by John Halkin
Tegwyn Aneurin Rhys lived in a large Victorian brick-built house known as the Old Rectory. It was set well back from the lane. The wide wooden gate at the entrance to the drive looked as though it hadn’t been shut for many decades. A couple of greenhouses could be glimpsed beyond the thick trunk of the old oak tree which dominated the extensive but unkempt lawn.
On the gravel in front of the steps leading up to the porch an oldish Bentley was parked, and Matt drew up behind it. Before they could ring the bell the front door opened and an Alsatian bounded out to investigate, closely followed by a smallish man whose bald head was fringed with grey hair sticking out wildly on each side.
‘Heard you arrive,’ he said, ordering the dog to heel. ‘I’m Rhys.’
Matt introduced Fran and himself.
‘Glad to meet you. House is a mess, but come in. Not all that many people take these worms seriously. You’ve found that yourself, I imagine. A bad to-do you had with them in the sewers, wasn’t it? Sorry about that. Been lucky myself, though Barker here lost an ear as you can see.’
The Alsatian looked up at them with knowing eyes, then turned his head sideways to let them see where one ear was missing.
‘That’s what first put me on to the worms,’ Rhys continued, leading the way into a large downstairs room whose walls were heavy with books. ‘I’ll take you to the river afterwards, show you the scene of the crime. Barker saved himself of course. Bit the worm in half, and they haven’t bothered him since. Obviously word got around. Sit down, sit down.’ He waved to a lumpy sofa which still bore signs of having been a very elegant piece of furniture in its day. ‘Now tell me why you want to breed worms. To my mind we’ve enough already.’
Matt explained, with Fran filling in the commercial details. Rhys listened intently, his eyes bright and alert, darting across to Fran’s face every so often.
‘And that’s it,’ Matt concluded. ‘Can you help? Anything you happen to know…’
‘If anyone deserves to make money out of these creatures, I imagine you do,’ Rhys commented after a moment’s thought, gazing at the facial scars still visible under Matt’s beard. ‘It wouldn’t have occurred to me, but then I’ve always had enough money. You’ve broken your connection with television?’
‘I was thrown out. Contract terminated.’
‘You don’t surprise me. Anything they do… Can’t stand those television people. So smarmy. Think they know everything. In fact they know nothing. I wrote to them – you’ve seen the letter – but no reply. Even sent them some specimens, and not a word of thanks.’
‘In a chocolate box?’
‘Half a dozen small worms in a chocolate box personally addressed to the managing director, Mary Keating. Used to watch her children’s programmes. Excellent. Miles better than all the evening crap. Oh, I read in the paper afterwards she’d been a bit careless opening the box, had a fright, but you’d think she’d say thank you.’
‘She was quite seriously injured, wasn’t she?’ asked Fran, looking at Matt.
‘No, no!’ Rhys shook his head vigorously. ‘A couple of small bites, and whose fault was that? I warned her in the note to take care. Open with care, I said. But you can’t tell them anything.’
‘Too true,’ Matt agreed with feeling. ‘Though the truth is, I don’t think they found a note.’
Rhys stared at him with uncomprehending eyes. ‘Typical!’ he snorted. He stood up and leaned against the marble mantelpiece which bore an ornamental clock, several piles of books and journals, and assorted rocks. ‘Breeding. You want to know about breeding.’
‘Yes.’
‘Can’t help you, though. Nobody can. Reptiles either lay eggs or give birth to living young, same as we do. But which methods these worms use, that’s a mystery. They may be oviparous – lay eggs, you understand – or viviparous, but how can we tell? I’ve never met a female, have you?’
‘I … I wouldn’t know,’ Matt admitted, shamefaced. ‘How to tell, that is.’
‘If you’re planning to breed them, I suggest it would be worth your while finding out,’ Rhys observed drily. ‘Come with me.’
He led them through to the back of the house, to a room fitted up as a laboratory. Shelves of jars, containing worms, snakes and various organs all preserved in formaldehyde, lined the walls. A freshly dissected worm lay spreadeagled on a piece of fibreboard.
