05 – Davie

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The Caretaker tied a trash sack shut and tossed it onto a growing pile of sealed rubbish.

“Did you ever find out what it meant?” he said.

Daniella shook her head. Behind her, Chuck chuckled at something McQueen whispered, and the Caretaker sighed.

“Care to tell us what’s so funny, McQueen?”

“Nothing, sir. I just said seeing a skull could be a warning she’s going to die.”

“And why’s that funny?”

“I wasn’t the one laughing.”

The Caretaker eyed Chuck. “That’s true. You weren’t.”

Before he could interrogate him further, a shriek from Daniella and Helen drew his attention. A swarm of flies erupted around them. Their bag had split.

“Chill,” the Caretaker said. “They aren’t going to hurt you.”

He waved a hand, and the swarm parted, buzzing out an open window. He stuffed the torn bag into another and swept the spilled rubbish into a large mound. Then he handed out snow shovels.

“I find these come in handy after you guys are done with lunch.”

He gave one to each child, but one refused to take it.

“What’s your name?” the Caretaker asked.

The child shuffled his feet. “Davie.”

“Are you refusing to clean your mess, Davie?”

Davie shook his head. “I can’t. There’s insects in the trash.”

“So?”

This time, Chuck did laugh. “Davie here’s scared of bugs, ain’t he?”

Davie stared at his shoes. The Caretaker squatted in front of him.

“You have an insect phobia, Davie?”

Davie nodded.

“Well then, why don’t you grab a fresh bin bag and start throwing out all the food that can’t be eaten from the buffet table?”

Davie nodded again and lifted a bag from the cleaning cart. Daniella watched him carry each plastic tray over and empty its contents.

“Why are you afraid of insects?” she asked.

“I just am.”

“I don’t think you were ever this scared before.”

“Yeah, well, you never went through what I did.”

The others stopped working. The Caretaker frowned.

“Davie,” he said, “did something happen recently? Maybe with your friends?”

“You won’t believe me. You’ll think I’m making it up.”

“I don’t think anything your friends have said tonight sounds even remotely plausible,” the Caretaker said, “but they were still willing to share. Why not get it off your chest?”

Davie tipped another tray into the bag and closed his eyes.

Davie’s Story

Three days ago, I learned the hard way about inviting strangers into your home. It’s just me and Mum most of the time. My dad’s always away in the Navy, and Mum says she can’t work past five or I won’t have dinner, though I don’t see why not. I know how to cook ramen.

Last week, she posted an ad online for a lodger. The next day, some guy answered it. He worked on one of the farms and needed a place to stay. Mum gave him the spare room in the attic.

The day after he moved in, she asked me to take some old clothes to the charity shop. The man said he’d drop them off since he passed it on the way to work, but as soon as I handed them over, he turned nasty.

“What are you trying to do, poison me?” he said. “These clothes have been kept with mothballs!”

He dumped them at my feet and stormed out. When he came back that night, he didn’t say a word to me. No apology. Nothing. He just went to his room.

Later, I heard strange sounds coming from it. When I peeked through the keyhole, I nearly gave myself away gasping. He was crawling across the floor on his belly, tearing chunks of old clothes apart with his teeth. He rolled whole shirts into balls and stuffed them into his mouth. When he swallowed, I could see the bulge sliding down his throat.

Then a swarm of moths flew in and settled on his shoulders. As soon as they landed, he snapped his eyes toward the door and crawled closer. I didn’t wait to see what he’d do next. I ran to the bathroom and locked myself in.

That night in bed, I kept seeing moths fluttering around my room. When they landed on the walls, the patterns on their wings looked like eyes. I felt watched the whole time, so the next day I bought a can of bug spray.

That evening, our lodger didn’t come down for dinner. Mum said he was probably exhausted from farm work and interrupted my Googling to take his food upstairs. I had been reading about people with pica, a disorder that makes them eat things that aren’t food, so when I set the tray outside his door and heard retching inside, I felt a flicker of sympathy.

“Poor guy,” I thought, “but that’s what you get for eating rags instead of real food.”

I peeked through the keyhole again just in time to see him throw up all over himself. Instead of cleaning it or going to the bathroom, he scooped it up and did something I will never forget. He smeared the brown sludge across his skin in long, slick streaks. I nearly threw up myself and ran back to my room, hiding under the covers.

I must have fallen asleep, because a loud flutter woke me. I pulled the sheet down, expecting more moths, but this time there was only one.

There only had to be one.

The moth was the size of a man.

Its wings were spread flat against the wall, the same eye patterns staring back at me, only enormous. I recognized them. I had seen those eyes up close when our lodger glared at me over the clothes.

I screamed and ran for the door, but the moth was faster, blocking it with a flick of its wings. I backed toward my bed and knocked my bedside cabinet. A cold can rolled onto my foot.

The bug spray.

The moth dropped from the door and lunged, screeching. Oh God, it had the lodger’s face. I grabbed the spray and emptied the can straight into its dripping mouth, screaming as loudly as it did. Where the gas hit, the flesh dissolved, but it kept wailing as long as it could.

Mum burst in, demanding to know what was happening. She screamed too when the moth reared up, its wings smashing into the walls and bed, its hollowed body melting to the floor. I ran to her and clung tight as she dragged me out.

The moth’s legs thrashed as its wings curled inward.

Mum slammed the door, and we fled to my aunt’s house. We did not return until the town exterminator agreed to come with us. By then, all that remained was a gloopy puddle seeping into my carpet. Mum used the lodger’s rent money to renovate my room. There was no way I was sleeping in there otherwise.

I tried to tell her the lodger had been the moth, but of course she didn’t believe me. He was gone, along with his clothes. Clearly, she said, he’d been scared away by the insects.

While the carpet was being replaced, I checked his room. If he had left, he had taken the sheets with him. There was no sign he had ever lived there. No belongings. No clothes.

Except for one thing.

Tucked into the darkest corner beneath his bed was a suitcase.

I took it to Mum to prove he couldn’t have left without packing, but when we opened it, there were no personal items inside. Just several bundles of cash and no forwarding address. We kept it as his rent and tried to move on.

While the paint in my room dried, I slept one night in the attic. When the sun came up the next morning, I screamed.

Above the bed, in the rafters, woven from shredded cloth and hardened brown slime, hung the biggest cocoon I had ever seen.