Bugged (standard:horror, 2151 words)
Author: Lev821	Added: Jul 22 2005	Views/Reads: 3498/2310	Story vote: 0.00 (0 votes)
He loved killing insects, until one day they'd finally had enough.

When he heard a loud, sharp crack, he instantly knew what it was. He
checked the sole of his sandal and saw that he had stood on a 
cockroach, one of its legs still twitching. It didn't matter. He was 
always standing on them, most of the time on purpose. Stanley Marwood 
was on his way to the fridge to retrieve milk. Upon opening it, the 
sudden light sent more cockroaches scuttling around, trying to find 
some form of darkness. The milk had taken on a light yellow tinge, as 
it been there for three weeks, its purpose only for putting in mugs 
when he made tea. He put it back, and the cockroaches felt safe again 
to feed on the mouldy butter, the fungicidal cheese, the brown grapes, 
and the half eaten pot of yoghurt which he had every intention of 
eating. From a tin next to the sink, he picked out a tea-bag. Around 
it, in the sink and crawling around the cupboards beneath it, many ants 
dashed around for some unknown purpose, on a neverending search for 
food, or for some token to take back to the nest, which had to be 
nearby, or there wouldn't be so many of them. There could realistically 
have been around 400 in and around the sink, but Stanley didn't care. 
There was also glistening lines criss crossing the sink, walls and 
counter, marking the path where slugs had slowly crawled.  While he 
waited for the kettle to boil, he amused himself by crushing the ants 
beneath his thumb on the drainage board next to the sink. He wiped 
blood on his trousers, made the tea and walked back into his living 
room. 

Stanley was 57, and had never done much in his life, other than own an
allotment for 17 years, but had to abandon it when a new road was built 
which cut directly through it. This had made him more bitter than he 
already had been, and slowly but surely, his negative attitude towards 
many things had lost him his friends. Everything, according to him, was 
the government's fault. The councils. Those with some sort of 
authority. People who wore uniform. They were all conspiring against 
him personally. This was why they gave him minimal benefits and hounded 
him with all sorts of threatening letters. Pay your licence. Pay your 
water bill, pay this, pay that. What Stanley failed to realise was that 
this was the normal way of life for most people. If you had money, you 
could live easier, with more home comforts. If you were poor, you had 
to budget carefully, but Stanley found fault everywhere. The television 
and papers were full of rubbish. The kids of today were mindless 
psychopaths, and no-one trusted anyone any more. Perhaps that was one 
thing he had got right, but his bitterness had led him to let his 
appearance slip. He had worn the same clothes for five months, and for 
three months had not washed at all in any way. His hair was long, 
matted and wiry. He had a straggly beard where once a fly had laid 
eggs. He had been in bed, felt movement, and soon discovered that 
maggots had emerged onto the pillow. That was one of the times he had 
actually bothered to do something about it. In fact, that was the last 
time he had washed, but as yet, it was only a matter of time before 
another fly laid more eggs in such a comfortable nest. His living room 
was small, but had been made smaller by all the litter he had 
accumulated. It wasn't over the top, he did put some things in the bin, 
but most of the time he simply put them to one side and ignored them. 
He mostly used one half of a sofa as his regular seat, the other half 
piled up with old newspapers, posted circular adverts, and empty cans 
of lager along with half eaten, dried up trays of gravied chips. A few 
pizza boxes lay around, with some of the food left. A television was 
set up in one corner. This was covered in useless paraphernalia, as was 
the mantle-piece and a lot of the carpet. Stanley's appearance had 
taken on a slight grayish tint. This was because some of the dirt on 
his skin was now ground-in. It was the same with the dirt on the 
windows. The last time they had been cleaned was fifteen years ago when 
he had told the cleaner after paying him to bugger off and don't come 
back until he lowers his price. All of the window sills in his house 
was like a little grave-yard, scattered, as they were with the bodies 
of many flies, bees and wasps that had been confused by the glass and 
had exhausted themselves trying to get out. Some of the small corpses 
were simply shells, having been there years, and some of them where 
fresh, dying only today. The front and back gardens were overgrown with 
weeds. They were basically small jungles for the insects and rodents. 
He watched television as he drank his tea, disgusted as usual by what 
was on. They must think we're thick, he thought. They spoon feed us 
this rubbish and expect us to be entertained. Yet, every day, he always 
found himself watching it. Flies buzzed around all over the place, and 
beetles and lice crawled on the carpet. In amongst what could 
realistically be called debris, maggots crawled and wriggled. Some of 
them in amongst mouldy fruit, somewhere beneath the litter. The air 


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