Here's Some Creepy, Nasty Science Fiction

A MAN OF BUGS

Jack Bragen

The flies are my friends. So are the cockroaches, the bees, the spiders, and the worms. I love the bugs, and they love me. I am not an entomologist; insects are not an inferior group of species.
Also, I don’t care for police. When I went to the hamburger stand on Pacheco Boulevard, the police there would often antagonize me, trying to come up with some good reason, in their view, for locking me up. I went a long time restraining myself from using my power on them, but this cop went too far. I merely looked at this policeman, and he put down the burger he ate, rose to his full, six-foot-plus height, and started after me. So I sent him a couple of flies.
The policeman tried to brush away the two flies I had sent, but they were relentless; they kept after him, getting in his face. The policeman glared at me and bared his teeth. I scowled back at him. He came to within tazer range and said: “You’re under arrest. Turn around and put your hands behind your back.” The muzzle of the tazer was aimed at my chest; and I had had enough.
“I don’t have to obey no fly-swatting fuzz,” I said, my voice crackling with rage. The officer gestured with his weapon.
“Do it now or I’ll taze you!” he growled.
I raised a hand and made a sound, a series of clicks from the throat, in universal bug language. It was a signal to all the flies in the area that I needed assistance. It made the cop hesitate in confusion.
A teeming, thick cloud of flies formed in the air above the cop. I issued another signal. The officer’s face was rapidly covered with flies. They went up his nose and into his mouth. They muffled his screams and they cut off his air supply.
I looked back. Two lunch goers were filming me with cell phones. I sent a few flies at these two as a warning. One was a pimply-faced teenage boy, and with sufficient warning, he quickly got on his scooter and left. The other appeared to be a middle-aged housewife, who, upon realizing that the teen had left, decided to go as well. She got into her VW, and drove off, still getting video as she retreated.
Soon, the policeman who dared harass me was a dead body in the parking lot, on which the flies continued to feed. I walked up to the counter at this hamburger stand, and I ordered a cola for my hike back home. The cashier, who had seen what I did, gave me the soda at no charge and then slammed shut all the windows, and bolted the door. I realized that a crowd of onlookers was forming. I started on my way home.
I looked behind as I walked and saw a couple of men following me; they were taking snapshots of me with their blackberries. I stopped and faced the two men. “If you guys keep following me, ya know there are plenty more flies,” I said. “Or would you guys prefer to die of bees? Fifty to a hundred bee stings is fatal, you know.” As I spoke, I faced them and gave them the up-thrust middle finger.
“We’d better not follow this monster. The cops’ll get him later. At least we got shots of him,” said one to the other. They turned about. I turned and continued toward home.

##

The air conditioner hummed and blew cooled air from the wall above the armchair where I sat. An army of ants obligingly carried the television remote control from where it was, on the coffee table, over the edge of the table, across a little bit of carpet, up the side of my chair, and to my right hand. Outside of my apartment it was a hot day, and insect life, I thought, ought to be out in force. I poured myself more iced tea that I had made from a mix. My favorite cockroach, who had recently become pregnant, sat next to my hand on the handle of my chair and ate bits of sugar. As she ate, she periodically rubbed together her mandibles to express her pleasure.
I announced, “I’m going to turn on the TV.” And while there was no human present, my words weren’t purposeless.
In response to my warning, thousands of bugs of various species’ hurriedly vacated the inside of the TV set, escaping through the ventilation holes in the plastic back of the TV. The high voltages inside the TV, while it was on, could fry many of the bugs if they were unfortunate enough to stay.
I put on the Channel 7 news. Flies, fleas and bees flitted happily in the dank air of my living room, enjoying the phosphorescent light of the television, and watched the news with me. There was a news story about a policeman who had been eaten alive by flies at a hamburger stand.
“This story is unbelievable, and we wouldn’t have believed it ourselves except there is video of it, video that we are about to show you.” The news anchor paused. “The scene you are about to see is graphic. Use discretion if you have young family members watching.” The video clip was shown. There I was on TV, shown summoning an army of flies to go after the cop.
The video showed the flies engulfing and choking to death the police officer, and panned back to me, and I appeared to be watching with a satisfied grimace. The video continued, showing that the amateur cameraperson was making a hasty retreat. The video got one more shot of the remnants of the cop, until the citizen was forced to take the wheel of the VW and drive away.
The television screen went back to showing the face of the news announcer, who looked disturbed. “If you see this man, call nine, one, one, immediately. And by all means, do not approach this man. The threat of this man is considered by police to be an equivalent of an armed and dangerous man. Meanwhile, entomologists from all over are scrambling to try to understand the mysterious control this person seems to have over insects. I’m on the line with Andre Chernov, the world’s top expert on flies. He is talking to us via Skype from his home in Ukraine.” A jerky and granular moving picture is shown of a bearded scientist against a backdrop of a cracked plaster wall covered with various college diplomas, trophies, and some shelves with gigantic bug specimens.
“Glad to speak to you,” said Chernov, with a thick Russian accent.
“Doctor Chernov, can you shed any light on the video we saw? How can human beings summon insects to do their bidding? Do you consider this a hoax?”
Chernov replied; “This may not be a hoax, if it is a hoax it is very well done.”
The news anchor said; “But how could this happen?”
“This goes beyond entomology, and must be classified in the same classification as someone like Uri Geller. There is no explanation for this other than the extraordinary power that the human mind can have. The problem is that this extraordinary power is often used for destructiveness, and not to help humankind.”
“Is the man shown here a destructive man?” asked the newsman.
“Well, clearly he is using bugs to murder people.”
The data connection was lost, and the granular jerky picture of Dr. Chernov was replaced by a test pattern. “I’m sorry ladies and gentleman, we’ve lost the connection. We are overdue for commercials. Stay tuned for more.”
I turned off the TV and I let out a big belly laugh. I was famous! I got up from my chair and danced with glee, albeit I was careful not to step on bugs on the carpet. Soon, it was midnight, and I went to bed blissfully on my flea and bedbug laden mattress.

