As the Worm Turns

by Matthew Quinn Martin

  Simple. Simple. Focus on the work. She pushed the needle in. It met with more resistance than she’d expected. She bore down, trying to get a grip on the thin shaft now slick with blood, as she watched the skin on the other side pucker up and tent on the point before finally breaking through.

  Beth wiped her brow. She banished thoughts of Ryan. Of how she wanted out. Or anything else—anyone else—she desired while mesmerized by that thing. And focused on the work. Jack, for his part, didn’t seem to notice or care that a piece of steel had been stuck through his shoulder. He just took another swig from the rum bottle, staring off into space. Business as usual.

  Beth felt the blood drain from her face, nausea rising in her gullet. As much for what had become of the man before her as for the task she’d barely started. Zoë, Ryan, this. It was all too much.

  Jack flicked a glance at her. “You okay?” he asked, something approaching compassion in his voice. “You want, I can cauterize it with the torch instead. It’s just that I’m left-handed, so things get kind of messy on that side with repair work.”

  Repair work? Is that all this is to him? Repair work? “No, it’s fine.” If he could be dead calm in the face of it all, so could she. She gripped the needle and pulled through. “Now what?”

  “Now you draw it tight,” he said. “Tie it up, trim the edges. Then move on to the next one. Keep them about a quarter-inch apart.”

  She did as instructed. As she repeated the process, the terror of that first stitch gave way to something almost routine by the third and fourth. She wondered if that was what life was like for Jack, an everyday series of wounds and stitchings, wounds and stitchings, until he became something only slightly more human than the monsters he hunted. All vulnerability, all feeling, all emotions except those absolutely necessary, scraped straight off the bone. Maybe he’d been wrong about the power those things had when it came to changing you into one of them. Jack Jackson might just be proof of that.

  “Good work in there, by the way,” he said. “Quick thinking, too.”

  “Thanks.” Beth tied off the fifth stitch. “I thought you said they were supposed to be asleep during the day.”

  “I did. They are. This is all new. Hunting in packs, coming out in the daytime.”

  “How many of them were down there?”

  “Too many. Hundreds.”

  Beth’s world began to tilt. “Hundreds?”

  Jack nodded. “I tracked them through some kind of abandoned tunnel system.”

  “The old aqueduct.” She told him how the building that housed Axis had once been the city’s water-treatment facility. “That’s supposed to be bricked up.”

  “Guess they didn’t get the memo,” he said. “They’d been living off rats, it looks like. And they’re protecting something down there. Some kind of hive or a nest. It’s mating season for them, I think. Hundreds down there now . . . soon it’ll be thousands.”

  Beth tried to wipe the images from her mind, but like the blood streaming from Jack’s arm, the flood wouldn’t stop. “What does that mean?”

  “If we don’t do something about it, then we’re about to find out.” As Beth finished the final stitch, Jack turned to examine the job. “Looks good. Should hold up.”

  Beth braced herself to ask the one question remaining, the one that had been weighing on her like a millstone. “What are they, Jack? What are they, really?”

  Jack opened his mouth, then abruptly shut it again. His face had become a blank slate. “Tomorrow. I need to rest first. Figure some things out.”

  “But—”

  “Tomorrow. Trust me. It’s going to be as hard for me to explain as it is for you to believe. Tomorrow. I promise.”

  Beth nodded reluctantly. She gazed at the inside of his war machine. Nothing in it except weapons and plans for weapons, plans for attack. Nothing at all to give her a single clue about the real him. Nothing to show his side of the story. “Jack?” she started. “How did you end up here?”

  “Just follow the work.” He stuck an adhesive gauze pad over her stitching. “There’s a pattern.”

  “That’s not what I mean. I mean, how did you end up here? How did you get mixed up in all of this?”

  Jack looked up at her. She still had the needle in her hand. “Pretty much the same way you did,” he said. “And we’re going to leave it at that.”

