Selected scenes from the.., p.1
Selected Scenes from the End of the World, page 1
EARTHWORM GODS
SELECTED SCENES FROM THE END OF THE WORLD
By
BRIAN KEENE
INTRODUCTION
Welcome back to the end of the world.
Well, one of the worlds, anyway…
This book is a follow-up to a previous short story collection entitled The Rising: Selected Scenes From the End of the World. Like its predecessor, the characters in this book are based on real people. The publisher, Delirium Books, offered thirty-two customers an opportunity to star in their own story, set in the world of my novel, The Conqueror Worms (published in hardcover as Earthworm Gods). If you’ve purchased this book, then I’m assuming you’ve read that novel. If not, then perhaps a brief history lesson and introduction are in order. And if you’ll allow me a small indulgence, I’m going to take the opportunity to correct some popular misconceptions, as well.
Several years ago, I wrote a short story called “Earthworm Gods.” People dug it and wanted more, so I wrote another story-a semi-sequel-called “The Garden Where My Rain Grows.” People dug that one, too, so I wrote them a novel based on those two stories.
An oft-repeated popular misconception is that I simply mashed the two stories together and called them a book. This is incorrect, and a matter of personal consternation to me. Nothing could be further from the truth. First off, the combined word length of those two stories is a little over 26,000 words. The novel clocks in at just over 85,000 words. That’s a big difference for just “slapping two stories between book covers and calling it a novel” (as one particularly noxious reviewer claimed on Amazon.com). Secondly-and this is the why it makes me angry-while the stories and the novel share some of the same characters and plotline, I know for a fact that they actually take place in different worlds. Different realities.
Long-time readers know, of course, that there is a subtle mythos tying all of my novels and stories together. It’s called “the Labyrinth” and it lurks in the background of all my written work. It can be briefly summarized like this-there are different worlds and different realities on different planes of existence. This means that there are many different Earths, existing side-by-side in neighboring realities (or “levels,” as they are referred to within the mythos). On one Earth, perhaps civilization crumbles under a plaque of zombies. On another, perhaps the planet burns to a cinder. The Conqueror Worms and the two similar short stories take place on two different Earths, each of which has been devastated by a series of global super-storms. The stories in this book also take place on one of those Earths, specifically, the one from the novel.
And to further blow your mind, consider this. As I said at the beginning, the characters in these stories are based on real people. Several of those people also had stories appearing in The Rising: Selected Scenes From the End of the World. Their stories in this book are alternate reality versions of themselves.
Now, if you haven’t read The Conqueror Worms or the related short stories, here is what you need to know: One day it started raining all over the world. The rain didn‘t stop. With it came hurricanes, typhoons, tidal waves, and tornadoes like mankind had never before experienced. Much of the planet is now underwater. The survivors gather together on mountaintops or on the roofs of buildings still jutting above the tide. As if they didn’t have enough trouble, the survivors are also menaced by a variety of bizarre monsters-giant squids, vampiric mermaids, a mysterious white fungus, and giant, carnivorous worms.
So far, that’s all we know. This book will reveal more. The first story in the collection takes place on the day that the mysterious rains start. The last story takes place sometime after the events in The Conqueror Worms. You’ll see old favorites and meet a few new monsters. More is revealed about the strange fungus called “The White Fuzz” (which was also featured in a short story called “Take Me To the River”-that story appeared in Delirium’s lettered edition of Earthworm Gods, and is also connected to the rest of this mythos). My advice is to read these stories in order. Many of them are inter-connected and the events in one impact the events in another.
So, that’s all you need to know, I think. I hope that you enjoy this collection. Thanks for buying it. I also hope that you brought along an umbrella and a shotgun. We’ll need them both. Our first stop is Lafayette, Indiana. The sun is shining and it’s a beautiful day, but if you look up in the sky, you’ll notice that the clouds are darkening.
It looks like rain…
Brian Keene
Heart of Darkness, Pennsylvania
November 2007
1
LOCKE’S ARK
Lafayette, Indiana
Kevin Locke was asleep when God spoke to him.
“KEVIN…”
He bolted upright, gasping. His wife, Taya, slept next to him, breathing softly. Their Yorkie dog, Harley, twitched at the foot of the bed, dreaming.
