The joys of spring.

Ah, spring. A season of life and rejuvenation, new beginnings, and a visceral preview of the lowest bowels of Hell.






Buggers half an inch long, emerging from stagnant pools all along the river in the woods. They were fascinating at first, feeding exclusively on the sugar-rich ooze from the phloems of plants, but then they began to mate. Suddenly, the females needed raw protein to build their eggs, and they all know where to get it.


Me.


I hear it before I see it. A low drone that can only be made by a million pairs of almost-silent wings beating in unison, driven by a million thousand-neurone brains sharing the same goal and destination.

Then I see it. A black cloud rising like smoke from the trees spread out across the horizon on the other side of the wheat fields. A swarm with the capacity for more blood in their sick little abdomens than I have in my veins. One way or another, most will go hungry. Then the cloud shudders, coils and slithers through the sky as a single weaving column. This, I know, is the true face of the Lost monster, larger and more terrifying than any to grace our screens, with a purpose more straight-forward and horrifying than any convoluted plot line.

The sunlight fades. Whether behind the monster or a true cloud, I know not. To be honest, luminal physics are no longer a priority. But finding a long-sleeved shirt, that is making a very good case for itself.

But I know I'll never make it inside. Even if I did, I could never close all the windows, nor prevent them from chewing through the very brick and plaster of the walls, as I'm sure they no doubt would. Their drive to devour me goes beyond mere instinct, I know this much.

I stand stock-still, paralysed with fear to this very spot. As if by narrative cue, an old newspaper blows to my feet. "Odd," I think, thankful for any distraction from my impending doom. "There's no wind." Narrative cue indeed.

I pick it up, and roll it into a tube between my fingers. It's effectiveness as a weapon was demonstrated in my carefree youth in the south of France, when my uncle defeated the Monster's vanguard in honourable combat, despite a significant numerical disadvantage. Nothing quite like the numbers I face now, of course. No matter. It would have to do.

In moments, the swarms point reaches me. I swat the first, the second, the third. I swat with all my might. I swat like I've never swatted before. I can't believe it, I'm holding them off!

A sharp pinprick brings me back to reality. There's one on my leg, gorging itself. I crush it, smearing my own blood across my skin. Then another, on my arm. Another on my neck. Each one weakens me infinitesimally, but it is rapidly adding up.

The bulk of the swarm is upon me. My vision goes entirely black. Whether from lack of sunlight or blood loss, I do not know. I can hardly move with all the dead culicidans around me. All my skin is on fire with a thousand tiny proboscises violating my person.

I can no longer keep up the fight. With one last futile sweep across the crawling masses on my arm, I fall to the ground and know no more.






Anyway, now I'm itching like buggery.