Mega Six

By L. G. Merrick
Illustrated by Steve Morris

Herk Tinslap’s expansive mood took a shock at the whack of some object into the windshield of his van. What hit me? The bang whipped his attention up from his phone, only to see nothing except desert highway, the high beams lighting up a blur of insects. He was speeding through a cloud of the little bastards — or some not so little, more like tennis balls — and every few seconds, one became a phlegm-like splat on the glass.

Which he enjoyed. Killing bugs was Herk’s first love — or actually, ha ha, as of three hours ago, with Gidget out of his life — his only love.

But what the hell hit me?

There was a silver pit chipped out of the center of the windshield, and cracks spreading from it in a star two inches across.

Stretching to four inches, as he watched. Shit.

By luck, he was nearing Socorro. Already he could see its modest lights marring the night. He’d hoped to get to Albuquerque, a real town, but if that crack planned to keep spreading and then blow the windshield in on his face, better to quit here. Get the glass replaced in the morning. Business was booming lately, so he didn’t mind the expense. He didn’t mind anything, now that Gidge and all her rotten brats were in his rearview forever. He felt nineteen again.

He pulled into the first motel he saw, a Mega Six. It sat in a pool of yellow light under a single towering lamppost at the edge of all the empty dark.

Inside, the front desk was an orange Formica counter. The guy behind it was Indian, but he didn’t have an accent, so he was okay in Herk’s book. His nametag said Vik.

“You didn’t fill out the license plate,” Vik said, sliding the form back to him.

Herk didn’t like to give out numbers. Not in our surveillance state. He said, “It’s the van. Says ‘Herk Kills Bugs’ on it.”

Vik looked startled.

“Exterminator?”

What the hell else would I be in that van? There was a cartoon drawing of him on the side too, smashing a bug with a sledgehammer.

“Yeah.”

Vik heaved out a laugh that sounded like relief.

“Go hook yourself up in the diner next door. That’s where everybody is.”

“Well. Guess that’s the spot, then,” Herk said.

First, he grabbed his bag and found his room, upstairs and halfway down the row of doors. Turned the key — no swipe card, this place was behind the times — and stepped in out of the night. Immediately, the smell blasted him right in the brain. The reek of roach infestation.

His professional nose didn’t need one second to rule out the German and Oriental species, which were also common in New Mexico; this was the distinct, musty stink of the American Cockroach. It wafted off their droppings inside the walls, off their very bodies — and it was so intense in here, it put a tang in his mouth. He’d sure as hell let the desk know about it.

Must be why the dude reacted to me like he did.

Otherwise, the room was as expected. Flat gray carpet, as lush as a starched towel. Wall art bolted in place. All right, the coffee machine was knocked over, its sugar packets scattered, some mangled and open — worthless maid. He righted the machine. He’d let the front desk know about her, too.

After some grub.

On his way out, he slid the window open to air the place, but — couldn’t open the curtain. Tugged on it for a solid minute, until finally realizing an eyelet up top was zip-tied to the rod bracket.

He stood blinking. Then realized — Hell, so Socorro’s got a bad crime problem. Management didn’t want anyone peeking to see what might be stolen out of the rooms. Illegals, he figured, or there’s an Injun Rez nearby. The tribes were not to be trusted, in Herk Tinslap’s book.

Or could just be asshole kids.

He wondered which out of Gidge’s kids would end up in prison, now that he wasn’t going to be around as masculine authority figure in their lives. They were doomed anyway. Their dad was a shit who’d instilled shit ways long before Herk was on the scene. Big lesson: Never live in a house with some other asshole’s spawn.

Six kids! How the hell did I last so long? I deserve a damn medal.

Free at last, free at last, he walked across the parking lot to the diner. At the top of that one impressively tall street lamp, the halo around its bulb swirled dense with insects. A moth looped through, as big as a hawk. Herk blinked.

Must have been a bat, swooping in for snacks.

Speaking of food, the diner looked closed. His happy mood teetered. Suddenly he felt how fragile it might be. He cursed and dug his mental claws into it. He knew he’d feel better if he read the hours on the door, so he could at least tell off Vik in informed style — “You told me go eat, you didn’t tell me it closes in five minutes. Let me ask, which of us is the fuckup here, huh, Vik?” — but up close, he saw there were lights on inside, behind curtains. Even the glass door had a curtain over it.

He went in.

Curtains aside, it was pretty typical, within. Booths, tables — and one large party that had pushed multiple tables together made the place feel busy when it was otherwise empty. They buzzed with activity, two dozen adults in a palpable state of anxiety, with papers spread out and laptop computers glowing. Some arguing. Some on phones. Herk evaluated. He decided they weren’t anything to care about. He grabbed a seat at the counter.

The lone waitress had dyed-red hair and would have been pretty if she smiled. He ordered a Bud and the flank steak to impress her. Ladies love a steak-eating man. He was officially single and she worked two minutes from tonight’s bed. Anything could happen.

“Pretty dead in here, huh? Except the chess club over there,” he said. “You on all night?”

“We close at twelve.”

That was a conservative reply. He glanced at her name tag.

“Irene, chess kids’ll act up. They give you any lip, you signal me.” He tugged his ear, like that’d be the signal. “I’ll set em straight.”

She didn’t laugh, and he hated her a little for it.

She said, “They tip. Expense accounts.”

“You just remember our signal.”

He tugged his ear again, defiantly.

He gave the chess club another look, now that Irene had taken their side. Had he misjudged them? They were a ragtag band — twenties through seventies in age, both men and women, white guys and Indian ladies and who the hell knows what. Some sloppy, some buttoned down tight, some with hair waxed flat and others with clown-wig hair. Not one had a physique that looked any use. He really could fight them all single-handedly. Wade in swinging, beat each one down, never even bleed. Stand triumphantly on a pile of bodies.

“Hey. Mind if I smoke in here?”

“You can’t,” Irene said.

“Then it’s a good thing I quit.”

She moved on without reacting to his little joke. He felt himself turn red.

Whatever. Gidge had it worse for once, and that was all that mattered. Gidge was probably in tears right now, back at the shitty house in Alamogordo. Staring at the TV in tears while all her brats scurried around her in chaos. It wasn’t even possible to watch TV in that house, all of them filthy and noisy and uncontrollable until you picked one to smack and watch the rest scatter. Usually. They had brains like peas and couldn’t always take a hint.

A lady from the chess club had come to the counter waving a coffee mug to alert Irene to her need.

“Monthly meeting?” Herk asked.

The lady blinked. “Of what?”

“Of whatever your gang is. Book club, Sexaholics Anonymous, whatever.”

The woman had glossy blue bags under her eyes as if she hadn’t slept in days. It made her age hard to assess. No makeup either, not even trying. No pride. No goals. Like Gidge, given to staring into space.

“We’re working,” she said. She re-angled her shoulders more toward Irene to dismiss him. “Excuse me? Miss?”

He didn’t like that re-angling. Here’s one who’s very impressed with herself.

When he was alone with Irene, he asked, “So who the hell do they work for?”

Irene said, “How the hell should I know.”

“Don’t lie to me,” he snapped.

For a second, he worried he had crossed a line, accusing a stranger. Maybe she didn’t know. And she could throw him out.

Then he saw on her face that he was right. She was a liar. He kept his face stern and watched that make her decide she better whistle a sensible tune.

“They’re from all over,” she shrugged. “Here temporarily for the VLA.”

“The VLA,” he nodded, irritated. She had used some obscure acronym so she could play like she’d told him without actually telling him. When Gidget pulled stunts like that, she got what she deserved the next second.

Irene caught his harder glare and decided she better elaborate. It felt good to be feared.

“You know those big radio dishes, pointed into outer space? They’re in movies. The VLA.” She said it casually, like she wasn’t scared, pretty good actress. “Just down the road. They started to hear something a little bit ago.”

“Space? Radio?” He snorted. “I guess aliens are playing the Martian Top 40 for them.”

