Buzz Buzz, Zap

Jocko claimed it would be easy. An in-and-out affair.

“One last job.” That’s what he said to me when he brought me in. “Buzz in. Have a little drink. Buzz out.”

He knew how to appeal to my sensibilities. After all, I was seven days old, approaching the end of the ten-day lifespan for an average male mosquito. And let me tell you, when you make a career of blood heists like I have, making it to double digits isn’t a forgone conclusion.

Anyway, Jocko had the usual team assembled.

Tanya was on left ear. Hank was on right. Jocko himself did back of the neck. But this was all for distraction, just a way to get the hands flailing while I went in for the blood.

My speciality? The thigh just above the knee, just below the shorts’ line. It was a brazen move: a fairly flat, easily slap-able surface like that, but we’d made a career of being brazen. In this game, you gotta be a little crazy to get ahead. You ask for a drip politely and wait, you get the palm. It’s that simple.

We met at the edge of the yard for a planning session at dusk.

“Any security measures we gotta know about?” Tanya asked.

“Nothing,” Jocko said. “I did a wide fly around this morning. A few decorative garden lights, but that’s about it. They’re not even wired, just staked into the ground.”

So off we went. We were on comms, of course. Sure enough, there were those garden lights Jocko mentioned. Hank drifted towards one, as could be expected. We wanted the blood, but life is short. Even a female like Tanya could only expect to be around a couple months. You had to take in the sights while you still had time.

“Okay, Hank,” Jocko said. “That’s enough of that. Let’s get back to work.”

We waited for Hank to report back, but no response came.

“Hank? Hank, do you copy?” Jocko said.

Nothing.

And making matters worse, in the meantime, Tanya had drifted towards another such light. Soon enough, her line also went quiet.

“I’ll check it out,” Jocko said. And that’s the last I ever heard of him.

I don’t know how I got out of there alive. Something in my pinprick-sized brain, if you can even call it as much, overrode my desire for blood and attraction to light, I guess. Anyway, I turned it around and high-tailed back home.

Now, I live out my days alone, all three or so I have left. And whenever I close my eyes, I see them: those awful, diabolical garden lights.