The Conqueror Worm

by Ambrose Ibsen

  Relics of the old world, rendered inert by the disaster.

  Most importantly, laying before the hearth, panting, was a young man with thin black hair and a sickly frame. He was bound in several blankets like a mummy, and in the firelight the thin, blue vessels running beneath his skin were plainly visible. His breathing was ragged, lips were cracked not unlike his mother's, and the movements he made were utterly feeble.

  Kneeling down beside the boy, the priest reached out and laid a hand on the stack of blankets he wore. "Hello, there. You're Cesare, I take it? My name is Father McGregor. Your mother tells me you're very ill."

  The boy opened his eyes narrowly, taking in the priest with seeming confusion. "Who... who are you?"

  "Has he been eating and drinking?" asked the priest to Gianna, who was now standing in the hallway between the living room and kitchen. He touched the boy's forehead, finding it clammy. "How long has he been sick?"

  Gianna set her laundry down atop a dusty brown table and then walked over to a rocking chair. Sitting down, she looked to her son, to the fire, and shook her head. "It's been some time. His brother was the first to come down with this illness, and he passed on just before winter. His father was next―my husband―and he's been some months gone. Shortly thereafter, Cesare came down with similar symptoms. He seems to be wasting away." She rubbed her thin hands together, her long fingers appearing positively skeletal in the firelight. "There is not a good deal of food to be found in this area, and we are seemingly the last people in this village. Now and then we are lucky enough to happen upon an animal for meat, but the plants here are not particularly edible. Some are even poisonous. I've... I've done my best to keep him fed."

  The priest nodded, returning to the child. "I'm sorry to hear you've been sick, Cesare. We'll see if I can't get to the bottom of it. In the meantime, let us pray." He drew one of the child's hands, weak and trembling, from the nest of covers. Temporarily dumbstruck by the fragility of the boy's grasp, he sat down on the floor and uttered a quiet series of prayers.

  When the priest had completed his prayer, Gianna stood and started into the kitchen. "Incidentally, when you appeared, I was going to prepare our nightly meal. Can I interest you in something to eat, father?"

  "No, thank you," was the priest's reply. "I'm in the middle of a brief fast, but I thank you for your hospitality." Despite his gnawing hunger, he could not bring himself to partake of the rations of this starving family, and filled with pity, he instead began digging through his own bag, offering up a loaf of tough bread he'd gotten from the man in Florence. "Please," he offered to the woman, "eat. I have more than enough to share."

  “A-are you sure?” she asked demurely, eyeing the bread with wonder. It had probably been many months since she'd eaten anything like it. When the priest held the loaf out to her, she snatched it up, squeezing it in disbelief. “M-my God... it's real. It's real bread. Cesare, look... we... we have bread!”

  The gusto with which Gianna devoured the bread was a sight to behold. Cradling the loaf as though it were a child, she stationed herself beside her son and wept as she ate, breaking off small pieces and dampening them with her saliva so that the youth might eat without choking. She chased single crumbs with her quaking fingertips and thanked the priest profusely. Even the boy, who'd hitherto shown little in the way of strength, seemed roused by the food.

  “Thank you,” she said repeatedly.

  “It's my pleasure,” assured the priest.

  When the loaf had been consumed in its entirety, the woman set about preparing a second course for their dinner. Disappearing into the dark kitchen, she returned with two palm-sized chunks of preserved meat, which she brought to the hearth and warmed on large wooden skewers. When it had been cooked through, she sat beside her son and raised him up on her lap, feeding him small bites which he routinely spat out.

  "Cesare," she said, bringing the meat to her son's lips, "you must eat. If you want to regain your strength, you must eat!"

  The boy fidgeted, kept his mouth shut, and pulled away from her feebly whenever she tried to feed him. Unlike with the bread, he showed no interest in the meat. "I don't want it!" he cried. "I've had enough!"

  “I don't think he has the stomach to digest something like this,” said Gianna, allowing her son to lay back down. “He's been refusing to eat meat for some time now.” Looking down at the two portions, she extended the offer to the priest once again, and when he refused, she helped herself to both pieces, scarfing them down in a matter of minutes with great relish.

  Outside, the night had set in. The window, fronted only by a screen, admitted a brisk wind that played tricks with the fire and sent it sputtering. Shadows jumped across the walls and Gianna quickly added more kindling from a small pile in the corner. Then, from a large jug that'd once been used for milk, she poured water into a pot and set it over the fire till it boiled. The priest did accept a cup of water and sat sipping it against the wall while the boy passed into a light sleep and Gianna rocked in her chair.

  After a long silence, Gianna drew in a shaky breath and looked to the priest. "Why has this happened?" She pointed out the window. "Why has the world been given over to such suffering?"

  Ossian knew better than to ask such questions. To him, the coronal mass ejection that'd ruined the world's power grids and sent mankind reeling was the work of God, and to ask "why" was not his business. "The Lord has His reasons," replied the priest. "There is immense suffering in this world, it is true, but the reasons for this calamity are not something we need concern ourselves with. Now is the time for faith. Some day the world will heal from this, and the faithful will be rewarded--"

  The woman, cradling herself in the chair, began to laugh. "When the lights finally come back on, father, what kind of world will we find ourselves left with?" Gianna firmed up, resumed her slow rocking. "I fear it will resemble Hell, rather than the Heaven you believe in."

