Free Roach Extermination

A long table in darkness lit with candles and shiny cutlery of strange shapes. Cockroaches. Two rows of human-sized, pitch-black insects were sitting upright along the dining table, and Mark was somehow invited to their feast. They were all members of the same rare species that he was too familiar with. Finding himself to be the only human guest at this horrid banquet, seated between two oily, enormous roaches, he had to let out a short laugh, for laughter has always been Mark’s natural reaction to extreme fear. And extreme fear has always been Mark’s natural reaction to bugs and insects. Yet he decided to control himself, as to not offend his hosts.

As revolting as this species were, a part of him couldn’t help but recognize their elegance, the gracious movements of their long, slim limbs which they employed heavily to gesture as they spoke to each other in some bizarre language while paying no attention to Mark. He even felt inferior in their presence — why, he must be sharing the table with the inner circle, the noblest generation of court roaches surrounding the queen…

The queen — now he remembered. As soon as the thought came to his mind he looked to his right and there she was, sitting at the very head of the table, in all her horrendous glory, so tall that the top part of her body was disappearing in the darkness. Now all the creatures went quiet, giving her their utmost attention. Graciously she spread her enormous limbs outwards, opening herself to her guests, and slowly swayed her body left and right, as if to say — “Welcome my children, let the feast begin”.

And the dinner was served, for somehow a plate covered with a silver dome has appeared on the table before Mark. Upon the dome’s shiny surface he caught a reflection of his own terrified human eyes. He flinched a bit and then froze, as a black limb crept up from behind him, just above his right shoulder, getting hold of the dome’s handle in a servile motion. Cold sweat, pure horror, he knew he was about to laugh. Before he could do anything the dome was lifted, revealing his meal to be a mass of roaches, living roaches, pouring off from the dish and swarming towards him.

All good manners aside, he broke into manic laughter.

Mark the roach exterminator was still laughing when he woke up. However, laughter was instantly replaced with grunts of pain as the shock caused by the climax of his nightmare has made him sit up in the bed with such haste that his head slammed into the sloped ceiling of his tiny roof apartment.

He sprawled right back onto the bed while holding his wounded forehead, rolling about for a while, his mind drifting between the acknowledgment of the pain and a curious desire to recoup the details of his extravagant yet nightmarish feast with human-sized insects. Then he allowed himself to feel some accomplishment — it was one of the queens, and now he was sure he was getting close. She hasn’t revealed her name yet, but now it is only a matter of time. He has dealt with a few of them before but has never gotten this close as to sit among them, to be allowed into her very court. Which on the other hand wasn’t such a great thing, for as he admitted often in the past, roaches scare him shitless. Hazards of the job.

About an hour later, Mark was sipping his morning coffee and staring at the map on the wall. It was covered in markings and scribblings, outlining his years-long journey across regions and marking the places where he made significant finds. His gaze followed along the path and its key points, trying to make some sense of it, though as usual, he could see nothing but a long curly line. Then his eyes rested on the end of the road and the last circled spot, the city he was in now, halfway through his thirties.

It was only a few minutes past seven when the phone rang, as he sensed it would happen. When he is close, he is close. For the first time since he has set up a company in this city, the phone rang, it could only mean someone is in need of his very specific service.

“Mark’s free roach control services, how can I help you?”

From the moment he answered the call he could hear a distressed female voice in the background and some commotion on the other end of the line, the voice that spoke to him however was one of a young adult male, and it was showing signs of sleep deprivation.

“Hello? Sorry for calling this early, I hope you are open for business. I am calling about the ad..”

“For fuck’s sake Ivan,” the female voice interrupted, “get on with it, they’re everywhere!”

“Yes, yes, can you please come over quick, or today at least? We’re willing to pay extra..”

“No, no, as the ad says, sir”, Mark responded, “my service is completely free. Just give me the address and..”

“Mom!”, an amused child’s voice, “Look, Peach caught one!”

