Wuftoom

by Mary G. Thompson

  Evan’s arms shook. “Why don’t they want anyone to know?”

  “Because there are some Wuftoom who would respond by making more of us than just replacements. Enough to raise a real army, to help us obliterate the Vits! The old ones elected Rayden. He’s gone from Vit eater to old Nob.” The others laughed, but the joke was lost on Evan.

  “They think if there are too many of us, we’ll all die of starvation. That’s what Master Olen said,” said Evan. Tret smiled broadly at him, and Evan realized what he’d said. “Us.”

  “That’s right, but we won’t. We should make more right when it’s time to strike. Then we’ll all feast on their blood!” There were growls of agreement from the group. “That means soon, new one! We’re closer than we’ve ever been.”

  It made some sense, but Evan thought of Rayden’s story. “But if there were too many proems, the humans would notice them,” he said. “I went to the hospital and I stayed there for months. If more people came in, they’d figure it out. And they wouldn’t be as dumb as the people in Master Rayden’s story. They wouldn’t let the dead ones get all over them. They’d handle them with special gloves and isolate them. They could kill us all if they wanted to.” Evan hadn’t really thought about it before, but now he was sure. If the whole town got sick, they’d figure it out. Even just two boys being sick might trigger something.

  “We’ve thought of that,” said Tret. “That’s why we have to get them right away, before they’ve changed. Most proems don’t take nearly so long to change as you did. You took so long that everyone wondered if something had gone wrong. But Olen kept telling Rayden that everything was fine, that you were changing slowly but surely, like he did.”

  Evan processed this. “Like he did?”

  “Oh yes, old Slow Change Olen.”

  The group laughed.

  “It does something to your head.” Tret slapped his head with his nub arm, and the group laughed harder. Seeing the look on Evan’s face, Tret gave him a hearty clap. “We’ll make sure you don’t turn out like him!”

  Evan would not turn out like Olen. No matter what happened, he would not. But something else bothered him. “I led a boy into the trap yesterday,” he said. “How long will it take him?”

  “Oh, one or two weeks maybe,” said Tret.

  “Weeks!” Evan cried. “But it took me more than two years!”

  “We know,” said Tret. “I don’t think we know anyone who’s taken as long as you. Maybe you didn’t get enough remains.”

  “I stepped in it up to my thigh,” Evan said nervously. “It took me a long time to get out.” Everyone was staring at him. A circle of glowing eyes. Evan was suddenly aware that the rest of the cave was still looking at him too. Worms were sneaking glances from every group. Pretending to be deep in conversation, they all watched him out of the corners of their eyes. He wanted to run. But they would catch him. He wouldn’t make it five feet. He tried to smile but knew his mouth was merely twisting into a shriveled, misshapen hole.

  “Well, I like anyone who’s already tricking the Vits as a proem,” someone said, grinning.

  “Evan, meet Suzie,” said Tret, gesturing at the one who had just spoken.

  Evan looked at him in surprise. A real name!

  “We don’t get many females,” Tret explained. Evan couldn’t see anything different about Suzie that would make her female, but he couldn’t ask about it right then because the others were also grinning at him.

  “Using the Boomtull Birch to walk a human into the trap was brilliant,” said Suzie, grinning.

  He wanted to cry out, I didn’t! Olen made me! I tried to stop him! But he just opened his mouth wide, felt the air over his fangs.

  “The Vits tried to get a Wuftoom to spy for them,” Tret said.

  The rest of the group laughed loudly.

  “You see,” Tret said to Evan, “they don’t really understand what they gave you—the Birch. They can’t use it themselves. And they don’t understand us. No Wuftoom can be disloyal once we’ve changed. We all forget about our human cares.”

  Evan didn’t want to forget. He wouldn’t let it happen. But he knew he had to pretend his cares were already fading. He had to act like one of them. He tried to smile.

  “Isn’t Olen crying over the extra mouth to feed?” said the Wuftoom to Tret’s left. Everyone laughed.

  “This is Ylander,” said Tret. “Master Olen’s biggest fan.”

  Ylander grinned and gave a little bow.

