“Great, a worm-shit shower,” Mik said.
They were all on their feet now and running in the same direction. They were headed back toward the path they had been taking, bringing them back on course for Charity and away from the giant cast that had attracted their attention in the first instance.
“How do we know that this isn’t where the worm is going to surface and we’re running right into it?” Danny yelled breathlessly as they ran.
Dean would have yelled back that the creature was most likely to come back up its own tunnel rather than create a new one, but was stayed from this by a gigantic shudder that rippled through the earth and threw them from their feet.
“Fuck-fuck-fuck-fuck—”
Dean could hear Mik swear over and over like a mantra, forming an undertone to the rumble and then explosion as the worm surfaced, throwing the dry desert earth into the air with an explosive force, showering them with dry dust and particles of hard-packed earth. It was fortunate that most of the topsoil in this region was so devoid of moisture, that the dry earth scattered and parted so easily, with only the densely packed pieces being hard but small enough not to cause anything other than the slightest abrasions and discomfort.
The rain of dry soil was followed the dull whump of packages of damper soil that rained down—the cast from the tunnel, thrown up by the rapid exit of the worm, which had been flung high and far on a trajectory that brought some of it down to the point where they lay prone on the ground. The cast was heavier, and the larger deposits were more dangerous. At such speed, they were likely to cause a more serious injury if they hit home.
“Hot pipe,” Dean exclaimed, rolling onto his back, “watch out for that!” A large lump of damp soil hit the ground where he had lain but a moment before, the damp cast spreading as it splattered into the dry topsoil, making an impression where his head would have been and raising enough dust to suggest that it would at least have concussed him.
By this time, the others had also turned, and were trying to judge where the larger deposits of cast would fall as they moved around on the ground, wriggling from side to side. There was no time to actually get up and run, only to try to avoid the possibly damaging lumps of cast while still prone.
But it was because they were in such a position that, when the initial rain had ceased to fall, they were able to comprehend in its full and awesome glory the sight that confronted them.
The disturbed mutie worm had come straight up from the hole and was now erect, perpendicular to the sand and awesome in its length. At a glance, Dean judged it to be about fifty feet long, the tail end disappearing into the hole. It waved and undulated in a rippling motion, the continual movement of its segmented body the manner in which it was able to keep aloft. The end segment that acted as a head—although, as with all worms, this was arbitrary—moved around as if trying to detect the recce party. Of course, this was patently absurd, as it had no sensory organs with which to see or hear them as they lay on the desert surface. But it did have a mouth, just like the specimen that Jak, Dean and Doc had seen at the redoubt, and the strange rows of fleshy teeth rippled and undulated in its open mouth like a miniature version of the whole body. It had no vocal cords, but the movement caused resonances that ran through its whole body, amplified and then directed outward by the open mouth.
It was an eerie and disturbing sound, a high, keening wail that had a bass note running beneath that was only semiaudible, so that it could have been imagination that added it. The sound had waves of rippling notes and glissandi in it that echoed the worm’s moving body. It was almost hypnotic, freezing them where they lay.
The creature was gigantic, its sheer size somehow magnified by the luminous nature of its body as it stood in the encroaching darkness. If it should, by chance or design, cause to fall across them and come down onto the desert floor, then it would crush them beneath the mucus-covered flesh of its body.