“Something like that,” Irene said.

Of all the delusions, he thought. Must be nice to scam a living pretending to tune in alien songs. He made a living keeping civilization habitable. People had no idea how many insects there were on the planet. In the cities. In their homes. Hiding in the walls. Roaming across their kitchens every night, picking through the garbage, getting into the fridge through its air vents, standing on the butter all night. It was only because of him that people didn’t know. Him and his kind, and the corporations that invented the pesticides they deployed. Either you dominate the bugs every day, or the bugs get on top.

Herk had never liked bugs. His whole life, he saw a bug, he killed it. A satisfying sound, the crunch of the exoskeleton under his shoe. He pressed down slow, to savor that death. Pressed down slow to trap that wriggling little body, feel the impression of it under his sole, the lump thinning out as he transferred all his weight onto it. And when he grew up, and got licensed — stepping on them was nothing. The poisons let him kill by the thousand. Massacre. Every day. He had dedicated his life to genocide. If bugs ever evolve, he liked to think, and start up their own TV networks, and produce a History channel, there’ll be my face every day. I’m their Hitler. I’ve ruled their world for a hundred generations and I will for a hundred more.

His favorite job, ever, was the Generosa job. Messy family, the Generosas. The county relocated them and sent him in to fumigate. Bugs unchecked. Blanketing the kitchen floor, in broad daylight. Three deep on the dishes in the sink, on half a cake left to rot on a couch. The bastards had been living high for months and didn’t see him coming at all. And man, was it satisfying to suck them up with the shop vac. Hear their shells clicking down the hose. His palm on the hose to feel them ricochet along. Knowing he was going to spray so much poison they would die by the pound. In the walls there’d end up more dead roaches than insulation. No safe harbor. But to really have fun, in the Generosa kitchen? To let his elation unspool — and why the hell not? No one was watching…

He danced.

Kicked off his boots, stuffed his socks in his pockets, cuffed his pants tight — and danced. Jigged over the living roaches. Delighted to the crackle of their skins under his pink feet. Thrilled at the eruption of their guts between his toes. Spurred by the sharp angles of their breaking exoskeletons — dizzy with their delicious panic in the last instant of each life.

He was a killer.

He tipped low to let Irene know it.

Then he slid off his stool like a cowboy off a horse, and strode toward the curtains. Should have been a long wall of windows over the booths, yet instead everyone in here was spending the night like kids sealed in a pillow fort. He hated when Gidge’s kids put all the cushions on the floor. There was never any order. He never got respect. That was her fault. She’d sass him and the kids saw it, so how could he establish order? Set down a rule, give his stern face, flash the back of his hand — yet life there was never going to get better than scurry, swarm, shit. And this was his first night out of that life. Things were different, starting now.

He announced to everyone present — though not loud enough to be heard, more for his own satisfaction — “I’ll show you how to live. What are you, a bunch of claustrophobics?”

Maybe so! he thought, and gave a laugh at the idea that he was about to send every simp in here diving under tables in terror.

He grabbed the nearest part in the curtains and shoved them open. They were new curtains, it occurred to him, and handmade, simple. Not like what a real business would hang. The rings scraped down the rod.

Okay, so it was a crap view.

The empty highway. The tall steel lamppost and the bugs swirling around its top. The rest was black velvet.

A form moved on the glass. A soft-shouldered dope, with jowls, and thinning hair. With a start, he realized it was his own reflection. Peculiar fear stung his heart, and he wasn’t fine at all until the next second, when he realized Damn, that’s Gidge’s fault.

He fixed his posture.

I’m on a comeback though. I won’t be so worn out—

A nervous shout of “Close that!” made him turn. Fatso black man with coke-bottle glasses, bald top of his head shaped like the narrow end of an egg. “Quick!”

The rest of the chess club turned in horror to Herk.

“Relax,” he said. “You people—“

Something heavy crashed into the glass. Herk jumped.

It sounded like a basketball.

Whatever it was, it was gone when he looked.

