“You want to try a spoonful?” she asked.
Margaret, nodded, eyes flickering behind closed lids. Abby put the softening ice cream in her lap and dug down with the spoon, scraping off half. It was better to start with tiny bites. She extended the spoon to Margaret, who didn’t open her eyes. Maybe she’d fallen asleep, Abby thought, but then she saw her gullet heave; her forehead slide translucently over the bony ridges of her brow.
“Hurts?” Abby asked.
Margaret nodded, bloodless lips pinched tight, and Abby knew that look: she was going to puke. She stuck the spoon back in the ice cream and set the container on the bedside table while she looked for a wastebasket. There was one by the vanity, so she ran over, got it, and came back.
“Margaret?” she asked. “Can you roll over on your side a little? You can’t throw up on your back.”
The sound of the words “throw up” made Margaret wince again. Abby pulled down the covers and saw that Margaret’s chest was a bony plate beneath her Rockville Regatta T-shirt. Her shoulders were sticks lashed to other sticks. A puff of stale air wafted out, but Abby didn’t care. Margaret was in pain, squirming softly and slowly. The blankets looked too heavy for her, so Abby pulled them lower and then stopped.
Margaret’s stomach was swollen into a hard mound. Abby couldn’t believe how big it was, and for a second she thought Margaret was pregnant. But you didn’t get nine months pregnant after missing school for a couple of weeks. Margaret made a gasping noise and her bony claws scrabbled at her swollen belly, scratching and caressing the bulge.
“Are you okay?” Abby asked again.
Margaret opened her mouth to scream but out came a loud gurgle—a wet, sucking, gagging sound that made Abby’s stomach flex in sympathy. Margaret twisted, her spine bending backward into a C, head toward heels. Then she twisted the other way, doubled over, curling herself into a protective ball around her distended belly. The sheets slid off the bed and onto the floor.
“Uh! Uh! Uh! Uh!” she chanted.
Abby was scared that Margaret might bite off her tongue or go to the bathroom in her bed. What do I do? What do I do? What do I do? The question ran on a loop inside her brain, but she didn’t have any answers.
The door flew open.
“What’d you do to her?” Riley bellowed. Peanut butter was smeared across his knuckles, and he left streaks of it around the doorknob. Abby could smell it all the way over by the bed. The scent seemed to send Margaret into a new seizure, and she clawed feebly at her frail throat, letting out a long moan.
“Guuuuuuuuuuhhhhh,” she said.
Beau, the Irish setter, came around Riley’s legs and stared into the room at Abby, at Margaret, and then trotted over to stand by the side of the bed, snuffling at the blankets.
“She’s sick,” Abby said. “I didn’t touch her.”
“I shouldn’t have let you in,” Riley said. But he wasn’t moving past the door, as if he was scared to get too close to his sister’s spasming, half-naked body, with her boxer shorts rucked up to show one mottled thigh.
“What do we do?” Abby asked.
“We’re going to be in so much trouble,” Riley said.
“We have to help her,” Abby said.
Riley shook his head. Then he snapped his fingers at the dog.
“Come on, Beau,” he said. “Let’s go.”
“We need to call an ambulance,” Abby said. “Does she have a doctor?”
Suddenly, Margaret stopped writhing. Her body lay completely still, stiff as a board, toes pointed down, knees locked, arms rigid at her sides, neck straining, tears leaking.
“She’s fine,” Riley said. “See? She’s okay. Is she okay?”
Abby had no clue.
“I really think we need to call somebody,” she said. “Or give her CPR or something.”
“She’s still breathing,” Riley said.
That’s when Beau took two steps back from the bed, locked his legs, and started to growl low in his throat. Margaret’s jaws flew open, exposing a deep black cavern that extended all the way down to her stomach, and she started to beg.
“Oh, gawd,” she moaned. “Make it stop, Abby, please make it stop. I want my mom . . . please make it stop . . . Mommmyyyy!!!”
The last word became a scream so loud that Abby felt it in the soles of her feet. So loud that Beau started to bark. It went on and on and on and just when Abby thought she couldn’t take another second, it became muffled, like something was clogging Margaret’s throat. Then the muffled noises started to sound wet and sticky, and Abby saw something pale and white squirming in the blackness of Margaret’s gullet, curling around her tonsils.
Abby leaned forward for a better look, and the thing inside moved. She jerked back, smacking into Riley, who’d crept closer to investigate. The thing kept coming, oozing up out of Margaret’s throat, rising to the surface. Tears were spilling down Margaret’s sallow cheeks and her throat and chest kept spasming; her bony hands scratched and clawed uselessly at the tight skin on her neck. But the thing kept slithering out.
It slid over the root of Margaret’s tongue, and then Margaret gave three explosive, throat-clearing coughs, each one pushing it out farther. It was sticky, gelatinous, and alive—a blind white worm, thick as a garden hose, and it was hauling itself out of Margaret’s stomach with single-minded intent.
“What. The. Fuck.” Riley said.
“I don’t know, I don’t know, I don’t know,” Abby chanted softly, backing away from the bed.
The worm kept coming, hauling more and more of its slick body out of Margaret’s stomach, moving over her trembling lips and spilling onto her chin, where it stuck for a moment and sensed the air with its blunt, blind snout. Then it turned toward the Frusen Gl?djé, forgotten on the bedside table, and dragged its long, rippling, white body another half inch toward the container, moving across Margaret’s cheek. Exhausted after its journey, it lay still for a moment. Margaret breathed fast through her nose, panicking, wanting to scream but unable to; the worm’s heavy body kept her vocal cords from moving.
That’s when Beau leapt onto the bed, barking furiously. With no regard for anything but his fury, he ran up Margaret’s body, stomping her swollen stomach with his paws, sending Abby grabbing for his collar as he barked and snapped in Margaret’s face. Abby thought he was trying to bite her, and she got one hand on the scruff of his neck.
“Beau!” she yelled. “No!”
But when she pulled back Beau’s head, he had the end of the worm clenched between his jaws. Margaret let out a muffled hiss of a scream as Beau yanked the worm out of her gullet. Abby pulled her hand away from his fur and the dog gave the worm a few hard chews right in Margaret’s face, but it was tough like jerky and his teeth couldn’t sever it. Now it was squirming back and forth, hauling more of its body out of Margaret’s throat as Beau gnawed a better hold and began pacing backward.
The worm looped over Beau’s muzzle, wrapping itself around his face. The dog growled low and deep, shaking his head from side to side, and the worm kept coming. Margaret gagged, trying to suck in enough air while Abby and Riley stood there, unable to do anything but watch.
Beau reached the end of the bed, with almost six feet of worm extended from Margaret’s mouth, slimed with saliva and dripping with stomach juices. Then he jumped off, the worm still clamped in his jaws, and Margaret moaned in alarm and pain. The dog landed on the hardwood floor and kept backing away. Abby and Riley stared in horror as the worm stretched to eight feet, then ten, then fifteen.
It finally snapped when Beau reached the door.