Night of the Worm

The doorbell rang, as Melissa knew it would, just as she stepped into the shower, her fingers on the temperature dial. It was almost as if they had some camera in her house allowing them to choose the most inappropriate and intrusive second to bother her. For a moment, just a moment, Melissa hesitated. She could ignore them, as most people did. But why should she? It was her house -- they had intruded on her life. Fuck them.

Melissa felt the familiar cold sensation of indignant rage surge through her at the perennial intrusion on her life on this date each year. She had always hated Halloween with its stupid traditions; pumpkins, fireworks, trick or treat. And like every other seasonal festival today it now had a consumerist emphasis, dishing out sweets to grubby unappreciative brats. God, weren't there enough obese children in the world? Every year it got worse as every shop in the country sought to drive up its profit margin selling Halloween crap to kids of all ages, with not a thought for the millions of people who had endure the intrusion of brats in fancy dress demanding sweets or money whatever they thought they deserved to intimidate out of their victims.

No mention in news items or the press of all the people who hated this night, no mention of elderly people being intimated in their own homes by gangs of brats to whom Halloween was merely another way of extorting money out of every person who made the mistake of answering the door on 31st of October.

Well, Melissa was not going to be a victim any more. It was time to fight back. It was time to pay back every cheeky little bastard who'd called her names when she'd given them a piece of her mind, payback for the yobs who graffitied her front door last year on 1st November - She should have expected something like that though, given that she'd spent Halloween throwing a bucket of water over every little costumed scumbag who'd rung her bell that night. Well, fuck them and fuck their parents who threatened legal action, and fuck the police who told her they were investigating a number of complaints from outraged parents -- if parents didn't want children to get hypothermia they shouldn't let their little bastards out to pester people in their own homes minding their own business. Melissa was not going to back down. This year she had a 'treat' for the scumbags.

The doorbell rang again, shrill and insistent, as Melissa descended the stairs, protectively hugging the towel to her. She wished for a moment she was dressed to confront them, but she pushed that notion from her mind, for wasn't that another victory for them? Dictating your behaviour down to your decision whether to have a shower or not. Melissa wasn't going to concede anything to them.

She swung the door open, to reveal in the hallway light three small figures garbed in Halloween costumes. Two were girls, faces painted a sickly hue of green, bodies swathed in black cloaks, heads adorning pointed wide brimmed witches' hats. The smaller figure, Melissa guessed was a boy as he wore a more conventional ghost outfit with a cheap looking but repulsive skull mask covering his face. Each of them held small plastic buckets that resembled pumpkins, containing a mixture of sweets and fruit extorted from people they'd already pestered before reaching Melissa's house.

Melissa noted the girls were smiling in anticipation.

'Yes?' Melissa snapped, coldly.

The smile on the eldest girls face wavered, uncertainty replacing friendliness in her eyes.

'Happy Halloween. Trick or treat,' she said, causing the other two to echo the sentiment, uttered with little enthusiasm under Melissa's withering gaze.

Melissa said nothing, enjoying the awkward sensation that settled on the three bothersome intruders. Clearly they expected their victim to smile say something nice and hand over money or sweets -- wrong fucking house, dears -- wrong fucking victim.

God, it was cold Melissa thought. She hoped the little bastards all got frost bite.

'Yes?' Melissa repeated, savouring the confusion on the two girls' faces.

The girls looked at one another as if for support. The smaller girl tugged her fellow witch's sleeve in a 'c'mon let's go' motion. But the taller girl turned back to Melissa. 'Trick or treat?' she repeated, smiling, a last try.

'What's your trick?' Melissa challenged.

The bigger witch said nothing to this, clearly it was a question that she hadn't been asked or had expected to be asked, and certainly had no answer prepared given her befuddled expression.

Standing in the street a little way off, Melissa noticed a woman in a warm coat - the brat's mother, Melissa supposed. The woman's head was cocked slightly as if picking up that something had gone wrong with her children's trick or treat exchange. Well, fuck her, the cow.

'Let's just go, Katy,' the smaller witch whined.

The elder sister - for from their similar long blonde hair, Melissa guessed they were siblings - held her defiant gaze, but clearly was having a hard time conjuring words to express her hostility.

