Free Worm by Tim Curran Page A

it punched holes in doors and turned wicker hampers to sawdust and drilled right through one silly, harmless dog who, in his last moments, had decided to be a dog and defend his turf and maybe, just maybe, had been defending something of a little more worth.
    That goddamn mutt was trying to protect you and you know it. He died trying to kill that fucking worm because in the final analysis, you were his master and he would have done anything for you. That’s loyalty, my friend. Just try and find that in a human being.
    Tony wiped his eyes. No more goddamn walks in the park. No more yipping. No more chewing up things. No more accidents. No more anything.
    “Dammit, Stevie,” he said under his breath.
    The situation was getting the better of him and he had the strongest desire to just sit down on the floor and cry. He fumbled in his shirt pocket for a cigarette, lit it with trembling fingers. Lookit me, Steph, I’m smoking in your house. What do you think of that, Little Miss Perfect? He felt almost guilty doing it, knowing how fastidious she was about everything. She kept her little house as perfect as she kept herself. She never invited anyone into it either. She never let any hands but her own touch those things she loved best. That was funny, too. Good-looking woman like that with no men (or women for that matter) in her life. She had a few female friends—Charise had been one of them—but that was it and to call them friends was kind of stretching it.
    Acquaintances, Tony thought. She never had anything in her life but acquaintances.
    Maybe she was afraid of sex, afraid of commitment, afraid of relationships in general…and maybe she loved herself so much that the idea of sharing herself with another made her jealous.
    Tony pulled off his cigarette, staring at the muddy trail.
    The floorboards upstairs creaked momentarily. Houses made noises sometimes, he knew. Nine times out of ten, it was nothing. He went over to the stairs.
    “Steph?” he said, his voice echoing and dying.
    He heard no more sounds and that’s why he knew he had to go up there, even though the fear rising in his gut warned him against such an idea.
    Nobody could really blame you for leaving now. You tried and she’s not here. You really have no right to track this stinking mud all over her house, so go over to the O’Connors’, wait this out with Marv and Fern. Or visit Kathleen and Pat. Go see Geno. He was drinking beer on his porch not that long ago. Don’t just stand here, do something.
    But he wasn’t going to go to the O’Connors’ or the Mackenridges’ or the Desjardins’.
    He was going upstairs.
    As he climbed them, he said, “Hey, Steph, it’s me Tony from next door. There’s some shit going on you have to know about so I’m coming up to tell you about it. If you’re naked…well, that’s a chance I’m willing to take…”
    He blabbered on and on, whistling past the graveyard, until he reached the landing above and then his mouth simply closed in midsentence. It closed like a trap. It was like a switch inside of him had been thrown. There was something in the air. Something ominous and nearly overwhelming.
    The hallway was dark.
    Very dark.
    He had to feel along the wall for a light switch and he was almost certain that long before he found it, something would find him…some dark, twisted, elfin shape would come hobbling out of the darkness, reaching out for him with knobby fingers.
    Click.
    Light. That was better. There were no grinning horrors waiting in the shadows. In fact, there was nothing but an ordinary hallway. There were three doors. The first two were wide open. One was Steph’s bedroom—the garden of delight—and the other a guest room. He was interested in neither. He went over to the closed door. It was the bathroom. He knew that from his one visit two years before when Steph had thrown a birthday party for her sister.
    “Steph?” he said, rapping on the door. “You in there?”
    He knew somehow she