Nasty Little F___ers-Kindle by David McAfee Page A

thought they made more than enough noise without talking, anyway. Their feet trampled through twigs and leaves, tripped over roots, and generally made enough of a racket to render the idea of surprise a fantasy. But they made good time. Before long they heard a constant buzzing, like a cloud of flies around a kill, and Colby knew they were getting close.
    They rounded a large Maple and stood in front of a massive column of flies. Not ordinary house or fruit flies, either. They looked like Bottle Flies, but they were huge. Each individual fly was over three inches long – about the size of a kid’s toy car – and the noise of their wings grew louder the closer they got, until the buzzing became a deafening roar.
    Colby poked his head out from behind a tree, not daring to go among the madly buzzing insects. He wouldn’t have been worried about regular flies, or grubs, either, for that matter, but after having seen the teeth on those grubs, he wasn’t sure he wanted to test his luck with any other unknown bugs. With his luck, the flies would descend on him like a million little vampires, coming after his blood and sucking his body dry.
    Bock, however, had other ideas. He strode through the bushes and grass and walked up to the buzzing cloud. “My God,” he said. “Would you look at those bastards?”
    Colby stepped from behind the tree, but didn’t approach. The hole in his leg still stung, and he wasn’t about to add to it. “What are they doing?”
    “There’s a dead bear over here. A big one. Looks like they’re eating it and laying eggs. Typical fly stuff. You should come and check it out.”
    “Any grubs there?”
    “Not yet,” Bock said. At least not that I can see.”
    Colby didn’t want to go look at the dead bear; he didn’t want to go anywhere near those flies, but he also didn’t want to let a biologist show more backbone than him, even if it was Bock. He stepped over to the whirling, buzzing column of flies and looked down at its base. He whistled.
    “That is a big one,” he said. “But you were wrong about the grubs. There’s one right there.” He pointed it out, just under the bear’s jowl. “And there, and over there, too. Shit, there’s a bunch of them. We’d better go.”
    Bock stepped in front of Colby and shoved him backward, toward the bear carcass. “I don’t think so,” he said, grunting with the effort. “You aren’t going anywhere.”
    Colby faltered for a moment, and teetered on the edge of the small area, but it was more from surprise than anything else.
    “What the fuck?” Colby asked. “Bock, that shit isn’t funny.”
    “No one is laughing, Sarge.” Bock stood his ground in front of Colby. “You just hang on until the queen gets here.”
    “Queen? What the hell are you talking about, Bock? Did you hit your head on something? What queen?” Colby tried to step around, but Bock grabbed his shoulder and shoved him back toward the bear carcass.
    Bock was big, and for a scientist he was fairly strong, too. But Colby had spent years, even decades, training his body in strength and extensive hand-to-hand combat. Once he regained his composure, Bock never had a chance.
    Colby grabbed Bock’s forearms and whipped his top half sideways, putting his hip under the now overbalanced Bock’s torso. Then he doubled over, using Bock’s own weight to send him crashing into the trunk of a nearby oak. Colby fell on top of him, leading with his forearm, and Bock’s breath blew out of his lungs with an audible whoosh. Colby then folded his right hand forward and smashed Bock in the face with the blunt part of his wrist. The Chicken Wrist, his sensei had called it. Like getting hit with a club. Bock’s eyes lost focus, and Colby jumped back, away from the flies and their buzzing, which seemed to have gotten louder and more insistent.
    “What the fuck is wrong with you?” Colby asked.
    “You shouldn’t have pissed them off,” Bock replied, his eyes getting wider with each