Phobia – A not so irrational fear Part 2 of 2

Reading Time: 3 minutes

Phobia – A not so irrational fear.

By Jenny K Brennan

“Trust me, you little shit!” I said to the bug. I barely recognized my own voice. I drew in air through my nose in short raspy drags as I rraised a heavy boot and drove it down hard. The thing didn’t even twitch before I crushed it and
squeezed its insides from its shell with a sickening wet crackle. White
stringy slime and black flakes appeared around the edge of the boot.
I stepped back, dragging my foot, and scraped the thing off. “If you hadn’t
bothered me, I wouldn’t have bothered you.”

I stared for another moment and walked to the front door, giddy with
delight. I had to tell David. I smiled, threw the door open and rushed out
on the porch. And there I stopped, fought, and failed, to swallow a whimper.

Crawling, turning, shivering, the oily bugs covered every surface. Patio
set, the truck, garden shed, all layered in shiny black beetles. As I
watched, a clump fell from a maple branch, and my bamboo windchime clattered
for the last time, scattering bugs as it crashed to the ground.

“David, where are you?”, I choked on the words and my legs crumbled beneath
me. I turned toward the garage to call again, and I saw him.

He lay just beyond the porch, covered in bugs. Their thick blanket broke up
as I stared; revealing blue cotton, pale skin, a shrivelled limp hand. They
evacuated his body in moments.

“David.”, I tried to say, but it was locked as a scream in my head.

Cold, numb, I somehow found my feet and went to him. As I dropped down
again, all but one creature moved away. It shivered and buzzed madly,
struggling to get free from a thin gold chain that had slipped between hard
shell and flimsy fraying wings, trapping it.

I grabbed it; wrapped my fingers around bug and chain and ripped it loose. I
felt it shudder and crack, before throwing it into the crowd of retreating
bugs, trailed by a sparkle of gold. I released the scream, a horror without
words, in rage without limits. Then, I saw his face and stopped. If I hadn’t,
I never would have. David didn’t like screaming, he was.

Was.

I touched his cold skin. I brushed away his hair and stared at his open
eyes, his slack mouth, waxy white features.

“David.” I whispered. “I killed it, David. I’m not afraid of bugs anymore.”
I looked up from my dead husband, to the house, our house. It was theirs
now.

Thousands, millions of black silent monsters covered every surface. A slow
river of insects poured over doorframe and threshold, taking possession.
That was the final straw. “Evicted am I? You just knock yourselves out you
fucking bastards! Did you forget me? I’m right here!” I screamed. I raged, I
cursed and pleaded until my voice broke.

I lay down beside David and held him, wondering why they wouldn’t come to
take me too, to ease the pain that scraped, clawed, and scratched at me with
its inevitability. “I’m going to wake up soon. Any minute now.”, I told
David as I smoothed out a wrinkle in his shirt.

I pulled my legs up, dragging the heavy boots along the grass, and then I
could smell it. A sharp, sickly bitter scent. It came from the shoes, from
the remains of the one I had crushed. The bastards wouldn’t touch me. I
glared at them, empty of fear. “You fucking cowards!” I sat up and something
eerily like a laugh escaped me, “We’re not having such a great day, are we
honey?” I refused to feel the burning behind my eyelids, and postponed any
recognition of ache.

I eased my feet out of the death-marked work boots, grabbed them both with
my usable hand and threw them. They landed on the porch and bugs nearby
shuffled, jumped, or flew from the scent of death.

In the few seconds remaining, I rolled David onto his back, snuggled close,
pulled his hand on to his chest, and braided our fingers together. I closed
my eyes.

The sharp rustling started, increased, stopped. I knew what they were doing;
they were shifting, preparing, then they would jump.

I waited.

October 19, 2014October 21, 2014

Phobia – a not so irrational fear- Part 1 of 2

Reading Time: 4 minutes

Phobia -A not so irrational fear

By Jenny K Brennan

Part 1 of 2
Go directly to Part 2 here.

“Kate, don’t look.”

But, I had to look. I sat on the floor with the vacuum next to me, poking at
sticky cobwebs in a cupboard with the hose. I needed a break anyways, so I
killed the machine and made the mistake of looking up.

David stood rigid at the sink, an expression on his face I had never seen
before. I turned my gaze to see what he stared at and froze; the insect
above him dominated my narrowing vision. I wished to sink into the floor had
it been possible, would have been very comfortable between floor joists.
Until David took care of it. He always did.

