Creeptych

them.

Arachnid was back on his feet, and moving slowly towards Wes with the shears. He was not smiling.

“It would have been painless,” the singer growled.

“For you, maybe.”

Arachnid launched forward and cut at Wes, who recoiled and tried to bring the shovel around. Too late. The blade slashed against his chest, cutting through the shirt and drawing a line of blood. He screamed and ducked as Arachnid brought the shears down again, this time aiming for his neck.

Wes threw himself sideways, and rolled over the dead weight of Orin, disturbing the small swarm that had gathered on the man’s face. Wes came to his feet in front of the door, and with one hand felt behind him for the knob. It turned as Arachnid rushed at him. Wes pushed the door as the lock released, and fell back, stumbling down the step to the ground outside.

“You’re not going anywhere,” the singer yelled, limping after him.

Wes leapt to his feet and ran around the shack, waiting for Arachnid. He didn’t wait long. The singer turned the corner, brandishing the shears.

But Wes’s reach was longer. He held the shovel like a baseball bat, and as Arachnid lunged, he brought the heavy side around, and all those years of little league paid off—in a spade. The metal tip of the garden implement connected dead-on with a clang against Arachnid’s skull. But this time, the singer didn’t just go down.

This time, the shovel cleaved his skull just above the ear. Maybe it was because the generations of Brood he’d fed had weakened his skull, or maybe it was because Wes swung that shovel damned hard.

But the top of Arachnid’s head came off as clean as a Tupperware lid. With a slight pop.

As it did, a cloud of black wings filled the air, and the world was alive with the drone of an angry, surprised hive.

The Brood.

As the droning black bugs swirled into the air, a cloud of larger insects poured like smoke from the trees all around and Wes was pummeled by legs and wings and chittering, buzzing smacks of bug.

The Swarm.

Wes dropped the shovel and ran.

He’d only gone a few yards when he realized…the swarm wasn’t after him. They hadn’t followed. The yard sounded like the inside of a beehive, but when he looked back, he saw the center of activity. Arachnid’s head.

More precisely, Arachnid’s brain. The swarm…was feeding.

There was a pain then, in his own head, and Wes felt dozens of tiny teeth pull at the inner part of his ear.  Something pushed through his ear canal, and legs pricked at the lobe of his ear as it crawled out. He swatted the side of his head.

His hand came away bloody and black.

“Oh god,” he cried and slipped down to his knees. His stomach threatened to puke. These things were really alive in his head! Then he felt the creepy plucking feeling again, and this time he didn’t swat. There was a piercing cicada buzz and a small black bug flew past his face. And then another. And another. They were leaving!

His brood were going to join the swarm. For dinner.

He stifled the gorge in his throat, and his whole body shook with horror as he forced himself to remain still, kneeling, and let them go.

*   *   *

When he got home that night, Wes took his Eardrum Buzz CD and threw it in the garbage. Then he reached for something older. Safer. He popped in a The The disc, and sat down on the couch.

“Infected with your love,” Matt Johnson began to sing.

“Uh-uh,” Wes said, and hit the power button on the remote. The stereo went dead.

“No more infected with your anything,” he said.

As he lay back on the pillow, he realized that the drone in his head was finally gone. Mostly.

It was actually so quiet, he could hear the silence.

It buzzed.

VIOLET LAGOON

Setting Sail

“You’re sure Jess is coming?” Billy asked pointedly. “You didn’t scare her off with that Blue Lagoon shit?”

Mark shook his head and grinned. “My gal ain’t shy. She’ll be here.”

Casey nodded and popped the top on a Lite. She took a swig and then gave Billy a long kiss. When it broke, her boyfriend could barely hide a gasp.  “Wow…” he said. “I could get drunk on that!”

“Jess was all into it,” Casey smiled. “Just like me. We could all use a total break from reality.”

“Well, I’d like to start that break this week,” Billy grumbled, toying with the “Captain’s wheel” of the speedboat. “I only borrowed this for three days you know.”

“We’ll get it back in time,” Mark promised. “Knowing your clients, I think you could get away with being a little late if it came to it.”

“Knowing my clients, I could be at the bottom of the bay if it’s back an hour late,” Billy answered. “Anyway, I’m reformed.”

Mark pointed to the red cooler sitting in the rear of the craft and grinned. “And I suppose you’ll tell me that there’s no secret compartment filled with Mexico’s finest beneath the false floor right about there?”

“I said reformed, not no fun,” Billy said. “And how do you know so much about drug smuggling, hmmm?”

“Well for starters, I’ve been your friend since Freshman year.”

Casey laughed and ran her hand up Mark’s shoulder. “Hey that’s right…You know, I bet you could give me a lot of good dirt on our friend here. For instance, that girl he was seeing last semester, Beth? Did he ever…”

Just then, the slim blur of a brunette came running down the dock yelling, “OK, OK, I’m late! You can make me walk the plank later. But look what I got!”

From a bulging canvass bag, Jess pulled out a few scraps of tan fabric, cut with irregular triangles. One piece was clearly meant as a loincloth, the other could have been a bikini top. Both looked like stage costumes meant for extremely scantily clad prehistoric island dwellers.

“I am not wearing that,” Billy proclaimed, as Mark reached out an arm and helped her climb into the boat.

“Of course not, silly! That’s for Casey.” She reached into her sack and pulled an almost equally small loincloth and tossed it in his lap. “This one’s for you.”

Mark cocked an eyebrow and looked skeptically at her. “I know we said ‘Blue Lagoon’ and all, but do you really think we’re all going to parade around in these?”

“Well not here,” she grinned, waving at the dock, crowded with sailboats and speedboats and people milling about. It was a gorgeous summer Friday morning, and plenty of people were playing hooky and heading out to sea. On many of the decks, small groups of people were kicked back in easy chairs, taking in the sun, drinking beer for brunch and talking with friends. “But Billy promised that nobody goes to this island, it’s off the map. Totally empty. So if we’re going to ‘get away from it all’ and play Blue Lagoon for the weekend, let’s do it. We can change once we’re out near the island.”

“I don’t think you girls will stay in those outfits for long, anyway,” Billy said with an evil grin. Then he turned the key in the ignition and the motor sputtered to life. “All hands on deck,” he called, and after releasing the dock ties, they slowly began to move out into the crystal blue ocean.

The Island

Billy McAllister drove the boat borrowed from one of his former “customers” due south, navigating between various small keys, some of which were barely larger than a dune of sand with a frosting of scrub grass. He was really looking forward to this weekend, and not just for the obvious, expected benefits. After being busted for drug peddling and spending a couple years out of circulation, he’d decided to clean up his act and go back to the U of Miami to earn his botany degree. He wanted to erase all of the black marks of his last couple years of high school,