by Pete Kahle
She is a member of the HWA and her short fiction and poetry has appeared online and in print with a varied list of anthologies and magazines. Her first poetry collection Thorns, Hearts and Thistles was published in February 2015, and is available through Amazon.
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THE GOLDBUG
by Jason Parent
It called to him. Karl spotted the figurine as soon as he entered the novelty shop. He whizzed by pewter trinkets, costume jewelry, antiquated rocking horses, creepy looking monkeys mindlessly banging cymbals together and an army of waving porcelain kitties. None compared to the object of his desire.
He had never seen anything like it. Coleoptera? No. Ixodida? Whatever class it belonged to didn’t matter. It was something new, unique. Karl was certain of it. Even if it was only a cheap replica, he sensed power in it, something radiant and alive. He reached for it, but stopped short, afraid he might damage it.
He leaned in close. What amazing craftsmanship. The figurine might have been a brooch of some sort, or perhaps a tie clasp or an over-sized cufflink missing its mate. From afar, he’d guessed it was a model of an unknown insect, but the eight legs he now counted told him otherwise. This arachnid, segmented like an ant but with short, multi-jointed legs and an abdomen as fat as a blood-gorged tick’s, was unlike any specimen he’d ever examined.
Either the statuette’s sculptor had crafted a fictional creature that blurred the lines between insect and arachnid, or he had captured through art an unclassified species. Entranced by exquisite detail—the striations in the exoskeleton, the crisscrossing patterns comprising its two strainer-like fly eyes, and the sharp edges of its inch-long incisors, Karl had the strange conviction that he was looking at something that had once existed or might yet exist. He had to know for sure.
“She’s a beauty, isn’t she?” a voice called from behind him. Karl jumped, startled out of his thoughts. He turned and for the first time noticed a short, dark-skinned man with a shaved head who glided toward him from the other side of the room. The man had shrewd, beady eyes, buried behind thick-rimmed glasses. One side of his mouth curled into a thin smile, while the other side was pressed into a flat line. Pockmarks marred his cheeks. He wore a white-button down three sizes too big for him that hung like a dress over black slacks and sandaled feet.
He slipped behind the display counter, his half-smile unwavering. “It’s twenty-four carat gold.”
“I doubt that.” Karl downplayed his interest, though he already knew he’d be buying the little masterpiece.
The salesman raised his right hand. “It’s pure gold, scout’s honor.” He made a “V” with his index and middle fingers.
Karl had never been a Boy Scout, but he’d been in enough back alley antiquity shops to know that their salespeople generally lacked honor. He shook his head. The insect-arachnid statuette didn’t look cheaply constructed, but he was sure it was made out of lead or a more malleable metal, aluminum maybe, then dipped in gold paint. He saw no chipping to lend credence to his theory, but only an idiot would place a gold nugget the size of his palm on a shelf where anyone could steal it. The salesman, who Karl assumed owned the place, was probably shady, but he didn’t look stupid.
“What do you call it?” Karl asked.
“Ah, that’s a rarity indeed! We call it the goldbug, because—”
“Let me guess: because of the Edgar Allen Poe story.”
“No, because it’s gold, and it’s a bug.”
“Very original.” Karl sighed. “It’s actually not a bug. It’s an arachnid. You can tell by its eight—”
“Arachnids are bugs.”
“No they aren’t. Insects are bugs. Arachnids are arachnids.”
“What makes you the expert?”
Karl smiled. “I’m an entomologist.”
The shopkeeper’s forehead crinkled. “A what now?”
“An entomol… a bug expert.”
“That must really help with the ladies.”
Karl rolled his eyes and released a breath. He tired of the conversation. He just wanted to buy the damn thing and bring it home so that he could study it closely without interruption.
“So, how much?”
“I was selling it for one fifty, but since you’re a big-time entomologist, one seventy-five.”
“What? You’re crazy! This thing’s worth five bucks tops.”
