Unspeakably Scary Things Issue #5

When I walked back into the room, I understood—in one horrible moment—what the bug symbol on The Phobia Box meant. Even almost a decade later, I still kick myself for not realizing it sooner.

But when it happened, there wasn’t time for regrets.

Panic was a lot more pressing of an emotion.

The Phobia Box had opened its front to reveal it was hollow, except for the rush of cockroaches streaming out of it like blood oozing from a wound. Hundreds of the things moving in a coordinated path like ants. They were easily covering the table, the chair, and streaming around the room in rivulets.

I screamed so loud, jumped backward, and spun around for my kitchen. I didn’t even have bug spray at the time—but I was desperate enough to try alternatives. Boiling water occurred to me, but it would take too long. Knives and other kitchen tools would’ve almost been pointless. My landlord hadn’t given me a fire extinguisher, so I couldn’t try spraying them down.

I was still looking for some option in my junk drawer when I heard an echo of sorts: an overlapping series of scuttling noises behind me. The hair on the back of my neck rose.

When I turned, they were flowing along my kitchen walls in thick lines. It looked like an octopus with eight tentacles made of bugs trying to pull itself into the kitchen. The room beyond was absolutely covered in them—floor to ceiling. Only The Phobia Box wasn’t infested; it sat clean and alone amongst the mass.

My body froze up. My mind turned to a soft whine.

A line of them went for my leg.

I only reacted at the last possible second, stomping down on the frontline. It made the worst crunching noise I’d ever heard. A splat of fluid sprayed out, covering the other cockroaches in the entrails of their fallen. I’d killed at least ten in that one step.

But when I pulled my foot backward for another attack, more of them had already latched on. They streamed over my shoe, and I jumped back, yelling and swearing and trying to shake them off.

My kitchen wasn’t super big, so within only three hops, I’d backed into my countertop. I’d managed to get most of the bugs off, but I still had to swipe the rest away, feeling their hard shells against my skin. The last of them flung off me and back into the horde.

That small victory didn’t matter, though. Easily more than a thousand surging cockroaches, their antennas waving in twisting spirals, were on me in moments. They scurried up my legs in a droning wave.

It somehow both itched and tickled and hurt at the same time. My nerves couldn’t process the sheer number of little legs clinging to me, scuttling on me.

I thrashed and flung my limbs in all directions, but there was always more to cover every inch of my skin. They crept into my hair; they swarmed over my arms.

Then, a tickle at my lips. At my eyes.

I shut them both, but it didn’t matter.

With a strength that no cockroach should’ve been able to muster, my mouth creaked open. The tiny antennas were probing, sweeping. Those hairy cockroach legs ran across my tongue. Plops of matter were then filling my stomach.

I tried to spit them out—vomit them out—but then I was distracted by something else. By the swarm that went to my eyes. That was pushing around my eyes. I’d seen cockroaches get through narrow passages—and there was a narrow passage between my eye socket and my eyeballs. They poured in, more than I thought my skull could even hold.

I couldn’t do anything to stop it.

All I could do was scream around a mouthful of cockroaches.

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Part 6

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