The Uninvited (10 page)

 

 

“What happened out there?” the station manager yelled over the phone.

“We lost power,” the morning DJ replied. “I don't know what caused it. The engineer's working on it now, but we're back on the air.”

In the transmitter room, the engineer picked up the phone. “I went to auxiliary,” he told the manager. “But I don't know how long I can keep it running. It's just about had it.”

“Well, get it fixed. If you can't fix it, call somebody who can!”

“Who?” the engineer fired back. “Edison? Both the auxiliary and the main transmitter are so old you can't get parts for them. Besides, it's the wiring. Something's been chewing on the wiring.”

“Mice?”

“I don't think so.”

Goddamn it!” the station manager swore.

“I doubt He had a thing to do with it,” the engineer said, then hung up. Radio and TV engineers, being a peculiar breed, have a tendency to say exactly what is on their minds, and the hell with the consequences.

The station manager looked at the buzzing phone in his hand. “Bastard hung up on me!”

Then his phone quit working, as did many phones in the two-Parish area.

 

 

The radio station in the next Parish went off the air moments after the station in Bonne Terre kicked off, then came back on.

“What's going on?” the morning DJ asked the engineer.

When an engineer does not know the nature of the problem, the reply is almost universal.
One of the mysteries of communications,” he said.

Well, thanks just a whole hell of a lot!” the DJ responded.

“You're certainly welcome.”

 

 

“Mr. Travers,” said the young lady to her summer school history teacher at Bonne Terre High, “that is the grossest thing I have ever seen. What is that ugly thing?”

“Well, Kitty, from all outward appearances, it's a roach. But it's certainly unlike any roach I've ever seen, and I've been in some distant places.”

The girl nodded. Mr. Travers sometimes brought slides and films of the places he'd traveled, working them into his history lesson.

Dick Plano, one of Bonne Terre's science teachers, walked into the classroom and looked at the bug in a jar on Brett's desk. He blinked, then took a closer look. “That is one strange-looking varmit, Brett.”

“I think it's a roach. How 'bout you?”

“Am I a roach? No, I'm certain I'm not a roach. Where'd you find that bug?”

“Would you believe in my house? Darned near stepped on it this morning getting out of bed. I took a swipe at it with my slipper, stunned it, put it in a quart jar—carefully, I might add—and there it is. What do you think it is, Dick? I've never seen anything like it.”

“Um.” The science teacher peered through the glass jar. “It vaguely resembles the Madagascar roach. That's one of the largest roaches known to exist. But this one also has characteristics of the German cockroach, the black beetle, and the American and Australian cockroach. It's ugly, mean-looking. I'd have to say . . .” he paused for a second or two. “Holy cow! This thing is about six inches long. It's a mutant, I'm sure. Can I have it?”

“May I have it,” Brett corrected.

“Don't get cute,” Dick said. “I may decide to concoct something in my lab and turn you into a frog. All right.
May
I have it?”

“With my compliments. Be careful with it.”

“It's just a bug. Isn't it?”

“It bites. It has teeth. That thing snapped at me this morning.”

“That's impossible. Roaches don't have teeth. They have mouthparts. They're chewers rather than biters.”

Brett smiled. “Want to stick your finger in that jar and prove me wrong?”

Dick looked at the bug. The roach looked at him and clicked and hissed. “No,” he said shortly, picking up the jar, making certain the lid was fastened securely. “I'll be happy to take your word for that.”

The bell rang and summer school was in session.

Almost all the young people in Bonne Terre liked Brett Travers. He took time to talk with them and tried to help them with any kind of problem. On Saturday nights, he and Kiri and Dick and his wife held rap sessions with many of the young at one home or the other, and most of the kids appreciated this gesture.

They also knew that Brett had been a war hero in Vietnam, but he never talked about it, except to say, when asked, he believed every young man should serve some time in the military. And women, too, if they wanted to go. He did not believe in drafting women.

Pretty nice guy, Brett Travers, most young people thought. Even if he was kind of an old dude. Thirty-five, at least. But he could be mean, though, if he wanted to. Just got that look about him, you know?

 

 

“Well, now,” the old man said, “if that ain't the damnest thing I ever seen—and I have seen some sights in my time.” He squinted his pale eyes. “Bugs all over the damn place. Funny lookin' damn things, too.”

The old man watched in fascination, his catfish lines forgotten for the moment. But his fascination quickly turned to revulsion as the boat drifted closer to shore. The bugs were huge.

“God!” he said. “They look like roaches.”

The boat nudged the bank, stern first, and the old man heard a dry, scurrying sound behind him. He looked around. He opened his mouth to scream and got one long wail out of his lungs before the creatures were all over him, spraying him with some kind of foul-smelling mist. Captain Jack LaFever knew several seconds of very intense pain as the mutants went for his eyes. He tried to move. His limbs felt numb. Summoning all his strength, the old man threw himself out of the johnboat and into the bayou.

'Gators in here, he reminded himself. But I'd rather chance the gators than them goddamn things!

The mutants left him as Captain Jack let himself sink several feet under the murky waters of the bayou. He swam about fifty feet before he had to surface for air. One quick breath and he went back under, angling for the far shore where his truck was parked.

God! There must have been thousands of them. Millions! Where in God's name did they come from? Then he remembered the bones of animals he'd been seeing the past few days. Deer, mostly. The things had been eatin' animals until they ran out. Now they were after humans.

Something bumped him in the water, scraping his leg, and he almost panicked as the huge shape glided past. Gators won't usually hurt you, he reminded himself—usually. He surfaced for air, and knew he was blind in one eye. The bloody socket hurt like the devil. Then he was on the far bank and running for his life.

He made it to his pickup, rolled up all the windows, then shut the side vents. With shaking, panicky fingers, he cranked the engine.

“Come on, you old son of a bitch!” he yelled at the grinding starter. “Fire!”

The old engine caught, coughed, died, then roared. Captain Jack floored the pedal, spinning his back tires as he headed for Bonne Terre. “Ain't no one gonna believe me,” he muttered, holding the palm of his hand over his blind eye. “But I know what I saw, and I damn shore ain't gonna forgit it soon.”

Before punching the button, returning Al Little to the line, Inspector Benning of the New Orleans FBI office had summoned half a dozen agents into his office, and three secretaries. He had put Al Little on his desk speaker. Every person in the office had memories of Al's strange sense of humor: huge rubber spiders in the secretaries' desks; a condom filled with water hanging in the men's washroom; an actual shrunken head sitting on Inspector Benning's desk. Al had once put a get-well card on a box of Kotex and nailed it to the bulletin board.

Oh, yes, they all had memories of Al's sense of humor. He was a good agent—just full of bullshit.

“Now, Al,” Inspector Benning said, holding a finger to his lips, shushing the giggling in the office,
I want you to tell me again what's happened up in Lapeer Parish. Two people were attacked and eaten by giant roaches? Is that right?”

“Ask him if they went: Na-noo, Na-noo,” an agent whispered into Benning's ear, sending the Inspector into spasms of suppressed laughter.

“Yes, sir,” Al said, a feeling of defeat in his guts. They knew him only too well in the office to believe any of this story.

“Al, I hate to remind you of this, but giant roaches are really not the affair of the Bureau. Have you tried the Department of Agriculture?” he chuckled.

“No, sir,” Al replied stiffly.

“Did you see these creatures?” Benning asked.

“No, sir.”

“I see, Al. Well, if you want to spend your vacation with a fly-swatter in one hand and a can of Black Flag in the other, that's your business. You say you're going to send me the coroner's report?”