Slither (4 page)

Aubrey watched her for a second. ‘At least one person sent you something nice.’ He indicated the Fortnum and Mason package. ‘Chocolates?’

‘I imagine so.’ She looked slightly surprised at his abrupt change of topic.

‘Your birthday?’

‘No, they just came addressed to me. When I produced Tiny Toddlers I used to get lots of little presents. Aubrey, we’ve a meeting with the union this afternoon at three. They’re demanding full compensation for Matt Parker.’

‘But the Company’s hardly responsible for—’

She cut him short. ‘And they want Andy Page’s head. For handling the camera.’

‘Oh my God!’ He took off his horn-rimmed glasses and began to polish them vigorously on his handkerchief. ‘Trouble. I was going to use him on—’

‘Don’t touch him!’ she snapped. ‘Leave him where he is, at least till we see which way things are pointing. Compensation for Parker could amount to thousands, perhaps hundreds of thousands, we just don’t know yet.’

‘He was insured.’

‘The insurance company will dispute it. They’ll want to know what he was doing there by himself when the rest of the crew had gone off. But whatever they say, we need to work out a strategy for this afternoon’s meeting. If necessary, we’ll have
to let the union have their blood sacrifice.’

‘Andy Page? Well, he asked for it.’

She reached out for the Fortnum and Mason package and started to undo the ribbon. ‘I’ve invited Al Wilson, Jimmy Case, Veronica and Max—’ Her scream shocked through him.

‘Mary, what—?’ For a moment he sat paralyzed, then he jumped up from his armchair and dashed around to her side of the desk.

She screamed again. A long, sobbing, terrified scream.

Several small worms, about four or five inches in length, were spilling out of the Fortnum and Mason package which lay on its side on the pink blotter. They wriggled over the desk towards her. One of them was already attached, leech-like, to the heavy white flesh of her forearm. She stared at it, screaming, making no attempt to pull it off, but just screaming.

Aubrey caught hold of her high leather chair and tried to tug it clear of the desk. Before he could shift it a second worm launched itself at her from the blotter. If only she hadn’t been wearing that short-sleeved dress … The worm dropped on to the heaving bodice and started to squirm purposefully towards the low V-neck.

Again she screamed, shuddering with horror, but not defending herself at all.

Her secretary ran into the room, a thin wispy woman in her late thirties, prematurely grey. She stood there goggling at Mary, at the worms, and whispering, ‘No! Oh, no… no…’

‘Come and help, for Chrissake!’ Aubrey bawled at her, but she stayed rooted to the spot.

By now he’d managed to pull the chair back from the desk but gradually Mary slipped down from her seat till she was collapsing to her knees on the thick carpet, paralyzed with hysteria. He caught her under one arm, trying to hold her up, but she was too heavy for him.

‘For Chrissake, help me!’ he yelled again at the secretary.

‘No… no…’ She was backing towards the door. ‘No…’

He shoved the heavy chair to one side and dragged Mary across the room as far away from the desk as possible. At least half-a-dozen worms writhed over it, making for the edge.

Over towards the window he lowered her gently to the
carpet where she lay with her dress riding high above her knees and her bare arms spread out defencelessly. The thick flesh of her forearm was puckered and red where the worm was still feeding on it. A thin stream of blood moved rapidly down her skin.

He caught the worm just below the head, holding it between his fingers and thumb and squeezing hard. Something snapped, and it went limp. He was surprised at how easily it’d died. For a few seconds he stared at its lifeless body lying in the palm of his hand; then, feeling sick, he flung it away from him and turned back to Mary. Blood from her arm was staining the carpet, but she was unconscious.

More people were rushing into the room now, demanding to know what was happening. He shouted a warning to them as he searched for the second worm. It had reached the V-neck and was already burrowing into the soft flesh between her breasts. As it gorged itself, its tail still protruded, swaying slightly as if with pleasure.

Aubrey hesitated, uncertain. Then someone brushed him aside – Veronica Dale from Personnel – and hooked her fingers into the top of Mary’s dress and ripped it open. They had to cut the strap of her bra and hold her breasts apart before Aubrey could get a grip on the worm’s neck. When he pulled it away it left a raw, bleeding patch the size of an old penny; the exposed bone of her rib-cage was clearly visible through the blood.

