The Conqueror Worms

by Brian Keene

  “That’s in the Bible!” he shouted. “Genesis six, verses thirteen to seventeen. That cunt of a wife of yours wasn’t the only one around here who knew her scripture, Garnett! Bet you didn’t think I was paying attention at Bible study, did you?”

  “Is that who I think it is?” Sarah asked.

  “Yeah.” I nodded. “It’s Earl.”

  “What are we going to do?” Sarah whispered.

  Silencing her, I got up and crept across the floor, gripping the rifle as tightly as I could.

  “Garnett! You awake in there? Answer me, you son of a bitch!”

  Carefully, I peeked out through the window in the door. There was no sign of Earl, and the carport was deserted. The worms were still there, two feet thick in most spots. The old picnic table and my truck were islands in a sea of wiggling, churning, elongated bodies. But there was no Earl.

  “And behold,” he continued preaching, “I do bring a flood of waters upon the earth and everything that is in the earth shall die! That’s from the good book too. Old Earl Harper knows his Bible!”

  It sounded like he was standing right outside. I pressed my face against the cold, damp glass and stared, but I still couldn’t see him. Earl’s voice was muffled, like he was underground, but close by. Something thumped against the truck again and I froze.

  Then, the worms around the truck began to move, slowly rising like there was a helium balloon trapped beneath them. They swelled upward and then started to fall off, sliding back down to the pile of their brethren. As they slid away, they revealed Earl.

  He had hidden underneath them. He’d concealed himself beneath their bodies.

  When the big worm was chasing us all, he must have made it as far as the carport and burrowed underneath the night crawlers, lying beneath them and waiting until he was sure it was gone or that our guard was down.

  Earl stood up and brushed the remaining worms from his shoulders and head and arms. Then he saw me gaping at him through the window and he grinned—a smile that seemed to split his face wide open, flashing yellow teeth and curling his lips back into a grimace. Cheshire Earl.

  “I am their priest,” he shrieked. “I speak for the worms! Come and listen to their gospel. Listen to the true Word. The gospel of Behemoth!”

  Sarah said, “Oh, shit.”

  I took a deep breath. “This night just went from bad to worse.”

  But I had no idea just how bad it would get before it was over.

  No idea at all…

  CHAPTER THIRTEEN

  Sarah pressed up against me, trying to see over my shoulder. When she caught sight of Earl and the worms dropping from his body, she gave a muffled cry. Earl began to laugh.

  In the living room, Kevin finally woke up. He called out in the darkness. “Teddy? Sarah? What time is it? What’s going on?”

  “We’ve got trouble,” I yelled. “Go wake Carl up and let him know that Earl’s back. Tell him to bring his gun.”

  “Say what?” He rolled off the couch and sprang to his feet, rubbing the sleep from his eyes.

  “Listen to me,” I shouted. “Just go!”

  I turned back to Earl. He was wading towards the door and I swear to God the worms were moving out of his way, clearing a path for him, like Moses parting the Red Sea.

  “These are God’s creatures,” Earl hissed through clenched teeth. He bent over, picked up a handful of worms, and then let them slip through his fingers. “They talked to me while I laid here. All day and all night long, they told me things. Told me their secrets, Garnett. You wouldn’t believe the things they know about. The worms know what lies at the heart of the maze—’cause that’s what it is at the center of the earth, a big maze. They crawled into my ears and they whispered to me inside my brain. They told me of the things that live under the ground. The things that should not be. He who shall not be named.”

  I made sure the door was dead-bolted and then I checked the rifle, verifying that there was a round in the chamber. The barrel was still warm from the previous shots.

  “Earl,” I called through the door, “I’m only going to say this once. Go home! Get off my carport and leave my property. There’s something wrong with you. You need help, and I’m sorry that I can’t help you. But I swear to God, if you take another step, I’ll shoot you dead.”

  He stopped and cocked his head to one side. That sneering grin never left his face.

  “That’s not very neighborly of you, Garnett. Not very neighborly at all.”

  “Neither is shooting down a chopper full of people.” I held the rifle up to the window so that he could see I meant business. “Now get out of here. I mean it. Go on home, Earl. I’m not telling you again. Don’t make me do it. I will kill you if I have to.”

