Originally published by Dark Ink Press in the Anthology Ghosts, Goblins, Murder, and Madness
The key slipped effortlessly into the lock, and the sound of tumblers clicking into place soon followed. The doorknob turned quickly; with purpose. The elderly hand of the landlady pushed the door open for the young man who wore a very excited look on his face.
“And here’s the apartment. I’m sorry, I’m terrible with names. Would you mind reminding me?”
“Grant. Charles Grant, but my friends call me Chuck.”
“Well, Charles I’m sure you’ll like it here. Would you like the grand tour?” Chuck nodded his head, and the two of them began exploring the expanse of the 300-square foot studio apartment.
The landlady was highly energetic despite being somewhere in her mid-eighties (if asked she would adamantly refuse to say exactly how old she is). Mrs. Gokiburi, a first generation Asian-American immigrant, led the tour with her smile, and even cracked a few jokes over the coziness of the apartment. She had been married years ago, but after her husband died she sold their house and she bought several apartments. To this day, she is always highly recommended by her tenants almost all of whom familiarly call her Mrs. G.
Chuck laughed along with every joke that she lobbed at him. He needed to make a good first impression. He had been in a few less than stellar apartments over the past few years, and after being evicted from his last apartment he had been couch surfing for the past two and a half weeks. His hoodie was well worn even though it was only about a year old.
As far as jackets go it wasn’t particularly heavy, so it was ideal for these late October days. The days were becoming shorter, and the early approach of night brought with it a chill that meant that summer was definitively over. Chuck saw his hoodie as his last defense against the cold before he would have to buy a new winter coat. He had been forced to give his old one up because living couch to couch afforded him no extra space.
It was by good fortune that he saw a listing for a small studio apartment in an independently run local newspaper he had forgotten he subscribed to. He called the number in the classified ad, and Mrs. G gave him a specific time to meet her. Chuck thought to himself, she must have used the time before he arrived to tidy up the apartment because it was so clean; almost immaculate.
“How long has this place been available?”
“Not long now.” Mrs. G said with a comforting smile. “My last tenant left rather abruptly.”
Chuck was completely blown away by this. Between how clean the apartment looked, and how low the rent was, he couldn’t imagine someone leaving without any prior warning.
Mrs. G must’ve sensed Chuck’s unease because she added, “he never seemed to get along with my other tenants.”
The tour concluded in the apartment’s kitchen nook. It was small in size, but it offered enough space for some mobility while cooking; not that that was a selling point for Chuck, he could hardly make an oven pizza without burning the crust. The walls were lined with shelves that perhaps held a wide array of spices and other cooking essentials at some point. Across from a gas range stove was a refrigerator. While not new, the clean whiteness of it made it appear to shine.
Just as the pair turned to leave the kitchen, Chuck’s eyes were drawn downward by sudden movement. A small brown dot moved across the white tile of the floor directly in front of the frame of the door. As if driven by instinct, Chuck’s foot came down swift and hard on the roach. There was a loud crunch under the sole of Chuck’s used sneakers.
Chuck lifted his shoe to reveal a sticky brown stain on the floor where the roach had once been. Mrs. G let out a large gasp and clutched her chest in surprise.
“Dear, I am so sorry that you had to see that. We have never had a problem with roaches in this building before.” Mrs. G clasped her hands together and leaned forward a bit. Her posture and her nervous smile gave Chuck the idea that she may be bowing. She was clearly very embarrassed by the sight of the roach on her clean tile floors.
“It’s alright, ma’am. I’ve seen a lot worse at my old apartment,” Chuck tried to reassure her. “It’s nothing that I haven’t had to deal with before, and it’s nothing that a few cans of aerosol pest control can’t fix.”
Chuck laughed quietly to himself all the way to her office. Along the way he told her some of the horror stories from his previous apartments, and he expressed how grateful he was to be in a place that was so well maintained.
In her office Mrs. G told him that the rent was always due on the first day of the month, so he had three days to get his first payment to her. While not favorable, Chuck felt that this agreement was probably standard, and agreed to the terms on the spot.