“Nightmare,” Kevin muttered. He was about to lay back down when the voice spoke again.
“KEVIN!”
Kevin clenched the sheets in his fists and tried not to scream. A low moan escaped his throat.
“I AM THE ALPHA AND OMEGA.” The voice boomed across the bedroom, rattling the lamps and furniture. “I AM THE LORD YOUR GOD. BUT I AM NO NIGHTMARE.”
Kevin’s heart pounded. He tried to breathe and found he couldn’t. His ears rang. How could Taya and Harley sleep through this?
“BECAUSE I WISH THEM TO.”
And the voice could read minds, too?
Kevin fumbled for the light and switched it on. Next to him, Taya moaned but stayed asleep.
The room was empty.
“KEVIN, IF I HAVE SATISFIED YOUR CURIOSITY, WE SHOULD PROCEED. YOU MUST HARKEN.”
I’m dreaming, he thought. There’s nobody here, but I still hear it talking, so I must be dreaming.
“NO, YOU ARE NOT. KNOW THIS, OH MAN. THE EARTH WILL SOON BE FLOODED AGAIN, JUST AS IT WAS IN NOAH’S TIME. THE END OF ALL FLESH IS BEFORE US AND I CANNOT STOP IT, FOR THIS TIME, IT IS NOT OF ME. EVERYTHING THAT IS ON THE EARTH SHALL DIE, BUT WITH YOU, I WILL ESTAB-LISH A COVENANT. MAKE AN ARK IN YOUR BACKYARD. WHEN THE WATERS COME, YOU, TAYA, AND HARLEY SHALL HAVE SAFE PASSAGE. YOU SHALLTRAVERSE THE FLOODED EARTH AND SAVE MANY. YOU SHALL DO MY WILL, EVEN IN THIS TIME OF DARKNESS. HARKEN.”
The voice stopped speaking. The atmosphere in the bedroom changed. The air felt less heavy.
“Hello?” Kevin whispered.
There was no response.
“Are you there, God? It’s me-Kevin.”
Silence.
Kevin turned the light off and slept no more that night. He lay there shivering. The room seemed very dark.
***
He told Taya about it the next day. She didn’t belittle him, and kept her tone neutral, but her expression was concerned.
“It was just a dream,” she insisted.
“Do you really believe that? What if I’m losing my mind or something? I could be schizophrenic.”
“You’re not schizophrenic. Do you want to talk to Pastor Chad about this?”
He shrugged. “I don’t know. He might get offended or something. He’d probably think I was crazy.”
“No, he wouldn’t. And neither do I. I love you.”
“I love you, too.”
Kevin had to admit, she was taking this pretty well. Taya was very religious, and attended the Reformed Church of America. Kevin had faith, but he had no patience for organized religion. He went to church with Taya, but he believed more in a greater good than he did in God. He considered himself lucky that Taya prayed for him often.
“You’re not schizophrenic,” she repeated, “but you didn’t hear the voice of God, either. And this thing about the flood? God promised mankind that He would never flood the earth again.”
“He said this wasn’t His doing, and that He couldn’t stop it.”
Taya smiled. “Well, there you go. If it was God, He’d be able to stop it from happening.”
***
Days passed and Kevin chalked it up to a weird dream. He had three jobs. He worked for Custom Select Catering during the day and tended bar at Bruno’s a few nights a week. He also operated an eBay business, selling horror toys and Bowen statues as Donkey Punch Toys, with his childhood friend, Shane. Between the three jobs and golf, there was no time to think about anything else- especially building an Ark.
By the end of the week, he’d completely forgotten about it.
***
God came back two weeks later. This time, when He spoke, Kevin was awake-sitting in his office, surrounded by books and Bowen Marvel busts and listening to the Boston Red Sox on the radio.
“Bases loaded,” the announcer said. “Bottom of the ninth. Let’s see if-”
The announcer’s voice changed, exploding out of the speaker.
“KEVIN, WHY HAVE YOU NOT DONE AS I COM-MANDED?”
“Oh God!” Startled, Kevin fell out of his chair.
“TIME IS SHORT. LEVIATHAN AND BEHEMOTH ARE ABOUT TO BREACH THE WALLS BETWEEN WORLDS. YOU MUST BUILD AN ARK.”
