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- Matthew Quinn Martin
As the Worm Turns
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Contents
Nightlife
Dedication
Epigraph
Prologue
Chapter One
Chapter Two
Chapter Three
Chapter Four
Chapter Five
Chapter Six
Chapter Seven
Chapter Eight
Chapter Nine
Chapter Ten
Chapter Eleven
Chapter Twelve
Chapter Thirteen
Chapter Fourteen
Chapter Fifteen
Chapter Sixteen
Chapter Seventeen
Chapter Eighteen
Chapter Nineteen
Chapter Twenty
Chapter Twenty-one
Chapter Twenty-two
Chapter Twenty-three
Chapter Twenty-four
Chapter Twenty-five
Chapter Twenty-six
Chapter Twenty-seven
Chapter Twenty-eight
Chapter Twenty-nine
Chapter Thirty
Chapter Thirty-one
Chapter Thirty-two
Chapter Thirty-three
Chapter Thirty-four
Chapter Thirty-five
Chapter Thirty-six
Chapter Thirty-seven
Chapter Thirty-eight
Chapter Thirty-nine
Chapter Forty
Chapter Forty-one
Chapter Forty-two
Chapter Forty-three
Chapter Forty-four
Chapter Forty-five
Chapter Forty-six
Chapter Forty-seven
Chapter Forty-eight
Chapter Forty-nine
Chapter Fifty
Chapter Fifty-one
Chapter Fifty-two
Chapter Fifty-three
Chapter Fifty-four
Chapter Fifty-five
Chapter Fifty-six
Chapter Fifty-seven
Chapter Fifty-eight
Chapter Fifty-nine
Chapter Sixty
Chapter Sixty-one
Chapter Sixty-two
Chapter Sixty-three
Chapter Sixty-four
Chapter Sixty-five
Chapter Sixty-six
Chapter Sixty-seven
Chapter Sixty-eight
Chapter Sixty-nine
Chapter Seventy
Chapter Seventy-one
Chapter Seventy-two
Epilogue
Nightlife: Hazardous Material
Dedication
Epigraph
Chapter One
Chapter Two
Chapter Three
Chapter Four
Chapter Five
Chapter Six
Chapter Seven
Chapter Eight
Chapter Nine
Nightlife: As the Worm Turns
Dedication
Epigraph
Prologue
Chapter One
Chapter Two
Chapter Three
Chapter Four
Chapter Five
Chapter Six
Chapter Seven
Chapter Eight
Chapter Nine
Chapter Ten
Chapter Eleven
Chapter Twelve
Chapter Thirteen
Chapter Fourteen
Chapter Fifteen
Chapter Sixteen
Chapter Seventeen
Chapter Eighteen
Chapter Nineteen
Chapter Twenty
Chapter Twenty-one
Chapter Twenty-two
Chapter Twenty-three
Chapter Twenty-four
Chapter Twenty-five
Chapter Twenty-six
Chapter Twenty-seven
Chapter Twenty-eight
Chapter Twenty-nine
Chapter Thirty
Chapter Thirty-one
Chapter Thirty-two
Chapter Thirty-three
Chapter Thirty-four
Chapter Thirty-five
Chapter Thirty-six
Chapter Thirty-seven
Chapter Thirty-eight
Chapter Thirty-nine
Chapter Forty
Chapter Forty-one
Chapter Forty-two
Chapter Forty-three
Chapter Forty-four
Chapter Forty-five
Chapter Forty-six
Chapter Forty-seven
Chapter Forty-eight
Chapter Forty-nine
Chapter Fifty
Chapter Fifty-one
Chapter Fifty-two
Chapter Fifty-three
Epilogue
About the Author
To all who fight the darkness
Perhaps a conception of real horror is impossible for people whose bellies are full.
—Stephen King
Prologue:
Twelve Years Ago
Jack Jackson opened his eye, the good one. The one that wasn’t swollen blue and sealed shut with coagulated blood. He’d been sat at a steel table riveted to the floor, his chest shoved right up against its cold, corrugated edge. A single naked bulb hung over the table. The sallow light drove nails through his eye but did little to illuminate the dank interrogation cell.
Half a cup of water sat just within reach. He stared at it as if it was Christ’s own cup at the Last Supper. Just one sip, he told himself. Just one. Not even, just a drop. Thoughts ricocheted in his mind until he was deaf with them. And then he lunged.
Only to watch the cup snatched away by a hairy-knuckled hand that poked from the sleeve of a cheap twill suit pilling at the cuff. The detective who wore it was half dissolved in shadow. He drank the water in one gulp, then slammed the cup into a paper pancake inches from Jack. This was the tenth or twelfth time he’d done that. Jack had lost count.
“Thirsty, huh?” The detective’s voice had the ring of a snow shovel scraping over a long-neglected driveway.
Jack nodded. He’d given up on words hours ago.
“Want some water? Maybe some aspirin for that potato on your noggin?”
Jack nodded again.
“Yeah. We all got wants. You want water.” The detective twisted his bronze academy ring so that its scales of justice once again faced upward. Jack wondered how many mirror images that ring had left on his cheek. “I want to know why you killed all those people.”