‘Invited you here out of self-interest, you know,’ Rhys was telling them as they came into the room. ‘When you find a female I’d like to know about it. Now, if we look at this worm—’ he picked up a scalpel to use as a pointer ‘—you can see the cloaca here… And this – see? – is the penis. Or hemipenis, as it’s more properly called – or maybe less properly, but that’s what they call it anyway.’
‘Forked,’ Fran noticed, bending closely over it.
Rhys stood aside to let her study it. ‘You understand that they are not always forked in this type of reptile, but definitely in the case of sewer worms. And rattlesnakes, of course.’
‘Why hemipenis?’
‘They’ve two. Here’s the other one. And they use whichever is more convenient.’
Fran’s eyes twinkled as she looked up at Matt. ‘Jealous?’ she teased.
Rhys moved the microscope away from the bench to make room for a second board which he fetched across from another table. ‘I prepared this for you as well. It’s a slow-worm, quite different in every respect, but it’ll help you to recognize what to look for. This is a female. You see? But I’ve never come across a female sewer worm.’ He was quite emphatic. ‘One week I took two dozen out of the river, deliberately, and every single one was male.’
‘I tried to get in touch with Professor Jones—’ Matt began.
Rhys snorted again. ‘Jones is a nuts-and-bolts man. He’ll tell you all about how a reptile’s made, how it’s put together, but he doesn’t know them as creatures. I’m no herpetologist but I’ve thought it my duty to learn as much as I can in the last eighteen months. How do they fit in with the general scheme of life on this planet? That’s the important question. But then I’m one of those old-fashioned people, a natural philosopher. Not many of us about these days.’
He took them down to the far end of the garden to show them the spot on the river bank where Barker, the dog, had first come into contact with the worms. The air was hazy, softening the outlines of the bare branches; dead leaves, soggy from the rain, still covered the grass. Fran took Matt’s hand and snuggled up against him, shivering. ‘Isn’t he a darling!’ she whispered. ‘Oh, I’m so glad we came.’
There were no worms in the river now, Rhys explained, because it was too cold for them. Being cold-blooded creatures, sensitive to the temperature of their surroundings, they would either hibernate or find a warmer spot. If Matt really wanted to fish some out, there was a tributary stream not more than a mile away which received waste water from a factory on its banks with the result that its temperature was a good two or three degrees higher.
They went there in Matt’s car, scrambling over waste ground and through barbed wire to reach the water’s edge. Using his home made sieve-cum-scoop, Matt netted four at his first attempt. Then another three, then five very small ones, then one almost as long as his arm.
‘Who says they’re not breeding?’ Matt grinned as they drove back to the Old Rectory.
‘Not me,’ Rhys assured him. ‘In my opinion they’re multiplying fast, they’re getting bigger, and in short they’re becoming a real menace. I’ve had reports of sightings in Spain, France, Belgium, the Netherlands, and northern Germany. But never a female. Now, explain that away.’
‘Let’s go back to your lab,’ Matt suggested. ‘Maybe we’ve got a mum among this lot.’
In the laboratory they took the larger worms one by one out of the strong metal box he now used as a portable container. Matt killed them himself, then watched as Fran examined them, with Rhys looking on to check and instruct. They were all male.
‘It’s weird,’ she said
when they’d finished and the worms were safely locked away in the boot of the car. ‘Uncanny.’
‘Design, I think,’ Rhys commented seriously, for the first time openly mentioning his theory of extraterrestrial origin. ‘Unusual features – the colouring, varied sizes, rate of growth, the rapid increase in numbers, and no visible females. I’d like to show you some of the evidence. People think I’m a nut-case, but before you make up your minds – it’s dark outside now – I’d like to take you up to my observatory. I’ve only a small telescope, and it’s not too clear a night either, but you should be able to see at least enough to make you wonder.’
