Horror - Short

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. White Dress Copyright © Eddie Generous 2026

WHITE DRESS

Leading up to it, the forecasters had predicted a perfect day. No rain, moderate heat, low UV Index, low to moderate humidity, and a breeze coming in off the Huron. Juliana saw her perfect wedding coming together as she’d dreamed in childhood. The gown was smaller and there was an utter lack of chandeliers and a Cinderella-style ballroom, but if the weather behaved, she’d have the matured vision of what she wanted for her big day. Linens and comfort, beauty and nature.

It was part of the deal that her impending husband not see her in her dress until she walked down the aisle. It was the last of the classic novelties still observed, a bit of fun and superstition.

Observing one superstition, one of the archaic rules at the foundation of the modern wedding ceremony, was enough. They lived together prior to marriage. She wore white. The ring’s tag involved one month’s salary, not three. There was nothing old but the grandparents, nothing borrowed, and blue didn’t fit the color scheme. Juliana’s father didn’t fund the event and they’d gone with a Justice of the Peace to perform the ceremony rather than a Jesus frontman.

Juliana’s mother quietly scorned the idea, a wedding not done for God was a wedding bound to fail.

When the day came, it didn’t rain all morning, but the sky threatened an eventual downpour. The clouds seemed to hold the air in place as if trapped in a microwave. It was thick and heavy, the kind of humid the old folks talked about; you got it lucky, way back when, it was like this every day and when it wasn’t, it snowed ten feet!

Juliana applied a breeze to her face with a paper fan one of the bridesmaids carried within the folds of her slinky dress—something borrowed after all. In the distance, beyond sight thanks to a privacy barrier of pine trees, the music started and the bridesmaids took their turns stepping up and around the corner to the open space where 210 family members and friends fanned their faces with hats, paper plates, or found newspapers.

The last bridesmaid cleared the corner and Juliana started off. Her father waited at the edge of the audience with his arm crooked at the elbow, ready for docking. Upon seeing the bride, the audience oohed and aahed, there were sniffs and sobs, Juliana did her best to focus. The television weather forecasters were assholes, but so far, it was nearly perfect. She gazed upon Wilbur in his black tuxedo, his gelled hair, and the sweat rolling about his cheeks. He tried to hold still in the moment but had to lift an arm to mop his face with the handkerchief that had once been folded neatly into his breast pocket.

Juliana came to within a few feet, he was so handsome in black, and then his arm swung out to slap his neck. It was the first. It went as if by echo throughout the crowd: smack, smack, smack.

It was 5:31 PM and the little man running the vows started in. He spoke slowly and quietly, the crowd heard little, but all begged in silent torture that he’d hurry so they could run to their cars or to the store and douse their skin buffets in repellant.

Juliana smacked her arm, her neck, and then her arm again, losing track of what the little man said. Slowly, he repeated and Juliana and Wilbur agreed to what had become torment. The perfect day dampened by tiny vampires and a droning civil servant.

“You…can…kiss…now,” the man said and Wilbur saw his chance to end the ceremony before all the pictures needed red bubbles Photoshoped away.

He held her tight, lips locked, and Juliana again thought the day could be nearly perfect. Lightning flashed and thunder rolled in the distance. The sky opened and fat raindrops spewed down.

The audience scurried to tents. The lucky ones made for the booze tent, the unlucky settled for the covered food trays and the overhang around the portable johns. The bridesmaids and the groomsmen veered toward the spacious area near the covered food, Wilbur followed, but Juliana pulled him away.

Surprised, it was a great relief. Once the perfect wedding failed, there was room only for fun and ease. She yanked Wilbur to the trough loaded with beer and vodka coolers in cans floating in ice water. She reached for a grapefruit cooler, cracked the top, drank half the can, burped and kissed her shocked husband on the cheek. He laughed and the party began for those close to the booze and those willing to dampen their Sunday best to make the trip.

For forty minutes, the hired shooters took snaps from across the rainy park of the bride and groom shaking hands and indulging their parched throats. At 6:43 PM, the rain ceased and a loud hoot went up from the audience. The DJ raced to his booth and spun the first dance song. Juliana winced at the mud rising up her dress and tried to ignore it. Hey, dirt, do you know how much this thing cost? She chose to focus on her husband and John Legend’s voice coming through the speakers.

