Young Writers Society

Chapter 4: O, Worm

It was juvenile, but it was still the width of at least five or six men standing side-by-side. Its skin was a pinkish-brown, and there was a muddy slime that coated it, coagulating in its folds.

It unearthed with its mouth flayed open like four petals of a flower, peeling away to reveal rows and rows of dirt-brown, needle-like teeth. Spit or slime (she didn't know which) sputtered from its mouth onto the ground. Without hesitation, she fired right into its open maw.

Bam! Shk. Bam!

The worm let out an eerie, airy hiss as it rapidly withdrew back underground gone as quickly as it came. As it retreated, the rumbling returned, and the tremors felt deep, and it was impossible to tell how far underground the worm had gone, or how long it was. Still, the rumbling persisted.

Either it was very, very long, or there was more than one worm.

Finally, the cows had started making some distance, but the rumbling was still following in their direction. Ahead, she could see Matt had caught up to the back of the herd.

She rode to follow, gun trained on the earth the moment she saw it begin to crack and give way. A portion of the worm broke the surface, arching up like a snake, weaving in and out of the earth.

Bam!

It connected.

Bam!

The worm wriggled underground again, and the shot merely hit the dust. The prairie grass was torn apart, and piles and sinkholes of dirt followed in the worm's wake. Clandestine rode parallel to its path.

It surfaced once more, this time poking out its head again.

The second it was fully visible, she shot it again, this time in the back of the head (though where its head started and ended was indeterminable). She only got one shot at it before it slid back down into the earth with a screech and the rumbling began to recede.

It was going deeper this time.

If it wasn't traveling parallel to the surface, she wouldn't be able to predict where it'd surface again based on its path.

Smart, for a worm. She hated smart worms.

Scanning the area around them constantly, she followed just a little behind the herd, ready to shoot. Billy kept the pace behind the herd, just a few horse-lengths behind Matt and Elliot, who stayed at the back of the herd of noisy, nervous cows.

It was contained chaos. The only thing keeping the cows from scattering were the cowboys riding on either end whipping, yipping, and keeping them in line.

They'd run sideways up the next hill. The path of broken earth the worm left behind made it obvious, along with the well-trampled prairie grass from the herd. She had a feeling the worm wasn't going to stick to its pre-formed tunnels and would happily follow them further, from one hill to the next.

That was the annoying thing about sandworms. There was nowhere to hide from them. Even when you were still, they could sense through the earth where things were.

Part of Clandestine was convinced that sandworms must have had some kind of earth magic to accomplish that.

Then, the rumbling came suddenly.

It was ahead of her, and it felt like it was centered again towards the herd this time.

"Hyah!" she shouted, urging Billy forward.

But she couldn't move fast enough. The worm erupted from the earth like the world's largest groundhog near the back of the herd. The ground around the cows gave way and caused some of them to stumble until the earth was pushed out with the worm's head, and the cows fell and rolled to the sides, scrambling to their feet in terror.

Elliot and Matt nearly ran into it. Matt pulled on the reins at the last second, causing Elliot to rear back with a sharp neigh.

She watched as Matt tried to hang onto the saddle but slipped when the worm whipped its head in their direction. As Elliot jolted away and Matt flew to the ground, rolling into the dirt.

Billy was running on course straight for them. Clandestine's gun was aimed dead center on the worm.

She waited a split second as it flayed its mouth open.

Bam! Bam! Bam!

Three shots in succession, right into its throat. She knew that this was the same worm she'd been shooting before, because this time, she saw blood sputter out of its mouth, dripping and oozing red over its needle teeth.

Instead of screaming and retreating again, the worm screamed and turned its attention to the nearest moving thing.

Matt. Who had just started running.

Billy and Clandestine closed the distance. Clandestine whipped her gun back onto her back and unsheathed her sword at her side.

With a fire in her eyes, she lifted the sword over her head. The worm reached out after Matt but simultaneously came within reach of her blade.

She connected, catching onto its neck. She pushed it in as deep as she could, thrusting past layers of fleshy skin, and with Billy's momentum, the blade up carried through to its head.

Blood sputtered out in big, gushing splashes, getting on her, her sword, and Billy in turn. But when she ripped the sword out, it was through the side of its mouth.

This time, the worm finally appeared weakened. And truly angry.

It slumped its head to the ground and faltered. She took the opportunity of hesitation to ride Billy around the other side.

She noted Matt wasn't far. He was on the ground somewhere, but she knew she wouldn't be able to help him until this worm was finished.

The worm began to slowly sink backward with a sputtering noise, but she was quick to act. She caught her sword on the corner of its mouth, where two of its flappy mouth parts connected, and she dug in again. Billy's momentum once again helped her drag the blade through its side, but she had to fight to hold onto the blade and keep it steady.

The skin was thick, and even though she always kept her blade razor sharp, it resisted. She gritted her teeth, growling as she fought to hold onto the hilt and keep the sword ripping through as long as she could.

Her heart was pounding in her chest. She could feel her sweat melding her shirt to her skin, and her muscles straining against the pull.

Then, the worm stopped moving.

Where the worm met the earth, there was no more worm to stab, so she ripped the sword out, flinging blood onto the ground. Billy kept running.

Breathing heavily, she rode Billy back around to the head, staring at the worm's still, prone body lying heavily against the torn-up, grassy plains.

It lay just at the top of the hill.

Poetic.

Billy slowed to a canter, then to a trot as she rode him back and forth around the worm, admiring her work. She'd managed to slice through its skin on both sides, and though it wasn't perfectly cut in half, it was, essentially, leaking blood and guts out both sides, and that was enough to tell her that it was, effectively, dead.

When Billy finally slowed to a walk, she hopped off by the worm's head, inspecting it just to be doubly sure.

There wasn't exactly a pulse to check for with a sandworm, but she could feel for breath. With its mouth partially collapsed, all that was leaving the worm's mouth was a trickle of blood, dripping down onto the tousled grass.

Well, this was going to smell like the world's biggest dung pile in a few days. She hoped all of the scavenging beasts would take care of it, though. At least there were plenty of those out in the plains. This would be like a holiday for them - endless miles of worm to consume.

At least, that's what she hoped. The alternative was a giant, rotting worm corpse decomposing in the plains for a long, long time.

Then again, there wasn't much she could do about that. She was hired to kill the beasts, not dispose of them - and it was unrealistic to expect her to know what to do with this one alone.

"Bah," she huffed, turning away from the dead worm.

Billy stood behind her and his ears turned to her attentively at the noise. She smiled softly and reached up to pet the side of his face, brushing away some of the splattered blood around his eye.

"Sorry about that, buddy," she said. "I bet we both look horrifying right now. But not as bad as the worm."

Wait. That wasn't true.

What about Matt?