Flower King of Flies

So that was how I met the swarm. Young and terrified. I'm no longer young.

But I'm not the only one hunting it. There's also Mouser and Z. "Z for Zap," she says. "Zaps bugs dead." Mouser calls her Zed.

I asked Z if she could write her own story about her first encounter. She asked me why and I told that it was different then mine and I thought people ought to know how many different ways the swarm can look and act. "So write it yourself," she said.

"But it's your story," I said. "You should write it."

She grumbled and grabbed a beer, but agreed to write something.

Hey, it's Z. Mal thinks I need to write this myself, so what the fuck, right?

I met the swarm when I was eighteen. The night of graduation, can you believe it? It was a full post-grad party, the one last big fling before college, and I was there. I wasn't the most popular kid, but I was fucking there and I was determined to have fun. Which meant a whole lot of drinking.

I remember seeing him in the center of the party. He was good looking, charismatic. I can't remember much about his face, but I remember people flocked around him like flies. He must have told me his name, but I don't remember that either. I just call him the Flower King of Flies.

I remember leaving with him, kissing him. I remember touching his back, holding it as I kissed him. Then I remember feeling sick, puking out your stomach lining sick. He looked at me and I saw something in his eyes. And then my vision blurred and I saw not just one pair of eyes, but two - one that looked regular, normal, and another pair where the eyes were huge compound eyes, black and shiny like mirrors. He blinked and the other pair of eyes vanished, but I knew they were still there. Beneath the normal eyes.

He smiled and there were maggots in his teeth. His tongue was black and chitinous and I felt the bile rising in my throat.

I had a pen that I had been using to sign yearbooks. Somehow, I still had it in my pocket even during the party. I thank god for that pen. When he grabbed me, when he lunged with his black tongue, I thrust that pen into his fucking throat.

It didn't kill him of course. He laughed through the hole, a rasping, wet sound. But it gave me enough time to run. To get away from him.

I don't know how I was able to see him for what he was. I don't know how I was able to even escape him. Perhaps he let me go. Perhaps I was a fish he caught, but decided to throw back. I hesitate to even imagine what would have happened if I hadn't escaped, if I had gone with him. Imagination's a fucking bitch, right?

Was that good enough for you, Mal?