NASTY LITTLE F!#*ERS Read online

  NASTY LITTLE F!#*ERS

  (Previously released as GRUBS)

  By

  David McAfee

  Kindle Edition

  Cover Design by David McAfee

  Cover image from stock.xchng

  This is a work of fiction. The events depicted in this story are entirely products of the author’s imagination and should not be construed as fact.

  Kindle Edition, License Notes

  This ebook is licensed for your personal enjoyment only. This ebook may not be re-sold or given away to other people. If you would like to share this book with another person, please purchase an additional copy for each person you share it with. If you are reading this book and did not purchase it, or it was not purchased for your direct use only, please return to Amazon.com and purchase your own copy. Thank you for respecting the hard work of this author.

  Visit David McAfee on the web at mcafeeland.wordpress.com

  Facebook: David McAfee

  Twitter: @DavidLMcAfee

  Or email: [email protected]

  For Hennah

  TABLE OF CONTENTS

  Prologue

  Chapter One

  Chapter Two

  Chapter Three

  Chapter Four

  Chapter Five

  Chapter Six

  Chapter Seven

  Chapter Eight

  Chapter Nine

  Chapter Ten

  Chapter Eleven

  Chapter Twelve

  Chapter Thirteen

  Chapter Fourteen

  Chapter Fifteen

  Chapter Sixteen

  Chapter Seventeen

  Chapter Eighteen

  Chapter Nineteen

  Chapter Twenty

  Chapter Twenty One

  Chapter Twenty Two

  Chapter Twenty Three

  Chapter Twenty Four

  Chapter Twenty Five

  Chapter Twenty Six

  Chapter Twenty Seven

  Chapter Twenty Eight

  Chapter Twenty Nine

  Chapter Thirty

  Chapter Thirty One

  Epilogue

  A Note from the Author

  BONUS MATERIAL

  Excerpt from TORMENT, by Jeremy Bishop

  Excerpt from 33 A.D., by David McAfee

  NASTY LITTLE F!#*ERS

  Prologue

  The cold woke Eddie Bayer up from a deep sleep. He shivered and reached behind him to zip up the sleeping bag, then realized he was alone. No wonder he was cold. Becky usually snuggled up to him on these camping trips, and together the two of them could stay nice and toasty. But not tonight. Tonight Becky was out for some reason. Probably just went to the bathroom again. That woman lived on the pot most days.

  “Becky,” he called, his voice muffled a bit by the sleeping bag over his head. After a minute or so with no reply, he sat up. The bag fell from his shoulders and gathered in a thick bunch at his waist. The first thing he noticed was the chill. Even in late Spring, the woods of northern Maine could get pretty damn cold. The days were fine, but the nights could freeze your nuts off. He took his flannel jacket out of his pack and shoved his arms through the sleeves, then he grabbed his wool-lined boots and put them on. He’d been sleeping in his flannel pajama pants and a T-shirt, so he should be all right to step outside the tent for a few minutes to find Becky. He grabbed his battery-powered Coleman lantern, pulled his toboggan on his head, and moved toward the front of the three-chambered tent.

  When he got to the tent flap he found it unzipped. That wasn’t like Becky, she knew better than to leave the tent open to small animals and other insects. It just wasn’t a smart thing to do when camping out in the woods. Their body heat could attract any number of snakes or lizards looking for warmth; even small mammals like mice or chipmunks would be drawn to it. To say nothing of bigger mammals that might be attracted to the smell of their food. What the hell was she thinking?

  “Becky?” he called again. He stepped out of the tent and his boot squelched into the hard packed dirt of the clearing. That wasn’t normal, either. He examined the bottom of his shoe and found a group of flattened grubs stuck to it. Fat little bastards, about two inches long and off-white in color except for the ends, which were scarlet. They looked a bit like mealworms, but bigger. He picked up a twig from the ground and scraped the tiny corpses off his boot. In doing so he noted several more of the little critters squirming around the tent. Where’d they come from? Weird. No big deal, they couldn’t get to his food. Besides, he had bigger things to worry about, like his missing wife.