  His smile faded.

  The worms underneath the doorstep parted, clearing a path for him.

  And then Earl charged.

  Sarah screamed, “Teddy!”

  “Get back, Sarah!”

  Swallowing hard, I rammed the barrel of the gun through the window. Broken glass showered down onto the worms below. It was hard to aim, since I was holding the weapon lower than normal, but I pointed the rifle at Earl and squeezed the trigger. The rifle kicked and the shot went wild. The flash lit up the carport and the yard. For a second, I caught sight of the big worms, out there in the darkness. They seemed to be waiting.

  Before I could fire again, Earl was at the door. He reached out and grabbed the smoking barrel. His face twisted with rage and he babbled nonsense words.

  “Gyyagin vardar Oh! Opi. Ia Verminis! Ia Kat! Ia de Meeble unt Purturabo!”

  Sarah frowned. “What the hell is he saying? It’s gibberish.”

  “Ia Siggusim! Guyangar devolos! Verminis Kandara! Behemoth!”

  Earl knocked the barrel away from himself just as I squeezed the trigger again. The rifle jerked in my hands, its roar filling the house. Carl and Kevin ran into the kitchen. Carl shouted something, but couldn’t hear him because my ears were ringing. I turned to call for help and the rifle went limp in my hands.

  I looked through the hole in the window. Earl was gone again, but he hadn’t gone far. As the ringing in my ears faded, I heard him laughing in the rain. He ran through the darkness, his feet squelching loudly in the mud. The big worms had disappeared as well.

  “Teddy,” Carl shouted, “what in the world is going on?”

  “Earl’s alive,” I gasped, stepping away from the open window. “He hid beneath those worms on the carport, and whatever was left of his sanity is gone. The big worms are out there, too.”

  “He might as well be dead then. They’ll eat him, won’t they?”

  I shook my head. “I don’t think so. They seem to be waiting for something—almost like they’re working with him.”

  “That’s crazy,” Sarah gasped.

  “No, it’s not,” Kevin said. “The Satanists back in Baltimore were working with Leviathan and the mermaid. Maybe something like that is happening here.”

  I sighed, and rubbed my tired eyes. “At this point, I’m willing to believe anything, no matter how far-fetched.”

  “Well,” Carl growled. “If the damn things won’t kill Earl for us, then let’s shoot him ourselves.”

  Rifle in hand, he started for the door.

  “No.” I stopped him as he put his hand on the doorknob. “None of us are going outside.”

  Carl pulled away from my grasp. “Damn it, Teddy! Why not?”

  “Because it’s not safe anymore, and not just from Earl or the worms. The ground is starting to cave in. You can’t see where you’re going out there, between the darkness and the fog. You walk around in the dark, and if a worm doesn’t swallow you, a sinkhole will. There’s a big one out in the field.”

  “What are you talking about?” Kevin asked. “How do you know this?”

  “While you guys were asleep,” Sarah told him, “Teddy decided to step out for a pack of smokes. He almost didn’t make it back.”

  Carl let go of the
doorknob and sank into a chair at the kitchen table. He rubbed his red eyes and sighed. “You went outside? I reckon you really did need a dip.”

  “Maybe,” I said. “But not anymore. I’m officially cold turkey.”

  “I’ve heard that before,” Carl said.

  I shrugged. “You can believe it this time.”

  “I recognized some of the words that Earl was shouting,” Kevin said. “Ob and Meeble and Kandara. Maybe a few of the others, as well. They were some of the graffiti we saw inside the Satanists’ building, during the raid to rescue Christian and Louis. I think they’re names or something.”

  “Names of what?” Sarah asked.

  “I don’t know. Demons, maybe?”

  “Oh, come on, Kevin. Why—”

  “I think he’s right,” I interrupted her. “I don’t know how or when Earl Harper became a magus—to be honest, I’d be surprised if he could even read—but that gibberish sounded a whole lot like some kind of spell. Like they do in the movies.”

  Nobody responded.

  Finally, Carl tottered to his feet. “Don’t reckon it’s too smart for us to be standing around jawing if Earl’s still out there and on the loose. We’d better stay awake the rest of the night, and keep a careful watch.”