“Oh my God that is disgusting, you and the dog go outside this instant. Ivan can you please..”

“Yes, I am trying to... How much did you say it will cost?”

“Sir? Like the ad says it is a free service, now can you please just confirm that we are talking about the species that I specialize in? Your pests look like cockroaches but have..”

“I think so, yes, they have long limbs with black bodies and silvery.. “ sounds of slamming on a hard surface, “Honey, can you please stop that? You won’t exterminate them like that, I have a guy on the phone now..”

“Someone has to show these fuckers where they belong!”

“Honey, I am handling it, I have a guy on the phone..”

“Mom!”, the child again, more amused than before, “There is one on your leg!”

There was a short scream and the sound of breaking glass.

The call went on in a similar fashion with four individuals interrupting each other’s sentences, but eventually, Mark wrote down the instructions on how to find their house and made a promise to appear at their doorstep within an hour.

“...or we’ll give you your money back!” he added jokingly, which was followed by an awkward silence. Mark felt that the caller still didn’t quite grasp that his service is completely free.

His clients lived on a suburban estate at the edge of the city. He quickly got dressed and packed the equipment, then drove his van through downtown streets bathed in fumes and sunlight of an increasingly hot day of July, followed by rhythmic clangs of construction works along facades.

Ivan came out of the house to find Hannah huddled on the edge of the concrete floor of their front porch, lighting a cigarette. A childish place to sit at, reserved for times of distress. He sat down next to her and gave her a comforting shoulder-to-shoulder nudge.

“The guy should be here any minute now, hun.”

They observed their grassy estate in silence for a bit. They have moved there a few years after Tom was born, feeling a refuge from the crowded city is what they need. It was a fashionable thing to do as well, healthy living, return to nature and all. She even almost stopped smoking.

“This is all so weird,” Hannah finally spoke after exhaling a puff, “these bugs and that ad.”

“Yeah, tell me about it. And you know what, the guy kept claiming his service is absolutely free.”

They both chuckled at the idea, expecting some marketing mastermind is behind it all, about to rip them off. They didn’t mind, as long as he solves their problem — they called their nearest pest exterminator back in June when they had but a mild infestation. He showed up, a dry fellow with fat glasses, they joked that he looks like a poisoner and a poisoner he was, spraying his special concoction all over the house. There were a lot of dead roaches for sure, and they felt there was something strange about their appearance, some local species no doubt, yet they cleaned them up in a day and carried on with their lives.

Then after a few days, the roaches returned, and as it became evident in even greater numbers. They called the poisoner again, who apologized and this time absolutely drenched their house in his toxic substance. He admitted that he has never encountered this species before, yet made a claim that no sort of roach infestation could survive this amount of poison.

Last night, however, not only did they realize that the infestation is back, but this time it was even worse, there was not a corner in the house which did not host several of those ugly things, trafficking about.

They decided that calling the same company again would make no sense. They both took turns in browsing the ads until one caught Ivan’s eye. “FREE Roach Extermination” the title boldly claimed. A sort of thing reasonable people would avoid, fearing the job wouldn’t be well done, or that there was some scam behind it. Yet the text of the ad appeared to speak directly to them:

“Is your living space infested with unusual roaches categorized by very long limbs and pitch-black bodies with silver patterns on their backs? Have you tried everything but they keep coming back? Then call Mark NOW, and get them exterminated for FREE!”

There was even a handmade drawing of this particular sort of insect included. It was already almost midnight when they found the ad, so after a sleepless night, they made the call. And now they could do nothing but wait, preferring to spend most of this summer morning outside of the infested house, while their son was playing around the estate.

“You know, this could be a scam.” Hannah pondered out loud, fixing her eyes on her half-smoked cigarette. “A species of bug no one has seen before, and only this guy gets rid of them, seriously? He might be the one who planted them in the first place.”

“Yes Hannah, he probably genetically engineered them into existence as well. Damn, we have a crazy scientist on our hands.”

