Wolf Worm — Chapter 17

CHAPTER 17

I don’t know what time it was when I woke up. It wasn’t a restful sleep, more like a fitful doze where you are thinking something and then you wake, still thinking about the same thing, and aren’t certain whether you slept or not.

Certainly I had no shortage of things to occupy my mind. I kept reliving the sensation of stepping on the larvae. It had felt exactly like stepping on a grape and feeling it pop underfoot. I was never going to eat grapes again.

Possibly I was never going to eat anything again.

When I did dream, it was an endless sensation of things crawling on my skin, jerking me awake to slap at something that wasn’t there.

They can’t get into your nose or mouth, I told myself. You don’t have any open wounds. You’re as safe as you can be.

I only wish that I believed it.

When the shed door opened, it took me a moment to realize that it was really happening. I scrambled to my feet as light filled the narrow space and threw a hand over my eyes, blinking back tears.

“Wha…?” I said. For a moment I thought I was back at the school and expected Headmistress Silverton to scold me for oversleeping.

“Miss Wilson,” said Phelps, and memory crashed back down over me.

He stood in the doorway watching me uncertainly, as if I was the dangerous one. I wished like hell that I was. I should have taken the metal pan and lain in wait and bashed him over the head with it. Granted, there was only about a three-inch clearance between the door and the drape and he would probably have been expecting it, granted he was a great deal stronger than I was and that I was coming off a malaria flare-up and had

just witnessed a baffling horror … fine, okay, perhaps that was an unrealistic expectation. Still.

“Did you bring water?” I croaked. My throat was very dry, but no power on earth would have induced me to drink the water pooling in the room below.

Phelps had a lantern in one hand and … was that a picnic basket looped over his arm?

It was. There was even a gingham cloth over the top. Dear god, this must still be a nightmare. Surely real life is never this surreal. Phelps hung the lantern on the wall and closed the door, then pulled a flask from the basket and offered it to me. I unscrewed the top and drank greedily through the mesh, soaking it. Water hit the back of my throat like a benediction.

“Thank you,” I said, lowering the bottle, then grimaced at my own reflexive courtesy. No, it’s good to stay polite. There is no point in antagonizing him. Phelps nodded.

“Brought you food,” he said, clearing his throat. He flipped the cloth back and offered me the basket, which held biscuits and cheese.

The thought of food was utterly revolting, but I was going to have to eat if I wanted to keep my strength up. It was on the tip of my tongue to say that I’d eat them later, but it occurred to me that I would have to remove the netting in order to eat, and if Phelps wasn’t here, I’d have to do it in the dark. I retreated to the far corner with the basket, picked up a biscuit, thought I will never be able to eat this, then took a bite and realized that my body was ravenous, even if my mind wasn’t.

I looked in vain for a knife to cut the food, but of course Phelps hadn’t provided one. I settled for alternating bites of cheese and biscuit, washed down with sips of water, while Phelps leaned against the wall and silently watched me eat.

The biscuit was very crumbly and fell apart when I bit into it. I brushed the crumbs off the front of my dress self-consciously, annoyed with myself.

If you are kidnapped by a strange religious fanatic who is holding you captive in a shed with horrors below it, it seems like you should not have to worry about your table manners, and yet … When I had finished, I carefully wiped my mouth with the cloth, folded it neatly, and deliberately met my captor’s eyes. “Thank you,” I said again.

He looked away. “I regret the necessity, Miss Wilson.”

“Ironically,” I said, “there wasn’t one. I had thought that all this”—I waved toward the stairs—“was part of the delirium from the malaria. It did

not seem possible that it was real.”

Phelps blinked at me. “Truly?”

“Truly.”

He winced. “Ah,” he said. He lifted a hand and scratched at the back of his head, where the bandage hung askew. “That explains it.” He took a deep breath. “My apologies then, Miss Wilson. It seems I’ve made a mess of things.”

There was genuine anguish in his voice. Could I use that? I chose my words carefully. “I don’t know what is going on,” I said, “or what Dr.

Halder is doing down there.” I thought I had, until the squirrel. Now I couldn’t even begin to guess. “Obviously you do, Mr. Phelps.”

“I don’t understand all the science of it,” he said cautiously.

“I’m not concerned with the science,” I said, which was only partly a lie.

I would probably have found the science fascinating if I had been reading about it in a journal in the sunlight a long way away. “Can you tell me what’s going on?”

“The Devil,” he said. “It’s the Devil down there.”

“I believe you,” I said. Normally this would be a lie, but given that I had just seen a man eat a live rodent like an apple, all bets were off. Anyway, I wasn’t planning to argue with Phelps if I could help it. “I was skeptical before, but—err—my eyes have been opened.”

“Yes,” he said distractedly. “I wired the doctor.”

I honestly wasn’t sure if Halder’s presence was going to help me or not.

He’d already shot one man, maybe he’d just shoot me too. Could I pretend interest in the science?

Of course there was no telling how soon Halder would return either. I’d much rather not spend a week down here while the doctor finished up his business in Raleigh.

I tried again. “You have always struck me as a godly man, Mr. Phelps.”