The next day his rideshare arrived in front of the apartment complex. Chuck took a good long look at the front of the building. The apartments themselves were nothing much to look at. The building was blocky and modular. Under each window was a small section of roofing that allowed rain to run off the building effectively. What really Chuck’s eye was the plastic skeleton hanging near the front door. The edge of the building’s roof was also lined with what looked like orange and black tinsel. Chuck walked past plastic graves lining the miniscule front lawn, plastic stickers that clung to the halls and other oddities all the way up to his room.
Chuck unloaded all two of the boxes carrying his personal effects. He wasn’t in any way a minimalist; he just didn’t have all that much in the first place. Mrs. G fortunately allowed him to borrow a futon a former tenant had left behind. After living couch to couch it was nice to have something that resembled a bed at least part of the time. In his boxes were the standard faire of items; dishes, silverware, sheets, pillows, a couple of microwavable burritos that had comprised the entirety of his diet for the last few weeks, and a few movies on DVD. He didn’t own a television yet, but he intended to watch movies on his laptop for entertainment until he could have internet installed in his apartment.
He spent the rest of the day finding space for his few possessions. He unpacked and hung a print he had bought from a museum giftshop. It was the only piece of artwork that he owned, and against the clean but drab walls of the apartment it looked incredibly out of place. The piece was glossy and colorful; while still very stirring, if you looked at it from certain angles the glare from the sun or a rampant lightbulb would render the art unviewable. The walls, in comparison, were an off-white color, and were textured in such a way that they were bumpy to the touch.
Chuck settled down for the night in his new futon. He was grateful that the futon’s mattress did not smell too much like it had a previous owner. Over the past two or so weeks, he had been on futons and hide-a-beds that retained every odor that was ever in the same room as them. The lack of an odor did not stop Chuck from laying down a layer of aerosol disinfectant before applying his laundered sheets. The futon was seated comfortably in the middle of the room. Thankfully none of the windows faced directly east or were dead-on with any street lamps, so that only residual light from the city at large dared to permeate his room.
Chuck drifted to sleep by the thought that he was finally getting his life together. He finally had a permanent address, he had several interviews tomorrow with businesses near his apartment, and he had some money saved away to tide him over until then. Things were finally looking up. He turned and looked to the now empty boxes near the edge of the room. He was certain that the next time he moved, he would need more than just the two boxes to move all his belongings. His eyes were getting heavy, and he sunk his head further into his pillow.
Chuck could feel the tendrils of sleep closing in upon him. The sounds of the night echoed from the window, and the radiators hissed. Chuck felt these sounds meant that he was finally taking steps in the right direction. Chuck was firmly on sleep’s doorstep when the sounds were replaced by a nearby skittering. Chuck’s eyes opened wide for a moment but hearing nothing he closed them again only to have his attention drawn away from his pillow by the sounds of something small scurrying; scuttling. The sound seemed to be coming from one of the empty boxes.
He listened for a moment to make sure that it was not simply his ears playing tricks on him. When the noise came again, he grabbed his phone and walked over to the boxes. He pointed it phone at the box and turned on the flashlight. The light shone into the first box, and then quickly the other. Nothing was found inside. Whatever could have been inside was gone now. Chuck turned the boxes upside-down and made his way back to the futon. He lay in the bed for what felt like hours; waiting and listening. A quick check of his phone told him that barely 20 minutes had passed. For the time being, he was satisfied. Again, he came close to sleep, but not before he heard the final creeping crawl of several small feet against cardboard.
Light poured through the window to illuminate the empty expanse of an apartment. The off-white seemed extra harsh in the morning when paired with the grating tones of Chuck’s alarm. It was the default tone that came with the phone, but it had proven time and time again to be more than capable of waking him up. He rose, and paused for a moment in a dazed state, trying to remember where the bathroom was.
He readied himself for the slew of interviews he had laid out for today. He wasn’t too excited about his prospects. He had next to no work experience, and in the jobs he had previously he was paid under the table, and off the books.
