FICTION BY ANDREAS BRITZ

Andreas Britz is a writer whose work has been featured or is forthcoming in The Horror Zine, Dark Dossier, Mystery Tribune, Black Sheep: Unique Tales of Terror & Wonder, Blood Moon Rising, Altered Reality, The Chamber Magazine, Fabula Argentea, The Honest Ulsterman and several other digital and print publications. 

He is a Truman Capote Fellowship recipient and won the 2012 University of Chicago Emerging Writer Award. He lives in West Cork, Ireland with his wife Sarah.

INVASIVE SPECIES
by Andreas Britz

“How do you do, ma’am?”

The man standing at Mrs. Hartley’s front door was tall and handsome with a healthy complexion and rosy lips, and wore patent leather shoes and a blue suit that accentuated his baby-blue eyes. Marring an otherwise lovely face was a small pink scar close to the brow line which he incurred from some falling masonry years back. In his left hand, he held a canvas folio bag branded with the words “Stamford & Co.”

“My name is Daryl Crispin,” he said. “I work for the Stamford Company. We partner with the Department of Agriculture to eradicate the Sorghum weevil.”

“Sorghum weevil?” said Mrs. Hartley, unsure of the man’s meaning. “I’ve never heard of such a thing.”

“Sitophilus sorghicola,” replied Daryl without missing a beat. Mentioning a connection to the government always gave him the appearance of being an expert. “The Broomcorn Devil. First cousin to the dreaded Blister Beetle and about twice the size. It started invading the good ol’ US of A three years ago in 1954.”

“Is it some kind of pest?”

“Oh, the worst there is, ma’am. Truly.” Daryl’s face appeared severe and full of alarm. “Came all the way from Mumbai in some fool’s hand luggage, and they’ve been proliferating like mad ever since.” Reaching into his bag, he produced a sheaf of papers with numbers, graphs, and poorly-edited, typed paragraphs and gave them to Mrs. Hartley. “There are millions of them now, all across the United States. Every bug expert worth his salt says we’re gonna be overrun in a few years if something isn’t done. It’s a real mess, I tell you. And the Department of Agriculture is very worried.”

Mrs. Hartley, unaccustomed to dealing with door-to-door salesmen, waved Daryl inside and offered him coffee and a seat in the living room, both of which he declined.

Daryl cast his eyes about the room, noting the expensive furniture, the oak bookshelves loaded with hardbacks, the potted ficus and the dozen or so framed photographs hanging on the walls, all of which had been meticulously dusted. The place radiated wealth. He was surprised the doorknobs weren’t encrusted with diamonds.

Mrs. Hartley went and sat on the davenport, hands folded on her pencil skirt. Her shoulder-length brown hair, rouged lips and drawn-on eyebrows reminded Daryl of his mother at that age. Even the way she sat with her back perfectly erect—a queenly posture—brought to mind the woman who had raised him.

“Mr. Crispin,” she said, seemingly embarrassed, “you wouldn’t be pulling my leg, would you?”

He could have come clean right then, admitted it was all a sphincter-pull—the so-called “data” was based on the giant Asian hornet migration from a decade ago—and quietly showed himself out, his dignity partially intact.

That’s what Daryl should have done. Instead, he asked Mrs. Hartley if she had a tumble dryer in the house.

“Well, of course I have a—”

“See!” he shouted, excitedly. “See! Sorghum weevils are drawn to tumble dryers. They say it’s the vibrations. Any appliance with a motor is like catnip to them.”

“This is the first I’ve ever heard of any sorghum weevil,” replied Mrs. Hartley. “I don’t remember seeing anything on the TV or in the paper. Are they dangerous, these bugs?”

That was Daryl’s cue.

“Well now…the idea of your roof caving in while you sleep sound dangerous to you? Or all your expensive electronics going up in a puff because one of these little devils has chewed through the wires?” Daryl checked to see what effect—if any—his words were having on his audience. “Ma’am, these boogers make the termite look like a ladybird on a sweet spring morning. And I haven’t even mentioned the mandibles.”

