When the Worm Turned

Science Fiction Horror for Halloween

Deposit Photos Standard Licence — by fotokostic

I wrote this story when I was studying horticulture in 2023. One of my tutors spoke about the devastation caused by flatworms and their impact on the ecosystem. That discussion inspired this tale — blending in the facts I’d learned with imagination and a touch of horror. Perfect for Halloween!

---

Many years ago in the 2020s when I was a young man studying for a degree in horticulture, one of my tutors, Eric, expressed his concern regarding an invasive primitive organism that had somehow arrived on our shores — the Platyhelminthes, or commonly called the flatworm.*

Eric went on to express that he felt this creature was not from a lower order at all, but was far more complex than most scientists realised. At this time it had wiped out most of our country’s earth worms, and the teacher feared for agriculture in general.

Some of my fellow students thought Eric was just a crazy old guy with an over active imagination. Yet his words stayed with me as I got older, even when I moved away from gardens and into the world of biology.

As the years passed by, nature appeared to be turning in on itself — healthy trees and plants had been dying and so depleting the pollinators and diversity of the landscape. Of course, I wondered about the worms. But like most people, I carried on living my own life without considering what was happening to the environment as a whole.

Then one day I was out walking my dog when I noticed numerous piles of dead crows. Just lying on the ground in the fields and gardens.

I wrapped one up in a bag and shoved it in my rucksack to take into the lab. When I ran a few tests, I couldn’t believe the crow had been poisoned. Must have been something the bird had eaten, I thought. Still thinking about Eric, I managed to find a small flat worm in the compost heap and after further investigation realised the worm had turned — it had evolved to act like a lethal injection when eaten by a predator. Hence, the dead crows. Clever. But what could I do?

I spoke to a few colleagues and kept my eyes open. Before the year had passed, the Platyhelminthes were eating small mammals and growing much larger themselves. I wondered why they didn’t just eat the dead crows when they were such an easy meal — rather than leaving them lying around to rot?

Once I had fathomed out the reason, I knew our very existence was in danger.