S02E06: The Great Wurm

ORANGE: The night sizzled in my ears as I wandered the incandescent halflight streets of Deerland. I’d spoken to a few locals and was beginning to see my hunch was correct. There was Department business here. Of what nature, I wasn’t sure yet, and that question would drive my remaining hours in the town. What exactly was in those woods, what was it doing, and where was Olivia?

Sleep was a heavy contender for my list of things to do first, but it would have to wait. Propelled onward by little more than my own stubborn curiosity, I walked by the Motel 7, past a hardware store and two places called “Franklin’s.” The sidewalks past the old buildings were broken and uneven, and the melty asphalt nearly stuck to my soles. Driving was out: you can’t connect with the subconsciousness of a city from a vehicle, you have to dive feet first into the nerve center.  I soon found myself at the edge of a small park. The humidity in the air doubled within the bounds of the park, and bugs swarmed thick and green at my skin. I could hardly catch my breath, and the tickling beads of sweat on my forehead were going nowhere. There was, however, a water fountain and a bench, so this would have to be my oasis for the time being.

I oozed onto the cool metal bench and leaned against the ribboned back, one arm resting on the top. Wizard saw something, and so did Ms. Fry, though what she’d seen may have been the former. Had Olivia seen it as well? The grinning idiot reptile in my brain said they had to be connected, and, well, the other parts of my brain didn’t offer any argument. So the reptile won out.

The smell of sour mulch and bitter concrete filled my mind. This town was full of sensation, pure stimuli, something I’d largely cut myself off from in my Blank Commission office. For good reason, I remembered, as I fixated on what color, exactly, the mulch smelled most: yellow, or burgundy? Or was there no difference between the two at all? Wasn’t long before I was stirred by an especially large bug hitting my hand. I slapped at it, but palm did not meet bug. There was something long and slick rolling slowly over my skin. Its tip rested on my arm, and the rest of it trailed off into the brush behind the bench. A snake, some might think, but the grinning reptile assured me it was the tongue of some unseen predator. I tumbled off my seat and landed on the dusty trailhead. I stayed crouched there in the dirt and listened. The tendril receded from the bench and into the bushes. There was more movement within, a kind of windy howling like a lasso. Then from bushes burst a thing not meant to be seen.

It was humanoid, but only in the way a kid’s drawing is. A suggestion of a human. It had no head, or what was once a head was now hanging limp and damp around the collarbone in several pieces, and a long tendril rose from its core. It moved erratically, sensing the air with its appendage. Fingers longer than my head probed the air. Its chest stretched and collapsed as its ribs scraped out a harsh tune from within. It was a dark seraph, an aberration beyond ken, a righteous cudgel to punish man for sneaking a peek into the universe’s glove compartment.

It knew I was there, but didn’t seem to know exactly where. I slowly pulled the pair of scissors from the pocket of my musty jacket and held the blades downward like a dagger. Torrents of sweat stung my eyes, the eyebrows doing nothing of note, and the mosquitos rallied their forces. One landed on my upper eyelid, and remained there. I quietly reached up to swat it away. This stirring of the air must have been enough, because the thing in front of me charged.

I tried to move to the side, but I’m not as fast as I used to be. Age and alcohol will do that to the best of us, and I’m about as far from the best as it gets. So instead I tripped and slammed my elbows into the ground. The tingling pulse forced me to drop the scissors. I spit dirt and scrambled to pick them up once more. The sick angel was already on me by then, ripping and tearing at my clothing, tendril homing for my ears. I stretched and reached for the scissors, but the creature had me pinned. In the presence of the twin moons’ light, it babbled exaltation as it slammed my head against the ground.

My fingers found purchase on the scissors just in time. I swung my arm up and lodged the shears into its beast’s chest. One more sin to add to my list, a grave one too. It stood and backed away, grasping for the handle sticking out of its torso. The creature paused, and it seemed to think for a moment, though maybe that’s just me projecting. Maybe the way I conceive of thinking is so far removed from what this thing was doing that even guessing at its mind was vanity. It stood still for that moment, blood pouring from the jagged wound, before tearing out the scissors and tossing them to the dirt.

And then it ran, hunched and dragging its long limbs, into the trees beyond the trail. I dusted myself off and rinsed the scissors in the fountain. Uh, sorry to whoever has to clean those fountains, you’re gonna have a real surprise in the morning. Finally I stumbled back downtown in a daze.

***

*bell ding*

BARISTA: Welcome in, what can I get you?

ORANGE: Doppio espresso. It’s been a long night.

