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(Page 2 of 3) The Lord of the Flies by R. SchlaackThe heat and the flies were giving Bud the heebies.
The man's voice became a nasal sort of buzz as he went into his rant. "Time is short, my friend! Soon there will be no more time, because the Lord is coming, and his plague with him! You shall be cast off with the refuse, your carcass torn by vermin! Maggots shall be your bed! You need to be saved...!"
Bud tried to roll up the window, but it wouldn't go fast enough. The guy reached out and caught Bud by his bare wrist.
"SAVED!" he buzzed. "SAVED!!"
"Get off me, you freak!" Bud said, trying to shake him off. The guy was strong, and Bud could already see finger-shaped bruises forming on his arm.
The crazy man's enormous eyes rolled back in his head. He shivered all over, and as Bud watched, frozen with horror, black juice started oozing out of the corners of his mouth. His hand twitched, and Bud felt the fingers digging spasmodically into his arm. The sky seemed to darken as the fly-man let out a hideous cry.
"SAAAAAAAAVED!!!!"
Bud shoved him backwards as hard as he could.
The sky returned to normal. Once again there was only the traffic jam.
The guy stood there, looking at him moronically. "Praise the Lord!" he said. "You are saved!"
Bud was mad. He was mad and scared. "I'm calling the cops..."
The psycho was walking off already. "Do what you feel, my friend – the Lord's coming soon! Praise the Lord! You are saved...!"
"Fuggin' Freak," Bud muttered. His arm stung. He sat there nursing it as he watched the guy leave. A fly buzzed against the inside window, and Bud reached out angrily and smashed it.
What kind of asylum did that guy escape from? Bud had never seen anything like that, not even from his schizophrenic uncle – his uncle was freaky, yeah, but at least he didn't have those eyes. God! Bud couldn't even remember the guy's face; whenever he tried, all he got was the image of a businessman with a fly's head perched on top of his collar...
"The Lord is Coming...maggots and vermin" - Bud was beginning to believe it, too, just from the way that guy twitched, like his arms and legs were segmented, like at any moment he was going to sprout wings and a proboscis...who was his "Lord", really? Who is the Lord of the flies...?
The pain in his arm was getting worse and worse. He could feel the skin getting hot, and then it started to writhe beneath his fingers, and he watched detachedly as the skin and flesh turned black and peeled away to reveal a black and fetid hole...
Bud Price sat bolt upright in the seat of his Saturn. He was still in the traffic jam. CCR was playing on the radio. How long had he been asleep? Too long, apparently. The air was stale inside the car. He'd had the strangest nightmare...he needed some air...
He rolled down the window.
A cloud of flies buzzed in.
Bud Price smiled.
He bent down. He put his finger in the pool of green ichor around his feet, then raised it to his mouth and sucked on it, slowly, savoring it, straining its snotlike curds through his teeth. He licked his forearm, and with jerky strokes cleaned his bald head and enormous eyes, smoothing down the stiff hairs that stuck up out of his pinkish exoskeleton.
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