Wuftoom

by Mary G. Thompson

  “I know. It’s because I’ve been through it that I know. People are talking about how you fell into that pit. That’s exactly what happened to me.”

  “You got sick two years ago,” said Jordan. “You were in the hospital, and now you’re locked up at home dying. That’s what everyone says.”

  Evan had no idea anyone was talking about him. He had assumed they’d never noticed he was gone. No one had ever sent him a card or called. “I’m not dying anymore. But I almost did. The doctors almost killed me. But my grandmother heard about a man who had a cure.”

  “A man?” Jordan’s voice was flat. Evan couldn’t tell whether he was buying it or not.

  “It’s not approved or anything. But I’m better now. You have to come here and get the cure before it’s too late.”

  “You had two years,” said Jordan.

  “You don’t want to go through what I went through!” At least this part Evan could be sincere about. “You don’t want to be in the hospital. You don’t want to be locked away in a room and have everyone forget about you.” Although Jordan’s room was quite a bit better than his, he thought bitterly.

  There was a pause at the other end. “Where is it?”

  Evan stared at a piece of paper Tret had laid in front of him. “Thirteen eighty-seven West Taylor Street. It’s a big house that’s all boarded up. But the door’s unlocked. The door to the basement is in the kitchen. I know it sounds bad, but the guy could get arrested for giving medicine that’s not approved. You have to come tonight because he’s going away again.”

  “You really think it’s the pit?” asked Jordan.

  “The goo,” said Evan. “This doctor says it’s a parasite. He’s tried to tell the other doctors, but no one believes him.”

  “But I’ve been feeling bad for a whole week, so maybe that wasn’t it.”

  “It is,” said Evan quickly. “And don’t tell your parents,” he added, trying not to sound like it mattered. “My mom didn’t want me to take the medicine. She wouldn’t have let me so my grandma had to sneak me out.”

  “Yeah, you’re right,” said Jordan. “I’ll see you in a little while. Thanks.” Jordan hung up, and, slowly, Evan did too, grasping the receiver with both nubs.

  “Well?” asked Tret eagerly.

  Evan breathed a sigh. This time he felt like he’d gotten the right amount of air. “He’s coming,” he said. “We just have to wait. But he lives across town from here, so it might take a while.” He took another breath. He still felt faint, but he thought he’d be able to hold on.

  Suzie was sitting in a ball on the floor. Ylander was standing, but he was leaning against a wall. It looked like they were feeling the effects of the air too. Only Tret seemed to be doing all right. But he saw what was happening to the others.

  “Okay, we’ll take turns keeping watch for the proem and the rest of us will go back into the pipes. I’ll start, and I’ll call you after a while,” he said to Suzie and Ylander.

  They nodded, and without speaking, Ylander went down first. Evan grabbed on to him and Suzie followed. They moved together, snaked around each other, for a short time and then came out in a slightly larger pipe. They were still squooshed down quite a bit and all together like one worm, but Evan still felt better than he had up top. He didn’t feel squeezed at all. In fact, he was breathing much better. From the way they were breathing, Evan could tell Suzie and Ylander felt the same.

  Maybe it’s better this way, he told himself. Jordan wouldn’t have to go to the hospital or be locked up in his room. But he also wouldn’t have a chance to say goodbye. Evan was glad no one could talk inside the pipe. He wasn’t sure he could act the way a Wuftoom should.

  Seventeen

  JORDAN CAME SOONER than Evan expected. It was still Tret’s shift when he pulled the rest of them back into the basement. This time Evan expected the shock, but he still felt the expansion, the cold, the air bursting into his skin. As he struggled to stand, he heard footsteps on the stairs. Suzie and Ylander grabbed him and pulled him into a corner.

  “Stay here and flatten yourself,” Suzie whispered. Then she, Ylander, and Tret pressed themselves against the walls. They waited by the stairs, ready to jump.

  Evan struggled to hold himself. In his mind he knew he was flat, only an inch thick as he spread himself against the wall, but he felt like he was growing outward, like he was bigger than ever. He pursed his lips tight.

