THE WORMS TURN
“He was completely naked. I know he has a privacy fence and it’s his property. Still, it was a bit of a shock.” After the divorce, Nell had sworn she’d never talk to Ted again. But voicemail doesn’t quite count, does it? Except of course it did. Ted would listen eventually. Maybe play it for his new girlfriend, Kelli or Kerry, whatever she was called.
“Get a load of this. The ex has finally gone around the bend.”
But no one could blame me, Nell thought. You had to call someone when your neighbor turns out to be a monster. And he seemed so nice.
Mr. Harrah had stood there, naked as the day he was born. Nell just knew he would gaze up at the bathroom window and catch her staring. The thought made her breath catch in her chest, but she couldn’t look away. Instead of turning his head, Mr. Harrah opened his mouth wide and vomited out a shower of worms.
The worms, thousands of them, not only came out of Mr. Harrah, they were Mr. Harrah. His flesh parted in long thin tendrils, crawling over each other. Nell stood there a good five minutes watching what had been her solid looking neighbor dissolve into a writhing mass. The worms roiled in a low heap under the moonlight and then disappeared into the dark soil.
“He has the most beautiful plants in his yard,” Nell said into the phone. “That’s why I was looking down over the fence. You know worms are quite good for—” You’re babbling, Nell, she told herself. The voicemail cut off with a sharp little chirp. Nell hit redial and waited through three rings and Ted saying, “We can’t come to the phone right now.” Was that a woman giggling in the background? When the tone sounded, Nell found she had nothing left to say.
Some things she hadn’t mentioned. Like how she had only just stepped from the shower when she first saw Mr. Harrah. And how their shared nudity had made her stomach feel full of warm honey, that is, until he’d changed. No, some details you did not share with your ex-husband.
“But why call Ted at all?” She asked herself. Habit? After fifteen years of marriage, it would make sense, but she suspected something darker. Ted had been a bully and a tyrant. It was his decision she shouldn’t get a job, and that children for a woman as fragile as Nell were out of the question. But she’d gone along with it. Grown to depend on him making decisions, so she didn’t have to.
When Ted left, Nell had been terrified, believing herself to be the hothouse flower he’d wanted. But instead of withering, she’d flourished. Finding work, first as office manager at a local architecture firm, then parlaying her—’useless’ according to Ted—English degree into a more lucrative position ghostwriting the firm’s business proposals. She had friends now, and colleagues who valued her opinion. “You panicked that’s all. So, you ran back to the one person who would be happy to tell you what to do.” For a moment a wave of self-disgust rivaled Nell’s fear. She shook her head. Nothing could make her go back to living that way. Not even a monster next door.
Nell sat in her kitchen. A practical place, neat and orderly. A good place to think. What next, the police? Hello, I need to report that my neighbor is what . . . a were-worm? He has a lovely garden, but the whole worm thing scares the shit out of me. Could you pop over and talk to him? They’d have her committed.
Nell’s skin prickled into gooseflesh. What if Mr. Harrah had seen her? What if he came over to shut her up? She ran to the front door and turned the deadbolt, for all the good it would do. In her imagination, a sea of worms already crashed against the house in pink fleshy waves. Long sinuous shapes pushed themselves through hidden gaps in the construction. Do worms have teeth?
“He never looked up,” Nell said aloud. “He was too busy . . . coming apart.”
The doorbell rang.
Nell’s hand shot to her mouth, stifling a scream.
There was a pause then the sound of knuckles rapping wood.
“Ms. Phillips. It’s George Harrah from next door.” The knuckles rapped again.
Nell counted to five, drawing a deep silent breath with each number.
“Ms. Phillips, I can see your shadow on the curtain.”
Shit. “It’s late, Mr. Harrah, What can I do for you?”
“I wanted to apologize. Um, for the little show I put on earlier? I didn’t think anyone could see into my yard. The night seemed so pleasant. I don’t know what came over me. I’m really not in the habit of going outside stark naked.”
“I didn’t see anything,” said Nell, hoping Harrah couldn’t hear the panic in her voice. “I don’t know what you’re talking about.”
“Oh. I could have sworn I saw you looking down at me from that little side window.”
“No. Now I really must get to bed. Good night, Mr. Harrah.” Nell listened for departing footsteps, but none came.
“I think you did see me, Ms. Phillips. How long were you watching?” His voice sounded more tired than threatening. But maybe that’s how monsters sound right before they attack. This was all new territory.
