Killer Flies (2 page)

Carrie noticed a piece of lint on the back of his protective suit. She grabbed it. As the door shut behind him Carrie stared at the thick piece of thread in her hand. She watched it unravel as he moved down the decontamination hallway toward the fly sanctuary. She yelled, “John, stop!” But he couldn’t hear through the glass.

As he entered the room the ‘mothers’ became frenzied. First he freed them from their plastic enclosures, letting them into the room, then he swept the remainder out with gloved hands to make sure none would survive. He didn’t want to take any chances.

“
John, don’t!
” Carrie’s voice came through the loudspeaker. Too late he turned to see Carrie’s horrified face.

“What’s wrong?” he asked. The flies swarmed around him naturally enough, as the warm suit attracted them. But what he felt next wasn’t natural at all: it was the pin prick of mandibles biting his skin. When John saw the tear in his suit he screamed, “Spray the insecticide. Now! Now!”

Jolted by his pain-ridden voice Carrie raced over to the console and pressed the button. A jet-stream of liquid filled the room.

The stench was terrible. It was the last thing John remembered before he passed out and the first thing he remembered upon awakening.

Blaring sirens, that was what woke him. The terrible chemical odor clung to his body. Flashing lights seemed to blink time to the throbbing pain in his head as he lay in the ambulance. Its slight rocking motion might have felt soothing had it not irritated his swollen body. A plastic IV bottle attached to a metal pole swayed, allowing geometric light patterns to dance inside the small enclosure.

“Carrie,” he whispered, struggling to overcome the pain. Her sweet face looked strained. “What happened?” His voice came out dry and tired, even to him.

“The flies attacked,” she replied. She touched his swollen and puffy arm and he jerked it away in pain. “I’m so sorry.”

“I remember, kind of. But how…?” John struggled to finish the question, but couldn’t. He felt so tired. His body ached and his throat tasted of bitter chemicals.

“I don’t know exactly. A thread. Your suit got…” Carrie’s eyes, red and swollen, began to cry. “Please forgive me. I tried to warn you, but it was too late.”

“I must have passed out.”

“I rushed into the room, got you out and called the paramedics,” Carrie said proudly. “But I killed those damnable flies with the insecticide, just like you wanted.”

“Tell me you followed protocol. Please.” She was supposed to strip him down in the fly room, and then decontaminate him so no flies could escape.

Carrie’s satisfaction vanished as she realized her error. “You were so badly hurt, John. I forgot.”

“Don’t tell me that, Carrie.”

“But I used the insecticide. The flies were all dead.”

“No, no, no!”

“What’s wrong?”

“The reason I instituted that protocol was so no flies could escape. Without the Flash-Kill system one might have survived. And if even one got out…”

“…the end of the world,” Carrie repeated, remembering John’s army demonstration. She knew John was right.

* * *

John awoke to a knock at his door. His body felt cold and numb. Opening it, he saw a seven-foot fly. Huge beady eyes bulged inside the strange cavity of its face. It leaned over him, peering into his eyes; then without provocation it bit his nose off with its pinchers. John screamed as blood squirted from the hole. He snapped into a semiconscious state; neither asleep, nor awake.

Forcing himself back to sleep wasn’t easy. But he did it.

He awoke in fear. Other nightmares had spun him away from the safety of sleep. Antiseptic permeated the air, wafting along on a slight wind current, which swept through his room. Was he back at the lab? It smelled like the air circulation system there. Had it all been a nightmare?

John opened his eyes and slowly looked around. He saw the white walls of the hospital and two blue chairs in one corner, looking too overstuffed for this sterile research environment and too comfy for a hospital room. Something else was wrong. But what? He tried to move, but found himself restrained. Straps held him to the bed. His eyes shifted from ceiling to floor. Fear overwhelmed his senses, threatening his consciousness, as he saw what awaited him. Maggots. Thousands of white squirmy maggots, their slimy bodies writhing atop each other, crawled along the speckled floor below his bed. Some were large, others weren’t. All oozed a red substance. Blood.

* * *

“Damn it, Carrie, we’re in deep crap now.” After passing out in the ambulance, then having a series of nightmarish days where he faded in and out of consciousness, he was finally awake.

“Why don’t we just tell everyone to use insecticide on any flies they see?”

“You know that won’t work. First, that would mean total disclosure about the project. The government will never allow that. Second, you saw what those flies did to me in my protective suit, even when doused with poison.”

“You’re right. How about leaking it to the press?”

“I’d agree if we were talking about something less dangerous. We have a moral obligation to tell the people, but what do you think will happen when they find out? Panic. Even mass hysteria. Let’s wait and see if we have to.”

Carrie began to cry. “It’s all my fault.”

“Actually it isn’t. I was the one who initiated this project by creating the flies. Right now we don’t even know if any got out. Maybe we’re jumping the gun; all the mothers might have been eradicated by the insecticide.”

But John didn’t think so. The flies, especially the mothers, were stronger than any other representative of the Muscidae insect family.

* * *

People and animals started dying right away. At first it was just a few, then hundreds, then thousands. The government didn’t say a word, so John and Carrie leaked the story. The army never admitted any culpability in the flies.

Panic ensued. People believed it was the end of the world. The government’s top researchers tried to find a solution, but nothing seemed to eradicate the killer flies. The scientific community was baffled. There was no viral agent the flies didn’t eventually form an immunity to. Even the female fly pheromone vaccine ceased being effective.

John and Carrie started a research team that hypothesized that this strain of killer flies would overtake the planet in one year. After a hundred years the Earth might be habitable again, but would be deforested. John theorized that after thousands of years the flies would decimate all animal and plant life, then die off from starvation. And while the Earth would then be free of killer flies, the planet would be dead; incapable of supporting life.

* * *

Government Meets to Discuss Relocation Options

Washington, DC. Since the killer fly crisis began three years ago 11 different animal species have become extinct; mankind has lost over half of its race and the forests only remain in certain parts of Canada and Russia.

Leading scientist Dr. John Pankow has worked tirelessly with his wife Carrie to find a solution. He and his research team feel that little hope remains for a solution on Earth. They recently recommended that the human race relocate to another planet. The leaders of earth will meet next week to discuss how this might be accomplished.