by J.P Jackson
The chute closed in around him, walls slick with gore. Taylor's fall was broken abruptly and as he lay there, winded and disorientated in the darkness, he was blanketed by a swarm of flies and an indescribable stench that made him light headed. An object poked into his kidneys and reaching back, he examined what turned out to be a thin hand with stringy tendons dangling from the wrist.
"Christ!”
Taylor tossed the severed hand and heard it bounce down a steep slope. He swiped his finger across the torch and gagged when he witnessed the scene beneath him. He sat at the summit of a hill of corpses, a thousand bodies in various stages of decomposition, flies and maggots everywhere.
There was a one-eyed skull at Taylor's heel and a dismembered torso between his legs. Again, Taylor retched while the echoing sound of distant voices closed in. Steadying himself, he swatted off flies as he squinted at the bottom of the pile, convulsing in disgust.
Worm-like creatures squirmed around the outer limits of this crumbling mountain, slurping and feeding from the fringes. The worms were as big as cars, with segmented brown skin and gaping mouths like vacuum cleaners.
A screech of steel alerted Taylor to the opening of a hatch overhead. As he heard the wheel begin to turn, Taylor flung himself head-first down the pile, turning and rolling, snagging at rotting arms and legs.
His head was spinning when he hit the bottom, the torch light revealing the bulbous head of a worm, with blister-like eyes, fatty growths around its face and bristly hairs around its lips. Covered in cadavers and wiggling maggots, Taylor flicked off his torch display, the hatch flung open and light flooded the chamber.
"Shite,” he whispered, frozen stiff as a worm began to pinch at his boots.
Two lions, seeing nothing from their vantage point, leaped onto the mound to investigate. They hadn't seen Taylor yet but it was only a matter of time.
Taylor took a deep breath as the lions worked their way down the hill. Glancing back at the gooey mouthed worm, Taylor took an educated guess. He knew that creatures such as worms didn't have teeth, and that their digestive tracts were relatively straightforward, running lengthwise through the body. Since he was dealing with alien rather than earth-based worm, there was only one way to prove his theory. Taylor closed his eyes and lay perfectly still. The instant the prickly mouth sealed around his boots, he knew the coming moments would haunt his dreams.
Lions stumbled down the pile, tossing body parts in search of Taylor. A numbing sensation overwhelmed his lower body as the worm swallowed up his legs. Second thoughts crept in but with the worm at his groin, and with the lions bounding down the pile, he had no choice. The worm's mouth expanded around Taylor's bare chest until only his head poked from the mouth. The lions reached to the foot of the hill and the worm sucked Taylor down it's throat like a string of spaghetti.
The lions searched the corpses, and finding nothing, they pushed and shoved each other like petulant children, picking up limbs to beat each other with. When the scrap was over, they scaled the hill and bounced out of the hatch, slamming it shut and returning the chamber to darkness.
The worm's stomach was crammed with rotten meat and undigested bones. Encased in flesh, Taylor held on until he could no longer hold his breath. He tugged Bull's gift from his neck and used the crocodile tooth to saw his way through the worm's tough flesh. The worm wriggled and screeched from the outside whilst Taylor tore at its insides.
Slicing and severing, he punched his fist through the worm's sinewy flesh and out into the fetid air. He forced his slimy face out of the hole, inhaling a huge breath as the worm took it's last.
"This might be,” he coughed and spluttered, “the worst fucking day...of anyone's life.”
After pulling himself free from the expired worm, Taylor flopped onto his side, scraped the unidentified slime from his face, and swiped his finger across the torch. The aqua light revealed his way out, a black burrow used by the worms to slither through the ship. Taylor's first option was the hatch, but having no way to reach it, he crawled past the worms and disappeared into the hole.