  Beth nodded, taking in the mess of scars that was Jack Jackson. Perhaps seeing the real him for the first time. Not the unstoppable killing machine. Not the slim lethal shank he’d been sharpened into against life’s cruel whetstone. Not any of the masks he wore, any of the disguises. She saw him for what he was at heart, another casualty in a war he’d never asked to be a part of. An open wound that no amount of stitching was ever going to mend completely.

  Beth took the bottle from him and set it on the counter. Then she laid one hand on his good shoulder and brushed his elbow with the other. It was probably the closest thing he’d had to a hug in who knew how many years. Jack let it stay that way for a few moments. But just a few, before he shrugged her off. Then he lurched up, peering out the window and into the night, and on to the battle to come.

  Forty-eight

  Gabby was so cold. Even though she’d pulled her knees close to her chest, her feet were still as icy as a snow cone. She wriggled deeper into the quilt that Nema had made her. Nema was daddy’s mommy. Mommy’s mommy was up in heaven and went there before Gabby was even born. Mommy said that was because she needed to be able to tell Gabby how to get down here to earth. Gabby wasn’t sure that was real, because she didn’t remember any of it.

  Gabby had been cold every night for what seemed like forever and ever. Mommy said that was because everyone had to tighten their belts. That didn’t make any sense to Gabby. She had even snuck out a belt from her daddy’s closet and wrapped it around herself twice to make it really, really tight, and she was still cold. Grown-ups said a lot of things that didn’t make any sense.

  She wanted to go to Mommy’s room and get under the blankets with her, but Mommy had told her she was a big girl and big girls stayed in bed all night and all the way into the morning, even if they’re cold, or want a glass of milk, or have a nightmare. Mommy said the only time big girls got up at night was if they had to use the potty, and then they had to use it by themselves.

  Hating that she was a big girl, Gabby lay back down and stared up at the stars her daddy had stuck to the ceiling the last time the president had said it was okay for him to come home from the war. The stars were supposed to glow, but that only ever lasted for a little bit, and now she could barely see any of them. She’d have to tell Daddy about that when he got back, but he’d been gone for so long she couldn’t always even remember what he looked like.

  All of a sudden, some light came from under her bedroom door, and she heard footsteps. Mommy was awake and up past her bedtime, too. Gabby didn’t have to use the potty, but maybe if she went out to it, she’d see Mommy, and Mommy could get her another blanket or even make her a cup of hot cocoa.

  She wrapped Nema’s quilt around her like a cape and hopped down from her mattress. She looked under the bed. There, safely tucked behind a purple plastic pony she never liked very much, was the magic salt the grown-up girl had given her. She took a little bit with her in case the boogeyman showed up, but only a little so that Mommy wouldn’t see it and get worried. “Mommy?” Gabby opened her bedroom door. “I’m jutht getting up to uthe the potty. And I don’t need any help.”

  Mommy didn’t answer.

  “I thaid, I don’t need help.” Gabby snuck into the empty living room. There was a show on the TV but the sound wasn’t on, and a half-empty glass of wine sat next to a totally empty bottle. “Mommy?” She saw that someone had left the front door open. It was creaking back and forth. “Mommy?” Gabby tiptoed out into the hall. She gripped the magic salt even tighter as she rounded the co
rner.

  Mommy was there. She only had on her nightgown. And she had her hand up against the window, and she was looking out of it.

  “Mommy? What are you doing out here?”

  Mommy didn’t answer.

  Gabby tugged at her hand. “Mommy? What are you doing out here? I’m cold.”

  “Look, angel,” Mommy said. “Daddy’s come home.”

  Gabby turned to the window. And what she saw across the way was not Daddy. “No, Mommy!” She yanked on Mommy’s arm. They had to get away right now. “That’th not Daddy! That’th the boogeyman!”

  Mommy didn’t budge. It was as if she’d stepped in a puddle of glue and got her feet stuck. “You see? He wants me to go to him. He wants us to go to him, and we’ll be safe.”

  “No, Mommy! Lithen! That’th the boogeyman!” The boogeyman stared at Gabby and her mommy from his house in the other building. He looked like a fish again but a bigger one, and his hat was small this time. Small and round on the top. His eyes were black like marbles, and when he smiled at them, his teeth were like knives made out of mirrors. “Mommy, don’t you thee? That’th not Daddy!”

