Almost anywhere you go, there's a bunch of pests you're bound to encounter. Flies. The housefly, the gnat, the mosquito, the wasp, doesn't matter exactly what they are, they find their way into your life no matter how much you don't want them there and bug the hell out of you.
They constantly get in your face, on your screen, sometimes land on you and when you feel them you can't help but try to shake or swipe them off. Just, the absolute worst. Annoying, but nothing many would ever be too afraid of, besides maybe wasps or their like. Those bastards add a bonus bite or sting if you're real unlucky.
At any rate, a good swatter, some bug spray, no big deal, right? Well, that's what I always thought too, until I realized, the wretches had been the purveyors of not just disease...They were couriers of nightmares. Of course it wouldn't be enough for the worst of them to bring us or our crops' death, they had to wilt away our minds too.
No, not just by stressing out or annoying us, or preying on those more acutely afraid of them...Somehow each person they crossed, they sampled something of their anxieties, their fears, and brought it to bear on the next and the next, stirring them to a greater terror.
Here are just a few accounts of those afflicted...
The Call Center Grind
“Hello, we're reaching out today to offer y-”, I began and the line clicked dead for probably the thousandth time today. Why the hell did I keep at this gig, it's not as if it doing much more to help ends meet than my other two dead-end gigs.
Thoughtlessly I began another call so I wouldn't have to listen to someone later complaining about something to do with performance or whatever, but this time the line didn't immediately go dead.
“So, would you be interested i-”, I started to elaborate for the first time in...A month? How long had it been?
“...This line, it's...It's being recorded, right?” the person on the other end asked.
“Uh...Yes, I'm afraid it is, for service and quality,” I gave the canned reply.
“Good. You can hear it too, can't you? This...It keeps getting louder, like it's trying to get in,” the person spoke a little quieter, but still clearly, and you could hear the unease in their voice rising.
“I'm sorry, could you try moving the phone a little so I might hear it better?” I heard some rustling as it sounded like they were doing so, and then...More quiet, until the person moved the phone back to ask again.
“Did it come through that time? Please, tell me you heard it, I-” the panic was clear in their voice, and unsure of what to do, I decided a little lie might help calm them, as I brushed a fly or something away from me.
“Yeah, I think so. Look, I think us talking like this may be giving you away, okay? So I'll call you some help, just give me your info and I'll call for help as soon as we end this call, alright?”
“O-okay, but tell them to let me know who they are quietly, I-I don't know if I'll be able to hear them when they arrive, got it?” the person spoke so quietly I almost couldn't understand them, but I got their info and called help like I said. The person was clearly distressed and needed someone other than a cold caller clumsily trying to help them.
Then my phone rang. That's...Unusual. I picked up the phone, “Hello, this is-” but then a noise like I've never heard before came from the receiver. I hung up immediately, slightly disturbed until I decided maybe someone had finally found their way to prank calling me. Some of my coworkers had gotten their fair share of prank calls from time to time. It was rare, sure, but it happened.
So I went back to cold calling, and awhile later got another person that stayed on the line, “...No, you tell them to stop, you got it?”
“Oh, um, yes we'll-”
“No, not you, them. You sent them out here, didn't you?”
“What? Sorry, I think you may-”
“I'll send them back to you, don't you worry.”
And they hung up. I wasn't in the business of calling people to have them order anything, nor send service people out, so who the hell did they think I was, and who were they trying to send back?
I wheeled back a little from my space to ask one of my coworkers next to me if they'd had any strange calls today too, only to find them gripping their own phone tightly and muttering rapidly into it. Catching my gaze, their eyes widened and their muttering grew a little louder and faster.
“Yes no you go okay go just go just forget about it you need it you need that to live okay take it take it no-”
Looking to my opposite side, my other coworker wasn't much better, except instead of muttering they had pulled the cord from their phone and were...Trying to...Strangle it? I couldn't make sense of what they were trying to do, but it definitely wasn't calling anyone.
Then my phone rang again, and reluctantly, I decided to answer...The otherworldly sound was now enveloping me, my hand held nothing to my ear, and everything was shifting and...
...Something rang out again, and a phone was back in my hand, “So would you be interested i-” I heard myself from moments ago asking.
A Crumby Welcome
Nothing better than baked goods to welcome new folks to the neighborhood! Least that's what I'd always thought, until we moved next to some neighbors that, kind as they were, couldn't seem to bake worth anything.
