The Last Death Worm of the Apocalypse (Kelly Driscoll Book 3)

by Nina Post

  “Maybe there’s a detail we missed,” Imamiah said, staring off into the distance.

  “We didn’t miss anything,” Raum said. “It doesn’t happen immediately.”

  “We spilled that one barrel all over ourselves,” Imamiah pointed out. “Maybe that nullified the whole thing.”

  Raum rolled his eyes. “The loophole I found is not contingent upon gefilte fish suspension, a certain number of barrels of suspension going into the lap pool, or a certain volume of water. It depends only on liquid connecting the two buildings. I even consulted an apocrypha attorney, and he agreed with me.”

  “Does it need to be water?” Vassago said.

  “No, any liquid. I checked with the attorney!”

  “I would like to know ahead of time so I can prepare my apartment,” Crocell said. “Turn off the water, make sure the thermostat’s on the right setting, unplug everything, make sure there’s nothing embarrassing…”

  “Does something else need to happen?” Forcas said.

  “Crocell, if you haven’t done everything you want to do already, forget it, okay? It’s happening any time now, and we’ll be free. Check the sky.”

  They all looked up toward the sky. “Nothing’s happening,” Vassago said.

  “Is there supposed to be an eclipse?” Crocell said.

  Raum gave him a withering look. “Maybe you should stay in Amenity Tower, Crocell. I don’t know if you’re suited to return to your original form.”

  “But is there?”

  “There’s no eclipse! When our lap pool takes effect the portals will open to other dimensions.”

  “Really?” Crocell said.

  Raum shook his head, exhausted by all of them. “Yes, really. Don’t you remember last time?”

  “Oh, that was a cause-and-effect thing?” Crocell said. “I thought it was a happy coincidence.”

  Raum couldn’t take it anymore. He tossed his coffee into a tall bin with a sigh and left the automat.

  “Crocell…” Imamiah started, pained.

  “What?”

  Charlotte got in her face again immediately. Kelly took a step back and to the side.

  “And don’t think I don’t know that you broke into my office,” Charlotte said.

  Kelly laughed.

  “All of my vendor files are missing,” Charlotte said, jabbing a finger at her. “I will press charges.”

  “Isn’t that my office?”

  “It wasn’t anymore. Besides, those were my files,” Charlotte said.

  “Wouldn’t your files be in my filing cabinet? I don’t recall you bringing your own. If files are missing, it’s likely someone thought they were my files.”

  Tom tapped her on the shoulder and gave her a card. “The judge should be here any minute. He called from the parking garage.”

  Kelly held the mic and said, “Louisa May, everybody! What an impressive pharynx! If that ball comes back out at some point, keep it. Up next in our number six slot is Benadryl, right after we replace that ball.”

  After Dragomir rushed up and replaced the suspended ball with the stealth and efficiency one would expect of a special forces soldier, Kelly held the mic up again. “Ready? Three, two, one!”

  Turning to Charlotte, she said, “If you have a problem, I suggest that you go talk to Claw and Crutty. Though you should be aware that they agreed I was never relieved from my position because you didn’t have the authority to fire me. So it’s always been my office.”

  “You’ll be hearing from my attorney!” More pointing and jabbing.

  “Oh? Will you be getting one in Yellowknife? Maybe you can find one that’s also a snowshoe store and a taxidermy shop.”

  “You know what?” Charlotte jabbed a finger at her. “You’re a terrible building manager. Amenity Tower was a mess when they sent me in to fix your problems. The finances were among the worst I’ve ever seen.”

  Kelly gave her an incredulous look. “Pothole City got destroyed twice, but Amenity Tower is still standing. I think that’s pretty good.” She grabbed the mic, glancing at the score slip. “Benadryl’s not allergic to competing, that’s for sure. Our number seven competitor is Cheese Ball, chomping at the bit. On my mark, three, two, one!”

  She wondered how, exactly, she went from monster bounty hunter to the Master of Ceremonies for a death worm obstacle course contest. Life took strange turns.

