by Tim Curran
They brushed over Stern’s face, licking at his eyes and cheeks, exploring the cavities of his nostrils and sliding between his lips.
Oh, dear God, Cohan thought. It’s tasting him, it’s goddamn well tasting him.
But was it? Could the thing even taste? Maybe it was something else. Maybe there were chemoreceptors on the tongues. Maybe they were general sensory organs.
It was at this point, as he watched those pink tendrils looping over Stern’s mad staring face, that Cohan lost control of his bladder. He felt hot piss run down his legs and drain inside his suit. And as he did so, biting down on his lip to keep from crying out, something happened. The smell of urine was more than obvious to Cohan himself who trembled in his shame… but the worm sensed it, too. Its split-open bulb-head rose and pointed in Cohan’s direction, those pink tendrils waving in the air like fingers.
Then, thank God, it turned its attention back to Stern.
The abdomen of Stern’s suit was ripped, and the worm saw this as a perfect invitation. It squeezed itself into the aperture and Stern began to convulse. There was a moist ripping sound and the worm’s body began to contract like sinewy muscle, expanding and deflating, making the most horrible gulping and slobbering sounds. In the light of the fires, Cohan saw that its segments began to go from that phosphorescent white to dull pink as it fed. It didn’t bother parasitizing Stern because he was wounded and of no use as a host. Then it slid itself back out of him, its bulb-head pulling back with red strings of tissue, its mouth packed with fleshy ropes of undigested meat, filaments of ooze and bile hanging free.
It fed upon him with slurping noises for the next ten minutes until it was gorged with blood and pink as uncooked meat, then swam back amongst the bodies.
Trembling, Cohan waited his turn.
He heard slithering sounds. Two then three, then five, six, and seven more worms rose up amongst the bodies. Some were small, but others were huge like the one that fed on Stern. They rose up together and reached their head-bulbs skyward, seeming to move in tandem with some uncanny rhythm like deep-sea kelp in a current. Then they dove at the bodies, more of them rising by the moment, until the corpse heaps seemed to be covered in roping, noodly forms that suckered themselves to throats and bellies, ingesting blood and flesh, gorging themselves until their segments were bloated and glossy pink.
After a time, they retreated.
And, again, Cohan waited.
He figured he was mad by that point and even if he somehow managed to get out of this he would never be right again. Like his Great Uncle Sol who had survived the Auschwitz death-camp…he had lived, but his mind was never right again, always seeing Nazis lurking in every shadow. Cohan figured that’s how it would be with him. He would never stop seeing this night, he would never close his eyes without seeing the spiraling shapes of worms coming at him.
You’ll die every day for the rest of your life, or you can die quickly right now, he told himself.
He moved then.
He reached down for his knife. Laying not too far away was an assault rifle, the Imi Tavor TAR-21. He would die tonight but he would inflict damage. Trying to move cautiously and quietly, he reached a hand over and gripped the rifle. He would charge. He would counterattack. He would blaze a trail right through those worm people that blocked his way. Maybe he would make it. Maybe he would live to find a life haunted by the memory of this night. And maybe he would escape only to be gunned down by Fedayeen youths.
No matter.
He would do this, he would—
What is that? The worms?
From the shadows something was coming and not just one thing but many. He could not see them; not yet. But they were coming and from all directions. Cohan pulled himself up into a firing stance. And that’s when he saw—people. Things that had once been people. They undulated on their bellies, crawling sacs inching in his direction in imitation of their masters. They were creeping at him in waves. Too many. There couldn’t be that many…they were clustered around him, snaking things with wide mouths and limbs dragging like vestigial appendages.
Something had happened here.
Some grim and monstrous mutation had taken place. These were not people: they were creeping, slavering horrors slithering at him to feed, to glut themselves on his blood.
When they got close enough that he could see their yellow faces and lidless eyes, their oval lamprey mouths, Cohan let out a scream and brought the TAR-21 up to deal death.
Click.
Click-click.
The rifle was empty. Wasn’t it the final indignity in a night of the same? As those faces neared him, mouths opening and closing to reveal tiny hooked, grasping teeth, Cohan felt something warm and wet break inside him and he knew it was his sanity running like the yolk of an egg. He began to giggle uncontrollably.
When the worm-things were but inches away from him and he was giggling so loudly that it filled the night and drool hung from his grinning mouth, he pulled the knife and quickly, expertly slit his own throat. When they fell on him, he was still smiling. From two bloody sets of lips.
CHICAGO, NORTH SHORE:
EN ROUTE 7:32 P.M.
As he made his way back into the city from Elmwood Park, Gabe Hebberman began to get a very bad feeling. Martial law would be in effect at midnight, yes, but that was hours away and he was amazed at the lack of traffic and commerce on the streets. It seemed since that morning that it had been cut in half. And was that because of the troops in the streets or general fear… or was it something more? The parasite outbreak? Some six people failed to show up for work that morning and he did not like it. These were omens and he read them as being bad ones.
But was the outbreak moving that fast?
