Mantodea

A Sci-fi Horror Short Story

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An old one, never before posted. Definitely not in my crime fiction wheelhouse but I like to get a little crazy and experiment sometimes…

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Sheriff’s Deputy Nolan Weller was frustrated. It was only twenty minutes until the end of his shift and he was responding to a last-minute call that had just come in. To make matters worse, it was his birthday too and that meant Claire would always make him anything he wanted for dinner. A last meal request, death row kind of thing before she executed him, she always joked.

It also didn’t help his mood that he was now at least an hour’s drive away from his wife’s fried chicken, homemade buttermilk biscuits, white gravy and sweet corn. The Colonel himself had nothing on Clarissa Ann Weller when it came to secret recipes. He could smell that damn chicken. His stomach growled in agreement.

He pulled into the turnaround on 191, halfway between Odessa and Midland. Putting the Tahoe cruiser in park, he left it running and rolled his window down. There was next to nothing traffic wise, on this warm December day, just straight empty road.

The sun had dropped in the cloudless western sky and the gloom of dusk gave everything a softer look. Not a spit of wind, it had laid down after blowing most of the afternoon. It was still and silent. Hushed even. Unnatural even.

Weller knew better than anybody that Ector and Midland Counties had a history for this kind of call, it was infamous for UFO sightings by the public and even law enforcement personnel. Truth be told, not just those counties but all of West Texas was a damn hotbed for sightings. These days drones were everywhere and that didn’t help much.

He was a fourteen year veteran of the Midland Sheriff’s Department and in that time, he’d seen plenty of crazy stuff. People and other living things, doing what defied all logic and sense. Seen It All, would be on his business card if he had one. That said, he had never once seen anything that he couldn’t identify. Nothing even close to unidentified flying objects or little green men.

The exit for Old Staley Road was a half mile away. This was right where the supposed sighting occurred. He called in his stop. The dispatcher on the other end was an old gal he recognized named Vivian Roundtree who’d been doing this forever and a day. She was well known and responded back in her familiar, bored, drawl. “Alright then Deputy. You watch out for ‘em aliens now.”

Weller smiled at that, got out of his vehicle, reached back in for his white Resistol and put it on. A couple of hundred yards away in the same direction as Old Staley Road, he noted a Ford F-150 pulled over to the side of the northbound lanes. Across the median from the truck was a car, on the shoulder of the southbound lanes.

He watched the vehicles for a moment but something pulled his eyes away. He stared at a thin wisp of smoke curling up over the top of the nearby tree line. His first thought was a brush fire but then he saw the deep purple and dark green lights deep within the trees. They were pulsing bright and then weak. He’d seen an aurora once while on vacation in Alaska. The spectacular Northern Lights were a sight to see for sure, but this was Texas and this was no aurora.

Through the trees, the colors glowed and swirled in slow circles, intermittently flashing like heat lightning in angry clouds. A low steady hum came to his ears, barely discernible but it raised the hair on the back of his neck. Low, but getting louder. He looked down, hairs stood on his arms too. Like static electricity, he thought absently.

Frowning in confusion, he glanced again at the vehicles pulled over and hooked his thumbs in his service belt. His chest mic made a sudden buzz and emitted a little squawk. He clicked it once, then twice. Nothing. Then the Tahoe lights blinked out and the engine died.

He stared back at the dead car then jerked his look to the lights in the trees. There had been a sudden movement. Out of the dense trees a deer had burst through the undergrowth. Then another…and another. He watched all three of them running full out, coming across the bare plowed field, angling towards where he stood.

Two of the deer crossed the road and went right past him, never slowing. The trailing third one, a young doe, stopped on a dime not fifteen feet away and blinked big wild eyes at him. Run, was its unspoken message. Then the doe was off again but in that one quick instant, Weller had seen raw terror in those eyes.