Jack shut his eye. It was as if he was still back in his living room, still trying to make sense of all the blood. Blood painting the walls. Blood soaking his shirt. Blood caking his hands, his face. Blood dripping from the splintered chair leg he’d clutched close to his chest. Blood and more blood that flooded his vision and choked the air with copper nausea. He could still hear the screams—his and Its—ringing in his ears.
Jack swallowed. “I didn’t . . .” Each syllable broke like glass on stone. “I didn’t kill any people.”
Suddenly, the world went upside down again. His head hit the floor with a crack. Lights, green and magenta, exploded across his inverted horizon. The breath left his lungs in a shuddering wheeze.
“Oops. Clumsy me, always pushing your chair over.” The detective clamped his hands on Jack’s shoulders, upending both him and the chair. He shoved both back against the table. “Hey
, look on the bright side. Maybe that one’ll knock some sense into you.”
Jack kept his silence. He knew his words were wasted. Even the ones in his head, wasted.
“Nineteen people, Jack. You killed nineteen people, remember? Drained ’em of all the blood, too. Left a bunch down by the railroad tracks. The pieces we could find, anyway.”
Jack slumped forward. His cracked ribs thrummed, but he didn’t care. Not about the hits he’d taken, not about the detective who’d doled them out, not about the next trip to the floor. All he thought about was It—standing there in the shadows just past his hedges, steam rising from where the blood struck the snow. Face plastered with gore. A face it had stolen from—
“Wake up, Mr. Jackson!” The detective snapped fingers as thick as sausages under Jack’s nose. “No sleeping till you give us answers.”
“I don’t have any.”
“I don’t believe you.”
“You saw what was in that house. You had to!” Agony marbled every word Jack spit out. But a throbbing rage beat a tattoo at his temples, spurring him on. “You saw it. That’s what killed those people. That’s what killed—” His resolve finally broke, shattering against the detective’s feldspar stare. Once again, he could not even bring himself to speak her name.
The detective let out a hollow chuckle. He straddled the empty folding chair, easing his bulk onto it with a weary sigh. “The monster. Yeah. I saw the monster.” A maimed hope limped into Jack’s heart. Then the detective leaned forward. A nicotine-stained grin split his graying goatee. “I’m looking at him right now.”
It was useless. “Believe what you want. I know the truth.”
The detective cracked his knuckles. Each pop echoed off cinderblock like the snapping of a spine. “There’s no such thing as vampires, Mr. Jackson. Not outside the midnight double features. No vampires. Just sick fucks like you. And average schlubs like me whose job it is to see they end up strapped to a gurney and riding that needle straight to hell.”
Hell? Jack was already there. He wished that the SWAT team had simply shot him the moment they’d busted down his front door. Or that the next haymaker from the detective would give him a fatal hematoma. If that’s where all this was headed, why drag it out?
“Mr. Jackson. Let me make this easy. You don’t have to tell me about all of them. You can save that for the judge. Just tell me about one.” The detective leaned in close, close enough for Jack to smell his stale tobacco breath knifing through a haze of Aqua Velva. “Tell me about your wife.”
Wife. Sarah hadn’t been his wife. Not yet, and now never would be. Jack knew in his heart that if he closed his good eye, he’d see her. He knew that much. He wouldn’t see what he’d seen in that room—not what had been left of her slumped in the corner, blond curls framing her porcelain face, pale blue eyes staring sightlessly into nothing. No, if he closed his good eye, he’d see her with that sideways smirk she always saved for one of his lame jokes. He’d see her furrowing deeper under layers of quilts and comforters as the alarm clock clanged away unheeded. He’d see her secretly wipe away the tears that always welled at the sappy moments of her favorite sitcom. He’d see that and so much more. He’d see it all.
Jack kept his good eye open. “Go to hell.”
He readied himself for another trip to the tiles, then suddenly there came an insistent rapping on the cell door. The detective rose to answer. Jack caught only bits of the conversation that followed. It was short and very one-sided. “What?” the detective said. “This is my collar, pal.” And, “I don’t care what that paper says.” And then, finally, “Ahh, this is bullshit!” followed by the clank of a slammed door.
Silence returned. After a few moments, Jack heard the rasp of a lighter’s flint wheel, the crackle of cigarette paper in flame. He looked up to see a man dressed in a crisp charcoal suit sitting where the detective had been. The man exhaled a cloud of blue smoke, then leaned over and pushed a fresh cup of water toward Jack. A couple of aspirin tablets followed.
Jack reached for the cup. The man did not stop him. Jack took the aspirin. The man did not stop him then, either. The water was cool, the aspirin, welcome. “You must be the good cop.”
“Cop?” He took another long drag. “No, Mr. Jackson. I’m not a cop.”
“What, then? A lawyer?”
The man shook his head, his perfectly Brylcreemed coiffure unmoving. “No. I’m with The Division.” The subtle force with which he enunciated those final two words left no doubt that both were capitalized. “And trust me when I tell you that we are the only people who are ever going to believe a word you say.”