Where it hit, it left an X of a crack, three feet high. Smudged white in the center. As if someone outside had whacked an ashy rag on the glass. He stared, uncomprehending.

The chess club burst into protest.

He started forward to investigate the ash, but a lady built like a broomstick rushed past him and yanked the curtains shut.

The overhead lights died.

Surprised, he looked around — but it wasn’t a power failure. The pie case was still lit. By its glow, he saw Irene at a panel of wall switches. Then she grabbed something under the register, and came at him. He took a fight stance, prepared to disarm her.

Tape. She’d grabbed a roll of tape.

She knelt in the booth, ducked behind the curtain. He listened to the skreeeet of the tape as she pulled it off the roll to apply it across the X.

“What the hell’s going on?” he asked Broomstick.

“We don’t precisely know,” she said, watching the lump of Irene in the curtain, “how the signal works.”

“Oh, your radio crap.” He huffed. “Right.”

“From Sigma Draconis,” she said absently.

Herk nodded. “Yeah, I know that.”

She said, “It’s patterned and repeating, with an incident power density that promotes dielectric tissue heating in arthropoda. The consequences to morphology…”

Irene interrupted this gibberish by emerging from her tape job and saying to him, “You want a cup of joe to go?”

By the tone of it, she meant “Bye.” That, he did not accept, but also his positive attitude was flickering on its last fume. He needed to get out into some oxygen, get back to being master of his destiny.

He chugged out a laugh.

“If you’re as good at coffee as you are at steak, I’ll pass.”

He pushed through the little mob and after he got outside, he heard the door lock right behind him. Assholes. He looked around the mostly barren parking lot and thought Well, what the hell is going on?

He started back to his room, trying to fan the embers of feeling good. The world was all his, as of today. Hell yeah. And he was going to be rich, too, because lately business was on turbo. Alamogordo, and he imagined all of New Mexico, and maybe the whole Southwest, was undergoing a crazy insect boom. They were everywhere, and they were big. The past two weeks, he’d seen roaches hit three inches long. The American Cockroach should top out at two. He’d been hired to take out a nest of bedbugs the size of dimes. In his own woodpile, he’d found a black widow with abdomen — should have been size of a pea; was instead a peanut M&M. Why so fat? Who could care. Humidity, temperature — insects reacted to subtle shifts. His personal theory credited the new 5G cell towers — but all that really mattered was that it meant money in his pocket. Bugs too big for households to ignore meant calls, and Gidge in the rearview meant not sharing one cent. 

It was an uneasy feeling, though, not knowing what hit the diner window. Knowing everybody else did know. He kicked a pebble as he walked. Christ, what if—

He shook off the idea before it got anywhere. But that white dust in the center of the X. As if a moth had come diving at the light—

Well, it wasn’t any insect that made the impact he heard. It was kids. A gang. MS13 or whatever, that drug gang from Guatemala always beheading people. Lurking out here, throwing rocks. Or heads. He picked up his pace.

Back in the Mega Six, the room had gotten cold with the window open, but the odor hadn’t thinned out. He closed the window, annoyed that he’d forgotten to stop by the desk to deliver his complaints. He stripped down for bed. He always slept in the buff. It sent a message. He was a brawny man coated in hair, and if anyone ever climbed in a window? The BTK serial killer, say — Bind Torture Kill? He’d seen a documentary about BTK. But really, any guy who prowled the night to wake people up to mess with them. Herk figured even a creep like BTK would take one look at him in his birthday getup and climb right the hell back out the window. Your typical BTK didn’t expect to see a real man. A man in a pajama was no man, and Herk slept like a goddamn Viking. Naked he was a monument. He phoned the front desk.

“Listen, you need me in this dump. Are you the owner?”

“No.”

“Tell me when’s the owner on.”

“On?”

“Is that complicated, Vik? When’s he there?”

“Oh. Morning.”

“Morning starts when, you tell me. Five, six, ten, what.”

“Seven.”

Herk hung up. He’d see the owner first thing. Say “Buddy, you got roaches. I don’t even got to see one to know. I can smell ’em. And I will get rid of every single one. Because listen, Magoo, there is no human being on this Earth more dedicated to the eradication of insects than this man you’re looking at right now.”

