MicroHorror

The bluebottle landed on Sue’s eye and took a few steps. Sue didn’t move. Not surprising really, considering how hard Sid had hit her. It did seem odd, that fat juicy bluebottle wandering round her blank staring eye.

It was then that he had the idea. Didn’t know why he hadn’t thought of it earlier, an absolutely brilliant idea, if it worked.

Later, when he returned to the abandoned foundry, Sid brought with him his purchases. First he twisted the lid off a jar and poured thin honey into her slack mouth. That seemed to work for a while but then it ponded and oozed down her cheeks. Then he opened the bait tin and poured the wriggling maggots over her head. Well, the ones that fell into the mouth came to a pretty sticky end. But what was brilliant was the way the rest quickly burrowed away out of sight, up her nose, into her ears and, well, they just disappeared really quick.

As he left, locking the rusty old iron door behind him, he decided to give it a few days before he visited again.

Sid’s battered Ford bounced down the pot-holed road leading back to Bennett’s Foundry, as was. It had been five days and people had been asking nosy questions. “Where’s your Sue?” they’d ask. “Such a lively, outgoing person, not like her to keep herself to herself!” Too bloody right, he thought. And he caught her right in the middle of putting herself about with him next door, which was when he topped her. Well, the next morning to be honest. There was a good program about fishing that evening.

The door squealed like a stuck pig. He tried lifting it to stop it dragging but it didn’t help any. Didn’t remember it being that noisy when he came here a week ago with the body.

The smell was terrible. He hoped to God there were no dogs downwind of this place.
There had been.

Sid rescued what bits he could and kicked them together in the middle of the dusty floor.

That night, when it had happened, she’d said it had been a mistake to marry him, him and his bloody fishing. She loved people, clubbing and the hurly-burly of city life. She said she was going to leave him, she’d had enough, they were living separate lives anyway.

Sid wrapped the scarf tightly round his mouth and pulled the tarpaulin off of her. The air erupted with a cloud of angry bluebottles. One landed on his hand and he squashed it.

A lot of her had gone but what flesh was left was rinded with fresh fly eggs. A wasp had woven its papery nest in her empty eye socket. A good place to mine the honey-filled tunnel below.

Sid walked round her, excited, watching the way the maggots squirmed beneath her skin, fascinated by the hurly-burly of a million maggots. And then, he started to plan his next fishing trip. He might even get a wasp larva or two, for extra bait, a real bonus.