  “Becky? Come on, now, where are you?” Still no answer. He stepped into the clearing, away from the tent, and flashed the lantern around the campsite. No sign of Becky, but the area around the tent was crawling with more grubs. Thousands of the little buggers! Squirming, writhing and loping along the earthen floor of the clearing like a disgusting larval sea.

  “Gross,” Eddie said, stepping around a large concentration of the things. They were devouring a small animal, perhaps a squirrel. There’d be a neat little skeleton there in the morning, by the looks of it. He’d have to remember to grab it and take it home to his son, Ricky. The boy could use it for Science class or something. Then something shiny amidst the pile of grubs caught the lamplight and threw it back at him. He bent down for a closer look.

  It wasn’t a squirrel.

  Becky’s diamond engagement ring winked at him in the light of the Coleman. It took a moment for that to sink in, and when it did the realization pulled Eddie from his feet and left him kneeling in the dirt next to the writhing mound of grubs. The bastards weren’t eating a small mammal; they were eating his wife’s left hand!

  “What the…?” He reached down and picked up the hand, then brought it up to get a closer look at it. Too many grubs squirmed along its surface for him to see, so he gave the hand a little shake. Several grubs fell off, but he also managed to splatter himself with some of his wife’s blood that was still left in the hand. He reached up and wiped the blood off his face, leaving a pale red smear on his cheek. Still warm.

  Then he felt a sharp pain in his ankle. He looked down to see one of the grubs burrowing its jaws into his flesh. Eddie winced and grasped it between his thumb and forefinger, then yanked it out. He choked back a yelp as the little fucker took a BB-sized piece of his flesh with it when it came free.

  He held the grub up to the light, watching it squirm between his fingers as it swallowed its prize. Mother fucker! Eddie squeezed until the grub popped, and a greenish ooze ran down his fingers. That’d teach the thing. He looked down at the wound on his leg. A small hole, with a line of blood pouring from it. Not too big, though. The adhesive bandages in the first aid kit should suffice to cover it up. Damn thing stung like hell, though. As he stood to fetch the kit, an odd warmth began to spread through the area around the bite. His first thought was poison, but then the pain faded a bit. A natural anesthetic, then, like the kind leeches and ticks used so they could eat in peace.

  Fuck that! He shot to his feet and stomped on the nearest pile of grubs, smiling as he heard their tiny bodies squish under his boot. “Where the hell is Becky?” He shouted. “Where is she?” But of course the grubs didn’t answer.

  He felt another sting. And another, as a third, fourth, and fifth grub latched into the skin of his arm. He swatted them off and then flicked away the two or three that were starting to burrow into his leg. Each bite was like a small prick of fire burning into his skin, followed by that strange warmth. Then one lit upon his face and promptly started to chew its way into his cheek.

  He screamed and staggered backward, squashing more grubs under his boot. He looked down at the ground and almost wet himself. There were millions of the l
ittle grubs. Millions! All around him. And the smell! Like rotting fruit mixed with the scent of blood. His blood. Becky’s blood.

  “Get off me, you little fucker!” He reached up to his cheek and pulled the grub from his face, tearing a piece of his cheek out along with the grub.

  He turned, doing his best to ignore the bites on his arms and legs, which had become too numerous to count and instead merged into one long, painful sensation. He ran through the squirming sea of larvae, headed for the creek nearby. Hopefully he could drown the bastards.

  That’s when he saw Becky. She stood on the path that led to the creek, her pale, waxen skin writhing and pulsing as hundreds of the little grubs feasted on her flesh. Blood covered her whole body. It poured from the many tiny bites as well as a few large sections of her throat where the flesh hung in ragged chunks. Her eyes, glazed and unfocused, seemed to stare at nothing, and he winced as a grub on her right cheek squirmed over to her eye and buried its jaws into her iris. Becky didn’t seem to notice. She held the stump of her left arm out to him, and half a dozen grubs fell from her forearm to land in the leaves with a sticky smack.