She cackled in a release of tension and added, “If the guy has messy gray hair and a white coat I swear I’ll scream.”

Ivan put his arm around her and drew her closer, giving her a comforting kiss on the forehead. It felt good to share some laughter with Hannah after watching her spend night and morning in turmoil and to sit this close to her on this porch.

“You know, I bet the poisoner and the crazy scientist are working together,” he added as she let out another burst of laughter into his chest, “or maybe they are each other’s arch enemies, and we found ourselves in the middle of some alien species invasion.”

It was a lovely morning after all, despite the incoming heat, the infested house behind them, and the arrival of a mysterious wacko who may or may not solve their problems. At least something interesting was going on.

Mark made all the correct turns as he was instructed, and soon found himself driving along a dry dirt road leading towards the estate. His watch showed five minutes past eight, so he was pretty much on time. And as rows of bushes on the right side of the road cleared he got to see the estate. A boy somewhere between eight and ten was staggering along a grassy plain towards the house, while pulling a barking Labrador by his collar with both hands, making a great effort to prevent the dog from rushing at Mark’s van. The house was a pretty two-story family home, yet nothing too luxurious. A young couple in their late twenties was sitting on the edge of the porch, which gave Mark a familiar and encouraging impression that his clients were desperate and about to surrender their house to him, so he could get his mission done with as little disturbance as possible.

As he drove in closer to park near the porch, he couldn’t help but notice that the couple were nudging each other and giggling at some internal joke while looking at him. She had short, dyed hair, while he wore a beard that did nothing to make him look more manly or mature.

As Mark pulled over and his engine went silent, they both stood up and Ivan went towards the van to greet their supposed savior. Hannah stood back and watched. The dusty van was light blue and did not have any company logo inscribed on it. The man who came out was no crazy scientist she concluded, he seemed pretty normal and his shaved face did not appear to her to be related to any profession in particular, he could be anything from a cockroach exterminator to a CEO of a large corporation. She couldn’t read this guy yet, that was for sure.

In all this focused evaluation, her mind kind of drifted off and did not follow through the formal introductory conversation between Ivan and the exterminator. She only snapped out of it after spotting her boy Tommy approaching. She pulled him close to her hip and rubbed his hair, as they both watched the dog taking his turn in greeting the newcomer. Mark handled it well and patted the dog without flinching — “Hey there fellow! You love jumping on guests, don’t you.”

This seemed encouraging, so Hannah let her guard down and approached the man with Tommy under her arm, resuming her usual smiling but dominant persona, “Sorry about Peach, he loves giving hugs to guests. Now tell us, mister, what is the deal here, what are these creatures that took over our home, and how much will this cost.”

“Ah well, you see... Let me just..” Mark went towards the back of his van and started unpacking his tools of the trade, a tank with a sprayer, a simple face mask that he hung around his neck, and a belt bag for his waist. “This cockroach species is very rare, you know. It takes expertise.”

Hannah pointed at his tank, “I hope the stuff you got there is very strong, we had a guy spray twice already.”

“Yes, don’t worry, it’s eco as well. Chemicals are just a side thing, the main trick is to get to their queen. Now, there is no one in the house, right?”

“Umm yes,” Ivan said, “now hold on, did you say the queen? I don’t think that cockroaches..”

“Right, thank you. Well, off I go, I’ll start with the house. It would be best if you take a walk for a while, this won’t take too long, but the fumes will be unpleasant.”

“I really don’t think that cockroaches have a queen,” Ivan took his phone out and started typing the question in, “I mean, do they?”

“Every kingdom has a queen, dad!” Tom contributed.

Mark was already on the porch, walking towards the front door when Hannah shouted after him, “So what you didn’t tell us is how much will this cost?”

“Nothing!” came a cheerful response.

Hannah was bewildered by all this, she looked at Ivan who was still fiddling with his phone, looking for an answer in the field of entomology — “No, I don’t think, umm, cockroaches don’t have a queen, right? They don’t..”

