Oak with a Black Hive Heart

After a short sigh, and a twitch of his small round spectacles, the elderly caretaker dialled a last nine and listened to the ring tone Whilst in his other hand he spun the black fountain pen like a magicians wand over and over, between his fat thumb, and two long fingers, though the ink did not drip.

When the voice at the other end confirmed their business and greeted the caretaker. The pen stopped still, and then moved almost unseen to hover over the last address: "KILLIT" This one, like uncountable others on his register, a service to the public by way of pest, control. Though to him it was just part of his job as cemetery caretaker.

Three minutes later having spoken to the man at "KILLIT", and being quite satisfied with the arrangements they’d agreed on for the evening of the following day, he lowered the phone back into its cradle, and picked up the two silver skeleton keys from his old desk. One which opened the iron gates. The other opening the door to the crematorium. Then after he’d struck a line through the address, he stood up, and in a flash was gone from the house in which he lived, situated as it was in the plot set back though, adjacent to the old oak tree.

***

‘Never seen nowt like it mate,’ no neck spoke to his colleague from behind the gauze mask, ‘Hawk wasps I reckon,’ he guessed erroneously.

His friend could do little more than nod his head as they moved in with caution and turned up the blow lamp. The insecticide powder and fluid had proved useless, despite their sure-fire mix.

The black wasps sensed the heat displacement in the room, their many insectile eyes blinded by the torch glare, went into a further stage of frenzy. Most, though not all attacking the flames and blindly incinerating themselves, and yet it seemed to their eyes, as both men observed with fascination, their bodies seemed in reality to reappear whole again and not so much as singed. As they might travel the arc through the flame, though without harm, and reappear once more, to be regrouped as fresh reinforcements behind their swarm. Yet the intense flames proved too much for the swarm as the man hit the booster switch, and fat insect bodies popped and spat like hot sausages in a pan, their oval nest at the centre lighting up like tinder. And yet, before their eyes the two men observed as the bodies then became cinders, which did then pass clean through the scorched roof felt and tiles which their glowing ascension met as they exited the mortuary loft and made their way toward the huge, old oak. Though the men held no more fascination for this phenomena as if the embers could have turned to specks of burnt charcoal. As any worldly person would have concluded at the sight, within the blink of an eye, and indeed without further thought on the matter. Even as the men searched in vain, to find a trace of bee remain before leaving the roof.

Though there was no physical escape for the huge black queen, in her royal chamber at the centre, cowering from the heat which she even sensed, as she hid behind thirty scores of drones and soldiers.

‘Quick,’ no neck reminded his friend as, he turned his torch down and away in one fluid movement, ‘Now,’ he then called the signal, as he nodded down at the fire extinguisher which he held clutched between his legs.

In a moment the wiry man had struck the knob, and directed the powder hose at the fat vase bottom of the inferno which had been the wasps nest. A black hive mashed from bee saliva and torn bible pages new and old. Reinforced through its wall veins with a cement made from the richest, deepest, blackest, cemetery soil, as was its shell.

‘Queens mine, mate,’ no neck spluttered, and coughed through his words, as he turned down the flame, and the two men swam in the smoky stench of barbecued bee while they carefully kicked apart what remained of the smoldering nest with curiosity, and still some caution. Their boot soles barely sticking to the floor as they worked with their boots in the spreading pool of molten honeycomb. A red, sweetish honey with a coppery taste which passed through the wooden beams beneath them within a moment, and then dripped from the ceiling below them. Thinning in viscosity as droplets fell faster, each followed by a tail of white smoke. Finally soaking at last through the crumbling cement of the mortuary basement, and then into rich soil of the cemetery.

Near to the crematorium building the old oak seemed to heave, and shift at its trunk. Though it was by no influence from a wind on this still summer night. The cause was its roots which stabbed and flicked like a thousand live tendrils as they searched the moisture all around, recovering every last droplet of the sweet, coppery, aperitif. And so began its reawakening. Its eyes—two odd shaped burls of wood nearest the top of its mighty trunk glowing dull red, black pinpoint pupils which scanned their surroundings. Opened slightly revealing the whites of two feral retinas, as it yawned by way of a hollow which appeared to open like a lipless mouth in the upper trunk, allowing passage for the scintillating cloud of glowing cinders which approached, before returning once more to the bodies of black wasps as they entered over the threshold of the maw. And there within the belly of the oak they circled below the black heart, turning direction as one with every dull beat, as they waited for the return of their queen.

