Feeding Frenzy: Summer Series by Jennifer Weigel, Chapter 3
Last time on Feeding Frenzy…
The next morning, the sun streaked into a small gap in the curtains reflecting off the minute specks of dust in the air like a shimmer of glittering stars. Lucille had no recollection of going to sleep. She woke with a start, still recalling the events of the night prior as if they were etched into her mind, Was it a dream? Did she imagine it?
She got up, still wearing the same rumpled clothes she had arrived in town in the day before. She then realized her suitcase for the trip must still be in her trunk. “Oh, well,” Lucille muttered to herself, “might as well find some breakfast…”
There was the diner attached to the front of the motel, or what was left of one anyway. One of those old countertop-style cafes where you place your order sitting at the bar looking into the kitchen. It smelled of grease and dirt and old persons’ houses, with maybe a bit of bad long-expired and worn out odor-eater air freshener thrown in just to try to mask the musty rotting funk that seemed to imbue everything all throughout the backwash of a town. Lucille’s stomach turned but then growled; she had to see what they offered, she was ravenous.
The hotel desk clerk took notice and nodded slightly at Lucille from the swinging door to the back, apparently she was also the head waitress. “What’n I get ya, honey?” she drawled as she slid over to the counter. Her hollow eyes fixated on Lucille as if sizing her up in the depths of a darkness that seemed to go on forever, black as night.
“Coffee” Lucille answered. “And… what else do you have?”
“House’pecialz flapjacks,” the words rolled together into one long drawl. “We’s also got eggs ‘n bacon ‘n taters.”
“I guess I’ll try the flapjacks,” Lucille answered, surprised at how small and distant her own voice sounded. She cleared her voice with a deep-throated cough to seem less unnerved.
“Hey’derr,” Tom Jones whistled from the far end of the counter bar where he was huddled over coffee and heated discussion with the guys. Shouldn’t he be working on my car? thought Lucille. He sauntered over and looked her up and down.
“Rough’night?” he asked. His clothes bore yet more rust colored stains. Lucille suspected they weren’t from motor oil.
“I’m ok,” she stammered quickly. “I left my luggage in the trunk… Any word on the Buick?” The desk clerk casually tossed a plate of pancakes in front of Lucille and returned to her post by the swinging door.
“Ya’s gotta bad leak. Gonna needa new gasket. I don’ts have the part. It’ll be a couple-a days befores I can get it in. Feel free’n swing by da shop later today’n have a look if ya wants.” As if things couldn’t get any worse.
“I have to get to a wedding in Portland,” Lucille muttered under her breath, adding, “I can’t stay here.”
The flapjacks were pretty standard pancakes. A bit doughy but otherwise just blank tasteless discs of pan-fried batter. No amount of syrup made the situation better. She ate them anyway; to be fair, she devoured them really. She had been so famished and once she dug in she couldn’t stop until the pancakes were almost gone. Two bites to go and… suddenly she felt adrift and awash in unseen eyes upon her, boring into her soul.
She glanced up and caught the desk clerk staring at her intently, her dark eyes beginning to blossom and glow, seemingly growing larger and more focused. Her nostrils flared a bit too, and did she just barely lick her ruby lips with a flash of her thick pink tongue? Two patrons at the other end of the bar from where Tom had come to check in also stared, the same eerie dark eyes alight with interest. There was chum in the water…
Lucille stopped dead in her tracks and stared back. The desk clerk shook it off, her pallid flesh jiggling as she brought herself back to consciousness, her eyes returning to hollow black pools. “Y’all done, honey?” she cooed. “I’ll get’n ya check.”
Lucille met her at the register and briskly paid cash for her meal, fully aware that the other patrons continued to track her every move. “Keep the change,” she said as she flashed out the door.
On her way back to her room, she diverged from the sidewalk to examine the spot where she had dreamt the fray in the middle of the night. There were signs of a struggle. Something large had fallen just off of the curb, crushing much of the dying and poorly mowed edging under its weight. The mud-streaked grass streaked down a small hill towards a slight ravine as if something had been dragged there. There were some signs of what may have been blood, but not near as much as Lucille had dreamt. She followed the movement.
As she approached the ravine, she became aware of more and more flies buzzing about, flitting here and there as if protecting some unseen prize. And there was a foul odor of death and decay that permeated the place. But otherwise, there were no signs of life or death or anything in between. No signs of anything having been, having struggled, or having left. Lucille turned to return to her room and was confronted by the other bar patrons.
