The Jeep driver started to back up. "What are you doing?" The Colonel demanded.

"Backing up, sir. We don't have any anti-flak jackets, sir. I want the ridge between us when they dump."

The Colonel paused a moment. "Right. Lydia, you duck when I tell you to. No trying to see what's going on, okay?"

"He's my Grandpa!" she protested.

"He's the best man I've got right now. You be my best girl."

They looked to the sky as the planes flew overhead, directly at the opened mouth of the giant maggot.

Charlie felt one small drop of sweat move slowly down his back. He wanted to reach back and scratch at it, but he didn't dare take his hands of the controls. The mouth before him grew larger and larger as he approached. "You okay, 'Nerva?"

"Scared." Was all she answered.

"Good." He said back. In his mind he started to count, but soon his words were heard by everyone with a radio. "Ten, nine, eight, seven, six, five… four… three… two…Lord, bless us all, NOW!"

He released his payload and pulled up and over. Up, up, over, over. The air behind him whooshed and battered his small plane. His seat belt broke and he held on to the controls with every sinew in his body, and then he blacked out.

The worm took the double dose straight into its mouth. The thousands of gallons of the cocktail coated its teeth, bulbous tongue and rancid throat. For a moment the alcohol was the most wonderful thing it had ever tasted. It wanted more, it reached higher and higher opening its mouth wider and wider, and then the fire feeling deep in its gut began to rage.

The Colonel grabbed Lydia and tried to cover her from the sound. It was a primal scream of all the souls in hell crying out in pain. The Jeep driver writhed in the front seat, forgetting to back the Jeep down the ridge. Around him The Colonel saw people throwing themselves on the ground covering their heads, beating hands and feet against the ground trying to drown out the sound.

The earth heaved and shook and bounced as the giant maggot crashed down. The sound stopped. The earth stopped moving. The total silence of a ravaged land greeted the soldiers and pilots as they slowly stood to see the giant maggot dead.

"Grandpa?" Lydia asked.

The Colonel looked up, trying to find the two small planes, but the skies were empty.

"Mrs. Carlisle?" Lydia whispered into the radio. "Please, oh please, please answer me," she begged.

Silence.

"Hey, Grandbaby!" Charlie's voice crackled loudly over the radio.

"There!" The Jeep driver pointed. Flying low, Charlie's old beat up cropduster made its way toward them. Then, as the Widow Carlisle's new plane, now looking very much like Charlies', pulled along side of her friend's, a cheer ripped through the crowd on the ground.

Lydia cried and cheered and cried again. The Jeep driver finally had to pull the radio out of her hands to answer its insistent call. "Hello?" He looked up in amazement and slowly handed the receiver to The Colonel.

"Sir? It's the President. He wants to talk to Charlie, the Worm Killer, and his lady."

The End