The elderly caretaker watched the tail lights of the "KILLIT" van vanish around the corner of the darkening country lane, as its driver sped away from the cemetery and the church where upon a thousand piles of tattered bibles, sat collection boxes which overflowed with currency, filled as they were from floor to roof with forgotten bibles, their pages ravished for pulp by the black swarm over the decades. Enough paper note and coin, to pay all who dared to come here and try to destroy the black swarm. The purse from which these two men had been paid. A purse which no man had ever lived to spend. Nor tale, to tell.

Back inside his warm coal lit cottage the elderly caretaker drew in a deep breath, and then dropped the curtain on a barmy summer night. Sensing the time was right he, though with an almost casual air, he picked up the two skeleton keys which dangled by their hoop from a hook near the door. His movements now were slower, methodical, though not lethargic, as he put on his old black coat, and picked up his lamp, and the empty jar. Floating like a priest from behind his alter to speak closer to his flock.

Outside, beneath his boots he could feel the steady rhythm of the oak waking again as its roots gesticulated deep beneath the rich soil of his garden plot, communicating with his bones through the rubber soles. ‘Nearly done then.’ he whispered his understanding as he made his way steadily back past the boarded church and crossed over the lane, walking at a steady pace until he arrived at the threshold of the cemetery where he stopped and fell to his knees to kiss the rich soil there. Only when the ritual was done did he stand, and pass between the iron gates. His boots making hardly a crunch as he walked carefully over the gravel path and listened to the huge boughs of the oak creak high above him with the confirmation that all was well. ‘Good,’ he said as he locked the door of the stone crematorium ‘Near done then. Near done,’ he said pocketing the silver keys.

The tree seemed to sigh, as it watched his approach, for it had something he wanted in payment for his part as shepherd of the flock, something the old oak was glad to share.

Reaching up on tip toe, the elderly caretaker, hooked up his lamp on a silver spike which long ago he’d once driven into the oak, and then laying flat against the broken, rubberlike bark he held the jar in front of his nose against the oak where the bark was stickiest, soaked as it was from the sweet red honey of decades gone by. Honey which poured from the gaping slit that was the oaks mouth. In anticipation he licked his lips as he waited and watched for the first drops of the sticky stream to slide over the glass lip, and then over the bottom in front of his eyes. Now and then, his tongue would lick at glass as he imagined what it would taste like again after so long.

When it was quite full he carefully screwed on the lid, and held it up to the light of the moon to view the precious contents. Within a moment there floating within the red honey appeared small spheres of blue which danced and then joined as one again to form one swirling snake, flaring like a cobra at the sight of him as it searched its confines for escape. ‘Nearly done then,’ he chuckled, as he observed the last piece of soul which was his share.

***
It was an hour or so later when the two men arrived in their van, back outside headquarters of "Killit" pest control. But when they opened the lid of the jar, they were shocked to see the queen had disappeared, leaving behind her, just a faint moist ash outline of the huge abdomen she possessed.

‘What the fucks going on here then?’ no neck was pissed, his recognition, and the imagined fifteen minute, wonder claim to fame, gone, now, in a flash, ‘Black wasps, a geriatric Norman Baits, cemetery down a mud lane,’ he paused to slam the lid closed, ‘And a vanishing queen.’

‘I’ll be bollixed if I know, mate. Just fucking pleased to be away from there’ his wiry friend said with a shrug of his shoulders, and s scratch of his arse crack, ‘Anyway, typical of a woman I suppose,’ he said, ‘Trouble is my one always come back.’

‘Well your misses aint no queen mate,’ he pointed out.

‘Drag queen then,’ he took the joke.

‘Ner,’ no neck shook his head, ‘You’d look better.’

‘Cheers.’

‘Ah fuck it,’ no neck spat as he dropped the empty specimen jar to the floor with a plastic clatter, ‘Rather have a pint anyway,’ he consoled his sorry self, ‘Wouldn’t wanta be on the box with that twat Gerry Overly from nature walks anyway,’ he said, ‘Cos I sure won’t get the luscious Susie Kinglet even if we had found summit new for em.

‘Hey leave Gerry he’s alright he is, knows his stuff. But her,’ he paused to huff and wrinkle his nose, ‘Can’t cope with all that gobby gas she’s got. Just get to the bloody point darling’s what I say, mate.’

‘You’d do her, come on,’ he said, ‘Mind yuh, you’d do owt,’ he sniggered.

‘So’d you, ye kinky bastard,’ he said with a shove of his elbow and a wink.

‘But where?,’ no neck, sulked on as they both walked toward the work shower ten minutes later, ‘Where could that little black bitch have gone to? Where?’

‘Gave you the slip didn’t she,’ the wiry man smiled as he turned on the shower, ‘Just like I’m gonna give you the slip in a minute mate,’ he promised with a lascivious wink, ‘If only your misses knew what we both get up to hey.’