The last deer, the one that paused, crossed the highway completely and made an effortless leap over the fence line, disappearing into more woods. A shrill, but faint woman’s scream reached him and then a wild, unhinged yell from a man. He heard fear in that scream and panic in the yell.

Weller’s hand went to his holster and he unsnapped the leather flap holding his Glock in place. Crouching beside the cruiser out of instinct, his look once more went back to the tree line the deer had come from, eyes searching for the source of the scream.

The tallest trees were maybe thirty feet high and the glow from the lights were more visible now. The incessant, unending hum grew louder. He finally saw them. A middle aged man had gotten out of the Ford pickup and a woman had gotten out of the car. She had left the door wide open.

They were coming towards him, running right down the middle of the road, waving and yelling something he couldn’t make out. About fifty yards away from Weller, the woman lost a shoe and tripped, going down hard on the pavement. She screamed again but the sound was partially drowned out by the humming noise.

The man looked back. She raised up on one arm, holding her hand out to him. To the man’s credit, he didn’t hesitate, turning back for her. The hum increased in volume. He heard the man yell something to her.

Weller could feel the danger but saw nothing yet. This is not real, his inner voice told him. This is a damn dream. He half expected to sit up in sweat drenched bedsheets but it didn’t happen, instead he still stood dumbfounded, mouth partially open. He started towards the couple but paused, fighting an urge. A primeval urge to flee and survive, just like the deer. Instead, he started to turn back to the cruiser.

Out of the corner of his eye he saw a dog. Down the same road, farther away than the couple but coming fast. Chugging hard like a miniature Secretariat. He watched it come for a second but then heard the rendering of wood, the crashing and cracking of tree branches in the big stand of trees.

Moving fast now, he opened the door and reached into the Tahoe, unpeeling the velcro holding his console mounted shotgun. The short barreled Mossberg 12 gauge was always loaded with five rounds.

Weller started towards the couple and his look went back to the tree line just as two pale green globes appeared about three feet apart. They were like porch lights on either side of a front door and were luminous with purple black vertical bands in the middle. The globes dimmed then grew bright again. The hum was now the sound of a million bumblebees.

Mesmerized, he realized that the lights were…they were eyes, and… they had blinked. He said it out loud, but didn’t hear his own voice over the hum. He repeated it, louder, and he didn’t recognize his own voice. The first one that emerged from the trees was at least ten feet tall and probably fifteen feet long. The upper part of the body straightened up even taller and it paused looking from side to side, the head turning a full 180 degrees both ways. Its stare settled on Weller. Directly on Weller.

It was getting dark now, but he could see the thing had a large triangle shaped head with those huge wideset eyes and two long antennae. Two folded but ready, glistening and spiked forearms with what resembled crab claws or pincers. There were four long, thin legs to walk and support a heavy lower body.

Weller was teetering on the very edge of hysteria now, just a moment away. A coherent but insane thought came to him. It looked like a fucking praying mantis. A delirious, grin of madness appeared on his face, but didn’t last, gone as fast as it had come. What the holy hell was going on…

With a calculated, menacing rotation of its head, the thing turned its gaze to the couple who were still in the middle of the road. It took two or three slow motion, stalking steps towards them, then stopped as the dog made a wide loop around it and continued towards Weller.

The deputy raised the Mossberg and fired. He was too far away for a shotgun to really be very effective but he pumped and fired a second time anyway. As if roused by the shots, behind the thing and emerging from the tree line, three more of its kind appeared.

With sudden blinding speed that made Mills jump, the first and closest creature moved to the couple, towering over them. It picked up the man first, with one clawed forearm and then gripped the woman with the other. Their mouths were open with silent screams.

In one quick move, the man was virtually scissored in half at the waist, with his hips and legs flopping down to the road. The top half of him went directly into the wide gaping maw that opened and then shut with only the man’s hand sticking out. The big eyes blinked again.