“Y’all right there, missy” said the older man, grey and pallid and somewhat frail looking despite his notable height, his flannel shirt stained and streaked with years of age and too-hard work. A bluish vein protruded from his balding head, throbbing casually as his hollow black eyes rolled up and down and all over her. His friend, a gaunt and grisly fellow with more dark-grey-flecked-black beard than hair joined in, scanning her over like a synchronized swimmer that drifted in just a moment later. She recognized them from the scene she had dreamt the night before. Why does everyone in this backwash of a town have to size me up in slow motion like some unknown trophy to be won? she wondered, her stomach rolling into a knot as her hand balled into a fist.
“I’m fine,” Lucille said, bowing her head as she headed briskly towards her room.
The grisly bearded fellow caught her arm as she passed and looked long into her eyes, the same unnerving cavernous pools of blackness alight with a far away flame. “Good. I reckon y’all stay outta trouble. We don’t wants no troubles here.” His face twitched uneasily as he spoke, nostrils flaring slightly once and again. She thought she caught a glint of light flicker off of a white pointed tooth from beneath matted facial hair.
“I’m not causing any trouble, just waiting on my car,” Lucille said plainly, staring back at him, trying to break his focus and appear un-intimidated. His grip loosened and she returned to her room as quickly as she could manage without appearing jarred. She dashed in the door and bolted the deadbolt.
Her cell phone was dead. Bar-less. No reception out here. She turned on the television. Black and white static gave way to a rerun of Let’s Make a Deal. At some point she drifted off again, her head still spinning with the events of the day prior.
I thought about featuring some sort of Father Nature bit for Father’s Day, but having already explored Perilous Parenting I decided to focus on more creepy insects instead. Because we love creepy insects here at Haunted MTL. Thus, I present Assassin Fashion, featuring the Assassin Bug…
Fashion Plates
Now I don’t know about you, but my first thought after snagging my prey and slurping out their dissolved innards is that I totally want to wear the dried up husk of their now lifeless body. Like that necklace made of nothing but shrunken heads. That is some first-rate fashion right there, and no one would dare to say otherwise lest they want to become a part of the dead-flesh coat… And this is exactly what the Assassin Bug does. Like a spider, it stabs its unsuspecting prey, turns it into a giant protein shake inside of its insectoid shell-glass, sips it out, and then attaches the corpse’s carapace to its ever growing collection atop its back.
Aside from being totally badass, these nightmarish embellishments serve a number of additional functions. They help the Assassin Bug blend in among its prey, masking its own odor and helping it to appear as a mass of insects that belong in or near the nest (especially among those more social networking creepy crawlies like ants and termites). In fact, it may even draw the attention of those clean up crews seeking to bury their dead, luring them in to become part of the body snatched horde. And the horrifying additions also act as a sort of armor and potential decoy for other predators like lizards and birds, who can end up with a mouth full of dead bug bodies rather than a bite of juicy Assassin Bug.
Kissing Sucks
And Assassin Bugs don’t just carry around one or two dead bodies, they may totally pile them up, as well as use other insects’ and plants’ secretions to their own advantage. Here’s a cool video from Deep Look that shows a partnership some Assassin Bugs have with Tarweed, keeping moth caterpillars from eating all of its flowers so that it can itself reproduce and spread.
Fortunately humans are too big to be susceptible… Or are we? There are also parasitic Assassin Bugs known as Kissing Bugs or Vampire Bugs that feed on mammal’s blood at night; they even act as a vector for other parasites that can cause disease years after feeding, which are associated with Chagas disease and are transmitted to mammalian hosts when the Assassin Bug poops while feeding and the host animal smears the poop into the bite when itching it.
So here’s a pencil drawing I did of a dead bug I found (I had a whole series of these back in the day). I hadn’t at the time known what it was, but it turns out to be an Assassin Bug. I wonder what its fashion sense was like…
So remember, if you want to be at the forefront of creepy horrific fashion, just look to the Assassin Bug for inspiration. If you’ve enjoyed this segment of Nightmarish Nature, feel free to check out some previous here:
This time on Nightmarish Nature we will again explore some of the more fetid fungi and plants, this time focusing on those that imitate rotten flesh in order to attract flies. Among the best known of these are the Stinkhorn and the Corpse Lily or Corpse Flower. The Language of Flowers be damned, literally…
Fungi
Many of the fungi in the Stinkhorn family erupt in mushrooms that reek of rotten flesh and sprout from a white sort of egg sac in various forms, the common type being a phallus like structure with a white body and olive head. The Beefsteak fungus resembles, well, a cut of beef oozing blood. And some mushroom bodies of the Clathrus genus bloom in elaborate lattice structures or devil’s tooth and devil’s fingers that resemble terrifying alien beings. These odoriferous fetid fungi grow in decaying wood material and use their stinky attributes to attract flies and other insects which will then spread the spores from their fruiting bodies. They truly look like something out of an outer space or aquatic nightmare.
