But he knew there really wasn’t. To do something meant he’d have to quit pushing against the door and as soon as he stopped doing that, Mr. Worm was going to tear him a new asshole. Literally.
Stevie yipped louder.
The door was coming apart.
Tony was scared shitless.
Another hole appeared, this one down by his knee. He saw the bulblike snout of the worm press through. A ribbon of black slime hung from its mouth like drool.
Then it withdrew.
It stopped pounding itself against the door.
Tony listened.
He heard a distinctly appalling slithering sound, which must have been the worm sliding across the tile floor. There was a splashing, wet sort of noise and he dared to hope it had gone back down the pipe. But the thing was so furious and relentless in its attack, the idea seemed ludicrous. Things like it did not give up until they got what they were after.
It was quiet in the bathroom.
He heard water dripping, nothing else.
Even Stevie had quit yipping.
Toilet water flowed under the door and Tony was standing in a rank, chill pool of it. He waited. A minute, two, then three. Gradually, he eased off on the door. He expected the worm to batter it, but it didn’t.
It was absolutely silent in there.
He looked over at Stevie and the little mutt cocked his head in that way Charise thought was so cute. But he was not trying to be cute, Tony knew. The cocked-head thing was the dog’s version of what the fuck? That’s all it was and all it had ever been, despite Charise’s human need to pretend otherwise.
His heart thudding in his chest, Tony moved away from the door.
Damn, it looked like it had been hit repeatedly by hammers. Big fucking hammers. It was hard to believe that a single—albeit large and freaky—worm could cause that much damage. Worms were soft-bodied creatures and maybe somebody needed to remind this thing of that.
It was still silent in there.
Stevie looked up at him with the same WTF look and Tony gave it back to him. What the fuck, indeed. He felt a curious camaraderie with the little mutt. They’d always actively despised each other, but he felt that had somehow changed now. Common desperation and common fear had linked them together in a universe of mutual need. Wouldn’t Charise be surprised—and hurt—when Stevie started hanging out with him?
Tony crouched down by the dog and ruffled his fur.
“I hope to God that thing is gone,” he whispered to the dog. “Either way, we better get the hell out of here before it gets back.”
So that was the plan. But plans required action and action meant moving and that meant turning his back on the door and he did not like the idea of that at all. But it was silent in there and he didn’t honestly believe the worm could play possum quite that well.
He stood up slowly.
He wrinkled his nose at the foul stench coming from the bathroom. He couldn’t put a finger on what it was exactly, some kind of weird, dank smell of shit and piss, fungal rot and maggoty decay. Horrible.
“Stand guard, Stevie. You hear anything in there, yip your head off.”
He pretty much thought he was talking to himself, but as he backed away into the hallway, Stevie stayed right there, fixing the door with a steely, resolute glare. Tony jogged into the bedroom and peeled off his wet socks. He pulled off his joggers and slipped into some jeans, threw on a hoodie and put dry socks on. That was better. He got his backpack out of the closet. He’d stuff bottled water and food in there. Enough to last them until they got free of town anyway.
When he got back, Stevie was still manning… or dogging… his post.
Tony threw on his gum rubber snow boots and grabbed his softball bat out of the closet. Maybe it wasn’t the best weapon, but it was hardwood and it could easily split skulls and, hopefully, worms.
“Okay, Stevie,” he said. “I’m going to look in there. I think it’s gone but I have to know for sure.”
Stevie gave him one of his looks. What? You want the worm to eat you?
Tony went to the door and, without hesitation, opened it, a white bolt of fear digging down deep into his belly.
Nothing.
The bathroom was an absolute mess, but he saw no worm. Nothing in the tub. Nothing in the sink. The toilet had pretty much exploded, nothing left but its base, which was bolted securely to the floor, and the black, ugly outgoing pipe and its flange.
Tony sighed, releasing his death grip on the bat.
It was a fluke. That worm was some mutant that had been growing in the putrid darkness down there for years. One of a kind.
It’s gone back and will probably die out before anyone else ever sees it.
This was what he told himself and it made him feel better. Much better, in fact… though he knew he’d never be able to sit bare-assed on a toilet again, exposing himself to subterranean, worming horrors.
“Okay, Stevie, let’s be sheep and get the flock out of here,” he said. “Let’s go visit Stephani or drop in on the O’Connors.”
Then, from the pipe, there was a splashing sound. It was more than just water and he knew it.
“Shit,” he said.
6
“What is it now?”
“Down here!” Kathleen cried. “Hurry for godsake!”
Pat Mackenridge sighed. He looked out the window at his Dodge Ram sitting in the driveway. Then he turned and went down the hallway. “Where the hell are you?”
“I’m down here! Hurry it!”
God, this better be good. This better be something real good, something applicable. If he got down there and she was panicking because a stupid fucking spider had crawled out from under the dryer, he was going to lose it. Really lose it.
“Are you coming or what?”
She sounded frantic now.
He jogged down the steps, stopping about just before he reached the basement floor. “What?”
She grumbled in her throat. “Can you be bothered to come down all the way or do I have to come over there and guide you by the hand?”
Oh, that mouth.
He stepped down into the basement and smelled it right away, the same stink as outside but concentrated down here… an almost violent stench of moist rot, corruption, and sewer slime. The black gunk was foaming up out of the floor drain by the hot water heater, a slushy filth that popped with greasy-looking bubbles. To Pat, it smelled the way he imagined animal carcasses might when stranded by the receding waters of a flood.
Wrinkling his nose, he said, “Screw it. Let’s just get out of here.”
“Our house,” Kathleen lamented. “Our… home.”
He put an arm around her. She was stiff as a plank. It was like trying to comfort a fencepost. “We’ll come back when this is over and fix everything up. The important thing is to get out of here.”
“Do you think it’ll really get that bad?”
“I don’t know. I really don’t.”
“Maybe we should wait,” she suggested.
“No.”
“No?”
“No, Kathleen. That shit is getting deep in the streets. I think it’s still rising. If we wait too long, even my truck won’t go through it. I think we can clear it right now, but in another hour… I just don’t know.”
“I don’t like the idea of getting trapped out there, Pat. It’ll be dark in an hour. And with the baby…”
“We don’t have a choice.”
He didn’t wait for any more arguments.
He mounted the stairs and as he started to climb them, Kathleen coming after him for another round of debate, there was a sound from within the cellar wall like somebody had cracked an egg. It got louder. It became a grinding, tearing sound. The seam between two concrete blocks split and black ooze bubbled out like crude oil.