Weller watched with unbelieving, helpless eyes as the woman squirmed in the other claw, long hair wild and mouth open with blood cascading down the front of her blouse. The clawed arm moved with impossible dexterity as she was brought to the triangle head, with the huge eyes inspecting her, but then she was eaten in three snapping bites.

The hum filled the air and with all of the madness he was seeing, Weller felt everything come apart inside. His mind lost its grip on reality and sheer panic took over. So now, he did run. Ran with wild abandon while lugging the shotgun awkwardly with him, as his arms windmilled and pumped. He ran like he hadn’t run since track in high school.

The dog had already bolted by, not even looking at him but then inexplicably, stopped and turned. It was as if he was waiting for the deputy. He was somebody’s pet, not just a runaway or mutt, he randomly thought. A well-groomed purebred german shepherd, tongue hanging out in what looked like a grin, but far from it. His ears were laid flat, straight back.

Weller hit his stride and the two began to run together, side by side for a moment. The hum was unbearable now and if he could have somehow managed it while running with his shotgun, he would’ve covered his ears.

The dog veered off from him then, headed for the fence that lined the road and the other stand of trees beyond it. He thought about following but stayed on the hard surface of the road, making the decision based on nothing at all.

Weller didn’t look back over his shoulder at the things, he just couldn’t bring himself to do it. He heard his hard breathing mixed with an unintelligible groaning noise he was uttering. It was the sound of pure terror.

A new noise came from behind him. It sounded like the fluttering of the sail on his dad’s old sailboat, so many years ago. Losing the wind, then snapping as it caught the breeze and then slack once more .

No. No, It was fucking wings, he was sure of it. The flapping of huge goddamned wings, his crazed mind told him. The mantis whirred close to him. With his mind gone, his body reacted with instinct only. Just like the dog had, he too veered off the road for the wood fence line and jumped it, almost clearing it before catching his trailing foot on the wire.

Weller was on his feet again right away though, gasping for air now. The awful whirring of wings closed on him from behind once more. Despite the inner scream telling him not too, he snuck a quick look up and over his shoulder with wide eyes.

He let out a shout of rage, mixed with a scream of horror at what he saw less than twenty yards away. He knew with certainty those praying claws would grip him.

Only another surge of adrenaline and panic drove him now. Stumbling and zig zagging across rows of plowed ground he looked at the approaching tree line but it seemed so far away. Too far.

Standing just clear of the trees, there was a crazed vision of his old wrestling coach. Crew cut, white t-shirt, gray sweatpants, hands on hips and whistle around his neck. “Push goddamn you! Gut it out, Weller! No quit…don’t you fucking leave anything on the mat!”

And so Weller didn’t, like a running back finding the hole, he reached and broke through the tree line. Running full out around low branches, dodging the big trunks of live oaks and being torn by thorny bushes which ripped at him. He ran on weaving through the dense trees, until he literally could run no more. Dropping to his knees, his vision blurred and he became very dizzy, finally falling onto his side.

The hum was deep inside him now, in his bones and he rolled onto his back with the shotgun aimed in the direction of where he had just come from. He was ready to die. Sure he would.

Then like an amplifier being unplugged, there was a screeching sound, almost like an audio feedback and then nothing. Only complete and utter silence now. Night had fallen and he could see nothing but dark shadows.

He stayed frozen in that position for what seemed several minutes, with his heart pounding out of his chest, until his eyes rolled up and for the first time in his thirty seven years, he passed out. His body tremored and there was a slight spasm in his right leg, then nothing.

When Weller came to, he raised only his head and still holding the shotgun, he slowly rolled to his side. There was the first hint of light in the east. Everything came flooding back to him in a horrible rush of memory and he pushed himself up into a sitting position with the butt of the gun. He’d passed out for the entire night, that much was clear.

He remained motionless, his ears searching the stand of trees around him for any sound no matter how small. On his far left he saw movement and swung the shotgun around. It was the German Shepherd who had been laying down about fifteen feet away from him. It stood and approached Weller hesitantly. The big dog whined softly, stopped and laid back down again not five feet from him.