“Shut up, can’t you just shut up and go?” This time no one could have missed the broken sob she spoke around.
“Aw hell,” said Harrah. “That long. We need to talk.”
“I called the police.”
There was a long pause. “No, I don’t think you did. They would have been here by now. I think you’re still in the ‘am I nuts?’ phase. Or worried anyone you call will think you are. Why don’t you come out on the porch? It’s weird talking through the door like this.”
“Talking through a door is weird?” A bark of involuntary laughter escaped Nell’s throat. “I don’t think it even makes the scale tonight.” She would call the police if he didn’t leave soon. They could take her to whatever mental hospital was closest. Maybe she’d be safe there.
“I see your point. Listen, please. I’m not a monster. I’m just different. I’m no danger to you.”
His words and the sheer stress of the situation snapped Nell’s careening feelings into focused anger. “Bullshit,” she said.
“What?”
Nell gritted her teeth. She attached the chain, pushed the door open a few inches and glared out at George Harrah. “I said bullshit.”
He wore clothes now at least. The tan trousers and sweater vest made him seem more like an English professor than something from a horror story, but Nell knew better. “I saw what you are, or what you become. But even if you were just some guy from down the street, you’re standing on my porch refusing to leave. Telling me, you’re not going to hurt me. I’ve seen this shit on the news. I know how it ends.”
Then George Harrah did something unexpected. He blushed from the top of his bald head to the collar of his blue, button-down shirt. “I’m . . . I’m.” His mouth hung open for a moment. “I’m so sorry. You’re right, of course. I’m going back to my house.” He paused in mid-turn, raising his hands open-palmed toward Nell. “I like it here, Ms. Phillips. I like my house, the neighborhood. I don’t want to leave.” There were tears in the tall man’s eyes.
“Go home, Mr. Harrah.”
Harrah nodded. “Goodnight, Ms. Phillips.”
Nell watched him walk back to his house and go inside. Then she stuffed towels under all the doors on the first floor. After those hardly adequate protections, she made herself tea, sat in the kitchen, and thought. It was a very long night.
Nell’s head snapped up, springing from sleep to panicked alertness. She yanked her stiff legs from the kitchen tiles, seeing a floor seething with worms until she’d blinked the dream visions from her eyes. “I’m alive,” she said. “That’s something at least.” Her laptop lay open on the counter. A magnified image of a Lumbricus Terrestrisfilled the screen. She shuddered. It turned out earthworms didn’t have teeth after all. Somehow the fact didn’t make her feel any better.
She waited until 10:00. It was a Saturday and people were out now. Mrs. Henderson mowing her front lawn, kids riding by on their bikes. Nell walked over to Mr. Harrah’s house and knocked on the door. She wore long sleeves despite the summer heat, and her twill trousers were tucked into knee-high boots. The clothes made her feel safer somehow.
Harrah answered her knock so fast she suspected he’d been waiting for her.
“Ms. Phillips,” he said. “Thank you.”
“For what?”
“I’m just glad it’s you. Not the police or some reporter.”
“It’s early yet,” Nell said. “Torches and pitchforks look better at night.”
“I’m hoping that’s a joke.”
“Only a little. I’m in a tough position here, Mr. Harrah.”
Harrah nodded. “Do you want some tea?”
“No, just answers. And we talk out here on the porch.”
“Of course.”
They sat at the glass-topped patio table and stared at each other.
“What do you want to know?” he asked.
“What are you?”
“I grew up on a farm in Iowa.”
“That’s not what I asked.”
“No,” said Harrah. “But if you want to know about me. You’re going to hear how we’re alike, not just the worm stuff.”
“Fine.”
“I’m thirty-nine years old. We probably grew up playing the same games, eating frosted flakes for breakfast.”
“And watching Captain Kangaroo, I get it. You’re an all-American boy. But what else are you? Are there more of you?”
“I don’t have any brothers or sisters. Reproduction is difficult for people like me. I was an accident. It was only my father and me growing up.”
“Are you going to kill me?”
“Jesus. I may not be human, but I’m not a werewolf. No claws or fangs. It’s just, on a pretty regular basis, I need to transform into my other state.”
“Worms.”
“Yes, sort of. Certainly, like worms. I don’t lose myself. I’m still me when I change. There’s just a lot of . . . me.”
“You don’t talk about this much, do you?”