But then both of them looked at Mark again, for what they witnessed was yet another unexpected event. Mark the exterminator was just facing the front door completely frozen, with his hand on the doorknob, all of his previous resolve to enter the house suddenly gone. After a while of standing still, he took in a few deep breaths, then with a loud exhale he violently opened the door and plunged himself into the hallway, slamming the door shut behind him.

All three stared at the door for a while, a scene that was pretty much a still image, until Peach came up to the door to give them a sniff. Ivan and Hannah looked at each other.

“I think he — I think Mark might have a fear of roaches, hun.” Ivan almost whispered.

Hannah said nothing, and Ivan could spot a familiar shadow over her eyes, the kind of look he receives when she feels that she has no control and nothing makes sense. She turned her back on him, took Tommy by the hand, and started walking away towards their orchard, followed by the dog.

“Yes, let’s take a stroll,” Ivan mumbled and dragged himself behind everyone while still fiddling with his phone. He knew that at a time like this he was as welcome as a leper.

Inside the house, Mark was advancing through the infested hallway of his worst fears, one slow step at a time, all the while trying to keep a good distance from the walls. With each step he took, one or two roaches on the floor would run away before him with their usual unnerving speed, letting him pass further into this nightmare. It was not a particularly long hallway, yet to him, it seemed to be stretching on forever. The air was thick with their bitter smell. He knew from experience that he was about to sort of get used to the whole situation, but for now, his face was covered in a cold sweat and his awareness was at its highest.

This infestation was pretty bad. Wherever he would look there were five or so little bastards, which meant there were hundreds more hiding behind walls or under the floor at every spot. Their black leggy bodies were traversing about or just squirming in place, and he could feel their dark pearly eyes setting their gaze upon him.

He passed by an open door towards the kitchen on his left, but he could not bear to look inside for longer than a second, for the room was absolutely crawling with insects looking for a good feast. Then he passed by a closed door on his right, which probably led into a bedroom. He was thankful that he could not see inside, though a particularly large roach was positioned at the very middle of the door as if it was guarding the entrance and snarling at him.

He kept progressing down the hallway, painfully aware that with each step he is increasing the distance from the exit. At this point, he took to deep breathing, while trying to keep his sight fixed on the end of the hallway. He had to reach an approximate center of the house to begin his search.

Finally, he made it to the end, an open passage leading into the living room. Which wasn’t badly infested. A good place to start. This room was as good as he’d get. Just a roach here and there. Which meant about five or six in each piece of furniture. Which also meant dozens along the room edges, behind a TV set, pots, and family photos. And thousands of them inside the walls, floor, ceiling, everywhere. And the exit is so far away. Mark knew his thoughts were slipping the wrong way, he was about to laugh. He dropped the tank on the floor and put a hand over his mouth. A muffled laugh started coming out of his sinuses.

“Hey mister, what’s funny?” a squeaky voice asked, almost about to burst into laughter itself.

Mark snapped and spotted that kid, casually standing in the passage, without a care in the world. While Mark’s world turned upside down for a moment. He felt like he traversed to the heart of Hell itself, only to find a child playing hopscotch there.

“I umm, I thought of something funny. A joke. That I heard once. Why are you creeping about?“

“Dad was bummed out and then he argued with mom, and then they laughed, and I got bored so they let me go play so I came to check up on you..” he paused to get some air, “You know what makes me laugh?”

“What?”

“That you are a bug exterminator and you are scared of bugs,” the boy teased through laughter, “look you are all white and sweating!”

“I guess,” Mark had to admit. There wasn’t any trace of being mean in this kid’s statement, he was just enjoying an obvious observation. “These are not bugs but insects by the way. And look around, don’t you find them disgusting?”

“I guess,” the boy agreed, “they are very icky, and they make mom and dad upset, but I’m not really scared of them.”

