Worms

by James R. Montague

  Paralysed with fear, unable to speak, I returned my gaze to Mrs Valentine. Her lips parted in a chilling smile and she slowly raised her arm. She was going to stab me. I knew it, yet I was unable to move. The corners of her mouth tightened and she took a step towards me. I opened my mouth to cry out and no sound came. At that instant the skylight shattered under the weight of the worms. The broken frame fell on Mrs Valentine and a squirming mass of worms dropped into the tank and landed on my head and shoulders. I could feel them wriggling in my hair. My face was cut by broken glass. I flung myself to one side and saw Mrs Valentine tottering before me, her hand pressed to her neck and blood spurting through her fingers. A splinter of glass protruded grotesquely from her neck. Her mouth opened and blood gushed from it. Worms thudded to the floor as they continued to surge through the shattered skylight. Mrs Valentine let out a ghastly choking cry that seemed to pour from the depths of her throat like vomit and fell to her knees.

  Gibbering with terror I tried to shake the first invading mass free of my legs and ran across the room to the door. Whatever lay beyond it I knew that if I stayed in the attic any longer I would go out of my mind. I hurled the table aside and caught a glimpse of Edgar Valentine’s father as the glass splintered across his portrait. For the first time it occurred to me that the reversed half circles on the de Wicklem coat of arms were like wriggling worms. I pulled open the door and a tidal wave of worms spilled into the room. By what little light reached me from the candle on the beam I could see a glistening trail stretching down the stairs like one long moving serpent. I launched myself forward and half fell, half slid down the mulch of bodies. The corridor when I reached it was infested with them and already I could feel them everywhere against my bare flesh: beneath my arms, my genitals, probing between the cleft of my buttocks, stretching out for my ears, my mouth, my nostrils – I was plucking handfuls of them away from my face. And all this in reeking darkness. No words come to my mind with which I can adequately describe their stench. God knows what had passed through their bodies.

  I blundered into a bedroom and crushed the door shut against their vile softness. I had no idea where I was going or what I was looking for. In the room there was a faint glow of moonlight reflected from a white counterpane. A fire had been laid in the grate and near it was what, in my half-crazed state, I first took for a coiled snake. As I stared closer I saw that it was a gas poker. Desperately I slapped my body for matches; I had neither matches nor lighter. Worms were already flooding under the door like a sea of blood. I searched the mantelpiece and found a round glass jar with corrugated sides that contained matches. With fumbling fingers I brushed worms away from my face and struck one, spilling the rest across the floor. I dropped to my knees and fumbled with the gas tap. As the gas came on with a comforting hiss, the match went out. I had to scramble about in the darkness for another, my fingers already meeting the squirming horror of the advancing worms. My hands were slimy and for a few terrifying seconds I found it impossible to strike a match. Then one flared briefly and the poker burst into flame. All along its length bright tongues of fire leapt out. I dropped to my knees and, holding it just above floor level, swept it from side to side. Any worms in its path were scorched to charred smears. The remainder held their distance and formed a threatening half circle that stretched around the fireplace, just as they had done when the Range Rover had been burning. The number of worms was building up all the time and sometimes a wave would be forced forward, stopping only when I plunged the poker into it so deep that the flames were almost invisible. Then there would be an obscene crackling noise and a whiff of foul, choking smoke, a bubbling jelly of congealed slime and a whiplash of half-burnt bodies thrashing in their death agonies. Did worms feel pain? I hoped so as I burned them. I had seen them dance on a fisherman’s hook and felt compassion; now I felt only loathing and a desire for revenge.

  I swung the poker again and suddenly saw something burning out of the corner of my eye. One of the curtains was smouldering. As I hesitated, wondering what to do, it burst into flames that reached to the pelmet. In no time the panelling was alight. I tore the blazing curtain down and threw it on the worms. Desperate, I pulled the window open and immediately the flames rose higher, fanned by the draught, the heat scorching my arms. Behind me the worms shrank back. I looked out of the window; it was twenty feet to the ground, perhaps more. Nearby, an ancient wisteria twisted its way up the side of the house. Some burning material fell across my shoulders and I screamed out in pain. The carpet was beginning to burn where I had dropped the poker. I reached out into the night and grabbed the nearest loop of wisteria. At the back of my mind was the thought that if I could reach Mrs Valentine’s car then I might be able to drive to some temporary or permanent sanctuary.