A pained expression crossed his face, and I hurried on. “You must have a good reason for doing this. If you explain it to me, you may find that I agree with you. It may be that none of this is necessary.”

He stared at the wall over my head for a long moment. I picked at a loose thread on my skirt, wondering if I should push him further or not.

“Have to wait for the doctor,” he said finally. “The doctor will know what to do.”

“Mr. Phelps,” I said desperately, “we can go back to the house together right now. I’ll tell the Kents that I was lost in the woods and you found me.

Then we can wait for the doctor together.”

Silence welled up between us as I waited. He scratched the back of his head again, and the scruff-scruff-scruff of his nails against his scalp rang in that small space like words.

“Miss Wilson,” he said, finally meeting my eyes. My heart sank. His tone had gone stiff and formal.

“Please,” I said, cutting him off. “Please just think about it.”

“I don’t know,” he muttered, half to himself. “I don’t know.”

“Think about it. That’s all I ask.”

He nodded distractedly and reached for the lantern on the wall. I jumped.

“Wait! Please!” I fought back my flare of terror. “Please leave me the light.

It’s … it’s very bad in the dark.”

A startled look crossed his lean face. “Oh. Yes. It would be, I expect.” He took down the lantern, glanced around at the shed, then handed it to me.

Our fingers met briefly, and I was startled by how cold his were to the touch.

“I’ll bring you more food tomorrow,” he said gruffly.

“Thank you,” I said. And then, as he stepped outside and I saw the door start to close, I tried one last time. “I don’t believe you’re a wicked man, Mr. Phelps.”

He paused on the threshold. “‘Behold, I was shaped in iniquity, and in sin did my mother conceive me.’”

If I had a better grasp of Bible verses, perhaps I could have offered something that would have swayed him to my side, but all I could think of was, “Jesus wept,” which, while apropos, did not seem persuasive. My father’s transcendentalist philosophy seemed unlikely to work. I said nothing, and after a moment he shut the door. I listened for the click of the padlock and closed my eyes briefly when it came.

My first act was to turn the lantern down as low as I could to save oil.

Judging by the slosh, it was less than half full. Five, maybe six hours, if I was lucky. Certainly not enough oil to burn down the shed, which I admit, I

considered. (I suspect that Phelps had thought of it too, and probably would not have handed the lantern over if he’d thought I might succeed.) I felt a little better though. It may have been the food and the fitful sleep, but I suspect that the lantern had as much to do with it. I wondered what time it was. Late, probably. I hadn’t seen any light when he opened the door, and Phelps would hardly have returned in broad daylight.

Had the Kents discovered I was missing? I hadn’t heard anyone calling for me. Could I have slept through it?

If it was off in the distance, probably. But I’d have heard them if they were up close. I’m sure of it.

Surely they’d check the shed, wouldn’t they? They must know it’s here, even if they think it’s something innocuous.

I drank another sip of water, wondering when my captor was likely to return. There was still a biscuit in the basket. I wrapped it up in the cloth, hoping that would keep anything from laying eggs on it. It didn’t seem that he intended to starve me, anyway.

Too late it occurred to me that perhaps I should have worried about the food being drugged. I put a hand to my mouth, then snorted at myself. Why would he bother to drug me? What was I going to do? I had nowhere to run.

It wasn’t as if there was another way out.

And then I froze.

I’m an idiot. An absolute stone-cold dyed-in-the-wool idiot.

I’d seen the light coming in. Those animals had come from somewhere, which meant that there was another way into the room, and that meant that there was another way out.

Granted, a hole large enough for a squirrel or a groundhog might not be large enough to accommodate a human. But this was all clay held up by boards, and I would damn well dig my way out if I had to.

I made sure the net was firmly tucked around my neck, grabbed the lantern, and shoved the drape aside.

It was amazing the difference that lantern light made, compared to a single candle. Even turned down low, I could make out the slight rise and fall of the man’s chest. The hollows of his ribs no longer looked like canyons. He looked unhealthy, but not like he was dying.

His eyes were closed. He might have been asleep. Perhaps eating rodents was exhausting. My mind skittered away from waking him up. It would be

cruel to wake a man who’s obviously so miserable. (the crunch of tiny ribs under teeth) I shuddered. No, I didn’t want to wake him up.

The walls of the room were lined with burlap that had been tacked up over boards. I tugged at a panel and a broad strip tore away in my hands. I started to toss it aside, then decided I couldn’t afford to waste anything that might be useful, and brought it over to the bare table instead. Now where was that light coming from…?

I pulled down more burlap until I finally located it. There was a gap between the boards and one of the support pillars, perhaps six inches wide, and in this gap, something had bored a hole. I peered into it, angling the lantern as best I could, and saw that it ran generally upward. An animal burrow, by the looks of it. Or a hole dug by animals, anyway.

I carefully avoided looking at the dead animals. If a parasite could drive a possum to try to break through a door, presumably it could also drive one to dig.

And even to climb onto a table and offer itself up as a meal…?

I remembered the wasp and the cockroach. Yes. Apparently even that.

Whatever was going on here, it seemed that it was a horror spawned as much by nature as by … whatever Halder had done.