The air gradually thickened. People wiped their seats. The help in their damp white getups dished out the supper. Juliana had kissed Wilbur dozens of times and couldn’t stop, she’d never been so happy in her entire life. Wilbur was the kind of guy, according to Juliana, that made a bride ask how she got so lucky. Wilbur hadn’t been thinking of much beyond the tremendous itchiness. Something about the mosquitoes that got him earlier disagreed like no skitters before them.

At 7:00 PM, the smacks rang out alongside Michael Jackson demanding a status from Annie. Was she okay or not?

“Sure are bad tonight,” Wilbur said.

“What’s that?” Juliana asked, yelling. Wilbur shook his head gently and smiled. “I’ve got to see if my cousin showed up! She said she’d come and bring the girls!”

Wilbur made a shooing motion with his hand. Juliana often spoke of the girls, she’d seen pictures but apparently seeing quintuplets in real life was something altogether different. They were already three and a third years old. Juliana demanded that they all come to the wedding.

Misty was reluctant, but Sylvain wanted to parade the kids, of course his part of the parade typically meant shaking hands from a distance while her part was more physical: races, herding, and cleaning messes. Five three year-olds outside, in the dimming evening, cake and ice cream at the ready, it would be a hectic night.

Juliana made a loop and asked about Misty. According to Aunt Hanna, Misty was late, the dog was sick and they had a last minute cleanup to take care of before they’d drive the van the three hours to the ceremony.

“I guess they’ll get here at around eight,” Juliana said.

Wilbur noted the slight disappointment and handed his new wife a plastic cup of champagne. He’d drank several in her absence in an effort to quell the horrid irritation on his neck. It felt huge, but he didn’t want to draw any attention. A wedding has nothing to do with the husband once all the preparation ends. The ceremony, the party, it was all for the bride.

Wilbur rubbed. It had started to feel something like a softball so he tightened his tie. “I’ve got to use the washroom,” he said into Juliana’s ear, over a lovey-dovey Pink song.

Juliana let go, kissed his cheek again and he scooted across the grassy floor to the portable johns. He waited in a short line with a hand over the bite, fingertips probing. His cousin Blake stood at his side. Blake was obviously drunk.

“Look’it this,” Blake said as he unceremoniously dropped his suit jacket and untucked his shirt. “Fuckin’ thing’s humongous!”

Wilbur looked at the bubble and knew without asking, but asked anyway, “That a skitter bite?”

“Goddamn thing came to party. I’m tryin’ to kill the poison with liquor. I think it’s workin’ too.”

The door opened and one of Juliana’s college friends stepped out rubbing her chest just above her breasts. She wore a thin, low cut dress.

“Look at this one, woowee!” Blake shouted at the girl who appeared about three steps out of his league—in the physical sense, entire mountain treks beyond him in sobriety.

“Ha, you want some of this action?” she said and moved her hand. Her emotion wasn’t exactly swaying one way or another—angry, annoyed, flippant. What she revealed had obviously troubled her.

Blake grimaced at the burst bubble. Pus seemed at ease either settling in or squeezed out, which way it would work was the pretty girl’s choice.

“Jesus, what’s that from?” Wilbur asked, thinking he knew, but not quite knowing for certain.

“I think the mosquitoes have fucking Ebola or something,” she said.

“Gotta drown ‘em in booze,” Blake said.

“Or go to the hospital,” Wilbur said, forgetting his own softball.

“I could suck out the poison.” Blake shifted his eyebrows upward.

Insanely, the girl appeared to consider this. “I need a drink,” she said. Blake forgot about his need to use the toilet and followed her.

Wilbur stepped into the portable john and pressed the battery light. It wasn’t bright, but it wasn’t too dark outside yet. He saw enough. Loosening his collar was a bad idea, the thing ballooned.

“Shit, shit,” he said as he put a collection plate of tissue on his shoulder and squeezed. At first, nothing came and the skin screamed, but it let and spewed viscous yellowy pus. Once going it was hard to quit and Wilbur squeezed until the pus turned to clear liquid. He dropped the wad of toilet paper down the johnny’s hole, gave it a glance, collected another catch pad of tissue and decided on another squeeze.

“What the hell…?” he started to ask and saw the tiny thing shoot from his neck amid a clear blob soaking into the paper on his shoulder. The mosquito that got him had impregnated his neck and he’d birthed their baby.

The tiny fly shook away the moisture and pointed its stinger up from the wad of cotton. It wasn’t an ordinary skitter, the needle split like a flower and it emitted a sound roving so high and weak that it went nearly unnoticed. Wilbur doubted his ears and his eyes. He brought a palm down and squashed the thing. He tossed the second wad of tissue into the toilet, washed his hands, tightened his tie, and rejoined the party.