He had no answers. The country had no answers. Every newspaper and news network were working overtime to get some facts so they could scoop their rivals, but facts were hard to come by. Facts weren’t something that Gabe’s publications obsessed over, of course. They were basically selling entertainment to the masses. But even tabloids needed something, some basic truths to exploit or distort completely out of shape.
What exactly are these parasites? And how fast would they spread? What protection is there from them?
That’s what every journalist in the country wanted to know. There were plenty of rumors making the rounds and some were pretty good ones, they had plenty of meat on them, but Gabe knew he had to step very lightly. If he went for the throat like he wanted to—Harry Niles, God bless him, was so very good at that—then he raised the risk of pissing off the military government which were running everything now. News was being very carefully censored. And if he started printing some of the good juicy gossip out there, he’d probably get shut down. Inciting a riot or something. He’d already been warned by the Army PR guy.
But martial law or no martial law, didn’t people have a right to some kind of information?
Thus far, Gabe’s contacts were saying it was everything from cooties to crotch rot. The one making the rounds again and again was the story of worms. Parasitic worms. The reality of that was a horror beyond horrors, but for a tabloid…good Lord, it was manna. Even the Jews in the wilderness had not eaten so well as Gabe’s publications would if he could just put out some worm stories. Oh, he could see it his mind: U.S. INVADED BY TERROR WORMS or WORM HORROR INFESTS THE NATION. Gah! So revolting it was perfection. Add to that government conspiracies and cover-ups… oh boy, it was heaven sent, it was truly heaven sent.
But as tasty as all that was, there was also the reality which was the sting at the heart of the beast: parasites. The military government had not declared that anyone should hide away or avoid contact with others—but it was coming, Gabe’s sources said—but people were doing it anyway by the looks of the streets. Unless, it was not paranoia keeping them indoors but actually infestation and if that was the case—
There it is again.
There was a blue sedan following him and he had seen it two or three times that day. Not g
ood. Had he broken some directive? Were they hoping he’d lead them to Harry and Shawna? Well, so sorry. He knew nothing.
Shit!
A truck came barreling out of a side street and crossed Grand Avenue going right through a stop sign. Gabe hit the brakes on his Lexus but it was too late. There was impact. The sound of his own cries. Shattering glass and blaring horns. The Lexus spun around, hopped the curb and came to a rest.
Gabe opened his eyes, blinking at the spider-webbing of shattered glass where his windshield had once been.
Oh boy.
He expected people to be surrounding the car as they always did in such situations, but it was no soap today. Gabe sighed, massaged the strain in his neck and popped the seatbelt. He was unbroken. That was the important thing. His door was jammed and he couldn’t get it open. He crawled across the seat to the passenger side door… and the door was opened for him. Two thick-necked men were standing there. They were huge and bristling with matching crewcuts. They looked like NFL linemen squeezed into cheap suits.
“Thank God,” he said as they helped him out.
“Are you all right?” one of the men asked.
“Yes… yes, I think so.”
Gabe stood up, stretching his neck. That’s when he saw the blue sedan parked at the curb. These were the men that had been following him. He knew better than to ask any questions about that. He would treat them as if they were just a couple of interested bystanders. As he looked around, he noticed that while there were a few people watching, they were doing it from a distance as if they dared not get too close. That was disturbing. It was also disturbing that the truck that hit him was also gone.
Just a hit and run.
But why was he finding that so hard to believe?
“You’d better come with us, Mr. Hebberman,” said one of them. “We’ll take you somewhere to get that neck looked at.”
“Oh, it’s not so bad. I think I’ll wait for the police.”
“I’m afraid I’ll have to insist,” the man said.
“Ah, it’s like that, is it? You know my name, you follow me around all day… and now you want to take me to some undisclosed location?”
“Please, Mr. Hebberman. Don’t make this harder than it has to be.”
Gabe knew he was going. There was no earthly way he could elude these two men. And it wasn’t just a matter of age but condition. These men were powerful, athletic, and probably dangerous… still, he knew he had to buy himself some time. Even in the desolation of the city, the police would show, sooner or later. “All right, all right,” he told them. “But first, please show me some identification. If you’re going to abduct me, then have the decency to explain to me why that is and by what authority you’re doing it.”
“We’re doing it by authority of the Department of Homeland Security,” the man said. He let Gabe see his ID card. “Now, Please, come with us.”
“Is this about Harry Niles again?”
“I wouldn’t know. I was only told to bring you in.”
Gabe shook his head. “You know, this whole thing is amateurish. I hope you realize that, son. The truck hitting me and all that. You could have been a little more imaginative.”
The man looked to his associate who emoted like a block of granite.
“Mr. Hebberman. We don’t have time for this.”
“Maybe you should make time.”
“Not today.” He hooked Gabe by the elbow and when Gabe fought against him, the other guy pulled out an injector gun and shot Gabe in the throat. Gabe went limp and they dragged him to their car. By the time the police arrived, they were long gone.
As they drove, the guy with the injector gun said, “I guess he’s going to the Warehouse.”
“Yes, he is.”
