Image via Wikipedia

Name’s Brandon.  I’m a cockroach.  I work at the Almost Home Motel doing swarms.  It isn’t the big time but it’s a start on the scary-bug-stuff circuit.

The Almost Home is a spook joint, run by an outfit that transports souls to Hell.  You’ve seen ‘em.  They’re old decrepit places that appear alongside the highway after midnight to lure in weary travelers.  By next morning they disappear along with their guests.  Yeah, it’s that kind of place.

The dump is run by a cadaverous ex-human.  He looks like he’s been dead for three days but he’s a nice enough guy.  He always lets us roaches eat the newspaper when he’s done with it.

When he interviewed me for the job, he asked, “Brandon, have you ever done swarms before?”

“Yeah,” I told him.  “I live in a cheap apartment in downtown Kansas City – me and a couple hundred thousand close relatives.  Rental unit, I’ve heard it called.  That means pretty regular human infestation. (Sorry Boss.  I know you used to be one yourself.)  Well, the best way to get rid of ‘em is to organize a middle-of-the-night swarm.

“Some roaches are pretty squeamish about humans.  They don’t like touching the things.   (Sorry, Boss.) But me – right up the old pants leg.  I figure, somebody’s got to do it.  I can always soak my feet in bleach water later.  (Sorry again, Boss.)”

He just smiled and said, “I’ve got an opening to lead the line into the left nostril.  You want the job?”

Wow!  Just like that.  A face assignment on a swarm is a leading role.  You’ve seen the close-up shots in films of the bugs crawling in and out of the nose and mouth of the recently deceased.  That’s me! (Well, not yet.  I’m still doing the small-time stuff at the Almost Home but, hey, I’m a face bug here.)

The night after he hired me, I got my first gig.  The boss and a couple of demon pals set up for business beside old Route 66.  It’s a well-known fact that night motels along that highway are all haunt hotels, but we still get plenty of business.

I was waiting behind the wallpaper with my nose team.  We were pretty tough.  No sissy mama’s boys in my bunch.  That’s a good thing because our job is dangerous. There’s a chance of getting stuck in there.  I knew it, and believe me, I was scared, but I didn’t let it show.  The boss gave me a speech to memorize so I started it then.

“Okay, boys,”  I said in my best tough-guy talk. (Actually, us roaches all have tiny, high-pitched voices, but I tried.) “Set your watches.  At 2:45, the boss should have the first salesman of the night seated in the recliner in the room.  Our lead swarm is already stationed in the chair.  Once he’s seated, Riley will come out on his arm.  Riley’s expecting a flick-off maneuver.”

Everyone nodded.  They respected Riley.  He was our swarm starter; a dangerous job.  Of course this was my first night, but the other guys had seen Riley get the fingertip flick to the backside plenty of times.  His body often careened off a wall with a loud ‘ping.’  Riley was famous all over the motel as one hard-shelled vermin.

“That ‘ping’ will signal the rest of the swarm leaders to begin making their appearances.  They will come out of the chair onto his shoulder, belly, thigh or neck.  The other hundred million of us will wait for his first shout.  Then we come out of the wallpaper. Take your time getting to the floor.”

As a veteran of many amateur swarms, I knew the importance of letting the client see the walls turn black and begin to move.  (Client is a term used by professional swarmers to describe a swarmee.)

“By the time we get to our client, he should be on his feet dancing and flailing his arms.  I’ll make a flying mount (another professional term)  when his left foot strikes the ground.  You guys follow as soon as you can.  Watch out for footfall.”

“I’ve done nose duty before,” a guy named Harley spoke.  “By the time we get there, he’ll be clawing at his own face.  I’ve seen a lot of good swarmers go down that way, too.”

Yeah, I was scared alright, but I didn’t let it show.  I just nodded at Harley and we waited.

Waiting, that’s the hardest part.  Even now after more swarms than I can count, I still get the creeps sitting behind the wallpaper thinking about touching my feet to human skin.  I sit there wondering, what if I get stuck up a nose or sucked down a lung?  Once the action starts, I’m okay, but when I’m just sitting there, thinking…it makes me shudder.

