A Bug in Your Ear

Danny rolled his eyes as Peter and Bjorn rolled out the latest gossip about the new kid, Ramone. Daily, his schoolmates came up with more dirt that they slung around the yard like runny poop. The three huddled under the maple tree, sneaking glances at Ramone who sat alone on a bench by the monkey bars.

Some stuff was creepy. One day, Peter had covertly hissed to the others, “He hears ghosts in his head, that’s why he always knows all the answers!”

Danny thought to himself, ‘Maybe he’s just really smart.’

Some stuff was gross. Mole had whispered one day in the bathroom, “The freak eats rat sandwiches! I saw a tail hangin out the bread!” A high, reedy voice in the closed stall behind them said, “Ew, gross!” Then a gnarly fart blatted like a tuba, sending the gagging boys spilling from the boy’s room.

Some was ridiculous. Like today, under the maple. Bjorn had whispered, “I heard he killed both his parents with an axe! That’s way he’s an orphan!” The kids playing tetherball had stopped slinging the yellow ball to stare, their eyes round like saucers…until the ball, still in motion ‘whupped’ the taller one upside his curly blond head.

After rolling his eyes, Danny lost his cool. “Oh, come on! The poor kid is an orphan. How’d you feel if everyone made up stupid shit about you?” His face was on fire, and his sweating scalp itched.

Bjorn’s eyes goggled behind the black framed lenses. His ever-present cowlick bobbed like a feather as he swung his head to Peter. Peter crossed his arms over a narrow pigeon chest, the green and orange stripes stretched over his twelve-year-old apple sized biceps. He stepped closer and looked down at Danny who’d witnessed the puff-up routine many times and thought, ‘Just wait until middle school, you won’t be the big fish anymore…just another minnow.’

Peter said, “What’s with you? You on the rag or something?”

Obediently, Bjorn guffawed. He crossed his fleshy arms over his fleshy chest. Danny thought, ‘Baby fat my ass.’ Out loud he said, “Ha. Ha. You need some new jabs dude. All I’m sayin is that I don’t get why you’re being so mean. Don’t you ever put yourself in other people’s shoes?”

Peter said, “If I wore yours, I’d get stink-foot!”

Bjorn squawked a falsetto rooster laugh.

Danny said, “That doesn’t even make sense.”

The bell rang then. Danny turned and headed across the yard to the cafeteria doors. Rooster laughter followed.

Danny sat at his desk near the back. He doodled in his notebook while he waited for the class to fill.  Ramone came in and took his seat one row up and next to the window. The teacher, a stocky, pear-shaped woman with dark chestnut hair, pushed the sleeves of her ever-present cardigan up her pale, thick arms and pulled down the world map that was hung over the center blackboard. Time for Geography. ‘Ugh. Boooring.’

Mrs.Caterwaller said in a mannish voice, “All right class. Yesterday we talked about The Mexican Revolution and how it changed both our countries. Who can name just one of the revolutionaries leading this important event?”

Danny looked around the classroom. His brain was a swarm of names that nearly materialized but buzzed out of sight before he could grasp them. Ramone was staring out the window as usual and appeared a million miles away.

“Yes, Dorothy.”

“Uhhhm…Pancho Zapata.”

“Close.” Mrs.Caterwaller’s squinty eyes scanned the silent, cliff-edged room. Her brows furrowed as her gaze landed on Ramone, he was watching the clouds.

Danny sat on the edge of his seat, just like his mother watching the final round of Jeopardy every weeknight.

Ramone tore his attention from the window and said, “Dorothy was halfway right, twice. She meant to say Pancho Villa, who is the best-known revolutionary. Another is Emiliano Zapata.” 

Danny thought, ‘Way to go man.’

A smartass behind Danny choked on a laugh and muttered, “Takes a wetback to know this shit.”

“Or a rat eater,” added another mouth-breather.

The snobby girls scribbled notes.

Danny sighed and resolved then and there to not just sit by idle. Ramone fascinated and impressed him. These other kids were pissing him off and growing ever dumber, as if they had a collective brain dissolving disease.

At three the bell rang and all the kids except Ramone stampeded out the door. Danny stayed behind, shuffling some papers around and pretending to file them in his binder.

