The Worm and His Kings

by Hailey Piper

  Darkness pooled in the rectangular hole. Corene lit another cigarette and dropped it inside. It landed maybe six feet down before sputtering out.

  “I’ll check first,” Corene said. She sat at the hole’s edge with her legs dangling over, took a deep breath, and then slid herself gently down. Her sneakers clacked against hard linoleum. She grunted, but she didn’t sound hurt.

  Monique approached the edge. A cavern of bones might lie beneath Empire Music Hall where Gray Hill carried her victims. The monster herself might be waiting. Monique had come this far, but traversing Freedom Tunnel was one thing. She knew the empty place, what it did to her thoughts and nerves. This was uncharted territory. She’d had a lucky break finding the street again after chasing Gray Hill through the underground. Now she couldn’t help feeling that if she threw that break away and journeyed back underground, she would never see the surface again. That corpse premonition atop Empire Music Hall’s steps would lead her into a bottomless grave, her soul forever falling.

  A golden lighter flickered alive in the pool of darkness and cast a glow over Corene’s face. Fiery reflections stirred in her hazel eyes. “Scared?” she asked.

  Monique glared. Wasn’t it obvious?

  “You know, kid, fear is just a symptom of old perspective being broken down. It’s the only way we see things in new ways.”

  Whatever the hell that meant.

  Corene stepped back to give room, letting the darkness thicken once more. Monique sat on the opening’s edge and let her legs dangle. She tried taking a deep breath and coughed it out.

  Hesitation was getting her nowhere. She closed her eyes, slid from the edge, and let the ground swallow her whole.

  3

  EMPIRE

  NARROW WALLS CLOSED IN FROM either side. Gray Hill probably spent this last stretch of each night’s excursion in an uncomfortable crawl. No debris blocked the hallway; she had cleared any obstacles weeks ago. Monique didn’t worry about tripping over a stray chair. Fortunate, since Corene’s lighter made a poor flashlight. It kept sputtering out as they walked, and each time, her thumb had to grind its hissing trigger over and over before the flame returned.

  “Some cellar,” she whispered, and pointed at open doorways that haunted the underground. “Furnace room. Piping here. Boxes, so probably storage.” She raised her head above her lighter and called out: “Abraham?”

  Monique glanced back to the hole that was shrinking down the hall behind them. If Gray Hill heard them coming, they wouldn’t be able to scrabble up as fast as they’d dropped in.

  “I doubt he’s nearby,” Corene said, lowering her lighter. “That would be too easy, and he’d answer if he heard. That man never shuts up.” She took cautious steps forward. “Listen, if there’s enough space down here to house the number of people I’m thinking, it could be big. We might get split up.”

  Monique almost asked who they were, but she was more afraid of Gray Hill.

  “If we lose each other, look for a man in his sixties, balding except for scraggly hair running down the sides of his head into his big tough beard. Ever seen a picture of Charles Darwin? That’s practically Abraham. He’s got a biker’s burly build but wears sweaters and jackets with elbow patches. Get the picture?”

  “And what if everyone here looks like that?” Monique asked.

  “Don’t get cute. There’ll be elders, but they’ll surround themselves with desperate types who need something to believe in. Young, like you. Abraham’s not like that.” Corene leaned her lighter over one shoulder as if pointing an accusing finger. “Your turn to share. Who should I be watching for?”

  “Donna?” Monique couldn’t describe her like she wanted: a fiery sun stuffed into a somehow mortal woman. “She’s forty, white, blue eyes, brunette except where it’s going gray. She has a face like she’s annoyed all the time, but in a charming way, like—”

  “Going gray?” Corene cut in. “And how old are you?”

  Monique shrugged. Did it matter? “Twenty.”

  “And you’re in a relationship with her? Make all the faces you want; when you get to my age, you know your own.” Corene smirked. “She sounds a little old for you.”

  Monique stammered. She hadn’t mentioned their relationship. Seldom did anyone guess anything about her, especially after having been around her for all of five minutes. She set her jaw. “That’s not really your business,” she said.

  Corene’s lighter flame quivered. “And who would I say is looking for her if you and I are separated?”