“Of course not. And no one really explained it to me either. My father was more a ‘do as I do’ sort of guy. He’d rather I’d never left the farm. Bottom line is, I’m a thinking, feeling person just like you. I run a lawn and garden service. I pay taxes. Watch the Super Bowl every year. I’m not a monster. I’m just different. And I don’t want to be some government lab experiment. Or be burned as a witch. And if you spread around what you saw, that’s going to happen. So, tell me now, so I can pack my very human Ford pick-up and start over somewhere else.”
Nell stared at him for a long moment. She actually felt a little sorry for him. How did I become the bad guy here? she thought.
“Well?”
“You own a lawn service? Isn’t that sort of cheating?” Nell chuckled. It was all too ridiculous.
Harrah sat frozen for a moment then a reluctant grin spread across his face. “Well, I like to think I’m working to my strengths.”
Nell laughed in earnest. When she’d finished and wiped her eyes, she still hadn’t made up her mind about George Harrah. But for the life of her, she couldn’t feel afraid of the man. “This might be horribly naive on my part, but I’m not ready to drive you out of your home.” Nell stood and moved to the steps.” And, I have more questions.”
“Of course,” said Harrah.
Halfway to her yard, Nell remembered the frantic phone call to Ted the night before. “Uh-oh.” She called again that night. Got his voice mail. “Ted, it’s Nell. I wanted to apologize for my call last night. Turns out it was only a nightmare.” As she spoke, Nell looked out the window at the wooden fence surrounding Harrah’s backyard. Wondering if he was there and if he was himself. “I feel so silly. Sorry to have bothered you. Say hi to Kelli” She cut the connection. “Say hi to Kelli?” she repeated and shook her head. “What the hell is wrong with me?”
On Sunday afternoon there was a knock on the door. Nell thought it might be her neighbor until a key turned in the lock. She snatched open the door to reveal her ex-husband, Ted, in the doorway. “You aren’t supposed to have a key,” she said.
“Well, hello to you too. I kept a copy in case of emergencies. Like when my wife calls in the middle of the night about monsters.”
Ted’s blonde hair swept straight back now instead of parting at the side. Blue jeans replaced the business casual khakis he’d always favored. He looked fit and tan. Kelli must be the outdoorsy type.
“I want that key,” Nell said.
“Fine. And I want an explanation. And maybe a thank you for driving out here to make sure you’re okay.” He slid the house key along the ring as he spoke until it came off in his hand.
“I called you back. It was only a nightmare.”
“So, my wife is hallucinating naked neighbors who turn into worms. Oh no, nothing to worry about there.”
“That’s the second time you called me your wife. It’s ex-wife, Ted. Or did the whole divorce thing slip your mind? How does Kelli feel about you checking up on me?”
“It’s Kerri. And she can think whatever she damn well pleases. A man has responsibilities.”
There was anger in Ted’s voice and not toward her. Trouble in paradise maybe, not that Nell cared. She almost told him where he could stick his responsibilities. But instead began to feel guilty. Ted had that effect on her. No matter how much of an asshole he acted like, he believed he was being noble. In a twisted, selfish way he cared.
“Let’s not fight.” Nell walked out and sat on the porch steps. Patting a spot beside her. Ted joined her. “I’m really all right,” she said.
“Not a monster then?”
Nell sighed. “George is a very nice man.”
“George is it? Are you dating?”
Nell’s shoulders slumped. She bit her lip and counted to five before answering. “You don’t get to ask me that, Ted. Thanks for coming out, but you should go now.”
He stood. “Fine. I think about you, Nell. You know that? We had some good times.”
“Leave the key. Ted.”
Ted opened his hand, and the house key fell on the step.
Over the next few weeks, Nell had more conversations with George Harrah. On his porch or sometimes her own. At first, they were almost interrogations.
“What does changing feel like?”
“It hurts actually, quite a bit in fact. But after, when I’m no longer singular, it feels . . . amazingly freeing.”
As weeks turned into months, the conversations changed. They talked less about George’s condition and more about everyday life. How Nell’s office politics were going. The odd customers George dealt with in his lawn business. And about Ted.
Nell told George about her calls after she’d witnessed his transformation. And about Ted’s visit. “He seemed more jealous than concerned about my wellbeing. I think dreaming of a man turning into worms struck him as a bit Freudian.” Texts came after. Ted “checking in.” Asking about the mortgage or house repairs. Letting her know he still thought about her while at the same time telling her what to do. A bully’s idea of sweet-talk. “He even called once, drunk I think, complaining about his girlfriend. I hung up on him.”
