Bugged

Bugged


Walter hated bugs.

He told his psychologist once, that he thought insects were trying to take over the world, and he simply loathed them for it. Walter hated everything about creepy-crawly creatures and vowed to destroy them all.

“Why do you hate them so much?” Doctor Allen asked. He flipped open his notepad, scratched something down with an expensive-looking pen.

Walter took a serious breath, then set it free again with a deep sigh. “Because they're so cruel,” he said, almost in tears.

“Cruel? How so?”

“They are maleficent toward all of mankind--toward me! They are loathsome, detestable creatures that should be eliminated from the face of the earth.” Walter rubbed his arms while he talked as if they were covered with spiders.

“Explain it to me, Walter, explain how you feel.”

“Look, Doc. This isn't a textbook phobia I’m suffering from here. This is a true hatred for the filthy buggers.”

“Yes, but your hatred must stem from some previous experience that you’ve had. Can you remember when you first started having this overwhelming dislike of insects?”

“Well, uh, since you mentioned it, I can’t honestly remember a time when I didn’t feel this way. I’ve hated them since I was little--hated them more than anything else in the world!”

“Yes, yes, but there has to be a reason, Walter. When we find it, then you’ll have made the first step toward recovery.”

Walter Snodgrass was a thin man in his late thirties, and his pathoscopic behavior toward insects could be traced back to his earliest known memories. “I remember when I was a kid, there were these big insects that would come and carry me out of my house. They'd actually take me from my bed and secret me away to some brightly lit room in their nest. I had no power to resist them, and...and that feeling of losing control frightened me immensely. There were so many nights I’d wake up screaming, back in my bed, sweat pouring from my body, feeling totally repulsed by what they had done to me.”

“Done to you? What do you mean?”

“They’d perform experiments on me--try to find out what made me tick.”

“Do you honestly expect me to believe that large insects carried you from your home in the dead of night so that they could do . . . what, perform experiments on you?”

“I know it sounds crazy, doc, but it’s all true. I couldn’t stop them! I still can’t.”

“My God, Walter, you still have these experiences?”

“Well, yeah, but I've been fighting back. My every waking hour is now dedicated to killing any insect I can find: ants, roaches, flies, anything that comes across my path. I even go outside to hunt them in my backyard. Every one I kill makes me feel better somehow, gives me back a semblance of the control they have ripped away from me.”

“Walter, you are an intelligent man, but your reasoning is askew. You know that insects are beneficial to mankind. They are part of the chain of life that governs the makeup of our world. The human race would die without them.”

“No! You're wrong! They want to take over. I’ve heard their thoughts. It's only a matter of time.”

Doctor Anthony Allen wrote frantically in his book. He filled an entire page, then looked up at Walter over the top of his glasses. “Perhaps,” he said, “we could try hypnosis. The technique has proven successful in numerous cases like this. If we were to . . .” He stopped in mid-sentence, watched as Walter became distracted. “Mr. Snodgrass?”

Walter walked trance-like toward the large window that filled the farthest wall of the psychologist’s office. His eyes rolled in his head as he followed the irratic flight of a fly.

“There! Do you see?” Walter exclaimed, angrily, pointing at the glass. “They’re here! They’re listening!”

“Who, Walter? Who’s here?”

“The bugs, dammit!” He ran to the window and slapped at the glass with his hand. It shook and rattled from the impact. “I’ll get you, you bastard! I’ll get you!”

“Walter, please, sit down!” Doctor Allen stood and cautiously approached his patient. He noticed the man was trying to kill an unfortunate fly that had become trapped by the transparency of the glass. “Stop that, Walter, you’ll break the window.”

The enraged man ignored him, continued pounding on the window in a delusional fit. Finally, the fly was locked into the corner, and Walter quickly crushed it with his fingers smearing the insides of the fly like a pimento across the glass. “Ha! I got you, you son-of-a-bitch! I got you!”

“Walter, calm down! It’s just a simple housefly. Please, come back and take your seat.” He gently gripped Walter’s arm and led him back to his chair.

“I hate insects. Hate ‘em! The flies are the informers. They report everything they hear back to the larger ones...the leaders.” He broke away from the man’s grasp and hurried toward the door. “I gotta go, doc. They know I’m here. They know!”