‘What about your fucker,’ no neck laughed as he locked them both into the tight cubicle.

‘Been dying for this,’ the wiry man whispered, ‘What about you mate?’

No neck nodded with a smile, ‘Aching for it,’ he grunted, ‘Anyrowt, thought it were my turn first,’ he said.

‘Hey, slow down mate,’ the wiry man urged, ‘And can get some bastarding soap round it first mate,’ he said as he handed him the shower gel. ‘And rinse it too,’ he added, ‘Don’t want to be blowing bubbles after your fishy lot.’

‘Keep your voice down,’ the wiry man hushed as he licked at the other man’s nipple.

‘Why, worried someone might here us,’ no neck sighed as he joined in,

‘Walls might have ears.’

‘Yeah, well they aint got no dicks like this ere harden I got ready for you, old matey.’

‘Easy slippy knackers,’ the wiry man whispered in his ear, as he found the lobe with his yellow teeth and bit it once making him wince with a short sharp growl.

‘Only fools like me and you, on the shitty Sunday, B shift,’

‘Wouldn’t have it any other way, big lad,’ he whispered feverishly.

‘Too right buddy.’

With male urgency, the two men continued to pleasure one another, unaware of the huge black queen as she hovered above the cubicle. Too preoccupied were they with their carnal knowledge, to defend or run from the angry black swarm which dropped on them like a blanket made from burning needles, attacking the face and neck before the men had time to couple.

Another, then another, the swarm set to work as they disabled the two paralyzed men, their intensity to strike on point, unaffected in any way by the water cascading from the shower head which soaked them and the men, as their heavy numbers and their lethal poisoned arsenal introduced both men to a cardiac arrest. Instantly destroying them internally via a multitude of stingers which dripped venom as deadly as that of any bad snake. The glands of each mans throat, too swollen from the burning poison which inflamed their vocal chords in seconds. And so, trapped within the pits of their stomachs, were their screams of agony. Whilst in their ears they listened for a last time, to the insane drone of insectile hum, rising beyond crescendo within their flaming skulls.

In under a minute and a half, the two men stood dead on their feet, even before the swarm left their defenseless pin-cushioned offal, and quickly surrounded the cloud of escaping blue mist which rose from the open mouths of the two men as souls. Then, in another moment the swarm followed after their queen once again, as the two swollen red bodies crashed to the floor. Both men still clutching their erect swollen members, which twitched, as if mimicking one final unthinkable act of grotesque copulation.

Leaving the headquarters of pest control, through the roof vent which they’d first entered, the swarm returned with their queen at their lead, back to the Rose garden which was there territory. The ten mile flight seeming to fuse into a time warp, as the angry black swarm surrounded by a misty blue aura, became like one speeding projectile body.

As always, after arriving back near the eves of the house, the swarm hovered behind their queen for a moment of deliberate poise. While they waited and watched for a sign from the oak tree.

Then, a moment later, a slight parting of boughs, and the swarm set off again on a new route toward a small hollow which opened up in the upper trunk of the old oak allowing them entry seemed to move and beckon them as it drew in the fine bluish mist, unburdening the wasps of the two captured souls.

Only when the last black bee landed and scrambled over the threshold did the hollow close its gaping mouth behind them, causing the whole tree to sigh with a renewed life force. The rafts and the trusses in the crematorium roof groaning with strain, twisting against their iron bolts, as yet more underground movements shook the stone building. Disrupted by the moving tendril roots of the oak as they stretched around the coffins and bodies buried beneath the cemetery ground. Gravestones shifting here and there, their realignment, altering the path and symmetry of long shadows, which they threw across the burial ground toward the iron gates. Then, some moments later, the stones became still again, slowly dissolving into the first moment of eastern light, and the daylight which would follow.

It was a dull hivelike drone which threatened to break the evening silence. A noise barely perceptible, as if the tree had its own coursing blood stream. For indeed, it possessed a matrix of veins which criss crossed deep beneath its thick bark where its oak heart pumped steadily.

The elderly caretaker sighed, with contentment, as he quickly stirred the honey with a silver spoon, the liquid within changing into a glowing amethyst. For it was the soft blueness of the men’s souls which caused it to glow that way. Then he bought the first spoonful to his lips to savor the sweetness there with a devilish satisfaction.

Though soon the tree would thirst again. Returning to hibernation once the men’s souls became spent. For this was the nature of the cemetery, its buildings, and the old oak tree. And of course their reliance on the elderly caretaker. There association with all things, both seen and unseen within its four walls. Then, it would be time again for the black queen and her swarm to return to the mortuary loft. There, they would build another new nest…and wait for there next victims. For they would come, just as they always did, to try to burn the black hive heart.