Slither

by John Halkin

  Slither

  John Halkin

  Copyright © 1979 by John Halkin

  First published by Century Hutchinson

  ‘The worm is not to be trusted …

  …there is no goodness in the worm.’

  Antony and Cleopatra

  Contents

  Copyright

  Chapter 1

  Chapter 2

  Chapter 3

  Chapter 4

  Chapter 5

  Chapter 6

  Chapter 7

  Chapter 8

  Chapter 9

  Chapter 10

  Chapter 11

  Chapter 12

  Chapter 13

  Chapter 14

  Chapter 15

  Chapter 16

  Chapter 17

  Chapter 18

  Chapter 19

  Chapter 20

  Chapter 21

  Chapter 22

  1

  With a sudden flick, whiplike, three of the worms reversed direction in the sewer and sped towards Matt’s hand. They were at least eighteen inches long, like snakes, as fat as his wrist, dead straight and as swift as arrows. They looked just as dangerous too, their skins glowing with a weird beautiful luminosity even under the glare of the lights.

  Matt had been groping around in the sludge for the light meter he’d dropped. Before he was able to pull his hand out of the water the first worm’s teeth bit sharply into the ball of his thumb. He staggered back, gasping with shock at the pain.

  It didn’t let go. It didn’t even curl or wriggle. Those sharp teeth held him vice-like, tightening.

  He tried his best to straighten up on that slippery, narrow ledge where he was perched but he was too tall. The buttress curved forward as it met the vaulted roof of the sewer and there wasn’t enough room for him to stand upright. Around the foot of the buttress three deep streams of effluent met together, swirling and foaming. One false step and he’d be in it up to the knees. The other worms, four of them now, had already gathered there, waiting for him.

  ‘Ah!’ The cry escaped from him involuntarily as a fresh wave of pain shot through his right hand and arm.

  He stared at his hand, disbelieving. The worm hung there, occasionally convulsing but for the most part motionless. It was forcing its teeth deeper and deeper into that pad of flesh, biting it in just the same way that he might attack a roast leg of chicken. Eating it! But what sort of animal devours living flesh? And from a human being?

  For a few seconds he was paralysed, all will-power gone, until the rational part of his mind told him urgently he must fight back, do something to save himself, survive…

  With his left hand he grasped the worm just below its head. He couldn’t pull it away, that was too painful, so instead he squeezed it with all the force he could muster in order to get its jaws open. The worm gulped and undulated between his fingers, straining to free itself from their throttling pressure.

  Then it tried a new tactic. Its eyes moved and sought his in a hard relentless challenge. He caught his breath and for a moment felt himself weakening; then he willed himself to look away and tightened his grip. In a last spasm of resistance the worm unexpectedly curled upwards and attempted to lash against him, uselessly. And suddenly it slackened. Its jaws relaxed and he prised them apart. The mouth was red with his blood; shreds of his flesh clung to the teeth.

  The dead worm dangled limply from his fingers, its eyes now two stony, lifeless buttons. He became aware the others were watching, waiting, and he flung the corpse down to them contemptuously. In a flash they’d surrounded it, greedily tearing at it with their teeth, and diving down to grab any piece that dropped.

  After the recent rains the effluent was as clear as pure drinking water and he could see every move. He stared at them, fascinated and horrified, for a brief moment forgetting his wounded hand. But his blood dripped down, and each time the worms whipped around to suck it into their mouths before it could dissolve. Then they looked up for more, expectantly.

  His eyes misted; he felt himself swaying. ‘Mustn’t faint,’ he told himself firmly. Aloud he suddenly shouted the words, ‘I … must … not … faint!’

  His voice echoed and re-echoed through those long Victorian London sewers until it lost itself somewhere in the distance. He was alone down there on his buttress island surrounded by the deep channels of effluent. With one great stride he might have crossed back to the safety of the walk-way where his camera stood on its tripod, the lights on their stands, everything normal as it should be. But he couldn’t do it. Something inside him screamed he’d never make it.