“A fly can’t hurt you, Walter. A fly couldn’t hurt . . . well, a fly.”

“Was there a fly in that window before I got here?”

“Well, I don't really know. Actually, I've never noticed a fly in here before.”

“See? They followed me here!” Walter looked around, frantic. “They’ll be coming for me. I gotta get outta here.”

“Walter, please, listen to me! Nobody’s coming to get you. It was just a stupid fly. They are not capable of recording our conversation and reporting it to giant insects.”

“Oh, yeah? Well then why do they call them bugs?" He rubbed at his head in frustration, shaking it side-to-side. "You just don’t understand, doc. But you’re in danger as long as I’m here.”

“In danger? From what? Big bugs? Look, Walter, this would be an opportune time to prove to you that this is nothing but a figment of your imagination.”

“You think I’m fuckin’ nuts, don’t you? Look, asshole, those things are gonna come in here . . . right through the goddamn walls. And there won’t be a fuckin’ thing you can do about it.”

“Mr. Snodgrass, please, your language!”

“Sorry about my foul mouth, doc, but you’re really starting to piss me off! These bastards have been taking me all my life. I know what they're capable of.”

Walter wore a plaid shirt. Suddenly, he ripped it from his body, plastic buttons shot about the room like tiddly-winks. Then he turned to show his back to the doctor. “Look! Just look what they’ve done to me!”

Where there should have been skin, flesh and bone, Walter’s back was a shiny, segmented exoskeleton, resembling more an ant’s body than a human's. “Tell me this is all my imagination, doc. Go ahead, tell me!"

Doctor Allen backed away, held his hands up in front of him as if to fend off the horror of the spectacle. “That’s . . . that’s impossible.”

“Now you see why I hate fuckin’ bugs?”

There was a low humming sound. It grew in intensity.

“Shit! They’re here!” he screamed. “If you value your life, doc, get out!”

The doctor stood there, frozen, oblivious to the sound. Just then, a cardinal red ant walked through the wall on two legs. Doctor Allen gasped and moved back, bumped into the wall, and was unable to retreat any further though his legs continued to pump in reverse.

“No!" Walter yelled. "You can’t have me!” He quickly flipped the doctor’s desk over and stood behind it defiantly.

The ant had two sets of elongated limbs, in one of his four hands he held a silver rod, tipped with a small red light that he pointed at Walter.

“No! Get away, you bastard! Get away!” Walter shielded his face in the crook of his arm, refusing to look into the light. He scanned the floor, then quickly stooped and picked up a stapler. “I WILL NOT GO!” With all his might, Walter threw the heavy metal object at the five-foot ant.

The creature instantly lowered its body through the floor. Its head and upper torso stuck up from the carpet. The stapler passed harmlessly through the air crashing against the far wall. The ant immediately rose from the floor again, emerging whole once more and pointing the silver rod at Walter.

“No!” His body suddenly went rigid and began floating horizontal to the floor.

The ant walked to him and touched the tip of the silver rod to Walter’s forehead. The lower set of hands effortlessly lifted him toward the ceiling. Doctor Allen watched in stunned silence as Walter’s body passed right through the ceiling and disappeared.

The psychologist felt something invading his mind--an ancient voice. The horror of it chilled his heart, his marrow. He was compelled to look into the black insectile-eyes of the ant, and felt as if he were being assessed. The creature lowered its head, turned and walked nonchalantly through the wall.

The air felt electrified, papers flew all around the room as though an unseen wind blew them about. Slowly they began to settle to the floor like dry leaves. Anthony Allen finally let his breath go. He had no idea how long he had been holding it. After everything he had just experienced, his only emotion was one of utter relief that he had survived; everything else was secondary. He survived.

At that moment, that’s all that mattered to him. He lowered his head to his chest and breathed, tried to relax himself. He wiped the sweat of fear from his forehead with the sleeve of his silk shirt. It's over, he told himself. They're gone. It's over.

Suddenly, four jointed arms came out of the wall directly behind him. They grabbed his shoulders, his waist, and held him securely to the wall. Then a silver rod was quickly pressed to his temple, and Anthony Allen couldn't stop screaming as they pulled him through.

(word count: 1640)