  The wisteria rustled and branches brushed against my face. One of the supports that held it to the wall quivered menacingly and a sprinkling of ancient mortar pattered to the wet earth below. I hesitated, and then felt my shoulder starting to burn. That was the incentive I needed. I launched myself over the sill and consigned my whole weight to the creeper. It swayed away from the house and then swung back. Barely able to support myself, I struggled to find a foothold and slithered down a couple of feet, scraping my face against some nails in the trellis-work. The wisteria swayed again and this time did not swing back; there was a cracking noise and I found myself supine on the lawn with every ounce of breath driven from me. In considerable pain I struggled out from beneath the serpentine coils of the creeper and raised myself to my feet. At least I had escaped the choking smell, and I could see no worms in the immediate vicinity. All that was visible through the window of the room I had just vacated was a wall of flame – the house was on fire. I did not stay to watch but ran back into the shadows of the garden, intending to take a wide circle to the car and hoping to avoid any worms advancing on the house.

  I pushed my way through the wet foliage and the flowerbeds, suspicious of every soft pressure underfoot, and followed the outside wall round to the drive. The laurels gleamed and I could see smoke and flames against the night sky. The fire was spreading. I advanced up the drive and nervously approached Mrs Valentine’s car. A chance conversation had revealed that she kept a spare ignition key sellotaped to the top of the glove compartment. I looked around for one of the heavy whitewashed stones that lined the drive; if the doors were locked I would have to smash my way into the car quickly. I felt the stone between my hands and suddenly thought of Mrs Valentine and what I had left behind in the attic. The clouds of panic parted temporarily and I watched flames begin to stab through the roof. Thank God that I had accidentally set fire to the house; anything that remained of the bodies within would tell no secrets. I tucked the rock under my arm and approached the car almost on tiptoe. There was a foul stench in the air which I knew must be the burning worms. I laid a nervous hand on the door handle and pulled; to my relief it opened. I discarded the stone and ducked inside. Immediately I sprang back. The interior of the car was packed with worms; they reared up from every surface as if they had been waiting for me. I could no more have climbed into that car than into my own coffin. I turned on my heel and found that a tide of retreating worms was pouring out of the front door of the house. As if my appearance lent them a new momentum they changed direction and spread out towards me.

  Now in a state of total panic I burst through the laurels and across the lawn. I had no idea where I was running to. All I wanted to do was to put as much distance between myself and Marsh House as possible. I reached the flint wall and hauled the upper half of my body across it. I was nearly exhausted but fear lent me just enough strength to drag up the weight of my legs and topple over the other side. I landed in a ditch . . . a ditch full of worms.

  I slid down amongst them like a plummet into soft mud. They were above my knees, my hips, my waist. Wriggling, writhing, squirming. I screamed until it seemed my lungs must burst. I was still sinking. They were above my chest – in a few moments they would be in my mouth.
Ahead I saw a line of lights and heard the roar of engines; something was approaching across the marsh. Was it real or was I imagining it? The lights were red and spaced out. I suddenly realized that they must be on the wings of planes flying low across the marshes. My mouth dipped below the surface of the writhing bodies and I spat out with all my remaining force. A worm was insinuating itself into the back of the nostril and I plucked at it desperately; only half of its body came away. I sneezed and tried to snort away the remaining half. Eventually I swallowed it. The engine noise became deafening and the lights swooped low overhead. The grass shook and something that burned like acid stung my face. The planes were spraying the worms. As I choked, the activity of the worms about me became feverish and then suddenly slackened. I could feel death permeating through them layer by layer. In less than sixty seconds I was imprisoned not by writhing bodies but by a dense comatose mass. I might have been trapped in a thick swamp. Slowly, inch by inch, I dragged myself to the bank and pulled myself up it with the aid of tussocks of grass. Around me there was no sight or sound of movement save the distant roar of the sea. There was only the smell of the insecticide and, increasingly, of the dead worms. It was cold but I was now hardly aware of physical discomfort. I collapsed by the side of the road and that is where they found me.

  CHAPTER FIFTEEN

  If anything ever appeared in the national newspapers concerning the invasion of the worms then I never saw it. Mind you, it was difficult enough to find a national newspaper in Blanely for several weeks after the onslaught, because the whole area remained sealed off. I think the official reason was that a freak storm had devastated the region. In fact piles of rotting worms were being sprayed, burned and buried in giant pits. The bulldozers worked twenty-four hours a day and you could see their headlights across the marshes at night. What was happening at the reactor was more of a secret: something had obviously gone seriously wrong and nobody was allowed within two miles of it. ‘Counsellors’ appeared in the village to hold what were called ‘clarification sessions’ for the inhabitants and it was explained that we had witnessed an unusual but entirely natural phenomenon which would never occur again; to relate it to the ‘explosion’ at the reactor would be totally erroneous and in fact against the public interest. We were all asked to sign a piece of paper to the effect that we understood this and would not make any inflammatory statements to the press or anyone else which might provide ammunition for our country’s enemies. We were further informed that the area had been ear-marked for a large beet-processing plant which would provide a great deal of employment for local people both in its building and staffing. As a special dispensation, the government had also decided to make generous pension settlements on the relatives of those who had perished in the ‘storm’. I could see people sitting at the meeting and beginning to believe what they were told and not what they had seen. Spring was coming and everything would look better when there was some blossom on the trees.

