Hi! My name is Melissa. I am a Lt(N) in the Canadian Forces, currently stationed at 1 Canadian Field Hospital. I haven’t been published and I don’t have a site or blog, but I do love to write. Hope you enjoy my story!
MING’S DOMESTICA
by
Melissa Mertens
Dr. Ming was enthralled in his research on Musca domestica. The housefly. Nothing special to anyone else but to Robert, they were the centre of his work and world. As an entomologist, he was studying how they carried disease and how they could potentially be used in propagating an outbreak. Ming was raving mad. His dark brown ragged hair draped his ears and his black rimmed glasses slid down his nose as he peered into his microscope one last time for the night. It was past 10 o’clock. The glare from the city’s lights shown through the falling snow in through the sprawling floor to ceiling lab windows telling him it was time to go.
Up until today, success had only come in tiny increments. He could get the vector to carry the deadly virus for a few seconds or maybe a minute in a tightly controlled environment, but nothing that would be effective on a large scale. Ming wanted to hurt everyone. He wanted the world to hurt the way he hurt. He had lost it all. His family, his career. It was all was taken from him, and he was bitter and vengeful. His rage fuelled inside, and he turned his research towards his dark purpose.
Today, he tasted happiness for the first time in years. His accomplishment shone on his face from ear to ear. He was high on triumph for he finally figured out the key to making the domestica deadly!
The authorities were onto him though. Watching and waiting for any slip, for their chance to pounce. So far, Ming had been meticulous in his actions and left no trace for them to track the actual gravity of the threat back to him. All they knew was what his ex-colleagues secretly confided, that he was working on something disastrous, and we were all at risk and in terrible danger.
Robert Ming slinked through the shadows as he made his way home. He decided that tonight he would take his testing out of the lab, and he knew exactly where to go. Elayna Strom. He both loved and hated her with a passion. She was the reason he lost it all. They had a mad, glorious affair years ago which led to Gregoire Strom’s murderous assault on his life. Gregoire was a gangster with little sympathy. He didn’t want Robert dead, he wanted him to suffer. So, he made Robert watch as he tortured and murdered his entire family one by one. Ming now had to spend the rest of his life with the memories of their screams knowing they were his fault.
Elayna and Gregoire lived in an extravagant penthouse, surrounded by boundless technical and human security. Ming knew getting in would be impossible. This is what brought his attention to using the Musca domestica as his footclan. He would mate the flies and distribute their larvae into the apartment, infesting and infecting the Stroms, their friends, affiliates, and bodyguards all at the same time. Tonight was New Years’ Eve and they held the most exquisite parties every season. Their gatherings were the place to be and be seen, anyone with any relative importance in the city would be there. Ming knew this was the perfect timing. He had them and he had to make it now or never.
He carried the flies’ home with him every night. Just in case. He knew he was being watched and didn’t trust the security at the lab. He didn’t worry about the flies. They hardly ever survived the night. They couldn’t tell his story. But today was different. In a glass jar, in his pocket, was the key to his revenge. These seemingly innocent houseflies would be set free into the celebrations to multiply and carry the fatal hemorrhagic virus to all enjoying the time. Red would drip from their ears and nose. The whites of their eyes would fill with sanguine as they quickly drowned in the blood filling up in their lungs. They would die gasping for air in pain and anguish. Just what he wanted for all of them.
He got to the party just in time for the countdown, but somehow without his knowledge, Detective Knight was closing in behind him. Hunting him.
The virus was bred into the core of the insect. One fly could infect hundreds. As the domestica soared seeking food, the vector would be makes its deposit onto the hors d’oeuvres. Once ingested by the host, death took mere minutes.
Ming made it to the base of the ventilation system of Strom’s building. He couldn’t get inside the party, but he could get the flies in. Ming barely heard a faint sound come from behind him and he turned. There was Knight. His gun pointed in Robert’s face.
“Back away from the vent” Knight yelled.
Not caring about the consequences for himself, he bent and turned back toward the vent, reaching into his pocket on the way down. Knight, thinking he was drawing a weapon, fired. The pistol clapped. Ming fell to the ground dropping the glass jar, it smashing at his feet. Knight ran to the body, searched long and hard and found nothing. Exasperated, he called the shoot in.
It wasn’t until the several mornings later that the bodies were discovered. A bloody mess of bedazzled corpses leading into the ballroom. They were all dead. Every one of them. Dark, dried, blood streaking down their cheeks, out of the corners of their mouths, their bodies lying in pools of defecated red. It was just as Ming had wanted. His flies were gone too, their job complete and their lives over. Instead, all the officers found coming out of every open orifice on the remains were thousands of slithering white maggots.