Illuminated in unforgiving clarity by the afternoon light, the bug clung to
the cupboard corner. It was the size and shape of a kiwi cut in half
lengthwise, sleek and oily black. I couldn’t see its legs under its dome of
bisected exoskeleton, and didn’t care to.

Without looking away from it, David reached a hand toward me. I placed the
end of the vacuum hose, a hard plastic pipe, in it. He moved it into
position and nodded. I pushed the button, realizing as the machine started
whining that it simply wouldn’t work. The bug was too big, the pipe too
small.

He poked the insect with it; there was nothing wrong with the suction so it
should have, in the least, trapped the flat black thing on the end of the
pipe.

Its reaction was instantaneous: It convulsed and shivered, whirring fast,
its biological motor in overdrive. It jerked away from the plastic and
jumped. I shrieked. The shell unfolded, sprouted wings, and launched my way-
droning, hissing. I screamed, ducked and dived, scrambled on all fours
behind David and then stood. Shuddering and flaying my arms about my head;
I could do nothing but whimper: “Get it! Get it! Get it off me!”

“Hey, easy, honey.” David’s voice registered only when he put his arms
around me. “It’s not on you! Sweetie, it’s not!” I cowered in his arms, and
opened my eyes, allowing my arms to drop away from my head only when I could
see for myself that it was so.

“Holy fuck!” David breathed and held me tight. He reached down, shut off the
vacuum, and sighed. “I guess I need to take care of that, huh?”

The thing sat silently in the corner, where dry wall met drywall, just above
the wayne-scotting, protected by the shallow ledge, a small shelf filled
with crystal trinkets on one wall, and a framed wedding picture on the
other. “I can’t get it there.” David said. “Not without…”, he trailed off.

I knew what he meant. That was not a bug that could be easily squished in
paper towel, nor flattened with fly swatter. This thing was unreal; it was a
bug from hell. I could still hear the vicious humming; still feel the
displaced air as it swept passed. I took a deep breath and nodded.

“I have spray in the garage. It should work. Kills everything.” I chose not
to hear doubt in his voice.

David understood. Spiders, flies, Daddy longlegs, wasps, earwigs, ants. He
accepted my fears. I loved him for not making fun of me when I panicked, for
his patience. And the terror eventually eased. These days I could clean off
cobwebs, and hear a bumblebee fly about without screaming. I understood
David’s oft repeated words: “If you don’t bother them, they won’t bother
you.”

“Do you want to come?” He mumbled. I stood stock still and shook my head. If
I let it out of my sight, I wouldn’t know if it got away… He nodded. “I
know. I’ll just be a sec, ok?”

I trembled, but allowed him to ease from my grip. “If I don’t bother it.” I
said with more conviction than I felt. “Go.”

He kissed my forehead, let a hand linger on my shoulder, and then stepped
through the doorway to the hall.

I pinned the insect with my eyes, daring it to move, begging it not to.

I listened as David opened the front door and stepped onto the porch. The
door closed and I was alone. With that. thing.

I watched it. It still didn’t move.

David’s steps faded. I cursed our decision not to connect the garage to the
house.

The creature shifted, emitted a shrill rustling, and stilled. My heart
hammered, every muscle burned with adrenaline, I was paralyzed by fear.
“David, please hurry.”

It jumped, unfolded its wings, and came at me. I screamed, flung my arm as
I stepped back. A hard thud against my hand silenced its frenzied droning. A
searing pain spread across the top of my hand, but quickly turned numb.
Astonished, I stared at the thing as it sat on the floor like a large black
pimple. I held my arm to my chest and backed away, breathless, as I couldn’t
seem to find air between heartbeats.

Keeping my eyes on it, I reached around the doorframe and grabbed a pair of
boots from a shelf. David’s, big, clunky, bug-crushing work-boots. Just what
I needed. I glanced from boots to bug-too far to throw.

“Now, you just stay right there.” I wheezed. I fumbled, couldn’t seem to
grip the boots, or feel anything below my left wrist. I glanced at my arm
and quickly looked away. There was no time for it now. Fear would have to
wait. I had a job to do. Keeping my eye on the bug, I pulled the boots with
my other hand, and stepped into them.

“Don’t move.” I hissed, taking a step. My left hand grew numb from
fingertips to elbow, skin waxy white. I felt no pain, just an icy tingle.

“This won’t hurt one little bit.” I stepped closer.

Continue reading in Part 2 here.

November 20, 2011December 19, 2018

Green apples – Hopefully a somewhat unsettling short story

Reading Time: 4 minutes

Green apples

By J K Brennan

Here, an empty plastic bag neatly folded. There, a wooden bowl on a cardboard box.