  “You’re right,” I said. “Kevin, you stay here. Carl, you take the big picture window in the living room. Sarah and I will each take a bedroom window on opposite sides of the house.”

  “What do we do if he tries to get in?” Kevin asked.

  “Shoot him,” Carl said. “And if he gets up, then shoot him again.”

  We each took our positions. I stood in my darkened bedroom and stared out into the rainy night. There was no sign of Earl or the worms and nothing moved in the darkness. The house was quiet. Occasionally, I’d hear a rustle from across the hall as Sarah moved, or Carl sneezing in the living room, but that was it.

  I was exhausted, both physically and mentally, so I sat down on the edge of the bed, careful to make sure that I could still see out the window. I yawned. My head felt thick and my eyes itched. The headache still pounded in my temples and my body cried out for nicotine. It was hard to concentrate and my mind drifted. I thought about Rose and our kids and grandchildren. I thought about my days in the Air Force, and of the war, and the places I’d seen and the things I’d done. I thought about my brothers and sisters, and my parents, and of my own childhood. I remembered sunny days—days without a cloud in the sky. Days without rain.

  I awoke to the sound of breaking glass, and cursed myself for falling asleep. I sat up on the bed just as Earl crawled through the window.

  “Now you’ll see, Garnett. Now you’ll all fucking see. Behemoth is coming!”

  His hand clenched the broken windowpane and a triangular shard of glass sliced into his palm. Earl laughed as the blood dripped between his fingers. A gust of wind blew the rain in behind him, and something else—the all-too-familiar stench of the worms.

  Elsewhere, I heard the others shouting. Their footsteps pounded down the hall towards my room. I reached for the rifle, but I couldn’t find it in the darkness.

  Glass crunched under Earl’s feet. He glided toward the bed, wet hair plastered to his scalp, yellow teeth glinting in the darkness. He raised his bloody hands, and in them was the machete I had stored in the shed. He must have broken inside and stolen it.

  “We’ve got unfinished business, Garnett. Seaton and the others, the United Nations folks, are for Behemoth to eat, but you—you were promised to me.”

  Someone hammered on the bedroom door. I heard voices shouting my name.

  “Earl—”

  “Save it, fucker. I’m gonna slit you open and gut you like a fish and pull out your insides. I’m going to show you the black stuff inside your belly, and then I’m gonna make you eat it.”

  The door crashed open and suddenly there was thunder inside the bedroom. Something exploded, and the flash temporarily blinded me. My ears rang and the air stank of cordite. A splash of red appeared on Earl’s chest, just above his heart. Sarah fired another round, and Earl toppled to the floor. Carl and Kevin rushed into the room behind her.

  Carl gave me a hand getting off the bed. “You okay?”

  “I’m fine,” I coughed, and prodded Earl’s body with my foot. He lay still. The hole in his chest leaked blood, and there was a matching hole in his stomach.

  “Is he dead?” Carl asked.

  “I reckon so,” I said, and kicked him hard in the ribs, just to make sure. Earl didn’t move.

  Sarah, Kevin, and Carl crowded over his body. Rain poured in through the broken window and the drapes fluttered in the breeze.

  “Damn,” Sarah said. “I was aiming for his heart.”

  Carl whistled. “That’s still some nice shooting. Only missed it by an inch or so. Remind me to never piss you off, girl.”

  “What happened?” Kevin asked.

  My shoulders sank and I hung my head, ashamed. “I fell asleep and then Earl broke in. I couldn’t find my rifle in time.”

  The bedroom suddenly seemed to spin. I leaned against the dresser to steady myself.

  “What was he babbling about?” Carl asked. “Same bullshit as before?”

  I nodded. “Something about Behemoth. Apparently, ya’ll were going to be its main course tonight.”

  “There’s that name again,” Kevin said. “You starting to believe now, Sarah?”

  She frowned. “Can we not discuss it right now, please?”

  The dresser trembled against my back.

  Sarah moved to the window and looked outside.

  “See anything?” Carl asked.

  “Nothing. There’s no sign of the worms. I don’t smell them, either.”