  “Ish all ‘ight, Eddie,” she said, her voice sounding like mush because of the grubs chewing on her tongue. “Zhey won’ ‘urt you.” She reached for him with her other hand, and he watched, momentarily paralyzed as his wife’s grub-covered fingers wrapped around his own. Several of the grubs left Becky’s hand and moved to his, immediately burrowing their faces into the flesh of his fingers.

  Now Eddie did scream. He shook his hand to get rid of the feasting larvae, then shoved his wife to the ground and sprinted down the path, still headed for the creek.

  Halfway there, he stumbled and hit his knees. The tiny bites continued, but they didn’t hurt as much. He looked around and saw hoards of the grubs crawling toward him, around him, even on him. They squirmed between his fingers and writhed in his boots. They’d somehow gotten under his socks and started chewing on the webbed flesh between his toes. Lord help him, there were even some in his boxers, eating away at his privates like some sick, adolescent nightmare. Tears streamed from his eyes as he crawled toward the creek, still hoping to drown the fuckers.

  The grubs continued to bite and chew at him, but the pain was somehow muted and distant, like it was happening to someone else. He realized he was crawling, and wondered why. Then he remembered the creek. Thirsty. That’s it. He needed something to drink. He looked at a grub that had burrowed its toothy little head into the back of his hand and halfheartedly swatted it away.

  “Later,” he said. “Water first. Thirsty.”

  He scooted forward a few more feet and made it to the edge of the creek bed before his strength gave out and he lay down in the mud. He was so tired. Just a little nap. Then he’d get his drink. He closed his eyes, and when he felt tiny bites on his eyelids and inside his mouth, he didn’t bother shooing them away.

  Chapter One

  Northern Maine,

  Somewhere in the woods of Aroostook County

  “Damn,” Colby muttered under his breath. “They just keep buzzing around the computers, like bees.” He squatted by the empty tent, his thick, muscled arms folded against his chest, and watched the scientists scurry around the site like ants with nothing better to do. He reached up and rubbed the stubble on top of his head. Getting long, he thought. He’d need to shave his scalp again soon. They’d been out here for two weeks already, and still had another week to go before the Department of Wildlife would send out the Huey to pick them up. The group was tracking the supposed deforestation and dwindling wildlife of the area. Pete Anzer, the director of the department, wanted to know if the forests were truly shrinking or if it was all just a bunch of hooplah the EPA wanted to pass off as fact.

  Colby was about as un-environmentally sympathetic as a guy could get, and while Anzer wouldn’t normally rely on someone like him to lead a team whose purpose was so green-friendly, Colby knew the director wanted a military man in charge, just in case things got hairy. Anzer interviewed several possible candidates to guard the team of geeks on their trip. Since Colby was an ex-marine, strong, smart, good with a rifle and most importantly, willing to work cheap, he got the job.

  The other people on the team were all environmental experts in one field or another – Colby never could keep all that science shit straight – and not one of them had ever fired anything more dangerous than a water pistol. But the woods of Northern Maine could be very unforgiving, especially if a hungry cougar or bear came to pay this mobile buffet a visit. If anything came at them from out of the trees, they would likely all end up dead, and Anzer knew it. He wanted to make sure they got home alive. That was Colby’s job; get them home safe, and he’d do his damndest to see to it.

  Until today they hadn’t run into anything more dangerous than a hungry chipmunk. Jared had shooed it away and the rest of the expedition went on to work as normal. Taking measurements, removing samples, looking at their laptops, which stayed plugged into the gas-powered generator. That’s all the scientists did, it seemed to Colby. Scurry, measure, scurry, measure, then scurry some more. All the while churning gasoline exhaust into the very forest they were supposed to be protecting. Go figure.

  But this particular morning was different. Jared - who did something with computers, but Colby never knew what - turned up missing. Just like that. He was there the night before when the team hit their tents, but the next morning his sleeping bag was empty as a wino’s pocket. Allen, Jared’s tent mate, hadn’t seen or heard anything at all, and they all figured Jared must have woken up in the middle of the night to take a leak and gotten himself lost.