  “You weren’t even going to be considered for the ACTAE Pinnacle Award,” Charlotte snapped. “You still won’t be.”

  “I’m not losing sleep over it.” She lost sleep over other things, but not that. “So we’re not considered for the Pinnacle award. You know how we compete with Ultra-Amenity Tower? By making a strong community of residents.”

  “That’s impossibly naive,” Charlotte scoffed. “But then, you’ll never be as good as Roger Balbi.”

  “As effective as your ad hominem attacks are, Charlotte, and as much as I question the usefulness of responding to you, I’m going to disagree. I am neither naive nor a terrible manager. I’m not a great manager, or even maybe a good manager yet, but I’m always trying to get better, and you know what? Roger Balbi and I are different people, and we have different management styles. In some respects, my way is better.

  “At least I found out that you were embezzling money through your,” Kelly made quote marks, “‘forensic accounting firm.’” Otherwise, we would have lost even more money and would have had to issue a special assessment to cover the illegal activities of a criminal. I wouldn’t blame the residents for moving to Ultra-Amenity Tower.” She gestured to the glass building towering over them. “And the numbers would get really bad.”

  Tom handed her a hot coffee with one arm, the score slip with another, and the mic with a third. She read the slip and spoke into the mic. “Let’s hear it for Cheese Ball! Our residents must like snacks because our eighth competitor is Kinder Surprise!”

  Charlotte spun on her heel and stalked off, yanking open the double doors though she didn’t get the satisfaction of having them slam.

  “I’ll miss her,” Kelly said. “Mentors like that don’t come around often.”

  The judge, wearing an Ascot hat and carrying a briefcase, awkwardly pushed open the double doors, looked around, spotted Kelly with relief and hurried over. “Protest traffic! This city is a cesspool. Where do you want me to go?”

  She directed him to the judging table. “Can we start right now?”

  “I am a professional, Ms. Driscoll.” He crisply unsnapped his briefcase and set a few things on the table.

  Kelly shrugged and held up the mic. “Please join us for the judging portion of the fit and show.”

  When the first owner was called and stepped up to the platform, the judge quavered a little and cleared his throat.

  “Is there a problem?” she asked.

  “These death worms are approximately triple the size of any I’ve encountered before,” the judge said in a low voice.

  “I’m sure you can use the same criteria.”

  The judge sighed and faced the death worm. With a barely-concealed grimace, he took the death worm’s head in one hand and held up a floppy ear on each side of the large head to check for a clean ear canal. He looked closely at the eyes and tried to open the jaw. His hand shook. “Would you mind holding the jaw open?”

  The owner nodded and complied. The judge didn’t get close and took only a perfunctory look at the intimidating fangs. “Excellent,” the judge murmured. The owner seemed pleased.

  The judge took the front paws to press out the claws. He shot an alarmed glance at Kelly. He let go of the second front paw and maneuvered the death worm onto its back on the platform.

  She took a step forward. “Uh, what judging category is this?”

  The judge looked resentful. “I have to inspect the genitalia. It’s in the rules. Did you read the packet I sent?”

  Kelly waved him ahead. She’d read the packet, but she didn’t think they actually put that particular rule into pract
ice.

  The judge attempted to push enough of the luxurious white fur to the side to find what he was looking for. “I’ll need to shave here.” He went to his briefcase, returning with a Wahl clipper and an attached comb. The owner held the death worm, gently stroked its side, and hummed what Kelly recognized as New Edition’s “Cool It Now.”

  The judge turned on the clipper and began shaving.

  The death worm, Mr. Grapefruit, did not like being shaved at all. He whirled around and snapped, engulfed the judge’s entire head in between its jaws, and swung back and forth. Residents screamed.

  The owner scrambled out of the way. “No, Mr. Grapefruit! Let go! Let go!”

  Mr. Grapefruit didn’t let go. He tossed the judge onto the platform, white jaws embedded in the judge’s soft flesh. Flesh ripped, blood sprayed. Residents gasped and yelled in horror.

  Dragomir checked the judge, looked at Kelly, and shook his head. Mr. Grapefruit, bored now, released the judge and licked down the hair the judge had intended to shave.