He put on his best –and only- suit, brushed absolutely everything, even put a few drops of cologne behind his ears. He would spare no expense in acquiring one of these positions today. His second alarm rang. He rushed towards the door; leaving the room in more or less the same condition, save for the fact that he had yet to adjust or re-make his futon.
Just before his hand was about to come in contact with the doorknob, he heard something that reminded him of the sounds he had heard the night before. He turned towards the upturned boxes on the other side of the room. He was reminded of the sounds he had heard the night before. He walked over to one and lifted them; not knowing what to expect. Underneath the boxes was nothing. Just then he heard the sound of small feet again; this time coming from just outside his window. He noticed a squirrel making its way across a section of slate roofing. Each step the squirrel took made a section of the roof shimmy, and the resulting sound emulated a kind of scuttling. Chuck breathed a sigh of relief, content to believe that last night was just part of his imagination. He turned the boxes back upright and made his way back to the door. He closed the door. His key turning the tumblers of the lock was the last sound to be heard in the apartment before the skittering of tiny feet in the boxes began again.
By the time Chuck returned to his apartment it was the late evening. He returned with a smile, a couple of frozen pizzas, and a bottle of the cheapest liquor in a brown paper bag. While he didn’t hear anything definite from any of the employers he had met today, several of them said that he had promise, and potential, and chutzpah. Chuck didn’t know what chutzpah was, but it sure did sound promising. He was going to call today a victory, and hopefully they would be calling him soon.
He put the pizzas away in the freezer, poured himself a tall glass of the brown liquid; which Chuck realized was labeled burban, and fished a microwavable burrito out of the freezer.
In the kitchen, chuck’s head turned to the small brown spot he had created when he killed the roach during the tour. He grabbed a napkin and tried to wipe the stain clean. Despite his best efforts the stain was too dried in to come up even with a moistened napkin.
When the contents of the burrito had finished heating, he adjusted his futon into the sitting position. With a glass and plate in hand, he placed his laptop on his leg and inserted one of his favorite movies. It was a cheesy 80’s movie that he had seen decades ago. On a good day, he could recite the entire movie’s script from memory. It was a comfort, and aided by the burban he could take the time and become enveloped in the moment.
No lights were on in the apartment, and only a few of the streetlamps had flickered to life. Only the pulse of the light from his laptop illuminated the area around Chuck. He had a few more sips before setting the glass down on the flattest part of the futon. He stretched out, splaying both arms out on top of the futon. He closed his eyes and listened to the sounds from the film.
He was plucked violently out of his relaxation by an unwelcome sensation on his arm. He felt something crawling in the middle of his right arm. He didn’t even have the time to ponder how it got to the middle of his arm before he violently lurched, toppled his computer, and spilled the drink on his bed sheets. With a swift gesture of his left hand he brushed whatever it was off of him, and he heard it land with a thud elsewhere in the room.
He rushed over to the light switch and flipped it on. He scanned the room quickly, and after being unable to find the thing that startled, him he grabbed a towel and tried his best to salvage what he could of his bedsheets. For tonight, he would have to sleep on the mattress alone.
He moved the damp coverings to the hamper for the night. Chuck decided that in the morning he would have to do laundry. He moved the plate and glass to the sink. If nothing else, he was going to clean the dishes tonight. Chuck wiped the plate with a damp cloth and moved it to the drying rack. He merely rinsed out the glass before setting to the side. He let what little soapy water there was run down the drain before he rung out the dish cloth.
In the corner of his eye, Chuck saw a brown dot move in the sink. This one couldn’t have been more than three centimeters in length, but its movements were definitely deliberate. This roach was distinct from the one he had stepped on during the tour. This one was a lighter brown in color, and closer to the insect’s rear was a large white section.
Egg sack or not, Chuck was not going to let this one get away. After the scare he had gotten before, he was ready to take out some of his aggression on this insect. His hand came down hard and fast on the roach. The roach had only a moment to run before its limbs crackled under the force of Chuck’s hand. Chuck felt the crunch of its exterior shell, and the soft release of its innards. Once more there was a small brown stain where the roach once was. Using the sink’s extendable hose the swirling water in the drain carried the brown, white and grey pieces down the sink.