  In fact, spring had come when, one sunny morning, there was a brisk tap on the door of my cottage. I opened it and saw two men I had never seen before. They were middle-aged and wore slate-grey raincoats. They nodded perfunctorily and one of them withdrew a polythene-covered card which he flashed before my eyes.

  ‘Mr Hildebrand? C.I.D. I wonder if we could have a few words with you.’ They stepped over the threshold as if a negative reply was unthinkable.

  I had always been nervous of the police and nothing that had happened in the last few months had made me any less so.

  ‘More questions?’ I said. ‘I thought everything had been tidied up.’

  ‘Something’s just come to light,’ said the elder of the two men. ‘It relates to Mrs Betty Mullins.’

  I immediately felt relieved. If it had been about Mrs Valentine I would have been more worried. Despite the fact that only her charred remains had been found I still feared that some brilliant forensic specialist at Scotland Yard might find evidence of her neck wound that could raise their suspicions against me.

  ‘Oh, yes. Poor Mrs Mullins,’ I murmured.

  ‘Did you know that she had been poisoned?’

  The silence lasted several seconds. The second detective removed a small pad from his pocket and licked the tip of his thumb.

  ‘Poisoned?’ I stammered.

  The first detective nodded briefly. ‘Yes. We’ve just had the report in. As you know, the fire hardly touched the lower part of the house. Her body was recovered more or less intact apart from what the worms had done to it. In the labs they found that all the worms in her stomach were dead – poisoned. The body was riddled with it.’

  ‘How terrible,’ I said. ‘Of course, I knew nothing about this. Did she try to kill herself?’

  ‘If she did, she chose to do it very slowly. The report states that the intake of poison had been small and spread over a period of weeks. That’s hardly usual in a suicide.’

  ‘No,’ I said. I thought of the slow deterioration in Mrs Mullins’s health and of the expression in Mrs Valentine’s eyes as she looked down at her in the drawing room. Mrs Valentine must have done it. No wonder Mrs Mullins had fought against the administration of the medicine that day in my cottage; she must have realized what was happening to her: the age-old remedy for blackmailers. I remembered Wilson doubling up in his cottage before I had killed him. Had Mrs Valentine been poisoning him too?

  ‘You’ll have no objection if we look around?’ I hesitated before answering because I was still thinking about Wilson. The detective produced a piece of paper from his inside jacket pocket. ‘We do have a search warrant.’

  I felt a chill. ‘That’s not necessary. You can go anywhere you like.’ They must suspect me: that was alarming . . . alarming but no more. I was innocent of any crime against Mrs Mullins. True, I had fed her the medicine that had helped to kill her but I had done it in good faith. Anyway, the medicine was not here. It was – my thought process was brought to a sharp halt as I saw the second detective pulling on a pair of gloves. He looked at me meaningfully and reached inside the cupboard beside the sink. What he withdrew made my blood run cold: it was the tray of medicine bottles which Mrs Valentine had brought to the house and which she told me she had removed.

  The detective carefully removed one of the stoppers and sniffed. His nose wrinkled. ‘What’s this, sir?’ The ‘sir’ had a chilling ring to it.

  ‘It’s the medicine Mrs Valentine used to give Mrs Mullins.’

  ‘What’s it doing here, sir?’

  ‘Mrs Valentine brought it here when Mrs Mullins was suddenly taken ill.’

  ‘And she left it here?’ The tone was incredulous.

  ‘She told me she took it away. It was the night of the—’ I paused and then chose the official word; ‘it was the night of the storm.’

  Suddenly I realized what had happened: why Mrs Valentine had brought the bottles on a tray; why she had asked me to look for one with a green sticker on the bottom; why it was I who administered the medicine. It was so that my fingerprints would be on the bottles and on the spoon. I remembered her peeling off her gloves after she had placed the tray near the sink. How clever she had been. I would guarantee that there would be none of her fingerprints on the bottles. I also knew what was in them: poison.

  ‘Well, sir,’ said the elder detective. ‘There’s just a few formalities. We’ll need to take your fingerprints first of all.’

  And that is how I come to the end of my narrative. Arrested and imprisoned for a crime I did not commit.

  There is perhaps one other detail of the affair that is worth relating. Shortly after the Blanely area was declared ‘clean’, a baby in its pram was pecked to death by a flock of birds at Great Yarmouth, down the coast. Other attacks on animals and humans were reported in the papers. They appeared to be becoming more frequent at the time of my arrest, and over a much wider area than the worms could ever cover. It was happening all over again.