In the Flesh

Available for the first time in a collection, three of Tim Curran's novellas—Worm, Blackout, and The Underdwelling WORM On Pine Street, the houses begin to shake. The earth begins to move. The streets crack open and yards split asunder…and rising from subterranean depths far below, a viscid black muck bubbles up and floods the neighborhood. In it are a ravenous army of gigantic worms seeking human flesh. They wash into houses, they come up through the sewers, through plumbing, filling toilets and tubs, seeking human prey. Cut off from the rest of the town, the people of Pine Street must wage a war of survival or they'll never see morning. As bad as the worms are, there's something worse—and far larger—waiting to emerge. BLACKOUT In the midst of a beautiful summer, in a perfectly American suburban middle-class neighborhood, a faraway evil is lurking, waiting to strike the unsuspecting residents. First come the flashing lights, then the heavy rains, high winds, and finally a total blackout. But that's only the beginning… When the whipping black tentacles fall from the sky and begin snatching people at random, the denizens of Piccamore Way must discover the terrifying truth of what these beings have planned for the human race. THE UNDERDWELLING With a kid on the way, Boyd needed the job bad. But the idea of going underground at the Hobart Mine, down into the dark labyrinth of tunnels to get at the raw ore, left him with a brooding sense of unease. Maybe it was the fact that his father had died down in the mines or maybe it was something much worse. Digging a new drift down in Level #8, the lowest level of the mine, an immense shaft opens up. Boyd and a few others volunteer to explore it. Some 400 feet down, they find a passage that leads to an immense cavern from prehistory. A petrified world. A prehistoric graveyard. Then a cave-in traps them down there. In the darkness and dank shadows of a fossilized world, they realize they are not alone. Something has woken in the stone. Something ancient and terrible and coldly intelligent. And it is lonely.