Inside, Evan cringed. What would it have tasted like, back when he first began to change? Would it have been good like it was now, or barely edible, or worse? He couldn’t imagine, and he felt terribly sorry that Jordan was suffering because of him. But he had to laugh with the Wuftoom. He was learning to laugh, to hide his true feelings behind his fangs.
Two nights later Tret finally declared that Evan was ready to take a shift. It was what he had been waiting for. Part of him wanted to hide from Jordan in shame, but a bigger part was desperate to see and talk to him. What had Evan done to him? What would he be like when he changed? Evan also needed to learn to climb. Otherwise, he would never make it back home.
“Can you show me how you go up the pipes?” Evan asked. “I can’t hang on to your legs forever.”
“We’re not allowed to teach you until you have your name,” said Tret. “I don’t like it, but Rayden would really have my fangs for that.”
Evan had to act like it meant nothing, but during the trip he paid close attention to the twists and turns and to the way his membrane hugged the metal.
Jordan was really starting to change, so much that Evan almost cried out in surprise. He was further along than Evan had been only two weeks before he turned. His face was covered in membrane and his hair was patchy. What was left stuck up through the top of his head with unnatural stiffness. His hands curled, and he flexed them compulsively as he watched them approach.
“How are you feeling today?” Tret asked, folding his arms together. By now Evan was able to recognize the real concern in Tret’s deep rasp.
Jordan sat still, saying nothing.
Evan’s body expanded and contracted, acclimating to the air. He felt dizzy but managed to stay upright.
“Yell if you have any problems,” Tret said to Evan. “We’ll hear it.”
Evan nodded, thankful that Tret was going to leave him alone with Jordan. He hadn’t expected that. Did Tret have some idea of what Evan was going through? If so, he made no sign before he disappeared back down the drain. Evan stared at Jordan, who glared malevolently back.
“I just went through it,” said Evan. He folded down to the floor. “So I know how hard it is. But it will be over soon. Once you really change, you’ll be able to move again, even better than before. And you can see perfectly in the dark. You can’t smell the sewage.”
Jordan stared at him.
It was obvious that he could see now, and from the hate in his eyes, Evan knew he saw every disgusting feature. He sucked in his shriveled lips, feeling ashamed. He wished he could tell him that he wasn’t a worm yet, that he still thought and felt like a human, but he couldn’t, so he said nothing else.
Finally, Jordan spoke. “How did you fall into the pit?” he asked.
Evan thought there was no point in lying. “I was skipping school and I felt like climbing the fence,” he answered, “and I just stepped into it.” He paused a beat. “How did you fall in?”
Jordan looked at him hard.
Evan’s body swelled with the air and he felt colder. He could not let Jordan know the truth. He had to act like he didn’t know, or his guilt and shame would overwhelm him.
“I couldn’t control my own body. It was like I was possessed. And then one day I walked right into it. I tried to fight, but I couldn’t get away. That’s what you do, isn’t it?” He pulled uselessly against the rope. “You possess people so you can infect them, and then kidnap them so they can’t find a cure.” He tugged and pulled, but the rope stayed tight in place.
“We don’t possess people,” Evan said. He tried to keep his voice calm. “And there is no cure. I was in and out of the hospital for months. All the doctors in the world could look for one, but they wouldn’t find it. It’s not a disease. It’s a change. You used to be a boy, but now you’ll be a Wuftoom.” He paused, then thought of something. “We live a lot longer than people. We live for hundreds of years.”
“Hundreds of years?” Jordan screamed. His voice was choked with barely restrained tears. “In the sewers, eating nasty little creatures? For hundreds of years?” Jordan’s hands balled up, then flexed again. His body shook as if he were about to sob.
Evan felt stupid. He hadn’t thought of it that way, but he would have a week ago. How could he not have realized? “I can’t convince you the way you are,” he whispered, almost to himself. “We just have to wait.” They sat in silence for a while until, softly, Jordan did begin to cry.
“Don’t cry,” Evan said, wanting to cry himself. Guilt filled him from head to nub. “It will be okay. It isn’t as bad as you think it is.”
“What about my mom?” Jordan tried to quell his sobs, but instead he sobbed louder, tears filling his membranes. “My brother is dead. She won’t have any kids left.”
“Yes, she will,” said Evan. He crawled closer to Jordan and folded his nubs over Jordan’s crippled, folded hands. “You’ll still be her son, even though you’ll look different. My mother still loves me. Moms don’t care what you look like.”
“You mean . . . I can go back?” Jordan looked up at Evan, his head now a complete fishbowl.
“Of course. Not to stay, but you can visit.” Maybe Jordan wouldn’t be like Evan. Maybe he wouldn’t care that it was a lie. Jordan sniffed again and breathed in. He stopped sobbing, and by the time Suzie came to relieve Evan, the tears had nearly drained.
Twenty
THEY HAD ONLY TWO more nights to wait. During Ylander’s shift he called down in excitement. Evan couldn’t understand the message, since no words made it through the pipes, but Tret understood at once.
“He’s changing!” he cried, and he jumped headfirst into the pipe, barely giving Evan a chance to grab on. When they slid out into the basement, all the Wuftoom had trouble keeping still. They were so excited that Evan realized they had never seen such a thing either.
Jordan was still on the floor, but he had somehow slipped from the ropes that held him, and he lay gasping, almost completely worm formed.
Evan remembered the pain and nearly cried out in sympathy.
But Jordan didn’t cry out. He glared at the four Wuftoom. His body shook and his insides and outsides twisted, but he kept on glaring.
Evan wanted to scream, but he forced himself to watch. He thought this was the worst thing in the world, even worse than going through it all himself. Because this time he could have prevented it.
But watching Jordan go through the change was not the worst thing after all. The worst thing was staring into Jordan’s eyes as, slowly, the glare of the human pupils changed into the white balls of the Wuftoom, and instead of glaring, they began to glow. Evan knew for certain that Jordan was not like him, that Jordan the human boy was gone.
Tret held out his nubs and pulled Jordan to standing. Jordan flexed his new limbs, watching the other Wuftoom with a mixture of curiosity and awe.
Without warning, Evan was filled with anger. It wasn’t fair! Jordan had spent only a few days like that, not two years like Evan had. Why was it always harder for him? These feelings came out of nowhere, or from a place so deep, Evan had not wanted to face it. Wasn’t he glad to still be human inside? To still have his mind if not his body? But Jordan didn’t look sad. He looked curious, even excited. Why couldn’t Evan just be happy? Why couldn’t he just forget?
Jordan was putting his nub arm to his face, feeling for the features, stopping at the nose that was now flat, the eyebrows without hair, the eyes without lids. He didn’t touch his mouth, staring instead at Evan’s, a curious look glowing from his Wuftoom eyes.
“I can really see now,” he said, sucking his lips in. He slowly pressed one leg into the ground and then the other, then pressed his arms together, mixing them, twisting them around each other.
“Welcome to the Wuftoom!” Tret cried. His wide grin showed off his full fangs. He clapped Jordan in the Wuftoom way, nearly knocking him over.
Jordan grinned back.
“I am very sorry for the last few days,” said Tret. “
But you can see why we had to do it.”
“I know,” said Jordan. “It’s all right.” He rubbed his arms together and took a cautious step.
Evan remembered his first steps, how delighted he’d been that he could walk at all. Jordan couldn’t possibly appreciate it.
“You’ve seen how we go down with the other new one,” said Tret, nodding in Evan’s direction. “So that’s how we’ll do it. I’ll go down first and you grab on to me. Next will come Ylander. Then Suzie will follow with our older new one.” Tret grinned at Evan. “Everybody got it?” He looked around the room.
Suzie and Ylander nodded. Tret headed for the pipe, and Jordan followed. As soon as Tret’s head was in the drain, Jordan grabbed on to his legs, and he showed no surprise as he slowly squooshed up and followed Tret in. Evan found it difficult to look as Ylander grabbed on to Jordan and followed them down.
“That was hard for you?” asked Suzie, when they were alone.
“It seemed so easy for him,” said Evan. “I wish it had been so easy for me.” He wished so much more than that.
“Proems are different,” said Suzie. “Nobody knows why. Maybe it’s because humans are different.
“Some humans are born to be Wuftoom,” she continued, when Evan said nothing in response. “We’ve always had a place in the dark. You and I, Tret and Ylander, and now your friend, we’re all here because this is our home.”
“So I had to step in that pit, and I had to lead Jordan into it?”
“It didn’t have to happen any special way,” said Suzie, “but it had to happen.”
“Is this all in a book, like the Bible?” Evan asked. Suzie made it sound like a religion, with people being chosen and everyone playing a divine part.
“It’s not from a book; it’s just true. Everyone knows it’s true. Like we know the sun will hurt us and the water feels cool. You know it too.”
Evan didn’t know it, but he saw that Suzie did. All of them must believe it, that they had a perfect right to do this to people. “I know,” he said. But he would never believe he was chosen. He believed he’d had a terrible misfortune, and he would have done anything to take it back.
Reluctant, but trying not to act that way, he followed her down the pipes. They dropped heavily into the water. Tret, Ylander, and Jordan were already well ahead of them.
“How old were you when you became a Wuftoom?” Evan asked. He’d wondered that about all of them. Did you have to be a kid to be turned into one, or could it happen to anyone?
“I was eighteen,” said Suzie.
“How long ago was that?”
“Seven years,” she said.
“So you were the youngest before me?”
“The youngest Wuftoom,” said Suzie. “Tret was only ten when he was changed, but that was almost twenty years ago.”
Ten. Tret had never had a chance to live a real human life. He didn’t even know what he was missing, being down here. Evan had never had much of a life either. But Jordan, he would have had a lot of fun. Jordan had lost everything now. Evan stared up at the ceiling as he walked, trying to hide what he was thinking. For the first time he noticed a small floodlight, broken.
“Did you do that?” he asked, pointing.
“We destroy all the lights. Sometimes they try to repair them, but we just break them again,” she answered. “Mostly they stop trying.”
“And none of the people who come down here have ever seen you, or any of the things we eat?”
“No one would get within eyesight of a human!” Suzie sucked in her lips in an expression that he now knew signaled danger.
This was something Evan did know was true. Humans would kill them or dissect them. Even though he felt human inside, he knew he could never let one catch him. It didn’t matter whether he was chosen like Suzie believed, or just horribly unlucky. It didn’t matter what he or Jordan or Tret was missing. He could do nothing but slide onward, through the cool sewage toward the Wuftoom cave.
Master Rayden was glaring lasers through Tret. They were facing each other just inside the waterfall, both with their arms melted together and pressed against their bodies, giving the impression of puffed chests. Ylander and Jordan were standing behind Tret. They both watched Evan and Suzie as they approached. Ylander’s eyes and mouth were sucked deep into his head, while Jordan pressed his arms together as if clasping his hands.
All of the other Wuftoom watched from their various places in the cavern.
“We got the proem,” said Tret. “We needed him, and you know it.”
“Without blindfolds?” Rayden growled.
“It’s cruel and unnecessary,” said Tret. “I didn’t let them climb. And our first new one proved himself. He did his job as well as any Wuftoom could have, even better.”
Rayden turned to Evan. He let his arms unbind from each other and rolled them both up, like yo-yos on strings. “You have done well, new one,” he said. He let one of his arms snap to full length, poking it into Tret’s middle. “We’ll talk later. Get them settled in for the day.” Rayden stalked off, splashing more than he needed to.
Tret turned to Evan and grinned wide. “See? No problem.”
Evan had not noticed before, but one side of the cave was lined with concrete cinder blocks. Around the cave, the Wuftoom were carrying them out and piling them in the water.
“What are they doing?” Evan asked.
“This is how we sleep when we’re at home,” said Tret. “Come on, new ones. First day sleeping like real Wuftoom!” He wrapped an arm around Jordan’s back and led him toward where the other young ones were piling their blocks. Ylander, Evan, and Suzie followed.
Each Wuftoom set up four large concrete blocks. They put one down to sit on so the Wuftoom’s body would be raised up in the water. They set the other three up as a back, so that each worm was sitting on a makeshift chair. Tret, Suzie, and Ylander helped Evan and Jordan set up their blocks.
“We need something hard to sleep on,” Tret said, “because when we relax, we lose our shape. If we slept on a bed like a human, we might end up in a puddle. That’s one of the reasons we slept in the pipes.”
“What’s the other reason?” asked Evan.
“The Vits,” said Tret. “But don’t worry. We’re safe here. There’s the water, which the Vits can’t pass through, and two of us are always awake, keeping watch.”
As Evan watched in amazement, the Wuftoom around him began going to sleep one by one. Their heads and backs molded around their blocks, as if they were almost melting into them.
“Go on, try it,” said Ylander.
Jordan sat down on his blocks and leaned his head back. He didn’t seem to be having any trouble with any of this. Why was it so easy for him? Evan pushed the jealousy back. He had to look like a good Wuftoom. This is all normal. This is just how we sleep.
He sat down on the lower block with a splash.
The others watched him with amusement.
“You have to relax into it,” said Suzie. “Don’t worry about letting go. The blocks will hold you.” She sat down on her own blocks, right next to his.
Ylander and Tret and the others sat down on their blocks too. Jordan looked completely melted.
Evan sat there, still tense. He wanted to ask someone how he was supposed to relax, but even Tret seemed to already be sleeping, so he stared across the room. A hundred worms, all sleeping peacefully, melting into their blocks. The guards stood perfectly still at the mouth of the cave, facing outward.
Evan wondered what it would take to kill one. If you ripped off its membrane, would it lose its shape and go melting to the floor? Could you stab it or beat it, or would it just change its shape? What would it take to kill a hundred all at once? Would a bomb work? A fire? What if you took away their water?
Even as his mind turned over these plots, he realized he couldn’t kill them. He had to stay belowground, and he didn’t know how to survive here. He didn’t know all the creatures and what they could do. He didn’t know how
to find food.
Could he learn all he needed in two more weeks, before he had to meet Foul?
It couldn’t be real. There weren’t any Vitflys. There weren’t any worms. He wanted to close his eyes. To sleep and be free of this nightmare. To wake up in his bed at home, just a sick boy. But he couldn’t close them, and the sleeping Wuftoom eyes stared back.
Twenty-one
WE ARE WAITING, PROEM, the voice said. Suddenly, Evan could see. He had never even noticed that he had fallen asleep. Even though five more nights had passed since his first time sleeping on the blocks, he still wasn’t really used to it. The cave was filled with sleeping Wuftoom, collapsed in near puddles against their blocks. There was no one awake.
I’m not a proem anymore, he thought.
Oh no, said the voice in his head. You’re a full-blooded worm now. Are you enjoying yourself? Drinking the pleasant nectar of human refuse? The voice was familiar. Foul.
Evan started fully awake but didn’t move. Of course I’m not enjoying myself, he snapped without speaking. But I have to act like it. Otherwise, they’ll be suspicious.
Helping them retrieve their proem, said Foul. The word “proem” was long and slow and hissed. We think you have gone over to their side.
I haven’t! Evan thought. How did they know? Were they watching him? He thought these things without meaning to think them. The Vitfly chittered in his mind. Evan could not see or hear it, but he knew its wings went flap, flap, flap.
You will not escape us.
I’m not trying to escape you, he thought. I’m trying to get you what you want. But I don’t know anything yet. They don’t trust me because I don’t have my name. I don’t even know how to get back home.
You will have all you need before the week is passed, Foul hissed.
What do you mean? Evan thought.
You will see. We will be waiting with her—The voice stopped abruptly.
With her? What do you mean? What are you doing to her? He screamed the thought as loud as he could think it, but there was no response. The Vit was gone.
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