The rest day passed by in mediocrity, as the late hours of evening crept into the room Chuck realized he had done nothing with the day. The employers he had met with had not yet called him back, and the local laundromat was too far from his apartment for him to walk and clean his stained sheets. What he did accomplish was watching the entirety of his movie library in one sitting.
Chuck laid on the bare futon and waited. Waited for sleep to take him again, waited for the urge to do anything at all, but what kept him awake was the anticipation of another visitor. He remembered the visitor from the night before. How the sensation of skittering had stirred him out of his sleep so suddenly. His hand instinctively went to the section of arm from which the sensation had come. The skin had become raised and he could feel small bumps all along his arm. He crooked his fingers and began to scratch.
The next morning’s sun streaked through his windows and the brightness of the room stung Chuck’s eyes. It didn’t matter. He didn’t get much sleep the last night. The light that shone through his windows revealed his legs and arms. There were red patches on every inch of his flesh. He had scratched himself raw in some places. He rose out of bed and put on his slippers. Maybe it had been the lack of sleep, or the constant scratching, but chuck felt weaker this morning, and there was a definite soreness in his legs as he walked to the kitchen.
His head ached a little, and his vision was cloudy. As he staggered around the counter he could still appreciate how he had yet to dirty the kitchen. It was just as pristine as ever with it’s clean countertops, and it’s white and speckled floor. Speckles that, the longer that Chuck admired the floor, appeared to be moving. He rubbed his eyes for a moment, and the fine speckles that he had seen before revealed themselves to be hundreds of tiny cockroaches. He was surprised for a moment, but his fear soon turned to anger. He rose his slippered foot and brought it down on a large cluster of the creatures. Chuck jumped into the middle of the kitchen and began stamping on everything that moved. The rest quickly took notice this of the carnage, and they all scattered in different directions.
Many ran towards the cabinets, but they were quickly met with the bottom of his slipper. Others made a bee-line for the underside of the refrigerator, or the oven, but almost all were squashed with the fervor of a man whose home had been invaded.
The casualties were many and scattered far across the expanse of the kitchen. Chuck stood there, breathing heavily, for a few minutes. He collected himself before he briskly exited his apartment and made his way down the hall and knocked loudly on the door of apartment 1A.
Before he could knock for a second time he was met by a frantic Asian woman in her bathrobe and curlers. Mrs. Gokiburi didn’t look tired; despite the relatively early hour, instead she seemed like she had a million things going on at once. Chuck peered into her room for a second. He saw that she was boiling something in a large pot on her stove, she had her crockpot on high, and her tv was on full blast; blaring some infomercial about non-stick cookware. She may have been a bit of a neat freak, but Mrs. G definitely had a flair for the kitsch. Her room was full of other Halloween themed tchotchkes. Every nook and cranny had another skull or pumpkin. Chuck hadn’t noticed when he first moved in, but her main window was covered in an elaborate spider web.
Mrs. G didn’t seem to care about any of that. She looked at Chuck as if his issues were just another project for her to work on.
“What’s wrong, dear?” Mrs. G’s face wrinkled as she smiled widely.
“I’m sorry to bother you ma’am, but I seem to be having a bit of a bug issue.”
“Bugs?!” Her smile disappeared just as quickly as it had appeared, and with her head hung low her creases made it look like her eyes had sunken completely into her skull; like a snail recoils into its shell. Her shame was replaced with a sense of determination that Chuck had never before seen. She reached behind the door and retrieved an antique spray canister and swatter.
Chuck led the charge back to his apartment. With Mrs. G’s help he knew that the issue would be handled quickly. She’d see the scores of dead cockroaches on his kitchen floor, and she see to it herself that every last insect was eradicated once and for all.