“Too bad. Seemed like a nice old guy, too.”
CHICAGO, WEST TOWN:
WICKER PARK, 7:57 P.M.
"So you kill people for a living.”
Not a question nor an accusation really; just a statement. Stein had just finished laying out the skein of events that brought him to the mall where he had most assuredly pulled Shawna Geddes’ fat out of the fire. He left nothing out. The country was moving closer to absolute anarchy day by day and he saw no reasons to be the keeper of dark truths and state secrets any longer. No sense in protecting the people that wanted him dead. After he got out of the mall, he had driven her to a safe house that was known to him and him only. It was a place to lay low until the heat cooled, if it ever did.
“I’m… was… a security consultant.”
“Ah. I see. Not an assassin, a security consultant.”
“That was my official title.”
“That’s like calling a whore a pleasure consultant.”
Stein bristled even though he knew she was more or less correct. “Whether you agree with what I did for a living or not, Miss Geddes, the least you can do is accept the fact that I got you out. That I knew what I was doing was wrong and I exited. I don’t expect you to fall to your knees and worship me, but the least you can fucking do is maybe be a little appreciative that I saved your life.”
She nodded. “Call me Shawna please.”
“Shawna.”
“I’m not unappreciative, Mr. Stein. I just don’t know what to believe or who to believe anymore. You say you pulled me out of there for purely altruistic reasons. If that’s true, then you’re a hero. You have my respect and loyalty,” she explained, dragging off a cigarette slowly and purposefully. “But, you have to understand that who you are and what you do scares the shit out of me. Until a few days ago, I thought guys like you existed only in novels and movies. And the fact that you worked for Blackpool…”
There was always a stigma with that, he knew. It was the very reason Blackpool had changed its name to XI: to avoid certain associations with human rights violations, torture sessions, and assassinations carried out while it was a military contractor during the Iraq War. Not that changing the name could wash the blood from its hands or alter its particularly dark corporate image.
“I wasn’t involved in any of that stuff.”
“But you openly admit you murdered American veterans.”
“Yes. They were infected. They had to be eradicated.”
Jesus, he’d actually said it. Eradicated. It scared him that the Old Man was speaking through him. It was like he was channeling that fucking monster.
“I like that,” Shawna said. “Eradicated. It’s very neat and clean.”
“Sarcasm duly noted and understood.”
They sat in the living room of a little house on Campbell Avenue and listened to cars passing outside, just watching each other. Stein was beginning to wonder why he’d bothered with any of this. He’d didn’t expect her to go down on her knees before him or anything like that, but he did expect a little gratitude. He couldn’t imagine hiding out with her here in this place for an undisclosed period of time and having to fend off her accusations and contempt.
“So what happens now?” she asked him.
“That’s up to you.”
She didn’t seem to believe that. “What if I just leave?”
“Then you leave. Walk out the door.”
“And you’ll let me?”
He shrugged. “Listen, lady. I saved your bacon. That’s it. You want to throw your ass in harm’s way again then please do so. You’re not a prisoner.” She kept staring at him with complete suspicion and mistrust. Then he got it. “I see, you think this is part of some ongoing conspiracy? That I brought you here to turn you over to them? Well, that’s fucking foolish and if you use your brain for a minute and consider what happened at the mall I think you’ll realize that.” He stood up and stepped over to her, towering above her. “I killed two people to get you out of there and injured a third. You think the people I work for would sacrifice their own like that just to set you up so I could grab you when they already had you?”
For Shawna, ridding herself of the suspicion did not come easy. “I guess it doesn’t mak
e much sense.”
“No, it doesn’t. And while we’re on the subject, Shawna, I think your attitude is bullshit. And the idea that I’m somehow holding you prisoner here is insulting. Leave, okay? Walk out the door. Do me a favor.”
She stood up and walked past him, stormed past him actually like a brat that had just gotten a good, but much needed, scolding. He heard the front door open and close.
He sat back down.
She left her cigarettes, so he helped himself to one. He allowed himself one a day. No more, no less. As he sat there smoking, he figured this was the part in a sit-com where the character knows the person who just left was coming back and they count to five and they come right back through the door. He wouldn’t have been surprised. For, really, where the hell was she going to go? She didn’t strike him as the type that could go undercover and accept the deprivations of that sort of life. She was very attractive, had a way of using that via body language that she probably wasn’t even aware of it was so ingrained in her. She was probably used to having men fawn over her. If he had to peg her, he would have said she was a rich man’s toy: used to being handled gently and getting her way. Well, that wasn’t going to happen here. He wasn’t going to chase after her. He hoped she’d go and stay gone. Last thing he needed was to be watching out for a headstrong woman who considered him to be nothing but a low-life killer.
I don’t need it, he thought.
About the time he finished his cigarette, she came back through the doorway.
“I don’t have anywhere to go.”
“Figured as much.”
“Can I stay?” Pouting now.
“Suit yourself. But get rid of the attitude. We’re not going to get along if you don’t.”
She just nodded. “Where do you think they took Harry?”