  Kelly took in a deep breath, let it out, and held up the mic. “I’m sorry to say that the judging component of the fit and show has been canceled. Prizes will be given out to winners of the remaining categories.” Really, though, no death worm would go home without a ribbon.

  “What do we do?” Tom whispered.

  “I disappear the body,” Dragomir said as though he’d done it a hundred times.

  She Even Heard Abba in the Background

  hat was that all about?” Tom asked.

  “Oh, she confronted me about having something to do with her getting transferred to northwest Canada.”

  “Did you have something to do with it?”

  “I had everything to do with it.” Kelly flashed a smile. “They wanted to fire her, and I said it wouldn’t look good for them if the news got out, which it wouldn’t, so I suggested that they transfer her. She’s been siphoning money from Claw and Crutty properties for years.”

  “Whoa, seriously?”

  “I proved it.” Kelly watched Kinder Surprise wind sinuously through the hoops until he or she reached the finish line. By this time, the board members had come outside to watch.

  She took the mic from Tom. “Thank you, Kinder Surprise! After that speed, you’ll need one… or ten thousand of them.” Light tittering. “Coming up at number nine, ready to bust out of the proverbial gate, we have Eye of Thundera! On my mark, three, two, one!”

  Charlotte came back out to the patio and Kelly groaned. “I really don’t want to rehash this. I’ve already said my piece—why can’t she leave it alone?” But Charlotte opened her ankle-length puffer coat. Kelly’s first thought was amusement that Charlotte was a flasher and that was how she dealt with her conflicts.

  “You’re a bad manager, Kelly Driscolllll…” Charlotte said, but her voice sounded mangled and strained. “A baaaaadd mannngerrr…”

  “What’s wrong with her voice?” Kelly said to Tom. Should she dignify the attack with a response or rise above it?

  To their astonishment, Charlotte exploded out of her body with a horrific crunching sound, pushing over the tables with the hot beverages and snacks, leaving her flesh in a rubbery pile around her new form: a black insectoid body with huge eyes, four black, shiny wings, and snapping mouthparts. She had grown as tall as the fifth floor.

  Tom dropped his coffee on the patio, where it bounced and splashed.

  “Fastest molt in the west,” Kelly said. If someone had told her days ago that this would happen, she would have responded with I wouldn’t be surprised.

  Tom clicked on his walkie and slowly brought it up.

  “Don’t bother,” she said, keeping her eyes fixed on the new Charlotte, holding out a hand to stop him. “I don’t want the cleaning crew out here right now. You know, she didn’t believe me when I said the residents weren’t human. I wondered how that was possible, but this explains it.”

  “What do we do now?” Tom yelled.

  Charlotte’s jaws hinged open, flashing triple rows of sharp little teeth, and she screamed, a piercing noise that broke one of the big windows. Kelly covered her ears. “I don’t know!” she shouted. “This is kind of ruining the holiday party, though, isn’t it?”

  A pair of tubes shot out on either side of Charlotte’s new head and expelled some kind of slime in arcs like a sprinkler system.

  “Everyone take cover!” Kelly yelled to the residents. “Take your death worms out to the street and into the parking garage!”

  “At least we got through most of the fit and show!” Tom yelled.

  Residents that could fly, like the bee hummingbird, took off immediately, which she thought was sensible. She and Tom took cover behind one of the large, concrete planters. “Tom, this may not be the best time,” she said, “but I don’t want to forget. Are you interested in being my assistant manager?”

  A flash of light caught her eye from above, and to her horror, a glowing, white fissure cracked open in the dark sky and ripped wider, its jagged edges curling up like burned paper. She guarded her eyes; the light radiated as bright as a movie spotlight turned on in a dark room.

  “What do you think?” she asked Tom, wanting him to say yes, though she was also full of dread, knowing what came next. How could she have been so oblivious to not know that the board did something to unbind themselves from the building? Because obviously, that’s what they did, and she was too distracted and depressed to notice. But regardless, she wanted him to say yes.

