and pull out your insides. I’m going to show you the black stuff inside your belly, and then I’m gonna make you eat it.”

The door crashed open and suddenly there was thunder inside the bedroom. Something exploded, and the flash temporarily blinded me. My ears rang and the air stank of cordite. A splash of red appeared on Earl’s chest, just above his heart. Sarah fired another round, and Earl toppled to the floor. Carl and Kevin rushed into the room behind her.

Carl gave me a hand getting off the bed. “You okay?”

“I’m fine,” I coughed, and prodded Earl’s body with my foot. He lay still. The hole in his chest leaked blood, and there was a matching hole in his stomach.

“Is he dead?” Carl asked.

“I reckon so,” I said, and kicked him hard in the ribs, just to make sure. Earl didn’t move.

Sarah, Kevin, and Carl crowded over his body. Rain poured in through the broken window and the drapes fluttered in the breeze.

“Damn,” Sarah said. “I was aiming for his heart.”

Carl whistled. “That’s still some nice shooting. Only missed it by an inch or so. Remind me to never piss you off, girl.”

“What happened?” Kevin asked.

My shoulders sank and I hung my head, ashamed. “I fell asleep and then Earl broke in. I couldn’t find my rifle in time.”

The bedroom suddenly seemed to spin. I leaned against the dresser to steady myself.

“What was he babbling about?” Carl asked. “Same bullshit as before?”

I nodded. “Something about Behemoth. Apparently, ya’ll were going to be its main course tonight.”

“There’s that name again,” Kevin said. “You starting to believe now, Sarah?”

She frowned. “Can we not discuss it right now, please?”

The dresser trembled against my back.

Sarah moved to the window and looked outside.

“See anything?” Carl asked.

“Nothing. There’s no sign of the worms. I don’t smell them, either.”

Kevin moved to her side. “Could they be gone?”

My legs wobbled and I swayed on my feet. Then I noticed that the others were swaying back and forth, too.

Kevin frowned. “What the fuck?”

On the dresser, the pictures began to rattle. Rose’s framed embroidery, the one she’d made during our first year of marriage, fell off the wall and crashed to the floor. I heard things breaking elsewhere in the house.

Carl braced himself against the wall. “It’s an earthquake for sure this time! Hold on!”

“No,” I told him, “it’s something else.”

At that moment, Earl groaned and opened his eyes.

“Garnett,” he croaked. “He’s coming. Now you’ll see…”

“Shut up, Earl.”

I kicked him again. This time my boot landed right in his groin, just to illustrate my point, and I almost lost my balance in the process. Earl grunted and the air whooshed out of him. More blood bubbled from the hole in his chest. The house continued to shake.

“Look,” Sarah shouted, pointing out the window. “What’s that? Out there beyond the clothesline?”

I turned to where she was pointing and my heart seemed to stop. My skin felt cold.

The thing that should not be…

It hurtled toward the house, a legless, eyeless thing, five times larger than the one we’d encountered before. Its body was milk-white and so pale in some places that it was almost translucent. Slime dripped from the creature’s body, leaving a glistening trail in its wake. It barreled across the yard and rolled over the shed in one segmented wriggle, squashing the building flat.

“What is it?” Sarah screamed again.

“Hell,” I said simply.

“Behemoth,” Kevin whispered. “It’s fucking Behemoth. Leviathan’s big brother.”

Sarah backed away from the window; Earl opened his eyes again.

“Now you’ll see, you bastards,” Earl cackled, blood spraying from his lips. He sat up, grunting with the effort. “This is the hour of His coming. Behemoth! Verminis! The servant of He Who Shall Not Be Named. He is the brother of Leviathan, the son of that old serpent! The Worm from beyond space. The Star-Eater. Behemoth the Great!”

“Shut the hell up, Earl!” Carl shouted. He raised his rifle, drawing a bead on the madman, but the ground shook again and his aim wavered. “Ain’t you supposed to be dead?”

I didn’t wonder about Earl’s miraculous resurrection. I just stared, absolutely transfixed by the monstrous thing bearing down on us.

The worm was colossal, but even that doesn’t begin to describe it. I told you before that I’m no writer. I don’t even know where to begin when it comes to describing that thing. To be honest, I’m not even sure it was a worm. The quivering, jiggling mounds of segmented flesh were leathery and thick, like rawhide.

For a second, I thought back to when the kids had been little. One summer, Rose and I had taken them to Washington, D.C. for vacation, and we visited the Museum of Natural History. I remembered the feeling of awe that had gripped me as we stood under the lifesized replica of a blue whale that hung suspended from the ceiling, and how we’d marveled that such a giant creature could exist on the earth.