The little worm wriggled between his fingers as he stood up. It was a greenish colour, in every way a miniature version of the worms on the newsreel of Matt Parker. Holding it over the metal waste-paper bin, he gradually crushed the life out of it.

‘How many are there, for Pete’s sake?’ someone was shouting. ‘How many are there?’

‘What’s the panic?’ he grinned; suddenly Aubrey was enjoying himself. ‘They’re easy enough to kill. That one over there – stamp on it!’ He snatched another from the desk top, squashed it between finger and thumb, and dropped it contemptuously into the waste bin. ‘Don’t let them bite you first, though! One of you ring for an ambulance.’

No more of a menace than ferrets! The Professor had been right. As if to prove it to himself, Aubrey watched one of the worms slithering across the carpet towards Mary, making straight for the flabby white breast which hung out of her torn dress.

Before it could strike the ground he ground it to death under his shoe. As a boy he’d killed caterpillars the same way.

4

‘No more of a menace than ferrets,’ Matt repeated bitterly to himself as he stood stripped to the waist in front of the washbasin. Three months he’d been in hospital while they’d tried to rebuild his face. Several operations … skin grafts. His buttocks still felt sore whenever he sat down; he’d never understand why they’d had to take it from that part of his body.

‘Nobody’ll know one end of me from t’other,’ he’d joked with the nurses, trying to hide his resentment. And failing.

What if his face turned out to be horrific when they removed the bandages, a mass of pink scar-tissue like Frankenstein’s monster, not resembling a face at all? It was a recurring nightmare. He imagined himself released from hospital and making his way home alone through hostile streets, on foot, arriving at last, the street, the house, putting the key in the lock, opening the front door, only to find no one recognized him, not even his own daughter… she screamed when she saw him, covered her eyes.

That was the real reason he’d insisted on Helen and Jenny being there that afternoon when they cut the bandages off. Helen had refused at first, saying it wasn’t fair on Jenny; she was only nine after all and…

He’d had to plead with her, but he understood well enough. She was as scared as he was.

He stared at himself in the mirror above the washbasin, wondering. Only a few more hours. Would his beard grow, or would he remain permanently scarred and smooth-cheeked? At least his voice was now almost normal again, or so the speech therapist had told him.

The whiteness of the bandages made his eyes seem darker and more penetrating, like the hypnotic gaze of the sewer worms. Or had it been merely his fear that had made them
seem that way? While filming in Kenya he’d observed the same disabling fear in the eyes of wildebeeste attacked by lions.

Yet he could swear these worms had some ruthless power. Those last moments before losing consciousness his mind had keyed into theirs and…

Fuck!
What the hell did it matter now? He dried himself on the rough towel and went back to his bed. He’d a file of press clippings collected by Helen, and he turned them over again for the thousandth time. Two or three days’ hysteria, and then the topic was elbowed off the front pages by revelations of a politician’s homosexual love life. Anything to boost the circulation figures.

As for TV, someone had planned a documentary special on the worms, but that was dropped after the woman managing director had received a gift of half-a-dozen of the smaller variety sent to her in a fancy chocolate box. In its place they’d screened a full-length interview with Professor Cledwyn Jones, the well-known herpetologist. According to one clipping – Matt’d been too ill to watch TV himself that evening – he’d assured the populace that ‘they’re no more dangerous than ferrets.’

But then, Matt excused him, the Professor had never encountered any alive. That was the point. Otherwise he’d have known they were vicious, ruthless, and regarded human beings solely as convenience food.

There was nothing like being eaten alive to concentrate the mind.

It didn’t do to talk about it too much, though. Once, when Matt was trying to get his thoughts straight, he’d risked confiding in a fellow patient. For the next few days he’d been aware of amused, pitying glances in his direction, till the hospital psychiatrist had called him in for a chat. Since then he’d kept quiet about them.

