The Fly
It's desperately unoriginal but I'm not very good at writing long stories so I tried writing a short horror/action story about a man trying to kill a giant fly in a shop and I thought I'd post it up here. I know the ending isn't very good; I was sort of rushing it by then.
Enjoy!
There was a giant fly squatting on Mr Ling’s desk in the convenience store.
When I say giant, I mean giant- this thing took up pretty much most of the desk. It was obviously the source of the incessant buzzing I had heard from my apartment above. It was hunched over the desk, having knocked the cash register to the floor in a scattered pile of coins and notes. Its ugly, spindly little black feelers were writhing busily around one another as if mating. The dim light of the shop gleamed off the blackish-blue sheen of its hairy back. Its eyes were the size of bicycle tyres, but thankfully turned away from me. They were sectioned with a network of what seemed like a million red pentagons.
It had wings, as well. These were each as long as my arm, translucent and membranous. They jutted out of the monster insect’s shoulders, sticking up into the air, and occasionally they would vibrate, turning into a shimmering blur, letting off a deafening, thrumming buzz. The creature’s legs shifted about on the desk, clittering loudly across the wood and metal. As it performed a clumsy half-turn I saw exactly what it was sitting on, and a monstrous bolt of panic hit my heart like a bullet.
Mr Ling was spread eagled across the desk, half of his body covered by the vast hairy frame of the fly. He was lying on his face and he was wearing his blue shirt that had become somewhat famous amongst his customers. The novelty shirt (which had a slogan on it about beer) was thickly matted and drenched with a glistening, viscous liquid the colour of snot. Where this liquid touched it, the colour had faded out of the shirt and was still fading away now. With a dim, blurry sickness I realised that the fly was secreting this vile shit all over Mr Ling’s body, and it was enveloping the kind businessman in a shiny, not-quite-solid cocoon. Long, bubbling ropes of the insectile drool were hanging off the desk and pooling on the tile floor.
Mr Ling’s face couldn’t be seen; for that I was thankful. Even then, the fly’s twitching, greedy proboscis was shuffling and rummaging greedily in his black hair as if looking for fat, juicy lice. As a result of this his head was coated with the snot-slime. One of his hands was dangling over the edge of the desk; I jumped back and uttered a little involuntary scream as it spasmed slightly, beating against the floor.
The fly was then alerted to my presence. I backed away on legs about as sturdy as straw as it manoeuvred itself stupidly around on its little legs, pivoting to look at me. Now I felt sick. My back bumped against a wall and I was suddenly aware that not only was the thing climbing slowly and clumsily off the counter, but I was shuddering violently all over. My teeth chattered as if powered by clockwork; my head was thudding repeatedly against the wall.
The fly observed me with absolutely no expression in its face. Expression in its face? I thought absurdly. It’s a god damn giant fly and you expect it to be looking at you with some kind of sympathy, right? Maybe next it’ll do the Cha Cha.
The creature must have been weighing me up, seeing if I was a worthy meal, because suddenly its legs pumped downwards (I saw the black muscle tissue shift) and its vein-shot, cylindrical, grotesque body gave a nasty lurch. Then it flew at me in that crazy, shifting, veering way that flies do. Its wings screamed endlessly with that horrible droning buzz.
The store was not very wide, so it took all of three seconds for the fly to get to me. I shrieked (rather girlishly, I hate to add) and my legs gave way from under me, sitting me on my ass, propped up against the wall. This saved me; the fly had to turn crazily left to avoid hitting the wall. I felt the nasty little legs brush my face and hands as it passed overhead, and I screamed again. Then it went humming off down the aisles, knocking items off shelves on its course.
I felt unable to get to my feet, so I half-staggered, half-crawled over to Mr Ling’s desk, which was wearing a jacket of the fly’s dribble. It stank of flyblown meat. The buzz got louder and more pervading all of a sudden; I turned and saw the bastard rocketing towards me from the other end of the shop. With a cry of determination and fear I launched my self backwards, crashing down into the gap between the desk and the wall like a broken ragdoll. The fly hovered above me like a massive, malicious helicopter, its mandibles working furiously.
It couldn’t reach down to me; in its greed it had partly wedged itself above me, between the desk and the wall. One of its bristly legs pawed at my face and chest, making horrible little scratching sounds on my shirt. My head swimming with horror, I searched wildly around for a weapon. Mr Ling’s office stationery had been knocked from his desk by the fly along with the cash machine. A pair of scissors lay on the floor within my easy reach. They were only paper scissors but they were the closest thing I had to a weapon, and if I didn’t do something now then the fly would get to me eventually.
I snatched up the scissors; they felt very heavy in my shaking hand. As the fly’s leg waved down near my face again, I dragged the scissors open and snapped forward with them, managing to get the blades in a deep, solid grip around the muscular cluster of sinews where the leg joined to the body. I clenched the handles of the scissors together with all the force I could muster and felt the fly’s black flesh give way. The metal bit deep in, and I expected them to crunch straight through, leaving it with one less leg. But that didn’t happen; firstly because I wasn’t strong enough to hack off the whole thing, and secondly because it gave out a high, screaming, faltering, indignant buzz and pulled away from me, upturning the whole desk, tearing the scissors out of my grasp. Blood splattered onto the tiles in a big whipped bubble.
I climbed to my feet, my fear slightly diminished now that the ugly beast was wounded. It was careening off the walls, flying down the aisles, looping around, scattering everything to hell with loud smashes and crashes. At one point it bumped into the ceiling with a resounding thunk that shook the whole store; I was sure that would at least daze it, but no. It cannoned towards me again, trailing drool and blood.
This time I didn’t expect the attack. It hit me with a massive weight, slapping the breath out of me and cartwheeling me backwards like a puppet. My body went slamming across a row of shelves and I flopped onto the tiles, products falling all around me like a costly rain. It went sailing on over my head as I lay there in agony, feeling at least two ribs rustling about somewhere deep in my torso. The buzz seemed more far away now; I was viewing the world through a hoop of white flecks.
As it came soaring toward me again, I managed to rise up to one knee. That was as far as I got, unfortunately. Its head barrelled into my side and lifted me up with it; I was spun across the floor like a pebble rippling across the surface of a pond. I felt my fingers pop like wishbones as I put a hand out to try and stop myself. I took a deep breath and blood was sucked back down my throat like salty jam. It bubbled out of my nostrils and from between my lips, soaking my chin.