One
Beth Becker was late, very late, for her shift. She’d already sprinted ten blocks from the bus stop. Despite the autumn air that bit at the acres of flesh left exposed by her Halloween costume, her skin was slick with sweat. She heard little besides the rush of blood swirling in her ears and the incessant thwap thwap thwap of her boot soles as they slapped the cracked sidewalk. But what little she heard was enough.
She stopped for a moment and strained to catch the sound. It was a whine alternating with a low, throaty growl that was impossible to ignore—no matter how hard the other pedestrians buzzing past tried to do just that. It came from a gap between two decaying and abandoned buildings that was not quite wide enough to be called an alley. It looked like an empty tooth socket in a meth head’s already ruined smile. Beth drew closer to the almost-alley, ignoring the aura of raw gloom that oozed from it onto the sidewalk.
She cocked her ear toward the shadows, but heard nothing except a thin silence. Beth checked the time. If she left now, she might manage to clock in only fifteen minutes after she was due. That would net her nothing stronger than stern words. If she showed up much later than that, it was anyone’s guess what management’s response might be. She turned to go—and again caught that whine, only now it came laced with bits of unintelligible words, piercing shrieks, and hollow laughter. Something about it all was wrong, very wrong, almost sick.
Beth slipped into the alleyway. The chill and shadows wrapped around her like a cowl. The air was rife with an acrid stench which left no doubt that this urban fissure moonlighted as an alfresco piss stop. The familiar New Harbor din began to fade as she stepped farther from the street, overtaken by more jeers, more taunts, and that wavering whine. She drew close to a dogleg in the brick warren. On one wall was a freshly scrawled patch of graffiti: Beware the Night Angel in Day-Glo orange spray paint.
She rounded the final corner and was greeted by a wall of backs. There were five of them, four whippet-thin and wiry, one who strained the waistband of his soiled canvas cargos. They all wore grimy hoodies or grease-stained windbreakers. A pack of punks from Grey Hill or suburban kids playing at it. Past the swaying of their gangly limbs, Beth spotted the source of that whine and growl, a haggard mutt whose collar had snagged on the twisted hem of a rusted cyclone fence.
“Get it. Get it,” demanded the one on the end, the fat one, his spare tire undulating with sadistic giddiness. One of the others obliged, hurling an empty forty-ounce bottle at the dog. It shattered against the fence and rained glass.
Beth had seen enough. Time cards be damned, this had to stop. She stepped from the shadows. “Hey! What the hell do you think you’re doing?”
They turned. Shame blushed across their teenage faces in a wave. None of them would meet her eyes. They started shuffling away from one another in the random pattern of a crowd that suddenly realized its reason to crowd was gone.
All except one, that is, the fat one, who sauntered toward her. “What’s it to you, skank?” His voice was crammed with the mush-mouth adolescent arrogance of someone who’d just discovered the thrill of muscling around his mother.
Beth planted her feet. “Shouldn’t you idiots be in school?”
“Nah, skank. School’s out.”
“Then go home. Leave that do
g alone.”
He took another step closer, hands thrust into his Carhartts. Beth spied a wisp of peach fuzz staining his brace-faced smile. The others began to advance on her too, exchanging nudges and wry looks. “We’re just having fun.”
“Have it someplace else.” Beth quickly glanced behind her. The street was farther away then she would have liked. The fat one’s ruddy eyes slid down the front of her costume, almost tugging at the laces of her red and black punk-rock devil corset. Beth suddenly felt acutely aware of just how little clothing she had on.
“How ’bout we have some fun with you, skank?” He shuddered out a laugh, shooting glances at his pack, all eager to see the next move. Behind them, the dog rattled the fence, straining to break free. The fat one took another step.
“I think you’d better go home,” Beth said. “Just go home before—”
“Before what?” His filthy mitt shot out to paw her corset.
Beth knocked it aside and then hit him with a hard right. His nose exploded with blood. She hit him again, and he went staggering. “Before that.” She gripped both shoulders, bringing him in for a knee, followed by an elbow to the jaw.
He sucked air through his ruined nose with a sick gurgle. Beth locked his thumb and twisted him around, almost wrenching off the digit. He managed a babyish whimper as she shoved him down to the slimy pavement. She locked her knee in the crook of his neck. The others stood in shocked silence. The dog yelped in approval.
“Get this crazy bitch off me,” the kid squawked, all his bluster melting like ice cream dropped on an August sidewalk.
“You all going home now?” Beth tugged out her cell. “Or do I call the cops?” They answered in unison by scuttling for the street. Beth hadn’t fought off a decade and a half of groping delinquents and grab-happy clubbers just to wind up jumped by a pack of teenage twerps. Not today. Not ever. She knew how to throw a punch, and more important, she knew when.
“Let me up,” he blubbered. “Please, lady, you gotta let me up.”
“Shut up, you little prick.” As she pressed harder, she got a closer look. His terror was rank. His pudgy cheeks wobbled with each sob as tears and blood pooled on the pavement. Another pool spread out from between his splayed legs. Despite his bulk, he couldn’t have been more than fifteen. A punk, yes, but still a kid.