On a Thursday night, while drinking tea on Nell’s porch swing, George brought up his own social life. “I dated quite a bit when I was younger. Regular women. Like you. Well, you know, not able to change. I grew quite attached a few times, but I always broke things off in the end. Didn’t seem fair, them not knowing and all.” He said it all in a rush staring at the floor.
“Oh,” said Nell. And was surprised to find herself blushing.
Their first date was at a local Italian restaurant. They drank wine and laughed a lot. George ordered the risotto much to Nell’s relief. The idea of him sucking pasta into his mouth would have been too much like his transformation in reverse. I’m on a date with a monster, she thought. And I’m having a very good time. She kissed him in the driveway before they parted. A small kiss, quick and almost dainty. But the memory of it warmed her for hours. It was well past midnight when the knock on the door came.
She’d been reading on the couch. Too pleased to go to bed despite the lateness of the hour. Don’t ruin it, George, she thought. I’m taking this slow. But she smiled as she approached the door and her stomach filled with a warm excitement.
Ted stood on the porch. Dark half-moons hung beneath his eyes, and his tan seemed sallow under the porch light’s yellow glare. In his skinny jeans, Nell’s ex-husband looked like the poster child for mid-life crisis. “I’ve done it. I’ve cast her off, Nell.”
“Are you drunk?” it was a rhetorical question. Bourbon soaked his words.
“You’re not listening to me. It’s over. I’m coming home.”
“Kelli’s thrown you out?”
“Kerri,” Ted said. “And we’ve parted ways. Differences of opinion.”
“You mean she had one?”
Ted flinched as if Nell’s words were a blow. “I’m not here to talk about Kerri,” he said raising his voice. “I realized it that night you called. You need someone to take care of you. And to be honest, I need someone to take care of.” He made the words sound like an accusation and a plea at the same time.
“I don’t want to be taken care of, Ted. The call was a mistake.” Without thinking, she shot a quick worried glance at George’s house. “And I rang back. I told you it was only a nightmare. George is . . . harmless.”
“George. You are seeing him, aren’t you? It’s understandable of course. You’re fragile, Nell. You need someone with a firm hand in your life.” Ted nodded, and there was something distant in his voice as if he spoke not to Nell, but himself. “What he doesn’t understand is it’s me you need. Not some nudist.”
“You leave right now, Ted, or I swear you’ll spend the night in jail.”
Ted ignored her. “You stay here. I’m going to have a little talk with your George. He needs to understand the lay of the land.” Ted walked across the yard toward George’s porch.
“Leave him alone. You’re not in your right mind!” Nell ran toward the back of George’s house. She tried the gate entrance, but it was locked. If George was asleep in bed, fine. The police could handle Ted. But what if he was changing? She yelled and slammed her open palm against the wood. “George! My ex-husband is here! He’s acting crazy!” The sound of running feet came from the front yard. Ted slammed his shoulder into the gate right beside her. Nell screamed in surprise.
She grabbed Ted’s arm, and he gave her a shove that sent her reeling. He slammed into the entrance again, grunting with the impact.
“Stop it,” Nell yelled.
On the third try, wood splintered, and the gate burst inward.
Inside, George Harrah knelt naked in the grass. Half his head and most of his right arm had already changed. Worms slithered down his torso to the ground.
“Jesus Christ,” Ted said. He turned to Nell, a condescending smile stretching across his face. “He’s done something to you, Nell. Bewitched you somehow, but I’ll sort it out.” Cordwood lay stacked against the fence’s interior. A hatchet jutted up from a thick log. Ted snatched it up and marched toward George. Nell scrambled to her feet and ran after him.
With no hesitation Ted crossed the yard and swung the hatchet at George’s rapidly changing head. Worms showered onto the grass.
“Leave him alone,” Nell shouted.
“It’s all right, Nell. I’m here now,” Ted said, rearing back for another blow.
George lifted his one solid arm. The hatchet bit deep into the still human flesh, blood poured down.
He’d be screaming, she thought, if his head were still there, he’d be screaming.
Worms swarmed over Ted’s shoes and up his pants leg, but he took no notice. He swung the hatchet again. George’s arm cartwheeled through the air, a trail of blood and worms streaming out behind it.
The sight of George’s sheared off arm broke Nell’s paralysis. She stepped to the woodpile and picked up a log as thick as her forearm. Crossing to Ted, Nell swung the log like a baseball bat, striking him in the ribs with a thunk.