“Okay, okay. Maybe it’s not pure gold, but it’s gold plated. Pick it up. See for yourself.”
Karl’s eyes widened. He couldn’t resist. As his fingers moved toward the statuette, the store owner grabbed his arm.
“Careful. Those pincer things are sharp. They’ve pricked me more than a few times.”
With his thumb and forefinger, Karl gripped the goldbug by its midsection and lifted it from the shelf. It was heavier than he’d anticipated. Afraid it might slip from his grasp, he rested it gently upside-down on his other hand and ran his fingertips down its underside.
“Remarkable,” he said aloud, forgetting to disguise his admiration. “So detailed…” The goldbug’s entire exoskeleton was covered with an intricate mesh of tiny hexagons. The pattern made it look almost granular. Like sand? Camouflage? Karl was more convinced than ever that the figurine replicated a real creature that once existed—maybe still existed—somewhere in the world.
“Where did this goldbug come from?”
“Africa.”
“Could you be more specific?”
“The desert.”
Karl rubbed his forehead. Desert insects and spiders could be large and strange, so the source was plausible, but it was maddeningly nonspecific. Did the man really know that little about his merchandise?
“The Sahara Desert?” Karl clenched his jaw. “Or the Kalahari desert?”
“Don’t know. People who live there don’t have return addresses.”
The Bedouins and the San didn’t do this kind of art work, either. “So how did you get it?”
“Mail.”
Karl’s frustration mounted. “So how did you pay…? Oh, forget it!” I’ll figure out this creature’s origins myself.
“I’ll give you fifty bucks for it,” he said.
“It’s worth eight times that.”
“You just said you normally price it at one fifty.”
“Did I? One fifty then.”
“Fifty.”
“A hundred.”
“Seventy-five?”
“Deal.”
The shop owner extended his hand. Karl didn’t take it. Carrying the goldbug as if it were a Fabergé egg, he followed the man to the counter. Reluctantly, he set his treasure down and pulled out his wallet. The shopkeeper packaged the statuette in bubble wrap, placed it in a small cardboard box and dropped it into a bag. Karl gave the shopkeeper eighty dollars, received his change and headed out the door with his purchase. On his way out, he passed several No Returns signs posted conspicuously everywhere his gaze moved. He’d been so entranced by the goldbug he hadn’t seen them on his way in, but it didn’t matter.
He cradled the package close to his body. “Don’t worry,” he whispered. “I have no intention of returning you.”
He jumped into his car and placed the bag on the seat beside him. After turning the key in the ignition, his hand instinctively went to adjust the heat. He hadn’t realized until then how cold the store had been, almost as chilly as the outdoors.
Is he too cheap to put on the heat? Karl shrugged, rubbed his palms together and drove off.
He headed straight home, eager to learn what he could about the mysterious creature the figurine portrayed. If it had
been an actual specimen, it would have been an extraordinary scientific find. His gut told him that the scientific community was not aware of the creature’s existence, had somehow passed it over in surveys of African desert arthropods and entomofauna. He imagined the laurels that would come his way if he could he present his peers with a newly discovered species.
But a species of what? Its leg count suggested arachnid, its segmentation insect. It was closest in appearance to a large stag beetle. The goldbug’s protruding mandibles, curved like scimitars, resembled those found on the males of several of the 1,200 Lucanidae species, save for their unusual size and sharpness. Karl wondered if the statuette’s creator might have been frightened of the creature and played up its more monstrous features in his rendition.
As he drove, he studied it in his mind. Maybe it’s some kind of crustacean. He rubbed his forehead. I’ll have to classify it correctly, or I’ll look like a fool. He recalled its feet. They did look like little lobster legs, bi-segmented but much sharper, like needle-nose pliers with honed edges and actual needle points. Maybe it was some relative of a crawfish that had evolved to survive where water had long since dried out. Karl wouldn’t rule out the possibility. He knew what this discovery could mean for him. He laughed. I’ll certainly give it a better name than “goldbug.” Something that incorporated a Latinized version of his own name, he presumed. For now, though, goldbug suited it just fine.
