Freaky Fly Day

by David Farland

  The sky overhead was red, and the sun slanted in from the west. The whole sky looked as if it glowed from distant fires. In another hour it would be dark.

  He knew that he was getting close to the dump when the flies appeared. They began smashing against the windshield like a grisly rain. The skies overhead suddenly grew dark as a cloud of flies rose from the dump.

  Harold Shortzenbeggar blew the horn on his big rig. “Come to Papa!” he shouted in greeting.

  He grabbed the truck’s radio and called in. “This is Little Bo Peep, over.”

  “We read you loud and clear, Little Bo Peep,” a voice shot back over the radio.

  “I’m at the gates of the wasteland. A cloud of sheep is rising above it, but I have not sighted the Lost Sheep. Hold your fire until you get my signal.”

  “Roger. We’re locked and loaded and awaiting your signal . . .”

  Mona Ravenspell frowned. “What’s going on here?” she asked. “I thought we were going in alone?”

  “Oh, we are,” the governor answered. “But I’ve got the air force on standby with a few missiles, just in case we need them . . .”

  The cloud of flies was growing thicker. The ugly insects filled the sky like a plague of locusts, blackening the heavens. It was so dark that it felt as if thunder and lightning should fill the skies.

  But the only sound was the ominous humming of flies, a sonorous buzz that seemed to come from everywhere and nowhere at the same time.

  Flies were bouncing off the windshield like hail, making a sound like popcorn popping in a pan.

  The truck’s automatic headlights flipped on, but so many flies covered the lights that they were almost useless.

  A few flies made it up through the air vent, into the cabin of the truck. Mona Ravenspell made quick work of them with her flyswatter, and Ben Ravenspell leapt out and stabbed a huge horsefly with the little needle that he used as a spear. It sat on the needle like some grotesque shish kebab.

  “Way to go!” the governor congratulated Ben.

  Suddenly Governor Shortzenbeggar gave a cry of horror. Amid the black cloud of flies, something enormous came hurtling toward him—several somethings. He squinted, but could not see them clearly. Too many flies clouded the way.

  Then he saw it: a squadron of enormous flies sped toward him, giant flies as big as cows!

  “Holy moly!” the governor shouted. He grabbed his radio. “I’ve got bogeys coming in at twelve o’clock, about a dozen of them!”

  “Bogeys?” the voice on the radio asked.

  “Superflies!” the governor screamed. “They’re as big as buffalo some of them! As big as wild boars. I could use a little help here!”

  “The packages are on the way,” the voice assured them.

  The superflies buzzed the truck, seven of them winging to the left, six of them zipping to the right. They sped over and around the truck in a blur, moving so fast that it gave the governor a cramp in the neck just trying to look at them.

  One fly yelled in an amplified voice, “That’s far enough. Stop the truck and surrender your cargo!”

  Oh, great, the governor thought. Just what I need—talking giant flies!

  The governor gritted his teeth. “Let’s party!” he said, reaching down into his boots and silently pulling a machine gun out of each one.

  He hit the brakes, and the truck ground to a halt. Immediately a cloud of flies descended. He peered into the rearview mirror and saw the giant flies land. They began buzzing loudly, giving orders to the lesser flies. These monster flies moved with incredible speed.

  He’d seen flies dart about on hot days, moving almost quicker than thought. Well, these flies were doing the same, only they were giants.

  Hordes of little worker flies landed on the garbage and began picking up the greasy chicken and watermelon then lugging it through the air. Sometimes thousands of little houseflies clung onto a piece of chicken at once. They worked quickly. Too quickly. In only seconds the superflies had uncovered the bomb.

  “Hey, what’s this!” a giant fly demanded. It reached down and tried to pick up the bomb, but it was too heavy and far too large. The bomb, short and squat, filled the entire bed of the truck.

  “It’s a trap!” a second fly shouted.

  Now was the perfect time to attack.

  “You want something to eat?” the governor shouted at the flies. “Try some bullets!”

