Master of Plagues, D. B. Reynolds [best books to read fiction .txt] 📗

and niece to spend some quality time. Friday evening in Dallas exacted wonderful sub-tropical temperatures with lots of sunshine.
Fall quickly approached and many friends of Megan and Thomas came out to party with the best of them. Thomas hired one of the best experts in Dallas to treat the pool water with chlorinators and algaecides. Filter aids and balancers were also used to keep anyone from catching infections. Mini tables and chairs and ottomans were set up for the guest to enjoy their food and drinks during the swimming party.
A bar was also set up for a bartender to serve up every type of drink for the friends of the Pisanos. Chefs were hired to cook up the dishes that went perfect with a pool party. The grills were fired up with hotdogs, hamburgers, turkey burgers, chicken, fish, and ribs. Tables were set up with potato salad, coleslaw, baked beans, fruit salad, deviled eggs, spinach salad, and Swedish meatballs. A separate table was set aside for soda, beer, wine, and water. Towels and sunglasses were provided to those who wanted to take a swim.
The Pisanos hosted a great pool party. Some of the women wore skimpy bathing suits while the men walked around shirtless in Hawaiian print swimming trunks. With several people jumping in and out of the pool, water splashed from all sides. Megan invited a few of her co-workers from Methodist Dallas Medical Center. Some of the gorgeous nurses who worked during Megan’s shift caused Thomas to develop wandering eyes. Two nurses in particular didn’t mind lying on their stomachs to show off their great figures. The blue moon islander float moved them from one end of the pool to the next.
To say the least, Thomas invited over some of the handsome guys from his stock brokerage firm. Megan dared not develop wandering eyes. She only had eyes for Thomas. No man walking the Earth was as handsome as her husband. The pool became crowded with all types of floats. Thomas placed four speakers near the doorway leading to the pool. Music from the seventies, eighties, nineties, and even into the Twenty-First Century, thumped loudly through the speakers. People were drinking and eating and having the grandest time.
Lowell Jackman, one of the truer friends of Thomas, stood off to the side munching on a turkey burger with potato salad and baked beans. Lowell was tall, lean, handsome, and quite intelligent. If Thomas needed someone to go to hell and back for him, Lowell would be his best candidate.
Thomas walked up and tapped Lowell on the shoulder. “Lowell, my good friend, you having a good time?”
“The time of my life,” Lowell contested, devouring most of the food on the paper plate.
“Gotta ask you something, Lowell.”
“Go right ahead.”
Thomas pointed towards the opposite end of the pool. “Who’s that beauty down there in the blue bathing suit?”
“Never seen her before. You know, most of us here are strangers to one another.”
“Does anyone else here knows who she is?”
“Not that I’m aware of. Say, aren’t you worried that Megan might find out that you’re inquiring about that woman?”
“Sort of, sort of not.”
“Just don’t ask any of these women who she is. There’s a chance they might go back and tell your wife.”
“Tattle tells, huh?”
“Women talk, Tom. Keeping secrets are the hardest things for them to do. Say, why do you wanna know who that woman is?”
“She’s a ridiculously beautiful babe. Her body and face can win every beauty contest in the world.”
“I’d say that she’s a genuine beauty. Question, Tom?”
“Which is?”
“Would you be willing to cheat on your wife with her?”
“Good question,” Thomas considered. “It’d be tempting, I can surely tell you that.”
The very woman Thomas mean-mugged so heavily rolled off the float and came out of the pool. She had his heart pounding and mouth watering. He couldn’t believe his eyes. Megan took her by the hand and led her over to where Thomas and Lowell stood.
“Tom, I’d like for you to meet one of my good friends from the hospital,” Megan initiated, a big happy smile on her face. “Tom, this Julie Lane. Julie, this is my husband, Tom. She’s one of the head RNs from Methodist Dallas.”
Yes, Julie was a true beauty. Her features were striking. Her body was deliciously toned.
Tom reached forward to shake her hand. “It’s a pleasure to meet you, Julie.”
“The pleasure’s all mine’s,” Julie accepted, shooting enticing stares at Thomas.
“So, are you having a good time?”
“This is the coolest pool party in the world.”
Megan grabbed Julie’s hand and took her around to meet other guests. Thomas couldn’t stop looking at the awesome goddess. Only minutes away from darkness, the lights around the pool and from under the water’s surface came on. More tables were brought out to start up card and domino games. A caterer rolled out a table with a long sheet of cake on top.