Melissa gave her an unfriendly smile. 'Going to cast a spell on me, you little witch?'

The girl opened her mouth to protest, but it was little boy, oblivious of the air of tension and conflict, who stepped forward and in a small voice repeated the night's simple mantra; 'Trick or treat?'

'How cute,' Melissa said, the words inflected with undisguised venom and contempt.

'Don't speak my brother like that, you cow!' the eldest girl snapped, pulling her the boy away from the door.

Defeated, the trio turned to retreat down the pathway.

'Wait!' Melissa called. They stopped in their tracks. Faces turned toward her in expectation and uncertainty.

'I do have something for you.' Melissa said, reaching for some small white paper bags she'd kept by the front door.

The three children hesitated then held out their treat buckets.

'Here's your treats,' Melissa said, dropping a bag into each of their buckets. The small bags bulged with their contents and were folded over at the tops.

'Thank you,' the smaller witch said. Melissa noticed the little boy eagerly opening his bag. He pulled it open, small fingers poised to dive in -- then the motion froze as he saw what was in the bag.

The younger of the witches was opening her bag when the paper tore and the bag's contents spilled into her sweet filled bucket eliciting a stark scream from her. The bucket dropped to the ground as if the handle had suddenly become white hot. The eldest girl realising now what was in her bag, threw it from the bucket and pulled the small boy, who was still scrutinised the contents, away.

The three brats beat a hasty retreat now, one of the girls crying, and Melissa smiled, closing the door before their enraged mother could intervene. But before the door clicked shut she noted her treat in the bucket left on the ground, as the slugs and worms she'd filled the bags with, squirmed and slithered over the brightly coloured - and now to be uneaten - sweets in the Halloween bucket.

Victory was sweet, Melissa thought, as she headed for her shower.

The confrontation, one sided though it was, put a spring in Melissa's step, and she took the stairs two at a time, dropping her towel outside the bathroom. She stepped into the shower half expecting the doorbell to ring, and part of her hoped it would -- the mother of the crying brats waiting outside Melissa's door to give her hell. Well, she could wait, and freeze, and when she sulked off, brats in tow, that would be one more victory for Melissa. But the doorbell didn't ring.

Melissa showered, the hot revitalising water and scented shower gel a welcome cure from the chill she'd endured with the front door open. She washed her hair then killed the flow from the showerhead. In the silence she cocked her head listening for any knock at the door, for there were bound to be more little brats trying their luck at her house, and she had plenty more bags of slimy, wriggling things to put in the greedy outreached hands and Halloween buckets. Silence from downstairs.

She stepped from the shower dried and went into her bedroom where she pulled on her cream coloured dressing gown. Turning out her bedroom light she went to the window and peeled back the curtains just enough to reveal the illuminated street below.

She spotted a gaggle of costumed children making their way in the direction of her house. Melissa smiled, anticipating another confrontation. But then, just as they reached the path leading to her door, a figure stepped from the shadows. There was a brief exchange, then the children moved on past Melissa's house. The figure moved back out of sight, a thick hedge obscuring Melissa's view, but there was something familiar about the figure, then Melissa realized, it was the mother of the brats. She must have sent her kids home and stayed to warn off other children.

Cow. Spoilsport. Bitch. Fuck her - fuck them all.

Melissa pulled back her duvet, shrugged off her dressing gown and slid into bed, bitter at the premature end of her evening's war with trick-or-treaters. Now what? She tried to console herself with the thought that while she was snug in bed that cow would be out there freezing her tits off.

As the welcome cocoon of her bed warmed her, Melissa's idle hand drifted down between her thighs, she ran fingers through her soft mound of pubic hair, then further down, her fingertips brushed against her soft moist cleft, the sensation stirring arousal, her sex growing wet. She slid her fingers downward, caressing the outer lips of her labia, teasing herself momentarily before allowing deeper access. She widened her thighs and shivered in anticipation of her own touch. The tip of her index finger was wet as she began to insert it slowly, her other hand gliding over the mounds of her breasts, her nipples hard and perk demanding attention from her hands. She gave a gasp as she fingered deep inside her soaking slick lips, needing the sensation of something thicker inside her. Melissa reached for the small bedside table just within reach, pulling a drawer open. Her hand searched inside until she made contact with the accessory she needed. She took the small purple vibrator, twisted the top to activate it and plunged down between her thighs to replace her fingers. The gentle buzzing was muted as the slick walls of her vagina enveloped it. The sudden sensation caused her to raise her hips momentarily upwards as though raised to meet a lover's passionate thrusts. She moaned in delight as the vibrator electrified her senses. She drew it towards her clitoris gasping as the humming phallic toy touched her sensitive nub. It was then that she heard the sound from downstairs.