  The room filled with extreme brightness. It was nothing like any light Evan had seen before. It filled the basement, burned his eyes, and wiped his vision into white. He thrust an arm over his eyes, but the light pushed itself in. He tried to keep from screaming and felt a fang press into his tongue. A taste like the spider’s filled his mouth.

  “Is anyone here?” a voice asked. Jordan.

  It was too loud and Evan’s body shook. Suddenly, the light was gone.

  “What the . . .”

  As Evan’s vision cleared, he saw two Wuftoom on top of Jordan.

  “Okay, let him up, but stay close,” said Tret.

  Suzie and Ylander climbed off Jordan and lifted him to his feet. He tried to wrench his arms free, but the Wuftoom held him fast. His head turned from side to side, and Evan realized Jordan couldn’t see.

  “You are Jordan?” asked Tret.

  Jordan’s eyes focused on Tret’s voice. He jerked his arms, and the Wuftoom wrapped their nubs around him tighter. They were much shorter than Jordan, but their worm muscles were stronger than they looked.

  “I’m Tret, and these are my friends Suzie and Ylander.”

  Evan was conscious of how deep Tret’s voice was, and how growly. It did not sound human. He had not quite realized how strange it sounded.

  “We’re not going to hurt you,” Tret growled. “We are called Wuftoom.”

  “Where’s Evan?” Jordan asked. He was not shrinking back. He was still pulling against Suzie and Ylander and staring Tret straight in the face, although he could not see him.

  “He is here. New one.”

  Evan popped himself out of the wall and slowly took form. He was still lightheaded, but he was able to stand up. He slowly walked toward Jordan and stood in front of him with Tret.

  Jordan must have felt something because he looked vainly around. “Evan? What’s going on?”

  Evan was speechless. He wanted to say he was sorry, but “new one” the Wuftoom wasn’t supposed to be sorry. He was supposed to be glad he’d done this to Jordan.

  After a silence Tret spoke. “Jordan, we regret that we were forced to deceive you. There is no cure for what you have. It is not a disease. You will become one of us. We are Wuftoom, the most powerful of races that live in the dark.”

  Evan couldn’t stand it. It was too much like Olen. “There isn’t a cure,” said Evan. “But we can help you. If you change alone it will be awful. I wish I could cure you!”

  “You’re not Evan! I bet Evan’s dead! What did you do to me? You did it! You took over my life!” It was deafeningly loud. Did the Wuftoom talk quietly compared to humans?

  “I am Evan!” Evan said. “I didn’t take over your life. I’m trying to help you.” He was afraid to tell Jordan the truth.

  “You stink,” said Jordan. He kicked a foot out and hit Evan in the middle before Tret grabbed Jordan’s leg and tugged, sending Jordan, Suzie, and Ylander to the ground. Evan was thrown against the wall. His body flattened, then popped out again. His body expanded too far again, but he wasn’t hurt.

  His heart sank as he gasped. Kicking the Wuftoom would be worthless. It wouldn’t hurt them at all.

  “Stop,” said Tret quietly to Jordan. “We’re trying to help you.”

  Without being told, Suzie and Ylander picked up some rope from the floor and began tying Jordan’s arms and legs. Jordan struggled a little, but he had hit his head badly, and he was no match for the twisting Wuftoom arms that wrapped around him.

  Evan tried to keep a blank expression, but inside, his fear was growing. What if he ha
d acted too human? But Tret clapped him on the back silently, as if he’d done well.

  Evan knew that tying Jordan up was for Jordan’s own good. It would be much worse if Jordan were let loose to change. But these thoughts didn’t stop him from feeling sorry for Jordan, from putting himself in Jordan’s place and wondering how he would have felt if this was what had happened to him. Evan was stupid enough to have walked into the pit, but Jordan didn’t deserve this.

  As Tret pulled him toward the pipes, Evan saw Jordan, dazed but awake, twisting his hands in a futile effort to untie the knots. Ylander was standing over him, ready to jump. Jordan screamed, and Ylander clamped a nub around his mouth. Evan could almost feel it, the weight of Ylander’s noxious, sewage-dripping body. He felt himself choking as Tret pulled him down into the pipe.

