The Conqueror Worms

by Brian Keene

  I wondered where the bacon had come from, but before I could ask, Mike interrupted.

  “I know so.” He grinned. “Mindy and I heard you guys all night. Hard to sleep with all that racket.”

  “Mike! Stop it.” Mindy elbowed him in the ribs, making him wince. She turned to me and said, “My apologies, Kevin. Mike’s being an asshole this morning.”

  I felt my ears turning red.

  “Sorry,” Mike chuckled, glancing warily at her elbow, poised for another jab. “It’s cool, Kevin. We’re happy for you guys. About time, too. Nice to see that Louis and Christian and the two of us aren’t the only couples.”

  Lee sipped his coffee. “Don’t forget the Taz-Ducky-Lashawn triangle.”

  “That whole thing’s messed up,” Mindy snorted. “One of these days, Taz is going to figure it out, and Ducky and Lashawn are going to have some serious explaining to do.”

  Sarah stirred a pot on the stove. “It’s like a postapocalyptic soap opera.”

  “I hope not,” Lee groaned. “It takes a year to resolve the plotlines on those things.”

  “If you hadn’t made a play for Lori,” Nate told me, “I would have. Was getting ready to, in fact. You beat me to it.”

  “Shit,” Juan muttered. He sipped weak green tea from a recycled and reused tea bag. “I think you’re a little older than what Lori’s looking for, Nate.”

  “I’m sorry about Jimmy.” Sarah sat a bowl down in front of me, along with a chipped ceramic mug of instant coffee. “He was a good guy. We’re all going to miss him. He made me laugh.”

  “Thanks,” I said simply. I didn’t know what else to say. The lump was back in my throat again. It felt strange not having Jimmy sitting there with us. By now, he’d have been razzing Nate and flirting with Sarah.

  I stared at my breakfast—fish stew with a few sparse chunks of potato, one strip of bacon, and some of the canned corn that I’d brought back the day before.

  “Where did the bacon come from?” I asked.

  Sarah sat down at the table. “Louis hooked a Styrofoam cooler yesterday while he was fishing. Inside was some bacon packed in dry ice and a few cans of soda. The bacon was still good, so enjoy it.”

  Lee smirked. “If it really is bacon.”

  “Well what else would it be?” Anna asked.

  “Maybe you and Sarah are feeding us long pig.”

  Anna frowned. “Long pig?”

  “That’s what the cannibals used to call the white settlers that they ate.”

  Anna made a disgusted face. “That’s sick.”

  The others laughed.

  I glanced around. “Where are Christian and Louis?”

  “I sent them out for salvage duty,” Juan said, mopping up his broth with a cracker. “I figured you might want to take a break today. I hate to ask, but I don’t guess you saw Jimmy’s boat yesterday, did you?”

  “Nope, just his—well, you know. His head.”

  He chewed his lip. “That’s what I was afraid of. Now we’re down to one boat. We’ll have to see what we can put together.”

  Lee stood up. “Well, I’ve got to get started with the kids. You ready, Mindy?”

  “Yep!” She stood up and gave Mike a quick peck on the cheek. Then she and Lee left in search of Danielle, James, and Malik. Poor kids. I felt sorry for them. End of the world, and they still had to go to school every day. Lee had set up a classroom in one of the hotel suites and Mindy helped him out. When Anna wasn’t cooking, she’d join them as well.

  Nate pushed his bowl away and turned to Juan. “Where do you want me today?”

  “I want you on watch duty, actually.”

  “Watch? Come on, man. We’ve got Taz, Ducky, Lashawn, and Salty on the roof already, hunting and fishing. Do we really need someone else up there on guard duty?”

  Juan took his time finishing his coffee before he answered. He sat the mug back down and gazed into it. “After what happened to Jimmy? Yes, I think we do.”

  Nate stared at him for a moment. Then, without a word, he left the room and headed for the roof.

  “Prick,” Juan muttered.

  I cleared my throat. “What would you like me to do, since Louis and Christian went salvaging?”

  “Take the day off. Relax. Don’t do anything at all. Shit, Kevin, your best friend was killed yesterday and you’re the one who found him. I think everybody will understand if you need some time off for a few days.”