  “She’ll know.” If anyone but Monique came looking for Donna, they needed to have their apologies in order. Donna’s family had cast her off when Monique was still a child, years before Monique’s parents did the same.

  “Have it your way. I’ll tell Donna I’ve come on behalf of the uptight young lady in a red cap.”

  An orange-yellow glow broke the darkness ahead where Corene’s lighter reflected off a red metal door. She pressed it open and flicked a wall switch, snapping a dangling overhead bulb to life. It cast pale light down a half-dozen descending stone steps. Another door waited at the bottom.

  Deeper and deeper it went.

  Corene doused her lighter and started down. “Why did Donna come here?”

  Monique still couldn’t be sure Donna was even here. This whole excursion might’ve been risking her life for nothing, but she didn’t want to say that. “I think she was taken. Gray Hill’s been snatching people off the street for months.”

  “The tall lady? I didn’t find out about her until after Abraham disappeared. He knew the kind of people these were, the history they’re playing with, and he couldn’t resist knowledge. Their mouthier members might talk, but they’re not supposed to tell all. We had star charts and graphs, while they have the raw data of quantum physics, secrets to how the universe plays with time.” Corene reached the bottom of the steps and shook her head. “The Worm is too much to explain. Oh, the things people will worship.”

  Monique paused two steps from the bottom. “The Worm?”

  “Ever hear of those UFO cults that wait for aliens to take them to heaven? This is worse. At least for those whackos, none of it’s real. These zealots have their monster as proof, and much, much more.” Corene reached for the next knob—unlocked. Whoever she feared beneath Empire Music Hall didn’t expect company. They might’ve thought any intruders would be more interested in the expensive instruments and equipment aboveground.

  They hadn’t anticipated their captives to have loved ones who’d come searching. Did they worship Gray Hill? Monique didn’t suppose she could blame them. That monster was unreal, larger than life, a thing Monique wouldn’t have believed had she not seen with her own eyes. A soul desperate for higher calling might latch onto such a creature.

  The door opened on a stark, cream-colored hallway. Dim fluorescent lights hung overhead, one winking in and out. A couple of doors stood shut along the hall, but nothing else interrupted the walls. Their creamy paint swirled in messy patterns. To stare into them long enough might have conjured shapes and visions, but there wasn’t time for that.

  Corene marched toward the hall’s end, where the path veered left. “When I say it’s too much to explain, I’m not trying to insult you,” she whispered. “I’m accidentally good at insulting, with everyone. I don’t even know you. You might be a physics student who’s fallen on hard times. Shit happens.”

  “I’m not an anything student,” Monique said.

  “I’m sure you’d stump me on any of your areas of expertise.”

  “It’s shortcomings all the way down, promise.”

  Corene tried one of the knobs in passing, but these doors were locked. “Not even any expertise about Donna? She must be special.”

  Monique pushed past Corene and toward the hall’s end. The pale walls and unhappy lighting reminded her of the building where Marigold & Cohen leased their offices. Had they not met in that damn lobby while Monique was delivering pizza to a smaller office, Donna’s
life might have stayed on the right track. She’d been a lawyer there for thirteen years. Throwing her aside wasn’t fair.

  “Donna makes the worst days okay, and the okay days heavenly,” Monique said at last.

  Corene stepped alongside Monique and regarded her. “You won’t quit on her, will you?”

  Monique cringed at the thought. “I’m not the kind of girl who quits.”

  “I’ve gathered.” Corene eyeballed the corner. “Any of these doors might be loaded with people unhappy to see us. Or, we might find Abraham, or Donna.” She rubbed two fingers over her lips. “I didn’t think this through. I’m no better than he is. He would’ve talked to the police, but I thought, ‘What if it’s a misunderstanding?’ I couldn’t have that, could I?”

  Monique’s parents, wrongheaded as they could be on so many topics, used to tell her not to trust cops. Living on and off the street since last November had proved them right. No one who lived in Freedom Tunnel had called 9-1-1 about Gray Hill, and no one seemed to care about the missing women. Pulling a college professor’s salary, Corene couldn’t understand. Money and shelter changed everything.