BARISTA: Sheesh, looks like it. You good?

ORANGE: Don’t worry about it, ain’t my blood. Most of it anyway.

BARISTA: Uh, okay.

ORANGE: Thank ya much for staying open this late. Can I make an odd request?

BARISTA: Go for it, I guess?

ORANGE: I’d like that espresso on the rocks. Iced. To go.

BARISTA: Iced espresso. Sure, we can do that.

ORANGE: Thank you, thank you. I don’t do hot drinks. The brain’s like a computer, it’s a cold logic machine. And it generates heat when it works. Add in hot coffee and you’ve got all the ingredients for a meltdown.

BARISTA: Never heard it put like that before, babe, but yeah, I guess you’re right. Name?

ORANGE: Orange.

BARISTA: Huh, bet you never find that on any keychains.

ORANGE: Yeah, yeah. Hey, do you got a sec? See, I’m looking for someone, the person on that tip jar in fact. Do you know anything about her?

BARISTA: Sorry, I already gave the cops my statement.

ORANGE: I’m not a cop.

BARISTA: Oh? Are you family?

ORANGE: Nah, I’m with the State of Ohio, a commission within the Department of Variance.

BARISTA: Is that like…zoning or something?

ORANGE: Not quite. Do you believe in aliens, miss…

BARISTA: Lena.

ORANGE: Miss Lena. Ghosts, bigfoot, pyrokinesis? Things that slink in the shadows? Things you could swear you saw when you were 9, hanging in the air across from your bunk bed? Real Stephen King stuff.

BARISTA: N-no, not really.

ORANGE: Good. And you make sure it stays that way.

BARISTA: So are you guys like the men in black or something?

ORANGE: Or something. I’m gonna guess you don’t have a smoke I could bum?

BARISTA: No, I’m trying to quit.

ORANGE: Me too.

BARISTA: God, it’s awful. I just vape now.

ORANGE: Vape?

BARISTA: It’s like a cigarette without the tar and stuff. Never tried it?

ORANGE: Can’t say I get out much.

BARISTA: Here, check this out. It’s disposable. Take it, I use these all the time.

*ORANGE inhales*

ORANGE: That’s quite a heady blue drag. And you kids just suck on these things all day?

BARISTA: What else is there to do here? Drink, take pills? Shoot bottles off a fence?

ORANGE: Downtown does look a little worse for wear. What about the state park? You’re right on the edge.

BARISTA: I don’t…we don’t really go out there. Not anymore.

ORANGE: Not anymore?

BARISTA: Some people have disappeared lately. Not just this Olivia girl. I’d…I’d rather not talk about it.

ORANGE: Did any of them come back…different?

BARISTA: Some. Some didn’t come back at all. I think it’s just…trauma. The trauma of living here, of knowing you’ll probably die here, too. Unless you got money, you’re not getting out.

ORANGE: I spoke with one of those kids earlier. Went by Wizard.

BARISTA: Yeah, I don’t know them personally. Everyone all thought they skipped town. I would. But a week later they found Wizard wandering out of the trees. Their eyes were huge, and they had this…this goo all over. All black and thick, and broken glass. Saying all this weird stuff. They used it in their lyrics I guess. And there’s this awful sound. I…I think they heard it and they’re trying to recreate it.

ORANGE: That’s about what they said, too.

BARISTA: You know, it’s weird. Why is it only us disappearing?

ORANGE: Sorry?

BARISTA: I don’t think anyone over 24 has gone missing.

ORANGE: Is that so.

BARISTA: Plenty of old people are out on the trails, but they always come back. And weirder, it’s never like…*sigh* this sounds fake, but the preacher’s weird little offspring are still around, the kid selling used cars is here, but the gay girl and the teen from Guatemala are missing. Can’t help but feel personal, you know?

ORANGE: I see, I see. So you don’t think it’s random.

BARISTA: I don’t know. It’s just weird, is all. That’s why I don’t go out there. I match the profile, you know.

ORANGE: Got it. Thanks a million.

BARISTA: Yeah, no problem. Here’s your espresso “on the rocks.”

*meow*

ORANGE: Ay, you got one of those uhh whatdoyoucallem…corner store cats here.

BARISTA: Sorry? You mean my IWW pin? We can wear whatever we want on the apron, long as it’s not obscene.

ORANGE: Yeah, yeah, uhh that’s it. Here’s my card. Give me a ring if you ever hear a bump in the night.

*Orange gets up, bell on the door rings as he leaves*

BARISTA: Hey, wait, this is just…a blank card.

