Suspenseful Tales (2011) Read online

  And the verdict is: life in bug hell.

  "See ya, sucker," he said, and chuckled. He kicked aside the insect's carcass.

  As he put on his other shoe, his wife climbed the last step of the landing. With what he hoped was a nonchalant motion, he slid his room key into the narrow slot, unlocking the door.

  "It's hot as hell in here," he blurted. "And I turned on the air-conditioner before we left for the picnic. What a shitty room. I told you we should've stayed at the Hyatt."

  Karen trudged toward him, her normally cheerful face lined with fatigue, and browned from a full day in the sun. Her oversized purple t-shirt, which read "Morris Family Reunion 2002" in white letters, was rumpled and probably damp with perspiration. She had pulled back her hair into a bun, several strands stood up like unruly weeds.

  Anthony hated to see his wife looking worn out like this. All she'd want to do is take a shower and flop across the bed. No loving for him tonight.

  "One more night in here won't kill us," Karen said as she walked inside. "I only need a shower. When I hit the mattress, I'm going to pass out. Put an ice bag on your head if you need to."

  "Very funny," he said. "I'm going to suffer heat exhaustion in here."

  "Serves you right. After what you pulled at the picnic today, you aren't getting any sympathy from me."

  At the picnic, Anthony had been appointed gatekeeper, responsible for checking in relatives and family friends and giving them name tags. It was a humiliating, tiresome task. He was an attorney, for God's sake, not some shiftless high school drop-out-like some of his cousins. He hadn't driven seven hours from Atlanta so he could sweat in the heat and be a receptionist. He had only agreed to do it because Ma Dear had asked him herself, and with her being ninety-two years old and this possibly being her last reunion, well, he felt obligated to comply with her wishes.

  Of course. Ma Dear had only asked him to do it because she wanted to give him a lesson in humility. When folks reached Ma Dear's age, all they thought about was trying to dispense their so-called wisdom. I'm gonna make Tony pass out nametags, that boy's too proud and needs to be humbled, he was sure she was thinking.

  He was humbled all right. He did the job so well he was certain they'd never ask him to do it again. Everyone whom he didn't recognize-and there were many such people—had to prove they were a legitimate relative or friend. No exceptions.

  "I was only doing my job," he said to Karen. "Rules are rules. Was I supposed to let in every stray person who comes off the road claiming some vague kinship, salivating for a plate of ribs and potato salad? Then you'd be complaining that because of me, there wasn't enough food left for the real family members."

  "Yeah, sure, you only did your job," she said. Sitting on the bed, she pulled off her sneakers and socks. "You had an interrogation going on there. But the elderly lady was worst of all, Anthony. What you did to her was terrible."

  Karen made it sound as though he had robbed the old woman. A short, stout lady wearing dark shades, a big hat, and a flower-patterned dress, had waddled up to the picnic. A frail young woman led her, which made him wonder whether the old lady was blind. In a scratchy voice, the woman said her name was Sis Maggie.

  "Sister who?" Anthony had said. "You don't look like the sister of anyone in my family, old girl."

  Sis Maggie's face puckered up like a prune. "I'm a friend of the family, young man. Been knowin' your people from way back."

  "What people of mine do you know?"

  In a halting voice, Sis Maggie proceeded to run down a list of names: Junebug, Little Tommy, Lillie Mae, and other names Anthony had never heard in his life. He didn't have the patience to listen a minute longer. He cut her off in midsentence.

  "Listen, I've never heard of those people," he said. "Either they're all dead, or you're at the wrong family reunion. In any case, you wasted your time coming here. Have a good day."

  Sis Maggie frowned in confusion, so did her skinny guide girl.

  "Young man, listen here" Sis said.

  "The exit to the park is over there." Anthony pointed. "If your eyesight is too bad to see it, I'm sure your little nurse there can find it for you."

  Muttering under her breath. Sis Maggie and the girl turned around and shuffled away.

  A handful of people had gathered around the sign-in table. Their mouths hung open in shock. Anthony only smiled. He had balls, all right. No one could pull one over on him.