The thing slithering towards the house could have easily swallowed that blue whale whole. It was that big. It blocked out the cloudy night sky as it neared the house. The creature opened its mouth and hissed; the sound was like a bomb blast. I felt the pressure on my eardrums.

“Get the fuck back!” Kevin shouted.

“Move out of the way,” Carl told him, still pointing his rifle at Earl.

“Forget about the hillbilly,” Kevin snapped. “We’ve got bigger issues!”

With an incredibly powerful lurch, the monster launched its front segments into the air. It stayed there for a moment, suspended above the house. Then it plummeted downward and plowed into the dirt, sending a massive plume of soil and rock into the air. With a shock, I realized that it was burrowing its way beneath the house. Its gargantuan bulk tunneled into the ground, disappearing from view. I couldn’t see it, but that didn’t matter. It was easy enough to track.

We could feel the creature’s approach beneath our feet. The vibrations sounded like a jackhammer.

Groaning, Earl slowly lurched to his feet. With frightening strength, he shoved Kevin out of the way, knocking him onto the bed. Earl struck Carl’s rifle aside, and Carl took a step backward. Earl’s filth-covered hands clutched at Carl’s throat and Carl’s eyes bulged in their sockets.

“I am born again,” he snarled.

Without even aiming to avoid hitting Carl, Sarah raised her pistol and pointed it at Earl. “Let him go!”

“Back off, bitch,” Earl wheezed, “or I’ll squeeze his goddamn eyes right out of his head.” Blood streamed down his chest and back, and bubbled from his lips. I wondered how it was even possible that he was standing.

Kevin tumbled off the bed, searching for his gun in the darkness. I finally spotted mine, lying half under the bed where it had fallen when I fell asleep. I bent over to snatch it up and a particularly violent tremor rocked the house. As I rose, my head banged into Kevin’s stomach. Kevin fell backward with a squawk, landing on the mattress again.

“I said let him go,” Sarah warned. “Now!”

Carl and Earl spun in a circle, their hands wrapped around each other’s throats. They toppled to the floor, and Earl rolled on top of Carl’s body, sitting astride his chest. Carl’s face was turning purple and the tiny blood vessels in his eyes were rupturing, turning them bloodshot.

I raised my rifle and tried to get a clear shot, but there was too much going on; so instead, I crossed the room, intent on ripping Earl from my best friend’s body.

“Behemoth’s gonna eat you all,” Earl said. “Wait and see! No sense in running. There’s nowhere to hide.”

Carl’s tongue protruded from his mouth.

I stared through the crosshairs, and that’s when I noticed it. The veins in Earl’s forearms bulged, and something squirmed inside them, just beneath the skin. Something long—like a worm.

Moving quickly, Sarah crossed the floor and struck Earl on the back of the head with the pistol butt. Earl’s grip stayed firm. She swung again and there was a sickening crunch. Dime-sized drops of blood flew across the room, splattering against the wall. The house shook as she hit him a third time, and Earl’s grip loosened. His hands slipped from Carl’s throat and he fell over, sprawling onto the floor.

Carl sat up weakly and shook his head. He coughed, and I noticed red welts around his neck in the shape of Earl’s fingers. I knelt beside him while Sarah checked Earl’s pulse.

“You okay?” I asked Carl.

He squinted, his eyes shut in pain. “C-cant…catch…m-my…breath…H-hurts…”

The tremors increased. Pictures and knickknacks crashed to the floor. Somewhere below us, the foundation groaned.

“Carl, can you stand up?”

“It h-hurts…”

“Earl’s dead,” Sarah told us. She stood up and spit on his body. “That’s for Salty and Cornwell, you son of a bitch.”

“You sure he’s dead this time?” I asked.

She nodded. “I can’t find a pulse.”

I considered telling the others what I’d seen burrowing around beneath Earl’s flesh, but decided against it. There was no time.

“Come on,” I urged Carl. “You’ve got to stand up. I know it hurts, but we’ve got to go.”

The floorboards buckled and all across the house windows shattered in their sills. The dresser slid several inches across the rug.

“What are we going to do?” Kevin shouted. “It’s right underneath us!”

“Grab Carl’s arm,” I told him. “Let’s try to make it to my truck.”

“But the rest of the worms are still out there.”

I held on to Carl. “That don’t matter now, Kevin. Sarah proved that they ain’t bulletproof. The truck’s our only chance.”

We helped Carl to his feet. He coughed again, tried to swallow, and winced. The claw marks on his throat were raw and red; angry looking welts that stood out against his pale white skin.

“And when we get to your truck?” Sarah asked, wiping Earl’s blood from the pistol butt.

“Try for Bald Knob, I guess. Pray that things are better there.”

“That thing can swallow your truck in one bite,” Kevin argued. “This is pointless.”

I let go of Carl and jabbed my finger into Kevin’s chest. “Do you have any better ideas, boy?”

