Dancing Worms (Flash Fiction February #9)

The charitable Benefactor of the Kittridge Estate has asked that you graciously accompany him on the eve of a great endeavor...

Pre-script: edited (forgot to tag fearless leader and added a note about the story)

Prompt from

Bradley Ramsey

: “Guests sit around an antique table. Only one will be alive by dessert." Note: workshopping a horror monster for a later project.

Note: This story is me workshopping with a horror monster for a novel I’ve been thinking about since October. Thanks for reading!

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I found myself sitting at an ancient, well-adorned table with five other people, each of us slowly losing sight as floating, squiggling lines infested our eyes.

I received a letter two weeks ago. Inside a crinkled, wrinkled, yellow envelope was a card which read:

“The charitable Benefactor of the Kittridge Estate has asked that you graciously accompany him on the eve of a great endeavor. Attached to this invitation you will find the address and directions, along with a reasonable allowance for travel. The Benefactor understands the costs associated with such a journey to his abode and wishes for this allowance to allay such inconveniences. There will be at the manor accommodations the Benefactor assures are suitable for such an esteemed guest as yourself. We look forward to making merriment in but a fortnight.”

Two weeks, one flight, a train ride, and a taxi later, I sat solemnly with the others, watching the candlelight from the sconces cast shadows which lapped at their faces and lashed at their eyes. The regal chandelier hung above in judgement. An eclectic gathering of this sort one could not find under ordinary circumstances. There was the Senator David Johnson, CEO Tom Brightport, General Langston, Professor Fitche, and a woman who did not offer up her name. And there was me.

“So,” Brightport started, “do any of you know who this, uh, this mysterious benefactor is?”

“No idea,” I said.

“The letter was quite elegant, I wonder if he’s a man of letters,” Professor Fitche said.

“Who says it’s a man?” the woman asked.

The table quieted. The general rolled his eyes, along with Brightport. For a second I swore their pupils never rolled back down.

“Well, I guess we should dig in, right?” I asked, reaching for the food. The setting was wondrously indulgent—the appetizers included truffle risotto, black densuke watermelons, foie gras, and imported cheeses. I sipped at my wine as the waitstaff brought out the main dish: octopus santorini. Decadence indeed.

We ate in silence at first, each of us too eager to look up and start a conversation. After a few minutes the groaning and munching ceased and I caught the woman’s eyes. Her plate was full still—she hadn’t eaten a bite. The sconces flickered and a dark cloud seemed to issue from her mouth, though nobody else seemed to notice. She clinked spoon to wine glass and stood.

“You’re a greedy lot, aren’t you?” she asked, spinning on her heel to circle the table. “Stuffing your faces before any sort of investigation as to why you’re here.”

“Sit down, relax,” the general said.

“I cannot. I am but a vessel.”

As she finished the word vessel, I noticed a dark, stringy object floating on the wall. It lulled me left, then right, up then down. Then I realized my eyes could never quite catch it; as I got close, it jumped away, like the north poles of two magnets repelling one another.

Only after I looked down at the napkin in my lap and saw the object there too did I realize it was not floating on the wall. It was floating inside my eyeball.

“You all obfuscate. You spread your lies, you conquer your foes, but you don’t stop to consider the effect your actions have.”

I watched the floating object attract a friend, then another. Three squirming worms danced on the wall behind the woman, always evading me.

“So much exploitation. You, Mr. Senator—you lie for political gain, no?”

Octopus flopped lazily from Senator Johnson’s mouth as looked up.

“Oh, we all know the truth at this table, Don’t be shy. These are your friends, remember? You can admit that you have extensive investments in Brightport’s weapons business. No wonder you voted for war.” She looked to the businessman. “Brightport, selling weapons to our general here. You tell your shareholders that you’re helping your country fight the bad guys, don’t you?”

The businessman gave a coy smile.

“Why don’t you tell the general where his adversaries get their guns?”

“You son of a bitch!” the general called, rising from his chair.

“Sit down, general. Relax. We’ll have a chance to hear about your mass slaughter soon enough. What about you, professor? Quite high praise you gave the Senator on his vote. And, curiously, you’re a fierce public advocate for the weapons business too. Odd that you purchased a prime oceanside manor last year—I wonder how many dead children helped you purchase that house?”

She turned to me next. I could hardly see her anymore, the dancing worms in my eyes blocked out all light. The last image I saw before losing sight completely was that damned woman, accusation on her lips.

“You’re the journalist meant to uncover this conspiracy, isn’t that right? Yet the men at this table are your country club pals. Quite the jet-setters you are, racing all over the world in your planes. Instead of shining a light on fraud and abuse you blinded the public with your lies. This is what it feels like.”

I’m not sure what happened next. A suckling, gurgling sound overcame the screams of my dinner companions. Something tentacled and alien slithered around the table. I felt a cosmic pull coming from where the woman had been. The sun itself might have taken a seat at the table, dragging us into its core.

Tentacles snaked up my body, latched onto my eyeballs. They tethered themselves to the optic nerves behind. The dancing worms reunited with this cosmic force, forming a hard carapace around my eyes.

The creature siphoned my body and soul through its tentacles. My form collapsed, every bone breaking until I became one with it. I watched the carapaces that were once eyes fall to the floor, two hard, black rocks. I watched the abyssal creature—watched myself—siphon the rest of the dinner guests. Eight more black rocks fell to the floor. Then it, I, we became extra-planar. Through new dimensions, across the fabric of spacetime, we surged and bellowed to the next wretched soul. The next eye of dancing worms.