GRAVEWORM Read Online Free

Her mouth was taped shut. She was dirty and her eyes were wide open, manic with a horror and shock that was quite near to full-fledged insanity.
    This is what Margaret saw.
    About the same time she saw the man standing there.
    He was wearing a black coat, tall and pale, his eyes very dark with a leering catatonic stare to them. He had something in his hand. A length of chain. A leash. And it was connected to the collar around Lisa’s throat.
    Margaret screamed.
    Screamed the way one does when faced with the most brutal, inhuman depravity that the mind can bear to look upon.
    Behind her, a scampering.
    The girl came in on all fours. A nauseating stench of shit and urine came off her. Squatting there, she rocked back and forth on her haunches. She was naked, her hair long and dark, matted with leaves and dirt. She looked to be no older than Lisa. In fact, quite a bit younger. Her skin was so positively bloodless it looked white, the ghastly pallor accentuated by black streaks over her thighs and chest and that round belly—
    Oh, not that, Lord, not that…
    Shit.
    She had painted herself up with her own shit.
    She squatted there, giggling, reveling in her own stink and repulsive nature. Her eyes were large with an unblinking deranged glare in them, the eyes of an animal as seen in headlights: shining and feral. She touched herself between her legs and her vulva was hairless, swollen and grotesquely red. A stream of piss struck the linoleum.
    “ My name is Worm,” the girl said. “Isn’t that a pretty, pretty name? And aren’t I a pretty, pretty girl? Do you like me? Like how pretty, pretty, pretty I am?”
    Lisa squirmed on the floor.
    And the girl named Worm let out a bestial grunt.
    Margaret shook her head, lashing it from side to side.
    No, no, no! She would not allow this… this… this violation of all that was good and decent, this degradation, this defilement of all she knew and loved and honored. Fresh pains stabbed in her chest, going off like clusterbombs. Her vision blurred. Her left arm went limp and numb. Crying out, clenching her teeth, she reached out and pulled a tenderizing mallet from the block on the counter with her good hand.
    With a last fevered, raging breath, she brandished the mallet. “Well, come on then,” she gasped. “Come on, you vile little shit! Come and get yours!”
    The girl growled.
    The man laughed.
    And when that hideous girl jumped at her, Margaret swung the mallet with everything she had left.
    Which by that point, wasn’t much.
     
    5
    Tonight was going to be mellow wasn’t it?
    Just a laid-back, kick-off-your-shoes kind of night?
    No stress, no worry, no goddamned drama.
    Tara Coombes came tooling up the street in her little Stratus and she was hopeful, honestly hopeful.
    Hopeful that she wouldn’t waltz into some tragedy.
    Hopeful that tonight her only worry would be burning a frozen pizza.
    Of course, she hoped for that every night. After thirteen hours of work that really felt like a solid twenty-four, she had the right to some peace and quiet, didn’t she? Nine to five at the Teamster Hall typing and filing and fielding calls from disgruntled union members whose bosses (they claimed) were sadistic Nazis. Then a quick hour to throw herself together and off to the Starlight to hustle drinks for another four hours… something which had turned into five hours tonight. After that sort of grind, God knew she needed a break. Just a nice peaceful hour or two without any bickering or fighting or drama.
    Would that night of nights be tonight?
    Tara slowed the car, sighing, suddenly in no hurry to get home.
    She loved her kid sister more than most people loved their own children. And maybe that was because of the accident that had killed their parents, leaving her at twenty-three in charge of a teenager, and maybe she was just making up for lost time not being around as her kid sister grew up. Regardless, Lisa was her whole world. And she was, admittedly, quite a kid. Very