Kevin shook his head. “No.”

“Then shut your mouth. I’ll be damned if I’m gonna wait around here while that thing eats the house out from underneath us.”

“Hey—”

Sarah cut him off. “Let’s go.”

She stepped out into the hallway. Another tremor shook the house and she bounced against the wall.

Another bout of coughing seized Carl, and he doubled over, grasping his throat.

“Just…leave…me…”

“Don’t even start with that,” I said. “We’re going to be okay.”

Behind us, the dresser toppled over and the floorboards began to snap like twigs.

Sarah urged us on. “Come on. The whole damn house is caving in.”

We made it to the kitchen. While Kevin kept Carl propped up, I ran to the hutch and grabbed my truck keys off the top of it. Just as I did, the entire house seemed to jump up into the air. There was a horrible, deafening rumble from downstairs, followed by the sounds of snapping timber and crumbling masonry. Something—either the basement floor or one of the retaining walls—collapsed. All of us were thrown to the floor. Above me, I heard tiles sliding off the roof.

Then, Behemoth roared. It sounded like a steam train was charging through the basement. The noise filled our ears, filled the house itself. It drowned out the rain.

“Holy shit,” Kevin gasped, picking himself back up. “He’s right underneath us!”

“Everybody out,” I said. “We’re out of time.”

“You can say that again,” Earl rasped, stumbling into the kitchen. Blood streamed from his split scalp, staining the collar of his shirt.

Kevin looked at Sarah as she clambered to her feet.

“I thought you said he was dead,” Kevin shouted.

She stumbled. “He didn’t have a fucking pulse!”

“Let he who believes in me have eternal life,” Earl wheezed, and took another step forward. This time, it was unmistakable. Long, thin forms moved beneath his skin, traveling through his bare arms and climbing up his neck and face.

Sarah choked. “Oh my God…”

Carl and I raised our rifles at the same time.

“Go ahead,” Earl cackled. A worm fell from his open mouth. “Shoot me again, you bastards.”

Before we could, the house bucked in its frame again and then tilted to one side. Carl and Sarah were both knocked to the floor again, and Sarah’s pistol went off. Kevin crashed into the refrigerator. The kitchen table and the hutch both slid towards me, slamming me into the wall and pinning my legs. An excruciating jolt of pain ran through my entire body, from my toes all the way up my spine. I screamed, and black spots swam before my eyes. I fought to keep from vomiting as another surge of pain coursed through my body. My left leg began to shriek, from the thigh down. I knew right then that it was broken.

Above us, the roof split open, revealing the dark sky. The rain poured through the snapped timbers and the wind howled, buffeting us all. The temperature in the kitchen immediately dropped.

Beneath our feet, Behemoth roared.

Earl staggered backward into the living room and Carl crawled after him. The two of them grappled and rolled onto the couch, which had also begun to slide across the floor. Carl’s fingers sought the bullet hole in Earl’s chest, and he shoved one inside. Shrieking, Earl snatched up a heavy glass ashtray from the coffee table and brought it swiping down on Carl’s forehead. I heard the sickening crunch from where I was pinned in the kitchen, even over the cries of the creature. The ashtray shattered.

The house slid another foot, swaying like a boat at sea. The couch crashed into the recliner and Earl jumped free, abandoning Carl and wheeling on the rest of us. He still clutched a dripping shard of the ashtray in his hand.

Lying in a prone position, Sarah aimed and fired. The shot went wild.

The thing beneath our feet hissed like an industrial furnace ready to blow.

Sarah fired a second shot, catching Earl in the shoulder. He jerked backward and then grinned. Sarah pulled the trigger again as he flung the shard of glass at her. The third bullet plowed into Earl’s thigh. Another quake shook the house and Earl charged Sarah, leaping into the air despite his wounds. It was almost like he was possessed.

Gritting my teeth against the pain, I fought to stay conscious, while Kevin ran to help Sarah. Earl’s teeth sank into her wrist and her blood welled around his lips. Sarah shrieked, dropping the gun onto the tilting floor. The house rolled again, rattling the foundation. Kevin slid away from them, his hands grasping uselessly.

The tremor shook the hutch, and both it and the table slammed into me again. This time, something snapped—I heard a wet sound inside my chest. I cried out in agony, struggling to free both myself and the rifle. Every tiny movement was excruciating.

The floor splintered beneath Kevin and his lower half dropped through the hole. He clutched the broken timbers, holding on for dear life.

“Oh Jesus,” he screamed. “I can see it! It’s in the basement!”

With her free hand, Sarah dug her fingernails into Earl’s face, slashing at his nose and cheek. Skin peeled away, leaving red racing stripes. Worms burrowed beneath the wounds. Earl tried to scramble away, but Sarah rammed her elbow into the bullet wound in his shoulder.