“No dream,” Kevin whispered, cowering against a bookshelf. He clapped his hands over his ears and shut his eyes. “This is it. I’m crazy.”
“YOU ARE NOT CRAZY. I AM THE LORD, YOUR GOD.”
“Prove it.”
“I HAVE KNOWN YOUR SOUL SINCE BEFORE YOU WERE BORN. I KNOW EVERYTHING ABOUT YOU; INCLUDING THINGS YOU DON’T KNOW YOURSELF. I AM ALWAYS WITH YOU. I WAS THERE IN BOSTON, WHEN YOU
“You know about that?”
“I KNOW ABOUT EVERYTHING. YOU SHOT A BOW COMPETITIVELY IN HIGH SCHOOLAND STILL HAVE IT IN STORAGE. YOU HAVE CALLED YOUR FRIEND SHANE ‘THE PUNISHER’, EVER SINCE HE CAME TO A COLLEGE HALLOWEEN PARTY DRESSED AS THE PUNISHER. HE HAD A ZUCCHINI STUFFED IN HIS TIGHTS. YOU AND TAYA WERE MARRIED ON SOUTH PADRE ISLAND AND SAID YOUR VOWS BEFORE ME. YOU’VE SPENT BOTH ANNIVERSARIES WATCHING THE PATS BEAT UP THE BENGALS IN CINCINNATI.”
I knew it, Kevin thought. God is a Pat’s fan!
“INDEED,” God said. “AND I’M A SOX FAN, AS WELL. DO YOU BELIEVE NOW, OH MAN?”
“I-I don’t know…”
The voice softened. “THAT IS OKAY, KEVIN. FOR I BELIEVE IN YOU. THAT IS WHY YOU MUST BUILD AN ARK.”
“But I don’t know anything about boats,” Kevin said. “I mean, I can swim and shit, but-sorry. Didn’t mean to curse.”
“I HAVE GIVEN YOU THE KNOWLEDGE. ALL YOU MUST DO IS LOOK INSIDE YOURSELF. BUILD THE ARK, AND I WILL GIVE THEE A CHILD.”
“W-what?”
Kevin and Taya had been trying, unsuccessfully, to have a baby. So far, Harley had filled that role, but Harley was a dog, and not as good as the real thing.
“God?”
The voice was gone again. Kevin stumbled to his feet. Like before, his ears rang.
“A baby,” he muttered. “Build an Ark.”
The announcer came back on, but Kevin was so pre-occupied, he missed the final score.
***
Taya was at work when he decided to get started. Kevin called in sick to the catering business, claiming a headache. He got dressed and ate breakfast. Harley whined at him.
“You be quiet,” Kevin told the Yorkie. “I know what I’m doing.”
Growling, Harley waddled away and went to sleep.
Kevin and Taya rented a three-bedroom house with a small fenced-in backyard in a cul-de-sac that they affectionately called “Little Mexico.” Their nearest neighbors were Rudy and Rosa. The house next to Rudy’s was abandoned. Word on the street was that the husband was in prison, but nobody knew for sure. Across the circle from their home was a family with a teenage son, who the rest of the neighborhood referred to as Eminem. He hung out in front of the house in a wife-beater shirt all day long. To the left of Kevin and Taya’s house lived a strange family with a pre-teen son who talked to himself and wasn’t allowed to leave his yard. The husband and wife looked more like brother and sister, and the husband supposedly spent his weekends in Madison, Wisconsin, relaxing in the arms of other men.
Taya had come to the relationship with more tools than Kevin, so he had to borrow them from Rudy. No way was he going to ask the weirdo next door, and he doubted Eminem knew the difference between a hammer and a screwdriver.
He put on Dr. Dre’s The Chronic-an oldie but a goodie, and then walked over to Rudy’s house. When Kevin asked to borrow the tools, Rudy inquired about what he was building.
Kevin shrugged. He couldn’t tell his neighbor that God had commanded him to build an Ark. Pastor Chad would have probably said this was a wonderful opportunity to witness to Rudy about Christ, but Kevin was afraid that Rudy would laugh.
“A doghouse,” he lied. “Harley’s been crapping inside, so I’m building a doghouse for him.”
“You don’t say?”