##

I hadn’t always had a love for bugs. I was the second-oldest son of well-adjusted, middle-class parents, who set a good example. Even through their divorce, their example of how to be a “good person” was admirable.
Life didn’t get dicey for me until I turned 19. I was a student at the junior college and I got a nighttime cleanup job at Paul’s Market. Paul’s was the supermarket that existed fifteen years ago on Casper Way, near downtown.
I remember it was ten days after my nineteenth birthday. At nine, I parked my car at the warehouse and picked up my keys. I noticed nothing amiss, and yet, the back of my neck had a tingle. I got into the company truck, which had the janitorial supplies already in it. I drove to the drugstore and let myself in for the night’s work.
As I went to the rear of the store, I thought I saw movement in the corner of my eye. I turned. Something heavy clobbered me on the back of my head. I stumbled, put my hand to my head, felt something wet, warm and sticky, and looked at my hand. It was covered with blood. My vision had become blurred and I was woozy. I saw a man in front of me who wore a mask. It was a Frankenstein mask. I was confused.
“Open the safe for me,” said the man. I realized that he was pointing a revolver at me. The gun was like the ones on TV, on the cop shows; a Saturday night special, it was called.
I tried to speak. I had no way of opening the safe, I was just the janitor, I wanted to tell him. But the only words that issued from my mouth were, “Blub, blub, blub…” I put my hand to my head again, and again looked at my hand: a lot of blood. There is a gap in my memory after this.
I came back to consciousness and I smelled rotting garbage. I was sprawled very uncomfortably on my back with several objects jutting at my back and at the backs of my legs. I saw nothing; it was pitch black. My chest was soaked with something sticky.
And then, I viewed my blood-soaked body from a ghostly perspective above myself. As I drifted upward, I could see an army of cockroaches begin to crawl over my dead corpse and drink the blood off it. But to me, it no longer mattered.
Then, I found myself in a room with gray painted walls and no windows. I sat in a chair, and my right hand held a cigarette. Did I smoke? I couldn’t remember.
Sitting across from me in the room was a seven-foot-tall fly, and I could see it in detail. “Are you done with life? Or, would you like another chance?” the fly asked me.
“Please mister fly, let me live. I’ll do anything,” I cried.
“Then, join me.” The multifaceted eyes of the fly got bigger, and soon it wrapped its translucent wings around me. And the fly’s mandibles penetrated my temples. I was one of them. I was to live again, as a bug.

##

I was finally apprehended by police in protective suits. I had been thrown into a five by seven foot cell, and I appreciated the fact that at least for now, I didn’t have any cellmates. The cell that I was in was well caulked, and the cracks were sealed. There was a bug zapper on the wall that was too high up for me to reach; it hummed faintly with its high voltage.
I was out of my element. I guessed that there were enough rats and mice at the jail to keep the bug population in check. The other prisoners, should I be released to the general population, would have a big advantage, unless I could somehow summon a guard of bugs. But how?
The ear and bushy gray sideburn of a guard briefly appeared through the tiny, thick pane of glass that was inset in the cell door. I leapt up from my cot and rapped on the thick glass. The guard’s mean face appeared, leering at me. He shook his head, which probably meant; don’t bother me.
“I think you have a tapeworm,” I said. The guard’s facial expression went from a baseline of regular nastiness to a scowl of mean sadism. He unbolted the cell door, swung it open, and brought his club to bear.
I communicated, instantly, with the tapeworm that was fortuitously in the guard’s gut.
The guard’s face suddenly assumed a pained look, then one of agony. The head of the tapeworm poked out through the guard’s grimacing mouth in wiggled as if doing a dance in front of the guard’s eyes. The agonized guard doubled over and tried to pull at the giant worm. His face was a deep violet, and soon he couldn’t breathe.
I exited the cell door, shoving the guard aside, and then I remembered to get his keys and his gun. I strapped on the guard’s holster, grabbed his keys, and pinned his badge to my shirt. I might be passable as a plainclothes sheriff. I began to walk, and there was a solitary fly that knew the layout of the jail, who guided me through the maze of hallways and out the front door. I found myself in the parking lot of the jail.
I walked down the street. It was a sunny day, and there were lawyers and judges going to and fro. I passed the courthouse, and I stopped at the coffee place that the lawyers frequented. I ordered a latte, and then I realized I didn’t have my wallet. I left without a word, and walked along Pacheco Boulevard. A few mosquitoes accompanied me. Soon, I would be home.