He saw Peter and Bjorn race past, amidst the sea of kids, all flowing to the river’s mouth that was the outdoor world.

 Ramone said, “There go your friends.”

“Bon Voyage!” exclaimed Danny.

Both boys laughed and met together at the front of the classroom.

Ramone’s mocha skin was clear with a scattering of freckles.  His eyes were chestnut flecked with green. Danny had an epiphany then, ‘Peter and Bjorn are jealous. This kid was handsome and smart. I’ll bet the chicks’ gossip is a lot different than the guys.’

Sarah Pasmore sashayed down the hallway, the sway of her pink skirt was hypnotic. Both boys peered around the doorframe and watched her open a locker near the end of the hall. She looked up and smiled. A bubble of light surrounded her head like a halo.

“Hey.” Ramone nudged Danny.

The empty hallway zoomed back into focus like it did in a Dr.Who episode. “What?”

“I asked if you ever talk to her?”

“I always feel dumb around her. Like my tongue’s a big fat marshmallow or something. Heh- that sounds pretty dumb, eh?”

“No. It sounds perfectly…normal.  But you’re twelve, right? You can talk to her. Not like she’s one of your retard friends, but respectfully. Listen to what she says like she’s the most interesting person on the planet. And just be yourself.”

Danny looked doubtful.

Ramone added, “What’s the worst thing that’ll happen? Rejection? So what. That shit’s just water off a duck’s back.”

Danny nodded and said, “You’re right. Hey, don’t you ever get tired of that? Being right all the time, I mean.”

Ramone solemnly said, “No.”

After a couple seconds, both boys cracked up.

Faint footsteps echoed after stragglers and the sharp clacking of a teacher’s heels rang out from an adjacent hall. The boys went to their lockers one at a time, chatting along the way.

Going down the front steps outside, Danny said, “You wanna come over for dinner? My mom’s making lasagna…”

Ramone said, “Sure!”

“You can sleep over too, if you wanna…”

They reached the bike racks. Ramone’s rusty blue bike was the old-fashioned kind that you pedaled backward to brake. It had ape-hangers and a cracked seat. Danny actually thought it was cooler than his common red Schwinn. 

Camped out in the basement rec-room in Danny’s house, the boys watched ‘Invasion of the Body Snatchers’ on a small tv that had been donated to the playroom when Danny’s dad upgraded the living-room to a fifty-six inch with an LCD screen.

“Whatchoo doin’ for Spring break?” asked Danny. He stuffed some more popcorn in his mouth.

“Me an’ some of the kids at the orphanage go camping. The camp is really fun. There’s a lake. We go fishing and swimming. We make cool stuff. Last year I made a sling shot.”

“Really? Cool.”

“The older kids tell ghost stories. We have smores and hot dogs…you should come.”

“Really? It sounds fun. I’ll ask my parents tomorrow.”

On the bus were ten kids from the orphanage, two nineteen-year-old counsellors-slash-chaperones-slash-bus-drivers, and two guests.

Danny’s discomfort didn’t last long. The night and day difference between being a newbie at school and one in this group was that everyone was being nice to him. 

There were eight cabins with two bunk beds each. Danny and Ramone shared one with a red-headed kid named Hershel and his friend, Rashid, the other newcomer. Hershel was somewhat shy, while his swarthy-complexioned friend was outspoken and quite funny.

There was no event scheduled the first day, the boys were free to get settled in and explore the campsite as far as the lake. Danny and his cabin-mates hiked the trail around the lake, it felt good to be out in the fresh, spring mountain air. 

Later around the fire, the counsellors encouraged the boys to talk about their hobbies, classes, girls…

Danny’s chin dipped to his chest. From far away, the voices around the fire drifted into nothingness. 

His head snapped up. No one spoke, no sounds- too quiet. They were all staring at him. As he watched, their eyes grew round like marbles, then started glowing like cat’s eyes. To his left, Ramone and two other boys behind him were staring, eyes aglow. The counsellors smiled vacantly at him, the one named Steve winked, and all the glows blinked out. 

Sound exploded back in a gust; it was as if Danny had just surfaced from a deep within the lake.

