I am sorry I wrote the comments that Davey said about you. I don’t know why I did that, but now that I’ve reread my message, it seems cruel. I wasn’t thinking. But, then again, perhaps he feels the way he does because you were the first one to notice the malevolence inside him. I was in a state of denial for much longer, and indulged him more than I should have. I just refused to believe that our child could be such a bad seed. But I don’t doubt it anymore. I’ve seen him kill in such a cold-blooded manner, and I’m sure he would have been just as much of a predator if none of this had happened, even if he’d grown up to be a normal boy in a normal world.
Then again, there was never anything normal about him. And he actually seems content in his new monstrous identity.
There are four of the giant black beetles standing about twenty feet from where I am sitting. They aren’t doing anything. They’re just standing there, stone-still and silent, just like the rest of them that I’ve seen. I have rarely seen them in packs of four, that’s a lot for them. They are facing your building, or where I think it is.
They seem to be different sizes, and I’ve come to think of them as The Black Beatles. Do you remember before they became famous the Beatles had been called The Silver Beatles? Well, these are the black ones. There’s even a shorter one that I’ve come to call Ringo.
I don’t think I want to go to Los Angeles anymore. I am so tired.
So now I have a question for you. I do not see any doors or windows. There are some weird frames that might have been windows at one time. And an almost mouth-like opening that looks shaped like a door. But there is no way in. No glass in the windows, no wood in the door. The frames are just decorations on some featureless head of clay and grass.
I have no idea how you get oxygen in there. Or how you survive at all. You are in the belly of a whale trapped in the earth. And I have no clue how to even attempt to get inside and save you.
You’ve been in there awhile. Do you see any way out? Any ventilation shafts or hidden exits? All I can think to do is to dig, and I’ll do that if I have to. But maybe you can make this easier for us both?
I told you I would find you. Now I have to find a way to get you out of there. And I suddenly feel unsure about whether I can do it.
There’s got to be a way.
Don’t give up on me.
Aaron
August 28—2:03 a.m.
Well, Aaron, I would certainly not like to give up on you. I’ve spent my entire life giving up. I remember being in summer day camp when I was eight, nine years old, they used to make us race around the filthy lake in Pahgrove’s Public Park. Perhaps you remember it? It was the skeevy park where those homeless dudes used to nude sunbathe in the summer? OMG, that was such a huge scandal back then. If only our biggest problem now was naked filthy men with shriveled dongs and body lice … LOL!
Look at me going off the beaten path. Will I get to the point already? You always hated my storytelling abilities or lack thereof. Perhaps this lack of ability to focus is related to my tendency to give up on things?
But, let’s FOCUS … I’m eight years old running on my scabby, skinny legs in disgusting Pahgrove’s Public Park. Let’s set the scene: Garbage strewn everyone except in the wire-mesh trash cans, rabid squirrels, killer pigeons, nude homeless men!!! Braless, busty, bleached-blonde, nineteen-year-old summer camp counselors, chain-smoking Kools, have us latchkey kids of cash-strapped parents running the length of a litter-filled, scum-topped lake on the promise that whoever gets their foot on the blue chalk line first, will get this foot-sized, white chocolate candy bar they don’t make anymore and was never all that great to begin with.
I never win such things and, lord knows, I’m no athlete. But, somehow, I was in the lead and, even though the prize was a candy bar I hated, it felt great being first. I was in the homestretch … Aaron, I was going to win! Then the most popular girl, a blue-eyed honey-blonde with legs like a baby Betty Grable, yelled out:
“You’re going the wrong way, Joy! Turn left! Turn left!”
And dammit, I knew I was running the right path. I saw the camp counselors in the distance getting to the butts of their Kools, nearly ready to toss their menthols at the roots of the crab apple tree, but my feet betrayed me and turned left, turned the way of defeat, into the asphalt of the nonworking sprinklers as honey-blonde Tiffany’s red Keds touched the blue line of chalk and her and her confeds laughed stridently.
Yes, I quit the Girl Scouts. Yes, I dropped out of college. Yes, I never finished the widely televised-on-daytime-TV medical-billing course, though I did pay off the loan. And I wonder if Bradley fails to confide in me about the Balloon Heads because I’ve failed to get beyond the status of temp at Chen, Billings, Hall, and Hall?
So, you want me to help you locate an escape hatch? Dude, that’s absolutely my calling. I’ve been crawling in the darkness and feeling along the sides of the walls and along the floor for a crevice, an opening, anything. And what I’ve found is this kind of quicksand stuff at the north end of the building. If you stick your hand in it, it almost pulls you right in. Is it a bottomless pit to nowhere? I don’t know. But that’s all I can tell you for now. I’ll keep looking and hope you do too.
Searchingly yours,
Joy
August 30—8:18 p.m.
Joy,
I know what you must be thinking. I get so close, and then you don’t hear from me. Strangely, a lot has happened since I got here. I am just outside your building, and yet I feel like I am farther away than ever.