They went up to the room he’d converted at the top of the house and took it in turns to stare at the planet Jupiter through his 6-inch telescope. It certainly made the possible existence of other worlds seem more real. Then he showed them reports of objects observed falling from the sky, drew diagrams, and ended by inviting them to look through the telescope once more. ‘Not from the solar system perhaps,’ he conceded. ‘But somewhere else?’
Afterwards they went back to the car, thoughtful though not convinced. Rhys was clearly disappointed at their reaction. ‘You’ll not forget to let me know if you find any females?’ he reminded them. ‘That information’s vital, wherever they came from.’
Julie had been glad to get out of the disco into the cool fresh air. It was her twentieth birthday and Mum had wanted her to celebrate with the family; there had been a row when she’d told them she’d fixed up to go out with Pete. But how could she invite him home when Mum never had a good word to say for him?
He was already astride the bike, pulling the goggles over his dark eyes, grinning at her. She hitched up her skirt and swung her leg over the pillion, clinging to his black leather jacket as they shot out through the gate and headed for the wood.
Somehow she didn’t care whether she ever went home again. The wind rushed past her ears; the powerful bike throbbed and surged beneath her. The thought of that poky living room with Dad grumbling in front of the TV and the china birds flying up the wall made her sick.
They left the road and took the rough path between the trees, but someone else was in their usual place. Another bike stood there; in the undergrowth they caught a flash of white thighs as they rode on, circled, and returned to the main road.
Pete stopped. ‘What about that cave I told you about?’ he suggested without switching off the engine. ‘Only take us half-an-hour to get there.’
‘Then why are we waiting?’ she called back.
She hugged his waist as the bike picked up speed. Ahead, the road was deserted, though one or two cars met them coming from the opposite direction. A quick moment of bright headlamps, then they passed.
Beyond an isolated farmhouse Pete turned off into a winding lane. The high hedges on either side ceased unexpectedly, giving way to open moorland. He left the tarmac and they bumped over an uneven track for some distance, heading towards the hillside.
The cave entrance was hidden behind a high crag in a crevice only just wide enough for them to ease the bike through. Inside, it seemed shallow and dark, but at the rear was a low, twisting passage. Pete went ahead with the bike, using its headlamp to light the way; it took a lot of manoeuvring to get through.
‘Oh!’ Julie cried, delighted, when she emerged into the chamber beyond and saw the richly-coloured stalactites hanging from the rock face like a delicate screen.
Pete had jacked the bike up and was undressing. Julie nodded quickly and pulled her own clothes off. This was a hundred times better than the wood; it was a magic temple.
‘Happy birthday!’ Pete laughed, as he explored her body with his hard hands. The walls of the cave echoed the words around and around till they disappeared in a whisper.
They made love on the heap of clothes, awkwardly because of the uneven floor, but Julie didn’t mind that. She couldn’t remember ever having felt so totally happy and relaxed; even the eerie sounds of the cave added to her mood – the occasional drip of moisture, the whispers and slithers…
Then suddenly Pete screamed and twisted, throwing her away from him. Hurt, she began to protest, but her words died on her lips as she saw that long, green, snake-like thing squirming across his chest. It glowed like something evil in the half-light as it bit deep into his armpit.
Blood streamed from the wound on his belly just above his navel where a second green thing was eating into him. A third nuzzled against his buttock. He thrashed about, bellowing with pain and begging her to help him.
But what could she do? The cave was full of them and she stood there panic-stricken, naked, totally vulnerable. It wasn’t possible to get her clothes as Pete was lying on them, his blood soaking into them as he weakened and his struggles gradually subsided.
Biting her lip, trying to force herself to stay calm, she backed slowly towards the twisting passage. If only help would come! But she remembered Pete’s words: ‘No one’ll ever find us here.’
A worm slipped over her foot. At the feel of it she lost all control and turned to dash out. Two more worms, slightly larger than the others, blocked the exit. They were half-erect and swaying as though to music; their eyes looked directly into hers, understanding.