  That’s just what the worms wanted, what they were waiting for…

  Everything was in a haze, unsubstantial, shifting… The narrow ledge where he stood offered no firm foothold; it was covered with slime and he was afraid to move in case his feet slid from under him and…

  That’s how the accident had happened in the first place. He’d felt himself slipping, grasped at the brickwork of the buttress for support, and dropped the light meter. It had slithered across the ledge and into the water. Only had it a week, too; a birthday present from Helen. Must have cost her… Well, now he’d have to leave it there.

  ‘Anyone around?’ he called out.

  Anyone around, around, ound, nd… the tunnels were alive with murmurs, whispers, mocking him … ound, ound, nd…

  But there had to be somebody…

  ‘Anyone?’

  Matt knew it was his own stupid fault, the whole thing. Matt Parker, TV film cameraman, aged thirty-six and beginning to feel it in his bones. He should never have accepted this film in the first place. All his instincts had screamed out against it the moment he’d heard it involved spending a week in the sewers beneath the City of London. It was not even a feature film. No re-make of The Third Man or that sort of crap – he’d be so lucky! No, just another bread-and-butter TV documentary about urban growth through the centuries, starting with a section of Roman wall and ending eight tedious episodes later with shots of concrete jungle graffiti.

  Low budget, of course. Educational.

  But then, Matt thought bitterly, he was a low budget, bread-and-butter sort of cameraman. In spite of it all. As a kid, from the day he’d first come across the existence of films and cameras he’d thought of nothing else, done a gruelling paper round every day before school to save enough money for a secondhand 8mm. Kodak, and carried on with the papers afterwards to pay for film stock and everything else he needed. When eventually the opportunity came to join a TV company as a trainee assistant film cameraman he’d jumped at it.

  Opportunity? He’d lived film every waking minute of the day, even dreamed about it at night, only to find others promoted ahead of him, picked out for the big drama productions while he was left with run-of-the-mill documentaries shown at off-peak hours. ‘You’re a first-rate cameraman,’ they’d told him not all that long ago. ‘Just the sort of person we need for some of our less experienced directors. Keep them on the right track. Stop them making fools of themselves. You know what you’re doing. They don’t.’

  Well, cameramen can’t be choosers, as he’d said to Helen when he’d told her about the sewers.

  His own bloody fault.

  And now he faced a slow, painful death. Or, if he survived, a vegetable existence, mutilated and unrecognizable. Perhaps even unable to walk, his arms and legs stripped of flesh, dehumanized.

  ‘I need help!’ he called out in desperation, hearing the fear in his own voice. ‘Help!’

  Help, help, elp, lp … the tunnels replied. The vaulted Victorian brickwork looked like the set for some horror movie. His own lights dazzled his eyes, emphasizing the darkness beyond.

  It would be another fifteen minutes or so before the crew came clattering back. ‘Ready, Matt?
’ they’d call out. ‘Can we go for a take?’ Andy Page, the latest young director, hardly out of his university nappies, would rub his hands together and try to give the impression he was in charge. They’d joked about him that morning, he and the crew, while his back was turned. From bright young directors and things that go bump in the sewers, Good Lord deliver us! someone had intoned. Oh, if only they’d come back early. Or if only he’d said no.

  Helen had put her foot down, told him not to, but he’d argued it was his job. Somebody had to do it. She’d looked unconvinced, worried.

  ‘Why you?’

  For Matt, working in cramped spaces was the ninth circle of hell. And it didn’t get any better. Maybe it was his height – six feet two in his nylon socks and bearded with it. A short, tidy red beard, fastidious, Shakespearean. He spent hours in front of the mirror trimming it almost hair by hair. Freckles, too, across his nose and cheeks. What he hadn’t told Helen was that he seldom used the lift these days, fearing he might betray the panic he experienced every time the doors slid shut. Didn’t tell anybody, but walked up the five flights regularly.

