The Bugs Inside

Immediately he stepped back, the door barely inches open. Dozens of tan colored cockroaches stampeded out, making Frank jump in surprise. He held his stance, shivering slightly as the bugs ran for the space beneath the stairs leading out. He held the vomit back, opening the door more. What got to him was, instead of bugs, the smell. He splattered his lunch all over the door, bending over, heaving in heavy breaths to regain himself. That abhorred smell. Like methane, rotting dead methane. It was almost akin to sewage, but not as sweet smelling. He gagged for minutes before finally getting the strength to continue. The door swung open fully, and he was struck by confusion. Apart from the smell of the air and the scattering cockroaches on the ground, the lab was untouched.

The table on which all the experiments lay was there, unmoved. The typewrite on the desk, the refridgerator in the corner, the body under the table. All there. Frank moved inside, closing the door, and suddenly realized he had overlooked something. A body did indeed lay below the table, but the space was too dark to determine what exactly it was.

Pushing the table to the side, he looked at the husk that was human yet not. It was a chest cavity, the ribs parted as if willingly, the remnants of the body dust by now. There were stubs of bones where the legs and arms would have been, and the head nonexistent.

If it was Chris, there was no way to tell. No identifying traces. Without a head, dental records would be useless. It was a ribcage and parts of limbs. Nothing substantial to prove yes or no. Frank held dread inside himself, knowing that it had to be Chris. No one else could have been down here. No one, unless?

Chris had always been a very open person. He blurted out everything, no patience and no secrecy. That had always been the main reason he kept isolated in a laboratory, as to avoid leaking secrets. If there was anyone else involved in this project, Frank would have found out. This was Chris's mad quest. In fact, no one ever knew exactly what the experiment was. Even that was kept a secret.

Something caught his attention. Out of all the things, he now realized the typewriter that lay on the desk. Moving towards the machine, he noticed the paper set inside, recent writing on it. How recent was not a factor, but it seemed to be recent enough. As he reached towards the paper, a small tan bug crawled across the paper. Frank jumped, smashing the thing with his hand open, he picked the thing up and dropped it to the side of the desk. As he pulled the paper out, it occurred to him the color of the bug.

The cockroaches that had fled the laboratory were a golden tan, an almost flesh colored. It sent shivers down his spine. Bugs were disgusting enough when they were slimy and carapaced. Hard bug shells were alien and terrifying, non-mammal and hideous. These things, however, were soft and fleshy. It was like smashing small parts of people. A moment passed as he cleared his thoughts, focusing on the goal at hand. He needed to discover what exactly happened to Chris, and he needed to start as quick as possible. If Chris were still alive, the seconds passing could be his last.

The papers seemed to be notes, a journal of sorts. Frank grabbed the stack of papers next to the typewriter and sat in the chair, reading the entries from the beginning. The air around him cleared as the methane vacated outside, the laboratory door finally open after so long. His breathing became easier, and he dove into the notes.

"June 3rd