FLESH EATING ENEMY

Before I tell you this true story I’d like to paint you a picture that will set the foundation of what took place in my home on Sept. 11, 2008. Oddly enough it was the seventh anniversary of the attack by Islamic extremists on the World Trade Center in New York City. Around mid night on the tenth I had finished an article paying tribute to the victims of this tragedy, that’s why the date is so vivid in my mind. It was three o’clock the morning of the eleventh when the story I’m about to tell you took place

Now for the picture I want you to see and acknowledge. There are five dogs that live with me in a small two bedroom apartment where normally we are happy and content. However in the past six months two of my dogs have fallen prey to extreme health disabilities. The oldest, Bear, has lost the use of his extremities and the smallest, Charley, has gone blind do to a diabetic disorder. The other three dogs are fine but it’s hard for them to understand why I have to spend so much time taking care of the two dogs that need special treatment to survive.

Bear is a fourteen year old two hundred pound Golden Retriever that exists only for constant love and attention.


Charley needs some help but he is becoming accustomed to his blindness and gets around quite well.

Now that I’ve laid the foundation it’s time to get on with my story.

On the morning of September the tenth Bear had bad diarrhea and discharged watery feces all over him and our living room. Pardon the expression but you’ll have to use your imagination to see how much shit hit the fan in our little living room. Visualize this; a two hundred pound water pump gone wild.

Between trips to the bathroom to throw up it took me three hours to clean up the room and I hadn’t even started on Bear. I had to employ the help of a tenant to help me carry Bear outside where I could shampoo him and hose him down. I dried him off the best that I could with the towels I had. Then I decided to leave him out in the sun to dry completely. It was close to ninety degrees so I wasn’t worried about him catching cold, besides he was enjoying all the attention.

Seeing that I used all of the towels I had to clean up the mess and dry Bear I had two large loads to wash while Bear finished drying in the sun. When Bear was dry my tenant helped me carry him in and we put him on his eight by ten rubber mat with a couple wool blankets to make him comfy and cozy. He went right to sleep and slept the rest of the day, comfortable and as clean as clean can be.

Normally I spend most of the night writing poems and short stories but I was exhausted so I went to bed early around ten o’clock. The rest of my four legged family all sleep with me accept for Charley, he cuddles up with Bear. I fell into a deep sleep that would have taken no less than a thunderstorm or a locomotive roaring through the house to waken me.

Well, it all happened at three o’clock in the morning, all the dogs were barking Bear was whimpering and crying and my first thought was somebody had broken into our home. I jumped out of bed and ran into the living room and quickly turned the lights on. Oh my God, what I saw was horrific, unbelievable and frightening. Never in all my mind’s eye could I imagine something so gruesome, sickening, shocking and horrendous. It was like I was witnessing a science fiction movie with little creatures invading the earth, it was all way beyond the figment of my imagination.

There the intruders were, completely covering Charley and Bear and the floor all around them. Millions of little white worms were feasting on the bodies of Charley and Bear. Oh my God, this was a night mare, it couldn’t be happening. Holy Mother of God it was! Oh God help me what am I going to do, I heard myself muttering over and over again.

There was no time to wonder where they had come from I had to get rid of them fast before they devoured my family. They had declared war and had won the first battle but I’ll be damned if I was going to let them win the war. I threw myself right into the middle of the swarming little monsters and started brushing them away from Charley and Bear. For every one I brushed away ten to twenty more would take their place. The little bastards were winning; somehow I had to find the way to turn the tables. I ran into the pantry, opened the chemical closet and grabbed a can of ant and roach killer. I knew darn well it was toxic and could poison my animals but I had no choice they were being eaten alive. This battle started shortly after three and it was now four and I still hadn’t made any progress.

I had to get something that would work by now these little monsters were all over the house and rapidly increasing. I had to retreat and find new weapons that would work. I retreated as fast as I could to my storage shed out in my back yard. I grabbed a large shop vacuum and a new Dyson vacuum that was still in the box, a can of insect repellant, a can of weed killer and a large can of Raid bug spray.

When I returned to the front I noticed that Charley had freed himself and had shaken off most of those nasty white creatures. He was cowering in a kitchen corner where only a few hundred of those little monsters had gathered. I also noticed that many of the little warriors lie dead or were dying where I had sprayed around Bear. However they were multiplying so fast that now there was twice as many as before.

I grabbed Charley took him into the bathroom shower, vacuumed most of the remaining bugs off him and closed the shower so no bugs could get in. I left him there and returned to the front. With a can of weed killer in one hand and Raid in the other I started spraying those crawly white invaders as fast as I could, all the time trying to keep the spray away from Bears face and especially his nose. I don’t know whether it was the weed killer or the Raid that was working but the little white monster were dropping dead by the thousands and I actually mean thousands.

Given time for a second breath I started vacuuming up the dead bodies as well as the live. Almost six o’clock and now I could see victory. I was winning; oh my God I was winning this war. My shop vacuum holds twenty pounds and each time I’d fill it I’d empty it in the irrigation ditch that runs across my back yard. I lost track of the number of times I emptied it but I know I must have dumped at least a hundred pounds of dead bugs in the ditch. You can bet your life I’m not going to have a memorial service for those little bastards.

By seven o’clock I had won the war but the damage done was overwhelming poor Bear was covered with wounds, more like holes in his body up to an inch deep and two inches wide. He has sores on his face ears and neck but the worse ones are down the middle of his back where the hair crops. He also has bad sores on his anus and penis making it real painful when he has to use the bathroom. Charley for some reason was left with only one irritating wound right on the tip of his penis.

It has been several days since this tragic event and neither dog will eat solid food. It took a lot of patience to get them to drink broths. It is possible that they have toxic poisoning from the insect sprays; I had to use to kill the bugs.

I talked to the vet and he says the toxic poison will wear off it just takes time. The sores where the bugs had eaten the flesh needed to be watched for infection and treated with a good antiseptic to avoid further problems. I asked him what kind of flesh eating bug did this horrible thing and he said he thought they were lice. I said they looked more like maggots but he said that maggots don’t usually eat live flesh. I still think they were maggots, maybe a new breed of warrior maggots.