Thomas and Julie decided to sneak away into the master bedroom suite upstairs for a hot second rendezvous. Their arms went locking around one another’s bodies. Thomas pulled her head closer to press his lips into her’s. My, how they moved so fast. He dropped her onto the plush king-sized bed and fell on top of her. They both knew they couldn’t stay upstairs for too long.
“What if Megan comes barging through the door?” Julie asked, afraid they’d surely get caught.
“She’s down by the pool talking with other hospital employees,” Thomas assured Julie, kissing her up and down her girlish face.
Expeditiously, Thomas wanted to heat up their intimacy.
“This just doesn’t feel right.”
“What?”
“Me here upstairs with my good friend’s husband.”
“Honey, we’re both just being human beings.”
“Human beings doing wrong.”
From near the entrance of the pool, Thomas heard a familiar voice calling his name. “Damn, that’s Megan calling. I thought she’d be occupied for a lot more longer.”
“Is she on her way up here?” Julie fretted, jumping off the bed and fixing her hair.
“I know the ins and outs of this house. She’s still over near the pool.”
“Then, let’s leave from up here before she busts us.”
“You’re right.”
Thomas and Julie returned downstairs. Too bad they couldn’t finish what they’d started. Audaciously, an army of tiny, red imported fire ants crawled from out of the cracks near the pool and the enclosed fence. A few ants turned into hundreds of other ants. Guests of Megan and Thomas couldn’t believe what was happening. A wall of fire ants barricaded the door leading inside the house. None of the guests could leave the pool area. Supernaturally, the tiny ants grew at rapid speeds into colossal ants. In the midst of the colony, Queen Amina emerged. A blinding fluorescent red glow engulfed her body. Her eyes glowed with a fiery yellow, while her antennaes burned with non-consuming fire.
“Jesus, Mary, Joseph, and Joshua!” Thomas yelled out, snatching up a long iron pole.
“Where’d those glowing red space monsters come from?” Lowell asked, scared straight out of his wits.
The red imported fire ants flew all through the air and around the pool. The guests ducked while seeking shelter behind the furniture or one another.
“Colony, attack them!” Queen Amina ordered her colony.
The ants swooped around the entire pool and attacked everyone on command. Charging the women in bikinis and the men in shorts, the giant-sized ants sunk their jaws into their tender flesh. A non-lethal venom from their stingers caused red welts to pop up along their arms and legs. Members of the colony yanked liquor and soda bottles and platters of food off the table.
The contents were dumped down on the guests who stood far out in the open. Queen Amina cornered Megan and Thomas with her super-sized body. The couple were frightened by her flaming antennaes and glowing yellow eyes. Her kindled flapping wings produced friction strong enough to blow over objects on the tables. She released an extreme aggression of red fire from her mouth.
“Megan, have you not considered apologizing to my master?” asked Queen Amina, her fiery yellow eyes intimidating the very livelihood out of Megan.
“Your master?” Megan questioned, shaking from head-to-toe. “You were the one who attacked me inside the break room at the hospital. What do you want from me? Why have you come to my home to bother me and my friends?”
“What is required from this day forward, is for you to express an apologetic gesture to my master. As it has been pre-destined, myself and the colony have come to plague you and your friends.”
“Please, tell me who your master is.”
“The secrets of the Universe will not permit me to reveal who my master is. It has been spoken before, that you will come crawling on your hands and knees to beg for my master’s forgiveness.”
“Apologize for what?”
“Figure it out for yourself, Megan. Would you like to know something else?”
“What?”
Queen Amina lifted her wings towards the sky. “Look’a there, your husband Thomas snuck off to have a grand old time.”
Megan looked into the sky and the embarrassment of a lifetime played out before her very eyes. A video-like image of Thomas and Julie stretched across the bed filled almost every inch of space in the Dallas skies. Others looked up and were in complete awe. They cupped their mouths and bowed their heads in inadvertent shame.
Megan stepped over and pounded her fist into Thomas’ chest. “How dare you! I turn my back, and you sneak off to have a good time with my dear friend.”
“Meg, it’s not what it seems,” Thomas defended, stunned by not being able to cover his tracks.
“You liar! You cheater! You adulterer!”
“That’s pure deception being played up there in the sky.”
“You’re lying, Tom.”