  “Actually, it was Olen’s idea,” Tret continued. “Even old Slow Change knows we need to replace the dead. And I have to give it to him, it was a smart plan. We can’t rely on people just wandering down there.”

  “That’s what I did,” said Evan.

  Tret ignored this. “If we could get each one to get one more . . .”

  “How are you planning to get a human down here?” Evan interrupted. “Some parts are too small to fit through.” He thought about how Jordan would react if he was brought down here before he changed. The creatures. The stink. Evan thought he had hurt Jordan enough already by turning him into a Wuftoom and taking over his last few days as a human. And he was sorry for that.

  “We don’t need to bring him down here,” said Tret. “You see, we’ve been working on a place to keep them. The old ones aren’t happy about it. They see it as the first step toward losing their way on the population question. Which it is. But we tell them we’re being extra cautious. You can’t be too careful, even if you’ve only got one proem.” Tret showed his fangs.

  “Where’s this place?” Evan asked. Out of the corner of his eye, he saw Ylander give Tret a hard poke with his nub arm.

  “I’m not giving him a map,” Tret said, then turned to Evan. “Don’t mind him. You’re not supposed to know where things are until you get your name. Which doesn’t happen until you’ve proven yourself Wuftoom. We know you’re Wuftoom already; it’s just an old tradition.” This time Evan managed to hold his position under the weight of the back clap.

  I am not a worm! he thought.

  Just then Evan felt an arm on his shoulder.

  It was Rayden. “And how are these fine folks treating you?” he asked, giving a broad grin.

  “Really good,” said Evan. “Those mice creatures were wonderful.”

  “Ah, the Mifties! You came on the right day!” Rayden continued on through the cave.

  “Even that old Nob will see the logic in it,” Tret said. “Once it’s done.” He leaned his head into the middle of the group. “Ready?” he whispered.

  Suzie’s mouth opened in a grin.

  Ylander nodded.

  “You know what to tell Rayden,” Tret said to the others.

  “What’s going on?” asked Evan.

  “We’ll tell you on the way,” said Tret, and he pushed Evan forward, through the group of young ones. The group closed in behind them. In front of them, Evan saw only a drain the size of a shoe box, slowly letting water escape out of the room.

  “Just hang on to my arms,” said Tret. He jumped into the grate, so that only his head and arms stuck out.

  Evan turned to look behind him. Suzie and Ylander were there, grinning. Whatever they were doing, they didn’t act like they wanted to hurt him. If he went with them, it could only help him earn their trust. He wrapped his arms around Tret’s. Ylander grabbed on to his legs, and before he had time to react further, he was being pulled down.

  Sixteen

  EVAN SMASHED INTO THE WATER. His whole body gasped, and he splashed himself to standing.

  Ylander and Suzie plopped easily into the water behind him. They joined Tret in grinning at him. The membrane on their bald heads rippled.

  “What are we doing?” Evan gasped.

  “We’re going to recover the proem,” said Tret. “Come on, we have to get out of here before they notice we’re gone and come after us.”

  “Everyone was looking at me,” said Evan, letting the last of the water roll off him.

  “All
the more reason to move quickly,” said Tret, and he wrapped an arm around Evan’s back and pushed him forward. “We’re supposed to blindfold you, but I think you’ve been through enough for one night.”

  Evan stiffened. He felt like his insides were shifting around.

  Tret clapped him on the back. “No one’s going to do that again. Not if we’re with you.”

  Tret’s smile was genuine and his voice was warm. But his face was still Wuftoom. A shriveled hole for a mouth. Sunken white eyes. Evan looked down. As they started moving, Evan’s own new face stared blurrily at him from the water. That is not my face. He felt himself starting to shake. Focus on the way, he thought. He tried to concentrate without showing what he was doing. But he felt sick.

  “We’ve set up in a basement with a big drainpipe,” Tret said, “for flooding. The house is abandoned. It’s all boarded up. We saw a homeless man there once, but we shooed him off by growling.” Tret, Suzie, and Ylander all laughed. “We’ll get your friend down there and lock him in until he changes,” Tret finished.