  He whipped out his machine guns and slammed the barrels through the back window. A hail of bullets swept through the bed of the truck, but the superflies were fast—too fast. The governor had tried swatting flies on hot days, and as a child had been amazed at how they could dart off so quickly that they could seem to disappear.

  That’s what happened when he opened fire. A dozen of them had been hanging on to the side of the truck, but instantly they leapt into the air and seemed to vanish!

  Only two lowly flies took lead in the rain of bullets.

  Mona Ravenspell sat there with her flyswatters for a moment, looking at the useless things. “Forget this!” she said, tossing them aside. She grabbed a rocket launcher, pointed it toward the front windshield, and sat fiddling with some buttons and levers.

  “Hey,” the governor told her, “I wouldn’t push those if I were—”

  Slam! A giant superfly hit the windshield, shattering it into ten thousand pieces. The monster fly hovered menacingly over the hood, glaring into the cab of the truck with its faceted eyes. The fly had a metallic-green body with a golden sheen to its back. A wide reddish brown band, like the mask of a raccoon, ran across its black eyes. The governor couldn’t help but think that it was a rather handsome fly.

  “Looks like we’re going to have a little picnic after all,” the superfly said. “And you’re the main course!”

  In that instant, Mona Ravenspell accidentally set off the rocket launcher. A rocket blasted out, catching the superfly in the midsection.

  “Mother!” it whimpered. The fly hurtled backward, out over the hood, and suddenly exploded in a million pieces.

  Tens of thousands of angry flies began to pour through the cab. Ben Ravenspell leapt onto the dashboard with his needle and valiantly began to skewer them like an expert swordsman.

  The governor saw a blur in the darkness and realized that the superflies were coming back. He whipped out his machine guns and laid down cover fire, clearing the area above the hood. He was hoping to keep them at bay.

  Suddenly he heard the wrenching of metal and looked out the driver’s window of the truck. A giant fly had landed, and it was using all six legs to peel the metal door from its frame.

  The governor wheeled, tried to get off a shot, but instantly the fly vanished. The governor glimpsed it flying off—carrying the door with it!

  A giant fly hit the back window, and the governor tried to wrench around. He glimpsed another one of the monsters out the front.

  “They’re everywhere!” Mona Ravenspell shouted.

  “Not for long!” the governor assured her. He began firing both machine guns at once—one through the front window, one out the back.

  That’s when he heard the buzz. Something grabbed him through the open door hole, something enormous. A fly ripped the guns from his hands with two arms then tried to yank him from his seat.

  Fortunately, he was buckled in.

  He grappled with the giant fly, biting it on one of its hairy arms. Mona Ravenspell screamed. The governor glanced down at Amber and tried to yell, “Do something!” But his mouth was full of fly leg.

  The monster grabbed him with all six arms and buzzed angrily as it jerked him again. If the governor had been a normal man, the power of the beast would have broken every bone in his body. Fortunately, for one of his movies Governor Shortzenbeggar had been fitted with a skeleton that was made from a titanium alloy.

  His bones did not break, but the seat belt snapped.

  The fly ripped him from the cab of the dump truck and carried him high into the air.

  “Aa
aaagh!” the governor wailed. “I’m a gonner!”

  Chapter 18

  SUPERFLIES

  When the odds are overwhelming, the wise man retreats, neither in haste nor fear,

  but calmly and with all of the resolute fierceness of a warrior marching into combat.

  —TSUN TZU

  As Benjamin Ravenspell lunged, skewering a fly, he whirled and saw the governor’s legs lifting into the air.

  Ben’s mom dropped the missile launcher, looking for another weapon. All that she had were the flyswatters. “I’m gonna need a bigger swatter!” she cried.

  Trillions of flies blackened the sky; Ben knew they couldn’t fight them all. “Do something!” he shouted to Amber.

  A huge shadow appeared just outside the passenger window. A bluebottle fly as big as a hippo roared in anger and ripped the passenger door from the car. Ben’s mom screamed in terror and grabbed for a fallen machine gun.