It was a small but familiar sound, but not one she ever heard this late in the evening. It was the sound of letterbox flap as someone pushed something through the door.

Fuck! Fuck, fuck, fuck!

Melissa withdrew the vibrator and swung her legs out of bed. Some prick had doubtless put something unpleasant through her letterbox. She cursed herself, suddenly remembering she had forgot to put newspaper by the front door. If the unimaginative bastards had put dog excrement through the door she'd have to spend the next half an hour cleaning the carpet.

As she descended the stairs her eyes fixed on the base of the front door expecting to see something small, vile, dark and oblong shaped. She was relieved when she saw it wasn't dog's shit that lay on the carpet. Instead it was a small white box, similar in size to a matchbox but longer. Reaching the front door she knelt, but didn't pick it up. She still expected something unpleasant from the object.

It had no words or markings on it and looked as though it might be handmade. Like a matchbox it consisted of a drawer covered in a card sleeve. Rather than pick it up, Melissa hurried back up stairs to see if she could still spot whoever had delivered it. She peeled back the curtain a little in her darkened bedroom, her eyes searching the space near her front door and the path leading to it. No one was there, and she realised she should have looked before going downstairs. Then, just as she was about to close the curtains she spotted the figure. Across the road standing in the shadow of a parked van was the woman Melissa had seen earlier, or at least that was who she guessed it to be for it was difficult to make out the figure in the dark.

The figure was standing stock still and Melissa had the sudden unpleasant sensation she was being watched. A chill sensation crept down her spine and she hurriedly released the curtain so it closed.

Bitch, Melissa thought. Fuck her, if the gutless cow wanted to freeze her tits off watch the house she was more than welcome. But Melissa knew the thoughts were bravado for she couldn't shrug off the uneasy feeling that edged her mind. Just what had that bitch put through her door?

Melissa returned downstairs this time gingerly picking up the small white box. It felt light, empty almost. She gave it a little shake and felt something shift inside. She put it to her nose sniffing cautiously, but there was no smell, no pungent odour of excrement, no smell at all to indicate what the contents might be. She took a deep breath, chiding herself for feeling nervous as her fingers touched the drawer of the box. Fuck it, whatever it was couldn't be all that bad, could it?

Melissa pushed open the box.

She almost laughed when she saw what lay within.

It was a worm. Not one of the things she'd put in her trick or treat bags, for this specimen was thicker and longer - but nonetheless only a worm.

She looked at it as it coiled in the box reacting to the sudden influx of light. She smiled at the pathetic attempt by the woman outside to freak her out. She closed the box, went to the kitchen and discarded it in a plastic rubbish bag hanging from a kitchen unit drawer. The uneasy feeling she had was banished and she strutted back upstairs. She was going to finish getting herself off, then go to sleep.

Back in bed, under the welcoming duvet and naked, Melissa parted her legs and turned on the vibrator, she pressed it down between her legs but found her she was now not in the mood, the image of the worm in the white box curling and moving kept replaying in her head. It was like a jingle or chorus of a song that kept repeating -- an irritating mental itch. Melissa, giving up on the attempt at masturbation, turned on her side to try and go to sleep. Still the image of the worm persisted in her mind's eye, squirming and writhing in the confines of the small box.

Fuck!

Melissa threw back the duvet, and climbed out of bed, not bothering to put on her dressing gown, she flicked on the landing light and went down the stairs. She'd kill the bloody thing and flush it down the toilet, perhaps then she could get some sleep. She strode into the dark kitchen and looked into the rubbish bag - and froze.

