Eat Worms Part II
I need to catch you up about on the rest of Saturday night. I had thought we would just wait it out and then walk home no problem, but I was so wrong. It’s been raining all day today, which has really given me some time to gather my thoughts on just what happened last night. I can’t tell my parents about it, because surely I wouldn’t need to! Stuff like this should be on every channel in our small town. Anyways, here is what happened.
We finally decided to leave the backyard of 504 when Kristen texted us…
Kristen Coffield
Hey. How’s Henry? 9:42pm
Ace of the streets
His head fell off but otherwise okay 9:43pm
Kristen Coffield
What? What do you mean
His head fell off???!??!?! 9:43pm
Hey it’s been a weird night still at
Auburn Hills can we come to your
Basement? 9:44pm
Ace of the streets
Shit has hit the fan!!
Worms are gross >_<
How are you tonight Kris? 9:45pm
Kristen Coffield
… Matt isn’t allowed, but sure
I am watching TV there now. Just
knock on the basement door. You
guys okay? 9:46pm
Colton and I glared over at Matt who had this pleased smile on his face as he looked up from his phone.
“Dude…” I muttered.
“What? Are we going to lie to her? Think Henry’s head is going to magically reattach itself? He’s dead Max we might as well live with it.”
“Let’s just get to Kristens’ we can tell her everything then. It has been almost two hours since the incident —I mean surely it has been dealt with by now. We’ll just walk on the other side of the street and get home.” Colton nodded and stood up from the patio table we had been sitting at.
“I bet you can’t wait to get to Kristen’s” Matt made a kissy face at me.
“Whatever man.” I wasn’t in the mood for Matt’s jokes I just wanted to be out of that neighborhood.
We walked briskly out of the shadows and up the opposite side of the street from Henry’s house. If anyone saw us out at that hour we would’ve be in trouble. As we approached the Schweiger house it looked so much different then from when we left it. Not a single light was on in any of the windows. Not even the porch light, it was completely dark. To our astonishment not a single ambulance or police car surrounded the house. I started to feel a bit uneasy just being near it again.
“They didn’t call the cops.” Matt whispered from behind Colton and I.
“Maybe they’ve already left?” Colton whispered back to him without turning to look and we kept our pace, but fixed our eyes on the house. Then we heard the soft thumps of running from behind us. We turned around and saw him grab Matt. He shoved him down hard on the grass. Then grabbed him by the shirt.
“There you are you pieces of shit! What’d you do to my brother!” Rick, Henry’s older brother, was yelling at Matt. He punched him hard across the face and then raised his fist to hit him again, but Colton and I jumped at him and pushed him off of our friend. Matt spit and rolled over on his stomach.
”Rick what the hell! Leave him alone! We didn’t do anything! You saw Henry!” I yelled.
“What happened? After we left? Did the cops show up?” Colton questioned. Rick lowered his fist but was still on edge.
“Cops? I don’t know. I looked over in Henry’s room and…” He took a breath like he was finally pushing a weight off of himself. “Well when I saw him crumpled over in his room like that I took out after you guys. I told mom and dad to call 911. That Henry wasn’t well. I went to your neighborhood and been looking for you guys for the past two hours. I decided to give up and came back to make a quick pass around here and look who I find back outside my house!”
“You mean you haven’t been back in your house since then?” Colton gestured towards it’s direction. ”Why are all the lights out? Think your parents went to the hospital?” Rick just rubbed his face.
“Look I don’t know. Like I said I’ve been looking for you guys since you ran out, but now that I found you lets go see.”
“We aren’t going with you. You psychopath!“ Matt climbed to his feet. Wiping his face on his shoulder.
“Yeah we are going home Rick. We can come back to tomorrow morning and check on you guys.” I said trying to ease the situation, but Rick grabbed Colton by the arm and jerked him towards his house.
“Nope— Thats not going to work. You little shits are coming right along with me.” Rick was dragging Colton along who stumbled behind him and grabbed at Rick’s arm trying to pull it off of him.
“Hey!” He yelled back and looked at his feet. Which kept falling over and kicking as he tried to keep his body upright. “Let me go!”
”Hey asshole stop it!” Matt chased after them.
“Rick! Come on man we had nothing to do with this. Let him go!” I said following behind them. Colton’s feet didn’t make it over the curb and he fell over. Rick transitioned from his wrist to the collar of his shirt and dragged him across the front yard towards the porch. Matt caught up and shoved Rick from behind. He turned and slapped him across the face. I was pretty impressed with how Matt took it and he balled up his fist. Started punching Rick in his arm. Which just made him start laughing.
“Hey whats going on out there. Who goes there!”
Rick let go of Colton and we all turned to see the old man who lived across the street standing on his front porch.
“Hey Mr. Frederick it’s alright! Sorry about the noise.” Rick yelled and waved at him. We didn’t say anything but Matt and I helped Colton up and away from Rick.
“Rick? Is that you?” Mr. Frederick yelled back.
“Yep! My brothers friends were playing a game outside. I’m just trying to get them back in the house.”
“A game? Boys don’t you know you’re supposed to be inside right now.” I could see Mr. Frederick push his glasses up his nose.
“Yea thats what I was telling them! We are going inside now. Sorry to bother you sir!” Rick laughed back.
“Well alright then don’t make this a habit Rick.”
We all stood in silence staring at the neighbor as he walked back into his home. It was long enough for us to hear the other sound. The sound coming from the Schweiger house. We had to all notice it at the same time, because the four of us turned towards the front door in disbelief. This cold squelching noise emitting from the wooden frame. The type of noise you would hear when pressing your fingers into a moist putty or when you step across a wet carpet and it burps as your weight depresses the material. The noise seemed to grow louder and fill the silence in my head. I could feel it as a much as I could hear it. The symphony of the little wet drumbeats.
“Holy shit. You guys hear that?” Of course it was Matt to break the silence. Rick took cautious steps up the front porch to get closer.
“Rick don’t get near it.” I pleaded. He stopped walking and looked at me with this frozen disgust on his face and then eased his head back towards the door.
“Not just that— look!” Colton was pointing at the window and I followed his finger. In the dim lighting or the street lamps it was hard to see what was going on, but based on the previous events I could make out enough of what we were looking at. The window was full of purple worms.
“Is that… is that worms?” I muttered, and as the words came out the window cracked at the bottom. It quickly grew up the full frame.
“Rick get off the porch!” Colton screamed, and Rick spun around, but he didn’t have a chance to escape. The window burst and the front door broke off it’s hinges. All of us were washed across the front lawn by the wave. Colton, Matt, and I were pushed out on to the street, but Rick was enveloped by them taking the full force.
I was able to scramble to my feet and started squishing as many as I could to get to ground where no worms were. Colton and Matt jumped up as well, both flailing madly about throwing the little critters off body and clothes. Matt cried out and took his jacket off and threw it into the street. I was sweeping them out of my hair and pulled my hoodie off. The hood was full of the worms. I don’t know how long we twitched about throwing these things off of us, but at last we all made eye contact and then looked in horror back at the house. The worm wave had covered most of the front yard. It looked alive as it pulsed with purple life. Rick erupted out of the sea of these critters, shouting and sweeping at his head.
“Rick!” I yelled.
“Walk towards us!” Colton followed. Rick looked at me and started wading through the pool. Spitting some worms out of his mouth and shaking his shirt.
“What the hell!” He shouted. He was nearly free of the sea, when it happened.
I don’t know how else to phrase it, but the sea rose up behind Rick. It started as a block, but wriggled about intensely until it constituted itself into what I can only describe as a purple worm man.
“Behind you!” Matt shrieked. The purple man wrapped its arm around Rick and pulled him backwards onto it’s body. The worms formed a mound that the purple creature pushed Rick down upon as he shouted. The worms from the mound wrapped themselves around Rick’s hair and head pulling it so he was looking up into the night sky. Then the purple man did what I know I will never forget.
In one motion it shoved it’s arm down into Rick’s throat. Rick’s gurgling cries haunt my memory. I could see worms flicking off the things wrist as Rick grappled at it. His shouts stopped and instead were replaced by the cold squelches and heavy breaths from Rick’s Nostrils, but soon that too was filled. The purple man broke it’s arm off from where it was connected to the rest of its body. Then it’s face, if you could even call it a face, aimed at our direction. Rick’s body slowly sank disappearing beneath the mass of little purple worms.
“Max! Go!!”
Matt shouted and I snapped out of my trance staring at the purple man and turned to see both of them already making their way out of Auburn Hills. I started running and when I got the entrance of the community, stopped and looked back. To my horror there were more and more of the purple men constituting themselves out of the sea. One of them had moved outside of the lake and it was “walking” in our direction.
“Fuck— that!” Matt said grabbing my arm and we tore off towards our street.
I don’t think I’ve ever run so hard in all my life, but we ran directly to Kristen’s and explained all of the above to her. She wanted to go back even last night, but we wouldn’t let her. She’s easily braver than the rest of us, but she hadn’t seen what that creature had done to Rick. We waited in her basement all night for the purple man. The one that was walking towards us, but it never came.
