Chapter 28: Cockroaches (3)

One person and one dog sprinted out of the alley. Before they could even catch their breath, Old John suddenly felt a twitch at the bottom of his pant leg. Something had crawled up his pant leg to his ankle, then continued upward, finally stopping at his calf—and it bit down hard.

It was fierce, like being scalded by fire, like a knife stabbing.

“Hiss…”

Old John cried out in pain, instinctively spreading his fan-like large hand and slapping down hard where the pain came from.

“Smack!” A crisp slap rang out. The biting creature was successfully crushed, and where its body had touched his skin, a prickly, needle-like sting spread.

After the prickling came a burning pain. Like being burned by acid, wave after wave, burst after burst, Old John felt a continuous, tingling, stinging discomfort.

What’s going on…

The old man frowned, bent down, and rolled up his pant leg.

“Ah! The wound is turning red!” Everly cried out.

When the pants were lifted, a flattened cockroach carcass fell lightly to the ground. It was easier to kill than expected; a single palm strike had crushed it completely. Its swollen abdomen burst on Old John’s calf, releasing a glob of yellow-and-white bodily fluid. Where the sticky fluid touched, the skin of his leg developed red patches resembling burns. In the most severe areas, the skin even showed a troubling charred black.

Recalling first-aid knowledge she had read in books, Everly quickly took off the water bottle slung across her body and washed her grandfather’s wound with clean water.

“Oh, God! Old John, what happened to you?”

The commotion on the steps caught the attention of passing townsfolk. During the off-season, the town’s residents were generally idle, with some having nothing to do. Seeing the injury on Old John’s leg, one person came closer and eagerly asked if the old man needed help.

Old John waved at the passerby. After Everly finished rinsing his leg, he had his little granddaughter wash off the sticky pant leg as well.

Once everything was cleaned, Old John straightened up. Seeing that the townsman hadn’t left yet, he thought for a moment and asked him, “Are the cockroaches in your town poisonous?”

The man thought for a moment and shook his head. “I don’t think so. I’ve never heard of cockroaches being poisonous.”

“What about the cockroaches in Lemot? Do they bite?”

“Of course not. They’re just a bunch of timid, light-fearing little bugs. They’d run away the moment they see a person—how could they bite anyone… Old man, what happened to you? Why are you talking about cockroaches, and how did you get that injury on your leg? It looks pretty bad!” The passerby asked a string of questions.

Hearing this, Old John furrowed his brow. He pointed to the flattened cockroach on the ground and told the passerby that the injury on his leg was caused by a cockroach bite:

“It bit me, so I just slapped it away. But look—its juices are like acid. Once they touch your skin, they burn it.”

“What? That’s impossible!” the passerby exclaimed.

“I’m not lying… If you don’t believe me, you can go into the alley and try it yourself. Oh, and I also saw a dead pet dog at the very end of the alley. The wounds looked like they were cut with a knife. I suspect there’s a dog-ab

sing p

rvert in town.” Old John reached into his pocket and pulled out the dog collar he had found. “My granddaughter and I were busy shopping for supplies, you know, we live pretty far away, so big shopping trips take a long time… Could you help notify the dog’s owner?”

The townsman took the collar and nodded dizzily. “Of course… you go ahead.”

Old John nodded back, not lingering any longer, and held Everly’s hand as they headed straight toward the supermarket.

“The town’s cockroaches are really strange. I’ve never seen ones that bite… Could they be some invasive species that came from somewhere else?” The two of them talked about the strange occurrences in the alley as they walked.

Old John didn’t know much about insects, and neither did Everly. The two of them exchanged a blank, puzzled look and decided that they would go to the supermarket later to buy some anti-insect spray and start carrying it with them from tomorrow.

“Woof!”

The carefree dog, Buddy, barked once, casting an inconsequential vote of approval.

…

The next day, Everly rode in Old John’s car to school as usual, and noticed a group of people in white protective suits carrying manual sprayers on their backs around the town.

“Those are people from Micano Pest Control Company,” someone explained. “The mayor called them in to fumigate the whole town.”

“Fumigate?”

“Well, there have been a lot of cockroaches lately. Last night, the municipal office received several complaint calls about people being bitten by insects, so the mayor called in the exterminators.”

Being a small town had its perks: whenever something new happened, gossip spread fast. Everly didn’t even need to ask around herself; just walking through the hallway, she had already heard from her classmates why the fumigation was happening.

She silently gave the mayor credit for being decisive.

Indeed, considering the recent frequency of encounters, the town had far too many cockroaches. After all, it was a tourist town—poor sanitation could drive visitors away and hurt the residents’ income. On top of that, cockroaches themselves are carriers of many germs, so exterminating them quickly was in everyone’s best interest.

