Diary of a Maggot Read Free Page A

isn't big enough for all of us." The Beast howls with laughter, his voice blasting directly above us. "Come out, come out, wherever you are!"
    I hold my breath. It's time. Everything in my life has been leading up to this.
    It's time.
    "Say, Pop ." The Beast's voice grows louder as he drops down to our level. "Have you seen 'em? Those freakin' maggots that got in here and ca me after us?"
    It's time! I let out a whistle, loud enough to carry from one eye to the next. My family on the other side of the ridge will know what they need to do now .
    Which starts with counting to three right after the whistle. And ends with all of us, everyone, moving at once.
    One. Two. I stretch my body, and the others alongside me do the same. I hope against hope that this will work, that it will have the desired effect.
    Three. All together now.
    Squeeze.
    The six of us squirm over the sticky eyeball, dragging the eyelid on our backs. The six maggots under the other eyeli d do the same thing .
    Together, we pull up the lids . We open his eyes.
    For a moment, nothing else happens. The Beast falls silent. I think my plan has failed.
    But the moment passes. And that's when I hear it.
    A sharp intake of air. One last clatter as something metallic falls to the ground. Then a cry from the Great Beast himself. " YAAAAAHHH! "
    My fellow maggots and I keep moving, pressing the eyelids higher. Opening the eyes wider.
    Making the Beast scream louder. " YAAAAAAHHH! "
    I poke my head out from under the eyelid just in time to see the Beast fumbl ing backward, wailing. His eyes are as wide as puff balls, his skin as pasty white as mine.
    " Omigod omigod omigod! " He scuttles away from us, unable to see my tiny form peeking out from under the eyelid. " It can't be! " He scra mbles to his feet, giving off an odor of urine and feces.
    And then it happens. A surprise.
    The Beast skids backward, howling. "But I killed you! I killed you myself! " Then, suddenly, one of his boots lands in a puddle of water mixed with blood.
    And it slips.
    As his boot flies out from under him, his towering form swoops backward. His arms flail as his enormous bulk crashes toward the vast gray plain.
    He just misses catching hold of a wooden post, his last chance of stopping his fall. Both boots leave the ground , and his upper body hits hard. Hardest of all, one part of him whips back and down to strike the plain with an echoing crack.
    His head. It bounces back up as I watch, spraying blood. It hits again, springs up one more time, then drops for good.
    A pool of gleaming dark crimson flows from underneath that head, spreading slowly. A strangled cry gurgles up from his throat, then fades in a long, rattling sigh. And chokes off forever.
    As the twelve of us maggots squirm out from under the eyelids we've been tending, we watch the Beast's final few twitches. Sniffing his scent in the air, we know the truth before he stops moving. Before his body goes limp and his bowels pour out their contents on the gray plain.
    The Great Beast is not-dead no longer.
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    *****
    You'd think all the death and destruction might kill our appetites. But it doesn't.
    The Beast's body is still warm when we wriggle over to it. When the twelve of us begin our great feast.
    Climbing the slopes of his monstrous form, we nibble and gulp and digest. We devour him, but not as retribution. Not because it is just.
    We do it b ecause we ' re hungry. Because each bite makes us grow a little more and takes us one step closer to soaring.
    How long will it take to consume this massive Beast we've killed ? How long until the twelve surviving maggots of our clan strip the flesh from his bones?
    More than ten days , that's for sure . That's how long we feast, barely making a dent in our meal, before I lose my appetite .
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    *****
    Just as I'm stuffing myself on pungent morsels of rotten meat, I feel the hunger draining out of me. I try to force myself to take one more bite, but I can't do it.
    The tiniest maggot ,