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eBook Category: Horror
eBook Description: If Darwin is to be believed, Man is not the only species that is evolving. Other, lesser species might, even now, be growing, changing. And they might one day come after our first line of defense.

eBook Publisher: Fictionwise.com, Published: Fictionwise.com, 2002
Fictionwise Release Date: March 2003

37 Reader Ratings: Great Good OK Poor

Available eBook Formats [MultiFormat - What's this?]: Adobe Acrobat (PDF) [63 KB], eReader (PDB) [27 KB], Palm Doc (PDB) [13 KB], Rocket/REB1100 (RB) [13 KB], Microsoft Reader (LIT) [66 KB] - PocketPC 1.0+ Compatible, Franklin eBookMan (FUB) [85 KB], hiebook (KML) [64 KB], Sony Reader (LRF) [41 KB], iSilo (PDB) [11 KB], Mobipocket (PRC) [14 KB], Kindle Compatible (MOBI) [42 KB], OEBFF Format (IMP) [23 KB]
Words: 3950
Reading time: 11-15 min.
Microsoft Reader (LIT) Format: Printing DISABLED, Read-Aloud ENABLED
Adobe Acrobat (PDF) Format:  Printing DISABLED, Read-Aloud DISABLED
All Other formats: Printing DISABLED, Read-aloud DISABLED

Red and viscous, it spattered onto the desk blotter, pooled on the filmy wax paper that had wrapped it.

Sal had barely taken the first bite of his morning jelly doughnut when the phone jangled. His mouth filled with raspberry jam and powdered sugar, he thought seriously of ignoring the call.

"Yeah, Ant-E-Dote, can I help you?" he finally answered, slurping a drooly string of jelly back into his mouth.

"We need an exterminator," said the voice on the other end.

"Yeah," said Sal, wiping his mouth. "What's the problem?"

"Termites. Can you come right away?" asked the man, his voice curiously flat and monotone.

Sal looked at the doughnut with all the unrequited feelings of a spurned lover.

"Yeah, give me 45 minutes," said Sal, distracted.

"Can you come sooner?"

"Listen, buddy, an hour here or there ain't gonna make much of a difference," Sal snorted, taking a big bite of the doughnut anyway. "They're not gonna eat your house up in that amount of time," he mumbled around the mouthful.

"They're very hungry," the man answered, and it struck Sal as strangely funny.

"Yeah, buddy, well so am I," he laughed. "45 minutes. Now, what's the address?"

The address was in a new subdivision only 10 minutes from Sal's office. The houses were well kept, bright and cheery. Inviting. And, they all looked vaguely the same.

Stepford Wives Estates is what the sign should have read, Sal mused. Middle-Manager Meadows.

Most of the houses were empty at this hour, their owners on the nearby interstate, stop-and-going to work. He turned onto a street whose very name made him cringe, Sunny Springs Court.

Unlike the rest of the subdivision, this court was not built up. Only one house clung to its tight arc as the street looped around a grassy island, swung back onto the main road.

The particular house Sal had been called to, like the others, was new and nondescript. He pulled into the driveway, swung his body out, trundled toward the rear of the van. The doors creaked open, lurched as if about to part from their rusted hinges.

Sal leaned deeply into the mess, digging through beer cans and Taco Bell bags to find his utility belt.

Utility belt, he repeated in his mind as he found it, pulled it from the mess.

He loved that word, loved the belt. Kind of made him feel like Batman every time he strapped it around gut and butt.

Time to fight the bad guys.

The belt held a variety of metal picks and awls, which he used to test wood for termites. Rummaging further, his hand knocked against a spray tank with a hollow Bong! He grabbed this, too, and it slid heavily through the debris, trailing its long metal wand. Setting it down onto the driveway, he closed the doors, examined his reflection in the van's grimy windows.

He adjusted his utility belt, the implements jangling like spurs, ran a finger over his teeth, picked out a stray raspberry seed.

The man that answered the door was conservatively dressed; a dark suit, white shirt and a blandly red tie. His lank hair was combed straight back from his puffy white face, his dark eyes peering out like raisins from the slightly glistening folds of his doughy flesh.

"You must be the exterminator. We're so glad you're here," he said, reaching out to shake Sal's hand. It was a limp, cold handshake, like grasping a grocery store chicken. Sal bore down all the harder in disgust and felt the man's flesh slide disturbingly beneath the pale skin.

"Yeah, buddy, that's me," Sal indicated with a jerk of his thumb back toward the truck. "Ant-E-Dote. If I can come in for a minute, take a look-see, I think I'll be able to get this done toot-sweet."

The inside of the house was even more nondescript than the outside, sparsely furnished and funereally quiet. Plain white blinds sealed the windows, and the white, white walls were unadorned.

"Just move in?" asked Sal, setting the spray container down heavily onto the beige carpet in the family room.

"Yes, this was a move up for us," the man answered, standing stiffly in the hallway, keeping a wary eye on the spray gun.

Sal thought it rather strange that they'd need an exterminator so soon after moving in--especially for termites. Developers were required to do a thorough termite inspection prior to closing. He, in fact, had done hundreds of them over the years.

"Where've you noticed the termites?" he asked, turning to face the man.

"In the crawlspace."

"The crawlspace? I didn't think they even made new houses with crawlspaces anymore in this area. How do I get to it?"

The man led Sal through the kitchen, bare and bone white, to a well-stocked walk-in pantry. A small, attic-like doorway was set low on the far wall.

"Huh!" grunted Sal. "I haven't seen anything like that ... least, not in a new house." He clanged his spray can into the room.

"If you need us, we'll be in the other room," said the man, standing in the doorway as Sal removed the cover from the crawlspace entrance.

"Sure, buddy. It'll be a while."

Sal unhooked his flashlight and clambered into the small passage, leaving his spray can behind in the pantry.

He heard footsteps as the man left.

You meet all kinds in this business.