  And now the tunnels seemed to close in around him, alive with their own directionless murmurs, drips, shiftings and slitherings, sighs and whispers, somewhere beyond the lights in the velvet blackness.

  They were hunting him, six of them now. Their mean little eyes were on him, waiting for the next drop of blood which had already soaked through his handkerchief and was collecting on his fingers. Any minute now … the little bastards were well aware of it, he knew from the way they watched … their heads above the water, swaying slightly, marking him as their prey. Two of them swam around, prowling backwards and forwards, patrolling… Were any others on their way? Had they sent signals?

  He kept his hand up to try and reduce the flow of blood, using his buttoned jacket as a sling. The pain spread, throbbing and raw. Cramp seized the muscles of his arm.

  He’d just finished lighting the next shot which was to start on the brick vaulting and pan across to reveal the anchorman – Charlie, as usual – going on about cholera in nineteenth-century London. If he could remember the words. Charlie was one of those TV presenters who can convince the world they are instant experts on everything, always providing someone else has written the script. This time he was going to have his work cut out trying to appear at ease with the dripping walls and the stench. But, no doubt, viewers would find it all very exotic as they watched in their cosy living rooms; they wouldn’t be able to smell it, nor feel hemmed in by those narrow walls.

  Then someone had suggested a break for coffee before the take. And a breath of fresh air.

  ‘Great!’ Matt had agreed. ‘You go ahead, I’ll follow. I’ll just check this buttress.’

  The director had wanted it in the foreground of the shot but it seemed to absorb all the light he could give it and offer nothing back. Matt was preoccupied with the challenge; for a moment his claustrophobia no longer worried him. He’d have to cross over to it and take a reading.

  No problem, though. One stride, the full stretch of his long legs… A shorter man couldn’t have done it.

  So why couldn’t he get back? He was afraid, yes, but… He must brace himself. Discipline himself. If only he weren’t so tall he could stand upright, give himself a better balance. And if only the ledge weren’t so slimy.

  He glanced down. They were watching him. Maybe they could even read his mind.

  ‘It’s a matter of will-power,’ he told himself angrily.

  Will-power, power, ower, er…

  He ignored the echoes coming at him from all directions and worked out what he had to do. Extend his leg carefully over the stream of effluent, then try to shift his weight, his centre of gravity, so that…

  No.

  Cowardice, was it? Or commonsense? Nothing was going to make him move from that ledge before help arrived. One small slip and his foot would be in the water. Their teeth would find his ankle. Or the calf of his leg, perhaps. With six of them attacking together it wouldn’t take much to bring him down, force him to his knees, pull his face into the stinking water. Then they’d have a feast of vengeance for their dead comrade. They’d gnaw their way through the wall of his stomach, or into the heavy flesh at the top of his legs, up his colon, penetrating his intestines…

  They’d keep him alive as long as possible, enjoying the flow of blood through his veins and capillaries, savouring it as a sauce to their meal.

  Their cunning eyes observed him as they bided their time, knowing he hadn’t the strength to last out. He shifted cautiously inch by inch until he was facing the buttress, his legs apart for a better grip, his arms around the brickwork, his head forced to rest sideways on his hunched shoulders by the low curvature of the arched roof. His hand still bled through the handkerchief; the blood gathered into a great blob which fell on to the slimy ledge where it rolled and slipped into the water, like a raindrop down a window pane.

  The loss of blood was weakening him. He felt his knees beginning to sag. His right arm was practically useless. The walk-way was so close, almost within reach, yet he was convinced he’d never get there, not without a firm, dry jumping-off point. It was absurd, this situation.

  Though he should try. He’d no alternative. The longer he left it…

  He edged his way slowly around the buttress, looking down at the ledge, searching for a foothold. The worms moved around with him, determined not to lose sight of their prey. But quietly. Without fuss. As if they knew time was on their side.

  Those eyes had thoughts behind them, he could swear. And a hypnotic attraction. Yet they’d nothing of the soft sympathy of a dog’s eyes; nor the self-centredness of a cat’s, full of character; they betrayed no personality at all, only an alertness.