He pulled into his driveway and hustled into his home, a small cottage forty miles outside the city, which he shared with his house cat, a black longhair named Beetle Bailey. Bailey was the best friend Karl could ask for: largely self-sufficient and rarely in the way.
Karl headed into the kitchen and placed the box on the counter. Bailey was perched on his cat-shelf in the window, waiting for him. Karl bent over to pet him and the cat nudged his forehead against Karl’s cheek. As Karl stroked him behind the ear, Bailey purred, offering his caregiver a few more gentle headbutts. The house was cold, so Karl adjusted the thermostat. After feeding his pet, he grabbed his laptop and sat with it at his dining room table. While the computer powered on, he got up to brew a pot of coffee, then retrieved the box containing his prized purchase and carried it over to the table. When he opened it and looked inside, his breath caught in his throat. The goldbug was gone.
Calm down. It’s not as if it could walk off. He examined the box. At one of its bottom edges where interlocking tabs overlapped one another, he found a space that was large enough for a small object to escape. It looked as if it had been sliced open. Karl immediately imagined the worst -- that its sharp edges had penetrated the packing materials and it had fallen in the street.
He glanced at the counter and released a loud sigh of relief. The goldbug sat next to where the box had been. That was lucky.
Delicately, he carried the goldbug to the table and placed it beside his computer. Although he treated it as if it were fragile, he guessed that he could have whipped it against the wall without so much as scratching it. “What are you?” he asked it in a reverent whisper.
He spent the next half hour panning through his files and those of the university where he taught. During that time, Bailey crunched away on his cat food. When he finished, he leapt onto the table for some human affection. But when he saw the goldbug, his attitude changed.
The cat emitted a low, guttural growl. His back arched and his tail stood erect. He slowly backed away from the figurine, hissing and swatting at it.
“What’s gotten into you?” Karl asked. He couldn’t recall a time when Bailey had been so upset. He tried to pet him, but Bailey kept swatting. His claws connected with the back of Karl’s hand, breaking the skin.
“Ouch! What the hell, Bailey?” Karl lunged at his cat, wrapping one arm around his chest and another beneath his belly. Bailey squirmed, growling as Karl carried him to the bedroom. He tossed Bailey onto the bed. The cat jumped off and headed for the door, but Karl was quicker. He backed out of the room, shutting the door as he did. Bailey scratched at the wood, begging for his freedom.
“I’ll let you out when you learn to behave,” Karl said, his hand still stinging.
He returned to the kitchen and pulled back his chair, ready to resume his research when his heart skipped a beat. Where is it? That goddamn cat must have swatted it off the table. If he broke it, I swear I’ll—
The noise was faint. It sounded like scissors opening and closing. Schikt-schikt. Schikt-schikt.
What was that? Karl couldn’t determine where the sound had come from. He scanned the table, looked underneath it, then checked the kitchen counter and the tile floor. The goldbug was nowhere to be seen. He scratched his head and tugged at his graying hair. Where could the bug possibly have gone?
“Ah!” A sudden pain shot through his ankle. He looked down. Blood was soaking through his white sock. He rolled it down, exposing an inch-long gash just above the ankle bone. It wasn’t deep, but it hurt.
He glanced at his bedroom door. It was ajar. I must not have pulled it closed all the way.
“Damn it, Bailey!” he shouted. “What the hell is your problem today?”
His shoulders heaving, Karl stormed into the bathroom. He opened his medicine cabinet and pulled out a bandage. After sopping up the blood with a tissue, he covered the cut and went back to the table, hoping to find the goldbug and resume his work.
The first part was far easier than expected. “How did I miss you there?” he asked the goldbug, which sat on the table exactly where he had placed it. “Maybe I should get my eyes checked.” He shrugged and sat down at his computer. The clock in its bottom right corner read “7:15 p.m.”
