Free Wormfood by Jeff Jacobson Page B

“Please!”
    Junior hissed down into the pit, “Quiet! Quiet!” I heard the winch’s whine change pitch, then a dull thud as the steer landed in the back of the truck.
    I kept kicking the rotten cow corpses away. Something brushed against my hand. Something that wasn’t just floating along the surface. Something that moved on its own.
    It wasn’t a maggot; it felt too big. I shrieked and slapped at the water. “There’s something down here!” I screamed.
    “Shhhhhh!” Junior hissed. “Shut up!” He angled the light down into the pit, revealing the choppy surface of the water.
    I felt a stabbing pain in my right palm and I screamed again, jerking myhand out of the muck. A thin, gray tube was attached to the webbing between my thumb and forefinger. As I watched, the thing undulated, like it was swallowing, and it slid a half inch deeper into my hand. I could feel it inside, squirming, chewing on muscles and tendons. Screaming, I ripped the thing away with my free hand.
    “Shut the fuck up!” Junior shouted hoarsely.
    The hook bumped my head. I grabbed it, shrieking, “Something bit me!” I wrenched my gaze toward the truck but could see only the dim sky, the flashlight, and Junior’s silhouette. “Up, you stupid motherfucker!”
    The hook started to rise. I clung grimly to it, pulling my knees up to my chest. It rotated slowly as it rose, and I was pulled sluggishly away from the surface of the pit, slowly spinning in midair. I blinked slime out of my eyes and glanced down.
    The dead steers were gently rolling in the small waves I had created with my kicking. Long, gray things darted about, squirting across the surface between the carcasses.
    “Oh, shit,” Junior whispered. I hoped that he had seen whatever those gray things were, but his eyes were fixed on the horizon. “It’s Slim.” He killed the flashlight. “Let’s go, let’s go.”
    The hook finally reached the edge of the pit, but I was holding on with both hands so Junior grabbed the back of the truck to give himself some stability, then reached out with his other hand and grabbed the cable. He pulled me toward the edge.
    I blindly shot my leg out, dug my shoe into the mud, and lurched toward the truck. I fell hard, gasping for breath. Junior immediately nudged me with the toe of his cowboy boot, keeping an eye on the distant light. “Let’s go. We don’t need Slim out here, nosir.”
    I grabbed the trailer hitch and rose to my knees. I looked down into the darkness of the pit and tried to flex my hand. A twisted hole bled slightly in the webbing by my thumb.
    Junior kicked me in the butt. “C’mon. Let’s go. Get in the back. Don’t need you stinking up the cab.” I felt myself lifted from behindand thrown into the truck, landing on top of the carcass with a wet, hollow thud. I rolled off the steer and pushed myself back against the cab with my feet. Junior slammed the door and started the truck. I drew my knees up to my chin and kept working at making a fist, over and over, making the wound bleed more and more and more.
    The truck lurched up the hill and we rumbled off into the night.

CHAPTER 11
    The truck bounced and swayed up the pitted gravel road that led over the low foothills. We were headed down the back end of Road E toward the Sawyer house. I’d never been there, but I knew where the house was. Everybody knew where the house was; everybody knew because it was a place that you stayed away from. Even the mailman refused to come all the way out here. Instead, he dumped the mail into a bucket out on the highway.
    Thunder rumbled softly to the west, but the air was dry for the moment. A cool night wind had dried the thick, scummy water on my skin, leaving a filmy, greasy residue behind. The truck jerked violently to the left, plowing through a deep puddle, and I rolled with it, bracing my foot against the wet, matted hair of the carcass for support. The steer lay stiffly on its side, legs jutting straight out, and rocked