The Conqueror Worms

Nancy worked part-time at the telemarketing place in White Sulphur Springs. They were a young couple, early thirties and married for about five years. No children. Both of them had been awfully good to Rose and me over the years, and secretly we’d thought of them as our adoptive kids. Dave had helped to shovel snow in the wintertime and Nancy had come over to socialize with Rose at least once a week before she’d died. She’d come to visit me, too, after Rose was gone. They both had.

Last I’d heard from them was when Dave called to check on me about two days before the National Guard showed up. I didn’t realize how much I’d missed them until now.

Carl put the truck in park and left the engine running. The wipers squeaked on the windshield. “You reckon they’re still at home?”

“I doubt it. They probably evacuated just like everybody else. More likely that a strong gust of wind just blew the door open.”

“Dave would have locked that deadbolt tight before they left. I can’t see the wind undoing the lock.”

I considered this. “Then maybe it was looters or someone looking for valuables that got left behind after everybody evacuated.”

Carl nodded. “Or maybe it was Earl.”

“Well, one thing’s for sure.” I reached for the door handle.

“What’s that?”

“We’re not gonna find out by sitting here.” I opened the passenger door and stepped out into the rain. Cold drops pelted my face, blinding me for a moment, until I wiped them away.

Carl grabbed his 30.06 from the rifle rack behind the seat, worked the bolt, made sure it was loaded, and then followed along behind me. I wished I’d brought a gun along, too. Even a handgun would have been comforting. A pistol is primarily a weapon that buys youtime to get back to the rifle you should have been carrying in the first place, but both of them will make a man dead. And both provided comfort in times like this.

Mud had replaced the grass in Dave and Nancy’s front yard. Our boots sunk into the muck, making loud squishing noises. Carl got stuck halfway to the house, and when he tried to pull free, his foot came out of his boot. His sock was dirty and soaked by the time he got his foot back inside.

I crept up the porch, carefully taking the wet steps one at a time so I wouldn’t slip and fall. Last thing I needed right then was a broken hip. I also didn’t want to give away our presence, just in case there actually was somebody still in the house.

Carl clomped along behind me seconds later, shattering the silence I’d worked so hard to maintain. I shot him a dirty look and then peeked inside the home.

My heart stopped. I couldn’t breathe, couldn’t swallow. Goose bumps prickled my neck and arms and my fingers grew numb. There was an awful, empty feeling in my stomach.

“Good Lord…”

Carl pressed against me, craning his neck to see over my shoulder. “What’s wrong?”

I walked into the living room and stepped aside. When I did, Carl gasped, and the rifle shook in his hands.

The house, or at least the parts we could see, had been destroyed. The sofa was tipped over, the cushions shredded and leaking their stuffing. The television stand and the bookshelves had collapsed and piles of movies and paperbacks lay in scattered heaps across the floor. All of it was drenched. The coat rack and the antique coffee table were in splinters.

Everything was covered in a thick coat of pale, white slime, and the air stank of that same peculiar fishy smell. Shuddering, I tried breathing through my mouth, but I could still taste it—the stench was that thick. It was like trying to breathe sardines.

“What happened in here?” Carl asked.

I shook my head, then called out for Dave and Nancy. The only answer was the hiss of the rain.

We walked across the living room, broken glass crunching beneath our boots. I entered the dining room. The table had fared even worse than the furniture in the living room, and the hutch had been knocked over, shattering the glassware and dinnerware inside. More slime covered everything. I gagged at the stench.

Carl prodded a pool of the stuff with the barrel of his rifle. It slowly dripped off the blue steel.

“What is this stuff, Teddy?”

“I don’t know. It looks and smells like the stuff we found in that hole back at the house. But that don’t tell us much.”

“Could it be some kind of toxic waste?”

I shrugged. “If so, where would it have come from? No, I reckon this is something else.”

He grabbed a dishrag from the sink and wiped the barrel. “You think Dave and Nancy are all right?”

I spotted something splattered across one kitchen wall.

“No.” I pointed. “I don’t think they are.”

A splash of red covered the eggshell-white plaster at waist level. I knew what it was, but my own morbid curiosity got the best of me, and I drew closer to make sure. Blood. My knees popped as I knelt down and examined the floor. Nancy’s wedding ring sparkled in the dim light. It too was covered in blood.

“That’s Nancy’s isn’t it?” Carl asked me, and for a moment I wasn’t sure if he was asking about the ring or the blood. But I guess they both were.

“Yeah,” I whispered, “I think it is.”

“What do we do now?”

I stood up. “Let’s get out of here. There’s really nothing we can do.”

“But they might be hurt. Nancy could still be around here somewhere. All that blood…”

“It’s dried. Been here for a while, by the looks of things. And see how wet the living room floor is, from all the rain blowing in? Mold is growing on the walls. The house has been wide open for some time.”

Carl frowned. “That still don’t tell us what happened here.”

“I don’t know. But it looks like they ignored the evacuation order and stayed behind.”

“What makes you so sure?”

“Dave would have never left his truck behind. You know how much he loved that Chevy. So that tells me that they were here after the National Guard evacuated everybody, at least. But something’s happened since then. Whatever it was, it doesn’t look good.”

“Could Earl have done this? Or scavengers? Maybe those no good Perry kids?”

“I reckon anything’s possible.” But deep down, I didn’t believe any of those things had happened. A roving band of looters didn’t leave behind a trail of slime. Neither did the Perry kids, or even Earl Harper. The Perry kids did things like blow up mailboxes with M-80s and catch sunfish at the pond and then put them in your swimming pool. This was beyond them. And Earl…well, much as I disliked the man, I couldn’t see him doing this. The ransacking of the home was pointless and shocking. Not even Earl Harper would have gone that far.

We searched the rest of the house, but it was more of the same. Every room was destroyed and covered with trails of slime, like a herd of giant snails had slithered over it. There was no sign of Dave or Nancy, nor was there any more blood.

I thought about my dwindling supplies back at the house, found a cardboard box in the closet, and loaded it up with canned goods from Nancy’s pantry: applesauce, green beans, corn, peas, peaches, tomatoes, pickles, relish, squash, beets, and deer meat (I’d never much cared for the taste of canned venison, but at this point, beggars couldn’t be choosers). She’d canned them all herself, as most folks in these parts did. I also took some dried goods that hadn’t been opened, a couple boxes of wooden matches, a few dog-eared paperbacks, and a six- pack of bottled spring water. There was plenty of fresh water falling from the sky, but I didn’t relish the thought of drinking it just yet.

Carl found the key to Dave’s gun cabinet and took a box of 30.06 shells. I searched for some tobacco— cigarettes, cigars, chew—it didn’t matter what, or a pack of that gum for people who want to quit smoking, but the house was nicotine free, and I gave up in frustration, cursing a blue streak.

I fished out my wallet and left some crumpled bills on the kitchen counter, along with a note explaining what we’d taken, but I didn’t really expect that Dave or Nancy would ever return to find it.

My eyes kept coming back to that stark splash of blood.

We closed the door behind us as we left. Then we plodded back to the truck, climbed in, wiped the water from our faces, and continued on our way.