Slither

by John Halkin

  This sensation was reinforced by the sight of Fran’s craft shop with its broken window. He stooped to look inside. His mouth went dry.

  Worms lay in loops across the counter, lazily explored the display shelves and squirmed over the floor. They were mostly about four feet long, though a few were shorter, and they moved sluggishly, ignoring the two men staring in at them.

  ‘Like an army of occupation,’ Rhys whispered ecstatically. ‘If only we could communicate with them.’

  ‘You can,’ Matt told him sourly. ‘One step inside that door, you’d get the message right away.’

  The butcher’s next door had also been taken over. There was no meat in sight, only worms. Sleeping in the window; coiled up on the scales. And in the outfitter’s they’d draped themselves langorously over the mannequins, their colouring in vivid contrast with the sailing jackets and white sweaters. One worm eyed them lethargically from amidst a disarray of underwear.

  ‘They don’t see us as a danger any longer,’ Rhys was saying excitedly. ‘They feel they’ve won their battle. Here we are, strolling among them like tourists almost! Matt, I’m sure we could reach some understanding with them if…’

  ‘Try reaching some understanding with a cobra!’ Matt retorted contemptuously. ‘They’re not attacking us because they’ve gorged themselves silly already on all the livestock that used to live round here, the pigs, sheep, hens, cows, ducks, dogs, cats, rabbits… If you don’t believe me, you stick around till they’re hungry again.’

  But maybe they could get to the cottage safely, he thought. Pack his films and stuff into a couple of rucksacks and get back before they changed their minds. It was risky, but…

  He led the way through the narrow lane. The clear stream tumbled and gurgled as it had always done, littered by the same soggy cigarette packets and empty beer cans. The mongrel which had always barked at him from the end garden was no longer there, nor was the old woman he’d so often seen at the open window of the third cottage.

  ‘It’s uncanny,’ Rhys commented, his voice now a little unsteady. ‘Seagulls on the rooftops, and nothing else.’ He pushed open a rickety garden gate and crossed the tiny patch of grass to peer in through the front window. ‘St Christopher and all the saints!’ he murmured.

  Matt joined him. Through the spotlessly-clean pane he saw the raw carcase of old Dave Trewin with several worms still feeding on it. The dead man’s stomach gaped open and a worm was emerging from it, streaked with red, gripping a large section of intestine. Part of his face was gone, though enough was left to recognize him; his crutches too lay on the floor beside him. Twenty years earlier he’d been injured helping to rescue the crew of a Dutch freighter driven on the rocks; he was well-known in Westport pubs, spinning yarns to holiday-makers in exchange for drinks.

  Something moved.

  A quick slither on the tiles above.

  Matt dodged back instinctively even before his mind had registered the danger. The worm slipped over the guttering and fell with deadly accuracy on to Rhys’s shoulders.

  It didn’t bite immediately. It first steadied itself, then pulled its head back as if wanting to examine its victim’s face before selecting which portion to feed on. Rhys’s eyes bulged with terror. He opened his mouth as if to scream, but there was no sound. Only a rattle in his throat.

  The worm was on the point of striking when Matt’s hand gripped it just below the head. It whipped about furiously this way and that, trying to fix Matt with its eyes, then twisting its neck in a vain attempt to bite his wrist. He held it steadily and stared back, asserting his own superiority. Gradually the worm’s resistance slackened. Now he need only tighten his fingers slightly…

  ‘Don’t kill it!’ Rhys’s voice had returned. ‘We’ll take it back for Professor Jones. A present from Westport!’

  ‘It’s asking for trouble!’ Matt protested.

  ‘Why?’

  ‘The others…’

  ‘Half-asleep, most of them,’ Rhys scoffed. ‘The rest are too busy.’ He added triumphantly: ‘So you do admit there’s communication between them?’

  Matt didn’t argue. Still holding the worm in front of him, he marched back into the cobbled street, abandoning all idea of visiting his own cottage. It had been a crazy notion anyway. If there was one place in the whole of Westport which would be crawling with worms, it would be his cottage.

