TASTY CRITTERS

This is my Friday Fright for DarkMedia City. Our theme this week is Dinner Party. Is anyone hungry?


Tasty Critters



     No moon shines tonight on Silver Lake, making this a perfect time to be tossing out a surface plug and catching some Bass. A bright moon is as bad as broad daylight to the eyes of the hungry fish. Not able to see a thing, I wade into the water adjoining the vast weed bed, careful not to disturb any lunkers which might be prowling around on this hot August night.

     It's sneakers and shorts for me. The water feels good against my still hot flesh. For a while now I have been acquainting my senses with the location of the weeds, the lily pads on the other side, and the general topography of the beach. Overgrown now, this was once a busy swimming beach when the Boy Scouts had a camp here. That was then, and this is now. A lot of grooming would be needed to return this swimming hole to its former glory.

     Frogs splash around in the weeds before the sounds of their evening frivolity come suddenly to an end. That can only mean one thing: the Bass are moving in; the big boys, waiting to grab the choicest morsels for dinner. Huge splashes erupt everywhere, and I know I'm moments away from some fast and furious action.

     Before I make my first cast, a huge bonfire goes up on the opposite shore as if by magic. What the . . .

     The light makes its way to where I'm waiting to fish, effectively shutting down the action of the Bass. In one brief moment, this great fishing opportunity has been destroyed. Waist deep in the water, I'm lit up as much as if a dozen bright flashlights were shining on me.

     Pissed as all hell, I start wading back to shore when I sense something coming along the shoreline in my direction from the opposite side of the lake. It moves fast, eating the distance between us in a hurry. Shit! there's more than one! They're coming from both sides, intent on . . .intent on what?

     As fast as I can, I retreat into the protective cover of the tall weeds, up to the top of my chest in the water, knowing damn well I need to hide. The stench of rotting flesh and mold attack my senses, and I have all I can do to stifle a retch reaction. Yes, that's all I would need: that would pinpoint my location as surely as if I was to jump up and down in the water shouting, "Here I am, mother fuckers! Come and get me!"

     There are more by the bonfire and others coming in my direction. What is it they're after? Why are they coming towards me?

     Barely a sound comes from my lips as I breathe. Even as deep in the water as I am, the fear radiating through me sends hot flashes through out my body at the same time thick goose bumps break out all over me. My senses are so alive, trying to react to the horrors of the unknown, that I feel the aquatic bugs swimming through the water around me, their close proximity causing the sensation of their crawling on me, trying to get me to break away from my silence and betray my whereabouts.

     Closer the entities approach, more of them ; many more. The air is foul to the point of almost complete oxygen deprivation. The bugs, crawl though the hairs on my legs, my arms, and my chest, stopping here and there to root around, some of them seemingly burrowing below the skin line, and blood flows from where leeches move in on me. I am their prey: a giant smorgasbord of bloody delight.

     Still, I don't make a move. Not even when the crayfish come in for their share of the feast do I utter a sound or move a muscle. My terror at what awaits me on shore is far greater than anything I am experiencing.

     But . . .but am I really experiencing all my body shouts out to me? Sensory overload. Yes, that's it! The anxiety of trying to hide from whatever started the fires and is swarming over the beach is pushing me over the edge. Are they real? Am I wrapped in some sort of dream from which there is no escape. Wake, damn it! Wake!

     I can not wake. There is too much pain. This is no dream. What is, is. These things after me are real. The assaults on my body are real. Why the fire? What do they want?

     Talk, more like mumbling actually, comes from the creatures' midst. Humans! They are human. No, they can't be. No person I ever smelled had an odor anything close to what these bastards have. But . . .

     Somehow, they know I'm hiding in the weeds, and they come to get me, creating a swatch wide enough that there is no way for me to escape. I try to swim for it, dropping my fishing rod and moving as fast as I am able to in the water, but it is all for naught, as I knew it would be. Still not seeing what these things are, I am pulled from the water and carried-more dragged than anything, actually- to the bonfire.

     It is not until they throw me down on the beach adjacent to the bonfire that I see the horrid manifestations of abnormality before me. Half flesh and half rot, they stand around me, mocking me, now speaking so I can understand them.

     "We knew you would be here tonight. Often we have watched you fish, knowing you prefer the darkest cycle of the moon. That is unfortunate for you, because this is a special Dark Moon. Very special. This is our feast night, the night that our sustenance allows us to return to some semblance of what humanity would say is "normal." It has been a long time since we have been considered normal."

     I stare in horror as they prepare a giant barbeque spit of sorts, and once it is ready, they strip the clothing from my body and lash me to it. With shouts of delight ringing through the hot summer night, the demons suspend me over the fire, turning and twisting my constriction of terror, burning my flesh, singing my hair, periodically jerking me out from the flames of Hell just long enough to grab handfuls of my flesh to stuff into their sadistic mouths of deformed teeth and moldy crevices.

    Trying to yell in to the night air, I find I can not as I no longer have any means to do so: my vocal cords are gone, a tasty treat for one of my tormenters.

     "Welcome to our dinner party. Thank you for being our main course."

     Digging deep into my chest, the leader pulls out my still beating heart, blood dripping everywhere, and says, "And my dessert as well."

     My spirit hovers above, the only part of me they can not consume . . .



Blaze McRob