John Halkin - Squelch

Jesus, he was in a bad way. Wheelchairs after this, boy. Really done it this time.

‘Pete, stop ’em!’ Her shriek was like sharp needles suddenly piercing his brain, killing every thought and memory. ‘They’re crawling under my blouse… up my sleeves… I can feel them —!’ Another scream, even more agonised than the first.

Stupid cow, he was thinking.

Stupid bloody cow, screaming like that.

Then something moved across his face. He drew a quick breath. Something prickly it was; a line of tiny pin-pricks. If he could free his arm he’d be able to touch it; but no, there was no feeling in that arm, as if it didn’t exist any longer. As if — oh Jesus, how could he even think it — he was already dying limb by limb.

It poked into his nostril; he could feel it like some thick stubby finger. Then the sharp cut through the flesh, into the cavity above his mouth. It was all so terribly clear what it was doing: chewing into him as though he already lay dead under the earth, too greedy to wait.

His yells mingled with hers, though half-strangled in his throat; his mind shaped obscenities which he could no longer voice. She lay on him, a heavy living blanket writhing as if in ecstasy, the sexy bitch, until suddenly she slumped, limp, a dead weight. Vaguely he became aware he was screaming alone.

He wanted to comfort her, to hold her in his arms to make up for — well, whatever it was they’d quarrelled about he could no longer recall. No arms, anyway; just an odd deadness where his body should be and that painful, steady gnawing into his head. Some mad dentist attacking him, that’s what it was; drilling through into his skull.

Then the pain stopped unexpectedly in mid-scream, and he crossed the threshold into numbness. Slowly even his awareness dissolved, thinning into void.

Driving his new Range Rover through the night, Jeff Pringle felt reasonably pleased with life. Thanks to this plague of voracious caterpillars his business showed signs of picking up at last. Unlike many larvae, they were not too choosy about their food but nibbled their way through practically anything; not only the usual cabbage or lettuce, but sprouting beans and even — recently — the fresh green leaves of fruit trees. The farmers were desperate.

As a result, his phone never stopped ringing. Already this week he had notched up more than twenty flying hours crop-spraying and there were plenty more bookings in the diary.

It was odd, though, they should be so dangerous where people were concerned, he mused. He changed down on approaching a corner. Once beyond it, he accelerated again and the Range Rover responded like a dream. Still, insects came in all varieties. He thought back to the time when he was flying passengers around West Africa. God, he’d met enough insects then. They’d fed on his blood, jabbed their poison into him, bitten him when they felt threatened and again when they didn’t, spread bacteria over his food and set ambushes in his slippers. Destroying crops or bringing a thousand-year-old tree crashing to the ground was nothing compared to what they might achieve if they set their collective mind to the task.

On this planet, insects outnumbered human beings by trillions.

Try slapping your hand over the mosquito on your neck, and you’d be lucky to kill more than one in fifty, if that. Squirt pesticide at them, and within five years they’ve developed a new strain able to resist it. Not the human beings, though: the poison lingered on the food crop and turned up at the greengrocers.

King Insect always wins.

He’d attempted to explain it earlier that evening to Cousin Jamie in hospital. Both arms in bandages, poor sod. Blood transfusion, antibiotics, the works. Still, his temperature was down a bit and according to the doctor he was expected to be out in a couple of days. The two people with him at the pub were both in the morgue.

Looking like a ferret had been at them, he’d heard someone say. Some huntin’, shootin’ an’ fishin’ type.

‘Jamie Ferguson,’ he spoke aloud, still glorying in the feel of his new car, ‘you owe that publican a large drink, and I’m going to make sure you buy it for him, you mean bastard!’

His headlights, on full beam, picked out the wreck of a car on its side across the centre of the carriageway. No — as he approached he could see it more clearly. It was a van, one of those little Ford vans.

‘Maggie Thatcher, what a mess!’ he swore.

A girl’s head protruded through the smashed windscreen. Her shock of bright green hair and staring eyes gave her a grotesque, nightmarish appearance in death.

On the roadway the skid marks were clearly visible, smeared with green slime and caterpillar remains: evidence as to what must have happened. Then he realised that many of those caterpillars around the van were alive.

On applying his brakes, he felt the rear of his car suddenly gliding to the right like a temperamental woman kicking a long skirt aside, but they quickly gripped again and he came to a halt. Taking his torch, he opened the door to examine the ground. They were the first he’d seen; he whistled through his teeth in amazement at the sight of them. As big as anything he’d come across in Africa. Their long-haired bodies shone like shot silk as the light caught them, even those he had squashed to death when his tyres had crunched over them.

Someone in that van might be still alive, though with all those hungry caterpillars milling around he doubted it. Still, he’d better take a look, he thought reluctantly. He glanced down apprehensively at his shoes which left his ankles unprotected and vulnerable. If only he’d brought riding boots in the car with him.

He touched the button which closed all the windows, cocooning him safely inside, and then called up Police Sergeant Roberts on the car phone. Briefly, he explained what he’d found.

‘There may be someone else in the van with her, I can’t be sure yet,’ he went on. ‘I’ll try to get closer but the road is crawling with these caterpillars. Your people had better bring their wellies.’

‘Hang on there, will you, Mr Pringle?’ the phone crackled in his ear. ‘An’ you’d best stay in your car till we arrive.’

He hung up again, feeling vaguely satisfied that at least the police would soon be on their way. At first, he’d been hesitant about installing a car phone in the Range Rover — the turnover in his business certainly didn’t justify the cost, not yet — but in the upper segment of the charter flying market which he was attempting to reach it was vital to be able to stay in touch. Not that he intended to give up crop-spraying, however successful his plans; it was good bread-and-butter work which he could fit in whatever else was happening.

Out on the road dozens of caterpillars were clearly visible in his headlights and more emerged out of the shadows. Some were still heading towards the van. What the others had in mind he couldn’t imagine. No food for them on that tarred surface, unless…

Leaning forward, he gazed around carefully on each side of the car, then lowered a window and shone the torch out once more. He had an uncomfortable feeling they were waiting for him. They were grouped together in platoons at every point of the compass.

‘Right, my beauties!’ he murmured aloud, stung into action by their obvious threat. ‘On behalf of Cousin Jamie!’

He touched the starter. The engine purred and he eased the clutch, letting the car roll forward; then, slipping into reverse, he repeated the process, leaving a trail of dead where his heavy tyres had driven over them.

But simple genocide was not his purpose, however rewarding that might have been in itself. He swung the Range Rover around, manoeuvring until he could stop alongside the dented roof of the van, leaving just enough space to be able to open his own door. Before he risked getting out, he unclipped his fire extinguisher and sprayed the area between the two vehicles.