“…and the lost are cursed forever.” It was counsellor Aaron, finishing his ghost story. 

He looked from boy to boy in the circle and witnessed…normalcy. Some were giggling and nudging each other. Some looked at Aaron in wonder, and some were s’mores-ing. Only one boy looked out of place. Rashid’s swarthy complexion looked grey, a sheen of sweat glistened sickly on his forehead. His mouth hung open, his jaw worked up and down as if chewing on a scream.

Rashid’s mouth snapped shut.

Danny cracked a jaw shattering yawn, then whispered to Ramone, “Hey man. I can’t keep my eyes open. Goin to bed.”

Rashid leaned over and said, “Yeah, me too.”

The four cabin-mates followed the path through the trees to the cabins. 

The mattresses were lumpy and smelled faintly of mildew. Danny heard quiet voices and the rustling of nylon covered sleeping bags. Then nothing. He slept.

“…man. Hey…” nudge, nudge, nudge.

“Wha---?’ Danny’s eyes flickered.

“Shhh!”

Rashid was leaning into Danny’s bottom bunk with a finger to his lips. He stood, looked around at the two top bunks, then motioned for Danny to follow him.

Outside, the crisp night air whisked away the fog of sleep.

Danny said, “What is it?”

“I saw your face tonight. You saw it too.”

“Saw…what?”

Rashid hissed, “The eyes man. Their eyes.”

“But I fell asleep…musta dreamt about Steve’s ghost st---”

“No! It was real. I saw it too. And everything went quiet. Like my ears were stuffed with cotton.”

“I felt like I was under water.”

“See?! There’s something going on here.” Rashid looked into Danny’s eyes, daring contradiction. 

Danny recalled the terror on Rashid’s face in the firelight. He nodded and said, “Let’s take turns sleeping. Two hours each. We watch each other’s back.”

Rashid grabbed Danny’s shoulders, nodding, relieved to have an ally.

As Danny approached his bunk, he studied the sleeping form on the top. There was a dark spot on the moonlit pillow by Ramone’s head. It moved.

The spot was the size of a fifty-cent coin. As he watched, it slid to Ramone’s head…and into it.

Danny reached over to the nightstand and retrieved his flashlight. He looked back to Ramone’s pillow. Ramone’s open eyes glistened white, so did his teeth when he smiled.

Danny sucked in a scream.

“Go to sleep D. Big day tomorrow.”

“Y-y-yeah. Right.” He crawled into the bottom bunk.

Rashid had the first shift and gave Danny the ‘I see you’ signal, pointing two fingers at his own eyes, then again at Danny’s. Danny nodded and gave him a thumbs up.

He didn’t think he’d be able to sleep.

The inside of Danny’s eyelids flamed bright red as sunlight pelted them. His eyes popped open when he realized Rashid must have fallen asleep. Rashid’s bunk was empty. Ramone and Hershel bounced into the cabin, flinging the door wide.

Ramone said, “C’mon dude! Smell that bacon!”

“Uh, okay. I’m coming. Is Rashid already in the mess?”

“I dunno. Haven’t seen him.”

Hershel set a cup with his toothbrush and paste in it on the nightstand next to Danny’s flashlight. He turned to Ramone and said, “Race you!”

The happy boys took off.

Danny dressed and followed. The mess hall was full of chatter and laughter and clinking silverware. Rashid was not there. There were platters set down the long plank table with dinged metal covers to keep the food warm. When everyone (but Rashid) was seated, Steve and Aaron lifted the dull silver lids. There were rodents on the platters. A squirrel, a rabbit, six crispy looking mice, and the head of a raccoon. They were gummy with blood and matted fur. Flies lapped oozing fluids obscenely. The eyes were filmed over bluey grey like spoiled milk.

Danny screamed like a chick in a horror movie and stood up, banging his knees under the table painfully. He fell over the long bench behind him and whacked his shoulders on the industrial linoleum floor. The room erupted in laughter. Steve and Aaron put down the lids they were holding and helped Danny back up to his seat. The platters were piled high with scrambled eggs, buttered wheat toast, sausage links and rashers of bacon. All the boys tucked in as if nothing had happened.

