Hellarkey Vol. 3
featuring "Worm Wake," a story by Neil Wilcox
Greetings fiends,
All Hallows’ Eve is almost here, and with it comes volume 3 of our weird and spooky zine, Hellarkey. It’s too late to order a print copy, but we have a PDF available to download for only III dollars.
Once again, Malarkey authors Lauren Bolger, OF Cieri, and Eric Williams have selected ten dreadful stories of the macabre, the disgusting, the vile, the terrifying, the worm-ridden, the grim, gruesome, gross, and grotesque, for your reading displeasure. The lineup this year includes Daniel David Froid, Craig Rodgers, Vincenzo Della Malva, Ben Arzate, Adam McPhee, Neil Wilcox, K.A. Roy, Sarah Lofgren, Daniel Miller, and Joey Hedger. Get a taste below, if you can stomach it, with the full text of Neil Wilcox’s “Worm Wake.” Neil was even kind enough to send along an audio file.
Worm Wake
Neil Wilcox
“Your brother left some final requests. He asked that it be you who opened his suit and extracted his worm. And also the bird that’s in there.” The Prefect frowned at that last instruction. “Very peculiar.”
“If those are his requests . . .” He interrupted me as I plucked nervously at my skirt, trying to make it sit straight.
“I should note that there is no requirement. We can deal with the remains in any way that seems fit to you.” The Prefect showed distaste as though the phrase tasted bad to him.
“I shall fulfill his requests,” I said.
I dressed quickly. Overall, mask, gloves. The suit was laid out in a fully prepared room. Tongs, hooks, knives and the mincing machine.
I unlocked the neck bolts, turned the helmet wheel. Waited for a moment for the pressure to equalize. Then I opened the top hatch of the suit.
The worm extraction went as these things normally do. One cut in the right place and the mouth end comes questing out. Seize it with tongs, pull it into the mincer and then the rest follows. Just watch out for when the tail end comes loose.
From the helmet fell the bird, desiccated, a rag of bones and feathers. I popped it into the mincer as well, the brown and red churning mixture turning grey for a moment as it passed through. Eventually the tail end went into the mincer, wriggling to the last and I sealed the lid on the container.
The remnants of my brother, shrivelled and wormless, I left to be disposed of.
****
My aunt, Presta Jane, had all the requirements for the meal. This included a dining room large enough for all the invitees, the friends and family that custom and my brother’s instructions suggested. The precision of her service matched the formal necessities. A place for everything and everything in its place.
So we were all gathered, had taken our places. Made our greetings and been served the broth and only then I noticed something out of place. The butterknife. It was not part of the set.
On inspection it was not a butterknife.
It probably didn’t matter.
As chief mourner, not host, I had been sat at the foot of the table, opposite Presta Jane at the far end, to the annoyance of my cousins. This confused their own places in the family hierarchy. The rules of formality and ritual disrupted their machinations to become Presta Jane’s heir. Assuming that she ever left her own leading position, which seemed less likely with every passing year.
There was no need for butter, no bread or biscuits accompanied the soup. When I tried to attract the attention of one of the serving staff they ignored me. No need for butter. Presta Jane had set out the plan and they would not deviate from it. The not-butterknife would remain.
We finished the broth and the staff approached the table, removing the bowls and spoons. Now came the heart of the meal, the ritual section increasing the formality. As is necessary to keep control.
Presta Jane invoked the call. “Our beloved Robert, gone from us, bequeaths that which can only be passed when gone. The human has left, and in the end we return to the worm.”
“In the end,” intoned the cousins on my left hand. “We return to the worm,” said those on my right.
There was a knock at the door. “Who calls on us here, in our grief?” called out Presta Jane, loudly. A knock, repeated. Cousin Stefan proudly declared. “Who interrupts our remembrance of our dear departed Robert?” A deviation from the correct script that had Presta Jane glowering. It put me off and I stumbled over the words.
“Who is it, who waits without, who comes to our wake unbidden.” The challenge stuttered out and Presta Jane’s lips grew thin as she turned her disdain on me. I had not only jumbled the words I had used the wrong formula. Though a stranger has been engaged, as the rite requires, they are not, in this case, unbidden.
Cousin Penelope enjoyed my discomforture so much she snorted, and Presta Jane’s ire turned on her. Out of the line of succession as I am, her disapproval could only have minor effect on me.
The smell emerged from the kitchen and worm-hunger rose in me. I could see it around the table, heads cocking, eyes brightening. Uncle Peter, only a handful of years older than me, had his tongue hanging out, saliva gathering in a drip at the tip.
Four bangs on the door now, completely off-script. “Enter,” cried Presta Jane, even as the great dish arrived at the other door.
At my end of the room the door crashed open, but all eyes were on the other, as the platter of worm meat made its way in, carried on the shoulders of four serving men. All eyes but one pair. Presta Jane fixed her face on whoever entered behind me.
She rose to her feet and I tore my gaze away from the food as it began its progress, tamping down the worm-desire rising within me.
Behind me was a figure, strangely glowing, silvery mask over white-grey clothes. Dust followed them, sparkling in the light.
The Moon’s Herald.
“My mistress is disturbed,” declared the Herald, and I rose too, seeing the blood dripping from the long, thin sword in their hand. Behind was a dark clad body bleeding out; the stranger arranged for, cut down by one stranger still. “Your rites perturb the lunar epicycles.”
Cousin Stefan rose as well, ignoring Presta Jane’s bark of command. His worm-hunger had turned to worm-fury. He snatched up the nearest implement—the butterknife that was not a butterknife—and charged the Herald.
The Herald elegantly sidestepped, raising their own blade, made another half step. Straight into the dish held by the four footmen, sending the lid flying, sparkles and moondust spraying out.
Presta Jane screamed orders that no one followed. I gripped the arms of my chair so tightly that I thought my worm might emerge, holding myself back. The others dived forward to begin the feast, the footmen hastily lowering the dish and getting out the way.
The Herald had just a touch of the worm flesh meal on his jacket, and cousin Stefan locked on to it, eyes worm-yellow. His mouth opened, wider than it should, bone creaking and blood welling from the corners. He lunged.
In one extraordinary cut the herald slit him open from groin to nose, and his worm emerged from the body, screaming and writhing, turning on the other cousins, fanged mouth blindly latching on.
The blood sprayed the meal of worm-flesh, mixing with the moondust. And from it emerged something sparkling and red, flashing wings. A blood moon phoenix, the bird that was inside Robert’s suit, no longer the dried-out mummy. The cousins fought, Presta Jane yelled at the cowering servants and the Moon’s Herald regained their feet, and tried to regain their dignity. The bird flew around the room three times. Until I opened a window and it escaped.
I looked back into the room. Total pandemonium. The ritual meal wrecked.
Just as my brother would have wanted.
Neil Willcox is six and a half feet tall and shambles about like a badly animated compost heap. He lives in South East England and writes very normal fiction, occasionally finding his way into an office for paying work. For further information, keep an eye on the local press for sightings.