Revenge of the Demon Locust

I am not a fan of bugs. Especially if they have wings. I would have to say my least favorite of all insects are of the 8-legged variety, but I loathe all types in general. I think my innate fear of them amuses God however, so He tends to put me in certain circumstances for His own personal enjoyment. For instance, I seem to find the freakiest of all spiders in my backyard - Wolf spiders, Tiger spiders, Jumping spiders, Black Widows. Disgusting. I swear you could even probably discover a new species back there. Although, to be honest, I can't really blame God for that - this is probably my own fault, seeing as how my backyard currently looks like an overgrown weed jungle. At night especially, when all the bugs are drawn to my porch light, it's an adventure merely to take the dog out to pee. Every time I open the door, I have to poke my head out first and look around to make sure nothing is in the immediate area that can jump or land on me, before daring to set one toe outside. And even then, I won't venture off the concrete safety of my porch. Every time, I feel like I'm in that scene from the Temple of Doom where they have to walk through the cave with all the bugs…*shiver*. Yuck. Anyway, I think you're getting my point, so back to the original story. 

A couple of years ago, I discovered a delightful new creature around my home - I don't know exactly what they are, but I refer to them as "demon locusts". Seriously, they look like they're straight out of the book of Exodus. They are about 5-6 inches long (NO, I'm not exaggerating), with big eyes and antenna, wings, and look like a mix between a grasshopper and a snarling dragon. I discovered them in my backyard first, through rather unpleasant means. They tend to blend in with the ground fairly well (WHY does God do that? I want to be able to see these things so that I can avoid them…not being able to, and never knowing where they might be lurking = not ok), so as I was walking outside and got close to one without realizing it, it jumped/flew in the air. And here's the thing about the way they move - they don't exactly jump or fly, it's like a weird combination of the two. They HOVER. At exactly my eye height. They seem to aim straight for the head. Once I became aware of their existence, I started to keep an eye out. 

One summer evening, as I was driving home from work, I noticed a large dark spot in the middle of my driveway as I approached the house. Not being close enough to tell what it was yet, I opened my garage door and started to drive up - and that's when the dark spot moved. One of the demon locusts, apparently using my driveway as a tanning bed, was now hopping directly into my garage. Great. I pulled up and parked, and got out of my car tentatively, not being sure where the thing was lurking. Then I saw it - right in front of the door to my house, where I needed to get through. Well, this posed a serious problem. I thought maybe if I slowly moved towards it, it would jump away. I tried - it did its strange hover/jump right towards my face and I dropped my purse and ran away screaming. Pathetic, I know. Now I was pissed. This thing was keeping me from getting into my own home. This was unacceptable. I looked around the garage for reinforcements, but all I could find was a stiff bristled broom. This was convenient because it gave me at least a 4 foot reach so I wouldn't have to get too close to the thing. I poked the broom at the beast, and as it started to jump, I swatted at it in hopes I could hit it on the other side of the garage and make a quick dash into the house. This did not work either. I was seriously underestimating the persistence of this creature to impede my efforts to get into the house. 

No longer having any sympathy, I started smashing the locust with the broom, flailing and shrieking the whole time. Now agitated, the beast kept flying at me and I ended up dropping the broom and running away several times. I'm sure my neighbors across the street were having a good laugh at my expense, watching me fight some invisible creature trying to get into my own home. After several attempts to strike the beast, I was finally successful in hitting it across the garage, where it landed amongst piles of boxes and I could no longer see it. However, I could hear it flying around and bumping into things. There was no way I would be able to catch it, and I certainly had no care to - I took my opportunity to run in the house. If I wanted the thing dead, there was only one thing left to do - call for backup. 

Once inside, I called my friend Ryan. My first reason for calling him was that he only lived around the corner. My second reason was Ryan has a tender love and affinity for all weapons, and contains a whole arsenal of swords, maces, hammers, etc, in his home. And looks for every opportunity to use them. I knew he would be up for the job. 5 minutes later, Ryan walks up to my garage door and knocks. I refused to stick my head out, and would only speak to him from the other side of the door. After hearing my description of the monster and its approximate location, he began the hunt. 

After a few minutes, I heard a yell and the words "I found it - holy $&#% this thing is HUGE!" I then heard what I can only imagine was an epic battle - loud crashes, cursing, death threats, and other mayhem. Finally - silence. It was over. I couldn't have been more relieved - I knew if we didn't find the thing and kill it, I would forget it was in there and the next time I tried to leave, it would attack me. Thanking Ryan for his chivalrous act of bravery and rescue, I went to bed with a worry-free conscience that night. But the story doesn't end here. 

