Digging up Worms
By George Wilhite
Steve was always willing and even enjoyed performing physical labor to assist his wife Cindy with her garden, and it was time for the annual turning of the soil ritual. He got started early that late April morning so he could get it turned, mix in the annual addition of compost and smooth out all three of her raised beds before the Giants game started. After an hour or so of digging, he was well into the second bed and decided to get some ice water. When he returned, he saw the worms for the first time.
Even though gardening was Cindy’s gig, Steve wasn’t afraid of getting a little dirty and he certainly didn’t mind that his work unearthed a few insects and worms. That was normal enough. But these five particular worms didn’t look normal. About eight inches long and just about as wide as an average earthworm it was their color that seemed eerie. They were mostly an ash grey color but each had several bright red splotches around them that seemed, for lack of a better word, swollen.
Crazy at it seemed, his spine shivered at his own thought: “almost looks like they’ve been sucking blood or something.”
Steve went inside and asked Cindy about the worms.
“Never heard of such a thing,” she said, shrugging.
“You don’t seem very worried.” Steve said. Usually she would freak out at any little unknown critter in her garden. She would come inside and look it up in all her books and not be satisfied until she solved the mystery.
“Worms are good guys,” she answered him. “But show me.”
He took her to the garden bed and found the worms had vanished. “Hold on,” Steve said as began digging again. “I’ll find them.”
He felt the burning sensation running up his legs. The pain traveled quickly and soon his crotch and stomach seemed on fire as well. He screamed in pain and looked down at his legs. Just beneath the surface, he saw ripples running up his legs as though his veins were detaching and crawling upward. “No!” he realized. “It’s those freaking worms! They got inside me.”
Steve screamed again and then he was even more horrified by Cindy’s reaction. She was smiling at him!
She waved his cell phone at him. “It wasn’t that hard to hack into your little private chat room, Stevie. You’re not as smart as you think you are.”
She threw his phone on the ground. As he bent over to pick it up he realized that, in just those last few moments, one of the worms had already reached his chest. His breathing labored, pulse pounding, he fell to the ground. The last image that flashed through his mind as he lost consciousness was a photo of Katie on his cell phone, his latest conquest smiling hideously at him, her face covered with those same savage and hungry worms.
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