  “But how are you going to get him down there?”

  “That’s where you come in, new one! We got the phone working. You’ll call him.” It sounded so simple.

  “I don’t know if he’ll even remember me,” Evan protested. “We weren’t friends, and my voice has changed.” But he’d done the worst to Jordan already. Being locked in a basement might be better than having to change in front of his parents. His parents wouldn’t have to go through what Evan’s mom had suffered. Plus, Evan could try to figure out the maze of pipes. “I could try it,” said Evan. “I could get him there.”

  “That’s a real Wuftoom talking!” Tret exclaimed, and gave him another hearty clap. Evan was unprepared this time and nearly fell forward onto his face.

  As Tret pulled Evan along, he pursed his shriveled lips and whistled. It was a harsh, rasping sound, but then Suzie and Ylander joined in. Somehow, their raspings went together and mixed into a kind of song. It wasn’t exactly beautiful, but it wasn’t awful, either.

  Evan frantically tried to think of what he would say to get Jordan to the Wuftoom’s basement. “I’ve kidnapped your mother?” “There’s buried treasure?” What could he tell him? It had to work. He took a glance back. He could see the place where they’d fallen into the big pipe, but he didn’t recognize anything else. He wasn’t sure if this was even the same pipe that went to the Wuftoom’s cave.

  They climbed one by one into a smaller pipe. Tret went first, then Evan, then Ylander and Suzie. Something about the smaller pipe calmed Evan. It was just big enough for them to fit through in their full expanded shape, but they had to crawl. He started to feel the water, the way his flexible limbs slid over the metal. The sound of the other Wuftoom breathing filled him. They turned and squished through pipes that got smaller and smaller. As they twisted through forks and squeezed through turns, Evan lost more and more of his bearings, until he despaired of ever remembering the way. And he still didn’t know what he’d say to Jordan.

  “How do you think he’ll react when he sees us?” asked Ylander. “I bet he’ll scream!”

  “And vomit!” said Suzie.

  “He might try to run,” said Tret. “We have to be ready for that.”

  “I didn’t do anything,” said Evan. Why hadn’t he? Why hadn’t he thrown something? He could have just turned the light on and Olen would have run.

  “Oh, I did!” Suzie laughed. “I barfed all over the place!”

  The other two laughed.

  Evan managed to fake a grin. I’m a Wuftoom, he thought. It’s a joke. He held the grin until the others had stopped laughing. By that time they had reached a very small pipe, like the one Evan had first gone down.

  Evan wondered how on earth he was supposed to go up it. Was he already supposed to know?

  “I’ll go first,” said Tret. “It’s important that we go to the right place because it’ll be bad enough being aboveground, even if it’s good and dark. I’ll do the climbing, so you don’t have to worry about that now. It’s something that takes a little practice. Ylander and Suzie will follow you, so you can’t slip back. Now, when I squeeze my head into the pipe, you grab on to my legs.”

  Evan nodded.

  Tret pushed his head, which was nearly as broad as a human head, into the pipe. It squooshed easily without a sound. Evan twisted his nub arms around Tret’s sticky, membraned legs. Slowly, they started moving upward. Evan felt Tret’s legs glue together as they started entering the pipe, and Evan’s arms were glued with them, around each other and around Tret’s legs. He felt his membranes rub against Tret’s. They were tightly pressed like one big worm.

  He felt his head and then his body enter and was surprised to find that his breathing and thinking remained normal. The only way he knew he was all squeezed up was that he couldn’t move. The walls of the pipe felt slimy, yet cool and comforting. He felt the stickiness of membrane against his glued-together legs and knew it must be Ylander or Suzie.

  They were slowly moving upward, twisting and turning. Evan felt the coolness of the walls and the darkness on his eyes, and the movement was smooth, so that he could almost have fallen asleep, like he was rocking in a ship at sea.

  Then his head suddenly expanded to full size. Tret stood above him and reached his arms down. They twisted around Evan’s and pulled him out, his body popping outward as he came. Tret pulled Evan onto the floor, where he lay on his back and struggled to breathe. He felt too cold.