Once he stepped out, he noticed that most had taken seats and that they focused intently on bits of flesh. Blake had talked the pretty girl into letting him suck out her poison. The drunken idiot did so with a smile until the smile turned in abrupt show of disgust.

“You all right?” Wilbur asked walking past the back of the booze tent where the pretty girl sat and the drunk sucked on her chest.

She shrugged and Blake lifted his face as if jerked by his hair. “Beer! Beer!” He swung out his arms. His face showed a man no longer wanting to taste whatever the pretty girl offered. She handed her drink to him and he chugged the can until empty. “Fuckin’ hell,” he said and rolled onto the grass.

“Mine had a bug in it,” Wilbur told the girl as they looked down at the rolling drunk.

“You had a bump too?” she asked.

Blake got to his knees and grabbed at the pretty girl’s dress as if scaling her. She tried to help him, but he was heavy and jelly-like in the extremities. She leaned him back. She turned to the groom, worry all over her face, bump on her chest flattened.

Wilbur bent down and Blake opened his mouth. The scream was like the little scream he’d heard from the mosquito he’d squashed, but louder, much louder. Blake’s siren rang over the music and people quickly gathered close. Wilbur and the pretty girl dragged the drunk into the light as the crowd circled, the sound echoing and, impossibly, getting louder by the second until it finally ceased.

All questions went unanswered, drowned by the screams. Juliana grabbed Wilbur and pulled him away. She tried to tell him something he couldn’t hear over the music and the anarchy, and then she turned and showed him the great red ball on her back.

“Hold still!” he said directly into her ear and then he squeezed.

At the pain, she jumped, but he kept hold, squeezing until he’d expelled the poison down the sleeves of his rented tuxedo and then the little bastard swimming in clear liquid. Before it could sing its tune, Wilbur smacked the thing.

The DJ booth sat empty, but Elton John wailed Rocket Man. Wilbur looked Juliana in the eyes and frowned. She nodded and they jogged to the booth. It wasn’t a complicated set-up. In fact, it was strangely simple. Juliana hit pause on the DJ program and found the switch for the microphone in the groom’s hand.

“People, people,” Wilbur started, but that was as far as he got.

A thumping propeller sound filled the air. Cutting, spinning, flying.

“Dear Lord in Heaven!” Juliana’s mother cried out at the sight.

The guests and help scattered but it didn’t matter. The mosquitoes in the air weren’t like any mosquitoes anyone had seen before. They were massive. Each had a three-foot body and four-foot needle.

“Mom!” Juliana shouted as a mosquito dropped down and punctured the woman’s skull, sucking her dry in seconds as if she was a packed lunch juice box on the last day of school.

All around them it was much of the same. Cousin Pete dropped below three stingers. The hefty DJ who’d spent as much time at the snack table as he did at his booth was lifted several feet off the ground by a hovering skitter. The little man that performed the ceremony tried to run for the treeline but met a high-speed creature that buzzed his scalp from his skull, stopping him dead. He tumbled forward in stages: leaning, knees, hands on knees, and finally flat on his stomach.

Wilbur pressed tight to his wife and gazed out the open window to the carnage on the dance floor. There were hundreds of the giant bastards. One of them spotted the newlyweds and buzzed in their direction.

Wilbur screeched and instinctively swung the microphone like he was Roger Daltrey playing Woodstock. There was a wet thud and the skitter buzzed and crashed several feet away.

“Come on!” Wilbur shouted over the insectile din and rushed toward the portable johns. Juliana didn’t argue and let him take the lead. It was no longer her day. She wouldn’t even argue it.

Wilbur carried the microphone, tearing the plug from its socket as they went, the downed skitter corrected itself and again started toward the runners, Wilbur slowed and faced the thing, swinging the mic, but missing, the mosquito dove low and came up close, sinking its needle into Wilbur’s neck.

“Like fuck you do!” Juliana screamed and put her hands on the needle. It bent, the barbs let go of the groom and he fell. Juliana held and continued bending the needle. “He’s mine!”

The skitter tried to fly, tried to stab, but was helpless and it began to deflate, sucking at nothing until flattened. It ceased its struggle and Juliana angrily spun and tossed the heavy thing like it was a discus. She watched it, but it didn’t recover. One dead bug.