“Not this time, you son of a bitch,” she snarled. “This time, I’ll make sure you don’t get back up.”

Carl rolled off the couch, dazed and bleeding.

“My God is hungry,” Earl rasped, and then punched Sarah in the face—once, twice, three times in rapid succession. Sarah’s shoulders sagged and blood streamed from her nose. Then, twisting her hair in his fist, Earl forced her head down and marched her past me across the rolling floor. Her body was limp and she put up no resistance. They were heading towards the basement.

I don’t know how he kept moving, how he stayed alive. Earl was in bad shape; a bloody, shot-up mess. But somehow, he refused to die. Perhaps whatever was crawling around inside his body had reanimated him. Taken control. Maybe there really was something to the black magic gibberish he’d been spouting before, or maybe he was just being bullheaded. I don’t know. I can only tell you that it was almost as frightening as the monster digging up through my basement floor.

Earl and Sarah reached the door. He gave her hair another twist, and she squealed.

“Sarah!” Kevin screamed, trying to free himself from the hole.

The rain pattered against the kitchen tiles.

“Carl,” I shouted. “Get up! My leg’s busted and I can’t get loose! You’ve got to help Sarah and Kevin!”

Carl shook his head, trying to clear it. He wiped the blood from his eyes and tottered to his feet.

“Come on, Carl,” I urged. “Move!”

Earl flung the basement door open and Sarah screamed. At the same time, Kevin freed himself from the hole.

I don’t know if it came from the open door or the chasm in the kitchen floor, but the stench was overpowering. It immediately filled the house, choking me with its ammonialike stench. My eyes and nose burned.

But as bad as the creature’s smell was, the sound—my God—the sound was worse. That same forceful exhaling of air that I had heard the other worms make, now magnified tenfold. It pushed against my eardrums, making my head throb.

Sarah teetered at the top of the basement steps. “Let me go, god damn you!”

“My pleasure, bitch!” Earl pushed her forward. Her shriek was cut short, lost beneath the cry of the great worm.

Kevin crept unsteadily past me as the floor began to shimmy again. Enraged, he threw himself at Earl and they both pitched forward into the cellar.

Carl made it across the floor to where I was pinned. Grunting with exertion, the two of us managed to push the table and the hutch aside. My leg and side throbbed when I moved, sending a fresh burst of pain that made further movement impossible.

“Where’s it hurt?” Carl asked me.

“My leg’s broke,” I panted, “and I might have busted a rib, too. I’m not sure. But don’t worry about me. Kevin and Sarah fell into the basement. Help them.”

But Carl wouldn’t listen. He lurched away, looking for something.

“Carl, what are you doing?”

“Finding something you can use for a crutch. Now hush. Just rest.”

I glanced around the kitchen in confusion, staring at the wreckage of my former life with Rose. Amazingly, the only thing that didn’t seem to have been destroyed was the kerosene heater. It had slid a few inches, but remained upright. The kettle had fallen to the floor and rolled away, but the heater itself stood firm.

“Carl, just forget about it!”

He didn’t answer, and passed from my sight.

I dragged myself forward to the doorway—each inch that I crawled was excruciating. Sweat broke out on my forehead and under my armpits, and my body began to tremble. The creature’s stink grew stronger—overpowering my senses as I drew closer. Finally, I reached the basement stairs and peeked over the edge, afraid for what I would find.

I screamed.

The cellar floor was gone, replaced by a giant, slavering mouth—at least twenty-feet wide. It sounds crazy, but that’s the only way to describe it. The entire floor had vanished and Behemoth’s mouth occupied the space where it had been. A small outcropping of concrete at the bottom of the stairway was all that remained. Kevin and Earl struggled on this tiny alcove, while Sarah lay bleeding on the stairs. Below them, the worm pulsed and quivered hungrily, the massive throat convulsing. Its mouth was lined with lamprey-like tentacles, each one tipped with another tinier mouth of its own. These smaller mouths opened, even thinner tendrils emerging from them. Then, rising from the center of Behemoth’s throat, rose a stalklike tongue composed of more worms, blind and wriggling. All of the tentacle-worms chirped greedily, sensing the prey above them.

“I found this—my God…,” Carl gasped behind me. Blood still dripped from the ugly-looking gash on his forehead. He held a baseball bat in one hand, which I guess he’d thought I could use for a crutch.

He gaped at the creature below us. Then, without another word, he turned and fled.

“Carl!” I was shocked and dismayed. I’d known Carl for most of my adult life, and never once had I known him to be a coward.

Earl shoved Kevin toward the edge of the pit. Kevin punched him in the temple. Snarling, Earl punched him back. Kevin dodged the blow, brought his knee up into Earl’s crotch and then grabbed the madman by his neck and waistband. With a single, mighty heave, he threw Earl over the side.