“No? Good for you kid,” Mark wiped some sweat from his face with a sleeve. Somehow, the absurdity of this child’s presence was reducing the grasp his fears had on him. “I barely managed to walk down that hallway.”

“My name is Tom. And look, I’m not scared of the hallway!” which he demonstrated by running all the way to the front door, then he ran back and spread his arms with a wide grin, like an acrobat who just performed an amazing feat. “Wanna see again?”, then he repeated the act, while the thumping of his feet was making all the roaches run away in fear. “Amazing isn’t it?” This time there was a fair amount of cynicism involved.

“Alright, kid..”

“Tom. I’m eight. And now — in slow motion!” then he repeated his act, but this time “in slow motion”, making a continuous whoosh sound with his mouth which was supposed to represent some audio distortion caused by the slowing down of time, while steadily flailing his arms as he traversed down the hallway and back, as if the space around him was offering resistance.

“Alright, Tommy, listen, would you like to help me exterminate these roaches?”

Tommy has spent about two seconds in contemplation, or disbelief, and then a loud and joyful “Yes!” exploded out of him.

“Very good. You can start by going outside to play, while I take care of business here, alright?”

The boy’s face went sower, “Wow, that’s mean. I’m not stupid.”

“Yes, sorry, you are right. But still, I need some quiet now to continue my work, ok?” Then Mark started pretending that he was adjusting his equipment and estimating the room, hoping that the kid will get bored and leave him be. Tommy persisted in standing there, however, observing the whole performance with his arms crossed.

A few minutes later — “Aren’t you going to start that sprinkler, to poison the bugs?”

Mark decided to put his cards on the table, “No. If you must know, that tank is empty, it’s just for a show. I don’t intend to poison anyone.”

“No?”

“No. Check this out.” Mark reached for a pocket of his belt bag, taking out what seemed to be a lump of dark gray cloth. The boy noticed that the cloth must be wrapped around some small object.

“A wise old man gave this to me, a long time ago,” Mark said, his both hands holding the mystery item for display as he was carefully unwrapping it, “I have paid quite a price for it, and I still do, yet at the same time it is paying me back. But it is not clear whether I am profiting or not. I am not talking about money of course.”

The anticipation made Tommy soak in every word, though he wasn’t quite grasping their meaning. A part of him wondered if this is some prank, is the man just leading him on, like a minute ago when he pretended he wanted his help. He bit his lip and looked on with interest as one layer of wrapping unfolded after another until at last the item was revealed, a rugged stone the size of his fist.

“A — stone?” one of his eyebrows went up. It was obvious this wasn’t just any stone that he could find outside, it had many branching channels etched upon its surface, but still, this was somewhat anticlimactic, a prank would have been more entertaining.

Mark seemed quite focused at this point. He tugged the wrapping rag back into his belt bag while holding the stone high with his right hand, gathering the courage to activate it. Having another human being about to become a witness was a new thing for him. So far he was pretty good at hiding what he does from his clients, they would always agree to his terms and let him work alone, whatever it takes if he can make their pest problem go away. But this kid… Oh, what the heck, his mission had very few rules, and not one of them stated he can’t have any witnesses. Hiding his work method was more of a convenience thing than a rule. In the worst case the kid will freak out and no one will believe his story.

In his mind, Tommy was making a hard choice between three sarcastic remarks about the whole stone disappointment, when the man brought the stone to his mouth and blew a long stream of air into it, sort of how a caveman would ignite a fire. And to Tom’s amazement, the comparison appeared correct, as the stone’s surface seemed to glow yellow a bit. The man blew into the stone again, and the gentle stream of focused air fed the faint glow, making it brighter. The glow seemed to have caught some inertia now, as it was getting brighter on its own, smoothly changing its color from yellow to blue, only to settle at the bright green. Now the stone’s entire surface became a translucent source of green light, to the point that it might as well have been a lightbulb. It was a magical sight, but considering these changes in color, Tom began to wonder if he was looking at some sort of a toy with LED lights, and was about to ask the man where he bought it.