  In the shop windows he caught the occasional glimpse of eyes watching him. They were following his progress back to the quayside, yet not obviously moving. He thought at one point he heard something, swung around… Nothing.

  ‘You’re getting nervous,’ Rhys observed, his confidence now fully restored.

  Matt stopped, irritated. He thrust the worm’s head towards Rhys’s face and felt the ripple of interest passing through its body as its jaws opened. ‘Would you like to carry it?’ he demanded.

  ‘My dear fellow, I didn’t mean to offend you!’ Rhys backed away. ‘Let’s just get it back to the boat.’

  Rounding the corner at the foot of the cobbled street they came to the wide quayside where he’d often been with Jenny to buy lobster or mackerel from the fishermen unloading their catch. It was crowded with worms, some lying with their heads flat on the cobbles, though others raised them in that interested, periscope-like manner which had become so familiar.

  ‘What d’you suggest now?’ asked Matt cynically. He felt weary and realized he no longer minded dying, though he’d prefer it to happen quickly.

  ‘They want their friend back, that’s obvious!’ Rhys squeaked with delight at this confirmation of his theories. ‘So if you place him carefully on the ground…’

  ‘And have it take a piece out of my nose?’ Matt refused scornfully. He was sickened by the whole expedition. Twenty yards off the boat was waiting for them, standing wisely a couple of feet away from the quayside. But to get there they’d have to pass the worms. ‘There’s only one way out of this mess, Rhys.’

  ‘What mess? Don’t you see…’

  But Matt wasn’t listening. He tightened his fingers around the worm he was holding, squeezing it to death, and then threw the body into the centre of one of the thickest groups a few feet away. As usual, they fell hungrily on their dead brother.

  ‘Now make a dash for the boat!’ he shouted at Rhys as he transferred his stick to his right hand. ‘Keep over to the right by those boxes. Move!’

  ‘But’ Rhys started to argue. A large worm slid rapidly towards him at that moment and reared up to strike at his thigh.

  ‘Go!’ Matt pushed him, bringing his stick down on the worm’s head at the same time.

  Rhys forgot all his theories and sprinted for the boat. Something was happening on board but Matt was too busy to watch. Out of the corner of his eye he saw one of the ratings had jumped on to the quayside to help Rhys aboard. It seemed to take ages, but what was the difficulty?

  The worms were coming at him from three sides now. Viciously he hit out at them, cursing and yelling. As he killed each one others began to devour it. Somehow he’d have to edge his way round towards the point where he could start running.

  Then came a burst of automatic rifle fire from the rating on the quayside. Chips of stone flew up where the bullets hit.

  ‘That’s no use!’ Matt cried out to him, but his words were drowned by another burst of firing.

  One bullet found its mark. One only. The rating would have done better with a stick in his hands. The other worms changed direction and sped over the stones towards him. Matt shouted a warning but he was too late. His shots went wide, breaking a window, as the worms fastened their teeth into his legs and hands.

  By the time Matt reached him the rating had fallen to his knees. A four-foot worm was on the point of biting into his neck when Matt’s stick dashed its brains out. Another rating jumped ashore and together they got the wounded man on board. He was groaning incoherently. At least three worms were still feeding on him.

  With his gloved hand Matt seized the nearest b
y the neck, forced its jaws apart and tossed it into the sea as the boat pulled away from the quayside, gathering speed. Rhys and the lieutenant helped with the other two. A fourth, which had been clinging to Matt’s own clothes, dropped to the deck. He stamped on it.

  ‘I’ll not feel safe on board this boat again,’ said the bearded lieutenant when they’d killed all they could find. He ordered a search in case they’d missed one.

  ‘They didn’t seem to bite you,’ observed Rhys wonderingly.

  Matt looked down at his legs. His trousers had been torn to rags by their teeth but the composition rubber of the frogman suit beneath was still whole.

  ‘It worked this time,’ he agreed doubtfully, ‘but sooner or later they’ll chew through it. They learn from experience.’