Enough. It doesn’t matter right now. What matters is getting out.

The burrow was large enough to fit my arm into, no more. (Not that I had any intention of sticking my arm into a dark hole that was currently being used by infected rodents.) Could I widen it? Possibly. It would take a great deal of work digging through the clay, but it wasn’t as if I had anything else going on.

The gap between board and upright was too small for me to fit through though. I examined the board and my heart sank. A foot wide and two inches thick, and reeking of creosote. The smell made my nose wrinkle, but it drowned out the slowly increasing rot from the pile of gutted animals, so I was forced to be grateful.

The board had been nailed into the ceiling beam from the other side, so that the weight of the earth pushed it more firmly against the support. I put my shoulder against it and shoved. I might as well have been trying to move a brick wall.

All right. Look at this logically. If I could break through a two-inch plank, I’d simply have broken down the door, but maybe I didn’t need to break it. If I could dig out the space behind it, maybe I could loosen the nails and get the board turned slightly. I only needed a few more inches of clearance to fit my head through, and then it was just shoulders and contortion, right? … sure, yes, of course. A walk in the park, definitely.

I tested the edges of the burrow. Hard orange clay, gritty and mixed with small pebbles. I’d heard Jackson curse it often enough. Shovel-breaking stuff. “Good thing I don’t have a shovel to worry about,” I said out loud, and barked a laugh.

Ah, we’re moving on to that stage of the breakdown, I see.

Well, if a groundhog could do it, so could I. I had smaller claws but a bigger brain. And an enamel pan.

It took hours. The clay did not want to yield. I scooped up water and poured it over the edges, trying to soften them, which didn’t help much.

Clay takes up water slowly and gives it up even more slowly, which is why I was standing in an inch of water right now. I chopped at the edges of the hole with the pan, scraping off fractions of an inch at a time, until it felt like I was trying to shave my way out.

Still, the hole got bigger. When I finally allowed myself to take a break, the opening was twice as large, and I’d dragged several pounds of earth out from behind the board. I gazed at it, feeling a flush of triumph.

Granted, a hole ten inches wide was not notably more useful than one five inches wide, but at least I’d accomplished something. Maybe I’d get lucky and it would rain. Then I could stand in a foot of water and haul mud out until it collapsed or I did.

Don’t think of the woman, the blood thief, buried alive. Don’t think of her trying to chew her way through the clay. I gritted my teeth. Perhaps I too was buried alive, but at least I had plenty of air.

My shoulders and forearms ached. So did my neck, from wedging myself against the board and digging blind behind it. Nature was also calling, which presented its own set of challenges.

I did not want to use my sleeping area as a latrine, but I had no intention of hitching up my skirts in a room full of botflies. I settled for using my trusty enamel pan as a crude chamberpot and carrying it downstairs to

dump out. I had not previously considered the many, many uses of an enamel pan in adversity, but I was about to declare my undying love for this one.

How long had it been since Phelps came? How much more light did I have? Had it been hours? It felt like hours.

I had just started digging again when the man on the table said, “What are you doing?”

I was so startled that I dropped the pan. I picked it up hastily and looked over to see that he had turned his head to face me. The dried blood lay in a flaking brown mask over the lower half of his face and his teeth seemed

very white against it.

“Trying to dig my way out.”

He considered this while I scraped more clay loose. “Why?”

“A distinct lack of social engagements,” I snapped. What the hell kind of

question was that?

“So you’re trapped here too?”

Oh. Perhaps he hadn’t realized. No, why should he? He must have thought that I was working with Halder and Phelps. And you were, weren’t

you? Halder, anyway.

Shut up.

“Yes. Phelps locked me down here.”

“I see.” His voice sounded stronger, no longer so dry and raspy. Squirrel guts must make a serviceable lubricant. I scraped more clay out of the hole, wondering what to say next. I had so many questions that I hardly knew

where to begin.

Are you sure you even want the answers?

Really sure?

(the crunching sound of tiny ribs) … yes. I do.

Stupid question. Of course I wanted answers. I always did, didn’t I?

“I thought you were with them,” the man said.

My laugh could have etched glass. “I’m not.” I tested the board again. It continued not to yield in the slightest.

It occurred to me that I was being extremely short with a man who had, let’s face it, been manacled to a wire table for at least a week, probably more. I was not in the best emotional state myself, but compared to what

he’d been through, the last few days had been a pleasant stroll through the woods.

“Sorry,” I said, stepping back from the hole. “I … um.” I glanced over at him, at his limp hands hanging down like rain-blown peonies, and the long, dreadful nails. “You’ve been down here awhile,” I said finally.

He made a rough clicking sound in his throat. It took me a moment to recognize it as a laugh. “Yes,” he said. “Awhile.”

He turned his head a little when he said it, and perhaps it was because of the better light or just the angle or something about the way he held his mouth, but suddenly I recognized that face. I knew him. I had seen him just recently, not as a living man but as a watercolor sketch, the planes of the face sketched out by someone who thought he was handsome, even though there was nothing handsome about him now.

“My god,” I said. “You’re Saul Gregor.”

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