He held open the door, and Mrs. G advanced in full force. Chuck stood out in the hall; half expecting to hear a shriek from his neat-freak landlady, but nothing came. He entered to find Mrs. G in the middle of his kitchen, with a flashlight. She looked at Chuck with an expression of confusion and exasperation. The area around her was completely white. There was no sign of any of the carnage from the morning’s events. None of the exoskeletons were to be found.
Mrs. G looked under the fridge, the oven, and even within the cabinets; all the places that Chuck had seen them crawling towards. Even though she found nothing, she was very thorough. He told her about the one that he had caught on the lip of the sink. She looked the sink and countertop over, and again she found nothing. What she did find were the dishes that Chuck had washed yesterday. With one of her nails, she scratched at a dried-on food stain on his plate. Her look was short but disapproving and harsh.
She gave the room a once over examination. While he was originally excited to have her in his place to do something about the issue, now every dart of her eyes brought with it more shame and embarrassment. She didn’t say anything, but Chuck knew that she was less than thrilled about the unmade state of his bed and the empty boxes that he had yet to put away after his move. When she eventually left his apartment, he apologized profusely for tearing her away from what she was working on, but also silently for the mess that he had let his room become. His door closed, and seconds later he heard hers do the same.
Chuck stared at sparkling white floor in the kitchen. Had he really encountered an insect horde this morning, or was his mind just playing tricks on him? His attention turned to the boxes; still out in the open. The very least he could would be to fold them up and put them away for the time being.
He grabbed the edge of the cardboard structure. Remembering the sounds he had heard two nights ago, he peered inside; expecting perhaps to find the corpse of the thing that had crawled across his arm, but he knew that there would be nothing inside. If there was, Mrs. G would have found it in her very thorough search.
There was no tiny cadaver inside the case, but what was inside did take Chuck aback for a moment. On the bottom of the cardboard box was a large, discolored, wet spot. The stain seemed to expand outward from the middle of the box and creep its way to the edges. Chuck lifted the box to get a closer look at the stain, and before he could inspect the spot closer he felt the sensation of several small somethings running across his feet. Thousands upon thousands of cockroaches emerged from the wet spot and skittered in every direction. Some made their ways to the walls and other sections of the floor. The few that had invaded his slippers were moving along every inch of his feet. He hurriedly took his slippers off and hurled them towards the wall. Dozens of roaches flew out like an explosion when it contacted the side of his apartment. He brushed off the ones that had begun crawling up his leg and stamped at the ones that were still at the center of the wet point.
When he felt even more crawling up his other leg he dropped the box and headed straight for the door. In the hallway, he made sure that there were no others on his personage. Even without seeing them, he could still feel them crawling all over his body. Their tiny legs and antennae irritated his skin in ways he had not imagined were possible, and the itching became more necessary than breathing. He scratched hard at the already enflamed parts of his body. He more closely resembled a tomato than a man. His need to scratch superseded his pain tolerance. He had scratched one area of the back of his hand so hard that he had broken skin, and a small amount of blood had seeped from the scrape.
He made his way, for the second time today, to his landlady’s door. While visibly tired after the ordeal he had put her through earlier, she was still sympathetic for whatever he was going through. She recoiled heavily when she had seen the scrape. She had him wait out in the hallway while she made a phone call. Chuck heard her pick up the receiver, and a few minutes later she emerged.
“You know we can’t keep meeting like this,” she said, the hint of a forced joke in her voice. “Who knows what the neighbors might think.”
Chuck laughed. Even though he was quite stirred after his ordeal, the last thing he wanted was to seem impolite. He could tell he was on thin ice with Mrs. G, and even though she was still cracking jokes, he knew that her patience with him was coming to an end.
“Besides,” she added well after the moment had passed. “I do have other men in my life. Like the exterminator that will be paying us a visit this afternoon.”
Chuck breathed a major sigh of relief and smiled. Maybe he could finally put all of this behind him.
He didn’t dare reenter his room until the exterminator arrived. Every time he thought about even touching his door, he could feel himself itching from head to toe. He moved to a corner of the hallway for the moment. He checked his phone every five minutes for a new message, or maybe even a call from any of the employers whom he had met, but none came. It didn’t matter. He was pulled away from his device every so often by a skittering sound the that he felt was only getting louder and closer.
