GRAVEWORM (26 page)

And in her head: the metallic echo of a scream.

46

His father lay in the coffin, a wax effigy melting into casket satin, sinking slowly into mortuary depths and Henry loved him and hated him and was maybe even jealous of the dark waters his father was descending into. The funeral home was a calm and quiet place and nobody stared at you or called you names or pointed at you—
graveworm, graveworm, lookit Henry the graveworm—
and you could relax there and know peace amongst the dark woodwork and purple velour tassels and pleated curtains, listen to the mourners coming and going, passing like rain, patter-pitter-patter, shadows sliding about, here then gone.

“
Henry.” Oh God that voice.
“Henry, Henry. Come to the casket.”
His mother’s voice and as he heard it he looked for somewhere to hide: a sofa to slide under, a dark corner to
secrete
himself into, anywhere she could not find him but then her plump greasy hand seized his own, enveloping his fingers in a white mushroomy flab. Tall and cavern-eyed, mother pulled him toward the box, drowning him in a fetor of nauseating flowery perfume which canceled out the good pleasing odors of funerary spices and secret chemicals.

Henry could not escape and mother dragged him over there,
Say goodbye to your father,
her voice instructed him and Henry could not because there was something thick and clotted in his throat and his voice would not come and as it would not come, that awful sweating toadstool hand seem to grow larger until his own hand—fine and thin-fingered—disappeared into moist, hot folds. He squeezed his eyes shut, but—
Henry—
she forced him to look and he remembered in that stark moment how they had found the old man who was not so old, maybe a middle-aged man with an ancient defiled soul, lying on the floor, curled up, hands clutched to his chest and eyes like shiny dark marbles that rolled in dun sockets. Dying, dying, as something inside him let go from the strain of what he had seen his son doing and what his heart could not hope to contain and that which his mouth would never speak of. Henry did not want to look at him because he was afraid those gummed eyes would pop open and impale him with a disapproving look of utter disgust—

No, no, please, I didn’t mean to disappoint you. Please, please, PLEASE… I can’t help what I do.

His father had been a stern man. Proud, self-reliant, independent. He had loathed what he found his son doing, yet loved him when he looked past all that to the man his son
could
have been. Without his mother and that crazy brood of relatives.
Touched, Henry. Man to man, I say to you, they’re all touched. It runs in the blood.

Henry breathed in and out, shaking away the chill that crawled over his skin. That was years ago and he was not a boy now. He was a man. A man with business that needed attending to and if he didn’t get it done, then no one would because that’s how it worked. But there in the darkness of that old wind-creaking house, he could not seem to remember what the business was. It got that way sometimes and he had to think to remember because it was important.

But he could not remember.

His mind was blank.

There was a woman… but his mind could not give her a face.

Oh God, what will I do now?

Then the thing that lay across his lap said,
“You’ll do exactly what I tell you.”

(yes, mother)

“Yes, Tara.”

47

Keep your nerve. Don’t lose it now.

Whatever you do, don’t lose your head.

But she was in the dark, chained to a wall in this filthy cellar, trapped in an envelope of rank, sweetish decay. It was like living in a freezer filled with spoiled meat.

Worm had extinguished all the candles earlier because she thought the dark was nice, very nice.
No, that’s not what she said and you know it! Pretty, pretty, pretty. Something like that. Isn’t the dark pretty, Lisa? Pretty like you?
Lisa waited there, her ass and legs completely numb now, her shoulder not in much better condition from the dog chain wrapped tightly around her wrist and secured to the wall so that her arm was perpetually stretched above her head.

You could stand up.

No, not yet. For some reason she did not want to do that. When the time came, but not until. She kept formulating one impossible escape plan after the other. Worm was dangerous. Even if she got her wrist free of the chain, she’d have to contend with Worm who was deranged and somehow primeval. And who could say where Henry was? Hiding in the shadows upstairs maybe. Waiting for her to try something.

Worm.

She was near. Lisa was certain of it. Then something brushed the back of her hand and she flinched. Worm giggled. Lisa waited. A game. Some kind of game. Worm made her hands into crawling spiders that skittered up Lisa’s legs, spending far too much time between her legs. Now up her belly, moving across her breasts with a tickling of fingernails. Her throat. Those dirty, casket-smelling fingers were in her face now. She did everything she could do not to scream or ball up her free hand and punch Worm in the face. It wasn’t time for that. Not yet. The fingers tried to get in her mouth but she pressed her lips tightly.

The hands withdrew.

She could hear Worm breathing.

Silence for a time that dragged out to five minutes, then ten. Her skin was crawling. Her heart pounding. Her tongue pressed tightly to the roof of her mouth to keep down the roiling nausea in her belly. It was bad enough when Worm touched her, but when she didn’t know from which direction it would come…

A stealthy movement just off to the left. A dragging sound from the right. A heavy breathing near her left ear. The sound of hands—
or paws
—digging in the dirt.

A match was struck and Worm’s face in the flickering light was ghastly like a mask carved from moist yellow tallow, the grinning mouth wide and thin-lipped, almost reptilian, the eyes huge and green and wet like sliced grapes.

“
Shhh,” she said, holding one mold-caked finger to her lips. “I’ve brought my friends, but you have to be quiet. Very quiet.”

Lisa tensed, her breathing accelerated. It felt like something thick and slushy was rising up the back of her throat. She gritted her teeth. “Okay,” she managed. “I’ll be very, very quiet.”