This got Mrs. Hartley’s attention. “Mandibles?”

“Oh, yes. Strong as a crab’s pincers, and sharp to boot.” He made a crab claw with his left hand and snapped at the air a couple of times. “They’ll tweak your nose and tear through your big toe like it’s butter. And don’t get me started on the poison.”

Mrs. Hartley visibly shuddered. “I honestly wouldn’t even know one to see it. Our neighbors, the Jenkins, have these little red ants in their guest bathroom. Just climbed out of the drain one day while Carol was Windexing the medicine cabinet. Scared her half to death. Now there’s a conga line that stretches clean across the wall. You ought to stop there next.”

Ignoring that, Daryl said, “It just so happens I have a government sponsored and very detailed anatomical illustration of a sorghum weevil right here in this portfolio bag.”

He unzipped his bag and removed from it a large, pencil and ink drawing of the insect in question. Beautifully contoured and rendered in stunning three-dimensional detail, this nightmarish creature of the imagination—his imagination—was as unsettling as anything Mrs. Hartley had laid eyes on in her forty-two years.

“My goodness, it’s hideous!” she exclaimed.

“Ain’t it just?” Daryl grinned with satisfaction. “You sure wouldn’t want your lovely children exposed to this monster. And this picture here’s just an adolescent male. You ought to get a load of the mature females some time; even bigger. Alas, in my line of work, they’re unavoidable. You ask me, fumigation’s too good for ‘em.”

Daryl often wondered if he wasn’t a big bug himself, secreting some powerful pheromone that all the apron-wearing, pillow-fluffing hausfraus of America found irresistible. He wanted to coat this particular one in his enzymes—digest her on the outside first, the way certain rare species of ant sometimes do. It was a way to scam money and it beat working in a factory.

“It’s grotesque,” Mrs. Hartley mumbled, cocking her head to one side, “but also...beautiful in a way.” Her eyes rose from the page to meet Daryl’s. “The drawing, I mean. It’s the work of a remarkable hand. I don’t suppose you know the artist?”

“I ought to since I see his ugly mug in the mirror each morning.”

“You did this drawing?” Mrs. Hartley was properly stunned.

“I did. Commissioned by the government, of course.” He tried to picture his hostess without any clothes on, but couldn’t. Some sort of jamming device hidden on her person?

“It’s exquisite,” remarked Mrs. Hartley in awe. “You’re quite the artist. Do you take students?”

“Now that’s a laugh.” Daryl was taken aback by the flattery. “Who in their right mind would take instruction from me?”

“I would for one,” replied Mrs. Hartley, adamantly. “It’s fate, you coming here today, Mr. Crispin, seeing as I am myself an aspiring artist.” Her face suddenly beamed with pride. “I’ve been taking classes at the community college for a few months now and my instructor says he sees real promise. He’s even shared my work with some of his colleagues, and they’re all of the same opinion.”

Sensing an opportunity, Daryl said, “That’s wonderful. I could tell right from the off that I was dealing with a sensitive soul. Someone attuned to the subtleties of life.”

“Well, I don’t know about all that.”

“I do! Sure, I do,” said Daryl, hamming it up. “You’re Mrs…?”

“Hartley. Mary-Louise Hartley.”

Daryl eyed Mrs. Hartley cheekily. “And now,” he said, stepping past her, “if you’ll permit me, Mrs. Hartley, I’d like to conduct an assessment of your kitchen area.”

“The kitchen?” Mrs. Hartley sprung from the davenport and moved to block Daryl’s path. “Oh, it’s a bit of a mess at the moment. I’ve been baking. Perhaps if you left and came back later—”

“Nonsense, Mrs. Hartley. I’m a professional, not to mention a lifelong bachelor. An unkempt range will hardly scandalize me. In fact, a little mess is ideal for the assessment process. It brings them out into the open, helps me gauge the extent of the infestation.”

“Infestation?” Mrs. Hartley recoiled from the word. “But I keep a clean house. You just caught me on a bad day. Do you really think it could be that bad?”

