Terror of the Hook Flies
In my world, there lives a horror, not one that actively seeks out our destruction or one that passively wipes us off the face of the earth by its unconscious existence.
No, rather this threat can do nothing to us while we live and breathe. It enacts its monstrous machinations once we breathe our last and leave our bodies for the earth to have.
Hook Flies, these horrid little vermin no bigger than your eyelashes have spread themselves across my world infesting every corner of it. In the wild, they are hard to spot you could be covered in the damn things and wouldn't notice. They simply lay their eggs and move along, leaving you no worse for wear. These eggs are ultimately harmless to your health as well. Which is a benefit as there isn't a creature alive that isn't completely infested to the core with these things.
Named for the two curved hooks protruding from its long-bloated tail. The flies themselves are asexual and carry mass amounts of unborn young to be delivered to their host via their hooks. Once landing on their victim they dig in under the skin and excrete their vile writhing seed that will dig itself further into its new home. The only saving grace of the whole invasion is that it is relatively painless, you might notice if you are awake, a small itch at the moment of insemination, but it's not enough to wake you from a light sleep.
Once their young are inside you it doesn't do much of anything, only hides in wait for the day you take your last breath. Once you leave this world, this is when they come to life and take your body as their new home.
At first, it's nothing many would notice, the eggs need time to hatch, feed on your flesh, grow mature and multiply within your corpse. Once they begin to grow in number enough to have conquered your body, they begin to set out on figuring out how to control it.
It will start small, a little twitch here, an eye shift there and maybe even a muscle spasm to shock any on-lookers. But as time goes on and the body rots and begins to bloat these movements become more controlled. It's not long before the Hook Flies can now make your former vessel rise from its sleeping place and begin to move.
Now, this might seem like it's a nightmarish apocalypse come to life. But remember, this is harmless. The goal of the Hook Fly is not to kill and consume the flesh of others or turn the world's population to be carbon copies of itself. No, its goal is to simply reproduce in its new nest and make the process as easy as possible.
Once at the controls the Hook Fly will seek out a place that will help speed up the body's decomposition as well as supply the nest with some warmth to help raise its young.
Simply the Hook Fly will only move the body into a place where the sun isn't obstructed and stand in place until it rots away. The flies will work away at the corpse transforming it into a nest repositioning the limbs, and building large growths to act as entries and exits for their new grotesque home.
Seeing your loved ones, friends and fellow villagers standing in place as everything they were is stripped away and slowly transformed into a statue of filth, fills you with unending dread. They stand as a monument, a constant existential reminder of our inevitable deaths.
This is why, whenever someone passes on, we always, without hesitation burn their bodies as part of our funeral rights. This saves the family from seeing their loved ones subjected to this torturous state, as well as saving the fallen from having their bodies paraded around by those forsaken insects.
The pain of seeing those you care about in such a state is unbearable, I know, I recently had to help so many unfortunate souls, many I once knew.
The day was cool and fresh, I was in high spirits, returning from a long trip delivering a coal supply to the closest city a six-day round trip. I was looking forward to seeing my family again and finally being able to sleep in my bed.
As I came out of a forested area, at the base of the hill my village sat upon, I remember the smoke. Granted it was at the end of winter not so warm you wouldn't have a fire but still, this was too much. Then the smell hit me, the rancid staleness that one can only associate with the smell of rotting meat.
At once in fear and desperation, I spurred on my horse, as the carriage I sat upon rumbled to life bouncing off the cobble stone road, my heart pounded alike. The only thought blasting through my head was "not my family".
The closer we got the greater the oppression of the smell. It was a force now that engulfed me, consumed me, it dug its way up my nose into my throat and rested on my tongue. It made me cough and gag, covering my face only slightly reduced the grotesque stench.
My horse couldn't stand the miasma either, the closer we got the more she became unsettled. Where she was a normal reliable, strong and obedient creature. This smell made her turn. She was fighting me, pulling me to the left or right begging me to turn away. She was not going to make it to the village, I would have to leave her otherwise she would throw me from the cart.
I ran, desperately, the village within sight yet felt more distant than it did the day before. As I approached, I could see the damage to the straw roofs smouldering, blackened by a recent fire. Other homes completely burnt to the ground collapsed in their foot prints. Market streets were left in disarray; doors ripped open the contents of the home bursting forth.
Blood was all over the streets, but not a single body to be seen, not a good sign. I ran to my home on the furthest outskirts from the main gate.
It to burnt, but only lightly, maybe I thought it was ok. I burst into the door but nothing. No one was home, the once warm and inviting place was now cold, frozen and lonely. Nothing was missing, but I didn't know if that was good or bad. It meant that the home was untouched, but also that no one had taken anything in the escape.
But, the only way to find out, to truly know, would be to find the source of the smell. In the towering forest of rotting corpses, I would find the truth.
It wasn't a hard job, the smell hung thick in the air, a putrid haze practically lighting the way, all I had to do was follow it to its source.
It was coming from the fields outside of the village, down the hill from the opposite side to where I came in. Part of the wooden wall that protected our village had collapsed. At first, I thought the maybe dead had done it but a battering ram had rolled back down the hill.
Bandits maybe? Or an invading army perhaps? Looting my small village for what little resources we had no doubt. Killing who they could and burned the rest for fun. I thought if only I was here, I could have done something. But, what could I have done, I would either be in the fields like the rest of them or off hiding somewhere. I think I just wanted to be with my kids where ever they were.
The smell was now getting worse but I had to push on, even as the fumes of the dead broke through my makeshift mask, I pushed on. Even as the sounds of a murder of crows, a thousand times bigger than I have ever heard before rang out and flooded the air, I pushed on.
But the sight, the sight of the field that once fed my village, gave us life and comfort. Now covered with these sick twisted weeds. Monuments to the lives lost, I broke, collapsed and wept. My sobs drained out by the crows littering the sky, diving down into their morbid feast.
I sat there awhile, not sure how long it all just drifted away from me. But eventually, I pulled myself up, I needed to do something. I could not let the poor souls of my village suffer and be made a mockery like this any longer.
I admit I was not brave enough, not strong enough, not heartless enough to take care of each body individually. The dead were still in their bloater stage. When their bodies are still mostly intact, the hook flies haven't started transforming the outside to look more like a nest. The bodies are also still mostly mobile at this point, their joints haven't begun to lock like they would in the stiffened stage and are not rooted to the ground like in the petrified stage.
If my family was in there, I could not bring myself to see them, best to not look and hold on to what little hope that I might see them again.
So, to burn the bodies, it's best to destroy the head and remove the arms and legs. Otherwise, they hook flies simply move the body out and away from the fire.
Ironically, the field they were in was surrounded by a 6-foot wall, meant to keep Hook Fly corpses out. They love empty fields somewhere open to the elements, quickens the decomposition and makes it easy for them to break down the body.
The large iron gate at the entrance had been left open and they had wandered inside. It was a dry day, and the fields were littered with the remains of this year's harvest, plenty of kindling. It was simple to just light it all on fire and close the gate. Turn and walk away.
It's an odd feeling burning so many at once. You think there would be screaming or something, these things looked human but they didn't operate as such. The crows called out, but that faded as they flee, their over cooked meals.
Then there is an odd almost peaceful roar and crackled of a fire, peaceful almost if you don't think about what is burning.
Lastly is a soft rattle of the gate, as the dead push against it, but this also fades. Then it's quiet, your alone, your face is wet and your chest hurts to an unbearable degree.