The screams continued but she heard none of them, she knelt at her husband’s side. He moaned, pale, but alive.

“Come on, Wilbur, up! Up!” she said and he got to his knees. Good enough. She helped him crawl the final five feet to the portable toilet and swung closed the door once they were safely inside.

Juliana used paper cups from the dispenser and offered highly chlorinated water to Wilbur. He sipped what he could, but wasn’t doing well. It wasn’t long before the screams outside died.

“Jules, Jules,” Wilbur forced out. His eyes had gone to deep red and his skin had yellowed. “Jules, Jules.” He looked horrid under the dimming light streaming through the greenish plastic.

“Yes, darling.” She stroked his hand, fighting back tears.

“We should’ve listened to your mom,” he said and then cackled until coughing.

She fought the urge to scream and run away as she watched the life drain from his face. “Wilbur, Wilbur.” She rubbed and poked, certain he’d passed.

Wilbur gasped and Juliana cried into her hands. Several minutes after the screams ceased, the buzzing ceased and it quickly drew dark. Juliana saw hope in waiting for sunrise, perhaps someone would come, a superstar of insect termination, Schwarzenegger with DEET throwers and zap swatters the size of hula-hoops.

Just after this hope sparked into life, the first slam hit against the portable john. The whizzing, buzzing resumed. The plastic wall dented and a long needle pierced its shell. Juliana began to cry again. Wilbur remained unconscious. Three more needles slammed through the plastic in quick succession.

“Please, please, leave us alone!” she shouted as the hand soap dropped from the sink and bounced off Wilbur’s forehead. The needles retracted and there was quiet. The buzz departed and Juliana once again risked hope.

An idea struck and she felt around Wilbur’s pockets, she found his phone. It was off. She turned it on and waited. The clock said it was only 7:50 PM. It didn’t make sense that it had gotten so dark already. The bars at the upper left corner refused to fill. It grew darker and she heard the noise, the buzzing increased, louder than ever.

Another needle punctured the plastic wall and smashed the mirror. She huddled tight to Wilbur on the floor, covering her ears from the sickly sounds.

She looked over the lip of the toilet down into the soup swish below. Toilet paper and fiber-heavy logs floated like apples ready for the bobbing. She thought maybe the mosquitoes wouldn’t smell her if she smelled like…

“But my dress!” she screeched at the thought. “My fucking dress! Twenty-nine hundred bucks!”

Needles stabbed through the walls and barbs tugged hunks of plastic away. She watched through the holes as the magnified creatures scurried and jerked in frantic life. The pounding and buzzing seemed impossibly close.

Finally, a skitter found the door’s vent and popped it back. A dozen or more needles jockeyed for position at the opening. Like a winning sperm, one pushed ahead and found victory, of a sort. The hole was too tight at the skitter’s fattest point and Juliana shouted, “You’re too fat, too fat for this wedding! Go away!”

Just as she finished her pointless verbal jab, a needle poked through the door handle and Juliana saw the end of her wedding, her marriage, her life, was only minutes, if not seconds, away.

“Here comes the bride. Dressed all in white,” she sang and then paused trying to recall if the word was white or light.

Didn’t matter.

The mosquitoes bounced about, peering through the holes.

“Here comes the bride. Bites fat and wide!” she sang as the needle stuck into the handle tugged back and the door swung open. “Skitters came to her wedding and now she’s gonna die!” she screamed. The needles sunk all over her and Wilbur. Full-body acupuncture on a massive scale.

—

“Okay, okay, come on, line up!” Misty called out to her kids, five nearly identical girls, all sleepy-eyed and annoyed. It was minutes after 8:00 PM and Sylvain parked the Caravan at the end of a long line of vehicles. It was a good turnout. “Line up!” Misty said again, drill sergeant mode.

Sylvain did what he could to put the girls in place while Misty tethered the children with Velcro shackles. Despite the sleepiness, the girls were, as usual, ten thousand shades of cute. Each wore a little pink dress with a blue ribbon in her hair; with the tether holding them as it did, they looked something like an Easter chain gang.

“Now march!” Misty ordered. Sylvain led the way down the path. Ahead there was a sign with an arrow pointed around a barrier of pine trees. “What a perfect place for a wedding,” she said, looking around the quaint scene. “I hope they had someone recording the vows… What a perfect spot. I hope it didn’t rain much.”

“Dang it!” Sylvain slapped a bug on his cheek.

“Calm down, not like you’ve never had a skitter bite before,” Misty said.