The next day, after confidently exiting my garage, I had no more thoughts of evil insect creatures until I was driving back home from work once more. I was coming near to my house, feeling wonderful, with the radio playing, the sun shining…and my windows down. I suddenly had a thought - what if there were more, and they were in my driveway again? What if one jumped towards me as I drove up? WHAT IF one of them accidentally jumped right into my window and into the car? Oh, but that would be so crazy - that could never happen. I had a good laugh at my over-active and paranoid imagination, ho ho. In what world would that actually ever happen. Still, maybe I should roll up the windows, just in case. 

In the 5 seconds it took my brain to travel through this thought process, I had already started to roll up into my driveway, and before I could even prepare myself, I KID YOU NOT - a demon locust JUMPED THROUGH THE WINDOW OF MY CAR AND ONTO MY FACE. I also swear I thought I heard a screechy voice shout "for my brotheeeeeer!" as he jumped in the car. And he might have been holding a tiny silver sword. Anyway, I'm not sure exactly what happened next, because I was in a blind state of panic. All I know is, I was lucky I didn't crash my car right into the garage. My hands were off the wheel, I was flailing my arms about screaming "get it off get it off" and slapping my own face, and in the midst of all the chaos, I'm not sure where the locust ended up. I think at some point, by some stroke of luck, I was able to hit it out of the car, and hopefully ran it over. Once the car was in park and I was able to throw open my door, I catapulted myself out of the vehicle and proceeded to do one of those full body shakes, where you're spinning around smacking at your body and flinging your hair around in case it was stuck there. Screaming and crying the whole time as if someone were trying to murder me. I could not believe it - one of the damn things came back to exact vengeance on me for killing their comrade. And I wasn't even the one who killed it! As soon as I got in the house, I called Ryan to tell him the unbelievable story, and to pass on a warning -surely they would be coming for him, too. 

Fast forward to one year later. I have given no thought to the demons since, and thankfully they have left me alone. So imagine my surprise when I get this phone call yesterday afternoon while at work: 

Ryan: hey, it's Ryan

Me: hey, what's up?

Ryan: I have to tell you something, and I don't know if you're going to laugh or throw up 

Me: (nervous) ummm…..ok? 

Ryan: last night I was hanging out and heard someone knocking on the door, except it wasn't a normal knock. It had a sporadic rhythm. I didn't go to answer it right away, and eventually it stopped. A couple minutes later, the knocking was back. Getting irritated, I finally went over to the door, and flung it open, ready to punch whoever was standing there - 

Me: (interrupting) you didn't look through the window first to see who was there? It could have been an ax-murderer!

Ryan: I was so irritated by the knocking, I was ready for whatever was on the other side of the door. At least I thought I was. Until, I opened the door and ONE OF THOSE DEMON LOCUSTS FLEW RIGHT INTO MY FACE 

Me: *stunned silence for a few minutes* WHAT?! You're joking! So what was the knocking sound?

Ryan: it was the damn thing flying into my door! That's how big it was, it actually made an audible sound loud enough that I thought someone was knocking on the door 

Me: I TOLD YOU THEY WOULD COME FOR YOU SOME DAY! 

He was right. I didn't know whether to laugh or cry or throw up. I did have a fit of shaky giggles for a while, thinking about how the fiend actually knocked on his door like a creepy psycho locust-stalker, out to exact vengeance on his victim by instilling it with as much fear as possible first. Ryan then finished telling me his story about the 20-minute ordeal that ensued after he got the thing off his face and it flew into his home. After several attempts to slay the beast and failing (the things are invincible, i'm telling you) he was finally able to trap the thing under a container. Convinced the evil spawn now must suffer a horrible, slow, painful, end, he decided to leave it there and let it suffocate to death. In a wild moment of foolishness, I experienced a wave of mercy for the creature dying in this manner, to which Ryan responded "Stephanie. The thing had to die. It was ON MY FACE." Ok, I guess he was right. 

And that, boys and girls, is the story of how a demon locust plotted his revenge for a whole year before sneakily trying to get us back for murdering two of his brothers. I swear they must give a description of their attackers to the rest of the colony. Be warned - think carefully before you attempt to kill one yourself. A demon locust never forgets. And they will come back for you, too. 

*Update* I googled "demon locust". Surprisingly, there were some pretty decent images available. Clearly I'm not the only one who's had this experience with them. I think this is my favorite: 

Looks accurate to me. 

However, this might be a more realistic representation: 

Now just imagine that sucker the length of your hand...