  Kevin moved to her side. “Could they be gone?”

  My legs wobbled and I swayed on my feet. Then I noticed that the others were swaying back and forth, too.

  Kevin frowned. “What the fuck?”

  On the dresser, the pictures began to rattle. Rose’s framed embroidery, the one she’d made during our first year of marriage, fell off the wall and crashed to the floor. I heard things breaking elsewhere in the house.

  Carl braced himself against the wall. “It’s an earthquake for sure this time! Hold on!”

  “No,” I told him, “it’s something else.”

  At that moment, Earl groaned and opened his eyes.

  “Garnett,” he croaked. “He’s coming. Now you’ll see…”

  “Shut up, Earl.”

  I kicked him again. This time my boot landed right in his groin, just to illustrate my point, and I almost lost my balance in the process. Earl grunted and the air whooshed out of him. More blood bubbled from the hole in his chest. The house continued to shake.

  “Look,” Sarah shouted, pointing out the window. “What’s that? Out there beyond the clothesline?”

  I turned to where she was pointing and my heart seemed to stop. My skin felt cold.

  The thing that should not be…

  It hurtled toward the house, a legless, eyeless thing, five times larger than the one we’d encountered before. Its body was milk-white and so pale in some places that it was almost translucent. Slime dripped from the creature’s body, leaving a glistening trail in its wake. It barreled across the yard and rolled over the shed in one segmented wriggle, squashing the building flat.

  “What is it?” Sarah screamed again.

  “Hell,” I said simply.

  “Behemoth,” Kevin whispered. “It’s fucking Behemoth. Leviathan’s big brother.”

  Sarah backed away from the window; Earl opened his eyes again.

  “Now you’ll see, you bastards,” Earl cackled, blood spraying from his lips. He sat up, grunting with the effort. “This is the hour of His coming. Behemoth! Verminis! The servant of He Who Shall Not Be Named. He is the brother of Leviathan, the son of that old serpent! The Worm from beyond space. The Star-Eater. Behemoth the Great!”

  “Shut the hell up, Earl!” Carl shouted. He raise
d his rifle, drawing a bead on the madman, but the ground shook again and his aim wavered. “Ain’t you supposed to be dead?”

  I didn’t wonder about Earl’s miraculous resurrection. I just stared, absolutely transfixed by the monstrous thing bearing down on us.

  The worm was colossal, but even that doesn’t begin to describe it. I told you before that I’m no writer. I don’t even know where to begin when it comes to describing that thing. To be honest, I’m not even sure it was a worm. The quivering, jiggling mounds of segmented flesh were leathery and thick, like rawhide.

  For a second, I thought back to when the kids had been little. One summer, Rose and I had taken them to Washington, D.C. for vacation, and we visited the Museum of Natural History. I remembered the feeling of awe that had gripped me as we stood under the lifesized replica of a blue whale that hung suspended from the ceiling, and how we’d marveled that such a giant creature could exist on the earth.

  The thing slithering towards the house could have easily swallowed that blue whale whole. It was that big. It blocked out the cloudy night sky as it neared the house. The creature opened its mouth and hissed; the sound was like a bomb blast. I felt the pressure on my eardrums.

  “Get the fuck back!” Kevin shouted.

  “Move out of the way,” Carl told him, still pointing his rifle at Earl.

  “Forget about the hillbilly,” Kevin snapped. “We’ve got bigger issues!”

  With an incredibly powerful lurch, the monster launched its front segments into the air. It stayed there for a moment, suspended above the house. Then it plummeted downward and plowed into the dirt, sending a massive plume of soil and rock into the air. With a shock, I realized that it was burrowing its way beneath the house. Its gargantuan bulk tunneled into the ground, disappearing from view. I couldn’t see it, but that didn’t matter. It was easy enough to track.

  We could feel the creature’s approach beneath our feet. The vibrations sounded like a jackhammer.

  Groaning, Earl slowly lurched to his feet. With frightening strength, he shoved Kevin out of the way, knocking him onto the bed. Earl struck Carl’s rifle aside, and Carl took a step backward. Earl’s filth-covered hands clutched at Carl’s throat and Carl’s eyes bulged in their sockets.