by Glenn Rolfe

“Yes, dear,” Luke said. He poured a steaming cup of Hazelnut coffee into his Jets mug and waltzed across the kitchen to the bathroom. His head pounded and his eyes felt like they’d been baked in the sun. He’d had the weirdest dreams last night. His body was refusing to commit to a new day.

“What is it, dear?” He brought the mug up to his lip, and heard the buzzing.

“Look at them? How are there so many?”

Heather was surrounded by houseflies. There were at least fifteen of the flying maggots swooping and diving around her head. He’d never seen anything like it, outside of that horrible scene in the original Amityville Horror where the priest starts choking.

Heather was armed with a rolled up magazine and striking with swift violence. Her bathroom was not to be fucked with.

“Can you help?” she said.

Luke set his coffee on the towel cabinet and scoured the room for another magazine.

“Here,” Heather said and handed him hers. “You deal with this. I have to go to work.”

He took the makeshift death dealer. Heather gave him a quick peck on the lips.  Love you.”

“Love you, too.”

She hurried out of the room as he turned to face the swarm of disgusting bugs.

It took him five full minutes to smack them out of existence, smearing their blood and guts all over the bathroom window, ceiling, and walls. He even nailed two with one shot against the counter by the faucet. It took twice as long to clean up the aftermath.

He set up a fresh pot of coffee, hit the “brew” button, and waited. His stomach cramped as he sat at one of the stools surrounding the granite island in the center of the kitchen. Suddenly, coffee didn’t seem like a good idea. He hopped up, rushing to the bathroom. He barely made it to the toilet before he vomited.

“Luke? Hey sleepyhead, you all right?”

He tried to open his eyes, but his lashes were crusted together. He smeared the gunk clear from his fingers.

“What time is it?”

He heard the buzzing of wings.

“Almost 5:30. What is that on your neck?”

He reached up and fluttered his fingers over a dried flap of skin.

“I don’t know.”

Heather touched the back of her hand to his forehead. 

“You’re burning up, hon.”

“I…I threw up this morning after you left. I felt like shit, so I laid down. Guess I got a touch of something.”

Heather rose from the couch and started toward the kitchen. She stopped in the doorway. “Oh, and I thought you were getting rid of those flies for me?”

“I did.”

“Well, then that makes it even more weird.”

“What?”

“They’re all over the bathroom again.”

Luke settled under his sheets. Heather demanded he go to bed. She brought him a glass of water and two Tylenol. In the twenty minutes since she’d gotten home, he’d heard the constant thwacks and thumps from the bathroom below as she hacked away at the army of flies that had seemingly come back from the dead.

One buzzed around his glass.

He swatted it away and heard the buzz even louder as something tickled the side of his neck. He smacked the skin and came away with more fly carcass on his hand.

What the fuck is going on here?

He looked up and saw two more of the nasty pests swirling around the top of the bedroom curtain.

He wiped his palm on his t-shirt and then discarded the sweaty garment to the floor. His chest was covered in a slick sheen of sweat. He noticed another flap of skin beneath his nipple. And another next to his belly button. He fingered the dried-looking flesh.  His thumb rubbed against his sweat-covered belly. His skin was clammy, almost slimy to the touch. He caught a whiff of something rank. He knew sick people usually carried a scent, but this was more than the normal sour smell. It was almost like garbage. He suddenly wanted more than anything to take a shower.

He swept his feet to the floor. Ignoring the headache still wailing away behind his temples, and pushing past the tightness in his stomach and the irritation in his eyes from wiping away more of the gunk from the corners just before he’d laid down, he went to the door and headed downstairs.

His muscles were weak. He held onto the railing to keep from falling down the stairs.

“Heather,” he said, his voice coming out in a rasp.

He tried to clear his throat and gagged on something lodged in it.

“Hea-Hea–”

Heather screamed.

His vision blurred. His grip on the railing slipped. He tumbled down the last three steps, and crashed onto the carpet.

Heather ran into the room, her hands to her throat and tears in her eyes, and then dropped to her knees. Luke watched as she hacked up a wad of phlegm and a fly. The insect buzzed and darted up to join the growing number now gathered at the light on the ceiling.

“What’s happening?” Heather managed, as she wiped her mouth with the back of her hand.

Luke tried to push himself up, but his arms were too weak. He wheezed, grateful that whatever was in his throat wasn’t completely blocking his airway.

His neck prickled. The feeling repeated at several spots on his back and chest.

“Oh my God, Luke…”

The flesh beneath his eye twitched and stretched.

A fly leg appeared in his blurred vision, followed by another and another.

He tried to scream, but gagged up two more flies instead.  Their wings fluttered against the roof of his mouth. The buzzing echoed through his brain, intense and louder than a jackhammer.

The tickle started again in his sinuses and danced down his nostril.

The fly on his eyeball did a 180 before launching upward as he stopped breathing.

Glenn Rolfe is an author, singer, songwriter and all around fun loving guy from the haunted woods of New England. He has studied Creative Writing at Southern New Hampshire University, and continues his education in the world of horror by devouring the novels of Stephen King and Richard Laymon. He and his wife, Meghan, have three children, Ruby, Ramona, and Axl. He is grateful to be loved despite his weirdness.

He is the author of Abram's Bridge, Boom Town, Slush, and his latest, Blood and Rain.

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