One of them wrapped itself around her leg and buried its teeth into the flesh behind her knee; another, from behind, nibbled at her ankle. She heard herself whimpering, not screaming, as though something in those eyes had subdued her; she suddenly realized she was just standing there, allowing herself to be eaten and doing nothing about it.
At that, the spell broke and she screamed out her anger, seizing the first worm and tearing it away from her leg, fighting mad. She flung it to the far end of the cave and stooped for the second; but two others fastened themselves on her, one catching the flesh of her forearm.
Cursing and yelling, she killed one after another and didn’t stop even when they forced her down to her knees and attacked her stomach, her full breasts, her cheeks, the softness under her chin. They slid over her naked body, wet with blood, more and more of them as if welcoming the fight, till she lost consciousness and her thin arms – the bones exposed – fell uselessly away.
The weeks passed. At Christmas Jenny played the part of a shepherd’s wife in the Nativity at the parish church; she’d made friends quickly and was soon invited to several parties.
Helen suspected that the adults pumped her for information about how Matt earned his living and why the sheds were kept locked. Any idea of having a party of her own at the cottage was scotched by Helen. How could they even think of it with all those worms around the place? Matt argued they could never escape from the shed as they were in solid tanks, but she remained unconvinced.
Boxing Day was particularly uncomfortable. He’d gone to feed the worms and, as usual, became absorbed in watching their behaviour, forgetting all about the time. They’d asked Fran around for lunch – after all, she was a business associate – and Matt only emerged from the shed when he heard her arrive. From the look on Helen’s face it was obvious what she was thinking.
After they’d eaten, as they sat in front of the fire, Fran began talking about Tegwyn Aneurin Rhys and soon had Jenny in stitches wtih her imitations of his eccentric way of talking and his bird-like habit of putting his head on one side when he was making a special point.
Helen didn’t even smile. When Fran left and Jenny was in bed, they washed the dishes together in silence. When they’d finished he suggested there might be something worth watching on television.
‘Anything rather than talk to me!’ she burst out at him.
It was their first quarrel since they’d moved down to the cottage, yet they both knew it’d been smouldering for some time. She accused him of having an affair with Fran. That hurt. He’d smothered those feelings almost from the start.
Then she attacked him for the long hours he spent with the worms. True – but they were trying to make a living, he argued back. Not only from skins either. What about those colour transparen
cies he’d sold to the Geographical? That illustrated article to the German paper? Why couldn’t she involve herself more in what they were doing? Fran had asked her to help with the book-keeping, to become part of the business, but she’d refused. Why?
‘You know very well why!’ Helen retorted.
But the storm passed that day and during the next few weeks neither of them mentioned it. They even made love occasionally, trying to repair the breach. And he cut down the amount of time he spent with the worms and did more jobs about the house. She began to take in typing from the local solicitor and Matt helped her to check the work for accuracy. It gave them an insight into several neighbourhood scandals. In church on Sunday mornings they looked at several members of the congregation with renewed interest.
It was a mild winter that year and spring came early. He checked the tanks daily, hoping the worms might show signs of a courtship dance, anything to indicate a change in their behaviour pattern. They’d still not found any females but Fran had read somewhere that hermaphrodites were not unknown in the animal world. She rang Aneurin Tegwyn Rhys to discuss the idea; he thought it not impossible.
‘If only we could breed them,’ he explained to Jenny as she watched him dropping food into the tanks one day, ‘we’d have more control. Hunting’s so uncertain. Hit or miss.’
‘You hate it, don’t you?’ Jenny observed, matter-of-fact. ‘I know you do, Daddy, because your mood’s quite different when you go hunting. You’re all on edge. Mummy notices too. Why don’t you love each other like you used to? Is it because of the worms?’
Matt’s immediate instinct was to deny it, but then she’d only fall silent as she realized he was lying. ‘I don’t know, Jenny. People go through these phases.’
They moved to the tank with the largest worms. ‘Isn’t it beautiful, that one?’ she cried out enthusiastically. ‘Isn’t it beautiful? Isn’t it lovely?’