When we first moved in they brought some cookies, and it was a wonder they even made it intact to the dish they brought them over in. The moment you picked one up, it's like it was it made to fall apart, and the taste was...Not great, to put it nicely.
Despite that, we still enjoyed their company occasionally, and we even learned a little from each other. They weren't great at baking, but they were good at some other things, and we taught them a little on how to bake without the results being so rough. We really grew to be good friends, and then a new neighbor came along.
We decided to handle the baking this time, and as we were doing so, a fly found its way in, but we managed to swat it down and carry on without any trouble. Our old neighbors joined us to welcome the new neighbor, and as we walked along to their place, I noticed our old neighbors had also decided to bake something...And it seemed to be leaving a trail.
“Um, did you try cookies again?” I asked them.
“Yeah! And we tried your tips, but with a little of our own spin, what do you think?” they began to show me and realized why I was asking, as they saw their hard work had fallen apart in their hands, leaving a trail of crumbs behind us.
“What?! But...We didn't change it that much,” one of them groaned, and something struck me then...Sure, they'd fallen apart, but the trail was too noticeable to just be cookies...
“Did...You happen to make anything else?” I asked, concerned they may have tried even more.
“No, we thought this was en-” they stopped short as they followed my gaze to what seemed to be an unusually thick trail of crumbs.
Without realizing it, we had arrived at the new...neighbor's...house...? Or we should have, at the pace we were going, but it was all wrong, it was like were in a dense forest and the crumb trail loomed behind us, large, and we found ourselves before an anthill instead.
We'd made a warm welcome alright...To the wrong neighbors, as an army of ants crawled out from the hill and descended upon us, crumbling before them.
Running Late
It didn't matter if it was a new day, new place, new me, there was one constant and it was that I never could be anywhere on time consistently. Once or twice, on a good stretch maybe a few weeks, but there was always something that kept me from getting to places when I was supposed to. Today? Today it happened to be someone having told some folks I wanted work done on my new place, and to top that off, somebody had apparently decided to lead some ants to my place.
Just great.
I was just getting through on the phone with the service people's coordinators, who didn't seem to have a clue, as usual, “I'll send them back to you, don't you worry.”
I walked over to the service folks, “Look, sorry for the confusion, but I'm already behind and gotta go, you probably are too, so let's chalk it up to miscommunication and be on our way, cool?”
“Hey, if the boss understood ya, is less work for us. Sorry to bother ya.”
We both got into our vehicles and began to head out when some bug tried to slip into my car, and I waved it away. Yeah, let's add one more thing today, why not, I thought.
As I headed over to the meeting I looked at the clock and sighed, probably fifteen minutes late this time around. I'd thought about calling, but imagined that would either end up in them telling me off and saying the meeting wasn't gonna happen or I'd end up even later and they'd chew me out in person instead, so I decided to try to split the difference, as it were.
I sped up to try to get there faster, yet it seemed like without fail I was either getting behind every slow driver or hitting every stop light as it changed, and as much as I didn't want to be late, this wasn't the kind of meeting to risk lives over. I pulled up to yet another light that seemed to take forever to change, and looked to the car in the lane beside me, the person inside looked back, and smiled slightly. I nodded and smiled back, drumming my fingers on the steering wheel as I looked back to the light.
It still hadn't changed, and I began to felt a little uneasy. I'm used to being late, so where was this coming from? I looked over to the other car again, and the person hadn't turned away as I had, their smile hadn't slipped either, in fact it grew as I looked at them again. They raised their arm so that I could see that they were wearing a wristwatch, and they pointed to it and began to laugh.
I looked at the clock again, and somehow I was now hours late. I looked up again and the other car was gone, and I pulled my phone out, which thankfully still had a charge despite the hours passing, but it was slow to do much of anything. I fumbled with it to check my messages, and I saw several unread messages...All displaying the full date. Not just the month and day, but all of it.
How...How long had I been at this...Light? I finally looked up and realized, there was no light, only some vines dangling from where it had been, any other cars nearby...Were husks overgrown with plants.
My car was itself overgrown and fearfully, I looked to the rearview mirror, expecting to see myself nothing more than a skeleton, but instead I saw my time, I saw the road moving behind me as if I was still driving, and yet...I was here.
For once, I wasn't late, I was ahead of myself...Far ahead of myself.
This is really good stuff. I love short story anthologies and this was impressive. Thanks for sharing!