Rudy’s expression betrayed his thoughts. He was envisioning long, sleepless nights spent listening to Harley bark, wanting to come back inside. But he lent Kevin the tools. Kevin walked back to his yard.
“Now I need some lumber.”
He paused. Dr. Dre filled the silence, rapping about the forty-four reasons that came to mind, why his enemy’s brother was hard to find.
But what kind of lumber do I need?
“Who’s the man with the master plan?” Dr. Dre asked.
Hell with the lumber, Kevin thought. I need a plan. And I need to have my fucking head examined. What am I doing? This is ridiculous.
He was about to give up and return Rudy’s tools, when a cloud passed over the sun, casting shadows on the grass. Kevin turned his head to the sky. A single raindrop splattered against his forehead. Blinking, Kevin wiped it away, staring at the moisture on his fingertips. He looked up again. The sky was getting dark.
“Okay,” he shouted. Then he lowered his voice. “Your will be done, God. Your will be done.”
Thunder rumbled in the distance.
It started to rain.
2
NIGHT CRAWLERS
Montclair, New Jersey
“Are you crazy?”
Stephen Griglak looked at his wife, Eileen, and shook his head.
“No. Why?”
“Have you looked outside?”
“Yeah.” He shrugged. “It’s raining. So what?”
Eileen stared at him. Stephen felt his cheeks flush. In the background, Bruce Springsteen sang about a woman in Calverton who put her baby in the river and let the river roll on. Outside, raindrops beat against the windows like bullets.
“You heard what they said on the news.” Eileen sighed. “All of those poor people.”
Stephen had indeed heard about it. It was all the newscasters were talking about. Yesterday, it had started raining all over the world. Worse, a series of super-storms were spreading havoc on several continents. Florida’s panhandle and the entire Gulf Coast were instantly wiped out when ten-story waves crashed over them, driven ashore by a massive storm swell and winds of over two hundred miles per hour. Grand Isle, New Orleans, Apalachicola, and Pensacola were submerged in the blink of an eye, along with the two million people living there who never got the chance to evacuate. Interstate Sixty-Five, near the coast of Alabama, had been snarled in gridlock when it happened. All of those people died beneath the rushing waters, trapped inside their cars.
“That was down south,” Stephen said. “We’re in New Jersey.”
“But it’s raining here, too,” Eileen protested. “It’s raining everywhere. Just like what Al Gore has been saying.”
“Al Gore is an idiot.”
While Stephen believed in global warming (it seemed obvious that, in his lifetime, winters were warmer), he didn’t believe its cause was predominantly manmade.
On the stereo, Springsteen gave way to Vivaldi’s “Four Seasons.” Thunder rumbled outside. Stephen wondered which season this was.
“Look,” he said, “I know you’re worried, but it will be okay. It’s a freak weather phenomenon. Tomorrow morning, the rain will stop and the sun will be back out, and we’ll be fine. But meanwhile, I’ve got worms to catch.”
Stephen had planned a weekend fishing trip to the Delaware Water Gap National Recreation Area. He loved it there; the area had seventy thousand acres of ridges, forests, and lakes on both sides of the Delaware River in New Jersey and Pennsylvania. For almost forty miles, the river passed between low-forested mountains with barely a house in sight, before heading out to sea. Stephen loved camping and hiking, and knew how to fly-fish and track animals. He’d been looking forward to this trip for weeks.
All he needed was bait.
“You’re not still thinking about going fishing this weekend?”
“Why not?” Stephen smiled. “With luck, the rain will keep everyone else at home and I’ll have the river to myself.”
Thunder boomed again. The lights flickered, but the power stayed on.
“I really wish you wouldn’t. I don’t think it’s a good idea.”
Stephen sighed. “Eileen, I love you. We both know what I was like before I met you. All those wasted years. We got married. Life has been good since then. But I’m in my fifties, and I want to do what I want to do. And right now, that’s hunting for night crawlers so I’ve got bait for this weekend.”
She glanced at the window. Lightning flashed.
“You’re going out in that?”
Stephen grinned. “Yep.”
Shaking her head, Eileen crossed the floor and gave him a kiss on the cheek.
“I’m going to bed,” she said. “You’d better dry off before you get in it with me.”
“I will.”
“And wash your hands. I don’t want the sheets smelling like worms.”