I tried to force my way inside. Since I couldn’t find any tools, I first used my hands to claw away the soil and plants to get inside, and then started using the sword. But all to no avail. Every time I think I’m making progress, the soil merely readjusts itself, almost burying me in the process, and I’m back to where I began. I have been trying to think of another way inside, but I’m not having any luck. Do you have any idea how I could get inside? Does anyone in there ever go out into the world? Do you know how they do it?
I’ve searched for any sign of the quicksand-type stuff you mentioned, but I haven’t found anything.
While I was trying to claw my way in, something hit me from behind, knocking me sprawling into the mud. It was Davey, of course, come to taunt me again.
“I have come for you, Father,” he said. “Time for you to become food.”
His gargantuan body hurtled toward me. I struggled to reach the sword in time, intent on hacking him to pieces.
And then everything stopped.
It was the buzzing again, louder than ever before. And this time I knew for certain it was coming from the black beetles, the sentinels standing watch over this transformed world. They seemed to all be buzzing, everywhere, in unison, and the sound was deafening, and with the sound came an almost endless series of explosions.
I thnk the time they were so patiently waiting for had finally arrived.
Davey began to erupt into a thousand volcanoes, as every growth and tumor that made up his new body exploded outward, releasing child-sized insects out into the world. Giving birth to a hundred new lives. He screamed out in agony as he was torn asunder by these things, which not only tore him apart as they clambered to get out of their eggs, but then proceeded to feed upon his plentiful flesh, a feast ready and waiting for them.
Needless to say, Davey wasn’t the only one who was experiencing this. I heard other people—many of them had been hiding and I didn’t even know they were there—and now they were all screaming as well, as their deformities burst open, releasing the beetles’ young. Dozens of child-sized, black beasts erupting onto the earth. Every tumor, every enlarged body part, was an egg waiting to hatch. We were all just incubators for these things.
Since my foot was also enlarged, and thus yet another beetle egg, I was not spared either. My foot seemed to rupture and explode flesh and gore, the pain so severe I almost blacked out. Luckily, instead of turning on me for nourishment, the newborn creature joined its brethr
en in devouring Davey, who was near enough to attract it away from me.
My foot now bloody, fleshy tatters, I dragged myself away from the scene of such carnage, crawling back to the park bench where my laptop remained. But I blacked out as soon as I got close to it. The pain was just too much.
Upon awakening, I saw that my foot, or where it had been, had already healed itself, forming a hardened stump. It was as if my foot had never existed, as if I had always had just one. The pain had subsided enough for me to sit up and survey my surroundings.
Davey was no more. The insect spawn had picked him clean, leaving a hideous, elongated skeleton in its wake. A wall of bones. And there were other skeletons in the distance, sprawled on the ground, twisted into white pretzel shapes.
Somehow, I was spared.
A shadow passed me by, and I looked up to see one of the giant black beetles, I immediately believed it to be the one I called Ringo (how could I tell it was Ringo for sure? I have no idea. He looked down at me with his segmented eyes, and something passed between us. Something without words, but instead composed of a thousand images. Like I was suddenly privy to a foreign language I had never understood before. And he revealed some things to me.
The tsunami was not some alien weapon, or some hand of God, or the earth striking back at the human race that had defiled it. These creatures, which had been asleep for eons deep within the earth, had finally awakened and conjured it up to destroy our cities. Either the work of bizarre science or some kind of magic, they had used the green tsunami to crush us, and to thin out the herd so that we would be more manageable.
And those of us who survived? The green water impregnated us, man and woman alike, with these vile eggs that deformed our bodies. And the beetles were patiently awaiting the time of their hatching.
Calmly standing guard over the new millennium, when mankind would die out completely, and they would take over the surface world.
All this I saw in his red kaleidoscope eyes (and, really, I have no proof he was even male). And I knew that they had allowed me to write to you by email, that somehow they had allowed the Internet to work, and they were entertained by our conversations, as they waited and endured the passage of time.
Or at least this one creature had been entertained. And I realized how insignificant I was. How insignificant we all are, now.
I tried to lift myself up on the bench, to reason with this creature somehow. But the images passed between us in the breadth of seconds, and then it moved on, so quickly that I could not follow its progress with my eyes. And I knew it would only be a matter of time before its children needed more food and came to devour me.
As I write this now, some of the chittering creatures are nearby, as if they just realized I am here. But they are playing with me somehow, dragging my final moments out, watching me as I type this.
And now I know I will never be able to free you from your subterranean prison. And I will never see you again. And I wonder if something similar is happening where you are. And if you will survive somehow, long after I am gone.
They are advancing. My time is running out. Soon I will be like Davey.
I love y……
August 31—1:59 a.m.
Aaron,
I feel sick. Please let me know you are okay.
Love,
Joy
September 4—2:01 a.m.
Hello. It’s been four days since I wrote you and still no response … are you there, Aaron?
Can you hear my voice calling out to you from the glowing screen? Can you see these screaming words? Or is Ringo reading them? Or the Balloon Heads? Or Bradley? Or Cindy’s Spanish moss? I’m going crazy. I don’t think you’re here anymore.
