Some blamed it on the beetles, and the name stuck. It was an event they could point to and remember, instead of blaming themselves. Instead of blaming the quickening slide past the point of no return, to the end of everything. Well, not everything. The end of the age of humans. Humanity died long ago, the rest of us just waited for the inevitable.
Everything was already fucked before the beetles. We took down the climate, and so many species we couldn’t even keep track anymore. We made new ones, to help eat the plastic, clean the earth, eat the earth-cleaners, but we didn’t expect the side effects. We turned a blind eye to the warnings, the warming, the sea water. So here we were now, the darkling days. The next part of the end.
So back to the beetles, while there’s still time. You see I don’t have much food left and little clean water, and I hide in my locked steel box and wait. I hear noises from time to time, though whether these are from creatures or Creatures, I can’t say. If I was braver, I would just end it now. I really have no idea what or who is left out there anymore, and no real way to check, without dooming myself to a different kind of death than I will get here. Here it will at least be perhaps a clean death, I tell myself. I laugh, but it echoes out to nobody, a sad and pitiful sound.
Everyone was so worried about the plastics. The sea is full, they said, the earth is clogged. It’s funny how you concentrate on one problem, and ignore the myriad other things, big and small, that the everyday citizen could help to fix. People were too lazy, or too tied to their usual routines, foods, toys. They ignored the warnings about climate change, emissions, meat production, chemicals…and decided to tackle all that plastic. Forget about banning bags and other well-loved commodities, we will just reach out, like god, and make a bug-slave to help us. In a world where there are flat-earthers and anti-vaxxers, this shouldn’t surprise anyone. So, there I was, on a team of 27 scientists, botanists, microbiologists, geneticists and various other -ists, charged with changing the fate of the world from death by plastics. If I had second thoughts, if I thought it was too late or poorly-informed, I kept my mouth shut and collected my very high pay. Drove my very efficient and expensive car and bought my synthetic suits. I was just part of the problem I was applying a band aid to.
I had an actual life then, a daughter, a spouse, a house, a small well-manicured but brown lawn, and a bad cigarette habit. All of those things are gone now except the cigarettes, but I don’t seem to have the taste for them anymore. I still force myself to smoke, some form of self-flagellation. No shortage of cigarettes here. But I am off track again, I was talking about the beetles.
I don’t want to bore anyone with too much science. Although I doubt that anyone is going to read this. Geri found it first. My spouse of course. I was so proud. The genetic mutation we were all searching for, trying to encourage, to make the beetles able to eat solely plastics. They wouldn’t survive too long, but their bodies were biological, small and easy to get rid of, and they fucked faster than they died anyway. No supply problem, no dead bug problem. They would decompose or be eaten by some of the bigger things that still flew and crawled. And then, we made them able to survive on land or in water, even salt water, and we all clapped and congratulated ourselves and got dead-drunk. Then we set them free on the world. July 9, 2034. Such celebration. Such success. Such chaos so quickly and unexpectedly. Every night I tucked my daughter into bed, not realizing the true amount of borrowed time that was ticking away.
You can probably guess some of the problems, even though a team of super-genius self-congratulatory smug scientists couldn’t. Think of everything made of plastics. Think of how hard these beetles became to control or kill, how widespread. How already mutated species tend to create their own new mutations so quickly. Soon we were closed in the labs, facing death threats and different destructive forces in the world because of what we made to save our world. We were pariahs, not heroes. Even all of this I could take, because I still had my sanity and my family.
Our new task became making something that could eat the plastic-eaters, so we could save face, reputation, and the all-consuming dollar, from the all-consuming beetles. They had of course spread too quickly and far too many of them were invading all through the world. We finally did it, but the bigger bastards were escape artists. We kept discovering small breaches, immediately and controllably of course, but we were playing with fire. These new larger beetles had actual, visible teeth, and were the stuff of nightmares if you didn’t like bugs. Even if you did like bugs, they gave you pause. You needed protective gear to be near them. They were bred to eat, but we were working on refining this part of their genetic code. They could administer a very nasty bite, which I found out the hard way. I lost nearly half of the pinky on my left hand early on in our work with them, and the missing nail and scar reminded me daily to be careful. It became our mission to better control and better contain them until they were corrected and ready to be set free. We were a little more cautious this time, a little slower to jump, but obviously not cautious enough.
It was a Tuesday. The week before Christmas, 2037. Geri stayed home with our daughter, who had a slight cold. Our houses were on company owned, walled-in and well-protected land, so we all felt a sense of guilty safety even with the rest of the world crumbling. I got home late, just past 7 pm, to a seemingly empty and quiet house. As I called out their names, I had the sense of a small sound, almost like white noise. The back door was ajar, so I checked the deck and lawn. A few black still-twitching bodies were strewn about. Darkling beetles, but nothing for me to really get alarmed about. I headed toward the bedroom wing, hurrying a bit more now. What I found there I beg to forget.
Annie was on the bed. Geri on the floor, as if reaching for the door with one partial arm bone. I knew it was them from the few identifying scraps left. There was no blood. I kept repeating this to myself. No blood. They were like pieces of hollowed mummies – a rib here, an eye with those beautiful lashes, anchored in a piece of face. A finger with the ring still there. Teeth. So many teeth (“why don’t they eat the teeth?”, my mind screamed) Then I screamed for real, and I couldn’t stop. I screamed and screamed until my throat bled, until I dug my nails into my palms, my face, my arms. I ran around the room bleeding and began stepping on the remaining murderers, grinding down on them over and over with my heels. A few large black beetles lay smashed, teeth gnashing, twitching still. I never killed any living creatures if I could help it, but now I wanted to kill everyone and everything.
A co-worker found me early the next morning, still in the bedroom, eyes wide, my blood the only sign of violence other than the pieces of the two people I loved most in the world. I had pulled out most of my hair and was playing with a pile of it in my lap. I am told I didn’t speak for 3 days, other than to quizzically call out “teeth?” every so often. The breach had occurred just minutes after I had clocked out of my computer system. While I was having my two after work cigarettes on the front entry of the lab, they made their way across the short distance from the back of the lab, out a window, to the row of houses on Candle Lane, where the best and brightest scientists lived. I was losing absolutely everything at home that I cared about, and I didn’t even know it.
I had killed only three. Four more were missing. We didn’t find them, but they found the world. Soon they were doing what we had bred them to do – multiply and eat. Soon we were losing so much more than plastics. The chaos accelerated, and as they say, the center couldn’t hold. My lab went from 27 to 26, then to 10…5…2 of us. Some left but most died by their own hands. Those who had families often took their families with them, both through the gate or into hell. Things in the outside world grew worse and worse, till we lost contact altogether. Jenna killed herself a month ago, and I have been alone since. She drank drain cleaner. Just drank it, and her body lay there in the lab for me to find. We had already moved supplies into smaller and smaller quarters, the steel walls keeping the crawling and walking out for now. The frequent earthquakes did have some effect, but these places were built to hold.
It’s now June 12, 2042. My watch still works, and the last generator is still running. I may be the last person alive for all I know, but even if I am, or I am not, what difference does it make? When I sleep, I see them. Bloodless, faceless, my beautiful girls, calling out to me to join them. When I am awake, I feel the beetles, the sensation of crawling skin turning to tremors. I don’t know why I wait. I don’t know what this will to survive is for. I wanted to leave a trace, something for someone to know. For a someday that I don’t believe will happen, when someone reads my words and understands. I’m going to finish this account, and then sign it. Then I’m going to have a cigarette. I think that I just might go outside to have this last one, maybe catch a glimpse of the sky. It should be darkling by now.