  Mommy didn’t listen. The boogeyman had cast a magic spell on her. That was why he was wearing his magic hat. Gabby knew just what to do. “Here, Mommy. You have to take thith.” She stuffed the magic salt into her mommy’s hand. “It’th magic, and if you throw it at the boogeyman, he’ll go away.”

  “That’s nice, angel baby.” The magic salt slipped from Mommy’s hand and onto the ground. “You know there’s no such thing as the boogeyman.”

  “Yeth, there ith! He’th thtanding right there!” Gabby tried to scoop up what salt she could and gave it back to Mommy. Who only let it fall down again.

  “Stop fooling around, sweetie. It’s time to go to Daddy.”

  “Mommy, no!” Gabby tried to press down on the window, but Mommy was too strong, and she opened it. She had to get the rest of the magic salt. Then she’d throw it at the boogeyman herself if she had to. “Mommy. Mommy! You have to thtay here. Okay? Promith me!”

  Mommy didn’t answer.

  Gabby ran back to the apartment. She grabbed the phone and pressed the button on the side for Nema. The phone rang and rang and rang. “Pick up the phone, Nema!” It rang again. And again. What if the boogeyman had gone to Nema’s house and tricked her, too?

  Finally, a groggy voice answered. “Hello? Who is this?”

  “It’th Gabby! Nema, come quick! Mommy’th in trouble!” She hung up the phone before Nema could say anything. Then she ran to her bedroom for the rest of the magic salt. She’d save Mommy. She’d throw that salt right in the boogeyman’s ugly fish face. She squirmed under the bed and pushed aside the plastic pony. But it fell and knocked over the salt and it spilled all over the carpet. She tried to pick it up, but it kept slipping down where she couldn’t get it. And that pony’s one eye kept looking at her. It was as if the pony was laughing at her from the inside of its head.

  Gabby was just able to get a small pile in her hand. It wasn’t much bigger than a button, but she prayed to the little Lord Jesus, just as her Papa had told her to, that it would work. Papa had told her that even little things—like the little seed of a tree—could do big things if they wanted to, if they only believed. Gabby knew she was only a little girl, with only a little bit of magic salt. But she was going to do something big. She was going to save Mommy.

  But when she went around the corner of the hallway, she didn’t see the boogeyman anymore. She only saw the open window and the cold place where her mommy had been standing.

  Forty-nine

  Jack had been at the problem for hours. Sometimes staring at the building through the binoculars. Sometime just staring into space or into his mind. He’d scribble equations, bits of phrases, and ingredients onto a yellow legal pad, working his pencil to the nub. Then, just as often, he’d scratch out what he’d written and pitch it to the floor in a crumpled ball. Blood sat dutifully beside him, occasionally resting his muzzle on Jack’s knee. All the while, the van’s dashboard clock ticked the dwindling hours into oblivion.

  He heard the van’s door open. “Here are the blueprints of the aqueduct you wanted,” Beth said, dropping a sheaf of photocopies down in front of him. “The guy at the historical society was very helpful.”

  Jack nodded. He bet that the man had tripped over himself to be helpful. He couldn’t have imagined too many girls who looked like Beth wandering in to root around in the archives. She probably got a guided tour. He just hoped she hadn’t also raised any eyebrows.

  He’d had too many close deals with The Division, and the longer this mission lasted, the more they were in jeopardy. He might have been able to live with it, however, if that were his only worry. The truth was far from it. They had to get in there and get them all before that nest spawned, or those things would come out in their thousands and devour every man, woman, and child in New Harbor.

  Jack wished he was exaggerating, but it wouldn’t be the first time something like that had happened. There’d been tales of whole towns going missing throughout history, in ancient Mesopotamia, in medieval Europe, in colonial America. Every time, there’d been signs, warnings, just like the ones he’d spotted here. He wondered how long those things had been down there. Sleeping. Waiting.

