Microwave Cricket

"The fly that was flying around? Angela killed it, it fell on the table, she put it in a napkin, and then SHE ATE IT!" Ray, from Everybody Loves Raymond

The storms are never-ending, and the rain never stops. I don’t know how long the pandemic has been active, but the bed rot is severe. My name is Bert, and I am what you might call morbidly obese.

I’m the kind of guy people say would look like Tom Cruise, if I didn’t love pizza so much. So when the world shut down, my life didn’t change all that much. I barely left the house before. Why start now?

Still, I miss Sam’s Pizza Palace. Sure, I can have it delivered, but it’s not the same. Sam always smiled when he saw me, big Italian grin, warm handshake

.

The regulars never laughed or gave me that look. You know the one. The stare that says, Does he know? That quiet horror on their face, like I was some creature in the wild, and they couldn’t believe I had wandered into their territory. I’m a fat guy, not a monster.

Sam’s Pizza was the closest thing I had to a social life—outside of the internet.

Back when the pandemic first hit hard, I would gear up in two masks, two pairs of gloves, and wear a big dildo on my head. But I didn’t care. That pizza was worth the shame.

Eventually, even that ended. I was stuck at home, on disability, watching the world spiral from the comfort of my recliner, which had become my kingdom. My life was dull, predictable, and full of snacks.

Until the day I saw the cricket in the microwave.

It was a rainy afternoon—like always. The kind of rain that feels like it’s seeping into your bones, even inside the house. I was on my fifth snack of the day and shuffled into the kitchen to heat up a pepperoni Hot Pocket.

When I opened the microwave door, I froze.

There it was.

This massive cricket, black and green, slimy, pulsating with a weird energy. Its body looked... off. Mutated. Like it came from another world. It didn’t twitch or scramble. It stared at me. Then, without warning, it leapt, fast, and violet. I screamed like a cartoon character and stumbled backward as it vanished behind the stove. I slipped and fell down onto the hardwood floor. My fat ass was always falling on something. The hard part was getting back up.

My heart thundered. But eventually, I laughed it off, chalking it up to too many Red Bulls and rewatching weird TikToks. I nuked the Hot Pocket, sat down in my recliner, and opened YouTube.

No signal.

That was odd. Even in rural Tennessee, T-Mobile had never let me down. The screen just blinked—black. I switched to Netflix. Nothing. Hulu. Dead. TikTok? Silence.

The house felt... quiet. Too quiet.

So I did something I hadn’t done in years.

I grabbed a paperback off the shelf, an old crime novel, and read it cover to cover in a single sitting. There was a strange kind of peace in that.

That night, as I tried to sleep, I heard a sound.

Chirp.
Then another.
Chirp. Chirp.

It wasn’t the pleasant kind of chirping that reminded you of summer evenings. No, this was deeper. Guttural. Like something imitating a cricket but getting it slightly wrong.

I looked down toward my bedroom door, cracked slightly open. And through that crack, I saw it.

The cricket.

Perched perfectly in the sliver of moonlight. Its body glistened with something slick and green. Not slime, something worse. Something alive. It pulsed. Its eyes were hollow, blacker than black, like twin tunnels. And behind those eyes... something watched me.

It wasn’t a bug. Not anymore. That thing had presence.

The glow around it was faint, radioactive green, like a firefly dipped in poison. My mind scrambled for logic. Microwave radiation? Maybe. Mutated insect? Maybe. Demonic entity wrapped in an exoskeleton? Felt more accurate.

I couldn’t move. Couldn’t speak. I just pulled the covers over my head and prayed it would be gone by morning.

When I woke up, my throat was dry as sand. My sleep apnea machine had come unplugged, and my dreams had been a slurry of static and twitching legs. I chugged a bottle of water from the fridge and opened my phone.

A notification: my ice cream delivery had arrived.

Salvation.

But when I opened the front door, there it was, again.

The cricket.

Sitting on top of the package like it owned it. Still. Watching. Waiting. Its eyes were like mirrors, reflecting back something I didn’t want to see.

I swear to you—I felt it laughing.

Not out loud. But inside me. Like a vibration behind my ribs. A dark chuckle soaked in malice.

I stood there for nearly three hours. Paralyzed.

Eventually, it crawled away. My ice cream had melted. And the house smelled like sulfur.

The next afternoon, I was jarred awake by loud banging on the front door. I checked the time, noon. Who the hell knocks like that? My delivery apps are all set to leave at the door. I don’t do social.

Another bang. Louder this time. My walls shook. My head pounded.

I peeked through the curtain. It was a delivery guy, standing still. Eyes... vacant. He banged again.

I don’t handle confrontation well. I hid in the bathroom and curled into the bathtub until it stopped. Well, the best my fat ass could fit in the tub. When the silence finally returned, I called the delivery company to complain.

No answer. Just a weird clicking sound.

Chirp. Chirp. Chirp.

I dropped the phone and wept.

Then something changed.

I woke early the next morning and noticed sunlight pouring through the windows. For the first time in what felt like years, it wasn’t raining.

Birds were singing.

It felt like a good day.

I decided to step outside and feel the sun on my skin. A rare thing. I stepped onto the porch—and slipped.

Hard.

I landed on the steps with a thud, the wind knocked out of me. I couldn’t move. I couldn’t get up.

My head spun.

And then...

It appeared.

The cricket.

At the base of the steps. Its stare was different this time. Not mocking. Not angry.

Hungry.

I thought, This is it. This is how it ends. Death by staircase and demonic bug.

I closed my eyes and waited to die.

But then I heard it, thousands of chirps. A chorus of clicks. Like a thousand tiny matches being struck in rhythm.

I opened my eyes just in time to see a swarm of crickets crawling toward me, black, green, glowing.

They didn’t attack.

They lifted me.

I felt my body rise, three inches off the ground. My fat frame was held aloft by an army of legs, and antennas brushed my arms and neck.

They carried me to my car. Gently. Carefully.

I leaned against the door, stunned, catching my breath.

And then, one by one, they scurried into the woods.

Gone.

I climbed into the car, buckled my extended seatbelt, and looked out at the road ahead. I didn’t know where I was going.

But I drove forward, away from the house, away from the rain, and away from the cricket that may have tried to kill me, or save me.

As I turned the corner, the chirping faded.

And I just kept driving forward to whatever lay ahead.

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Stay haunted, stay curious.
— Kevin Frasure