  Minutes later, one of Anthony's aunts ran to him and told him he'd made a big mistake by turning Sis Maggie away. No, his aunt said, she ain't really a friend of the family, but she lives in these parts, and only a fool dares to disrespect her. The old woman has been known to work with roots—and she holds terrible grudges.

  Anthony only laughed at this backwoods superstition. Talk about ignorant. If Sis Maggie was so bad, let her work some roots to conjure up some ribs of her own. She wasn't getting any from his reunion.

  "It's over now," he told Karen. He sat on the bed. "Drop it."

  Karen rolled her eyes. She stripped down to her bra and panties, and the sight of her shapely, caramel body made his heart skip a beat. He reached for her as she walked past him. She swatted his hand away.

  "None for you tonight," she said. "I'm tired, and you've gotten on my nerves. Make friends with your hand."

  "That's cold," he said, watching her shuffle into the bathroom. He used the edge of his shirt to mop sweat off his face. Waves of heat pressed upon him like heavy pillows, squeezing sticky sweat out of his pores. On the other side of the room, the air-conditioning unit rattled. Piece of shit. This is what he got for buying into the "family reunion" hotel package: two miserable nights at a cheap hotel. He had wanted to stay at the Hyatt, but Karen had insisted on staying here with the rest of his family, so his relatives wouldn't think he assumed he was better than them. Who cared what they thought? Most of them envied his success anyway. It was lonely at the top.

  Sighing, he used the remote control to click on the television.

  In the bathroom, Karen screamed.

  * * *

  Two yellow jackets had taken hold of the bathroom. While Anthony and Karen watched from outside, the door open only an inch, the insects circled between the mirror and tub. Big suckers.

  "They flew out of the drain when I turned on the water." Karen huddled beside him, a bath towel wrapped around her. "You have to kill them, Tony. I'm allergic to bee stings."

  "Allergic?" He frowned. "Are you serious?"

  She nodded, her eyes wide and frightened. "The last time I was stung, six years ago, I was helping Mom in the garden. A hornet got me on the arm, and my face swelled up like a balloon. Mom had to take me to the emergency room."

  Anthony sneered. His wife was allergic to stings; he was scared to death of the beasts that could sting you. Weren't they a well-matched couple?

  He certainly wasn't going to share his phobia with her now. It was time for him to be the man of the house. Moments like this defined marriages.

  "Go back in the bedroom, honey," he said. "I'll take care of this.

  I'll let you know when I'm done."

  She smiled gratefully and left.

  He peered into the washroom. The yellow jackets soared through the air leisurely, as if they owned the place. In the tub, hot water continued to gurgle from the faucet; if Karen had stopped up the drain, the tub surely would have overflowed by then. A fine vapor, borne of the steaming water, had begun fill the room.

  The insects' buzzing seemed to thrum in his eardrums. Two yellow jackets. Christ. His heart throbbed.

  Although the room was as humid as a tropical rain forest, he grabbed his jacket from the closet, slid it on, and zipped it up. He was wearing shorts, so he threw on his jeans, too. He slapped on his Atlanta Braves cap.

  It was as much bodily protection as he could manage at the moment. He would've preferred a bee-keeper's suit.

  He found a copy of USA Today sitting by the door. He rolled it up, fashioning it into a homemade bill
y club.

  Then, he crept into the bathroom.

  Hot vapor churned in the air. The gurgling water in the tub was thunderously loud.

  But the yellow jackets were gone.

  "You can't hide from me, you bastards," Anthony muttered. They were in there, somewhere. He could feel them watching him, waiting to attack.

  His fingers tightened on his newspaper club.

  Moving quickly, he stepped to the tub and switched off the faucet. He wanted to clear the air.

  As he was turning away from the bathtub, a yellow jacket zoomed toward him from above, like a miniature fighter plane.

  Crying out, he swung the club wildly. The paper smacked the insect and knocked it into the mirror, but in the process of swinging, Anthony lost his balance, slipped on a patch of water, and tumbled into the bathtub.

  "Shit!"

  Hot water splashing everywhere, he rapped his head against the edge of the ceramic basin. He would have passed out, but terror kept him conscious. There was one yellow jacket left, and it was waiting to make a move on him.