  His foot slipped.

  It skidded across the sloping ledge, the edge of his shoe scoring the slime, and almost touched the surface of the water. There was an immediate commotion as all six worms swung around to reach him simultaneously. It was a miracle he managed to save himself that time. Cheated them.

  ‘Get my breath back,’ he muttered, his heart thumping away.

  Yet in pulling himself back up he was forced to place too much weight on the other foot and that also began to slide. His arms had to hold him up, embracing the bricks, his fingers desperately digging into the gaps left by the crumbling mortar.

  For a few seconds he thought he’d succeeded. And a few seconds were all that should have been necessary, for it couldn’t be that long now before the rest of the film crew returned, surely it couldn’t be long…

  But the fingers of his mutilated hand had no strength in them. His feet searched wildly for a firm hold but his shoes wouldn’t grip; their soles were coated with slime from the ledge. Slowly he felt the bricks of the buttress beginning to scrape against him as he slid towards the water. And he saw Helen’s face, reproachful, I asked you not to go… Then their daughter Jenny looking up at him, smiling.

  The effluent filled his shoes, covered his ankles, soaked through his trouser legs. He waited, resigned, for the sharp teeth. No point in struggling. Just let it happen, the self-surrender of every hunted prey. It would be over more quickly that way.

  But they didn’t bite. Why not? Where were they?

  He was up to his knees, trying instinctively to get a footing, to stand straight, but without success. He slipped, and then pitched forward into the diluted effluent. The worms swam around him, investigating, nudging against him, then turning to try some other spot. Suddenly he understood why. They were puzzled by his clothing! They wanted naked flesh.

  Their bewilderment gave him a quick surge of hope. He tried once again to scramble to his feet or pull himself up on to the walk-way. Too slow. Much too slow. A couple of the worms, attracted by the blood, started work on the fingers of his right hand. He screamed with pain and fright, thrashing about clumsily as he tried to shake them off, too panic-stricken to realize what he was doing.

  A third worm brushed agai
nst his face. He recoiled. Its teeth cut into his cheek. He heard himself shrieking again and again.

  ‘No! Get off! No!’

  The tunnels took up his cry, bouncing it off their walls, amplifying it, throwing it back at him as yet another worm took the lobe of his ear and a fifth found the soft flesh beneath his chin.

  Gasping, spluttering, his mouth filled with the effluent supplied by all the drains of London, his chest torn by razor-sharp pains as he breathed some of it in, he managed yet one more shout before consciousness left him.

  It was not a high-pitched shriek this time but a deep bellow, like a bull in the agony of death. Then the world slipped away: Helen, Jenny, the dissolving tunnels, the pain… Release.

  2

  Aubrey Morgan felt decidedly pleased with himself as he stood in the men’s washroom at Television Hall, humming tunelessly and running a comb through his thinning blond hair.

  ‘Eaten by what?’ he’d demanded, unable to believe his ears. ‘Snakes?’

  ‘That’s what they looked like,’ young Andy Page had told him, ‘but someone here says they’re worms. Giant worms.’

  He’d phoned in from the foreman’s office somewhere among the complex of London sewers, scarcely able to control the excitement in his voice when he described how he’d found the cameraman slumped unconscious in the sewage while the worms fed on him. Then, to Aubrey’s surprise, he added simply: ‘I filmed it.’

  ‘You—?’

  ‘I’ve got it in the can. I thought maybe News would be interested.’

  News was. A smart cookie, that young director. Who else would have thought of filming the worms before jumping in to rescue the poor sod? It could be a scoop. Aubrey smiled contentedly at his own image in the mirror, a plump round face with baby cheeks and heavy brown horn-rimmed glasses which gave him that intellectual look. Young Andy Page was one of his own recruits. If the pictures were really good there’d be an outcry in the press, maybe even questions in the House of Commons… Excellent publicity – and Aubrey believed firmly that exciting television meant taking risks.