Wretched Little Worm

Eerie nights like the one Evander James was experiencing were strangely becoming more and more common. A shiver ran the length of his skin as the cooling fall air licked at his flesh with an uptick in the wind. The low waning light of the streetlamp as he walked beneath gave off just enough guidance in the murkiness of the creeping fog.

“Ehhhvaaaander…” It was almost as if the wind itself was howling out his name, but he blew it off as his overthinking mind as he turned the corner onto his street. He quickened his pace then, jogging a bit, convinced a downpour would open any second.

“Oomph,” with a thud, Evander suddenly found himself stumbling to the pavement,

“What the hell was that?” Flattening out his hands, Evander felt his fingers slide across a gooey substance, as he glanced down at his hand he grimaced as a foul odor rose to assault his nostrils,

“Oh, nasty!” He grumbled, leaping up as he noticed a blackish-looking vine that had surely been the cause of his fall. Stepping back quickly, Evander’s eyes widened with recognition as the vine suddenly seemed to pop upward, coiling as it reached for his ankle, and twisted about it quickly. Disorientation overtook him instantly, as his feet flew up from beneath him and the inky appendage made itself known.

“A tasty morsel walking my street tonight…and just after a fresh rain,” came the singsong and eerily feminine voice as Evander’s eyes suddenly found the source of his demise,

“What…what are you?” he shuddered, his arms flailing at his sides as his body remained suspended midair. Now, face to face with this creature, Evander noticed the darkness shimmer to her eyes, matched only by the haunting moonlight as it fell upon her dark tresses, but she was no apparition; of that he knew for sure as the wrenching motion of constricting continued to wrap about his ankle.

“Oh, quit your wriggling. It’s not going to do anything but make you taste rigid.”

“Taste…rigid?”

“Hm, you know…socializing has been just what’s forced my reluctance to hunt of late. Wouldst, thou mind thy tongue?” A sudden, and chuckling emitted the creature, so sinister in it’s release that Evander’s body once again trembled in fear.

“I’ve nothing…please, please; just let me go.” He murmured, suddenly finding himself spun about to face away, but the entity seemed instead to draw it's strange limb further up as it wrapped about his body. Round and round Evander spun, his equilibrium thrown off balance in such a way that now everything blurred together as he felt a slimy sensation slither across his lips, "ugh, nuh-" with his speech cut off by the gagging of his mouth, Evander now felt the air compressing against his chest as it was pushed from his lungs.

But, it seemed the sound of distant giggling still tugged at his ears as the creature began to speak, and Evander spun once more to come face to face with her again. Strangely, as his eyes focused upon the thing, squinting as they focused once more, the flicker within his iris became apparent when a gaping mouth spread out to reveal jagged teeth and a monstrous hammerhead shaped skull with gleaming reddish eyes where the woman's once darkly charcoal once had been.

A shudder overtook him and Evander felt his insides squeezing into mush even as the creature drew him in closer, and closer toward the massive razors of its maw, intent on only one thing; devouring him completely and as the salivating lips of the creature drew him forward, the very last thing to slip across Evander's skin was that same slimy goo, raking him into the insides of the worm that now consumed him in the shadows of one fall night.

THE END