  “No offense, Juan, but that’s the last thing I want to do. I need something to keep my mind off of it.”

  He shrugged. “Okay, if you’re sure. Why don’t you give them a hand up top for now? Mike and I are going to inspect the building for any recent leaks or damage we might not know about. When we’re done, you can help us look below for material to make a new boat or raft. Cool?”

  It was. I told them about the water damage I’d noticed in the stairwell the night before, thanked Sarah and Anna for breakfast, and then grabbed my raincoat and went up to the roof.

  I don’t remember how or when Juan became the leader of the group. It just sort of happened. Maybe it was because he’d been a Baltimore city cop, or just the way he carried himself, his calm air of self-assuredness. But he was smart, fair, and we rarely argued with him. Occasionally, Taz, Ducky, and Lashawn gave him a hard time, or Nate would get a little haughty, but that was it. I’d always gotten the impression there might be a history between Juan, Taz, Ducky, and Lashawn predating the rain, but I’d never had the nerve to ask. Maybe Juan had busted them at one time for drug dealing or something. Jimmy had suggested that one time and Louis had given him shit about thinking all black people were drug dealers simply because of the color of their skin, but that was bullshit. Taz and Ducky proudly bragged about their street cred all the time. They were proud of dealing drugs.

  Anyway, they had new jobs now. We all did. Lee and Mindy taught the kids in the makeshift school. Anna helped them out and gave Sarah a hand preparing our meals. Jimmy and I usually had salvage duty, switching off with Mike and Nate when the need arose. Salty was in charge of fishing, helped by Louis and Christian. Taz, Ducky, Lashawn, and Lori did odd chores where needed. And of course, we all took turns on guard duty.

  I walked out onto the roof, blinking as a gust of cold rain blew into my face. Salty and Nate stood at opposite sides of the roof, holding deep sea rods and carefully watching their lines for a bite.

  Taz and Ducky were feeding the birds.

  The Alka-Seltzer had been Salty’s idea, one he’d suggested when Juan stressed that we needed to save ammunition to defend ourselves from the Satanists and couldn’t use it all up shooting seagulls. Our initial skepticism at Salty’s solution vanished when we saw the results.

  Taz and Ducky stood in the middle of the roof, the rain beating down on their heads, while a large flock of seagulls circled above. Their slim white and gray bodies glided gracefully out over the water and then back to where the two men stood.

  The guys threw a mixture of fish guts and other food scraps into the air, and the shrieking gulls darted forward, snatching the morsels before they came back down. Once they had the birds’ attention, they tossed up a handful of Alka-Seltzer tablets. The birds lunged for these, too, gobbling them up as quickly as Taz and Ducky could throw them.

  Then they let nature take its course.

  “Rats wit’ fucking wings, yo!” Ducky said to me as I walked toward them. “What’s up, playa?”

  “Figured I’d give you guys a hand,” I said. “How’s it going?”

  Ducky threw another handful of tablets into the air.

  “Here comes the boom.” Taz leered, watching intently. “Ka-blam!”

  According to Salty, a bird’s digestive system was different than a human being’s. Since it couldn’t burp or fart, the Alka-Seltzer sat in its stomach, fizzing away, until the gas and foam built up to the point where it had nowhere to go. The bird’s stomach would then expand beyond its limits and pop.

  There was no explosion of
blood and feathers, nothing so gruesome. The seagulls faltered, becoming so bloated that they could no longer fly, and then plummeted to the roof, foaming at the beak and making a horrible sound. At this point, Taz and Ducky stomped on their heads with their boots, ending the creatures’ struggles.

  It was quick and easy, and it was much easier to find Alka-Seltzer in the ruins than it was bullets (one of the buildings still above water had a pharmacy inside) and simpler to kill the birds by feeding them the stuff than trying to get a bead on a moving target. We’d tried Salty’s method on the occasional duck and goose as well, when we saw them passing through, and it worked just the same.

  When it was over, nine carcasses lay on the wet roof.

  “Nice shooting,” I said. “Look’s like we got enough for a couple days.”

  “Yeah,” Taz pulled out his pocketknife and began gutting the kills. “Gonna get these things cleaned up, then take ’em down to Anna and Sarah. Now if you could find some motherfucking barbecue sauce or some hot sauce while you’re out scavenging shit, we could have ourselves a real dinner!”