“Won’t know until I check. You just stay in here and occupy yourself with a magazine for about five minutes while I do my work. And when I come back, I expect to hear all about your paintings.”

“Oh, Mr. Crispin, maybe we ought to wait for my husband…”

But he had already left her.

Alone in the kitchen with a closed door between him and the housewife, Daryl suddenly felt at ease. He laid his bag on the counter next to the sink and took out several brown cardboard boxes, each bearing the Stamford & Co. brand, and started stacking them like toy blocks.

He had to be careful. Wouldn’t want a repeat of Denver. Too much of the Casanova routine and you’re liable to end up in a sparring match with hubby. Or worse, staring down the barrel of a gun.

“Yes, ma’am, these are some savage critters to be sure!” he exclaimed loud enough that Mrs. Hartley could hear him in the living room. “Don’t want to be caught unawares in your own home and end up having to send for the undertaker. Yes, I said undertaker. I don’t mean to be morbid, Mrs. Hartley, but if you’ve seen the things I’ve seen—the biting and the swarming and the tearing of innocent flesh—you’d be that way too. Just imagine if one of your little ones fell afoul of a sorghum weevil. You’d never forgive yourself.”

He started quietly opening cupboards until he found the one containing glasses and coffee mugs. He took down a highball glass, walked over to the pantry where he figured the liquor was stored and poured himself three fingers of nice cognac and threw it back. As the liquid slid down his throat, a pleasant warmth began to radiate throughout his body. He poured himself another three fingers before putting the bottle away.

“My, oh, my!” he bellowed. “Looks like I arrived just in the nick of time. I’ve found four—no, make that five—points of ingress, and they’ve begun nesting under the sink.” He banged his knee on one of the lower cabinet doors, the pain sharp and sizzling, and cursed under his breath.

When he’d recovered, he went on, “If those eggs hatch, Mrs. Hartley, you’re in trouble. They’ll have to call in the wrecking crew and the men with flamethrowers. Scorched earth policy, I’m afraid. But not to worry—a few traps ought to do the trick. Very effective. Those sorghum weevils will rue the day they came to your neck of the woods.”

*****

There wasn’t much time; she’d have to work fast and loose and with none of her usual finesse or attention to detail. From a walnut bureau next to the TV she removed a large sketchpad and pencil case which she laid out on the glass coffee table.

Kicking off her heels, she twisted into a sitting position on the carpet, grabbed a black 2B pencil from the case and furiously began drawing. Her hand glided swiftly over the tall, white page before her, giving form to the image in her mind, shading and stippling and crosshatching a spot here and a spot there. But then, unsatisfied with the result, she tore off the page, crumpled it up and promptly started over.

“Get yourself a rich husband.” That’s what her twelfth grade art teacher Mr. Stein told her all those years ago when she asked him what it took to have a successful art career. “Get yourself a rich husband.” She ground her molars and pressed the lead of the pencil against the page so hard that a small hole had begun to form.

She could see that Daryl was cut from the same cloth as Mr. Stein. He hid it well, but it was there. It was hard-coded into his DNA, like a kooky laugh or a distaste for cilantro.

He’d be busy for a few minutes laying his traps and wouldn’t bother her. She’d not let him see the drawing before it was done. It had to be as complete as possible. For it to “leap off the page,” as her professors often put it, a sustained period of concentration not unlike meditation was needed.

She visualized the thing, held it in her mind, as if between a pair of insect pincers, and bowing her head once more, continued with her drawing.

*****

Daryl was leaning on one of the bar stools, deciding where to place the first trap, when something bit his finger.

His hand shot back in alarm, his eyes darting to the stool just in time to see a small red insect, no bigger than an ant, disappear under the seat. “Son of a bitch,” he mumbled, putting his finger in his mouth and sucking. A bump immediately rose where he’d been bitten. He blew on it for a few seconds as his anger slowly subsided, giving way to something like bemusement.

He thought to himself, Revenge of the sorghum weevils!

There really was something in her kitchen. It was a job for a real exterminator.

