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(Page 2 of 2) A Rotten Piece of Luck by R. Schlaack
She shouldn't have looked. But Mary did anyway – turned and looked at what no human eyes should ever have to witness.
The deli meats – the hams and the turkeys – were shrunken and black. Milky green fluid oozed down the sides of the counter. The air was so thick with flies that almost nothing in the store was visible, but she could see vague human figures moving back and forth, bent over the display case, sucking up the gangrenous juice with their slavering proboscises, shlurp shlurp shlurp...
She didn't run. She held her head up, and walked directly for the exit.
Walked past the three fly-headed youths drinking a cookie.
Walked past the old janitor polishing the floor with his mouth.
Walked past the insect pushing the baby stroller, a baby stroller with a bloated raccoon in it, a roadkill raccoon who nonetheless was squirming and shivering with the creatures inside it...
Mary walked past all of this without even turning her head. All around her, echoing through the mall, was the sound of a billion billion flies. Feeding.
She made it out to the parking lot. Then, calmly and politely as she could possibly manage, she dropped dead.
The ambulance arrived. The paramedics took her vital signs. She was gone.
"Dropped dead in the parking lot," the short one mused. "Didn't even make it to her car."
"Probably the shock that did it, poor thing," the tall one agreed. He shook his head. "Rotten piece of luck."
The paramedics looked at each other. They grinned. Their eyes were enormous and glassy.
And then, from everywhere at once, flies descended on the body...
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