***

ORANGE: If I wanted to get to the bottom of this case, I’d need to be as tuned to the cosmic dial as I used to be. I’d need to open up the old neural pathways and astral alleys I’d sealed off years ago. Nicotine, mescaline, kerosine.

*footsteps, Nya meows*

ORANGE: All right, little brat, what the hell are you? That girl couldn’t see you, but I can. And I can see you’re following me.

*meow*

ORANGE: Don’t give me that shit. You may look like a cat–cat pulled out of an oily puddle no less–but I know you’re not.

NYA: Prove it.

ORANGE: Ha! There it is. I saw you in the diner, too. What do you want, creep?

NYA: Out. To leave this place.

ORANGE: Great. Just walk out.

NYA: It is not that simple. The woods are full of terrible song.

ORANGE: And what, you can’t drive?

NYA: Does this form appear to have thumbs? Operating a vehicle is impossible.

ORANGE: Then what do you want from me, furball?

NYA: Thou can see me. Therefore, thou can help me. For many tenebrous years this place has vexed me. There is a great creature in the trees, a serpent that intones endless night from the minds of men. It must be brought low.

ORANGE: Yeah, sure, sounds like a real quest.

NYA: Allow me to follow you, and help you destroy the great and terrible Wurm.

ORANGE: Doesn’t sound like I have much choice.

NYA: Thee will be followed regardless, down charred alleys and choking tunnels.

ORANGE: Fantastic. Do you have a name, you little shit?

NYA: Nya.

ORANGE: Okay, Nya. Are you a boy? Girl?

NYA: Nya exists in realms beyond your limited conception of gender. Nya is Nya.

ORANGE: I’m gonna go with boy.

NYA: If it pleases you, call me as you like.

ORANGE: Do you smoke?

NYA: Nya does not partake in the fumes of the dead.

*vape pull*

ORANGE: Good news for me then. Bye bye, kitty.

*blow cloud*

NYA: You cannot dissuade me so easily, fool.

ORANGE: It was worth a shot. What exactly do you want me to do?

NYA: For now, not a thing. Continue on your journey, and Nya will be thy shadow.

ORANGE: That’s awful vague. I don’t do vague.

NYA: All that concerns you is that Nya wishes to see the Wurm dead. The one you seek will be engaged in battle with the Wurm. Therefore, we shall travel together.

ORANGE: Great. So where is this so called Wurm?

NYA: It must be under open skies, with an eye high to the stars, far from the horrid radiation of the city.

ORANGE: Away from the city, huh. Well, the state park will be our next stop, then.

***

ALEX: What the hell’s the Writhing?

Alex was upright again after the incident with the heart crab, leaning heavily on Nadia’s shoulder. Nadia for her part was doing the best they could to support her half foot taller friend. All three looked around the empty concourse, straining to see down the branching corridors sprouting off in each cardinal direction. Alex swore she could see something moving in the lightless void, something–no, many somethings–-squirming, flailing, writhing. It recalled a half remembered dream, a nausea that she’d forgotten something important, seeing someone in the corner of her room at 3am. It pulled at primordial wrinkles in her mind she didn’t recognize. In the swirling abyss, she saw the vastness of space, the wide wide field of death and nothing, and between the nothing, and down down down and lower and at the base of it all, nothing.  She saw exactly how small she was, how little time she had. The horrors they had encountered so far were nothing in the wake of this. Alex’s fingers dug into Nadia’s shoulder, and the fear that welled within her seemed to shake reality itself as her vision blurred and sparks of white trailed in the dark.

OLIVIA: Alex, it’s not real. Look here.

NADIA: Ow, hey, what are you doing.

Dots of light popped and vanished among the oozing black, a bubbling cretaceous tarpit. This hole in space was the very birth of the planet itself–titanic glacial movements and volcanic eruptions, life congealing in filthy puddles–and its end–fish suffocating on shore, great beasts fallen, howling barren waste. Beneath it all, a sound.

She shook her head, and the feeling was gone.

ALEX: Sorry, I…I guess I was imagining things.

OLIVIA: What did you see?

NADIA: More of the thinheads?

ALEX: I…I don’t know.

OLIVIA: We should leave. I don’t like any of this.

ALEX: Y-yeah.

NADIA: Door’s gone.

ALEX: Seriously? Come on.

OLIVIA: H-how? Where do we go?

FATHER WELLEN: Darkness recedes, and the writhing of all things approaches.

NADIA: Guys? Any ideas?