Behemoth roared, as did the small worms inside his mouth.

Earl screamed, twisting in midair. The wormtongues stretched forward in eager anticipation. Pale slime dripped from their mouths. Earl latched on to a jutting piece of floor support and clung to it, dangling over the stinking maw. The earthworms inside of him wriggled from his gunshot wounds and burst through his arms and cheeks. One uncoiled from his ear and plummeted down into the pit.

“I—I worship you,” he cried out. “Lord, please!”

“Kevin,” I shouted as best I could, weak from the pain in my leg. “Sarah! Let’s go.”

Sarah didn’t move.

My leg was starting to swell, and when I coughed blood leaked from the corner of my mouth. Then my ears began to ring and my face felt flushed. I knew enough to recognize that I was going into shock.

“Hurry,” I gasped.

Kevin stood at the edge of the concrete and stared down at Earl.

Earl’s fingers slipped on the concrete and he struggled to hold on. “What are you looking at, boy? Give me a hand.”

“You shot down our helicopter,” Kevin said. “You killed our friends.”

Earl’s arms trembled and his face turned white. More earthworms dug their way out of his flesh. “Y-yeah, but I’m—”

Kevin stomped on his fingers. Hard. Hard enough to make me wince, despite my own pain, and despite everything that Earl had done. Screeching, Earl lost his grip and fell. His scream lasted only as long as his descent—about two seconds.

Then, the worm-tongues inside Behemoth’s throat began to feed. At the same time, the throat muscles contracted and Earl was drawn farther inside.

Kevin picked up Sarah and plodded up the swaying staircase.

Beneath him, Behemoth swallowed Earl with a noxious, gaseous belch. Then the mouth opened again and the tentacles began to slither upward, feeling their way across the bottom stair.

“Please, hurry,” I coughed, and more blood trickled from my mouth. Each cough brought a sharp, stabbing pain in my side.

Suddenly, I sensed movement behind me and saw Kevin’s eyes grow wide. I turned around and there was Carl, wearing a pair of oven mitts and lugging the still hot kerosene heater.

“I thought you ran off,” I told him, smiling weakly.

“Not hardly.” His bloody expression was one of wounded pride. “Why would you think something like that, Teddy? After all we’ve been through? I didn’t run off. I just went and cooked something up.”

I coughed blood and nodded at the kerosene heater. “Isn’t that a bit hot?”

He nodded, struggling to hold the heater upright. “Yeah, and it’s burning a hole through these here oven mitts. This thing got one of those automatic safety shut off switches?”

“No,” I groaned, as Sarah and Kevin stumbled out of the tilting stairwell.

“Good,” Carl said. “Then get out of my way.”

Kevin gently sat Sarah down. “Can you stand?” he asked her.

“Yeah.” She nodded, and then caught sight of my leg and the blood leaking from my lips. “Teddy, what happened?”

“I’ll be okay.” I smiled, trying to reassure her. “Been through worse back during the war.”

Kevin stood up. “We’ve got to get you guys out of here. Mr. Seaton, what are you doing with that kerosene heater?”

Carl nodded towards the basement stairs. “Reckon we’ll see if that big ugly bastard likes hot food.”

Wincing, I dug into my pants pocket and tossed Kevin the keys to my truck. I was thankful that I’d put them there before the table and hutch had pinned me against the wall. Otherwise, they’d be lost now, scattered by the rolling floor.

Kevin caught them with one hand. “What now?”

“I want you to go start my truck. I don’t know if Earl messed with it or not, but we need to find out. Take Sarah with you.”

“But what about you guys?” Kevin asked.

“Don’t you worry about us,” Carl said. “We’ll be right behind you.”

“We’ve got to help you out of here, Teddy,” Sarah argued. “And Carl—you’ve probably got a concussion. Your head is really bleeding.”

“I’m fine. Just a scratch.” He sat the heater down.

“It’s not a scratch,” she said. “And neither one of you is fine!”

“You just go with Kevin,” I shouted back. “See if my truck starts. If it does, then get out of here. Go to the end of my lane, hang a right, and just keep on going till you run out of road. When that happens, you’ll be at Bald Knob, where the big forest ranger tower is. You can’t miss it.”

“Wait a minute,” Kevin spoke up, startled. “That doesn’t make sense at all. We sure as hell aren’t leaving you guys behind!”

“You’re not,” I said. “Once we’ve taken care of ol’ Behemoth, we’ll follow along behind you in Carl’s truck. We’ll all meet up at Bald Knob.”

Kevin frowned. “Have you lost your mind?”