  The meeting next day took place in a high panelled room decorated with dark oil paintings in ornate frames. About twelve people were there, the civil servants both male and female dressed in nondescript suits, the academics ranging from sweaters and denim at one extreme to Professor Jones’s nineteen-fifties sports jacket with leather elbow-patches at the other.

  Matt was left to cool his heels outside for the first hour and when eventually they called him in he was given a place at the foot of the table. But they listened attentively enough as he described his various encounters with the worms and his observations on their living habits.

  ‘But you found no females?’ Professor Jones demanded confirmation. ‘You regard yourself as competent to make such a positive statement?’

  ‘Of course he is!’ Rhys objected in a loud voice. ‘Taught him myself.’

  ‘Nevertheless, he’s hardly qualified…’

  A heated argument developed between the two men during which Rhys accused the Professor of being less a zoologist than a mortician.

  ‘God’s creatures live and move and have their being,’ he declared hotly. ‘We can learn more from watching them in nature – as Matt has done – than on a dissecting table. I’ll tell you why we’ve seen no females. Sewer worms reproduce in the sea, probably in the depths of the ocean. They reach the estuaries, develop lungs – the old tadpole-frog pattern – swim into the rivers and streams, into the drains and sewers… Now d’you understand?’

  Unexpectedly, Professor Jones shot out a question at Matt. ‘Do you understand, Mr Parker?’ he asked. ‘From what you’ve seen of them?’

  Matt thought for a moment before he replied. ‘What about salmon?’ The idea had occurred to him several times over the past months. ‘They spawn in the upper reaches of rivers, the quiet waters, then swim downstream to the ocean, getting bigger all the time, till in due course they reverse the process and swim upstream again to lay eggs for the new generation.’

  ‘I don’t see the parallel,’ Rhys announced stubbornly.

  ‘Nor do I,’ said the Professor drily. ‘Rhys’s theory is consistent with the behaviour of eels, but yours…’ He shrugged.

  ‘It would explain the big variation in size,’ Matt ventured, feeling out of his depth. ‘Of course I’m no expert.’

  ‘Quite.’

  Two or three of the other academics took up the concept and argued about it for the next quarter of an hour or so till a woman civil servant, whose name Matt hadn’t grasped, turned to him and said: ‘D’you know where to find these spawning grounds?’

  ‘I think so,’ Matt answered cautiously.

  ‘You may be wrong,’ she told him kindly, ‘but we should follow up every lead. I’ll see to it arrangements are made for you to go there.’

  19

  Rain spattered against the windscreen as Matt swung over into the fast lane of the motorway and pressed his foot down hard. The old Landrover supplied by the Ministry of Agriculture still had a good turn of speed. Fran sat next to him, silent, not even looking out.

  ‘I managed to contact Angus,’ he said. ‘I was worried about him, but he’s quite safe.’

  ‘Are any of us?’ she remarked gloomily.

  The radio played a diet of light music interspersed with hints on how to make your drains worm-proof. According to one news flash, several wealthy families living near the Thames were offering to pay luxury rents for council flats in high-rise blocks. In the past forty-eight hours the prices of Welsh mountain-side cottages had tripled.

  Matt hardly listened. He was leaning slightly forward as he drove, keeping his eyes on the road and wondering what he should do about Jenny. He’d phoned again that morning and asked to speak to her. Point-blank refusal.

  ‘I’m coming down to see her,’ he’d said.

  ‘Matt…’ As Helen’s older sister, Sue clearly felt she held a position of authority. ‘It’s not that I don’t want you to see her, but… Well, you know what’s upset her, don’t you? It’s not only Helen and the way she died, it’s…’ She hesitated. ‘Do I need to spell it out?’

  ‘She’s got the wrong end of the stick.’ Matt had tried to justify himself. ‘It was business. We’d spent the evening with our American associate, arguing the details of a contract. When Jenny rang we’d only just got back. Naturally we’d a couple of points to talk over but…’

  His voice tailed away. Though Sue had made no comment he could sense her disbelief. Helen had once told him he was the world’s worst liar. She’d been right.

  ‘She’s very hurt,’ said Sue. ‘Upset about Helen, but hurt too. I don’t know if she’ll see you. I’m not going to force her if she doesn’t want to.’