OLIVIA: I can’t really see. M-my phone doesn’t have a flashlight.

ALEX: Here.

Alex switched on her phone’s light. She couldn’t bring herself to illuminate whatever she saw before, so she shone it down another corridor. Shuttered stores and empty stands haunted the decrepit walkway. At the end, Alex spotted a curve in the path, and a sign indicating an office.

ALEX: Maybe that way. The guy on the speaker might be there.

OLIVIA: Are you okay to run?

ALEX: Don’t worry about it.

Olivia was the first to move. She ran down to the dusty phone kiosk and waited. Nadia followed shortly after, and Alex moved to join them. But there was a noise behind her, like the falling of mountains, the drying of streams, birds singing in the fires of hell. She hesitated.

NADIA: Alex, come on!

ALEX: I…I hear it. I can hear somewhere else.

NADIA: Who cares!

OLIVIA: Alex, please.

NADIA: I’m going to get her.

OLIVIA: Wait, you can’t. If there’s something there, you’re both going to die.

Nadia gave Olivia a bittersweet smile.

NADIA: Hell of a way to go though, isn’t it?

OLIVIA: Nadia, damn it! That’s the kind of line you get before–

She took off before Olivia could stop her. She grabbed Alex’s wrist unseen in the dark and pulled her away from the food court, where the approaching vacuum had begun enveloping chairs and disappearing tables. Alex stumbled along with her, but she couldn’t pull her eyes away from the void. The three rejoined at the kiosk, then booked it for the end of the hallway.

FATHER WELLEN: Come, radiant shield, heart of hearts, and make us one with this great state. Let us all sing for the great one beyond. Let us carve in stone the chains you shall wear. Expansion demands blood, so let the plasm of heathens flow into our fields. You are the enemy, you are the shears that nip, that delay our tumescent growth. We would rather our young rot on the vine than bloom as your kind. Fiat justitia ruat caelum.

In a flickering plot beside the trio, multicolor shards of light splayed on the walls. Game cabinets blared startup music, alien sound effects echoed. The light coalesced, and out of the arcade stepped a hulking, dripping beast. Olivia had seen these creatures before, but for Alex and Nadia, this was their first glimpse of a Lark.

ALEX: Jesus, that thing’s huge. What…what can we do? You said you’ve seen one before. These larks, crickets–whatever.

OLIVIA: I–

Olivia began to explain, but she stopped midsentence when eyes all along the Lark’s skin opened. Staring, shifting eyes lined its arms, its neck. White fire plumed around its body, and six wings spread from its back.

OLIVIA: W-what…

ALEX: *pained noise as she’s punched by the lark*

Alex slid backward along the tile from the impact of the Lark’s massive fist.

ALEX, weakly: I can’t catch a fuckin break…

Nadia and Olivia dragged Alex forward and took the turn at the end of the corridor. Olivia knew their only saving grace was that they could outrun the thing. For a time.

*door opens*

OLIVIA: I’ll take her in.

NADIA: That thing looks like it could break down the door. Could it?

OLIVIA: I…probably. M-maybe we can reinforce it with–

*door slams*

OLIVIA, muffled: Hey, wait! Nadia, you can’t do this. Y-you can’t…

Nadia took the headphones out of her hoodie pocket and slipped them on. The winged monster rounded the corner and lunged at her. An eye in its palm opened as it reached for Nadia’s head. It wrapped its oily fingers around her skull, and lifted her into the air. White flame licked at her clothes and hair, and the Lark leaned in. She pummeled its hand and face with closed fists, but to no effect. The Lark’s jaw unhinged, its mouth opened, widened, didn’t stop opening, until the entire front half of its body was split in a maw of whirling teeth and radiant eyes.

OLIVIA: Shit, no, no. The door opened and the Lark fled, right? Nadia was fine and the group reunited.

But the Lark did not flee. Nadia wrapped her arms around herself, and the Lark devoured her whole. Its body sealed shut, as though the gaping maw was never there, and lumbered to the office door.

OLIVIA: Nadia? Nadia!

ALEX: She’s gone, she’s gone now too…

OLIVIA: No, no. She can’t be, I’ve seen her…I know she won’t die here. She can’t.

Olivia pulled her flip phone from her pocket and frantically tried Ash Chorus.

OLIVIA: Come on, come on. I know you can hear me with or without this stupid thing.

ALEX, broken: Just take me already. I’m done. I can’t do this anymore. First you took Daryll, and now Nadia. Take me, and end it.