“Listen. Carl and me—we’re old. Even if we make it through this, we don’t have much time left in this world.” I glanced down at my leg, and then back up to them. “Somebody needs to kill this thing, or try to at least. There’s no sense in sacrificing all of us, if things don’t go well. Now I’m tired of arguing. There’s no time.”

Sarah touched my shoulder. “But—”

“Go,” I said, and then broke into another coughing fit.

“Don’t worry,” Carl said, and picked up the heater again. “We’ll be along soon as we kill it.”

“Is that going to work?” Kevin asked, skeptically.

Carl nodded. “I reckon so. At the very least, it’ll give him a nasty case of indigestion.”

“What if there are more of those creatures outside?” Sarah asked. “How will we get past them?”

“We’ll just have to take that chance,” Kevin said, jangling the keys.

“Now go,” I told them. “Please?”

Kevin tugged on her arm. Below us, Behemoth roared. I could hear the tentacle things sliding on the stairs, inching higher. The house began to shake again.

Sarah turned back to Carl and I. “You promise you’ll meet us at Bald Knob?”

I nodded. “We promise.”

“If we’re able,” Carl added.

They stumbled out the kitchen door, pausing to wade through the pile of worms on the carport. Sarah gave us one last backward glance and then they were gone.

I looked up at Carl. “You really think that heater will hurt it?”

“It’s worth a try. Bullets sure ain’t doing much.”

“Well, then nail that thing and drag me the hell out of here.”

He nodded grimly and stepped up to the edge of the stairway. “Take a deep breath, you big ugly bastard, cause the next one is gonna burn!”

Behemoth hissed in response.

“Don’t miss,” I coughed.

“You ever known me to miss?”

“Plenty of times.”

He snickered, and then we both laughed. It hurt me to do so, but there was no helping it.

“You’re a good man, Teddy Garnett.”

“You too, Carl Seaton. You too.”

“Bombs away!” Carl turned back to the stairs, raised the kerosene heater up to chest level, and then flung it down the stairs, just as another tremor shook the house. He lost his balance and grabbed for the door frame, but the oven mitts on his hands slipped off the wood. Carl teetered on the edge, and then, with a quick, startled yelp, he was gone.

It happened that quickly.

One moment he was there. The next he was gone, tumbling down after the kerosene heater.

He didn’t even scream.

“Carl? Carl!”

I scrambled to the edge of the stairs, ignoring the pain in my body. There was no sign of the heater. Or Carl. And Behemoth’s mouth was closed, swallowing. Its entire body quivered.

Carl was gone. My best friend in the whole world—my only friend left in the world—was gone. He hadn’t died at home in his bed, surrounded by loved ones and friends, or peacefully in his sleep, or even in a faraway veteran’s hospital. He’d died inside this creature’s stomach.

I closed my eyes.

And then the worm turned.

And screamed…

Bullets may not have hurt it, but a blazing hot kerosene heater upended down its throat sure as heck did. The blast of air that barreled out of the monster’s throat slammed into me with enough force to ruffle my wet hair, and then swept throughout the remains of the kitchen. My ears popped from the unexpected force of it. The air stank of fishy ammonia and burning flesh, and I could hear the creature’s throat sizzling. Behemoth squalled again, retching as the burning kerosene went to work deep within its bowels. The worm’s body twisted, racked with earthshaking convulsions as it retreated back down the tunnel, leaving an empty, gaping hole in its place. Chunks of concrete and dirt flowed into the vacant space.

Then the house fell silent. I could hear the clock ticking in the living room (amazingly, it had survived the shaking), and the rain pouring in through the damaged roof and pattering across the tiles and broken furniture.

I hugged myself, shivering in the cold, damp air, and wished to die.

The next sound was impossible to describe, and there’s just no way I can do it justice. A massive, concussive belch thundered up from far below. It was followed by a rushing noise as dark, dank water spouted up the tunnel and flooded into what remained of my basement. It stank—a sour, spoiled reek that turned my stomach. I gagged and turned my face away. The black liquid rushed halfway up the staircase before slowing, and when I looked back I gagged again, vomiting blood. There were things floating in that digestive stew—a half-eaten deer carcass, the hindquarters of a black bear, a car tire and license plate, soda pop bottles, building timbers, masonry and bricks, the skeletal remains of a human arm, and a plastic trash can.

And the kerosene heater.

And Carl.

Then pieces of the worm itself started to float up: shredded, blackened hunks of pale, blubbery flesh.

And more of Carl. His head bobbed in the soup, and I noticed a sucker mark on his cheek—just like the one Kevin had found on his friend Jimmy.

I leaned back against the wall and pushed the door shut on its crooked frame. It wouldn’t close all the way, and I hammered at it feebly, feeling weak and old and small and afraid. I heard the waters below, bubbling and churning and not stopping.

Just like the rain.

Then I closed my eyes and stopped listening.

