Specks.(Kevin Hughes) A little black dot was on the wall. Harvey spotted it while he was washing dishes. Harvey hated bugs. He got a paper towel and went over to smash the bug.

“What the hell?”

Blood spattered everywhere. Much more blood than a small speck of a bug should have had in it. The darn thing wasn’t any bigger than a few millimeters. A fly would have looked like a giant standing next to that speck. And yet his entire kitchen wall was dripping with blood. Blood ran down the wall in rivulets. He called his brother Mark in from the other room:

“Mark, come look at this shit!

“What?”

“Just come and look, dammit.”

Mark leaped up from his chair. His brother didn’t usually swear, and he could hear a bit of fear in that command too. So he darted from the living room to the kitchen…and stopped short. His face was a picture of shock.

“What did you do, Harry? Butcher a chicken?”

Harry shook his head.

“No. I squished a bug.”

“A bug?! No effen way. You need a chicken or a big hamster to get that much blood spilling out.”

Harry shook his head again.

“No, I am telling you it wasn’t a big bug, it was just a speck. Just a tiny speck.”

“Well, whatever, you are going to have that wall…maybe even repaint it.”

Mark turned to leave the kitchen. He saw a speck moving on the counter. Without thinking , he slapped it with his palm. Blood spattered everywhere. It squirted out from under his hand like he had smashed a water balloon filled with blood. There must have been a quart of blood in that tiny speck. Mark’s shirt was drenched, the counter was dripping with blood. There were spatters on the fridge and Mark’s face.

Mark paled.

“Jesus.”

Harry called 911:

“You aren’t going to believe this…”

An almost panicked voice interrupted him on the phone…it was the Police Dispatcher.

“You smashed a speck didn’t you?”

“Yes, how did you know?”

The Officer on the line ignored his question.

“Don’t smash anymore of them. Stay inside. DO NOT GO OUTSIDE!”

The line went dead.

“What was that all about?”

“I don’t know Mark. He sounded scared.”

Mark’s phone rang. It was Becky.

“Hey Babe, what’s up?”

“Mark ( her voice was panic ridden, maniacal too), stay inside. Percy is on my porch…and she looks like something you sucked all the air out of to put in a vacuum bag.”

She started to cry.

“Percy? Your cat?”

“Weren’t you listening (her voice climbed up another octave) Percy is dead. A dried out husk. She has a few tiny specks on her back. But she is all dried out. What should I do?”

Harry grabbed the phone from his brother.

“Becky, listen to me, you didn’t go out to touch Percy did you?”

“What do you think I am, some kind of animal? Of course I went out to pick her up. I saw the specks and thought it might be some kind of tick or something. One of them moved, so I dropped her. I haven’t been on the porch since. Put Mark back on…I want to talk to my boyfriend…not you.”

Harry didn’t hand the phone to Mark. He calmed himself down.

“Becky, listen to me, go in your bathroom and strip naked …look all over your body. If you see any specks….use a tweezer to pull it free. DO NOT SQUASH IT!”

Becky was in shock. Her boyfriends older brother told he to get naked. And look for specks. Was he crazy. But she looked over at Percy out on the porch. A part of her brain followed instructions. She found on on her calf. She pulled it with a tweezers. It came free…but blood poured out of her calf like she had a bullet wound. The speck was wiggling on the tweezers trying to get back to the blood.

She screamed, dropped the tweezers and the phone and ran out onto the porch.

They heard a gurgling sound. Then…nothing.

Mark pulled away from his brother.

“I am going to get Becky!”

Before Harry could stop him, if he even could have. Mark was in a blind fury, he had the strength of a mad man. He damn near broke the door off of the house as he burst out the front door. He only took about seven steps. Then he stopped, as if he was puzzled. He had specks all over his arms and legs. He turned to look back at Harry. He held his hands up in in a gesture of either amazement or surrender. The specks were all over him now.

A minute later he was a dried out husk on the front yard.

Harry called the Police.

“I would like to report a murder. Maybe two of them. ”

A voice no longer sane spoke back:

“Get in line."

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