  The fly lunged quicker than a blink and snatched Ben’s mom from the truck.

  “Help!” she cried as the enormous fly lifted her into the air.

  “Do something!” Ben shouted to Amber. More giant flies buzzed into view, surrounding the truck. They hovered in the air, peering through every smashed window, glaring into the cab. “Amber?”

  “I did something!” Amber said. “Let’s get out of here!”

  Ben froze in fear. He’d imagined that the only reason that one of the giant flies hadn’t eaten him was because he was sitting still or because he was so small. Now he realized that there was some kind of spell protecting him.

  “What did you do?” he asked.

  “I made us invisible—” Amber said, “at least to flies. I just sort of wished that . . . they wouldn’t notice us!”

  It was a small spell, Ben realized.

  One superfly shouted, “Hey, everybody! Stop buzzing! I think I hear something in there.”

  As one, the giant flies all landed, and little flies dropped too, covering the truck. The sound of buzzing faded to a distant hum. The flies looked into the truck, their enormous multifaceted eyes searching every corner. One big fly stuck out his mop and began licking the hood of the truck, as if tasting it, trying to get their scent.

  The only sound was the blaring of the radio.

  Ben’s heart pounded as the giant flies investigated the truck. He was afraid that they might have super-hearing and might hear his heart beating.

  He was even more afraid for his mother. The giant flies had taken her, and he didn’t know where. It was up to him to save her. They’d taken the governor, too, but Ben didn’t care about that so much, even though he did like the movies the governor had starred in.

  “I hear something,” a giant sand fly whispered. “There’s something in there. Something small . . .”

  “It’s just the radio,” a buffalo-sized horsefly said.

  A vast whitefly climbed into the back window. “I hear it, too!”

  Ben stopped breathing, wishing that his heart would stop beating. Suddenly he heard a whining sound up above, and a pair of cruise missiles came shooting overhead. They landed a hundred yards away and sent off a pair of small fireballs casting a red glare. The explosion lifted the truck off the ground and left it rocking.

  But it wasn’t the explosion that did the damage. Instead, a huge green gas cloud erupted where the missile had landed.

  “Flee!” shouted a fly, and the superflies roared into the air, wings pounding, seeking to escape.

  Dead and dying flies began to drop onto the truck, pinging down like volcanic ash. All around, Ben could hear the dying flies whimpering and bemoaning their fate.

  Thank heaven for pesticides, Ben thought. From now on, I’m always going to keep a bottle of Raid handy.

  More cruise missiles whined overhead, twenty or thirty of them, and began exploding in a wide spread. Ben suddenly remembered the huge bomb in the back of the truck. “We’d better get out of here,” he shouted to Amber, “before our bomb blows!”

  Amber leapt out the door on the passenger’s side. Ben followed. It was a long drop, but his fall was cushioned by dead flies.

  He looked down at the hundreds of varieties—the beautiful green-and-gold body of a long-legged fly, the frightening yellow-and-black stripes on a hoverfly, the humped back of a robber fly. There were so many colors and types, he was in awe, and many of them were surprisingly beautiful. He wasn’t sure if it was because they were wearing makeup or if he had just never noticed how pretty flies could be before.

  Amber took a few hops. She picked up her front paws and stared at them in disgust. “I’m never going to want to groom again!” she said.

  Ben felt the same. “Where to?” he asked.

  “I think they took your mom that way!” Amber said, pointing off toward his left. “But if you want, we could just sneak out of here. That would be the safest thing to do.”

  She gave him an odd sidelong look. Her brown eyes were glazed from weariness.

  Does she really think that I’d leave my mom? he wondered. Of course not.

  Yet he knew that Amber felt like he was abandoning her, and he wondered if the mouse was testing him, trying to see how true he could be.

  “We can’t just sneak off and do nothing,” Ben reasoned. “We have to rescue my mom and Governor Shortzenbeggar.”

  “Well, all right,” Amber said wearily. She sounded sick, as if she might faint. But she turned and led the way.