  With a quiet pop, Suzie and Ylander jumped out of the pipe, landing smoothly on their legs. Evan tried to gasp and his body expanded, but it didn’t contract again. He went on expanding. There was too much air inside him. He let out a wheeze.

  “Oh, he’s never felt the air before!” cried Suzie, rushing over to him. She reached down and curled her arms around Evan’s. With her help, he stumbled to his legs, still feeling all wrong.

  “What’s wrong with me?” he gasped. His voice was harsher and more growly, like he wasn’t getting enough air, though he was sure he was getting too much.

  “It’s the air,” said Suzie. “We can stand it if there’s no sunlight, but it doesn’t feel good. It’s like a human holding his breath underwater.”

  “But I was just up there a few hours ago!” cried Evan. “And I feel like I have too much air, not too little. I feel like I’m going to fly away, break apart, freeze to death.” Tret and Ylander were now with him, their lips twisted in the same line.

  “A few hours is enough,” said Tret. “Once you’ve been underground, you can’t go back.” He picked up an old phone from the ground and pulled it over toward him. “We’ll make this quick.”

  Evan sat down in front of the phone, rolling over his rubber legs. It was an old house phone with a cord, so old it had a rotary dial instead of buttons. It was covered in dust.

  “Are you sure this works?” he asked.

  “Try it,” said Tret.

  Evan picked it up and put it to the side of his head. He heard a dial tone. “I guess it is working . . . Why are you laughing?”

  The three Wuftoom were obviously trying not to smile, and Suzie could barely contain her giggles.

  “We don’t hear through the sides of our head like humans,” said Tret. “We hear through our whole bodies, just like we breathe.”

  Evan kicked himself. He should have known that. “I know. I just . . .” He tried to smile.

  “Take it easy, kid. It’s only your first night,” said Tret. Evan gasped and stared at the dial. He was getting more and more nervous. What if he couldn’t convince Jordan to come down here? He tried to take a breath and was filled with too much air, so much it made him dizzy. He swayed a little.

  “We’re sorry, new one,” said Ylander. “Just hang in there. Make the call and we can go back down.”

  Evan pulled on the dial, and it spun out of control. Without fingers, his nubs were too big to fit into the holes. He tried to make a point with the flesh of his nub so that it
looked like a finger, but it was only a littler nub, all misshapen and still too big. He slammed his nub down on the shut-off. He felt dizzy.

  Tret saw his problem. “Look, you have to really concentrate on it. You can make almost any shape, but it won’t last long because it takes effort.” Tret demonstrated by holding out a nub. A long, thin finger slowly extended from it, then slowly grew back into its normal shape.

  But the air was making it hard for Evan to even try. He stared at his nub and willed the point to grow, but only a tiny piece came out. The effort of it made him even more dizzy.

  Suzie thrust something at him. It was a metal rod, half the width of a finger and three times as long.

  “I found it on the floor,” she said.

  Evan pressed it between his two nubs as hard as he could. He didn’t know Jordan’s cell phone number, but he did know the land line. Jordan had used it to call his mother after school. Evan dialed the first number, then the second, then the third, until finally he had dialed all seven. The work of dialing the phone was exhausting. His vision flickered out, then back in. Evan sank to his left and began to fall. Tret caught him.

  “Get it together,” he whispered.

  “Hello?” said a sleepy voice at the other end. It was Jordan.

  That snapped Evan back a little. Without thinking, he pressed the receiver to where his ear would be. “Hi, Jordan. It’s Evan,” said Evan. Don’t ask Evan who, he thought.

  “Evan? Oh . . . hi,” said Jordan. Did Jordan know some other Evan? Was it possible that he actually remembered this Evan, to whom he’d barely spoken two words in all their years of school together? At this point, Evan didn’t care which.

  “Hey, listen, Jordan. I’m sorry I’m calling so late, but what I’ve got to tell you is really important. I know what’s wrong with you. You have the same thing I had.”

  “How do you know I have something? I don’t even know for sure if I have something,” said Jordan, his voice tight and on edge.