Wuftoom

by Mary G. Thompson

  “It said they eat you . . . us,” Evan said. “Do they get many?”

  Olen pursed his shriveled lips. “No. They aspire to eat us. We are a delicacy among dark creatures.” He gave a humorless chuckle. “But they do not get us.”

  “It said that they want to destroy you. That you want to destroy them.”

  Olen examined Evan. Evan could feel the thing’s eyes on him like lasers. The stare lasted an eternity. Suddenly, Olen sat down in the mucky stream. Since he had no proper waist or joints, he simply bent in two, his legs sticking out in front of him, pressed together underwater.

  “You are one of us now. You need to know,” he said.

  Slowly, Evan sat down in front of Olen. They sat in the middle of the stream, now covered up to the tops of their arms. Yet Olen did not appear to notice the flow of sewage rolling over his body.

  Although Evan could not smell it, he could imagine its smell. As he remembered Olen’s stink, it seemed to waft into his brain. Stop, he thought. It isn’t there. This is natural for me. Just like it used to be natural to take a bath. He tried to breathe calmly as the muck flowed over his body.

  “Wuftoom are ancient. We have lived since the earliest men came to this place. No one knows how the first one appeared. But we spread through the greed of men. In killing and eating the first one, they made more of our kind. Until they stopped eating us, and we had to find another way. Now we bury our dead in the open and wait.”

  “But why do you do it in a field? Why not in the middle of the town where everyone would step in it?” Evan asked.

  Olen grunted. “We only wish to replace those who have died. We could not feed any more,” he said, pursing his shriveled lips again. “The bugs—they are called Vitflys—grow more numerous each day. Their insatiable appetites belie their diminutive size.”

  Evan thought that at a foot long, they were hardly diminutive. He had seen their fangs and their glowing yellow eyes. He believed that they could eat a lot. He rubbed his arms together uncomfortably and was again aware of the sewage flowing over him.

  “Do you both eat the same things?” he asked.

  Olen nodded. “There are those who would make more of us now, the better to destroy them. But if we should do that, the whole clan would weaken and starve. So we must destroy them with what we have. The water and the walls listen, so I can speak no more of that.” Olen inclined his head, and Evan looked but saw nothing except slimy walls and slowly drifting sewage.

  “You said things would be better,” said Evan. “That we were going to leave the sewers.”

  “I did not lie,” said Olen. “Once the Vits are gone, we will have no need to hide here in the water. We will go wherever we please, live how our ancestors intended.”

  Evan did not ask where that was, or how they were supposed to live. All he could think of were the Vits. “But what are they? Where do they live?” Evan remembered Foul’s size, its fangs, the sound of its wings beating. He pictured Foul dropping between them, opening its mouth wide to show its pointed fangs, then sinking them into Olen, covering Olen in yellow-pink worm juice. He tried to blink to wipe away the image but was reminded that he had no eyelids.

  “They are a much younger race than we.” Olen’s mouth twisted with disdain. “They appeared in the last century, much smaller at first, blending in with other flies. About fifty years ago, they suddenly began to grow. Since they have reached their present size, they make no secret of their desire to rid the dark places of us.”

  Evan wondered if people had seen them. If they had buzzed around his house when his grandmother was young. “You’re the oldest, but you’re only as old as people?” he asked. “Weren’t there lots and lots of animals before people evolved?”

  “Men were the first with intelligence,” Olen replied. “I’ll give them that.” This didn’t really answer Evan’s question, but before Evan figured out what he wanted to ask, Olen was already talking again.

  “The Vits live underneath us, mostly. In the deeper holes that weren’t made by humans. They think they’re better than us for that, but they didn’t make them either. They can live anywhere that’s dark. Hollow trees, caves, basements.”

  “Do they come out at night?” Evan asked, thinking of his mother.

  “They tolerate it better than we do, but the open air still isn’t good for them. Of course, they only eat below.”

  “Why? Nobody knows about them. They could get away with anything.” The thought sent another chill down Evan’s spine. He thought about the school and all the kids milling around, with the Vitflys waiting in the basements to come up.