The box was there, but it was open, just a little, maybe two centimetres. She reached in and pulled it out. Empty. She was sure she'd closed the bloody thing properly. A worm wouldn't be strong enough to open it, would it? No, a ridiculous notion -- she mustn't have closed it properly.

She flicked on the kitchen light knowing she'd have to find the damn thing before she could get some sleep. In the bright spotlights of the kitchen she was more conscious of her nakedness, she briefly contemplated going to get her dressing gown, then decided it would be just quicker to find the worm and dispose of it now.

She scanned the kitchen floor for the errant thing but there was no sign of it. Cursing under her breath she knelt on the floor, the hard linoleum uncomfortable on her bare knees. She looked under her kitchen table and chairs but frustratingly there was no sign of the thing. She gave a gasp of exasperation and rescanned the whole floor surface, then actually got under the kitchen table, pulling out the chairs until she was sure the worm was not there.

She stood, hands on hips, surveying the kitchen work top, even though was not sure worms could climb. They weren't like slugs and snails, with a slimy suction base on their body, so just where the fuck had it got to? Had it left the kitchen?

Melissa was just about to begin searching her hallway when she noticed a kitchen cupboard door that was ajar. She smiled, pleased that she found its likely hiding place, though the eight inch base of the cupboard should still have been practically impossible for the worm to overcome.

Melissa took a knife from its holder on the kitchen surface, resolving to cut the damn thing in two for giving her the run around. Thus armed, she pulled open the cupboard automatically scanning the upper shelves at her eye line before realising the worm would have to be on the bottom shelf. She got down on her hunkers.

In the shadows she could see an assortment of tinned food, soups, tinned tomatoes, peaches in syrup and jars of sauces. She began to push them aside when a movement from the back of the cupboard caught her eye.

'Gotcha,' Melissa grinned, pulling the tins and jars aside.

Then she screamed and dropped the knife.

The coiled wormlike creature, for no worm could be this big, was more the size of a snake than the specimen that had been in the box. It uncoiled, pushing jars and tins aside and moved silently towards Melissa.

Melissa, her eyes wide with shock and terror, backed away, then turned and ran to the bottom of the stairs. Safely out of its immediate reach she stopped looking back at the kitchen, the vast thing was slithering from the cupboard and to Melissa's horror purposively moving towards her. There was no time to consider how such a thing had got into her house, but among her panicked thoughts the realisation that the bitch who put the white box with the worm had put this larger monster through the letterbox after Melissa had gone back upstairs, but it must have moved fast, for Melissa had not been upstairs long.

With a shriek of fear, Melissa darted up the stairs, pausing at the top to look down. From her angle she could not make out much of the hallway, and she set her eyes fearfully on the space at the bottom of the stairs. It couldn't follow her could it? Weren't worms blind? It couldn't know where she was -- and just what the fuck was it? Maybe some species from some hot climate -- perhaps something from a rainforest -- were insects and other horrible things grew to monstrous sizes.

Melissa put a hand to her mouth to stifle her cry, as the head of the worm-thing appeared by the bottom stair post. Its head was raised as if it was smelling the air -- or sensing where Melissa was.

Melissa didn't dare move -- the slightest sound or movement might attract it.

Then, after an agonising pause, it turned its head in her direction, then slowly more of the creature's pinkish blue body wriggled into view as it began to climb the stairs its thick body contracting and stretching to give it motion.

Melissa whimpered, incapable of movement, hoping it would stop and turn back. It seemed to be even bigger now as if growing vaster every second. As it reached the fourth stair, Melissa screamed and bolted for her bedroom. She slammed it shut, leaning on the door as if the thing might reach the other side instantaneously and try forcing it open. She flicked on her bedroom light searching the room for something she could use as weapon then remembered her mobile on the bedside table. She scrambled for it frantically thinking which of her friends lived nearest, or if should she call the emergency services instead? She jabbed a finger to turn on the Blackberry, but there was no response, the screen remained dark and lifeless. She jabbed again at it.

No, no, no!

She'd charged the fucking thing today, it couldn't be dead. She glanced nervously at the door. Was the thing outside? Could it somehow get through the door? Melissa threw the useless phone down and grabbed the end of her bed pushing it against the door. She tried to clear the panic from her mind and think straight. Her whole body was shaking with fear.