The Conqueror Worms

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