Yet the question remained stuck in his throat, as the man suddenly turned his head away from the stone as if to protect his eyes, and the glow simply exploded outwards, splashing the room in an unnatural wave of green light. Now that the man’s entire right hand was a bright flare, uncomfortable to look at, Tom turned his sight away from it to observe that the walls, furniture, and every other item in the room had only one color, green. Then he spotted bright golden speckles all over the place, first only in his vicinity, but then more and more of these, fading in further away. As if they were further than what the room would allow him to see, as if these golden speckles were in their own space, oblivious to the physical constraints of the room.

He rubbed his eyes and looked down, only to spot what seemed to be a roach, yet completely made out of golden translucent light scurry next to his leg. He could see its texture in great detail. Then he became aware that all the golden speckles were shaped like roaches, furthermore, he could see them behind objects, sofa, pots, even inside the walls. And even inside the walls which were behind other walls, the roaches were outlining the shape of the entire house to the point that he could tell individual rooms apart. The green room and all the objects in it almost faded away from his awareness in contrast.

Everywhere around Tom, above him, even below him, there was a living cloud of golden roaches, either skittering in some direction or holding still, and he could feel his sense of balance getting confused, unsure if he was standing on a solid surface or floating inside the golden cloud. Somehow, this coloring has made it possible for him to observe every roach that he focused on in microscopic detail, down to tiny hairs on their limbs. Most of the ones on the wall right next to him were showing their stomachs, as clear as if they were standing on the other side of a glass. At the nearest corner, right above the floor, a lump of roaches was piling on top of a dead one, sharing a cannibalistic dinner, tearing its flesh apart.

He still wasn’t scared of bugs, but all this was beyond icky. And beyond weird. He didn’t feel like he was home anymore, and a part of him wanted to panic, wondering if he’ll ever come back from this world of green and gold. But his brain couldn’t come up with any response, so he just stood there frozen for a while. Then he looked at the source of all this, the blinding flare attached to the right arm of the only other human being in there with him. The man didn’t look like an evil magician or a threat of any kind. His illuminated face was in a state of absolute terror, which inspired the boy to feel braver than a moment before. Tom even felt worried about him.

“Are you alright, mister?” he spoke, aware that this is probably a strange thing to say while experiencing such a supernatural spectacle.

“I’ll never... Get used to this..” Mark’s Adam’s apple took a journey down and up along his throat, “Just... Give me a moment.” Then he gave the boy a nervous smile and an assuring nod, “Don’t worry, I can make this stop at any time.”

“Good to know,” Tommy recalled that the man was scared of bugs, and it seemed awkward for a wizard to be scared of his own magic, but he decided to remain polite. “Hey, this is actually pretty cool. You surp... Surpassed my expectations, mister.”

“Mark.” the man said. He took a deep breath, apparently reclaiming some composure over himself. “Now let’s get to work, shall we? Let’s take a look. What do we have here..”

He raised the flare above his head, and took a good look downwards through the floor, his eyes still revealing quite an amount of fear left in him.

Tommy followed his example and looked through the floor into a cloud of roaches stretching downwards. The feeling of depth has made him feel dizzy again.

“What are we looking for?”

“Down there, all the way under the basement, you see where the lights are getting dense, and then bending to the side to form a tunnel, leading towards the outside?”

“Oh, yes,” the boy confirmed after a while. “Wow, our house bugs go all the way there?”

“Insects, not bugs. Do you know where that trail ends?”

Tommy touched his chin. Having been corrected for the second time by an expert, he was more than eager to provide an expert opinion himself, “Well, the trail goes a long way. It ends somewhere behind the house. Yes. Out in the back, there is a path going down the hill, and old stone stairs. It ends somewhere around these stairs, for sure.”

Mark quickly took out the cloth from the bag and dropped it over his right hand and the flare. Immediately the green light was gone, and the vision of golden insects along with it. The living room was back to its normal condition.