  Maybe Monique had areas of expertise after all. She turned left.

  The hall opened into a wide white room. Bright ceiling lights shined around a square vent cover. The floor formed a walkway where another hall opened ahead, and a white staircase descended twenty feet down to a lower level. Green plastic ferns braced the bottom step, and hallways opened to the left and right. Perhaps they would lead to even more descending stairs.

  Deeper and deeper, as if there was no bottom.

  “They don’t hold concerts below street level,” Corene said. “The city must know about the lower floors since subway construction would’ve had to slide around. Call a design simultaneously historic and post-modern, and you can use it to cover up any crime. The public never sees the Worm’s secrets and all his followers’ religious rites.”

  That Worm again. Then the people beneath Empire Music Hall didn’t worship Gray Hill after all. “But who’d worship worms?” Monique asked, perplexed.

  “People will worship anything if they need it,” Corene said. “Dangle the Worm on a hook and hungry fish will bite.”

  Monique’s gut roared. The stairway room was all hard surfaces and carried the noise. Right now she would kill for a box of blueberry-flavored Pop-Tarts. They were junk food, but her treasured junk food. Begging the well-dressed man in the subway might’ve been a ruse, but she could’ve used a little spare change for food anyway. Now her stomach wanted to claw at her organs and spine. Left as it was, it would eventually digest her vertebrae and then every bone to follow.

  Corene glanced at Monique’s abdomen, her face, and then gritted her teeth. “You said—what’d you call her, Gray Hill? That she’s been snatching people off the street. You’ve seen it?” She studied Monique again and then reached into her pocket and pulled out a Mars bar. “I was saving this—Abraham’s favorite, and mine too—but I think you need it more.”

  Monique wasn’t too proud to take it. She thought she muttered out gratitude before stuffing the chocolatey end in her mouth, but after swallowing the first bite, she couldn’t be sure.

  “It’s been rough, huh? For you and Donna?” Corene gazed out at the white staircase. “You’ll have to tell me about it after we find—” She gasped hard and thrashed one arm to the side, grasping the stairway banister. Her voice shrank to a shrill whisper. “Do you see that?”

  Monique swallowed the last of the Mars bar and followed Corene’s eyes to the ceiling vent. She didn’t see anything, but she heard it—a rough scrape, like Gray Hill’s cloak.

  “Something was watching,” Corene said. Her stern veneer melted against her bones. She clasped her trembling hands together. “I thought it was Gray Hill.”

  “She couldn’t fit,” Monique said.

  “She might not be the only one. There might be ones our size, too.” Corene didn’t take her eyes off the vent.

  Nothing appeared. They wouldn’t get anywhere standing here, and if something knew they were in the staircase room, better to go someplace else.

  They could still head back. Climbing to the street might be hard, but they still had the physical agency to leave, something that might be taken from them if they were found by Gray Hill or the people who revered worms.

  But if they ran, and Donna was here now, then she would never leave. No one else would save her.

  Monique hit the first step and then glanced up at Corene. “You can hold my hand.”

  Corene looked at her intertwined fingers and then scowled. “I’m fifty-one years old. I don’t need my hand held.” She began down the steps and passed Monique. “You think this is the most dangerous place I’ve ever been?”

  Monique didn’t know, but no one trembled like that unless deep down she was terrified.

  Corene cleared her throat. “Thank you for not throwing what I said about fear back in my face.”

  Monique couldn’t remember the exact words anyway. She followed down the stairs and tried to keep her eyes off the vent. If something watched from behind its metal slats, there was nothing she could do about it. White linoleum drew closer. When she moved her head, motion blur made stairs, floor, and walls bleed into one.

  A red fragment broke the pale haze out the corner of her eye, and she thought of the woman in a red coat, Gray Hill’s latest victim. Monique swerved her head again to look.

  Someone new stared up at them, her long red hair glaring against the walls. “Excuse me?” Her soft voice bounced off every hard surface.