Plants
Some plants also utilize pungent putrid odors to attract flies and other insects, in part to aid in the pollination and dissemination but also to attract insect matter for their own needs, to absorb the insects for valuable nutrients that they cannot otherwise obtain. The largest flowers in the world bear many of these characteristics, also being among the stinkiest. And some pitcher plants mimic rotten flesh to attract flies upon which they “feed”.
The Titan Arum of Sumatra and Indonesia is a plant that over time produces a huge flower somewhat resembling a calla lily but larger as the plant body stores enough energy to do so. While Calla Lilies are often used to symbolize rebirth and resurrection and can be associated with death, often in a funerary setting, the huge Titan Arum does more than that, strongly mimicking decaying flesh in order to attract flies. These flowers can grow to almost 8-feet tall and bloom for only about three days before wilting; they are a huge draw at botanic gardens when flowering because of the rare nature of the event and the remarkable presence that the flower has, in both size and smell. The US. Botanic Gardens has a page devoted to this plant here, where you can even track previous blooms.
Another noteworthy flowering plant is Rafflesia, a parasitic flower native to Indonesia and Malaysia that feeds on the liana vine and grows from a sprouting body bud into a huge flower over the course of five years. Its flowers, once finally formed, can grow to almost a meter across and resembles something out of a horror film. These too smell of death and decay to attract flies in order to cross-pollinate. You can learn more about these unusual plants on this video from Real Science here.
If you’ve enjoyed this segment of Nightmarish Nature, feel free to check out some previous here:
So, as you may have noticed, we have a special fondness for spiders here on Nightmarish Nature. Well, they are kind of the spokes-critters for horrifying animalia, perhaps because they are so freakishly different from us. Or maybe it’s because I find them a little disconcerting for all that I try to take the “you mind your business, I’ll mind mine” approach, at least if they stay outdoors. Or just because I really like to draw spiders for all that I prefer not to find them sharing my home (though I’ll gladly take spiders over other bugs or mice or larger critters who didn’t get an invite).
Anyway, this segment is devoted to the largest Giants Among Spiders, as if you didn’t have enough to worry about already. And the top place is contested based upon body mass or leg length. Most of these are tarantulas, which globally take top place among the large arachnids.
Goliath Birdeater Tarantula
The Goliath Birdeater Tarantula of South America is the biggest brute of spiderdom, weighing in at over 6 ounces. They build funnel burrows and are known to eat birds (although rarely), mice, lizards, frogs, and snakes, but largely any big insects including other species of spiders. They have urticating barbed hairs that they fling at would-be attackers as an irritant to escape. And people even eat them after they singe the bristles off. Here’s a National Geographic video showing this spider in action, in case you wanted to see a giant spider take out a mouse.
Giant Huntsman Spider
And with the longest legs, we have the Giant Huntsman Spider of Laos, with a leg-span of 12 inches. Their legs have twisted joints and they move in a crab-like manner, which furthers their impressive appearance. ‘Cause they’ve got legs, and know how to use ’em. They prefer to live in underbrush and cave entrances. These are like the big relatives of their Australian cousins, which we’ve all seen online and developed a healthy aversion to.
Brazilian Salmon Pink Birdeater & Brazilian Giant Tawny Red Tarantulas
Next we have two more South American species: the Brazilian Salmon Pink Birdeater, which boasts one-inch fangs, and the Brazilian Giant Tawny Red, believed to be the longest-lived spider with a lifespan of up to thirty years. Both are in the tarantula family and have urticating hairs, a word you probably never read much before today unless you are in the hobby. So apparently South America is not the best travel destination for you if you struggle with arachnophobia, though I suspect you’d figured that out already. (I wouldn’t recommend Australia or Southeast Asia either.)
Face Size Tarantula
And finally the Face Size Tarantula, which has a very terror-inducing name reminiscent of the Face Huggers of Alien-glory. Anyway, these spiders have an 8-inch leg-span and live in India and Sri Lanka. They look kind of like big hairy wolf spiders with stripey legs, sometimes with pink and daffodil coloring.
If you enjoyed this eight-legged segment of Nightmarish Nature on Giants Among Spiders and their larger than life kin, please check out past segments:
