‘Annie!’ he called softly. ‘Annie, it’s me — Matt — the man from TV, remember? We’ve come to help you!’
No reply.
The breeze rustled in the branches. A twig snapped under his feet. In the distance a tractor engine throbbed steadily.
‘Annie?’
Fran stooped to crawl through the makeshift entrance. Once on the other side she stood up and called out again.
A movement, perhaps?
No — only the wind. Matt dropped to his hands and knees to follow her through. The rusting wire scraped over his back and the fence rattled against its concrete posts. The noise seemed alien. Fran looked at him, disturbed.
‘Annie?’ he called, more quietly this time.
The whispering among the branches changed pitch as the wind grew suddenly gusty, but it settled down again. No birds — that was it! He couldn’t hear a single bird anywhere in the wood.
Fran pointed out what appeared to be a path between the trees where the undergrowth was thinner. He hesitated, examining the ground. No animal droppings. Nothing wanted to live here except insects and…
They had to find out; no going back now. He nodded to Fran and indicated his intention of going first. In her red Wellingtons and jeans she seemed unprotected, exposed. His own high waders and gauntlet gloves looked a lot safer — let them bite through that lot if they could!
Bramble tentacles snatched at their legs as they pushed slowly through the wood. Twigs reached out to scratch against their faces. Matt’s height forced him to walk stooped where the trees grew close; he began to feel hemmed in and clumsy. Behind him he could hear Fran’s unvoiced gasps of exasperation.
She seized his arm and he swung around defensively. If only they’d brought the sticks…
Through the trees on their left she had spotted the glimmer of water. It was still, almost stagnant, with patches of vegetation floating on it and a dead branch, half submerged.
As they approached, the ground became more uneven, broken in several places by damp-looking gullies. Somewhere not far away Mat was convinced the worms were lurking. Perhaps even watching them.
Out of the comer of his eye he caught an unexpected movement and turned quickly. It was only a leaf. They’d begun to fall late that year and most of the trees were still green. The thick foliage cast a deep shadow over the pond.
Attempting to conceal his fear, Matt smiled nervously at Fran. She grinned confidently, almost cheerfully. But then, he thought, she’d not yet encountered a live worm. Not yet been initiated.
Not till that moment.
They heard the sound of something squirming towards them through the undergrowth, following the route they’d just taken. Then he realized this was no sinister slithering, but something bigger.
‘Annie?’ he said, half believing.
‘No, look, it’s a dog!’ Fran’s voice was warm with relief. ‘Oh, isn’t he lovely!’
The dog trotted towards them, its eyes bright, its tail wagging with pleasure at meeting them. A fox-terrier, almost. Fran, delighted, squatted down to say hello, not noticing the two worms sliding out of the adjoining rain gullies.
‘Fran, keep clear!’ Matt yelled at her. He grabbed the back of her collar to pull her upright, desperate to get her bare throat and face out of reach of those jaws. She staggered against him, struggling and furious; it was as much as he could do to prevent them both falling. ‘Fran, don’t!’
‘What the hell d’you think you’re up to?’ she began to protest vigorously. Then she stopped, her body tense and quivering with terror as she saw them.
The two worms must each have been three feet long, the biggest he’d ever seen. Their skins were a scintillating, menacing green with shifting hues of blue and purple rippling across them at every undulation of their bodies. They seemed to flow over the ground with a wave-like movement, elegantly, almost a ballet… Then they raised themselves and waited with heads poised, their eyes fixed on the cowering dog.
It was only a second or two before they struck, though it seemed much longer. Matt found himself willing the little dog to turn and run; instead it remained there paralyzed, as if its paws were rooted to the spot. All the anguish of Matt’s own experience flooded back into his mind. Maybe he even achieved some degree of telepathic contact with the dog, for he became aware that it was pleading with him, its eyes fixed on his, pleading for…
But for what? The yelp was ear-piercing as the first worm’s teeth fastened into the dog’s upper leg, and the pain broke the hypnotic spell. Suddenly it was fighting for its life.
Fran gripped Matt’s arm as they watched, her fingers digging into his muscles. ‘Oh no,’ she was muttering to herself, horrified. ‘Oh no, Matt. Oh Matt, now I understand what you… Oh Matt, my love…’
He stood there helplessly, holding on to Fran and wishing there was something he could do to help the dog; but there was nothing. The second worm had wrapped itself around the writhing, furry body and was attacking the hindquarters. The other was still gnawing at the front leg.
The dog twisted, rolling over, snapping at the worms, trying to bite into them, though steadily weakening as its blood poured out. But at last it caught the tail of one between its jaws and held on, determined.
The worm released the fleshy part of the leg it’d been chewing and aimed at the dog’s throat. For a time it was stalemate between them, though the second worm was still feeding on the hindquarters. Then the dog jerked and shuddered uncontrollably, till it suddenly relaxed into death.
As its jaws slackened their grip, the worm’s tail — over a foot long — dropped to the ground. It was completely severed.
The mutilated worm immediately abandoned feeding on the corpse in order to investigate its shorn tail, examining it from all sides as though trying to work something out. Then, to Matt’s disgust, it began to ingest the tail in a series of purposeful gulps.
‘It’s obscene!’ Fran whispered, horrified.
‘Let’s move while they’re still busy,’ Matt said urgently.
‘And Annie?’
‘D’you really imagine she can still be alive?’
‘Oh, the poor girl!’
‘We can only hope it was quick.’
Even as he said it, Matt knew that death by the worm was never quick. The carnivorous animals he’d seen while filming in East Africa had usually aimed first at the throat to immobilize their prey before eating them, but worms preferred their meals alive, with the blood still flowing through the veins.
‘Come on,’ he said. ‘Now, tread carefully, and for Chrissake keep your eyes skinned. If they spot us…’
11
He had to go back there, that much was obvious.
Fran sat in the car, her head on her hands, her face drained of all colour. He knew well enough what she was going through. Every encounter with the worms left him with the same feeling — even now. But that piece of rag tangled in the weeds by the pond nagged at him. He’d spotted it only as they turned to go, and had said nothing. Now he knew he’d have to go back there.
He’d tell her he was hunting — she’d asked for fifty extra skins after all — and to make that look convincing he began to lift some of his equipment out of the boot. Regretfully he left the Bolex camera in its box. These worms were twice the length of any others he’d seen, but he would not be able to manage everything. Having to crawl through that hole in the fence complicated matters. It made escape more difficult if he was in trouble. One day, he thought, he’d devise some sort of face mask.
Fran still had not looked up. She’d a generous spread of freckles across the back of her neck which he noticed now for the first time. He moved his hand to touch her, then hesitated.