  “For the same reason we eat only the dark creatures,” said Olen. “It is how we are made. There are two worlds, you see. The world of the humans and what they see, and ours. We are forced to see their world because it is so large and powerful, but we wish we could not. We wish we could be as ignorant as they are.”

  Evan wished he was still ignorant, just like everybody else. Yet the feel of the sewage rolling over him had become calming, and Olen’s face seemed less disgusting now.

  “What about the square they gave me? Where did they get it? Can they get into our minds?” This was the thought Evan had been pushing away. The thought he did not want to face.

  Olen twisted his lips. Evan could not read the expression. “It was stolen from another creature. An old race that had much knowledge of the mind. They try to mold it to their purpose, but they do not know how to use it.”

  “But they talked to me in my head,” said Evan. “While I was out of my body. Can’t they get into me again?”

  Olen’s mouth twitched into a small smile. “You are a Wuftoom now. Humans have weak minds, but we are strong. The Vits have transmitted a word or two, no more. Their minds cannot beat ours the way yours beat the other boy.”

  Evan was not comforted. The worm was too smug, and Evan didn’t trust his judgment. But Olen seemed to think that was the end of it. He stood up to go.

  Evan could do nothing but follow. His head spun with what Olen had said. We must destroy them. Two worlds. The water and the walls listen. He looked around him as he walked. He saw nothing, but the more he thought about it, the more he felt a presence, or more than one. Was it his imagination?

  Before long, they reached a place where pipes emptied into the large stream from either side. They emptied at about Evan’s head level. Olen went into the left pipe, lifting himself up easily with both arms. He stood up, his head nearly touching the ceiling of the smaller pipe.

  Evan looked at him nervously. He didn’t know if he had the strength to pull himself up that far.

  “We’re stronger than we look,” said Olen. “Don’t think, just move.”

  Evan set his arms on the bottom of the pipe as he had just watched Olen do. The pipe was slimy, and without fingers, he felt sure his nubs would slip off. How had his legs gripped the bathtub? He slid his arms back and forth and looked up questioningly. His arms felt as weak as jelly.

  “Just move,” Olen repeated.

  Evan squeezed his eyes in imitation of closing them and pushed against his jelly arms. They stiffened and clung to the surface of the pipe. His body rose into the air, and at the same time his arms lengthened, allowing his legs to make it into the pipe without him having to release his arms. Once he was standing in front of Olen, his arms came up from the pipe with a pop of releasing suction and slowly shrank back to their normal length.

  Just as Evan turned back to face where he had come from, his powerful hearing picked up a scraping noise. Below him in the main pipe, a giant spider slipped from a hole on the far side. It was the biggest spider Evan had ever seen, even bigger than the tarantulas in the zoo. It would have fit neatly in a soccer ball.

  It fell into the water for a second, then jumped onto the wall and crawled away sideways, staying above the water line. It scurried so fast that it was soon tiny in the distance. After it came another and another and another. As soon as they were out of their hole, they stopped going
one by one and followed the first one in a pack, filling the whole wall for several feet. The pack scurried with the scraping sound Evan had first heard. It faded quickly as they got farther away.

  “Clever bastards,” said Olen, almost laughing.

  “What are they?” Evan asked, amazed and disgusted. They had moved too fast for him to see well, but they had looked hairy and black.

  “They’re Dark Spiders. Like your spiders, only larger and intelligent. They talk just like you and me.”

  Evan gaped in amazement.

  Olen smiled. “All of the true dark creatures are intelligent. They talk. Some even read and write.”

  “And nobody knows about it? Nobody has seen them?”

  “Everyone has seen them,” Olen said. “In the dark places.”

  Evan wondered what life would be like if people knew these creatures existed. Would they try to communicate with them, or would they destroy them? Evan wasn’t sure, and the thought made him squirm. Maybe the dark creatures were smart to hide. Maybe he would be smart to hide now.

  “Do you talk to them a lot?” Evan asked.

  “Oh no, we eat them,” he laughed. “That’s why they waited until we were up here to leave their hole.” His laughter was like an earthquake now that Evan heard so well.