Ted grunted, but his smile didn’t falter. “You need me, Nell. Everything’s going to be fine now.”
Nell braced herself and swung again. This time with all the rage of fifteen years of bad marriage behind the blow. The log slammed into the side of Ted’s head leaving a two-inch dent behind. Blood filled the dent, turning Ted’s blonde hair a muddy red.
Ted froze, dropped the hatchet, then fell to his knees. Worms crawled up his sides.
“Just wanted to take care of you,” he said. The words came out soft and dripping blood. Then wriggling shapes filled Ted’s mouth, and he collapsed to the ground, disappearing under the writhing mass of George’s worms. A few minutes later, both Ted and the worms were gone, leaving only dark, turned earth.
Well, not all gone, Nell thought. A few yards away, where George’s arm had landed, a smaller pile of worms still crawled on the surface. Why didn’t they go with the rest? The worms’ movements slowed, and they began to knit back together. What they formed was not an arm.
“Oh my God,” said Nell.
The tiny shape took a hitching breath and began to cry. The baby that had been George’s arm looked only a few weeks old. Nell remembered George’s words on the day she’d first confronted him. Reproduction is hard on my kind. I was an accident.
When George emerged from the earth again, Nell sat on the deck, holding the tiny red-haired newborn. George walked past the two of them to the clothes he’d left folded neatly on an Adirondack chair and dressed. He had two arms again, but Nell thought he stood a few inches shorter.
“There are things you didn’t tell me.”
George didn’t speak.
“It’s a girl,” Nell said and shifted the child on to her shoulder. “For a while, things were sort of undecided down there. Then she changed.” She stared down into the baby’s huge blue eyes and couldn’t help but smile a little. “The red hair is new too.”
George knelt in front of the chair and patted the child on the leg. “We imprint on the first person we see. Sex, the hair, the eyes, she’s going to look like you. Not exactly, but close. I’m glad. Can you watch her a little while longer? I need to pack.”
“What?”
“I killed your husband, Nell.”
“Ted was deranged and attacked you with a hatchet. Besides, I killed him.” Nell again saw the deep bloody dent in her ex husband’s temple. “I killed him.” She shook her head in disbelief. “You just disposed of the body. What—where exactly did you?” Did you bury him?
“I didn’t eat him if that’s what you’re thinking. He’s someplace far away and very deep. I can move fast when I need to. No one’s going to find him. But the police don’t always need a body.” His hand went from the child to Nell’s hand. “I can’t stay, Nell. There’s bound to be inquiries. We, the baby and I, can disappear. You’ll be safe.”
“Don’t make decisions for me,” Nell said. “I hate when people who do that.” She didn’t feel guilty. Maybe that would come, along with grief for a man she’d once loved, but right now she only felt determined. “You grew your arm back. How?”
“It’s only a matter of shifting things about.”
“Could you look like someone else if you shifted enough? Ted for example. Even the hair?”
George considered it. “I probably couldn’t fool his wife, but in general, yes.”
Later that night, Ted was caught on tape buying coffee at a gas station near his home. Authorities discovered his sporty hybrid a week later, parked on the shore of Lake Erie. Ted’s clothes lay folded on a large stone at the water’s edge.
“His girlfriend left him,” a kindly policeman told Nell. “His coworkers said he’d been acting erratically ever since. We followed his footsteps to the water’s edge. There was no note. Sometimes they just don’t leave notes.”
A year later, George pulled Nell’s Honda on to highway 86 west. “You sure about this?” he asked.” He’d seemed leery of the trip when Nell suggested it, but she thought he’d also been pleased.
Nell looked back at Lilly, asleep in her car seat. “Yes. I’m sure. Your dad should meet his granddaughter and me for that matter. Maybe, I can even get him to tell me the story of how you were born?”
“I told you he doesn’t like to talk about it. It’s considered impolite to ask about our accidents of birth.”
Nell groaned.
“Okay fine. But only so you don’t spend the whole trip interrogating Dad. I am the son of a loving if slightly clumsy father and the hay baler he bumped into. That’s the whole story. Happy?”
Nell leaned over and kissed George on the neck. “I am,” she said. “I really am. Although . . . ”
“What?”
“Wouldn’t it be nice if Lilly had a little brother?” Nell squeezed George’s arm. “Does your dad still own that baler?”