While we were crouched there, a dame came in and chirped, “Is there any room left in this section?”

It was Martha McLovey, head of our all-girl hair team.  Before any of us Joes could say anything she turned around and said, “Okay ladies, come on in.”

When you’re a roach, you make room.  We’re a pretty friendly bunch and frankly, I didn’t mind standing shoulder to shoulder with the dish who snuggled in beside me.

Well, really, us roaches do all look alike to ourselves, too.  Except for the feelers.   They come in all shapes and sizes and this babe had a couple that could knock your eyes out.  Literally.  I mean those were the biggest….

I ought to clam up about that subject.  You get the picture.  While we were waiting there, we did what roaches do when they’re hiding in the dark under the wallpaper and I don’t mean just tapping feelers.

Afterwards, I was snuggling up to my honey, so happy I forgot for a minute to be scared.  Then the door opened and the lights came on.

A chill ran up my antennas when I peeked through the peeled-back section of wallpaper and saw the boss lead our client in.  The guy was a typical late-middle-aged salesman: too many smokes, too much booze, too many long miles and sleepless nights.  He was overweight and breathing hard from the exertion of carrying his suitcase into the room.  He was just one more heart attack away from dying. His tie was loose around his neck and he was mopping sweat off his face when he flopped into the chair.

“If you need anything at all, sir, just call room service.”  The boss pointed to the phone and the salesman nodded dismissively.  I knew that the phone didn’t work – too many bugs in it.

I pulled the wallpaper flap back down and held my breath.  My stomach was in knots.  My whole body tensed when I heard the ping of Riley hitting the wall.  Lucky Riley.  His part was done.  Then I heard the old guy breathing harder as he flicked off more of the advance team.

Finally he gave a shout and jumped to his feet.  That was our signal to move.

“Follow me, men,”  I shouted as I burst out from under the flap.  Outside, I saw roaches everywhere.  My troops milled around for a minute to add to the visual effect.  Our client screamed as he watched the room turn dark with our bodies.  I stopped for a second to look.  We were pretty impressive.

The poor sucker screamed as the first wave approached him.  When he started stomping, I sprinted down the wall and across the floor.

He kept his right foot on the ground and made stamping motions with his left, but I was determined to mount that shoe.  Then he brought his left foot to the floor and held it there for a few seconds while he ground out about ten of my swarm mates.  I made the leap onto his patent leathers and my team followed me up.  We went over the clothes so we wouldn’t have to touch sweat-soaked human flesh until we reached his neck.

It makes my shell crawl even now, when I think of how that clammy chin-skin felt under my feet but I ignored it, crawling around his open mouth and up into the left nostril.

I’ll leave out the sickening nasal-passage details.  You don’t want to hear about the slick, slimy, green snot bubbles I had to crawl into.    The hardest thing I ever did was point my feelers backwards and plunge into that fluid mess.  Once I did, I stopped worrying about getting stuck.  I had to brace my feet against the  walls and grab a nose hair to keep from being blasted out.  I made my first few millimeters of progress by hanging on during snorts and crawling forward when he inhaled through his mouth.  I could feel Harley just behind me.

Suddenly, the dying man breathed in deeply through his nose and I shot through to the back of his throat.  Fortunately for me, a fellow from the mouth team was already plugging up his wind pipe so I caught myself in mid-fall and crawled up and out of his drooling mouth.

The mouth team were all hard at work and ignored us nose guys as we streamed past them.  They’re the crazy ones, those mouth guys.  We regard them as the suicide squad.  Many of them don’t make it out from the grinding teeth and swallowing tongue.  I feel a lot of respect for them.

Once outside, Harley looked back up at the big nose.  “What about it, Brandon. shall we make another trip?”

Just then our client hit the floor.  The two demon goons had a hold of the guy’s spirit and were pulling it from his body.  The poor old soul looked like he could hardly wait to get away from it.

“Welcome to Hell,” the head goon said to the salesman as they pulled him toward a pit opening up in the floor.  “You’ve just experienced your first three minutes of it.  Now you’re going to find out how long eternity is.”