The final time his head rose to meet the skittering, he visibly jumped. Inches from his face was a giant cockroach, and it had him cornered with nowhere to run.
“Is your name,” there was a pause as the roach seemed to collect its thoughts. “Is your name Chuck?”
“Uh. Yes?” Chuck was almost in a fetal position before he reassured himself that most cockroaches don’t usually carry clipboards. The cockroach looked up and revealed himself to be a man, maybe thirty years old, with coke bottle glasses, and a big smile on his face. His teeth were large and stained yellow and brown. His whole face was accented by a scraggly goatee. Chuck assumed that his hair was probably just as curly, and he would know for sure if it wasn’t covered by the official Nexterminate uniform ballcap with a cockroach’s face printed on it.
“Hiya. I’m Scott from Nexterminate. Mrs. G told us you have a bit of a roach problem.” Scott outlined the basic Nexterminate package; which had already been paid for by Mrs. G, as the two of them walked to the front of the apartment to the Nexterminate truck. Scott grabbed a couple canisters, and other supplies which he loaded onto his white utility belt. He chatted briefly with his coworker, a teenager named Tucker who seemed to be far less interested in conversation than Scott was. He was very young looking, and while it looked like Scott was preparing himself for battle, Tucker was intently playing on some kind of portable gaming system. Scott explained, while Tucker was not old enough yet to legally handle some of the more dangerous chemicals they had in their truck, Nexterminators were required to travel two per vehicle, and he was old enough to drive, so the company hired him to drive the van.
Chuck opened the door to his apartment; expecting to see a large cluster swarming all around the room, but when he entered there were none to be seen. Scott looked around the room and shouldered one of the canisters.
“Cozy place. Pay much for it?” Scott began pumping the canister and pointing a nozzle into various crevasses and cracks around the room. If anything was coming out it was far too fine of a mist to be seen by the naked eye.
“N- no.” Chuck scanned the room; stunned that he was unable to find any evidence that there had been any bugs at all. The only sign that there had been bugs was the light brown stain in the kitchen that Chuck had created when he stepped on the cockroach during the tour of the apartment.
“That’s good. Mrs. G always gives a fair price. You know, we get called out to this here building maybe every one or two years, but that woman is such a neat freak. We have never found a single bug in her apartment. Come to think of it, I don’t think I’ve ever been in this apartment before. She must’ve just bought it or something. Hey, you looking for something there, friend?”
Chuck was suddenly made aware of the fact that he had been staring at the one brown stain on the floor the entire time Scott had been spraying the apartment. Scott had taken the canister off his shoulder and had now joined Chuck in staring at the stain on the floor.
“What happened there? Did you spill a little chili or something?”
“Ah, no. I stepped on a roach, or something, and that’s what caused it.”
Scott raised an eyebrow and slowly sank to the floor; all the while keeping an eye on Chuck. He turned his head, his nose not an inch away from the stain. He took a few whiffs and eyed the stain for a few seconds before rising to meet Chuck face to face.
“You said a roach left that stain?”
Chuck nodded.
“My friend, that was no ordinary roach. Have you ever heard of the elusive Scandinavian cockroach?”
Chuck shook his head.
“I thought so. The Vikings brought them over to America hundreds of years ago. These babies can live for years on the smallest amount of food or water. If you see one there’s guaranteed to be hundreds, if not thousands, in the crawlspaces.” He pointed to the empty canister that was leaning against the wall. “That stuff will take care of American cockroaches just fine, but against Scandinavian roaches, I may as well be spraying water.” He pulled a card out of his utility belt. “This is my personal extension. Call me if you see any more of those suckers.”
Chuck took the card and watched as Scott gathered his things, made his way down the hallway, and out the door.
