Tuesday, March 23, 2004

It was coming at them from the line of trucks one row away. Its legs moved with a quick jerk up, and then down. The whole of the thing resembled a Praying Mantis, only monstrously larger, and fatter, and oddly fuzzier. Theo felt what had to be a million volts of electricity run through his body, and knew he was afraid. He wanted to run, but it had gotten to close. Ms. Greanwyloe screamed. Door suddenly appeared between the Terrible Insect Monster, and them. The thing stopped, slapped at Door with both of its front legs/arms, and then squealed a hideous sound. Door, though it was very solid had no leverage to brace itself and was easily shoved aside. Theo tightened his grip on the shovel and lowered himself, bending at the knees and at the waist, making himself as small as possible. He wasn’t sure how to fight this thing. He tried to think of something helpful, but found his heart beat pounding in his ears was to great to ignore. Door recovered from being pushed out of the way, and hovered to the side, it was shaking too. Theo wondered if could be afraid, as he was. Then the Monster rushed at him. At the last second Theo changed his mind. He was going to jump away from the thing, but instead decided he would try a throw. It was a crazy idea, but it worked. Theo twisted slightly to his left and thrust up and inward with the point of the shovel. The thing instinctively jerked out of the way of the thrust. Theo lifted the creature with the shovel and propelled it in the direction it had moved to avoid being stabbed. Now he knew something was different. The thing sailed up and over the truck they were standing by, and landed sixty feet away with a loud crunch. Then it twitched uncontrollably, spinning around on the pavement trying not to die. Theo was filled with rage now and knew he had to strike a fatal blow, he jumped completely over the truck. When he landed he rolled so that the shovel described a great arc in the air, and then WHAM, it came down edge first cutting the giant bug cleanly in two.
“Theo, help, Theo.” Ms. Greanwyloe screamed.
Another thing like the first was trying to get to her, but Door was there. The big beastly insect had Door in the grip of four of its legs, and the little Ms. Greanwyloe trapped between Door and the bed of the pick-up. Theo ran back toward the truck, and ran right up the front end. He stopped when he reached the roof and raised the shovel above him with both hands holding it high. The thing turned its huge ugly head up to see the point of the shovel coming right for it. The head split between the eyes as Theo buried the shovel through the things head and all the way to its neck. One end of Door touched the ground and that was all it needed to swing itself over and smash the bug into a pulpy mess.
Theo climbed over the bed of the truck to see if Ms. Greanwyloe was okay. She was crumpled on the ground shaking badly, but unharmed. “Barbara, it’s alright now.” Theo said trying to sound calm, even though he felt more tense than he thought possible.
“How can this be happening?” he asked himself. Without warning Ms. Greanwyloe threw her arms around Theo’s neck and held onto him with desperation. He lifted her off the ground and tried to rock her gently like a child all the while telling her everything was all right. He wanted to ask her to explain how that thing could be real. He studied insects and he knew it was impossible for an insect to be that large. He wanted to ask her to explain about a lot of things. He had always seen her as one of the adults, the people who knew things. He was beginning to realize that she was as confused as he was. He finally put her down and saw that she had been crying uncontrollably.

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