  ‘She might at least give me a chance,’ Matt had replied, unable to disguise the bitterness and pain. He’d rushed on: ‘What about the worms? Are you all right?’

  ‘We’ve still not seen any round here. We keep her in the house, of course. It’d be stupid to let her play outside, but no one in the village has come across them yet, not even the farmers. They seemed to be mainly on the coast.’ She’d sighed, worried. ‘Matt, remember she’s only a child. I realize how much you need her, but… well, she has needs too.’

  The rain stopped and suddenly the sky was blue. Bright sunlight reflected off the wet road surface and glistened among the trees. Fran reached forward and switched the radio off. At first he hadn’t wanted to take her with him at all, saying there would be no point. This was a preliminary recce, nothing more. He was going to scout around, film anything interesting, and then report back.

  ‘You’ll need someone to watch your back,’ she had said, dismissing his excuses. ‘And when you’re visiting Jenny, I’ll stay in the background. That’s what you’re really worried about, isn’t it? But she’ll not know I’m there. If it goes wrong – your visit – I want to be within reach to make sure you do nothing stupid.’

  ‘Such as?’ he’d challenged her.

  She shook her head, grimacing at him. ‘You’ll not draw me that way.’

  They checked into a hotel on the edge of the moor some ten miles away from where Sue lived. After a wash and a quick meal they discussed where to start Fran had been studying the ordnance survey map and she pointed to an area of marshland where the blue lines of the streams and rivers seemed to peter out. He nodded.

  ‘That’s what I had in mind,’ he agreed.

  He had no very great faith in his theory, only a deep-seated conviction that Rhys was wrong and this might be one way to prove it.

  The road across the moor was a straight, bleak ribbon of tarmac, totally deserted and stretching as far as the horizon where it seemed to terminate sharply as though on the very brink of the world. They followed it for about five and a half miles on the clock before pulling off on to the gravelled verge.

  Matt switched off the engine and got out. The wind hummed across the telephone wires which were strung on high, lonely poles spaced regularly along one side of the road. A distant bird call, persistent. Whispers through the swaying furze, its masses of yellow flowers brilliant against the dark green spiny plants.

  The surface was very uneven, full of little hollows and hillocks; the vegetation was thick and tangled. It might be teeming with worms, slip
ping easily through the ravel of roots, alerted to their arrival. Both he and Fran had been issued with specially reinforced overalls and flying boots but he still felt vulnerable. When asked what he thought would be the safest clothing, he’d answered simply, ‘Chain mail.’ He hadn’t been joking, either.

  ‘No rabbit droppings,’ observed Fran suddenly.

  ‘What d’you mean?’

  ‘The ground’s usually covered with rabbit droppings. I used to come here with my husband. Takes me back.’ She looked around wrily. ‘No worms in those days, though,’ she added. ‘Pity.’

  Matt suggested she might prefer to stay in the Landrover but she told him crisply not to be daft. She was going to stick with him. They chose a path and struck out across the moor, Matt going first and keeping a sharp watch out for worms. He felt very nervous, as though some primeval instinct were warning him of danger lurking among the furze. When the path unexpectedly ended he begged Fran again to go and wait in the Landrover, as there was no point in them both taking risks, but she refused and they went on.

  Another five minutes and the ground became wet, dipping into a hollow. They could no longer see the road, nor the top of the Landrover. If it hadn’t been for the stark, granite tor about a mile ahead he’d have lost all sense of direction. His foot suddenly sank into the morass.

  ‘U-urgh!’ He pulled back, trying to keep his balance. The mud sucked at his boot as if trying to swallow it; there was a squelchy phlut! as he succeeded in freeing himself.

  He examined the marshy patch in front of him. Parts of it were smooth water, reflecting the constantly-shifting clouds and the blue of the sky; other sections were like a thick soup of mud, seemingly solid – treacherously so, as he discovered when he probed them with a stick. Clumps of grass and reeds formed a scattering of islands; if they wanted to go on they’d have to step from one to the next, hoping each was firm enough to hold them.