Horror - Flash

This story is a work of fiction. Names, characters, places, and incidents are fictitious and any similarities to actual persons, locations, or events is coincidental. This work cannot be used to train artificial intelligence programs.  No AI tools were used in the writing of this story.

All rights reserved. Bugs Copyright © Eddie Generous 2026

BUGS

The men rushed through the sliding doors, boots squeaking on the brilliant white floor, as Dr. Cortez leaned away from the iris reader. Inside, Elizabeth Bezos was on her bed, standing, waving her boney, wrinkled arms and screaming about bugs. Her voice was like damp wood over a campfire. The men in white body suits, white gloves, and bare faces reached for her.

“Are you insane?” Elizabeth shouted, her eyes bulging and red around the edges, brown circling enlarged pupils. She clawed at the hands reaching to grab her. “Don’t you touch me!”

“Let’s all take a moment—” Dr. Cortez started.

“No masks! You’re not wearing masks! The bugs eat the microbes from your breath! They survive on your filth!”

“Come now, Elizabeth, you’re having an episode,” Dr. Cortez said as the men continued their attempts to take hold of the ancient heiress to a fortune that could’ve fed every starving mouth across the universe, could’ve saved Earth before it was too late.

Dr. Cortez stopped then. “Right. Derry, Hans, back away.” She then withdrew a white balaclava from her pocket and pulled it over her head. “I’m sorry, Elizabeth, we rushed in as quickly as we—”

“The bugs are growing!” Her face was pale as snow as she pointed to a corner.

The room was polished polymer from floor to ceiling. Only the bedding and Elizabeth’s clothing were of fibrous materials. The cracks between the walls and floor panels were infinitesimal. The space was evacu-scrubbed daily. The air recycling system was filtered down to the atom, leaving nothing unwanted.

“Look at that one!” She pointed a long, gnarled digit.

Derry and Hans were trained well. They looked at the doctor where she stood in the doorway, and she simply shook her head. “We’ll do another evacu-scrub, Elizabeth. Come down and we’ll get this room cleaned.” Dr. Cortez stepped to the bed and turned her back to the patient.

Elizabeth climbed aboard to piggyback the doctor. She whispered, “This is unacceptable. These conditions are unacceptable.” She yelled then, “I deserve better! Look at that thing! Look at the boils and the oozing gunk! Those claws and the slobbering! They’re monsters! You can’t put me in a locked room with monsters, it’s inhumane!”

Dr. Cortez did not look to where Elizabeth pointed. The deal never changed.

“These conditions! My heart! You can’t strain my heart with these filthy conditions!”

Dr. Cortez stalked toward the door, rolling her eyes—the damned princess wanted to talk inhumane, monsters?

“I demand better! Don’t you know who I am? This is all wrong!”

“Okay, Elizabeth, calm—”

“Why hasn’t any of my family come to see me? Why haven’t—ooogh, get away, get away!”

Dr. Cortez continued her straight path.

“It’s coming! Look! It’s horrendous, disgusting!”

The doctor stopped and peered down to her side where Elizabeth had pointed.

“Those teeth! And its eyes, what’s that yellow stuff? Git! Git! Don’t let it lick me, look at the slime!”

Dr. Cortez sighed and said, “Really, Elizabeth,” before continuing on toward the exit.

“What is wrong with you? It’s right there, all slobbery and oozing and weeping, and those teeth!” Elizabeth vibrated as she spoke.

“There’s nothing there,” the doctor said.

“I won’t stand for these conditions! Look, another! It’s purple and that trail it’s leaving behind it…! Look, dammit!”

The doctor grinned gently, but did not look. The description was exactly as it should’ve been, exactly as she’d had installed, alongside dozens of others. “Elizabeth…there’s nothing there.”

“How can’t you see it?”

“Shh, shh,” Dr. Cortez said. “We’ll get this cleaned and you—”

“This is unacceptable! My heart! You can’t put strain on my heart!”

Dr. Cortez cooed more, as she’d been trained to do. It was all part of the game, the room, the bugs, keeping Elizabeth alive these two hundred years as they floated just beyond the once beautiful planet their ancestors had called home. Elizabeth would survive. For as long as the pain stung, she’d survive. And she’d pay; the doctors, nurses, and orderlies would pretend the alien things were disgusting, weren’t released daily into Elizabeth’s cabin.

Apocalyptic greed was ugly, but post-apocalyptic wrath nearly made up for it.

XX