“
You must,” Worm warned her. “Henry said I must never take my dolls from the secret room or he’ll take them away.”

Lisa swallowed.

“
Close your eyes,” Worm said.

Worm lit the other candles, tall slender tapers that looked like the sort you would see on a festive table for a Thanksgiving or Christmas ad. Lisa closed her eyes and waited for what came next because she knew it would be bad beyond belief but if she wanted to get out of here in one piece she would need to be delighted with whatever it was that Worm showed her. No disgust. No horror. Absolute
delight.

The stink of putrescence was suffocating.

“
Open your eyes now,” Worm whispered.

Lisa did and choked down a scream at the back of her throat. Even so, a slight strangled moan came from her lips. A hot fever sweat broke on her face and her teeth chattered involuntarily as an icy chill raced over her body, down her belly and up her back.

Worm’s friends were in attendance.

There were three of them and Worm introduced them as Dirdree, Billy No-No, and Lazy Baby. Yes, they were small like dolls but bloated and nasty, corpse-things with blackened faces and plump fleshy gourds for heads. They were puffy and soft and unbearably grotesque, all of them decaying and bursting with maggots. Small, pathetic things stolen from ripening graves and sutured intricately so they would not fall apart.

Oh God, oh God, not this, not this—

“
Do you like them?” Worm said. “They like you. They think you are very pretty and would like to play with you. Do you want to play with them, Lisa?”

Lisa found that she could not speak. Her brain was reeling, her sanity like something warm and pliable settling into a pool in her skull. Her tongue felt thick, her lips numb… it was as if her mouth was filled with cold unyielding tar. She was precariously balanced at the edge. Between the here and the now and a bottomless black sucking hole of madness opening up inside her.

Tears running down her face, she tried to speak.

“Lisa?”

“
Yes… yes, I want to play with them.”

Worm crouched there, staring at her. “Why are you crying?”

“
Your friends…” Lisa breathed in and out, slowly. “They’re so beautiful… they make me sad because I miss my friends.”

Lisa wanted to shut her eyes and never open them, but she could not. Part of her refused and another part knew that it would anger Worm and that wouldn’t do at all. So she looked. Absorbed. Filled her narrowing mind with the meat of nightmares that would keep it fed for years. Giggling, Worm picked up Billy No-No and held him up in his rotting little burial suit so she could look into his black shoebutton eyes and see the grave mold growing up his puckered little face like a black pelt. His lips had shriveled back exposing tiny even teeth and gums gone gray and corrugated.

“
What did you say, Billy? Tell mother.” Worm held the little horror to her ear and grinned. “Billy No-No thinks you are so pretty he would like to kiss you, Lisa. Kiss and kiss and kiss you. Kiss you all over.”

Then Worm turned and shook a finger at Dirdree. “You must not cause trouble!” she warned her. “Or we’ll have to bury you back up! We have a guest and we must be on good behavior.”

Dirdree, who had been planted in the dirt, slumped over and fell, one stiff little hand reaching up. There were tiny white things crawling in her hair, beetles exploring the hollow cavity where her nose had been.

“
Bad girl!” Worm told her. “Always causing trouble! Always showing off! Mother is very disappointed!”

Lisa was on the verge of a complete breakdown. The tears would not stop coming. Her teeth would not stop chattering. She was hot and cold, sweating and shivering, a thick white jelly filling her chest, her thoughts bouncing around in her skull like marbles.

I can’t… I can’t… I can’t lose it. I’ve got to keep it together got to keep it together got to hold on got to to to…

Worm turned away from her and picked up Lazy Baby and shook her violently in Lisa’s face, things falling off her. She looked like a swollen white slug bursting from her frilly white baptismal dress. She had distended so badly that her skull was misshapen and huge, the fine cornsilk hair which once covered her scalp now reduced to a single lock sprouting from the crown of her skull. Her face was green and black and oozing with foul drainage.

“
Lazy Baby thinks you are the prettiest of all,” Worm said, bringing the putrid thing ever closer. Grave maggots fell from it and squirmed on Lisa’s bare legs. “She wants you to touch her… to kiss her and love her and play with her.”

“
No… no… please… no I can’t… I can’t…
I CAN’T TOUCH THAT FUCKING THING—”

“
You will! You will! You will!” Worm told her.

She took hold of Lisa’s free hand and pressed her fingers against Lazy Baby’s face which was soft and squishy. Like a swollen, rotting peach, her fingers broke through the skin and corpse slime ran down her fingers.

Lisa screamed.

“
SHUT UP!” Worm cried. “YOU SHUT UP WITH THAT!”

But Lisa could not shut up. She no longer had control of her mind and it was breaking open, shearing, splitting right down the middle and the noise it made was the wild, hysterical screaming that came from her mouth.

“WHAT IS THIS?”

Henry Borden stepped into view. “What have you been doing, Worm? What are those things doing outside of the secret room? You’ll ruin everything! You’ll ruin the game!” He had a corpse in his arms with dangling gray limbs. He kicked Worm and she made an animal-like squealing sound, dropping Lazy Baby whose head broke free and rolled across the dirt floor.

“
Not my baby! Not my baby!”
Worm whined, trying to put the head back on again as Henry dumped his prize next to Lisa and began to slap Worm viciously until she rolled over and offered her ass to him and then spun around, snarling, anxious to draw blood.