“Thank you for your assistance, Tom,” he said while carefully wrapping the stone back into the cloth. He had to admit to himself, it felt good to have a sidekick for once. But now it was time to send him away, the next stage would never work if he wasn’t alone. “I have to go to that place now and take care of something, but you absolutely can’t follow me there, you understand?”

“Why not?”

“Because it’s out of the question. Oh don’t pout, you saw more than what you should have as it is. You can still help me out, however. Go put this tank into my van, then find your mom and dad and let them know that their problem will be over soon and that they can come back into the house in about half an hour. But don’t tell them a thing about what you saw here, ok?”

Tommy was reluctant to leave, he had so many questions for Mark that were lining up. “Alright,” he said, “but I’ll help you with one more thing, I’ll spare you from walking the hallway of horrors. Come this way.”

He led Mark through a short passage connected to the opposite end of the living room and opened a sturdy-looking door for him. “Right this way, mister wizard. You’ll end up out in the back. Then just go down the hill. Oh watch out, there is one on the wall.”

Mark nodded at Tommy in appreciation, and at the roach as he was passing it by, and then he went outside, finding himself on a sunny downhill slope covered in all sorts of growth.

The boy kept the door half-open, continuing to peek at the strange man as he crossed the backyard and walked the path down the hill among bushes until he disappeared from sight.

Ivan and Hannah were lying in the shade of their cherry tree orchard, her head resting on his stomach, while he went back to scrolling through his phone. The fight was over, it was time to relax.

Ivan spotted a new golden piece of information, “Here is a good one, did you know a cockroach can live for weeks without its head until it dies of thirst?”

Hannah savagely stabbed her finger knuckles into his ribs, making him moan in pain. “No, now change the research topic, will you darling? I want to know what the weather will be like on Friday. I was planning on visiting that crafts market with Catherine.”

Ivan fiddled with his phone a bit, then made the report, “It says ‘cooldown with light rain, the two bitches are advised to bring an umbrella’.”

Hannah responded by pinching the skin and what little fat he had on a side of his waist real hard. Ivan shrieked. The idyllic atmosphere was interrupted by Tommy running towards them, followed by Peach.

Ivan looked at them without lifting his head, “Hey, little fellow. Hey, you two. Where have you been?”

Hannah extended her arms towards the boy. He fell into her hug and laid down in the grass next to them, catching breath. Then she handed him a plastic cup that was by her side, “Cherries. They’ve been washed.”

Tommy lifted himself a bit and grabbed a handful of cool cherries. He delightfully chewed one up and spit. “Mom, dad, I was with the exterminator.”

“We told you not to go there!” they responded almost simultaneously.

“Oh don’t worry, there was no poison, his tank is empty, it was just for the show you see. He is actually a wizard, he showed me a magical stone that glows green, and when it glows you can see all the roaches, even the ones behind walls because they glow as well. But I’m not supposed to tell you that. And now he went outside to have a battle with their queen, I’m sure. Oh, and he said we can go back into the house in half an hour.”

“So there is some progress then,” Hannah said while looking up into canopies. Although some of the things Tommy said sounded worrying, she decided that nothing will upset her now.

“Tommy,” Ivan said, while gently fending off the dog who started sniffing up his phone, “what you saw was some special equipment that uses some sort of ultraviolet lights, alright? That light makes everything look strange, but I guess he only used it to spot the bugs.”

Tommy gave this a thought, “They are not bugs but insects, dad.”

“Right..” Ivan said, unsure, then started checking it up on his phone. “Right, hey you learned something today.”

Tommy rested his case, then dedicated himself fully to cherries. Both of his parents looked at him lovingly, their boy munching on cherries picked from their own garden was the sight that made their day. It was a moment of clarity when their decision to move out of the city and settle on this place gave fruit, and they felt like they somehow always knew what they were doing. They were very young when Tommy was born, by today’s standards, but he was no accident.