  “You eat intelligent creatures?”

  “You can’t eat the stupid ones,” Olen scoffed. “Then you’d be stupid too.” He turned and started sliding down the smaller pipe. It was even darker, but Evan could still see perfectly well.

  “But that’s nonsense!” Evan cried. “People eat all kinds of animals and plants that don’t talk. It doesn’t make them stupid.”

  Olen whirled on Evan. “When will you understand?” he growled, poking his arm into Evan’s middle. “We are not human! We are not like them at all. You are not an animal. You are a dark creature. You are something entirely different from them. Everything you know about life as a human is wrong now.” He poked Evan harder.

  “Okay! I get it!” But he didn’t get it. He didn’t understand how eating something that talked could be okay. That meant the Wuftoom were just as bad as the Vitflys. He wondered if the spiders had a name other than Dark Spiders that they used among themselves. If they would be just as angry to be called spiders as Olen was to be called a worm.

  They slid in silence down the pipe. It twisted and turned, and smaller pipes dumped their loads into the bigger pipe in tiny waterfalls. After a long while of walking in silence, they reached another fork.

  Then he saw them. More Wuftoom. Evan couldn’t tell how many there were, but he thought there were at least six, maybe even more. The one standing at the front of the pipe gave Evan a big smile. His fangs were both wider and longer than Olen’s, but he was shorter than the rest. His eyes glowed bright. He jumped lightly down in front of Olen and pushed past him to examine Evan.

  “Well, well,” he said, his voice low and gravelly, still smiling. “Our proem is full grown.” He circled Evan and examined him from every angle.

  Evan was suddenly aware that he was naked, something he had not really noticed since he became a worm. “A fine transition. Fine indeed. Master Olen, this is great work!” He clapped Olen heartily on the back.

  Olen smiled, his eyes also glowing white. “New one, meet Master Rayden, our clan head.”

  Rayden nodded approvingly. “On behalf of us all, I welcome you to the dark!” He smiled broadly, showing his large fangs, and gave Evan the same back clap. It was so hearty that Evan was nearly knocked forward into the water. Olen’s mouth twisted, as if he was trying not to laugh.

  Evan was confused by the newly lightened mood. The six or more pairs of eyes glowed at him from the pipe beyond. He forced himself to nod.

  “Have you frightened this one so much?” said Rayden, turning to Olen. Both Wuftoom grinned large. Rayden turned back to Evan. “I apologize for Master Olen’s behavior. He sometimes forgets that proems are not human.”

  Evan didn’t know what to say, so he nodded again.

  “Now, please don’t take offense to this, though it will not be pleasant. You cannot know the way until you have your name.” Rayden waved his arm, and three more of the waiting Wuftoom jumped down into the pipe. One of them carried a dark black cloth. He walked up to Evan without saying anything and tied it around his eyes.

  For the first time since becoming a Wuftoom, he was in total darkness. Panic shot through him. It felt terribly, terribly wrong. His body seemed to close around him, and he felt like he wasn’t getting any air. He gasped. Then he felt an arm on his shoulder and heard Olen’s voice.

  “I know this isn’t easy, new one,” he said. “We aren’t meant to be blind. But rest assured, we will take care of you.”

  That was the nicest thing Evan had ever heard Olen say, but he was too frightened to be grateful. Without thinking about it, he raised his arms and struck out in all directions. He felt cold arms wrap around his arms tightly, and then his legs, and he was being hoisted up and carried.

  As they went, Evan calmed down a little, but just a little. He had been blindfolded as a human before. He had been in rooms so dark he couldn’t see. But this was nothing like that. This was like hanging from a windowsill by two fingers, with nothing below you but thirty floors of air.

  Instead of his heart beating fast and his lungs pumping, the fear was in his whole body. He tried to breathe deeply, but no air came in. He heard a few voices, as if from very far away. Someone asked Olen how the trip had gone, and Olen gave some reply. Someone said something about proems, but Evan was too distracted to understand.