He called customers Magoo.

He watched TV for a couple hours and it was nice and then he fell asleep half hoping MS13 would try to break in. He’d wring a neck and enjoy the rest scattering.

It was not a Guatemalan gang that awakened him, though.

At a sound he opened his eyes. In the fog of sleep, in the dark. The coffee machine had been knocked over. That was the sound. An oblong shadow hurried across the wall.

Dreaming, he thought.

Then a similar form crested the side of the bed. Not a shadow. It had weight. The mattress creaked with it. It stepped onto his left leg. Vivid dream.

He had the notion that it was an enormous cockroach, on the bed with him. By the blue glow of the alarm clock on the nightstand, he saw legs. They were long and jagged with spines. Curved spines as long as fingers. The roach was heavy. It straddled his left leg and was big enough that its underside did not touch the blanket. Twirling whips of antennae in front of his face.

Too vivid. His heart raced. But one of those dreams where I’m aware. In charge. I can make decisions.

The blanket caught on the spines of an insect leg and dragged across his leg. The dream-roach stepped forward, put forelegs on his gut.

That was enough. He acted. He brought his left knee up, hard, into its abdomen. He imagined that would flip it off the bed. Then he’d wake up.

But that was not the result. His knee hit the underside with a dull, softish thunk. The roach bopped up a foot in the air, fell back down on him. He felt the full weight of it. He let out a shameful dumbstruck cry. Was it four feet long? Twenty pounds?

An antenna tapped across his face. His right cheek, bumped his nose. The roach crawled up his body, he saw the blue glimmer across its eyes.

Wake up.

He reached for the lamp. Little button at the base of the lamp. The light would wake him, the roach would vanish.

He clicked the switch but it seemed to take time for the electricity to travel to the bulb, heat the filament, create the light. The roach veered to the right — it was a relief when its weight was off him, and his mouth dropped open and a rush of air left him as if it represented reason fleeing, with a gut-punched sound like uhngf!

At last the bulb radiated light. At last the light began to travel outward, to fill the room, began to cross the many light-years to the walls. Before it quite hit them, as it was only beginning to illuminate all that was in the room with him, he found himself wishing oh god no no no, wishing that it would not light things up. Because so many shadows clung to the walls. Sat on the neighboring bed. Crossed the ceiling. He saw how very big each one was. And a horrible single word burned in his brain.

Revenge!

When at last light filled the room, the cockroaches all changed direction in response. Herk did experience a brief instant of self-satisfaction as he saw the rust-colored wings, the golden thorax markings — Americanus, he thought, I was right. He also saw that the one that crawling off of him now found it was skittering directly toward the bright lamp, which it did not like. Herk understood what was about to happen but was paralyzed, and could do nothing except know.

The roach veered back on top of him. It roved over him, toward the headboard, the wall. It ran over his head. Feet on his shoulders, filthy spines cutting his face, and one foot—Pretarsus, he thought blankly, a roach foot is called pr — one pretarsus, one hook of a foot, hard and reeking and tasting of insect, went directly into his wide-open mouth. The way he himself might put his boot on the wrung of a ladder. He felt the pressure of it into his tongue and his teeth and jaw, and he felt sure he would never get the taste out, never, never get the feeling out.

When it had clambered over him, onto the wall, finally Herk was moved. He flew from the bed and out the door, buck naked and wide-eyed into the night, and mouth wide as if he did not dare close it and trap that lingering essence of insect inside. He ran in terror. Bare feet smacking the cement. Now blood poured from his mouth, but still he could taste only cockroach. He ran for his van by mindless reflex, to get his poisons, and he wasn’t halfway down the stairs when the full black expanse of reality struck him, finally, for the first time in his life, and struck him like a hammer: the awareness that he was but one tiny insignificant mammal in a vast, indifferent universe. The fact that from Socorro to Sigma Draconis, he could never gather poison enough to overcome this truth.

The end