The sun was beating hard onto the slope as Mark was descending the path. There were no trees along the way to provide any shade, only bushes, and weeds. He had an impressive view of the distant plains that stretched far ahead, however. Too bad he didn’t come here for the view.

Eventually, he spotted uneven slabs of stone half-buried into the earth, recognizing the top of old stairs the boy was talking about. They looked like they had been there for at least a century, their purpose was unclear and whatever they led up or down to was long gone.

The bottom of the stone staircase was shrouded in bushes and in the convenient shade of a willow tree. That spot looked interesting to him in particular, so he went down and took a good look at the last step. Just under the stone block, there was a dark hole in the ground, barely an inch in diameter. “There we are.”

He checked to make sure that there was no one around, then sat down onto the ground with his legs crossed, faced towards the hole yet not too close to it. Back when he did this for the first time he learned that keeping some distance is a good idea.

After taking a deep breath he laid the back of his hand onto the ground, palm facing up, and began quietly chanting the incantations he learned years ago. Nothing was happening at first, yet he kept repeating the short chant over and over again, slowly sinking into a trance, his body and mind surrendering to the earth element, his sense of sight almost entirely taken by the dark hole under the stone.

Then the first pair of antennas appeared out of darkness, twitching a bit as if to observe the surroundings. One large roach came out, a marvelous specimen of the inner court, and positioned itself to one side. Then another, then another, about two dozens in total. The queen’s entire nobility has positioned themselves in a symmetric formation at both sides of the hole. These insects took great pride in respecting their protocols.

Soon the edges of the hole started to change shape, and the ground around it bulged a little. Mark would be laughing himself to death at this point, was he not in a state of trance that shed aside most of his character, including his phobia. By now he was almost pure consciousness.

The hole then collapsed under the pressure of a large disturbance inside of it, yet the earth bulged again, and out she came, first the antennas, then the body, the queen of this court was a cockroach the size of a beer bottle, adult shoe, no, bigger. No point in comparing sizes like a fisherman would in his wild tales, it was a damn big cockroach, and the old stinger of Mark’s fear almost found him, yet he kept his focus. The queen moved straight towards him a bit, then halted just in front of her nobles and fluttered her wings to shake off the dirt. Mark remained motionless, the back of his hand still on the ground.

“Forgive me, your majesty,” this was the part where Mark was never too sure if his physical body was really saying the words. There are many things he didn’t know, he just knew more things than most, “tell me your name I beg.”

The queen’s eyes were deep black pearls, possibly older than mankind. An indescribable voice entered his mind, I am Syphalmalix, you are on my lands.

“Syphalmalix,” Mark responded, with trained confidence, “you are under my will. Come, you must do as I say, and I promise to let you go.”

The queen crawled forward and onto his palm, then stood upwards as only she and her closest kin could do.

Mark lifted her from the ground, “Tell me where the next kingdom is.”

A gentle wind blew in. The cockroach queen extended her limbs outwards and started swaying left and right, performing her dance.

Where the sun goes to rest and falls into the sea,

By the rocky shores of Trieste, and walls as old as me,

There is your treasure, and here is your fool’s fee.

Her body seemed to bloat a bit, and an ancient pink diamond dropped out of her behind, landing onto Mark’s palm.

“Thank you, your majesty. Now I command you to leave the house of humans alone, go elsewhere, and invade not again. Do as I say Syphalmalix, and I will set you free.”

The queen fluttered her wings and flew past Mark’s head with an extremely loud buzz.

Mark the treasure hunter climbed to his feet and went back up towards the house, careful not to step on any roach as streams of them were starting to burrow out of the ground, loyally following their queen. He went around the house that was doubtlessly being evacuated by its previous invaders, sat in his van, and was on his way, without caring to say goodbye or offer any explanation to his clients. As always, he ended up with a piece of treasure to cover his moving expenses and a pretty good idea of where to set up his next shop.