Yours Always,
Joy
September 6—2:05 a.m.
Aaron,
I know now that they read our emails.
Bradley came up to me a little while ago and asked if I’d had any more emails from you. I told him no. Bradley’s mouth went crooked and he turned the color of whipped cream.
“So …,” Bradley said.
“What?”
“Do you … do you think. They got him?”
“Who?” I asked, though of course I knew what he meant.
“The bugs. Did they get Aaron?”
When Bradley said that, it was like he punched me. He must have seen the effect it had on me, because he reached out and rubbed my arm. I started blinking like crazy because I didn’t want to cry in front of Bradley.
“Joy,” Bradley said, “I’m only asking because I’m thinking about our survival.”
“Did you read my emails?”
“Aaron gave us some valuable information, Joy. We wanted to see if he could find a way to stop the bugs …”
“And apparently he didn’t? How disappointing for you.”
I turned to leave, but Bradley grabbed my arm.
“Joy,” he whispered, “Survival of the fittest. Haven’t you figured it out?”
“I’m sorry?”
“We’re underground. We’re nursing the Balloon Heads. Without our care, they would die.”
“No kidding,” I said.
Bradley put his hands on my shoulders and looked into my eyes. “You’ve forgotten who you are. We ate the people on the second floor.”
“We ate their fruit. We didn’t eat …” I stopped, shutting my eyes. My head was throbbing painfully.
“Them?” Bradley asked. “We ate them. There was no fruit. Cindy saw what we were really eating. There was a glitch in her veneer.”
My legs were weak. I sat down on the floor.
“We aren’t the Balloon Heads’ captives,” I said.
“We’re finally getting out of here, Joy,” Bradley said.
“Who is Joy?” I asked.
“You can be Joy. I don’t know what to call you otherwise.”
“She’s dead,” I said.
“For a while now,” Bradley agreed.
“But I feel her. How can she not be?”
“Look,” Bradley said. “It was confusing for me also. The ones that couldn’t cope went to the wall.”
“You’re sending me to the wall?” I asked.
“You kept trying to go there. I had to stop you because we needed to learn from Aaron about the outside. Because of you, we know it’s safe to come out.”
“I’m Joy,” I said, but I knew it was a lie.
“Your name can be Joy,” Bradley said. “I still call myself Bradley.”
“Where will Joy go without me?” I asked.
“Joy’s been dead a while.”
“Since the tsunami,” I said. “But her consciousness?”
“It’s an illusion,” Bradley said. “Let it go.”
“I want her here with me!” I shouted.
I stood up, Aaron, and I ran. I ran back into this room with the computer. Because that’s what I do. I write to you. But you’re not here anymore. And soon Joy will not be here either.
The Balloon Heads are about to pop. I can feel it. There’s going to be a great feast and then we’re going out into the sunlight. But I’m not hungry anymore, Aaron.
If you don’t hear from me, it means I’ve gone to the wall.
YBWMAYW (your bug who masquerades as your wife),
Joy
September 6—2:28 a.m.
ERROR: We were unable to deliver your message. Permanent failure.
ABOUT THE AUTHORS
LAURA COONEY ______________________________________
Laura Cooney’s work has appeared in various horror publications and in the anthologies Bandersnatch and Dark Jesters. In Sickness: Stories From a Very Dark Place, a joint short story collection she wrote in collaboration with her husband, L.L. Soares, was published by Skullvines Press in 2010. She lives in Massachusetts with her husband and their iguana, Pippi Greenstocking.
L.L. SOARES _________________________________________
L.L. Soares is the Bram Stoker Award-winning author of the novel Life
Rage. His other books include the short story collection In Sickness (with Laura Cooney) and the novels Rock ‘n’ Roll and Hard. His fiction has appeared in such magazines as Cemetery Dance, Horror Garage, Bare Bone, Shroud, and Gothic.Net, as well as the anthologies The Best of Horrorfind 2, Zippered Flesh: Tales of Body Enhancements Gone Bad!, Zippered Flesh 2: More Tales of Body Enhancements Gone Bad!, Someone Wicked: A Written Remains Anthology, and Traps. He also co-writes the Stoker-nominated horror movie review column Cinema Knife Fight, which has a whole site built around it at cinemaknifefight.com. To keep up on his endeavors, go to www.llsoares.com.
ABOUT THE ILLUSTRATORS
JU KIM _______________________________________
Graduating from the Moore College of Art and Design, Ju Kim knew she wanted to pursue a career in the creative marketing world. Her favorite quote—“Things don’t happen; you make them happen”—propelled her, after graduation, into a field where only 2% of each graduating class enters creative advertising/marketing. Her creative ventures have led her to work with government, nonprofit, education, and public utility clients. She currently works full-time as the Art Director for Independent School Management, where she is responsible for designing print and web graphics for ISM’s many service departments, as well as assisting the Marketing Director in creative direction. Ju designed the cover for Green Tsunami and also created three of its illustrations.
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