  “I would be honored,” Tom said, his voice raised. “Really?”

  “Really. I already cleared it with Claw and Crutty.”

  Charlotte made unearthly, horrible noises in concert with the monsters rushing out of the hole in the sky, and Kelly’s initial impulse was to run like hell until she got home, round up the SPs, and leave the city and Amenity Tower to its fate. Tom could manage the building. He had so many arms; that could only help.

  If the board were so intent on destroying everything, who was she to stop it? But there was her father to think about, and the residents, most of whom were screaming or crying while they curled up in a fetal position.

  In the mayhem, Charlotte snatched up one of the residents, a shy, frog-like creature who kept to himself, clutched him in her serrated claw, and either threw him or lost control of him. The resident ended up hanging onto one of the upper-floor balconies.

  She used her walkie. “Pedro?”

  “Yes?”

  “Could you go up to the thirty-seventh floor and help the resident who’s hanging onto the balcony?”

  Monsters flew out of the glowing fissure in the sky and circled. One breathed out a fire tornado that incinerated a suspended construction project on a sunken lot, setting the entire acre ablaze.

  The sounds seemed far off, and she was overcome with a kind of hopeless despair. She chastised herself for not being more aware, more vigilant when so much was at stake; for being distracted by a zombie fungus and a board meeting and new committees and a mysterious noise and a FedEx package.

  And she had assumed Charlotte was incompetent, dull-witted, and incredibly condescending (as dull-witted people tended to be)—not secretly a monster from another dimension who had probably gotten access to their world through the Amenity Tower HVAC system during the previous incident.

  Kelly snapped into action, if not out of despondency, when Charlotte reached down, face tubes shooting jets of slime all across the patio. Charlotte snatched up the death worm in the tuxedo costume and stuffed it between her jaws. Kelly couldn’t help but think of the Sno-Ball she’d had earlier.

  “Run!” she yelled, rustling up the residents and a few of their death worms to the other side of the patio since Charlotte blocked the doors.

  “Lyneette!” the caterpillar owner screamed, dropping to her knees. She tore off her glasses string, beads scattering and bouncing, and planted both tiny arms on the ground, heaving with wracking sobs. Kelly got the moth-wasp’s attention, and she pulled her away.
The slime caught another resident, who tried to run but couldn’t.

  “Not another special assessment, not another special assessment,” Kelly muttered as she wrangled as many residents and death worms as possible out onto the street.

  She scrambled back to the terrace, feeling her way over a ledge as she looked up at the fissure in the sky. Fear immobilized her as effectively as Charlotte’s slime immobilized that resident, because one enormous, horrific monster after another flew out of the huge portal, forming a mass of 747-sized wings and jaws that could eat entire wooly mammoths, and she had no idea how to stop them or how to close it.

  The city couldn’t; it was up to her. Or to the board.

  She tried Af’s phone again. As usual, it went straight to voice mail. “It’s Kelly. I’ve got an update for you: there’s another apocalypse in Pothole City, starting right over Amenity Tower. I don’t know where you are or if you’re coming back, but it’s a garbage fire here right now, and I wouldn’t mind your help, in any form. In fact, it would be super useful if you were here.”

  She wanted to say something else but hung up. Would he call back? Would he come back? Or did he hate it here that much? One of the new monsters, a completely transparent pterosaur-thing with organs you could clearly see, flew down toward Charlotte. Charlotte picked it out of the air as easily as it was a piece of dandelion fluff and ate it. The monster Charlotte ate was made of glass, Kelly realized. Glass. Possibly solid glass, like one of those horrible solid chocolate Easter rabbits, and Charlotte ate it like it was no big deal.

  She heard the swallowing sound from all the way across the patio. It sounded like a recycling truck when the bin tipped into it. She felt numb. How many of these did she have to fight?

  She called her father.

  “Hello? Kelly?”

  Not a care in the world. She even heard Abba in the background. “It’s me. Are you in the lab?”

  “Yes, and I’m making excellent progress with the salad dressing! Those Canadians can kiss my—”