A familiar low growl followed by hissing startled him from a daydream. He looked at the clock: 7:27 p.m. Karl slapped his palms against his thighs and stood. The screeching grew louder. He loved his cat, but Bailey was trying his patience.
Walking toward his bedroom, Karl grumbled, “What now, Bailey?”
A howl so ghastly it sent shivers through his bones came from the behind the door. “Bailey?” he stuttered, his lips quivering. His cat had never made a sound like that before—not when he was sick, not when he was hurt, not even that time when the door slammed shut on his tail. Karl’s stomach turned. Bailey was in agony.
Fear seized Karl as he raced to his companion. Oh God, Bailey! What have you done?
He pushed open the door. Bailey lay on the floor just inside the room. The cat had gone silent. He wasn’t moving.
“Bailey!” Karl shouted, crouching beside his feline. He shook him gently. “What’s wrong, buddy?”
The cat’s fur felt oily. Karl placed his hand flat against the animal’s side. It was wet. He pulled back his hand. Blood covered his palm.
Karl’s eyes began to water. Bailey didn’t make a sound, but his belly rose and fell faintly. He was still alive.
Karl stroked Bailey gently, feeling for the wound. His hands ran through matted fur. As he went against the grain, he saw the cause of Bailey’s distress: a golf ball-sized tunnel behind his front legs. From it, a small river flowed. Something had excavated a hole straight through him.
What could have done such a thing? The question crossed his mind, but Karl had no time to dwell on it. Saving his cat was his first priority.
Leaving Bailey where he lay, Karl ran into the kitchen. He grabbed his wallet and keys off the counter and shoved them into his pockets. Then he hurried into the bathroom for a towel to wrap Bailey. The emergency veterinary clinic was only fifteen miles away. He hoped Bailey could hang on a little longer.
But as he hustled through the dining room, he saw something out of the corner of his eye that stopped him dead in his tracks. The goldbug sat on the table where he’d left it. But it wasn’t gold anymore. It was dark red. Blood red.
“What the…” His words trailed off as he turned to face the goldbug. Other than its color change, the figurine looked the same as it had when he’d purchased it. A wave of nausea came over him. Those mesh-like eyes seemed a
live, black and white speckled like television snow, here and there a dot of red.
Schikt-schikt. Karl’s mouth dropped open. He was sure that goldbug had just moved, its pincers crossing over like knives sharpening against each other. It was still again. A soft buzzing followed. Was it coming from the figurine?
Karl took a step back. His eyes never left the goldbug.
The buzzing amplified. Four thin membranes peeled from the goldbug’s back. They rose and vibrated. The goldbug rose with them.
Karl bit down on his knuckle. Wings? This thing’s alive? He took another step backward. The goldbug hovered in place.
Schikt-schikt. It shot itself at Karl.
He screamed. The goldbug hit him hard against his chest and latched itself to his sweatshirt. Its pincers snipped feverishly, shredding the cotton beneath them.
Karl batted at his shirt, but the goldbug held firm. Afraid to grab it, he instead tore off his shirt, pulling it quickly over his head. He threw it against the kitchen floor where it slid into the wall in a crumpled heap.
Karl froze. He watched the pile intently.
The sweatshirt moved. The goldbug crawled beneath it. Enraged, Karl stomped his loafer repeatedly into the pile, remembering Bailey, knowing this thing was somehow responsible. By the time he stopped, he’d broken into a sweat. The goldbug had ceased moving. He must have squished it. After all, as vicious as it was, it was only a bug. An arachnid, he thought, laughing uneasily.
With his eyes fixed on the shirt, he began to calm. It still hadn’t moved. I’m okay, he told himself, his hands shaking. He examined his chest. A few red lines streaked across it, nothing more than scratches. He took a deep breath. I’m okay. I can get Bailey now—
The sweatshirt moved. First pincers then antennae emerged from beneath it. The rest of the goldbug followed. It paused on the floor, its wire-mesh eyes staring right at Karl. Its wings expanded and began to flutter. Karl turned to run.
