The Conqueror Worms

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.”