He cleared his throat and shouted, “Almost done, ma’am. Just a couple more traps to go and I’ll be out of your hair.” He started placing traps around the kitchen, willy nilly. “I appreciate you being so patient. One has to be thorough when dealing with these demon-spawn.”

He was bent over the stove, writing up an invoice when he happened to notice, out of the corner of his eye, an adjoining room with the door half-open. He tried to resist the temptation to snoop, but in the end his curiosity won out.

He poked his head inside and felt along the wall until he found a light switch. It was a small den that had been converted into an artist’s studio. An easel stood in the center of the room, facing away from the door. A white canvas tarp flecked with dried paint covered most of the carpet. The smell of turpentine hung in the hair like a curse.

Daryl came around to the other side of the easel to have a gander at Mrs. Hartley’s latest masterpiece.

It was a still-life of the ficus from the living room. The glossy, drooping leaves and bulbous gray trunk with exposed roots twisting down into an earthenware pot of dark soil made little impression on Daryl at first. It was perfectly recognizable, and yet unmistakably amateurish. Clearly the work of a novice, someone still struggling with the basics of composition. There was no getting around it; the execution was poor and the overall effect left much to be desired.

Daryl stood for several seconds, studying the painting, registering every clumsy stroke and beginner’s mistake, trying his damnedest to reconcile it with Mrs. Hartley’s boasting earlier.

Then something broke within him, and there came a torrent of laughter.

He stumbled backwards a few steps, bumping into a shelf of art supplies, his body convulsing madly. Tears stood in his eyes, his stomach muscles growing taut as the guffaws increased in intensity. Deprived of oxygen, he doubled over and clapped his hand to his mouth in a futile attempt to muffle the sounds.

When Mrs. Hartley arrived to investigate, she found Daryl collapsed in a writhing heap on the floor, his cackling reaching an almost deafening pitch.

She bent over him, hands on hips, and whispered softly, “Something funny, Mr. Crispin?”

But Daryl, still in the throes of his mirth, could only lay there on the white canvas tarp, at the foot of the easel which had somehow managed to stay standing, gasping desperately for air. Had he the lung capacity, he would have asked Mrs. Hartley for help. He would have begged her to call an ambulance and perhaps his mother since they hadn’t spoken in a while and, like any good son, he wouldn’t want to depart this vale of tears without saying sorry first.

But he could only lie there, slowly choking to death and looking happy while he did it.

*****

“Taken in a fit of laughter,” Detective Schoenherr said, looking down at Daryl’s lifeless body, which by that point was ice-cold. “It boggles the mind, doesn’t it?”

Dr. DeVries sighed in agreement. “It’s a peculiar feature of the hidalgo ant’s venom that it induces first a state of euphoria in the victim, followed by an uncontrollable fit of laughter.” He held up a clear plastic vial containing a red ant with a black stripe across its abdomen and short, club-like antennae and gave it a gentle shake. “By the time hypoxia sets in, the toxins have already done their damage.” He returned the vial to its evidence bag and handed it off to one of the crime scene analysts. “I’ve published numerous articles on the subject.”

Men in blue Tyvek suits tiptoed around the body, taking pictures and recording their observations on small notepads. It was almost 10 pm. The Hartley home had been cordoned off with police tape and the driveway filled with several white forensic vans. A crowd of concerned onlookers gathered around the perimeter, chests against the tape and desperately trying to wheedle information from one of the uniformed officers loitering about.

A distraught Mrs. Hartley and her husband stood by the art studio entrance, holding each other tightly. Having all these strangers in her house and in her studio, especially—her inner sanctum—was for Mrs. Hartley the worst violation of personal space imaginable, and she could barely keep herself from sobbing.

Shaking the detective’s hand, Dr. DeVries said, “Thank you. I’ll send you the preliminary lab report first thing tomorrow.”

“You do that,” replied Detective Schoenherr. “And in the meantime, I’ll see what I can find out about the victim. From what I hear, he was some sort of fraudster claiming to work with the government.”

As the doctor turned to leave, Mrs. Hartley stepped forward and said, “I overheard you talking to the detective just now. You said it was an ant of some kind that killed him?”

