I lifted the candle just as the corpse opened its eyes.
When the hurricane’s eye had passed over the school, the howling winds dropped away and we sat in sudden, impossible silence. I felt the same way now. Inside my head, I heard myself think, with weary resignation,Of course. Botfly larvae require living flesh.
It was impossible that he was alive, and yet he turned his head to look at me. The sound of dry skin sliding across vertebrae was like a snake moving over stone. With the eerie calm of the hurricane’s eye, I saw that the black stains on his face were actually insects clustered around his nose and mouth.
Black and yellow flies. I knew them, of course. I knew their shape intimately. I had labored over paintings, using the finest brush I had to draw in every tiny, bristling hair.
Cracked lips parted. A fly clung to the corner of his mouth. His gums had receded so far that his teeth looked as long and sharp as a dog’s.
“… who… are… you…”
I should have been moved to pity. I should have thrown myself on the shackles and tried to break him free. But the storm’s eye was moving still and the wind inside my head was picking up.
Oh god. All this time I thought the big mystery was what happened to Louisa, and really it was what was happening down here.
Underneath the mesh, the warbles began to sway.
“… who…”
Drops of swollen white flesh began to ripple. I watched with horrible fascination as dark, blunt bodies began to struggle loose, the wolf worms birthing themselves into the world.
I staggered backward and hit the wooden table with a thud. Rough boards dug into my back.
It broke the spell and I bolted.
The candle went out when I was halfway up the stairs, the flame extinguished as I splashed wax wildly. I dropped it, clutching for the drape.
Behind me, I heard a cry. Weaker than the one that I had heard a few weeks ago, but unmistakably the same—a shrill, rasping wail like sandpaper across my eardrums.
I flung the door back and made it out of the shed before I went to my knees, retching. Acid burned my throat, roared through the back of my nasal passages. It was agonizing but all I could think was,Please let it kill anything in there, please let them not have laid eggs in me, please God, please!
Even when I had stopped being sick, I couldn’t seem to get up. I wanted to run, I had to run, but I was shaking so hard that my teeth were chattering, and even in the midst of horror, some small part of me was annoyed by this.I am handling this all quite badly. I expected better of me, really.
I wanted, more than anything, to crawl into my bed and pull the blankets over my head. Then maybe the last few minutes would stop and I could push them into the past, into a thing thathadhappened, not a thing thatwashappening, right now, still.
Close the door. If I close the door, it’ll be over.
I wrestled with the drape, gasping through my raw throat, and swung the door shut. I understood now. It wasn’t to keep insectsoutfor an experiment, it was to keep themin.
The lock clicked. I turned and staggered away, my stockings squelching inside my shoes.
Something touched the back of my head.
It wasn’t heavy. No harder than a tap of Smiley’s paw, really. It might have been a pine cone falling. I reached up a hand to the back of my head, unthinking, and felt… legs.
Legs and bristles and a brief, papery buzz of wings andoh god it was huge it was on meright now—
I slapped it away with a scream. Buzzing filled my ears but I was running like a rabbit. Wet fabric slapped against my legs with every step but I didn’t care. If I lost my footing, if I stepped in a hole, I could hurt myself terribly, but at that moment, I think I would have crawled on a broken leg rather than spend an instant longer in the woods.
I hit the back door, flung it open, and slammed it closed behind me. The clock in the hall chimed a quarter to ten as I passed. I had been gone barely twenty minutes.
Twenty minutes was long enough for something to have laid eggs.
What was it that Holder had said?Nasty fellows, botflies… The larva hatches out, waits for a host to walk by, latches on, and climbs inside. Mouth, nose, anus, open wound, they don’t discriminate… Proper little monsters, they are.
Were there wolf worms climbing across my skin right now, looking for an opening? Had the one that landed on the back of my head been laying eggs? Were they on my hands, already hatching out in response to the warmth of my skin?
Had I touched my face or wiped my nose since I’d slapped away the botfly?