  But there weren’t any tracks. Not one. He looked all around the tent and didn’t see a single crushed leaf or bent twig. Nothing. It was as if the man just up and disappeared from inside the tent. That wasn’t necessarily reliable, of course, as the ground around the clearing was full of dried pine needles and dead leaves, all of which blew with the breeze and could easily shift during the night to cover any evidence of a person’s passing. Colby sighed in frustration as he ducked into the tent and checked out Jared’s sleeping bag. He unzipped it to look inside and that’s when he saw it. Blood. Not a lot of it. Not much more than a few drops, in fact. But it was there, all right, and it gave him the willies. He poked his head out through the tent flap.

  “Allen, come here,” Colby called.

  “What is it?” Allen asked, shuffling over. He was short, pale, and thick. Thirtyish, with thinning brown hair and blue, twitchy eyes that never seemed to stay in one place for more than a few seconds. Humpty Dumpty with a nervous disorder. He ambled up to Colby with a blank expression on his chubby, stubble-lined face.

  “Look at that,” Colby replied, pointing out the blood.

  “Is that what I think it is?”

  “It’s blood, Allen. You sure you didn’t hear or see anything last night?”

  “No, not a thing.” Allen seemed a little edgy. Maybe he just couldn’t take the sight of blood. Or maybe it was knowing he’d been sleeping right next to it that creeped him out. Colby never got a chance to ask, because after a moment Allen continued. “Jared did get a nosebleed last night, but it was just a small one.”

  “Nosebleed, huh?”

  “Yeah, he gets them all the time. It’s a weak lining in his nasal—”

  “That’s enough,” Colby said. “I don’t need the medical details.”

  “Oh, but it’s fascinating,” Allen began, his eyes glinting with excitement. “Jared’s nasal cavity is truly unique. The mucous lining is—”

  “Very interesting,” Colby said, and left the tent, leaving Allen sputtering and staring at the two tiny spots of Jared’s blood.

  It didn’t take long for the rest of the group to learn blood had been found in Jared’s sleeping bag, and a wide array of speculation cropped up. The theories ranged from Jared had gotten another nosebleed and wandered out in search of a towel to he’d been abducted by a hungry bear. Colby pointed out that
there were no signs of a bear anywhere else in the camp, and that bears don’t usually take people from their tents in the middle of the night. A hungry bear would go for the food supply and leave the campers alone unless they startled it.

  “You sure?” Allen asked. “A bear could be attracted by the smell of blood.”

  Colby shook his head. These guys were all supposed to be naturalists? You’d think at least one of them would have some sense. “A bear isn’t a shark. It would go for the easiest food first.”

  The group discussed their options for a few minutes, and then Harper suggested they form a search party. Colby agreed, but the rest of the group was split. Some of them wanted to look for Jared, some wanted to keep working, and Allen wanted to look for bear shit.

  “If a bear ate him, there would be evidence in its feces,” Allen pointed out.

  Colby managed not to punch the fat scientist, but just barely.

  In the end they compromised; the guys who wanted to keep working did so, and the rest went out into the woods to find Jared. Allen elected to stay behind, as well, since he didn’t have the faintest idea what bear shit looked like. Colby said a quick thank you to the sky and grabbed his gear.

  They started by circling the camp, looking for tracks. After a complete circuit with no sign, they widened their area. In this way they spiraled out from the camp for several hours with nothing to show for it. Then, about 100 yards into the woods, Harper found a patch of bloody ground with a piece of fabric in it.

  Colby picked up the fabric and examined it. It looked like a piece of a sock. Did Jared sleep in his socks? Allen might know, but Colby wasn’t about to go back and ask him. They started the spiral search over, this time using the bloody patch of dirt as the center. After just a few circuits Colby found the rest of the sock, as well as a shoe. The shoe was a Timberland boot, and it looked an awful lot like Jared’s, right down to a stain near the toe where he’d spilled coffee on it a few days before. Jared had had a fit, whining about how expensive his new boots were. Colby had smiled and tuned him out, but he’d seen the stain, and now he saw it again. He reached down and picked up the shoe. It felt very heavy, and when he turned it over, he saw why.