  Corene glared over her shoulder, freezing Monique in place. “You trust me, kid?” she whispered. “Follow my lead and don’t believe their smiles. No matter how friendly, loving, and generous they act, if these maniacs catch wise that you don’t belong here, they’ll tear you limb from limb.”

  4

  ORIENTATION

  RED HAIR FLOWED DOWN A white blouse to the waistline of bleached jeans. The young woman looked around Monique’s age, almost as thin, and too frail to hurt a fly.

  Corene stretched the biggest smile across her face and finished descending the steps. “Hi there, sweetie! We’re new and a little lost. Can you help us?”

  Monique almost gawked, but the woman was watching. She managed a slender smile.

  The woman’s eyes narrowed. “Really? I’ve seen everyone who’s been brought in at night.”

  “We were recruited this afternoon.” Corene lowered her head. “For love of the Worm.”

  An infectious grin burst across the stranger’s pale face. She stamped to the bottom of the steps and grabbed Corene’s arms. “Newcomers, I love that! We hardly get anyone joining on their own. That must mean the Worm’s will is spreading.”

  “Without a doubt.”

  The woman let go of Corene and clapped her hands in front of her nose. “I could explode right now, I’m so happy! Well, no sense leaving you lost. I’ll show you around. Would you like to know my name? It was Susan, but I didn’t like that, so now I’m Lady, and I can change it because all that ID and records stuff will be washed away by the Worm’s infinite oceans. We flow with him and his waters set us free. Neat, huh?” She waved an overzealous arm and stamped back the way she’d come. Her thin brown boots clacked hard against linoleum.

  Corene glanced back at Monique, briefly dropped her smile into a scowl, and then picked it up and followed Lady.

  Monique wasn’t sure she could smile that wide. She trailed behind Corene.

  Lady’s enthusiastic footsteps faded into a softer hallway. The carpet’s orange-brown fibers felt dull beneath the white walls, where patterns swirled in the paint. Black doors lined the hallway, paused where it forked left, and then continued on toward its far end.

  “We sleep here,” Lady said. “It’s almost ceremony time, so we’ll have to find your beds later. There’s a bathroom on each end.” She clapped again. “Oh, but there’s so much to see. The elevator to the Sunless Palace, the
dining hall, the ceremony chamber, the practice room—well, that’s halfway behind the dorms.” She pointed to the fork in the hall.

  “What do we practice?” Monique asked.

  Lady’s eyebrow climbed her forehead. “The only thing that matters. The song that pierces the universe.”

  “Oh, right.” Monique felt Corene’s muscles tensing.

  But Lady didn’t seem to care. Her eyes turned to the ceiling. “They built the under-levels before they built the music hall, way before I was born. I like to think of the surface music as inspiration. They play above, we sing below.”

  A toad of anxiety planted itself in Monique’s throat, and her scarves now seemed too tight. She hadn’t been up for singing since she began sleeping beside the empty place. Even before that, Donna used to coax a song out of her only through begging or getting Monique tipsy. She wasn’t sure she’d sound good enough anymore for Corene’s charade.

  “I have an idea!” Lady spun around to face them. “Do you know about the twin histories?”

  “Yes,” Corene said while Monique shook her head.

  Monique fought the toad out of her throat. “I mean, I wasn’t paying good attention when they told us. I’m sorry.”

  Lady glanced between them. “That’s okay. Actually, it’s great. I love telling it.” She turned from them and headed for the fork in the hallway.

  Corene glared at Monique. “Limb from limb,” she whispered. They followed Lady.

  Swirling paint patterns decorated the next hallway branch. Its only door stood shut at the end, where a vibrant hum climbed and fell from the other side. Shadows seemed to quiver in the paint with each changing note. Monique rubbed her eyes and tugged her beanie down a little tighter.

  “Everything started with the seer who loved the stars,” Lady said, stroking her fingers across one wall’s indistinct patterns. They might have been dots for stars and dashes for figures. They might have been nothing at all. “He wasn’t human like us. His kind were more like birds who sang in the morning to let each other know they’d survived the night. But he was different. He sang at dusk to tell the stars he’d missed them. And one night, the stars sang back. That was when the Worm found the world.”