“That is correct. The Moroccan hidalgo ant to be exact. A rare and deadly species native to Cape Juby. How they ended up here in America is anyone’s guess. To the best of my knowledge, this is the first such documented case. Quite strange.”

“When they bite people, are there any survivors?” asked Michael Hartley.

“Afraid not. The venom is quite potent, roughly equivalent to a warrior wasp or giant silk moth. Once one is bitten, they have perhaps four or five minutes tops.”

Mrs. Hartley trembled in her husband’s arms.

“Despite appearances, Mrs. Hartley, this young man died slowly and painfully. I’m sorry you had to witness it.”

“See, darling, it wasn’t your ficus painting that killed him,” said Mr. Hartley, unhelpfully. “It only set him off. Isn’t that right, doctor?”

“Forget my pride, Michael. A man’s dead!” Mrs. Hartley cried to her husband. “I can’t help but feel responsible in a way. If I hadn’t invited him inside…”

“Then, Mrs. Hartley,” the doctor interjected, “it may well have been you or your husband or—heaven forbid—one of your children sprawled out on this floor today. Which reminds me, where are your children right now?”

“Staying with the neighbors.”

Michael Hartley stepped aside to allow two men in Tyvek suits through the door. Then said, “When you put it like that, it looks an awful lot like this Crispin fellow saved us.”

“It’s incredible,” Mrs. Hartley announced for all to hear. “Just incredible.”

*****

CSI worked late into the night, the last white forensic vans pulling out of the Hartleys’ drive just after 3am.

In the morning, when the Hartleys were finally given the “all-clear,” Michael, Mary-Louise and the kids returned home, exhausted and sore from having spent the night on their neighbors’ lumpy pull-out sofa.

While Michael and the kids conducted a thorough inspection of the garage, Mary-Louise locked herself in her studio and went to work restoring the delicate balance of order and chaos that was so conducive to her creativity. It didn’t take long. Aside from some empty evidence bags and a little residual fingerprint powder on the table, the crime scene analysts left behind virtually no trace of their presence.

Now that she was alone, out of sight of her family and neighbors, Mary-Louise could finally drop the victim act. It didn’t suit her anyway.

Reaching behind one of the gas radiators in the corner, she removed a large, canvas portfolio bag, containing a spiral-bound sketchpad. It was the same sketchpad from the previous day. She then plopped herself down on a stool and began flipping through it, page by page, admiring her creations.

First there were the pomegranates. That pile of juicy, red kernels spilling over the rim of her china bowl onto the kitchen table was a special birthday gift to herself that year. Admittedly, it wasn’t her best; she was working purely from memory and the result was a messy jumble of colors and lines, quite uncharacteristic of her current style. Still, when she finished, what did she find waiting for her on the table in the kitchen? The bowl of pomegranates, of course.

She was astounded.

She was terrified.

But mostly she was intrigued.

She tried drawing something else.

Next, it was a pair of crocodile pumps she remembered seeing in a shop window as a little girl and which she coveted terribly. The painting came off all right —not great, but not terribly bad either—but when she went searching for the shoes in her closet, they weren’t there.

It took her several tries before she learned the rules. Only living things could be painted into existence, whether vegetable, animal or bacterial. That meant no diamond necklaces, no gold bars and no pyramids of stacked hundred dollar bills. They had to be alive in the biological sense. The pomegranates, the ficus, the poinsettia...the ants.

She’d seen a picture of one in a bug book in college. She remembered the distinctive black stripe across the abdomen and the part about it being “one of the most deadly insects known to man.” She filed that away for future use.

She flipped past the page with the roughly-sketched ant and onto the next drawing. It was an old pencil and ink portrait, signed October 1943. Staring up at her with big, emerald-green eyes that seemed both intelligent and moody was a handsome man of about forty-two. With his well-quaffed hair, strong jaw and stubbly cheeks, he bore a striking resemblance to her husband Michael.

Get yourself a rich husband, indeed! If Mr. Stein could see her now!

She flipped the sketchpad shut and went to rejoin her family in the living room.