Bugs

My name's Billy Smith. I never wrote a diary before, or much of anything, really, but I think I kinda have to, with what's been goin on over the last coupla days. I doubt whoever's readin this is gonna believe me, but it's all true, cross my heart and hope to die.

I hope grandma and grandpa see this before they start lookin around the house, cause I'm not gonna go downstairs and warn em.

I'm gonna be up in my room, waitin for someone to come and get me. That's the other reason I'm writing this. I want someone to call the fire department and have em come and get me. The phones in the house are dead, and I'm not gonna go outside to get a neighbor. I guess I hafta go downstairs to put this on the door. I don't wanna, but I guess I can do that early in the morning when they don't move around much. I gotta warn grandma and grandpa somehow.

I guess I'd better tell it like it happened, you know, startin from the beginning. I first noticed what was goin on when I was camping out friday night. I didn't camp out in the woods or nuthin, just out in the backyard. Dad helped me put up the tent around seven, just as the sun was startin to set. I took out my sleeping bag and pillow, along with a flashlight and about five comic books I hid in my pillowcase cause I wasn't supposed to have em, good ones like Spidey and Batman. Mom and Dad don't like comics. They tell me they rot my brains, like cartoons (sorry I didn't tell ya, grandma, but don't feel bad about buyin all of those comics for me. I liked em).

Anyway, once I got all my stuff outside, Dad came back out and told me that I would be outside for the night, cause he was gonna lock the door. I said that was ok, but I didn't tell him that I had left my window unlocked in case Freddy or Jason or somebody stopped by to cut me up. He wouldn't of liked that I watched those movies, and he would've locked my window. So I didn't tell him and he went back inside, and I laid down in the tent. I knew Mom and Dad would be lookin outside to see if I was using the flashlight to read, so I waited until their light went off.

Then I remembered that bugs were drawn to lights, like when I don't put my screen in my window, and they all come in when I turn on the light, cause when I turned the flashlight on, lots of bugs came into the tent. They started to bite me all over the place. They were real gross. I killed a lot of em with a Spidey comic, but then I figured out that more were comin in cause of the light. It was real wierd, like a cross of the Twilight Zone and Indy and the Temple of Doom, you know? There were that many bugs all over the place. So I figured that if I threw the flashlight outside, the bugs would follow it, right? So I tossed my flashlight into the yard, and this huge wave of bugs just came from all over and flew all over it 'till I couldn't see it anymore, it was just a big pile of bugs.

Then I noticed that the streetlights were all out, cause they usually light our yard up some, and it was really dark out. I got out of the tent to look around and it was like there were bezillions of bugs everywhere. They were flyin all over the place and were on some of the windows and were coverin up the streetlights and flyin in big swarms across the sky. Now that I wasn't in the light, only a couple would bite me, and I'd swat em, but it wasn't much worse for me than a kinda muggy night.

Then there was this screech, and this car came barreling down the hill. The windows were half rolled up or so, and the insides of all the windows were covered with bugs. The headlights were all covered up with bugs, and you could barely see any light there at all. Then the car slammed into a telephone pole at the corner, and it was like a huge cloud of bugs came off the pole and the car for a minute. I could see into the car, cause all the bugs were flyin around for a minute, and not only was the streetlight on, but the guy in the car had the light on inside. Both he and the girl next to him were eaten up real bad. It looked like the special effects they had in a Freddy movie, only better. Then the bugs settled down again and it got all dark.

I didn't really know what was goin on yet, but I knew it was real bad, so I went over to the rose trellis to climb up to my window. I didn't really want to camp out anymore. So I climbed up, pushed my window open, climbed in, and turned on the light.

I had forgotten about the bugs. Not only did a ton of em come in thru the window, but they also started to crawl under the door. I quickly shut off the light, but some of em had already gotten over to me and were bitin all over my leg. I swatted them off and shut the window before I remembered that Mom and Dad usually left the hall light on before they went to bed. I left the light off and yelled and yelled for them, but they didn't answer. Mrs. Andretti's light came on next door for a second, but then it went off again. I hoped they were watchin a horror movie, cause I kept hearin screams over there.

It wasn't too much later than that when I started to figure out what was goin on. I remembered the bugs bitin me when the lights were on, and I remembered what the guy in the car looked like. I didn't wanna end up like them, or Mom and Dad must've, or the neighbors, so I shut up my room. I closed my door really tight, and stuffed my blankets into the cracks and hung my big Star Wars blankets over the windows before turnin on the light to write this. Even so, I can hear the bugs bangin against the window.

During the day today, all the bugs just sorta hung out. They didn't really move unless they were in shadow, and then they moved over to where they were in the light. I don't really know for sure what's goin on, or whether or not Mom and Dad are...dead, cause they did leave the hall light on, and the light in their room, but you can't see much cause it's all covered in bugs. I haven't heard them, though. I hope they're okay, even though I know they're probably...dead.

I looked out the windows, and everythin looked normal until you looked real hard. Then you'd notice that the trunks of trees were bugs instead of wood, and the bumpers of cars were black beetles, and stuff like that. That's why I'm worried about grandma and grandpa. They're supposed to come tomorrow for church, and they won't know what's goin on.

When I looked out my window earlier with the inside lights off, all the trees were covered with fireflies, blinking on and off. It looked really pretty for a while, until I noticed that the other bugs were tryin to get the fireflies light too. Then I put the blanket back and finished this. I hope I can make my way to the front door tomorrow to put this on it.

Hey, there's sawdust by my door.

I remember Dad sayin something about ants leaving sawdust when they make holes through wood, just like people do, except they bite their way through instead of usin a drill