The room was quiet for what seemed like the first time since he had arrived. The hallways were dead silent, as everyone else had gone to work for the day. Even Mrs. G had left after paying the exterminator. Chuck held the card that Scott had given him tightly in his left hand. “Scandinavian Cockroach.” Somehow giving a name to his tormentor made it addressable. If it had a name, he could take care of it. Chuck closed his eyes for a moment before he was stirred by the sound of Scott slamming the truck’s door and laughing loud.
Chuck looked out of his open window and saw that the Nexterminate van was parked on the street directly below. Neither of the two looked up from what they were doing, so they were both completely unaware of Chuck’s presence.
“Another good sale?” a voice that must have belonged to Tucker asked.
“Like you would not believe. So, I’m doing my spray routine, when I notice this nut-ball is staring at the floor. I finish up in the apartment and join him. He tells me he stepped on a roach a few days ago, and a stain had set into the floor. So naturally I go into my Scandinavian cockroach spiel, and the sucker buys it hook, line, and sinker. Remember this, kiddo. You know what professionals call the Scandinavian cockroach?”
“Job security.” Tucker said, clearly parroting something he had been told many times before. The pair pulled away leaving Chuck in the window.
Bemused and betrayed, Chuck closed the window and sat inside his apartment. He needed something to take his mind from what he had just heard. He went to the freezer and pulled out a large pizza. At least he wouldn’t have to worry about preparing meals for another day or two.
He turned the dial on the oven to 400 degrees and he diverted his attention to the pizza on the counter. He peeled back the plastic and separated the cold food from the cardboard. Just as he was about to put it in the oven he noticed a small, brown, speck crawling along the edge of the sink.
He put the pizza down and struck the spot with all the force he could muster. He took joy in this moment of violence. He didn’t care that this specimen meant that the exterminators had cheated him and Mrs. G. He just cared about the swiftness of his hand, and the satisfying crunch underneath. He raised his hand and watched as the antennae continued to move separate of the body.
Chuck once again picked up the frozen pizza from the counter and swiveled towards the oven. The dial was old and worn in some places. It was entirely unnoticeable when he first entered the apartment, and he probably would not notice it now if it wasn’t turning backwards. From 400 degrees it turned to 350, 325, 300. Chuck leaned in to get a closer look, and from behind the dial a horde of cockroaches began crawling out. Chuck stared at the oven in disbelief. Suddenly he felt something crawling on his arm. Thousands of medium sized cockroaches were working their way down his arm from the pizza, the center of which appeared to be an entire colony of roaches; eating their way out of the cold disk of dough. More began to pour out from underneath the refrigerator, the oven, and even the cracks in the walls.
He fled the kitchen and found himself in the living room of the apartment. The floor was dotted with more and more of the pests. Some from the kitchen had made their way into the living room and were crawling along the wall. Chuck noticed that a few of them had made their way onto the art piece that hung on the wall. Chuck’s hand struck the piece as he tried to exterminate as many of the roaches as he could. With each blow he killed about five. Blow after blow, more of the roaches appeared on the piece and walls. Tired, Chuck stumbled back. The piece was no longer glossy or shiny, if light struck it now the painting would be scarcely visible underneath the layers of cockroach guts that coated the piece.
He found himself backed up against his futon. He was still desperately trying to swat away at the few that were clinging to his arms. He felt more crawling across his legs. He looked down to discover that where his futon was unzipped slightly more and more were seeping out. The futon itself had begun convulsing, as if there were some wild animal trapped within seeking desperately to escape. The zipper inched more and more open until the light seepage turned into a waterfall of insects.
Chuck ran towards the door. Seeking an escape from what his room had become. He placed his hand firmly on the knob. He tried to turn it, but his best attempts were met in vain. He felt something scratching against his palm where his hand and the doorknob met. He removed his hand to find more roaches coming through the lock of the door. He braced himself and charged directly at the door. If he couldn’t open the door, he was going to attempt to break it down. His shoulder made contact with the door once. When the full force of his body met the door a shower of cockroaches rained down on top of him and landed on his head and in his hair.