The toast was sawdust in his mouth, the eggs like pebbly warts. He couldn’t look at the meat. He swallowed the crud in his throat with the aid of orange juice. When he got up to leave, he was extra careful not to do anything weird.

He didn’t see Rashid the whole day.

But that night, as the boys gathered around the fire pit in the red to purple sunset, Rashid came and sat next to him on the log. He said, “Hey.”

Danny said, “Hey. Where you bin?”

“Went fishin early with Dale and Martin.” He pointed to a couple of kids sitting on the log across from them. They raised a couple hands and smiled.

“All day? I was worried.”

“What? Why?”

Danny studied Rashid’s face. The boy’s eyes were dull. His smile was an effort. “Nevermind,” he said, and pretended his attention to the ghost story.

“Gotta pee,” said Rashid. He got up and headed off towards the cedars that the boys used after dark. His dark blue hoodie was swallowed by the night.

An hour later, half of the boys headed to bed. Rashid had not returned. 

Danny faked a yawn and said to Ramone, “Goin to bed.”

“I’ll be in in a little bit.”

He headed down the path through the trees by the small circle of his flashlight. Laughter flitted through the trees…then the squeals of a small rodent, like screams of terror. He veered and headed to the lake. Suddenly silence descended as if he’d been sucked deep under water. Faint, glowing orbs bobbed through the trees, heading his way. He shut off his light and slipped behind a thick trunk. Four boys passed him.  He followed in utter silence, feeling his way along. Two of the boys wore white tee-shirts that shone like bleached bone in the moonlight.

Suddenly a cacophony of forest night sounds crashed down around him. Crickets, treefrogs, rustling branches, a couple of owls communicating. The white shirts were gone.

‘There! Voices.’ He followed them.

He crept to a small grassy clearing just before the lakeshore. Another high-pitched scream, cut short. It was closer than he expected. He ducked low and crept through the tall grass and froze. Something dripped onto the dry leaves only two feet from his face. He could see nothing. He heard gurgling, faint at first, then more slurping and guttural grunts joined the hair-raising soundtrack. It was like listening to ‘The Blob’ blindfolded.

He dared raise his head. Martin’s head swiveled towards him. His eyes glowed alien-green-white, his grin was ghastly. The lower half of his face was black and glistening… and dripping. The three others turned and looked at Danny. Their eyes glowed. The four of them looked like demonic clowns in ghoulish make-up.

Danny prepared to flee. He flicked on his flashlight. The boys’ faces were bloody. In their hands they each held a headless squirrel.

Before Danny could scream, a fat hardness whumped the back of his head. He dropped like a sack of wet laundry.

Danny awoke in the cabin. He turned his head and grimaced as the pounding swelled nauseatingly. 

Rashid said from behind him, “It’s aliiiiive!”

Martin, Aaron, Hershel, and Ramone snickered and gathered around the cot he was strapped to.

Ramone said, “I’ll make this quick. You’ll be one of us. You’ll know all the answers. Eventually, you’ll live with us.”

Danny could only stare in confusion; the intense throb had settled to just behind his left eye.

Ramone held his hands over Danny’s chest. He opened them and the others ‘aaahhhhed’ as one. Then they ‘ooohed’. It sounded like a monkish chant. ‘What did they call that? We learned that…’

In Ramone’s hands was a black beetle, the size of a fifty-cent piece. As it skittered to the edge of Ramone’s fingers, its leg bristles rustled like dry leaves. The weak cabin lighting gleamed against the beetle’s carapace, it shone like an oil slick. Danny was mesmerized, the bug was as scary as it was beautiful. In another context, he would have loved to keep it in a shoebox.

“This one is yours. But he’s not going to live in a shoebox,” said Ramone.

He lowered his hand and the beetle curled into a tube shape. It leapt and disappeared from Danny’s view. A second later, he heard it chittering softly…right…next…to…his…ear. 

Danny shrieked, “No!”

His ear itched fiercely. Then half his face went numb. He felt the beetle burrowing. It didn’t hurt. His headache fled. He recalled the time he had his tonsils removed. The nurse had told him to count backwards from 100 and he had floated away, warm and comfortable. He felt like that now. Before he slept, he murmured, “Gregorian chant.”