  Ossian brought his knees up to his chest and rested his head against the wall. "And don't you believe in Heaven?" he asked.

  To this, Gianna offered a quiet reply, her eyes low. "Your God and I don't get along these days, I'm afraid. After all that's happened... I've simply lost too much."

  This was a sentiment with which the priest was all too familiar. Since the disaster, there had emerged two distinct classes of people; those who looked to God and His church for hope, and those who had lost their faith and turned their backs on Him. "I'm sorry to hear that," said Ossian. "A loss of faith in this day and age is not a little dangerous, however."

  Standing up, Gianna started from the room. "I've a few things to take care of around the house. Please, make yourself at home. Rest. In the morning, we can wake Cesare and you can take a closer look at him, yes? I think that the bread has done him a world of good."

  The boy slept, almost peacefully. He no longer whimpered in his sleep, and once he'd taken a few sips of water, he even found it in himself to smile. Probably his illness was tied to starvation, and the bread he'd been given had helped him regain some strength.

  "That'll be fine," said the priest. "I'd be happy to do so. But you're right. Better to let him sleep at the moment." Setting the black sword on the floor beside him, he lowered his head and began his evening prayers.

  "Why do you keep that weapon so close?" asked Gianna, regarding it with evident fright. “I must say, I've never seen a man of the cloth carry a thing like that. Isn't it... against your religion to indulge in violence?”

  Ossian smiled. "I keep it handy because these days even a priest needs protection from the forces of darkness. I have faith, but I'm not naive about the state of the world."

  Gianna busied herself around the house while the priest finished his prayers, and when she'd fetched more water, put her laundry away and tended to the fire, she returned to her chair where she managed to slip into a fitful sleep. Against the wall, Ossian joined her, happy to be spending the night indoors for the first time in days. With the warmth of the fire washing over hi
m, he drifted off.

  3

  The dreams were nothing new. When a man's conscience is sapped night and day by the misdeeds in his past, he can never know true rest.

  He could hear the voices of the children; they rang in his ears loudly, clearly, pulled straight from his memories. The room was a small one, lit only by candlelight. Night after night, he found himself there. It was as familiar to him now as any place on Earth; the nightmares had plagued him so long that he knew every last detail, down to the number of dust motes in the air. The suffering of those two children, too, was something he recalled perfectly well.

  The two children who had died under his care.

  They'd been a brother and sister, living in a poor neighborhood just outside of Rome. He'd been working as a parish priest then, and had agreed to visit a woman named Marta at her home. Her children were behaving strangely, she insisted, and there was possibly an infernal element to this new change in their demeanors. Having a local reputation as a talented exorcist, Ossian had offered to visit the house and have a look.

  The evil he'd found there was profound, and far more developed than he could have imagined.

  When a body is given over to a demonic parasite, time is of the essence. Every passing minute the darkness encroaches upon one's inner light, threatening to snuff it out permanently. To leave such a condition untreated, no matter how minor, is equivalent to sparing a gangrenous limb in the hopes of a spontaneous recovery. If the foulness is not exorcised, it will consume the host wholly. The ravages of this condition are not limited solely to the physical realm, however. When the soul is fully tarnished by such an entity, eternal damnation becomes likely.

  He had to act. Two souls were hanging in the balance.

  Where usually the church required him to seek the permission of his bishop before carrying out the rites of exorcism, Ossian had, in his many years, begun to skirt the official rules. He'd carried out handfuls of private exorcisms throughout Rome and the surrounding areas, and was confident in his abilities. So, when a boy and girl, ages eight and ten, respectively, showed undeniable signs of possession, he'd gotten to work right away. To waste time with Vatican bureaucracy was to risk the children's souls. Like so many times before, he insisted that the exorcism be carried out in their locked bedroom, with no witnesses for the demons to influence. The children were bound to their bed frames with simple restraints and the rites were delivered while their parents held vigil in the downstairs.

  That would be the last exorcism he'd conduct before being excommunicated from the church.

  The screams of those children surged in his brain even now, years later. He could see the tears in their eyes as their bodies thrashed in resistance, the demons within them spouting such heresies as would chill the blood of any God-fearing man. They took on greater strength, those kids; they spoke in languages they could not have known, and their physical appearances were altered as the black spirits made themselves at home within their young flesh.

  It was the first time that the rites had failed him. Like a microorganism may develop drug-resistance against common treatments, so too did the demons that accosted these children cling with unnatural fight. The prayers caused the devils great pain, but they would not release the children for anything. It soon became clear that other methods were needed to extract an evil so deeply entrenched.

  When more than two days had passed and Ossian had shouted every prayer at the afflicted that he could think of, he took to less conventional methods, utilizing the traditions of historical inquisitors. The demons protested, redoubling their wickedness, but would surely have been ousted had only the vessel bodies of the children been able to withstand his treatment.

  They did not.