  The rest of the gulls had flown away, screeching their displeasure. I knew from experience that they’d be back within minutes.

  Hands shoved into his pockets, Ducky moved towards the door.

  “Yo, Ducky,” Taz called. “Where you going, playa?”

  The smaller man jumped, his shoulders jerking. He turned and smiled, but his eyes were nervous.

  “Just figured I’d go see what Lashawn and Lori are up to. See if they need some help.”

  “Man, fuck that. They’re okay. You need to help me clean these seagulls, dog.”

  “I’m getting wet, Taz!”

  “You ain’t been dry since this shit started. Go on, with your punk ass self. Kevin can help me instead.”

  Ducky vanished down the stairwell. The wind slammed the door shut behind him. I wondered how many minutes it would be before he and Lashawn were engaged in a quickie, frantically screwing before Taz finished his task and came to look for them. For a moment, I considered going to find Lori and engaging in a quickie ourselves, but I decided against it. The last thing I wanted to do was scare her off.

  Instead, I helped Taz field dress the birds, slicing them open and pulling out their insides. Steam billowed from the wounds. We dropped the guts into a slop bucket, already half full with rainwater in the brief time we’d been outside. They would be recycled, either as fish bait or fertilizer for my garden. Later on, Sarah and Ann would remove the feathers and finish the preparations. Salty was an expert at fly-tying, so the feathers would then be recycled into fishing lures.

  “Nasty job,” I commented, wiping the sticky blood from my hands. Steam rose from the gutted carcass at my feet.

  Taz shrugged and slid his knife through a bird’s belly. “I don’t mind. The blood keeps my hands warm.”

  “I never thought of it that way,” I admitted. “But it makes sense.”

  “I hate the cold. Never did like it. Winter always sucked ass. But you notice something?”

  “What?”

  “It’s like, August and shit, at least according to my calendar. But it’s fucking cold. Colder than it should be in the summer, you know? Why you think that is?”

  I shrugged. “I guess the clouds are blocking out the sun.”

  “Gonna be a rough fucking winter, if that’s the case, yo. We need to start thinking about ways to keep warm. Course, now that you and Lori are knocking boots, you shouldn’t have any problems.”

  “Jesus Christ! You know about that too?”

  He laughed. “Shit, dude, the whole damn building knows about it. Ya’ll made enough noise last night. Sounded like a porno movie.”

  I sighed and shook my head. My ears burned.

  Still chuckling, Taz took the gutbucket and the cleaned birds inside. After he was gone, I crossed over to Salty’s side of the roof. The end of his fishing rod drooped sullenly over the railing, droplets of water rolling off it. I noticed he wasn’t watching the line. Instead, he stared out to sea. His eyes had a lost, faraway look, and he was standing in a puddle. Water seeped over the tops of his boots, but he didn’t seem to care.

  “Any bites?” I asked.

  He shrugged. “A few nibbles. Got one sea bass, but it had the White Fuzz growing on it, so I had to cut the line. Later in the day, it’ll be better. Fish aren’t hungry right now.”

  “That’s no good.”

  “At least we haven’t hooked another dead baby.”

  I nodded. Early on, after we’d just set up shop inside the hotel, Jimmy had accidentally hooked a dead infant with his fishing rod. It must have been in the ocean for quite some time, because it fell apart as he reeled it up onto the roof. I can still see it in my mind—one tiny arm hanging by a thin shred of muscle or tendon, fish bites pocking the white, bloated flesh. That had left all of us shaken, even the hard cases like Taz, Ducky, and Juan.

  The old man sniffed the salty breeze. “Listen, Kevin, I’m sorry about your mate. He was a good lad, Jimmy was.”

  “Yeah, he was. Thanks, Salty.”

  “It’s a real shame what happened to him.”

  I was quiet for a moment, considering my words carefully. “Salty, I like you. And more importantly, I respect you. But do you really believe that was what got him? A fucking Kraken?”

  “Of course I do, boy. Saw the proof with my own eyes, same as you did.”

  “Granted, it looked weird, but I still don’t see how a tentacle could have done that.”

  “Hurricane Agnes, nineteen seventy-two.”

  “Huh?”