Helen and Jenny arrived early, as he’d hoped they would. The longer they spent talking together before the bandages were removed the better. It was desperately important to him that Jenny should be sure the man behind the strange new face was the same person she’d known all her life. He noticed she wasn’t in jeans today but had allowed her mother to talk her
into wearing a neat summer dress. Dolled up for the great occasion!

‘New?’ he asked.

‘Yeah.’ She shook the long, blonde hair back from her shoulders. ‘Daddy, what are you going to look like when they take the bandages off?’

‘Much the same as before, with any luck.’

‘I can’t really remember before,’ she commented. With her forefinger she was tracing the veins over the back of his hand. ‘Does it hurt not having those two fingers?’

‘No, not any more.’

Helen pulled her hand away. ‘Of course you can remember what Daddy looks like,’ she scolded nervously. ‘She’s just saying that, Matt. Your picture’s on my bedside table.’

‘I think I’ve forgotten myself,’ Matt joked, trying to ease the tension. ‘Jenny, what have you been up to since I saw you last? Haven’t your holidays started yet?’

‘Ages ago, and I’ve been playing out with Sandra and Barney and…’

As Jenny chattered on, Matt looked across at Helen. She’d had her hair done, he noted; still bright blonde, but the darkness at the roots had gone. It was much shorter, hardly reaching the lobes of her ears, and fluffed out elaborately like a wig. Must’ve cost her a bomb, though he couldn’t say he cared for it much. If the doctors were satisfied when they removed the bandages, they’d be discharging him soon. A matter of days now. Going home, trying to live together…

For a second her eyes rested on his and he knew she feared it as much as he did.

‘And then we went swimming,’ Jenny was going on happily, ‘all of us together—’

‘Swimming?’ His voice was sharp. Anxious. ‘Not in the river?’

‘No, in the baths!’ Jenny defended herself hotly. ‘I never said the river, Mummy, did I?’

‘She’s a very good swimmer,’ Helen snapped. ‘If you’d spent more time with her last summer, you’d know that.’

‘I’m sorry,’ he apologized, relieved. ‘Sorry, Jenny. Going to the baths is fine, but not in the river. Not even paddling in a
stream. Just keep away from those places.’

‘Why?’

The nurse came to fetch him before he could answer.

But, hell, he had to warn them somehow. All over the country schools were beginning their holidays. Kids would be playing by streams, ditches, sewage outlets on the beaches… The worms could be in any one of them, lying in wait. He’d no hard evidence, of course. Only that gut feeling which had stayed with him since their minds had gen-locked into his just as their teeth had bitten into his flesh. The psychiatrist had tried to convince him it was a symptom of shock; sooner or later, with any luck, he might overcome it.

No, this was no hallucination. This was real.

‘Well, Mr Parker, how are you feeling?’ The surgeon shook his hand and patted him reassuringly on the shoulder. He was a youngish, athletic-looking man who was beginning to put on too much weight. The best specialist for this kind of operation in the whole of Europe, someone had told him. Rumour had it New York had offered him ten times his British income plus all the facilities he needed but he’d turned them down. ‘And this is Mrs Parker, is it?’

Matt introduced Helen and Jenny. He began to explain once again why he’d like them to be present. The surgeon held up his hand to stop him.

‘Of course you’d like your family near you,’ he agreed. ‘Now, nurse…’

They placed him with his back to Helen and Jenny while the nurse clipped through the bandages. Carefully she lifted the dressing away. Matt kept his eyes on the surgeon’s white coat, bulging over his stomach.

‘Mm, yes … yes. Now, Mr Parker, would you like to see yourself in a looking-glass, or would you prefer to turn round to face your wife and daughter first? It’s just as you wish. Feel free. Take your time.’

The surgeon’s expression betrayed nothing. Matt took a breath, then slowly turned to look at Helen.

For a few moments she said nothing. Then, unhappily: ‘Oh, Matt!’

‘I think it makes you look …
special
!’ Jenny announced
brightly. ‘Like a soldier back from a war. You should have a V.C.!’

Unexpectedly, Helen took a couple of quick steps towards him, hugged him tight, then kissed his new face. ‘We’ll have to get used to it, won’t we?’