  The journey seemed to go on for hours, even though deep inside Evan knew it probably was not that long. They twisted and turned. He was lifted from arm to arm, up sometimes and down at others. The Wuftoom squooshed him and pulled him and sucked him through pipes and carried him again. Suddenly, a heavy stream of water drenched him from above, and then several arms set him down on his legs. Someone removed the blindfold.

  Evan’s whole body gasped for air, so that at first he still couldn’t see where he was. But, slowly, his vision cleared. He was staring at a concrete cave. In the cave were a hundred Wuftoom, all staring at Evan, their white eyes glowing in the dark.

  Fourteen

  A FEW SECONDS WENT BY in silence, with Evan staring at the Wuftoom and the Wuftoom staring back at him. A low growl spread through the room, growing until it filled the cave. Then the creatures were surrounding him, clapping him on the back with their nub arms, smiling at him and showing their fangs of different lengths.

  “Enough!” called Rayden, who was standing behind Evan. Though all the Wuftoom looked almost exactly alike, Evan was starting to see what might differentiate one from another. Rayden was both shorter and broader. His large fangs were coupled with thick arms. The membranes were tight around his body, while some of the others’ membranes were loose and hung off them like they were a few sizes too big.

  Evan’s own membranes were somewhere in between. Slightly loose, but not quite saggy. The baggy ones gave the impression of age.

  “This is a great day for the Wuftoom! We shall welcome the new one as befits our splendid race!” cried Rayden.

  Another growl came up from the crowd, this one louder than the first. Without apparent direction from anyone, the Wuftoom cleared out the center of the cave. From the back of the cave, several of the creatures brought out a bunch of plastic-looking rods and began putting them together. Soon Evan could see that they were making a simple scaffolding tower. A large clear bowl, which also looked like plastic, was placed on top.

  After clearing the other workers away, one of them jumped into the air and caught himself on one of the rungs of the structure, so that he was hanging from his fangs. He let out a room-shaking growl and jumped down, landing in a hole just big enough for him. As he squeezed back into the crowd, flames rushed up into the air until they were searing the bowl.

  “Did he just light a fire with his fangs?” Evan whispered to Olen.
>
  “It’s a skill that takes much practice,” said Olen. “But you will master it in time.”

  Evan stared as the flames rose and licked the bowl. It was not opaque but not quite clear. Not like any plastic he’d ever seen. “What’s it made of?” he asked.

  “Membrane,” said Olen. “It keeps away both the water and the heat.”

  “You mean that’s someone’s skin?”

  Rayden laughed, a deep, strong sound. “Put those human sensibilities aside, new one. The former owner of that membrane had a good, long life. There’s probably something of him in you now.” Rayden laughed harder at seeing Evan’s face.

  Evan knew he was talking about the pit full of dead Wuftoom that Evan had stepped in. “Is that what happens to everyone?” he asked finally, thinking about how people buried their dead in graves, or scattered their ashes in their favorite places.

  “So far,” said Rayden, still jolly.

  Evan looked up at the structure, which though full of fire did not seem to be burning. “Is it all coated with membrane?”

  “Olen, I think we’ve got a smart one,” Rayden replied.

  The fire burned higher. Evan was about to ask what they were going to do with it when the crowd made way for three Wuftoom, each carrying a mass of something hairy in his arms. When Evan saw a leg stick out, he recognized the spiders they had seen earlier scurrying frantically away.

  Each of the three Wuftoom appeared to be carrying at least ten spiders. Oohs and ahs and wordless growls came from the crowd. The cries only got louder when the three Wuftoom started throwing the spiders one by one into the bowl, completely whole. They fried and popped.

  The other Wuftoom began to sit down in the water, which flowed nearly up to their shoulders when they were sitting. There was much laughter and shouting. Evan saw them stick their noses into the sewage and drink from it, and he nearly gagged.

  Olen looked at him for a few seconds. Then Olen and Rayden each grabbed a side of him and pushed him down, so that he was underwater. It happened so fast, he didn’t have a chance to close his mouth. Quickly, they pulled him back up again. Both were grinning at him. To his surprise, the water had felt cold and clear, like drinking from a mountain stream. Evan stared at them.