Since the school had recently been fumigated, it wasn’t included in the town-wide pest control this time, and classes went on as usual.

Around noon, Everly was sitting in the cafeteria eating her bland student meal when Principal Ms. Gray suddenly stormed in with a group of staff, hurrying through the students’ dining area.

“Students, quiet!” Principal Gray walked to the center of the cafeteria. She raised a tray and clattered it with a fork and knife—bang bang bang—successfully grabbing everyone’s attention.

“There has been a special situation outside during the fumigation. A group of unusually dangerous insects has entered the school. Until the danger is eliminated, please remain calm and stay in the cafeteria, do not wander around. And I ask all homeroom teachers to take responsibility for supervising the students in their classes.”

Having said this, she didn’t wait for any reaction. Principal Gray strode out of the cafeteria in her high heels, moving like the wind. The staff she had brought split into two groups: one stayed in the cafeteria, working with the cafeteria staff to reinforce the doors and windows with tape, boards, and other materials they had brought; the other followed her outside, heading beyond the cafeteria.

The sudden turn of events startled everyone.

Once Principal Gray left, the entire cafeteria erupted into chaos. Most of the students were excited, thinking, “Dangerous insects invading the school? How cool is that!” Others were scared of the horrifying bugs or worried about their family members still in town, clustering with friends for comfort. The noisiest were the first- and second-year students. Because older students casually invented rumors, many younger kids turned pale and began crying without restraint.

It was truly a deafening, chaotic scene.

Everly frowned and pulled out her phone, intending to call Old John to check on the situation. But after pressing the dial button several times, all she got was a busy signal.

“I can’t get through to Mom!”

“Me neither!”

Shouts like these began echoing from other corners of the cafeteria.

Everly felt a sense of foreboding. It was understandable if she alone couldn’t get through on the phone, but if no one could, that could only mean the entire area had lost signal.

But isn’t that strange? How could an insect invasion cause a loss of signal in the area? Or maybe the two events weren’t connected, and it was just a coincidence?

No matter how she thought it through, it didn’t make sense. Everly took a deep breath and decided to focus on the immediate “insect disaster” instead.

Although the principal hadn’t stated it outright, based on what she had encountered in the alley yesterday, Everly was fairly confident—about eighty percent sure—that the “dangerous insects” the principal mentioned were the bite-capable cockroaches.

The fumigation today had originally been intended to deal with exactly this type of cockroach, yet the principal said there had been problems with it. What kind of problems? Did the fumigation fail? Had the cockroaches developed resistance to the pesticide?

That seemed likely.

Then, the pesticide-resistant cockroaches were disturbed, running around everywhere and even attacking people on the streets. Most townsfolk didn’t realize that the cockroach’s bodily fluids could corrode the skin; some tried to swat them by hand, only to injure themselves and create further chaos. Meanwhile, some cockroaches had entered the school. To protect the students, the principal decided to gather everyone in the cafeteria until the cockroaches were dealt with.

On the surface, the situation didn’t seem too serious. After all, Everly had seen these cockroaches just yesterday. They didn’t have wings and couldn’t fly, and their bodies were weak. A single stomp would crush them, and in some ways, they were even easier to kill than the ordinary cockroaches commonly found in the area—so long as exposed skin was protected.

But would things really be that simple…?

Everly glanced at her phone, which had lost its signal.

She had lived around this area for nearly eight years. In all that time—even on days when sandstorms blew through—Lemot had always had full signal. She had never experienced being unable to make a call.

The town was already remote, and it was currently the off-season, so hardly anyone came through. Under these conditions, if the town lost signal, and then something happened that prevented people from leaving, this place would effectively become a completely cut-off “island” disconnected from the outside world… Wait, isn’t this similar to the “snowed-in lodge” scenario in some films?

At that thought, Everly froze.

She suspected she was living in another movie.

So far, the only movie Everly could confirm existed in this world was Highway Horror. Her theory that “this is a meta-horror movie world” hadn’t been verified yet. But honestly, this world was far too strange—every second, bizarre, terrifying, or grotesque things happened. It was so over-the-top that it made sense to assume she was in a meta-horror movie world.

Alright then… fine. Let’s assume this is a movie. After all, guessing wrong doesn’t cost anything, right?

Going with that line of thinking, Everly continued to reason.

Horror movies have many subgenres—psychological horror, suspense-mystery, action-crime, disaster-survival, supernatural, bloody violence… Judging by the situation, this “film” was probably in the disaster-survival category, with the disaster being an insect invasion.

Now, the question arose: how would an insect-disaster movie play out?