Green apples. That’s what was in the bowl. She had wanted them once, had craved food, vitamins, minerals, the feeling of chewing; Crunching crisp apple into pulp, swallowing. All she swallowed now was her own saliva, when she had any, and the spark of hope that refused to go away. Mocking her with their moisture, their sweet meat within doomed skin, the apples made time pass. Like her, their time was short.

Here, a glittering drop of water. There, a speck of dust in unconcerned flight on invisible drafts, made evident by light from a spotlight attached to the wall above the bowl.

They hadn’t been there for very long those apples. They would start to dull and their perfect surface soften. Just like the other ones. Just like her. They would shrivel and dry. Would he bring a new her when she shriveled and dried, she wondered. She didn’t have to think about it; the question was supposedly moot, but confirmed each time she saw the fruit lose its luster and the waiting began, again. She could hardly remember anything else.

#

When the apples became too old, he brought fresh ones, always green, always perfect, beautiful apples. Soon he would come, would rinse five or six fresh apples in the sink in the corner. He would throw the retired fruit in a plastic bag and tie it up. He would arrange the new ones in the bowl and leave the room. He would take the garbage with him, close the door and lock it.

Each time, He left her alone to watch the apples. “Time for contemplation and reflection,” he said once. “We want always what we cannot have.” He had said in a low voice in that peculiar accent; He didn’t come from around here, or, maybe she wasn’t where she had been before, hard to tell. After arranging the fruit and inspecting her bonds, he left her alone for an hour, sometimes two, whistling as he walked off to someplace other. Some place she would never see.

The needles with their attached hoses feeding her from bags of fluids kept her alive. The weekly cleaning kept her from smelling too bad, and the daily shifting of position kept her more or less free from sores. The hard plastic around wrists and ankles kept her in place on the narrow bed with its thin mattress, flat pillow, and sheets smelling of lavender. She couldn’t smell that anymore though.

How long had it been? In the beginning she had kept track of the time; that was after she had stopped fighting. How long did it take for apples to go wrinkly? Two days? A week? At one time she had calculated that if it took three days for apples to wrinkle enough for him to feel the need to replace them, and the apples had been replaced… Ten times? Twenty? Numbers meant nothing. Once she thought keeping track of when feeding bags changed would work better, but they were always replaced when she slept. Sometimes she didn’t even notice so she stopped counting.

#

Her shrinking body ached, skin burned, her eyes felt hollow and misty. She had long since given up on pulling at the things holding her naked form down, but still she raised one hand. She gained a few lousy centimeters; enough to scrape the side of diminishing thighs, no more. She tried to pull her legs up to bend her knees, knowing it was useless. The give in the restraints was the same as always: None. She was too weak to struggle and after a few moments, she let herself fall limp. A plastic bag hanging on the side of the bed needed changing. How was that possible? She wasn’t allowed to drink; everything was given to her through the hoses from the bags. What little generated by fluids dripping into her body couldn’t have filled the catheter bag that fast. How long had it been? When would he come?

#

Sharp burning pain between her legs raised her from numb rest, but the smell woke her all the way. Cringing and squirming slightly from the burning,it still felt better. A constantly irritating pressure had fallen away. Slowly turning her head, she struggled to focus, saw a dark yellow splatter on the floor next to the bed, a thin hose trailing through the urine to a bag broken open. Piss bags don’t break. Someone had said that once. She couldn’t remember who. She looked up to the coma bags; there were two of them. Both bags were nearly empty; Maybe a cupful in one, half a cup in the other. He had never left them that long. Would he come soon?

#

Here, a buzzing fly circling without aim. There, a realization of something different. Here, a lightheaded hoarse laughter. There, a wooden bowl filled with wrinkled apples.

She looked at them, mildly fascinated by the deepening wrinkles. She never knew how small apples could become when they dried. They were probably still edible; Ugly spots had appeared on a few of them, but that didn’t matter. She didn’t eat apples. She stretched her clouded vision toward the transparent bags; both of them flat and empty. She smiled a little. He would come soon, with fresh apples, and this time he would surely bring a new her. That would be nice.

“Kidnapper’s death dooms abducted woman.

Allen Kincaid, the man in custody for abducting twenty-year old Nina Henderson from her home in Smith’s Falls Ontario more than three months ago, was found dead in his cell this morning. According to his lawyer, Kincaid had finally been ready to reveal the location of Ms. Henderson to police in exchange for…”