*wet explosion*

The Lark burst in a bubble of oil paint, splashing technicolor slime all over the desk and fractured doorway. Nadia lay curled up in the puddle on the floor, headphones slipping off her ears.

ALEX: Holy shit.

OLIVIA: Oh, I knew you were okay!

NADIA: Get. Me. Out. Now.

ALEX: You think they’ve got a shower here?

OLIVIA: But who–

Behind where the Lark once stood knelt a doctor. She had a light gun torn from an arcade cabinet in one hand, her aim steadied with the other.

ERICA: I looked over the map again after…after you left the planetarium, and I know where you need to go. You kids get cleaned up, then come see me in the food court. I’ll be in the zebra chair until you need me.

***

OLIVIA: I think we did a decent job, all things considered.

ALEX: About as clean as the bathroom at Dee’s.

NADIA: Ew. Don’t they have a trough in there?

ALEX: Wouldn’t be Dee’s without a trough.

Alex spit on the only clean corner of the rag she’d been using to wipe down Nadia. She dabbed at the last bit of paint on Nadia’s cheek with the damp cloth.

OLIVIA: It’s quiet. Do you think…

ALEX: I don’t know for sure if we’re safe or not. But I wanna find that asshole on the mic and crush his head like a soda can.

*old hymn warbles*

OLIVIA: Looks like that’s the speaker system’s through that door.

Resting in front of the microphone was an old boombox. A tape warbled in its gears, and a sticky plug reached over to the wall outlet.

ALEX: There’s…there’s no one here.

Alex unplugged the boombox, and the Deerland Mall fell silent once more.

***

STERLING: Professor Plot, I-I have one for you as well.

GREEN: Ah, what’s this?

STERLING: It’s traditional for one to give out small cards and confections for St Valentine’s Day.

GREEN: Yes, obviously Sterling. I don’t live under a rock. I mean to ask rhetorically.

STERLING: R-right.

GREEN: My my, how thoughtful. And you’ve included a miniature candy bar. Excellent. I saw you handing them out to others around the office and I had wondered if there would be a valentine in your paper bag for me.

STERLING: Oh, yes. I, um, well…happy Valentine’s Day, Professor.

GREEN: The formality! Please, my instructing days are behind me. Green is...adequate.

STERLING: Of course.

GREEN: More than adequate, in fact, I quite enjoy the familiarity.

STERLING: Yes, well, on that subject, I have something further.

GREEN: Would it be an invitation of some sort? An evening liaison?

STERLING: Excellent hypothesis, as ever, Green. 7 o’clock tonight, at the Crane and Lily? I have reservations, but I can always cancel if you have a previous engagement.

GREEN: I don’t believe that will be necessary, Sterling. I will see you there at 7 sharp.

*(Restaurant interior)*

GREEN: So the head of the department–barely sentient, I remind you–got credit for the entire paper. The paper that I researched, drafted, edited, and submitted. Such is academia these days, I suppose.

STERLING: Do you ever regret leaving university? I sometimes find myself thinking back on those days fondly, despite my frustrations.

GREEN: Yearning for simpler times, perhaps. Or have the lenses in your glasses been tinted pink?

STERLING: A bit of both, I suppose. I should–

*pause*

STERLING: Say, does that man at the table to our right look familiar? I could swear I’ve met him before.

GREEN: Never seen him in my life. As you were saying?

STERLING: I don’t remember now.

GREEN: Another topic then. Why don’t we call for a bottle of port? I would love a digestif. Garcon?

STERLING: The waiter, he…he looks just like the man at the table. That’s so strange. Are they twins?

GREEN: Anything is possible in this wide world. An espresso for myself, as well, and…for you, Sterling?

STERLING: No, they’re wearing the same outfit as well. A-and the man in the corner, he’s…

GREEN: You’re being dramatic again, Sterling.

STERLING: I…I suppose. Turkish coffee would be excellent.

GREEN: Right. Waiter, two espressos please, and this bottle of port here would do nicely. Thank you.

STERLING: Dara, I was hoping to order something else. And we’re not at work, you don’t need to call me “Sterling.”

GREEN: Erm, yes, yes. What were you saying before that?

STERLING: I wanted the Turkish coffee.

GREEN: I don’t believe that’s the correct response.

STERLING: E-excuse me?

GREEN: Ah, I still haven’t perfected it yet. Seems my weakness is in background characters.

STERLING: Are you experimenting, even now? Are those men your accomplices?

GREEN: No, no, worry not. I will get this right eventually. Let’s try again, Sterling. Once more from the top. I believe you have a valentine for me.