  So the pair of mice raced along the road, deeper into enemy territory. The skies were a pitch black. It seemed that no matter how many flies were killed, more took their place.

  * * *

  Amber felt done in. Casting just one little spell had cost her dearly. She felt the wizard wearies coming on strong. Her tail felt as heavy as if it were made of lead, and her stomach was churning—sure signs that she’d overdone it.

  She didn’t want to disappoint Ben, but she knew that she couldn’t cast another spell today. To do so might kill her.

  She wondered if she could do that—cast a spell while knowing that she would sacrifice her life by doing so.

  I could do it for Ben if I had to, she told herself. That would show him! Maybe he’s the kind who could leave me in a pinch, but he’ll see that I’m not that kind of person.

  She didn’t want to go deeper into fly territory. She felt so sick and terrified that she could barely keep from fainting.

  Yet she managed to put one paw in front of the other, time after time, to keep on going.

  An enormous explosion suddenly lifted Amber into the air, and the force of the blast tossed her forward. She glanced back behind her and saw an enormous fireball roaring up into the sky where the truck had been. A toxic cloud was shooting up like a mushroom, dark green in color. Amber gazed into the cloud and for an instant saw the image of a grinning skull. The Big Bug Bomb had exploded.

  Ben raced up beside Amber. “Cover your nose!” he cried. “It’s not safe to breathe that stuff.”

  So the two huddled together side by side, closed their eyes, and waited for the gas cloud to disperse.

  “Oh, my gosh,” flies began to cry all around. “They’re using Diazinon! It’s the end of the world!”

  The flies buzzed in anger and fear, and it seemed that the heavens were falling as millions and millions plummeted from the sky.

  Is it too much to hope, Amber wondered, that one of these gas bombs or missiles killed Belle Z. Bug?

  Yes, it did seem like too much to hope. Belle Z. Bug was a wizard, and a powerful one. It was going to take more than a little poison to get rid of her.

  Amber opened her eyes just a bit. Dead flies littered the ground to a depth of a good six inches, and they were still raining down. Amber and Ben had to scurry in order to keep from getting buried. In some places, huge drifts of dead flies were building like snow in a blizzard.

  But there was one sign of hope. The darkness in the skies had lessened, and now Amber could see the falling sun on the horizon, like a huge blood
y eye.

  Chapter 19

  MANKIND’S LAST HOPE

  A cousin of mine once fell into a pail of milk with some friends. His friends swam about for a time

  but soon gave up and let themselves drown.

  My cousin, however, kept kicking and fighting until after a few hours the cream on top of the pail began to turn to butter, and he was able to sit on it, regain his strength, and finally hop out.

  From him I learned this lesson: never cease to struggle. Though your hope may be depleted and even desperation can no longer sway you, never cease to struggle.

  —RUFUS FLYCATCHER

  Governor Harold Shortzenbeggar struggled valiantly as the superfly bore him over the junkyard. He grabbed one of his captor’s arms and broke it, then bashed its eye with his fist, breaking a dozen facets. It felt like bashing his hand through some weird cardboard box coated with rubber.

  “Hah,” the fly said, mocking his efforts. “I can still see you, loser!”

  The fly socked the governor in the eye for good measure, and for a moment all that the governor could see were stars.

  He heard cruise missiles whining below, and there were dozens of concussions as they dropped their payloads. Noxious gas rose up in clouds, but the giant superfly weaved between them, avoiding the danger zones.

  “Oh, what a bad day I’m having!” the governor mourned.

  It wasn’t easy to be a governor, but someone had to do it.

  Why not me? he told himself. Why not the best man on earth?

  Yet today, he wished that he had just stuck to making movies. Being a movie star was so much easier.

  No, he remembered. No it wasn’t. There were those idiot directors making me repeat my lines over and over again, and those greedy movie studios always trying to steal my money, and the fans always begging for autographs.

  I’d rather be here any day, fighting giant flies! Yes, this is the good life!

  The fly had reached the top of the landfill and came in low, like a helicopter gunship cruising above a jungle.