Meet Me in the Moon Room by Ray Vukcevich Page B

found the ice pick, sat up with his back against the tub, and probed around in his nose. He wiped his bloody hands on his chest. More spray too. He gave his left nostril another shot of bug spray.
    “Will you please please let me in, Perry,” Carmela said. “I have to get dressed before Bob gets here.”
    “Who’s Bob?” Perry’s voice was weak and wet and bubbly. Why ask? Bob would be her lover, of course. He gave his right nostril a shot of bug spray. His nose felt pretty numb. Maybe if he poked the ice pick through the side of his nose, he’d surprise the buggers. Perry pushed the point of the ice pick into the side of his nose. Whoops! Bone. He moved it down to a softer spot and pushed again and felt the point break through like stabbing an orange. No pain. He wiggled the pick around and up and down, then pulled it out and did the same thing to the other side.
    “Big Bob, the Bug Man. The exterminator. Don’t you ever listen when I talk? I told you last night.”
    Last night. There was something about the head picture he’d just seen that was important to his strategy. Something about night. What was it? The dark. All the bugs playing on his face, running down his body. He wondered if Carmela ever felt them crawl across her as they left his nose to set up colonies in the apartment. They came out in the dark. That was it.
    Perry scrambled around looking for the pliers. When he found them, he hugged them to his chest while he gave each of his nostrils a couple of squirts of bug spray, then he got to his feet and looked in the mirror again. There was a small jagged wound on either side of his nose and a lot of blood. He held up the pliers and snapped them open and closed a couple of times in front of his face. He remembered his plan for them. What he would do is lean in close to the mirror, poise the pliers in front of his nose, then stretch way out with his left hand and switch off the light. When he felt the bugs come out, he’d switch on the light and crush them with the pliers!
    Perry put his plan into action. When he switched off the light, however, things did not get entirely dark. Blue and green fluorescent globes swam before his eyes. Some of them spun, shooting off sparks which later became globes themselves. Perry might have been lost forever, watching this light show, if he hadn’t finally felt the bugs leave his nose and begin to explore his face.
    Now!
    He flipped on the light.
    A giant roach stared back at him from the mirror.
    Perry screamed, dropped the pliers, and jumped back, realizing even as he moved that what he was looking at was his own reflection. The bugs had taken over. Something in his mind must have realized that he could never beat them and had joined them. He moved his antennae experimentally and clicked and clacked his mouth parts a couple of times. My, he’d never known roaches had such big, never-blinking, brown, glassy eyes.
    The doorbell rang.
    “That’s Bob!” Carmela said. “Now I’m going to have to meet him in my robe!”
    “Don’t you always?” Perry muttered. He knew he should be frightened, and he supposed he was, at least a little, but mostly the bug head seemed exactly right, the logical conclusion to this whole affair. He reached for the doorknob. Now that he had a big scary bug head, he might as well go out and have a showdown with this Bob guy. He’d take the ice pick. Maybe chase Carmela around the house a couple of times, too.
    Perry eased open the door and ducked his big head as he stepped into the bedroom. He bet they’d put their heads together whispering, discussing him, no doubt, probably planning on how they could take him out of the picture. His new look would put a monkey wrench in their plans. A bigger and buggier Perry would be something new to consider. He’d expected Carmela to put his bowling bag in the middle of the room, just to taunt him, but if she had in fact peed in the bag, she’d discreetly closed the closet door on her mess. Perry