  Eighteen

  THEY SLID OUT into the larger pipe, but Evan still heard the scream and smelled the stink. He collapsed into the water and covered himself. It made no sense for him to loathe it and bathe in it at once, but Evan felt calmed as the water flowed over him, and his breathing returned.

  Tret dived into the water, thrashed around for a few seconds, and jumped back up. He had rolled his belly into a pouch, like he was holding something in it. Evan looked sickly on as Tret let the flap of flesh go and caught a little, scaly, wriggling creature with a rolled-up arm. It wriggled and tried to jump, but Tret held it tight.

  “The new one eats first. For a mission well accomplished!” Tret exclaimed. “Now, don’t drop it. Eat it quick before it gets away.” Tret passed the thing to Evan, who quickly rolled his arm over it and held on tight.

  All of a sudden, he felt better. He felt its slimy body wriggle against his skin. It was so strong, it was all he could do not to open his arm up and let it go. Without looking at it, he opened his mouth and pushed the creature in. His fangs and teeth crunched down on its body, which was gooey soft inside. The skin was tough like leather, but it tasted pleasantly sweet. It stopped moving after his first bite, and he finished it in three quick swallows.

  By the time he was done, Tret had risen up with another, which he shared between himself and Suzie.

  Suddenly Evan felt guilty. “Are there no more?” he asked.

  Tret shrugged. “I don’t know. We’re lucky we found two. They’re getting smarter all the time. The Vits don’t go in the water, but since they’ve been eating the land creatures, we’ve been taking too many. They know not to travel in groups now.”

  “What are they?” Evan asked.

  “Higgers,” Tret said.

  “Do they talk?” Evan didn’t see how they could.

  “They don’t talk. They play each other’s scales.”

  Evan thought about this. What would it sound like? “Can you hear it?” he asked.

  “No,” said Tret, “they only talk to each other underwater. The frogs can hear it, but they don’t understand.”

  “Frogs?”

  Suzie giggled. “They’re not really frogs. They probably call us worms, like you did.” If Evan were still human, he would have turned red with embarrassment, but Suzie didn’t seem upset. “They call themselves Orpas, and we call them frogs because they can live underwater for a long time and they hop. They have beady little eyes set way down on their heads and fur that looks like plastic. And their feet have sharp little claws.”

  “And they just live down here, like you—us?”

  “They burrow through the ground and have pools in the earth where they make their home. They come out here to feed on the tiniest creatures in the water.”

  “And you eat them, too?”

  “Yes.”

  Evan was silent for a minute. The insides of the Higger had tasted salty and oily. It didn’t have as much blood as the spider and the Miftie, but what little it had had melted as it poured down his throat, like warm butter into bread. His mouth watered to think about it again.

  “Is there anything you don’t eat?” he asked.

  “We eat everything that thinks and lives beneath the ground,” said Tret.

  “We don’t eat the Vitflys,” said Suzie, “because we can’t catch them.” She smiled and seemed to be staring at something no one could see.

  “Old Rayden ate one,” said Tret, staring with the same faraway look.

  Suddenly, it was like Evan could read Tret’s thoughts. He could taste the phantom of the Vitfly’s blood as it trickled, no, poured down Evan’s open throat. He could feel the roughness of its wings and the crunch of its exoskeleton against his teeth. His lips pursed together, as if to trap it on his tongue.

  Tret noticed Evan’s expression and laughed. “You see? All Wuftoom want to eat them. It’s Wuftoom nature.”

  “And they want to eat us . . . Do the Higgers and the Mifties and the spiders want to eat us too?” He didn’t know how the Higgers could do it, but what if the spiders had a giant web? What if they trapped him in it and sucked at him, slurp by slurp?

  “Probably.” He gave a twisted smile. “Don’t worry about the Mitfties.” Suzie laughed, but Evan was still worried.

  “But what about the Vitflys?”

  “They won’t catch any more of us,” Tret said. He was no longer smiling. He turned his head to directly face Evan, and the water flowed slowly around him as he spoke. “They want to destroy us and have the dark world to themselves. But we will destroy them.” His eyes glowed almost as brightly as the Vit’s.