  "Is everything okay, Tony?" Karen asked from outside.

  "I'll be out in a minute!" he shouted. His cap had flipped off, and he pulled it on again.

  Soggy and dripping, his head pounding, he dragged himself out of the tub. He caught a glimpse of himself in the foggy mirror-Anthony Morris, Esquire, going through hell over a couple of bees-and he was briefly embarrassed. But his embarrassment faded when he heard the loud, angry buzzing.

  It was coming from right on top of his head.

  Underneath his baseball cap.

  Shouting and cursing, he snatched off the hat. He saw the yellow jacket creeping inside the cap. Gritting his teeth savagely, he smashed the edges of the cap together in his hands, to squash the evil insect inside.

  "I've got you now, bastard! I've got you!" He laughed maniacally.

  The insect buzzed furiously, trying to escape.

  Anthony moved to the toilet. Like a man handling a hot potato, he flipped over the hat and cast it into the water. Then he flushed the toilet.

  The sight of the bee being sucked out of the hat and into the bowels of the sewage system was one of the sweetest things he'd seen all day.

  The departed yellow jacket's fellow soldier lay on the vanity at the base of the mirror. Dead. Anthony captured it in a wad of tissue and, after removing his cap from the toilet, flushed away that one, too.

  He grinned. "You fools don't know who you're messing with."

  He peeled off his wet clothes. He was quite pleased with himself. It had been a tough battle, but he had won. He always won, in the end.

  Now that he had saved the day, he thought with a smile, Karen would

  feel obligated to give him some loving before she went to bed.

  He left the bathroom.

  And found Karen pressed in a corner of the room, her hand covering her mouth, her attention riveted on something near the ceiling light.

  "They came out of nowhere," Karen said in a shaky voice. "One minute, I was watching TV, the next, I heard buzzing above me ... "

  There were four or five hornets up there. Big ones, each the size of his pinkie. They flew in a tight circle, buzzing.

  Anthony felt as if his legs had been swept from under him. This couldn't be happening. Were there hives in the walls?

  "We're getting the hell out of here," he said. "Throw on some

  clothes and grab your stuff, honey. I'm going to talk to the manager."

  * * *

  By the time Anthony finished chewing out the manager on duty at the front desk, not only had the manager given them a new, upgraded room on the other side of the hotel, he had agreed to charge Anthony for only one night's stay, not two. One of the many advantages of being a top-notch attorney was knowing exactly what to say to make virtually anyone fear a lawsuit. He had mastered the art of hurling legal jargon to terrify, to reduce the average citizen to a blubbering, eager-to-please fool.

  Their new room was a deluxe suite, but it still wasn't as nice as the Hyatt. Anthony didn't care anymore. He only wanted to sleep and drive home tomorrow. At least the air conditioner worked.

  When he turned the handle in the tub, the water flowed cleanly. No

  bees.

  No wasps or any of their ilk buzzed around the lights, either.

  The room appeared to be safe.

  However, something nagged at him. As he showered, he began to think.

  Why hadn't they seen any bees last night? The night before, not one bug had invaded their room. Why so many today? If there were, indeed, hives in the room's walls, wouldn't the hateful insects have revealed themselves from the start?

  Anthony knew he was an especially smart man-brilliant, even. He had graduated summa cum laude at the University of Georgia, and third in his class at Emory Law School. He was accustomed to being envied for his intellect and flawless education. In his opinion, a handful of people, like him, were simply better eguipped than the average person to achieve success and solve problems. He was a member of the vaunted Talented Tenth, one of the leaders of the ignorant masses.

  But even his refined intelligence could not explain this bee situation. He didn't like being unable to explain things. Ignorance was not bliss—it was weakness.

  Karen was asleep by the time he stretched beside her on the bed. He was too worn out to ask for any loving.

  He clicked off the bedside lamp and lay with his hands folded behind his head. One minute, he was gazing at the dark ceiling, pondering the inexplicable insects . . . and the next, he was dreaming.

