‘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…