  “How are we going to do it?” Evan asked. Please tell me, please, he thought.

  Tret’s glowing eyes bore down on Evan as he leaned forward eagerly. He had to lean over Suzie to get his face inches from Evan’s. His voice was hissing and soft, but it came through perfectly clear. “We’re digging into their home. You see, they think we don’t know where they live. They try to make it seem as if they live all over. But they have a home base just like us. It’s deep beneath the sewers. They have many tunnels coming out. With false faces and traps to keep it safe from prying eyes. But we know where it is now. We have a weapon that will destroy them!”

  At “destroy” he clapped one arm into the other like a man slapping a clenched fist, only when the two arms met, they melted into each other, and Tret’s flesh twisted and turned. Suzie grabbed Tret’s arms, and they melted their four arms together.

  “A weapon?” Evan’s heart leaped. “What is it?”

  “Shhh!” Suzie whispered. “Someone will hear you. It was another creature who betrayed the Vits to us.”

  Tret leaned in toward Evan and grinned. A piece of Higger skin hung from one of his yellow fangs. “It’s a bomb.”

  Suzie joined in the grin.

  “We’ve been working on it together,” Tret whispered. “We’re using our brains from when we were still human. Sneaking into basements at night. Even using their computers. We’re finally close to being finished.”

  “Do the others know?”

  “They do now,” Tret said. “It’s the old scholars who are putting on the final touches. Even old Rayden had to agree once he realized how good it was.”

  “Who are the scholars?” Evan asked.

  “They’re a small group of mixed-age Wuftoom,” said Tret. “They work on weapons instead of hunting. Rayden’s still one of them.” Tret turned his grin to Suzie.

  She also leaned in close to Evan, so that their three faces were almost touching. “It will destroy them.”

  “When?” Evan whispered eagerly. If it was soon, he wouldn’t have to help the Vits. His mother would be safe.

  Tret grinned. “Only a month now.”

  Evan’s heart sank again. He had only three weeks before he was supposed to deliver on his bargain—minus a whole night. If the Vits weren’t destroyed by then, he would have to help them. Or they’d eat his mother. He wrapped his own arms and twisted them against his body.

  “Why not sooner?” he whispered. He couldn’t really look at Tret and Suzie, but stared ahead at the slimy concrete wall.

  “We dig every day,” Tret said. “We can�
�t go any faster and still have enough Wuftoom to hunt.” Tret and Suzie were both smiling, their arms still melting together. They had the same look Olen had when he had told Evan about how wonderful the future would be.

  “The other dark places,” Evan whispered. Visions of tunnels of earth and stone, caves and streams entered his head. They were far beneath them. He knew they were real and they were down there, waiting. It was instinct for him to know these places and love them, like it was instinct for him to love the creatures’ blood.

  Did he actually want it? How could he want to live like this? But it was better than what would happen if he helped the Vits. At least the Wuftoom cared about him. Nobody else had ever cared about him except his mother. He wrapped his arms around his legs and melted himself into a ball, letting the water flow over his head. He didn’t want to think about his mother.

  Nineteen

  THE NEXT SEVERAL NIGHTS were slow. Tret, Suzie, and Ylander took turns watching Jordan while Evan stayed behind with the two who were off duty, sleeping or fishing. They slept during the day, all squished up in the pipes.

  During the nights, when they were awake, Evan wished he had a good, long book to slowly work through. Or a movie to watch. Or someone else to talk to. Anything to keep his thoughts off his mother and the Vitflys. But all he could do was think, and the more he thought about it, the less he found any solution. He had to help the Vitflys. But if he did, the Vitflys might win. What would happen to the Wuftoom? What would happen to him?

  The only break came when Tret tried to get Jordan to eat a Higger. Evan had pointed out that Jordan might starve before he changed. Of course, Jordan refused to eat it. He spat the Higger all over the floor, where it flopped and shriveled in the air. Tret came down cursing, and Suzie and Ylander laughed and laughed.

  “He’ll eat when he’s really hungry,” said Ylander, and sure enough, on Suzie’s shift, he took what he was offered.

  Suzie laughed as she described the revulsion on Jordan’s face.