  Ossian was arrested immediately for his involvement and spent several years in a Roman prison for the deaths of those children. He was not a day behind bars when a messenger from the Vatican came bearing news of his excommunication. For years he remained in a cell, an animal wracked with guilt.

  It wasn't until the world went to pieces and the church saw his true worth that he was finally sprung. He was welcomed back into the priesthood on the one condition that he would take up once more the crusade that had seen him locked up so many years previously.

  But all of those details escaped him in his dreams. The only thing he saw, smelled, heard during his nightly descents into despair, were the tortured faces of those kids; the smell of their blood; their demoniacal screams of pain and hatred.

  No matter his reinstatement in the church, the deaths of those two innocents would forever weigh on his mind. It was his cross to bear.

  Stirring, Ossian slumped to one side, waking in the dark.

  He was in Gianna's home, he recalled with a sigh.

  But when next he opened his eyes, the scene had changed.

  To begin with, the sun still wasn't up. A glance out the window showed him that night still reigned, and that its hold over the land was punishing and absolute. A faint bit of moonlight came in through the clouds, but the inside of the abode, except for those spots yet illuminated by the dying fire, was painted in pitch.

  There was just enough light in the room for him to notice that the rocking chair was empty. Gianna was no longer in it, nowhere in sight. From the floor near the hearth, Cesare was making a quiet whining noise, struggling to sit up. His little eyes trembled in their sockets as he forced himself into a seated position and stared into the shadowed kitchen. He seemed to want to speak, but the quaking of his lips prevented him from forming the words.

  "What is it?" asked the priest, sitting up. "What is it, Cesare?"

  There was no audible reply.

  Scanning the room for signs of his hostess, Ossian set about revitalizing the hearth, and after he added a fresh log and gave the embers a stir, he found himself enjoying once again the warmth of a proper fire. But even so, several minutes had passed and Gianna was nowhere to be seen. It was possible she'd just gone outside to relieve herself, though as the minutes ticked by he came to doubt this more and more.

  "Cesare," said the priest calmly, "do you know where your mother has gone?"

  The boy kept staring into the kitchen, wide-eyed. His lips, cracked and red, wriggled as he sought to form words. "No... no... no," he seemed to be rasping under his breath.

  Growing worried, Ossian plucked a lit branch from the fireplace, took up his sword and started across the living room in the direction of the kitchen. Stepping over masses of empty pans, he found the kitchen floor covered in old food wrappers and animal bones. His attention was then drawn to the back door, illuminated in a thin film of moonlight, which sat ajar.

  Stepping outside, the priest was struck by the bite of the wind. Up ahead, the dense woods spanned a great distance, the treetops serving to bathe the property in dense shadow. Ossian held out his torch, scanning the overgrown backyard for signs of the woman, but finding nothing. The rusted remains of a lawnmower, of a bicycle, were nestled in the tall grass near the side of the house.

  "Gianna?" he called out, his grip tightening around the scabbard of the sword.

  The only response was the howl of the wind. It was an unseasonably cold gust, making the priest's skin tighten and muscles stiffen. He thumbed at his gaunt, stubbled cheek, piercing the night with his sharp gaze, but found no sign of his hostess. Where could she have gone? It's dangerous to be out alone at this hour.

  Stepping further into the yard and surveying the woods ahead by torchlight, he fancied he caught the slightest trace of movement to his right. Pausing, he leveled his light accordingly and waited for his eyes to adjust to the darkness.

  When they did, he wasn't sure quite what he was looking at.

  Some distance from the house, just inside the boundary of the woods, perhaps thirty yards from the back door, he saw a slender human form squatting at the edge of what appeared to be a large hole in the ground. Stepping closer, he recognized in it the brown garb and salt and pepper hair of his hostess, and he stopped to observ
e before finally calling out once more. His torchlight attracted her attention before he was even in the woods, however she didn't stop what she was doing.

  She was lifting something out of the earth and bringing it to her lips.

  Eating something.

  Engorging herself.

  "Gianna?" said the priest, arriving within arm's reach. "What are you--"

  The torch nearly fell from his grasp as the woman turned to meet him with eyes the color of obsidian. She was holding a sizable chunk of meat between her teeth, which she'd taken from the pit. Within this pit there glowed several large bones, cleaned completely of flesh, along with something that gave the priest pause.

  A human hand.

  Holding out the light, Ossian had a look into the hole himself, discovering there two human bodies, preserved in salt. One, very obviously a grown man, was nearly intact. Only one of his legs had been eaten. The other, considerably smaller, was almost completely picked clean. It was the body of a child. In order to keep the elements out, both had been crammed into large, plastic containers of the kind that might have once been used for storing large quantities of clothing underneath a bed frame, and copious amounts of salt had been added to preserve them.

  “What in Christ's name is the meaning of this?” demanded the priest, taking a step back and brandishing his torch in Gianna's face. “What... what have you...”

  Swallowing, Gianna stood, head cocked to one side. Her black eyes narrowed in a smile, and the voice that replied was not the same as the one she'd previously utilized. Instead, it had dropped an octave and was more droning and androgynous in character. “This?” she said. “Merely a midnight snack, preacher.”