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