Tessa lived at the very end of the block and that was a long, slow slog when the muck was up above your thighs. Marv was wearing his rubber chest waders or he would have been soaked to the skin with the filth which was not just mud and muck but sewage as well, judging by the vile stink of it.
After a good twenty minutes of chugging along, he finally got to Tessa’s.
He dragged himself up the porch and pounded at the door. His legs felt weak and weightless after pushing through the mud for so long.
“Tessa!” he called. “Tessa! It’s me, Marv O’Connor!”
There was no response. He threw the door open and charged in, calling her name and clicking on lights as he went. He got a bad feeling right away and wished he had brought something to defend himself with. Even a penknife. Anything. All he had was a flashlight.
It was the smell in the air that bothered him.
It wasn’t the gaseous, noisome stench of the black muck, but a smell that he was all too familiar with as a deer hunter: blood. The house was a ripe, reeking envelope of it. It smelled the way the gut shed up at hunting camp smelled in November…like a slaughterhouse. The stink of bowels and marrow, animal fat and oceans of draining blood.
But here…in Tessa’s house?
He moved faster until he reached the kitchen. Then he came to a dead halt as he reached for the light switch and clicked it on. The smell was so bad in there, so concentrated, that it brought his stomach up the back of his throat.
Then, in the light, he saw.
Tessa was dead. In fact, she was more than dead. She looked like she had been torn right open. She was laying in a pool of blood, more of it splattered against the counters and smeared on the cupboards and appliances.
Marv turned away.
When he turned back, something moved.
What the fuck?
It crawled out from beneath Tessa’s corpse, parting her hair like a comb…a worming, fleshy thing that seemed to be composed of ringlike segments, each of which seemed to be pulsating. It looked like some kind of millipede. More so, like some flesh-eating nightmare worm from a B-movie. It crawled free of Tessa, hitting the blood-puddled floor with a soft thud.
Then it raised its anterior end off the floor and showed him a perfectly oval cavity of a mouth with perfectly sharp teeth.
It hissed.
Marv took two shuffling steps backward, his hand blindly—and instinctively—reaching out for some kind of weapon, because he had no doubt this thing was a fucking killer. Maybe it was only two or three feet long, but it was thick around as his arm, muscular and evil with teeth made for shredding. His fingers fumbled across cutting boards and canisters of flour and salt.
The worm lowered its head/mouth back to the floor.
It began to vibrate. Then it began to move in his direction…slowly, slowly, but he had the oddest feeling that if it wanted to, it could fly right across the room at him with dizzying speed.
The butcher block. He yanked a carving knife free.
The worm came at him, not slowly now, but with amazing speed. He knew he could have dashed through the door, but the idea of turning his back on that monster was scary. He could just about imagine it climbing his spine and sinking its teeth into the back of his neck.
It leapt.
It was four feet away and Marv was brandishing a carving knife that could gut a pig, still it leapt…fearless, remorseless, almost manic with its need to attack. It made it to within a foot of him before he swung the blade and missed, his wrist knocking the worm to edge of the counter where it hung, the spiny protrusions jutting from its segments scratching to gain a hold.
Marv let out a cry and slashed at it with the knife.
He missed the head (if head it could be called) and slashed open a couple of its segments, that pissed out a vile, watery discharge that could not possibly be blood. The worm turned to fight. It struck at him and he slashed it again, laying it open. It made a weird trilling sound that might
After a good twenty minutes of chugging along, he finally got to Tessa’s.
He dragged himself up the porch and pounded at the door. His legs felt weak and weightless after pushing through the mud for so long.
“Tessa!” he called. “Tessa! It’s me, Marv O’Connor!”
There was no response. He threw the door open and charged in, calling her name and clicking on lights as he went. He got a bad feeling right away and wished he had brought something to defend himself with. Even a penknife. Anything. All he had was a flashlight.
It was the smell in the air that bothered him.
It wasn’t the gaseous, noisome stench of the black muck, but a smell that he was all too familiar with as a deer hunter: blood. The house was a ripe, reeking envelope of it. It smelled the way the gut shed up at hunting camp smelled in November…like a slaughterhouse. The stink of bowels and marrow, animal fat and oceans of draining blood.
But here…in Tessa’s house?
He moved faster until he reached the kitchen. Then he came to a dead halt as he reached for the light switch and clicked it on. The smell was so bad in there, so concentrated, that it brought his stomach up the back of his throat.
Then, in the light, he saw.
Tessa was dead. In fact, she was more than dead. She looked like she had been torn right open. She was laying in a pool of blood, more of it splattered against the counters and smeared on the cupboards and appliances.
Marv turned away.
When he turned back, something moved.
What the fuck?
It crawled out from beneath Tessa’s corpse, parting her hair like a comb…a worming, fleshy thing that seemed to be composed of ringlike segments, each of which seemed to be pulsating. It looked like some kind of millipede. More so, like some flesh-eating nightmare worm from a B-movie. It crawled free of Tessa, hitting the blood-puddled floor with a soft thud.
Then it raised its anterior end off the floor and showed him a perfectly oval cavity of a mouth with perfectly sharp teeth.
It hissed.
Marv took two shuffling steps backward, his hand blindly—and instinctively—reaching out for some kind of weapon, because he had no doubt this thing was a fucking killer. Maybe it was only two or three feet long, but it was thick around as his arm, muscular and evil with teeth made for shredding. His fingers fumbled across cutting boards and canisters of flour and salt.
The worm lowered its head/mouth back to the floor.
It began to vibrate. Then it began to move in his direction…slowly, slowly, but he had the oddest feeling that if it wanted to, it could fly right across the room at him with dizzying speed.
The butcher block. He yanked a carving knife free.
The worm came at him, not slowly now, but with amazing speed. He knew he could have dashed through the door, but the idea of turning his back on that monster was scary. He could just about imagine it climbing his spine and sinking its teeth into the back of his neck.
It leapt.
It was four feet away and Marv was brandishing a carving knife that could gut a pig, still it leapt…fearless, remorseless, almost manic with its need to attack. It made it to within a foot of him before he swung the blade and missed, his wrist knocking the worm to edge of the counter where it hung, the spiny protrusions jutting from its segments scratching to gain a hold.
Marv let out a cry and slashed at it with the knife.
He missed the head (if head it could be called) and slashed open a couple of its segments, that pissed out a vile, watery discharge that could not possibly be blood. The worm turned to fight. It struck at him and he slashed it again, laying it open. It made a weird trilling sound that might
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