Ada ran home. No one tried to stop her, they knew full well what she was afraid of. They went on their own to find out if it was true. She flung open Owen’s door and shook him awake. He had drifted off while drawing, and looked at her with sleepy eyes. Frantically, she asked him,
“Did you drink any tap water today?!”
He took a moment to process her question, then shook his head. She sighed in relief.
“Good. Don’t. Only drink the water that’s already in the pitcher from yesterday. If that runs out, come get me and I’ll buy you a bottle.”
He was obviously confused, but could tell this was no time to question her, so he just nodded. Her phone rang then, and she picked it up quickly.
The woman’s voice was no longer measured and professional. She sounded as if she was trying not to vomit, barely holding herself together.
“We found him.”
“Was there a worm?”
“There was...nothing. No organs, no blood, only ruined bits of bone. All that’s left is the skin.”
“Do you know the name of the boy who was in the lake when Jennifer died?”
“...yes.”
“Find him. Go to his house. If he isn’t there, go to the nearest reservoir. But first…”
She paused, remembering that conversation with Jennifer.
“Tell people not to drink the water.”
She read it online before they could tell her about it, if they had even intended to. A twelve-year-old boy found dead in a reservoir in a town a few hours away. That town, as well as hers, had put out advisories not to drink the tap water, or at least to boil it before use. The explanation given was that a body found in the water tower could have contaminated the supply; there was of course no mention of parasitic worms or missing insides.
Five whole days went by before she heard a knock on the door again. It was a few hours after noon, bright and warm outside, but the woman and her colleagues looked as though they hadn’t slept in days. There was a sense of bitterness about their presence there. Obviously, they hated the fact that they continued to ask for help from a student, a girl barely an adult, when they themselves were helpless. But Ada’s experience was unique. She was the only person in the world who had seen every single step of the process, and in someone who was, to their knowledge, patient zero.
It seemed they had reached the conclusion Ada had come to many days before. As soon as she opened the door, the woman said,
“Tell me about that pond.”
Ada stepped aside to let them inside. Her parents were at work, but this time she looked around the house for Owen, to make sure he could not listen in again. He didn’t seem to be home. He hadn’t spent much time with her over the past week. It was obvious he was still devastated about the graphic things he had heard regarding Jennifer’s death. He had more or less shut himself in his room all week, refusing to eat with the rest of them at dinner. Ada’s parents were understanding of his grief, and allowed him this accommodation, but they worried over the near constant crying that took several days before it finally subsided. She had last seen him last night as she peeked into his room, watching him sit in bed staring at his hands. She wondered if he could have gone out. That would be a good thing- it wasn’t healthy for him to be all alone.
She peeked into the garage and saw his bike was gone, so he was probably with a friend, but she still took her time checking every room for him while her guests waited. She straightened his bedsheets and put his toothbrush back in its cup before she finally returned to the living room and leisurely sat down.
“What did the pond look like?”
“It wasn’t big. Maybe...thirty feet across? It had small pebbles on the bottom, and the water was clear enough to see the bottom, though too murky to make out any individual shapes. There weren’t any fish, at least not any that I saw. Now that I think about it, I don’t think there were any plants in it either. It was almost like a fish tank, just the ground and the debris floating on top. IT was almost too perfect, like someone had made it. It was strange, definitely, but there wasn’t anything obviously dangerous about it.”
“If we took you to the cabin where you were staying, do you think you could lead us to that pond?”
“You think you could find out something about the worms from it?”
“That is our hope.”
“So you do believe the worms are real now?”
“We...we cannot discount the possibility. Many people have gone to the hospital for severe stomach aches in the past several days. Both her and the town where the other boy lived. Obviously, there are many who disregarded the water advisory. At this point, we cannot deny the pattern. Although we of course stopped the water flow from the tower after the death of Francis Taylor-Perez, there is nothing we could do about the time between his death and the discovery of his body, as well as what was already in the pipes. Even people who took the advisory seriously could still have ingested or been exposed to the tainted water through showering, brushing teeth, hand washing…”
Ada did not hear the rest of her sentence. Her mind had focused on one phrase: “brushing teeth.” That toothbrush she had put away; that was definitely Owen’s, wasn’t it? When was the last time he had used it? Surely it had to have been recently, she would have noticed if it had been out more than a week ago. She hadn’t gone into his room this past week, but usually she went in there often. She would have seen…
Six days ago. That was when Francis had died, that was when Owen had hidden himself away. Could it be he had been crying in pain, not grief? He had gone out...to where? To find a water tower? A reservoir? Or…
She had told him about the pond.
“We need to go. Now.”
She left no time for argument, just ran to the car out front. A two hour drive...that would be more than ten hours by bike. But it had been more than ten hours since she last saw him. Jennifer, the Jennifer that was no longer really herself, she had walked so quickly on her way to the lake. She hadn’t felt tiredness, it seemed. How could she? Did she even have muscles to feel exhaustion? Or was it the worm moving her legs, pushing the pedals of Owen’s bike?
She didn’t speak in the car, didn’t respond to any questions. So many things connected now. There were no reservoirs near the forest, so Jennifer had gone to the lake. But Francis, he had known to go straight to the water tower. Maybe he had figured that out on his own, but by that point his brain must have been nearly dead. Surely he hadn’t been thinking of that in his final moments. And Jennifer, even as her normal self she never would have come up with something like that. But someone had. Someone had told Jennifer the exact way a parasite, given a more intelligent brain to influence, could do the maximum amount of damage.
She had.
Ada had told her that. Ada had explained it in detail. She had told Jennifer how a hairworm could spread the fastest, how to be efficient. She had told Owen about the pond. She had explained how it could be used to stop the worms, how what they found there in the water could give them a clue about how to survive. Every step of the way, she had been rational and thoughtful, and she had shared her thoughts freely. Everything that the worms knew now, they got from her.
She wasn’t surprised by what they found. She had known it was coming from the moment they left. They found Owen’s bike abandoned at the foot of the path near the cabin, and followed the trail of blood drops until they reached the pond. There he was, his skin empty. It rested on the ground at the floor of the pond. A worm, dead and dried, lay on the ground in the grass. It seemed it had flung itself out of the water. Shriveled and dessicated, anything that was inside it was dead now. Anything that had been in the water, that the worm may have swallowed, was absorbed into the earth. They could test every drop of the water, but they would only find what the worm had left.
Any secrets that might have been there- they died with Owen.
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