  Jack spread out the papers. “Is this all of it?”

  “He said it was an incomplete record,” Beth said as she looked over his shoulder. “A lot of the originals were destroyed in a fire in the thirties.”

  “Incomplete” was a bit of an understatement. The sections didn’t even show the vast central chamber that held the nest. But it did show him something else. He went to the map tacked to the wall and traced his finger from where the nest must lie buried all the way out to the river. “That’s how they do it,” he said. “That’s how they spread. They’re moving through the waterways. The rivers and streams are like an arterial network. Metastatic. Like cancer.”

  He followed the path upstream, past mill towns and small cities, up to where it linked with the Charles River and Boston. Then down the Hudson to Manhattan. And after that, who knew where they would head. “We have to stop this here.”

  “Could we blow it up?” Beth asked as she poured them each a fresh mug of coffee.

  “With what?” Jack couldn’t tear his eyes away from the aqueduct schematics. “Need enough explosives to fill a truck. Some of those walls are six feet thick, made of solid granite blocks.” He threw back half the scalding coffee in one gulp.

  “What about a flamethrower?”

  “Last time I checked, Caldor’s didn’t stock flamethrowers.” His frustration boiled as he scoured his brain for some solution, for some spark. He rose, pacing the length of the van.

  Across the van from them stood Axis’s bay windows. On the glass, written in soap, were the words Closed for Staff Vacation. Beth had told him they’d be shut for three days. They had two left. Then it would be too late to get inside.

  Jack stood silently, his back to her, his shoulders slumped a touch as he leaned against the tracking console. It was a pose he rarely allowed himself. He stared at the maps, at the photos, at the schematics, at the weapons. All of it useless. The images slipped into a hazy blur as he felt the asphyxiation of failure begin its stranglehold.

  “Jack. There has to be a way. We can’t just let everyone—”

  “You think I don’t know that?” Jack gripped the console till he felt the skin of his palms begin to tear. He wanted nothing more than to rip the whole damn thing right from its mounting hardware and toss it through the windshield.

  Suddenly, a loud bang shuddered the length of the van. Instinct took over, and Jack dived for the floor. Beth simply stood in the silence, looking out one of the small back window panels. “It’s just a car backfiring.”

  Jack felt his frayed nerves begin to unknot. He’d gotten so on ed
ge it was cutting him in two. A car backfiring had sent him sprawling to the deck. It wasn’t the cops. It wasn’t The Division. It was just an old Chrysler that needed a tune-up. If only his own problems could be solved that easily. Like a stupid car backfiring.

  He froze. Eureka. The spark had come at last, setting fire to his imagination. He shoved aside the tools that cluttered his console and reached for a fresh sheet of paper. He worked swiftly, scribbling equations long tucked away in his memory. He sensed the dog padding over and sitting stock-still at his feet as his attention went from paper, to schematics, to maps, and back to paper. He scrutinized the aqueduct blueprints, judging the approximate interior volume against the tunnel orientations, working out the vectors. He double-checked the math in his head. Triple-checked it. Ran the entire scenario in his mind like a film.

  Jack pushed back from the equations. It could work. It would work. The smallest splinter of hope had gotten under the skin of the problem and with it also the knowledge of what he must do next. It was time to tell Beth everything. If she was going to fight this evil one-on-one, she deserved to know its true form. He twisted around, ready for the first time to share the secret he had carried for so long.

  Only to find her gone.

  Fifty

  Gabby? What are you doing out here?” Beth asked. The girl was dragging a steel fire extinguisher down the sidewalk, scraping it all the way from her apartment to Axis’s front door.

  “I’m going to kill the boogeyman.” She managed to scrape the metal tank another foot. “Pow pow.”

  “No, Gabby. That’s our job. Don’t you worry. We’ll keep you safe.”

  “But I lotht the magic thalt. I tried to give it to Mommy, but she kept dropping it.”

  “That salt was for you.” Beth squatted down to the girl’s level. The fire extinguisher fell over with a ringing clank as Gabby finally let go. “Your mommy can take care of herself.”