CHAPTER FOURTEEN

That was last night. Now it’s late in the afternoon again, or at least what passes for afternoon these days; that dull, gray haze. I’ve been writing all night long and straight through the morning, cramming words into this little spiral-bound notebook. My busted leg is swelled up like a balloon, and it really doesn’t even look like a leg anymore. I cut my pants open a few minutes ago and what I saw made me queasy. The skin of my thigh is shiny and greasy and stretched like a sausage casing. Like I said earlier, I can’t feel anything below my waist and that’s a blessing.

I keep saying I won’t look down there anymore, but then I do. Morbid curiosity, I guess.

At least there’s no White Fuzz growing on me yet. Of course, maybe that would be a blessing at this point. I still don’t know what it is or how it works, but perhaps it would be quicker than lying here suffering.

I’m dying. Or will be soon, if help doesn’t come. I need a miracle, but those seem to be in short supply these days.

I’m going to die at home—cold, wet, and alone. Not in my bed and surrounded by friends and family, but lying on the floor in a puddle of water. All by myself. Not how I pictured it.

But I finished this, and that’s all that matters. I’m done with my tale, my record. My story. Don’t know if it matters or not. Who’s left to find it? Still, it’s here. I’ll put it someplace safe. Somewhere dry. And maybe, just maybe, someone will find it, and read it, and know that I once lived. They’ll know of Teddy Garnett and what he saw, what he felt and thought, and what kind of man he was. That’s the only kind of immortality we have down here; we live on in the memories of those who come after. The other kind of eternal life, the kind my Rose enjoys, exists on the other side, and is unattainable for those left behind—those left alive. We can’t enjoy it until we die.

With great effort and patience, and several spells of almost blacking out from the pain, I did manage to drag myself over to the kitchen door, so that I could see outside. The carport was still covered in wriggling bodies, but Behemoth’s attack on the house had left the cement outside cracked and broken. The picnic table was knocked over and my Taurus was a crumpled hulk of steel and fiberglass.

Carl’s truck lay on its passenger side and the plump end of a canoe-sized earthworm protruded from the driver’s side window. The tail wagged up and down, like it was waving at me.

I waved back. And then I laughed. It was either that or cry.

My truck is gone, so I guess that Kevin and Sarah got away safely. All that’s left is two tire tracks full of flattened worms. While I watched, the ruts filled back in with rainwater and night crawlers.

I keep listening, hoping to hear the sound of a truck engine coming down the lane, praying for the sound of tires crunching through the wet gravel. But all I hear is the rain.

Where could they be?

According to my calculations, it would have taken Sarah and Kevin an hour to reach Bald Knob, or maybe an hour and a half, depending on the road conditions. Unless the road was completely washed out or covered with fallen trees. But if that were the case, they’d have turned around and come back, wouldn’t they?

Sure they would. Kevin and Sarah were good kids. They wouldn’t abandon us. They wouldn’t leave two old men like Carl and me here to die. Not like this. They knew I was hurt. Hurt bad. They wouldn’t just leave me here. They’d come back. When Carl and I didn’t show up by dawn, they’d have come looking for us.

Which means that something must have happened to them.

Maybe they got caught in a mudslide, or maybe they ran off the road or something. My truck’s got a pretty good four-wheel drive system, but would Kevin and Sarah have known how to operate it? They were city folk, after all. Could be they’re stranded out there somewhere and the truck’s got a busted axle.

Or maybe the worms got them. I hate to consider the possibility, but I’d be a fool not to. Are there more of them out there in the mountains, burrowing through the earth? Other than the one inside Carl’s truck, I haven’t seen any of the big worms. Could be they chased off after Kevin and Sarah. Or maybe Behemoth scared them away.

Or else the worms are up to something. Something that I haven’t yet figured out.

Maybe they’re just waiting for me to fall asleep.

The house keeps sliding downward, creaking and shuddering every few minutes. Every time it sways, I feel like Captain Ahab, clinging to the mast of my ship. But instead of a white whale, I fought a white worm.

If I have to—if the house starts to cave in completely, I can roll myself out onto what’s left of the carport. But I’ll wait until the very last moment before I do that. I don’t want to lie among those worms.

I’m scared.

I’m afraid of what they might tell me. Would they crawl into my ears and burrow through my brain, whispering their secrets to me the way they did to Earl? What would they have to say? Would they teach me of their legends? Would they tell me what lies at the center of the earth, at the heart of the labyrinth?

Would they preach to me about their earthworm gods?

The water is starting to seep out from under the basement door now, and it’s still pouring through the holes in the roof. There’s about six inches on the floor and it keeps rising. Won’t take long for the house to flood completely.

My lower half is wet, but I’m not going to look. Can’t really feel the wetness anyway, so why does it matter?