  In the dream, he was at the family reunion picnic, serving as gatekeeper. The old woman. Sis Maggie, suddenly appeared in front of him, without her guide girl. He asked her why she was there when he had already told her that she wasn't a friend of the family, and when she parted her lips to answer, a swarm of hornets poured out of her mouth, buzzing madly, and they enveloped him like a storm cloud; covered his face and neck and arms and legs and crawled up his nostrils and into his ears and between his lips, stinging and stinging and stinging—

  He erupted from the nightmare, shouting.

  "Baby, you okay?" Karen touched his arm.

  He was panting, dipped in cold sweat. He thought he felt insects creeping over his arms, and he rubbed his skin. Nothing there. Just a dream.

  But he thought he heard a faint buzzing, as if the creatures from his nightmare had followed him into the real world. Was he imagining the sound?

  "Tony?" she said, sitting up.

  "I'm fine," he said. "It was only a dream."

  "About what?"

  "Oh, that old heifer who came to the picnic, Sis Maggie. It's nothing, go back to sleep."

  "You pissed off that root woman," Karen mumbled, drifting back to sleep. "Now, she's sending you nightmares ..."

  "That's nonsense."

  But Karen had fallen asleep. Anthony, however, was too wound up to rest. Keeping the light off, he slid out of bed.

  The ghostly buzzing did not subside, which meant that it was not a figment of his imagination. He turned around, trying to determine the source of the noise. He walked toward the window. The buzzing grew louder with each step.

  Hands trembling, he parted the curtains.

  Honeybees covered the window. Dozens of them. They wriggled and swarmed across the glass, their strange, beady eyes fixated on him.

  It took all of his strength for him to stay on his feet.

  "This is impossible," he said, in a whisper. "It's night, bees aren't nocturnal creatures, they're supposed to be asleep ..." His voice trailed off. His throat was tight.

  Slowly, he put his hand against the glass.

  The bees buzzed angrily. They stabbed their stingers against the window.

  They were eager to get him, to sting him to death. Just like in his nightmare.

  Legs trembling, he snatched the curtains shut.

  The buzzing ceased.

  Terrified, but curious, he peeled away part of
the curtain.

  The window was clear. It gave him a view of the parking lot, the highway beyond, and the pale full moon above. There were no bees, anywhere.

  Which was impossible. The insects could not have vanished, instantaneously.

  Chills overcame him. He stumbled to the bed and wrapped himself in the sheets.

  His aunt's voice came to him: You shouldn't have done that to Sis Maggie, Tony. That old woman is known for working roots-and she holds terrible grudges.

  Backwoods, superstitious bullshit, Anthony told himself, over and over. Bullshit, bullshit, bullshit. I'm too smart to believe that nonsense. I'm too good for that. There has to be a logical explanation, there has to be.

  But by the time he finally fell asleep, an hour later, he still had not found it.

  * * *

  "Tony did you get any sleep last night?" Karen asked, as they got dressed the next morning. "Your eyes look blood shot."

  "This bed kept me tossing and turning." He slid on his Nikes and began to tie them.

  "This mattress is like a slab of rock."

  Her eyes were concerned. "Hmm, I slept fine. You think it's because of the nightmares you were having? You kept waking up—"

  "No," he said, and yanked the shoelaces so tightly they nearly snapped.

  Karen sighed loudly and went into the bathroom.

  He knew that she was annoyed at him for not sharing what was on his mind. Well, tough. He wasn't the kind of guy who talked about his emotions—as far as he was concerned, doing so was a sign of weakness. He dealt in facts. If it couldn't be proven, it wasn't worth his time.

  So if it looks like a curse has been slapped on me by an old, evil woman, is that worth my time?

  He shut down that train of thought before it inched forward any further.

  He finished dressing, downed a cup of the vile-tasting coffee they supplied in the hotel room—due to him getting so little sleep, he'd need to slam his system with caffeine to stay awake—and grabbed their luggage, to take down to the car.

  "Be ready to go in five minutes," he told Karen, who was still messing around in the bathroom. Of course, she probably wouldn't be ready in five minutes. The woman was so habitually slow she'd be late to her own funeral.