Weller held his hand out, palm down, to the dog and it whined louder.

His voice was raspy and very low. “Hush now, boy. Come here now. It’s okay boy. It’s okay.” He patted the ground and then held out his hand again.

And the dog did come, not only sitting down next to him but leaning into him. His ears were laid flat again and he lowered his head, licking the fingers of the deputy. With his head starting to clear, Weller decided to try standing up. Making it to one knee, he pushed off of it and stood shakily.

“What the hell happened here last night, bud?” He was surprised by his whisper and it spooked him all over again. What had happened? Weller thought. He knew he had to get moving, to do something, but what?

Below him the dog stood too but it wasn’t because of him. The shepherd’s ears were now perked, pointed straight up, ramrod straight. A long low growl came from him and it was continuous, extending right through his breathing.

His chest mic squawked and screeched. “...to acknowledge....ANY UNITS out there? Please respond!” It was the voice of Vivian Roundtree and this time it was anything but bored.

“Unit 215 acknowledging.” He didn’t raise his voice and his mouth was right next to the mic. There were several clicks but no response from dispatch. “Dispatch…Vivian…this is Nolan, deputy Weller, Unit 215.”

Her voice came on again, cutting in, mid-sentence. “...Please acknowledge.” He dug his personal cellphone out and it was completely dead, the blank dark screen stared back at him.

He looked down at his chest mic again and clicked it several times. Getting ready to repeat his call, he stopped and cocked his head. The shepherd continued his non-stop low growl but there was something else now.

There it was again, the same sound he remembered yesterday. The fluttering sound that a limp sail makes when it begins to catch the wind again. Snapping taut then flapping.

The dog’s loud frenzied barking broke the daze he was in. The shepherd bolted away then, only to stop again looking back at him, with his imploring brown eyes boring into Weller. Almost in unison they both cocked their heads at the faint sound of a hum.

And so it started again all over again. They ran through the trees together for a while, side by side for a moment. Off to his left he saw the bright rising sun shining through the low lying branches until something big momentarily blocked it out.

The sound of large breaking branches made him run faster and the dog veered off to his right and this time he followed it. He based his decision on nothing at all and for no particular reason, because reason didn’t exist anymore.

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Clarissa Weller woke up on the couch to a perfectly still house. She got up rubbing her eyes and peeked around the corner of the den, with a forced smile that held no hope. She knew she’d see his empty recliner. Her eyebrows bunched up and her eyes drifted out the window. She could see the driveway from here and his Tahoe was still gone.

Claire was no fragile flower. She was tough, inside and out. A cop’s wife. He’d been out on the job all night before. Once he wasn’t home for three days straight during a manhunt. All that said, he always called. Always. Last night she had tried to call the County but had no dial tone each time.

Dawn was just breaking as she walked slowly outside onto the front porch. She put her hands on her hips and looked up and down the country road. It was quiet and still as a cemetery. Everything felt off to her. Nothing was right about this. Nothing at all.

One last look both ways down the road made her pause. There was a chocolate lab coming down the road. Her frown deepened and she squinted at it, sticking her chin in that direction. Yes…it was Sam, the Larson’s dog. He was running full speed and coming right down the middle of the road.

She walked hesitantly closer to the road and watched it come. When the dog sped past her with ears laid flat, he flew by without so much as sideways look at her. She got an uneasy feeling that she didn’t really understand and turned back towards the house.

Back on the porch she opened the screen door and felt something land on her shoulder. She jerked in surprise and looked down at a huge green praying mantis. Biggest one she’d ever seen. Huge. Had to be five inches long. It took a deliberate step then turned its triangle head slowly in her direction, rising higher and holding its folded arms up, as if preparing to strike.

“Ohhh yuck…” She did a little dance and brushed it off wildly with her hand. It flew a short distance away to the hedge lining the sidewalk.

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