I scrape away at the last few letters when I hear a shout.
Through the chaos and din I see a figure stumble towards me in the dark. Ahh. Yes. The Newcomer.
“Y...you! You there!” he rasps, his voice a collage of 50 years of smoking and a choking sound. I doubt mine sounds better.
“Yeah?”
“What...why...I don't understand.”
I sigh. It always starts like this.
“It is the same for all of us. The same Reason.”
He looks around, bewildered, his mind unable to comprehend what lies before him. He looks familiar.
“Weren't you that-?”
“Like it matters now?” he raspily screams. “As if any of it ever mattered! The ranch! The fame! Any of it! I'd give any of it for something as simple as a cup of water. And I'll be damned if...” He cuts himself off, laughing maniacally, then surging into hysterics ending in sobs. I hear a subtle sound amongst the din, and I hope it is my imagination. He is cut short by another sound, one not nearly as subtle. An unearthly (for so it is) scream and a howl. His eyes grow maddeningly wider.
“What-what is that?”
“They cannot get us...for now.”
He looks around, trembling in terror. “For...now?” I nod. “I do believe they will be set free at some point...to feed on us.” He looks at me as if I am a lunatic. I suppose it is true.
“They're going to eat us?”
“I guess you could say that. But that has such finality to it, so I prefer 'feed' instead.”
I hear the subtle sound again, louder this time. It is not my imagination. I edge closer to the wall. They are coming.
“Those aren't-?”
“Yes. I am afraid they are.”
“NO!” He screams. “No!” He may have had a beautiful voice before, but nothing is beautiful here. The wet, gnawing sound draws closer and he loses his nerve and runs through the flames. “No! I won't – Oh God!” His cry is drown out in his own screams as the worms get him. I may see him again later. I return to my carving, the words of a song I once heard.
Give me more darkness said the blind man,
Give me more folly said the fool,
Give me stone silence said the deaf man,
I didn't believe Sunday School.
The worms are almost here now. It's the way of things here. I will have to finish after--I shudder. Every time is as bad as the first. But I have time to finish, all the time in the...no.
I have forever to finish. The thought consumes me, just as the worms do amidst the sound of a ghastly screaming. My own.