Matt took the looking-glass the nurse was holding out to him. His mouth was slightly lopsided, but it’d been that way while he still wore the bandages so he was already accustomed to it. His face itself was longer and gaunter than he remembered it; one cheek was pinker than the other, as though made of different material, and puckered. There were more scars on his neck and throat.

Yet it was all natural flesh and blood, he thought. Flesh which the sewer worms would devour only too eagerly, given half a chance.

‘You have to realize, Mr Parker,’ the surgeon was saying, ‘the whole of your cheek on that side had been practically eaten away. We’ve had to build it up from nothing.’

‘You’ve done a good job,’ Matt said dully. ‘And I never was much of a beauty.’

‘Later on we could try some more cosmetic surgery… Er, nurse, I wonder if you could rustle up some cups of tea?’

The nurse smiled and left them. Jenny took hold of his hand, pressing herself against him affectionately. ‘It’s a funny face but I think I like it,’ she decided. ‘My teacher said we must be grateful you’re still alive. Daddy, where did the worms come from?’

It distressed Matt when he left hospital to find most people had come to accept the worms as just one more natural hazard in the same class as jellyfish, wasps, hornets, scorpions or sharks – nasty to have around, but unlikely to affect them personally. He tried to convince anyone who’d listen that they were more calculating and deliberate in their attacks on human beings, but very few seemed to understand.

Until, that is, they realized who he was. Then they switched on expressions of sympathy he could well have done without. ‘Try to forget,’ was the most general advice. But how could
he when every glance in a mirror brought back the memory?

‘I’m worried about you, honestly,’ Helen confessed as she snuggled up to him in bed on his fourth night home. ‘You think about nothing else. They’ve become an obsession. Oh, I’m not blaming you but I’m worried.’

Even down at Television Hall, when he dropped in to remind them of his existence, he found them preoccupied with other things. When he mentioned worms their eyes glazed over. They just didn’t want to know. They talked about a major drama series for the autumn, preliminary plans for the Christmas variety shows, anything to get away from the topic.

Bluff, heavyweight Jimmy Case, the film operations manager, spared five minutes to shake his hand heartily and say how glad he was Matt was out of hospital at last.

‘No need to rush back to work, Matt. Have a holiday while the weather holds.’ His teeth were nicotine-stained and his beer-flush redder than ever. ‘Seaside or somewhere.’

Matt felt unexpectedly reassured to see him again. ‘We’ve a cottage down at Westport,’ he said, ‘and I think Helen’s planning for us to go down there.’

‘Well, take it easy. There’ll be plenty of work lined up for you when you get back.’

‘We should be doing something on sewer worms,’ Matt informed him. ‘A documentary. I don’t know if anything’s planned, but I’d like to be involved if there is.’

Jimmy reached out for a cigarette from the open packet on his desk; the gesture was automatic and he didn’t even have to look down. ‘I’m glad you told me,’ he commented at last, blowing the smoke out in a long stream. ‘If you’re really sure – though if I were in your shoes I’d stay clear of them. There’s nothing on the cards, though, not that I know of. You could try one of the education producers.’

‘Andy Page?’ Matt demanded sarcastically.

‘Oh, they suspended him after your little do. Talk about callous? There were you in trouble, practically dead, and all he could think of was filming it. He’s in Australia now, they say. Good riddance. Then of course we had that little episode when some joker sent Mary Keating some worms in a box – you heard about that? Aubrey Morgan’s been doing her job
while she’s been away. I’m told she’s taking early retirement. Oh, it’s all been happening, Matt, all been happening. Never a dull moment.’ He stood up and moved to the door as if to make it quite plain the interview was over. ‘Anyway, it’s great to see you on your feet again. Don’t forget that holiday, eh? We’ll need you on top form when you come back.’

It was hopeless trying to interest anybody, Matt decided once he was outside in the corridor again. Maybe the hospital psychiatrist was right. And everybody else. Maybe he was still suffering from shock and should try his best to forget them. He stood in front of one of the notice boards, pretending to read the pieces of paper while he wondered about it.

Only one way to find out, he thought.