Moe sat on the edge of the bald rock cliff, looking out at the setting sun and the wasted land below. His jeep and tent were behind him. Tom and Kelly were cuddling in the tent.
"Think we're safe here?" he called back to them.
"Mmm," said Tom. "Mmm!" agreed Kelly.
"It's those compost bins," said Moe, mostly talking to himself. "That's where it all started. We carefully put all that food waste in compost bins. Saving the environment. But what did the city do? They dumped them in the landfill, along with everything else! Along with all the rubber tires! And off-market Viagra! And spent nuclear fuel! It's no wonder that that witches' brew bred stuff."
A wind blew across the cliff. The sky grew dark.
"Now we've got worms that eat everything. Big worms small worms fat worms skinny worms ... maybe they eat each other when there's nothing else to eat. They've called off school, the electric grid's out, it's like we're going back to being cavemen."
He picked up a pebble and threw it over the edge. He brushed off a mosquito and went back to the tent. "Well the mosquitos are still doing OK. Better call it a night."
Tom and Kelly were already in their sleeping bags. He got in his.
"You think the bare rock is enough to keep the worms away?" asked Kelly.
"Who knows? Don't know what else we can do," said Moe.
"Haven't seen any worms that can eat through rock," said Tom. "Not yet, anyhow."
"Maybe they'll crawl over it to get at us," said Kelly.
They listened to the buzzing of the bugs outside. What could they do? Where could they go? They were winging it. They fell asleep, each in their own thoughts.
The next day, the sun was bright, the sky was clear.
Tom had a fever. "Don't know," he said. "Just feeling off." Then he threw up. "Gotta lie down."
Moe and Kelly sat on the edge of the cliff. "What do we do about Tom?" asked Kelly.
"I've got nothing. Not even a first aid kit."
They looked out. A tree fell in the distance.
"I'm going to try to take the Jeep into town," said Moe. "Find a doctor. Or some antibiotics. You stay with Tom, this is a fairly safe place."
"Shouldn't we come with you?"
"It's dangerous. Tom's in no shape to fight off anything."
Moe got in the Jeep, drove it back down the gravel road.
Kelly went back to Tom. He had a rash now, lots of red bumps. "Itches," he said through swollen lips. "Better not touch me, it might be contagious."
Moe drove down the hill, to the plains. The road was slick with worms. As long as he went straight, it just smooshed through them, but any turn and he started sliding. He turned on the radio. Nothing, static. He drove on.
Kelly watched him from above, driving along, skidding. And then the jeep stopped. She watched, but he did not get out.
She went back to check on Tom. Tom was scratching himself. The blisters opened, and little white worms started to crawl out of them and waved around. "Help me," he said weakly. She whimpered, and backed away.
Moe's engine had stopped. It stank. He opened the glove compartment to get the owner's manual, but it was overflowing with earthworms. All around him, the worms were crawling toward him.
But then the ground shook and they stopped. And hustled away as fast as they could. Soon the ground was bare. Unlike his passenger seat which was filling with earthworms from his glove compartment.
Moe got out and opened the hood. The engine was filled with fried worms. That explained the smell, thought Moe. The ground shook again, and a giant worm, its mouth must have been five feet across, burst out of the ground and towered above him.
Kelly saw from the cliff as the giant worm descended on the Moe, eating him in one gulp. Then it started working on the Jeep.
There was a shriek, and a bird fell out of the sky, smashing onto the rocks at Kelly's feet. It was dead. Little white worms crawled out of its mouth and over its feathers. Kelly screamed and backed away. It was a mass of worms now, just like Tom.
She felt the ground shudder. Giant worms were climbing the cliff. There was no place to go. And she noticed she was feeling hot and itchy. She watched wide eyed as little bumps started to form on the backs of her hands.
Well, this was the end, she thought. It was all very sad. But, in retrospect, it was really our own doing. Mankind had never taken any serious action to stop the threat of Global Worming.
A similar cataclysm had threatened to engulf the earth starting in Germany in 1521, but it was narrowly averted through (rather gross) decisive action by the Catholic Church.
This was in response to a prompt on reddit.com r/WritingPrompts, "Make a dramatic, rollercoaster of a story that ends up being the buildup to a pun."