I wonder if heaven is warm and dry. I sure hope so.

I couldn’t find my crossword puzzle book, but I found Rose’s Bible amid the wreckage, and I’ve been reading it off and on, in between writing in this notebook and falling asleep and gritting my teeth from the sheer pain. I opened the Bible, seeking some comfort, and I read about the Great Flood. I read about how, after the waters had settled, God sent a dove back to Noah on the ark. The dove had an olive branch in its mouth, and that was a good sign. A sign from God, telling Noah that the rains were over and the waters were receding. Then Noah knew that he could come out onto dry land again.

That was the first Bible story I ever heard and it was always one of my favorites. I always believed it and I’d like to believe it now. But I can’t. God help me, for the first time in my eighty-plus years on this planet, I just can’t.

So I’m lying here, waiting. Waiting to see what happens next. That’s how this ends, because that’s life. Our stories, our real-life tales, seldom have a perfect ending. Things go on, even after we’re gone, and when we die, we don’t get to see what happens next.

There’s nothing left to say. This is the end of my tale.

I’m waiting for Kevin and Sarah to come back and rescue me.

Or I’m waiting to be reunited with Rose again. I’m waiting to die.

Whichever happens first.

But most of all, I’m waiting for the rain to stop and for the clouds to part and the sun to shine again.

I saw something earlier. It wasn’t a worm or a monster or a deer with white fungus growing on it.

It was a crow. First bird I’ve seen since the robin—a big, blue-black crow with beady eyes and a sharp, pointed beak, its feathers wet and slick with rain. It perched on the fallen picnic table, swooped down onto the carport, plucked up an earthworm from the cracked cement, and gobbled it down like a strand of spaghetti. Then it flew back up to the table and sat, watching me through the door and the holes in the wall.

It just now flew away. Its black wings sliced through the rain and a long worm dangled from its beak.

The rain didn’t slow it down.

The Ancient Mariner saw an albatross and Noah saw a dove. Those were their signs. They were good signs. They brought luck and fortune—and dry land.

Me? I saw a crow eating a worm.

I wonder if that’s a sign, and if so, what kind?

I need a dip. Some nicotine would make this easier…

Acknowledgments

Thanks to Cassandra and Sam for weathering the storms and bringing sunshine on a cloudy day; Shane Ryan Staley and Don D’Auria for giving me shelter from the rain; the Cabal for up-to-the-minute weather reports; Tim Lebbon for backyard bourbon under the stars on a clear, cloudless night; Tracy, Mom, and Dad for The Rime of the Ancient Mariner during dinner; Mark Lancaster, Matt Warner, John Urbancik, and Tod Clark for providing rain gear; and to you, my readers, for waiting at the end of the rainbow.

High Praise for Brian Keene!

CITY OF THE DEAD

“In the carnival funhouse of horror fiction, Brian Keene runs the rollercoaster! The novel is a neverending chase down a long funneling tunnel…stretching the reader’s nerves banjo tight and then gleefully plucking each nerve with an offkey razorblade…There aren’t stars enough in the rating system to hang over this one-two punch.”

—Cemetery Dance

“Breathtaking. Absolutely breathtaking. Keene manages to build characters that jump off the page and bite into you.”

—Horror Web

“[City of the Dead] will force even the most sluggish readers to become speed demons in the quest to reach the resolution. The pacing is relentless, the action fast and furious.”

—Horror Reader

“Keene reminds us that horror fiction can deal with fear, not just indulge it.”

—Ramsey Campbell

“Keene has revitalized the horror genre.”

—The Suffolk Journal

“A headlong, unflinching rush.”

—F. Paul Wilson, Author of The Keep

More Praise for Brian Keene!

THE RISING

“[Brian Keene’s] first novel, The Rising, is a postapocalyptic narrative that revels in its blunt and visceral descriptions of the undead.”

—The New York Times Book Review

“[The Rising is] the most brilliant and scariest book ever written. Brian Keene is the next Stephen King.”

—The Horror Review

“The Rising is more terrifying than anything currently on the shelf or screen.”

—Rue Morgue

“The Rising is chockfull of gore and violence…an apocalyptic epic.”

—Fangoria

“Hoping for a good night’s sleep? Stay away from The Rising. It’ll keep you awake, then fill your dreams with lurching, hungry corpses wanting to eat you.”

—Richard Laymon, author of After Midnight

“Quite simply, the first great horror novel of the new millennium!”

—Dark Fluidity

“With Keene at the wheel, horror will never be the same.”

—Hellnotes

“Stephen King meets Brian Lumley. Keene will keep you turning the pages to the very end.”

—Terror Tales

Other Books by Brian Keene:

CITY OF THE DEAD

THE RISING

Copyright © 2005 by Brian Keene