The roaches had jammed the door, and more of them came pouring out of every cranny of the apartment. The bumps that had made up the texture of the walls began to crack open revealing more cockroaches. Chuck knew that he had to escape. He tried the windows, but again the roaches had jammed the locks tight. The floor no longer resembled a floor. Where the floor used to be was an undulating twitching mass that held no definite shape. The scraping of feet on feet on feet and the twitching of antennae resonated deeply within the grains of the wood, producing a deep pulsating sound in the apartment.
Despite Chuck’s attempts to swat them away, the roaches had found their way under his clothes, and were crawling along nearly every inch of his flesh. His swatting turned to scratching, as he once again could no longer stand the incessant need to scratch that these insects created in him. Chuck spotted one of the larger roaches, with a large white egg sack on its lower abdomen, making its way along his arm and down to the back of his hand. The roach seemed to walk along the direct trail of blood that Chuck’s scratching had created when he broke skin. He watched in terror as the roach dove head first into his open wound. Chuck tried in vain to smash the roach, but wherever he made contact his skin he only left behind a bruise that was barely visible underneath the white and red streaks made from his consistent scratching. Where the roach was in his arm his flesh bubbled up. He saw as it moved free of any obstacle through his arm.
There were suddenly two bumps; one that continued to move freely in his arm, and another that sat still perfectly still. Chuck lifted his hand and came down hard upon the stagnant mass in his arm. The lump flattened out, and for a moment he thought he had averted something terrible. After a second, however movement came from where the lump had been. His skin ballooned a little, and hundreds of smaller flesh bubbles swarmed and scattered throughout his arm, tracing the veins and arteries of his arm.
Chuck screamed; in fear, in pain, in the hope that someone, anyone in the apartment building would hear him. The wider he opened his mouth the more roaches entered. He tried to spit them out, but many had already made their way down his throat. Even more entered his nostrils, and every orifice was being invaded by insects.
The room became dark as the sheer number of roaches blocked out the light that was coming from the window. Roaches had somehow found their ways into the light sockets and were shorting out the electricity. There was no room to speak of anymore. The roaches had knocked the art off the wall; what was left of the walls anyway. The walls were replaced with a brown pulsating mass. The multitude now resembled a single fleshy entity instead of millions upon millions of tiny insects. The ceilings had been covered to the point that every additional second that passed hundreds more roaches rained down.
Chuck was struggling to breathe. He could feel the roaches replacing his very being. He still tried to swat them away or scratch, it was all he could do. He had scratched himself to the bone in some places. Flesh and sinew hung and dripped in to the waist high pool of roaches. He felt every single one of them on, and in, his body. He felt it too when they began to bite into him and he noticed he was sinking deeper and deeper into the waves of roaches. When only his face was left above the pool he could no longer scream. His face contorted to the shape of abject terror, but he was incapable of mustering any sound. Roaches moved freely in and out of his mouth and nose as his eyes rolled back in his skull and at last his facial muscles relaxed.
The key slipped effortlessly into the lock, and the sound of tumblers clicking into place soon followed. The doorknob turned quickly; with purpose. The elderly hand that was clasped around it pushed the door open for the young man with a very excited look on his face.
“And here’s the apartment. I’m sorry, I’m terrible with names. Would you mind reminding me?”
“Thomas. Thomas Anderson.”
“Well Mr. Anderson I hope the apartment is too your liking. Why don’t you look around?”
The room was immaculately clean. The walls were well painted and there was scarcely a mark indicating anything had been hung up at all. The kitchen looked brand new. It seemed impossible that the floor could look so white, but somehow this kitchen was spared any blemish.
“So, why did the last guy leave?” Thomas was almost unwilling to believe someone would ever leave a place so nice.
“Oh, he didn’t really say. I personally think he was a little antisocial. From the beginning he only acted aggressively to the other tenants.”
She paused for a moment to gather her thoughts and rummage through a bag of goods from the local corner store. “Now we do have to discuss the issue of payment. Usually, I collect rent on the first of the month, but I’m sure we can work something out,” the elderly woman pulled a pointy hat out of a drug store bag and put it on. “What with it being Halloween and all.”