‘No! Get off! No!’
The tunnels took up his cry, bouncing it off their walls, amplifying it, throwing it back at him as yet another worm took the lobe of his ear and a fifth found the soft flesh beneath his chin.
Gasping, spluttering, his mouth filled with the effluent supplied by all the drains of London, his chest torn by razor-sharp pains as he breathed some of it in, he managed yet one more shout before consciousness left him.
It was not a high-pitched shriek this time but a deep bellow, like a bull in the agony of death. Then the world slipped away: Helen, Jenny, the dissolving tunnels, the pain… Release.
2
Aubrey Morgan felt decidedly pleased with himself as he stood in the men’s washroom at Television Hall, humming tunelessly and running a comb through his thinning blond hair.
‘Eaten by what?’ he’d demanded, unable to believe his ears. ‘Snakes?’
‘That’s what they looked like,’ young Andy Page had told him, ‘but someone here says they’re worms. Giant worms.’
He’d phoned in from the foreman’s office somewhere among the complex of London sewers, scarcely able to control the excitement in his voice when he described how he’d found the cameraman slumped unconscious in the sewage while the worms fed on him. Then, to Aubrey’s surprise, he added simply: ‘I filmed it.’
‘You—?’
‘I’ve got it in the can. I thought maybe News would be interested.’
News was. A smart cookie, that young director. Who else would have thought of filming the worms before jumping in to rescue the poor sod? It could be a scoop. Aubrey smiled contentedly at his own image in the mirror, a plump round face with baby cheeks and heavy brown horn-rimmed glasses which gave him that intellectual look. Young Andy Page was one of his own recruits. If the pictures were really good there’d be an outcry in the press, maybe even questions in the House of Commons… Excellent publicity — and Aubrey believed firmly that exciting television meant taking risks.
Which explained why he was Controller of Programmes at the age of thirty-three.
He was putting on weight, though. His midriff already betrayed what he whimsically called ‘the bulge of success’. Have to keep an eye on that. Start jogging, perhaps. He smoothed down his chunky salt-and-pepper sweater and went towards the lift.
Mary Keating was waiting for him in the viewing room. She nodded as he entered, fumbled in her handbag for a cigarette and lit it nervously. Her untidy hair was streaked with grey, her face lined. She’d risen to the position of Managing Director via children’s and family programmes in a career famous for the long hours she put in. According to rumour, the price she’d paid for this fanatical dedication was two broken marriages and an unknown number of desperately unhappy love affairs. Now she lived alone with only three demanding cats for company.
‘Al’s coming, is he?’ she demanded impatiently. ‘I’ve not all that much time.’
Al Wilson, Head of News, came into the viewing room as she spoke. ‘Sorry I kept you waiting,’ he apologized briefly. ‘Things to see to. We’ll be ready in a second.’
He must be getting on for fifty-five, Aubrey reckoned as they sat there, silent. Still showing no signs of grey. Apart from an early stint in Korea as a war correspondent he’d been a desk man most of his working life in one newsroom after another. Copy-taster, deputy news editor, and so on up. He was reputed to have worn the same shapeless blue suit all those years. Nobody’d ever seen him in anything else.
The loudspeaker crackled. ‘Ready.’
Al pressed the talkback key and told the operator to go ahead. The lights dimmed immediately.
The first few seconds of the film were unsteady. The camera scanned the sewer walls, seeking out its subject; then it settled on the prone cameraman, zooming in on his face. Two fat worms — is that what they were? — guzzled at his cheek. Aubrey could think of no other word for it.
From Mary came an exclamation of disgust. The colour pictures were vivid and gruesome. Enough to trigger off a national panic, Aubrey thought. He recognized the victim as someone he’d worked with often enough in his own early days as a director.
When the lights went up again they all sat in shocked silence, none of them wishing to speak first. Mary Keating looked pale.
‘I … I think Andy Page showed great presence of mind,’ Aubrey ventured cautiously, testing the water. ‘He was the first on the scene. Everything was set up — lights, camera … He saw the opportunity and grabbed it.’
‘Anyone else might’ve helped the poor man,’ Mary said sharply.
‘The rest of the crew were only a few seconds behind,’ Aubrey defended him. Then, thinking he’d gone too far, he took off his glasses and began to polish them on a clean handkerchief. ‘Not a very human reaction,’ he admitted. ‘But professional.’
‘We can’t use those pictures.’ Her tone was final.
‘We can’t not use them,’ Al intervened briskly, jealous of any encroachment on his own territory. ‘We’ll hold the film back for the later bulletins, but the public has a right to—’
‘Al, would you like your children to see pictures like that?’ she insisted.
‘Kids should be in bed at that hour,’ Al argued. ‘After all, we showed people burning to death in Vietnam, executions in Nigeria, God knows what else… What’s so different about these worms, except they’re nearer home?’
Mary shuddered and drew on her cigarette. ‘Why do we call them worms? They’re more like snakes.’
‘Aren’t they snakes?’ Aubrey asked.
‘Seems not.’ Al scratched the side of his jaw which as always at that time of day was covered with dark stubble. ‘We’ve done some research.’
He’d a folder of press cuttings in his hand and began a brief summary of what was known. The worms had first appeared in the sewers just over a year earlier, though no newspaper had given them much space.
‘To tell the truth,’ Al commented drily, ‘it was the same month as the royal wedding and most papers couldn’t find space for them. It’ll be a bit different after tonight.’
Aubrey glanced through the cuttings. ‘But these are much smaller,’ he objected. ‘A few inches long, according to this paper. They’re not the same.’
‘I rang the sewer foreman. He insisted they are the same. They grow, just as we do. He’s known them several sizes. Says they keep the rats down.’
‘That’s all very interesting,’ Mary broke in testily, ‘but we can’t transmit those pictures into people’s homes. And imagine his wife seeing them. He was married?’
‘Is,’ Al corrected her. ‘She’s with him now.’
‘I understood he’d died.’
‘No, I called the hospital. They’re not too optimistic, though. He’s in a bad way.’
‘Al, I don’t wish to interfere in your department. You’ve a lifetime of experience behind you. But think of what it’ll do to people.’
‘I’m not going to withhold hard news.’
‘Just the pictures.’
‘I’m sorry, no.’
Aubrey watched, fascinated, as Al’s face flushed red with annoyance, then turned white, the veins bulging out on his forehead. A few seconds later the sharp lines softened once more as he regained his self-control.
‘Mary, what if it happens again?’ He spoke gently, almost affectionately. ‘This is the first record of worms attacking human beings. It might not be the last.’
‘You’re making unjustified assumptions.’
‘I’m making a news judgment. This is an important story. How many of those things are living down there? How widespread are they? What if they come into the open and attack our children? If we show the film there’ll be a public outcry and something may be done. On the other hand, you know as well as I do if we don’t show it…’ He shrugged.