I BELIEVE THERE ARE FLIES

There were flies everywhere. He woke up and walked out of his bedroom, and immediately he noticed HUNDREDS of flies filling his apartment.

He immediately closed his bedroom door, not wanting to let them go in. Then he wandered around the apartment, wildly swinging his arms, to figure out where all the flies had come from.

But the windows and the front door were all closed. There was no food left out. The garbage cans were empty.

He could not figure out how the flies had gotten in. There were just suddenly hundreds of adult flies buzzing around in the air, landing on different surfaces, crawling on the windows, the walls, the TV screen and his computer monitors. The apartment was filled with giant black flies, thousands of compound eyes staring at him.

He waved his hands and ran to the front door, throwing it open. "Get the fuck out of here!"

The flies didn’t listen to him. Buzzing around. Comfortably settled on the walls, the furniture, making any surface their own. Rubbing their little hands together while staring around with their compound eyes.

He felt like he was in a horror movie.

So many flies. Where had they come from? How had they gotten in? How was he supposed to get rid of them?

He left the door and windows wide open as he searched around the apartment, opening cupboards and checking under things. There was no weird smell to mark where some small animal may have died. There weren’t even crumbs of food left around, as he regularly cleaned with all the fastidiousness of a germaphobe. There was nothing that seemed like it would attract flies into his home.

So why were there so many flies? What were they eating?

It was when he was on his hands and knees crawling around in an attempt to see from a different perspective that he found the hole.

It was in the corner of the kitchen just between where the glue on backsplash met the cabinet. A small hole that the tip of his pinkie wouldn’t even fit into. And as he watched, out of it crawled a fly.

He stared at the hole in horror.

Either the flies were inside the wall, or they were coming into his apartment from the apartment next door. And if there were so many flies in his apartment… What must have happened in the neighboring apartment?

Had their freezer broken? Had someone left some food out? Was someone dead?

With a growing sense of unease, he left his apartment and approached his neighbor’s door. He took a fortifying breath, then rang the doorbell.

No response.

He knocked on the door as loudly as he could, until his knuckles hurt.

Still no response.

He wondered if they were home. If they weren’t, it could explain how things had gotten bad enough for flies to breed to plague levels.

He thought of his neighbors. He hadn’t bothered to learn their names, preferring to keep to themselves. But he knew that it was a youngish couple, sporty and attractive, with the woman home more than the man, who seemed to have a job that involved some traveling.

"Hello? Hello, anyone in there?" he called. "I think you’ve got some kind of infestation." Knock, knock, He rang the doorbell a few more times and then listened, but there was no sound inside.

He looked back into his apartment, but he didn’t want to go in. There seemed to be even more flies moving around inside. So many that he thought they would bump into him and touch him if he went in.

He leaned against the wall outside and pulled out his phone.

He didn’t have the landlord’s number saved, so he had to go through his emails until he found it. But when he called, there was no response.

He called over and over again, the phone ringing and ringing without even going to voicemail.

Weird, he thought, trying one more time.

Then he frowned and listened hard, holding his phone down behind him.

He could hear a phone ringing through the door of his neighbor’s apartment.

He hung up and the ringing stopped. He dialed the landlord again, and the ringing started again.

Was the landlord inside that apartment?

Why would the landlord be in that apartment?

He stood there for a long time, trying to figure out what he was supposed to do.

He was the kind of guy that kept to himself and didn’t want to make waves. He liked a quiet, non-dramatic life that didn’t involve filing police reports or having to go to court as a witness to a crime.

"Dammit," he muttered. And called the police.

He didn’t have any clear evidence that anything had happened, but he tried to explain why he was concerned. There was a lot of emphasis about the massive amounts of giant flies crawling into his kitchen through the wall he shared with the neighboring apartment.

He said that he’d tried calling the landlord, but the guy hadn’t answered. Then he mentioned that every time he called, he could hear a phone ringing inside the apartment.

"I’m not saying the landlord is in there, but I think he might be in there," he said. "And I really need someone to handle this fly problem. I can’t even go into my apartment. They’re EVERYWHERE. It’s so gross. Please help me."

"We’ll send someone to check things out," the operator said.

"Okay," he said, and hung up. Then he stood there, not knowing what to do.

He didn’t want to go into his apartment, but it felt awkward to just stand around waiting. Even if the police came, that wouldn’t do anything about the flies already inside his place.

Finally he took the stairs down and crossed the street to reach the nearest coffee shop. He ordered a to-go cup, then went back up to wait outside his door for the police.

At least with a cup in his hand he had the sense that he was doing something. He wasn’t just creepily standing around. He was drinking coffee.

The police clearly didn’t take his call seriously as it was nearly 45 minutes later before two police officers showed up.

"Were you the one that called?"

"Yeah, that was me," he said. "Like I said, I don’t know what’s going on in there, but there are all these flies coming into my place through a hole in the wall. It’s pretty gross."

"Well, we’ll check it out."

After receiving a pointed look, he moved farther away. Then he turned to gaze over the railing across the parking lot to the bustling town spread out below. Trying his best to give off a "I’m just minding my own business here" impression, though he wasn’t sure how well it came across.

He sipped his coffee and listened as the police knocked on his neighbor’s door, called out a few times, then he heard one of them say "Do you smell that?" and couldn’t resist taking a peek.

The window was cracked open a little and one of the police officer’s was a hunched a little and sniffing.

"What is it?" the other one asked.

"It smells like something rotting," the first one said. "I think there might be something dead in there. You should call it in."

He felt a wave of dizziness and leaned against the railing. He nearly dropped his cup of coffee but caught it at the last second.

There might be something dead in there.

There might be something DEAD in there.

There might be someONE DEAD in there.

He couldn’t help thinking of the flies filling his apartment. So fat and energetic. Wondered if they were full from eating meat. Human meat. From someone dead in there.

"Aw shit," he muttered.

0 – 0 – 0 – 0

There were so many police. The parking lot was full of flashing lights. There were ambulances. Police tape encircled the neighbor’s door. Police officers and detectives were going in and out and things were brought out in baggies and wrapped in black bags and… He didn’t know what he was supposed to do.

He wanted to go into his apartment and ignore it all. Wanted to play some video games maybe or watch a movie, but when he opened his door all he could see were writhing black masses of flies. The air was so filled with them that there wasn’t room for him to step inside. Not without being touched by them.

From morning to night, there were things happening in the neighbor’s apartment, and he was left sitting outside his door wondering what he was supposed to do.

And as they were finally clearing out, a police officer approached him. "Hey, do you think you maybe want to go back into your place now? I’ve noticed you’ve been out here the whole time. The excitement’s pretty much over."

He hunched over his knees, feeling miserable. "How am I supposed to go in there? There’s so many. The whole place is full of flies!"

"Flies?"

"Yeah," he said. "It’s why I called you guys in the first place. I got up this morning and there were hundreds of flies in my living room. And whatever you guys have been doing, there’s even more flies in there. I can’t even walk without being hit by them. I don’t know how I’m supposed to get rid of them all."

"That sounds horrible," the police officer said.

"Yeah, let me show you," he said, climbing to his feet. "I don’t even know what to do.

He opened the door and waved his arm to show off the buzzing CLOUD of disgusting flies, bumping into each other and the ceiling and the walls, covering every inch of free space. Their little hands washing against each other, leaving blobs of brown gunk behind everywhere they rested. Just the sight made his skin crawl.

"Look at them all! How do I get rid of all these flies?" he asked, feeling utterly hopeless.

The police officer looked through the open apartment door, then looked at him, silent for a long moment. Then said, "There aren’t any flies."

=END=

~Harper Kingsley

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