  “Hurricane Agnes,” he repeated, and then spit over the side. “It come roaring up the East Coast, raising hell in the Carolinas, Virginia, Maryland—even as far inland as central Pennsylvania. I was still in the Navy then. At the time, I was assigned to an LPD, the U.S.S. Miller, out of Pier Six in Norfolk. I was too smart to be a bosun’s mate, and too dumb to be a radioman, so they put me on the signal bridge.”

  He gazed out over the waves as he talked. I followed his glance in time to see a school of dolphins frolicking over what had once been an on-ramp to Interstate 83. I’d driven over that ramp many times, before the rains.

  “The hurricane, she come out of nowhere and headed up the coast like a banshee. They put all of us that wasn’t in dry dock out to sea, double-time. I’d drawn the unlucky watch, while my mates stayed below. I was huddled up in the signal bridge, cold and wet and miserable and thinking about home.

  “We were off the coast, somewhere near Little Creek, trying to outrace the storm. I was out of cigarettes, but a friend of mine, Danny Ward, who worked down in CIC, dipped Copenhagen, and the CIC center was on the deck below me. Figured I’d nip below, bum a pinch from Danny and be back up topside before anybody was the wiser. I stepped out, struggled in the wind, and the ship rolled on me. Thank God there was a rail or I’d have gone over the side, into the drink. Instead of falling into the ocean, I slid into the rail and held on for dear life while the ship rolled with the wave. That was when I saw it.”

  Something silver flashed in the water in front of the dolphins. A school of fish. I tore my eyes away and focused on Salty.

  “I didn’t see all of it—don’t think I could have. It was that big. I was clutching that rail, waiting for the deck to hold still, when I spied a huge form—gray and pale and slick. It wasn’t a whale, which is what I thought at first. The thing rocketed up out of the water and I stumbled back. It just kept going up and up—a tentacle the size of an oak tree. It waved in the air, and then darted towards where I was standing. I crawled back as far as I could go, and it crashed into the rail a second later. The rail bent under its weight. The thing wriggled around, feeling the deck, searching for me like a big old rubbery worm. I screamed, but nobody heard me. It crawled closer. Then the ship rolled again, and it was gone, disappearing back into the spray. I’d never been more scared in my life.

  “I learned later, from another mate of mine, Greg Blum
enthal, that they’d picked up a large object coming toward the ship. But nothing else ever came of it. Nobody mentioned it again and I never told anyone, either. Not even Greg or Danny. Never breathed a word, until now.”

  I was quiet, not knowing what to say or how to respond. Salty slicked his wet, thinning hair back across his scalp and smiled at me. The rain ran down his face in rivulets.

  “You understand why I’m telling you this, Kevin?”

  “I’m not sure, but I have a good idea.”

  “Guess you think I’m senile, huh?”

  “No.” I shook my head. “To be honest, Salty, I don’t know what to think. But I don’t think you’re crazy, if that helps.”

  “Well,” he shrugged, and turned away. “There it is. That’s my tale. Do with it what you want. I’ve got to get some more tackle and bait.”

  Another bird landed on the roof, just a few feet away from us, begging for fish guts. I stomped my boot to scare it away, but Salty stopped me.

  “Don’t. It’s an albatross.”

  “So?”

  “You need to respect it, lad. Bad luck if you harm it, or scare it away.”

  I smiled. “Why is that, Salty?”

  “The poem. The one by that Coleridge fella. An albatross is good to have when you’re at sea.”

  “True.” Then I surprised him with my own knowledge of nautical legend. “But did you know that the assistant navigator on the Titanic was named Albert Ross?”

  Salty grunted. “Is that a fact?”

  “It is indeed. Guess he wasn’t so lucky to have around.”

  “I don’t get it.” He frowned.

  “Albert Ross,” I repeated, slowly. “Albatross. Get it now?”

  Salty laughed, loud and boisterously. Then he walked away, splashing through the puddles and was almost across the roof when he turned and called to me again.

  “One other thing, Kevin. That tentacle I told you about…”

  “Yeah?”

  “The suckers had teeth in ’em. Sharp little teeth. They weren’t suckers at all.”

  “What were they?”

  “Mouths. The suckers were little mouths.”

  He disappeared through the door.