Sharon was out front watering her hydrangeas. It was a hot summer morning, and she didn’t want the midday sun to scorch her prize-winning garden. As she wandered around, pruning foliage and squatting to clean up her clippings, a loud buzzing caught her attention. Looking up through her sunglasses, she saw the largest hornet she’d ever encountered. Instinctively, she screeched, dropped her clippings, and fled inside, slamming the glass door behind her.
Inside, Sharon watched as the hornet repeatedly smashed against the glass. She let out a long, shaky exhale and tried to steady herself. Reminding herself that she was a thousand times bigger than the hornet—and that it was trapped outside—she attempted to calm down. Still, she slid up to the door and locked it, as if the hornet might somehow figure out the doorknob.
Sharon had always feared being swarmed by stinging pests, ever since seeing the movie My Girl, where Macaulay Culkin’s character is stung to death by bees. Never having been stung herself, her fear was amplified by the unknown.
She stood at the window, staring at her unfinished gardening and the hornet still battering the glass. She decided to wait for her husband, who would be home for lunch soon, and ask him to take care of the pest.
When he arrived, he immediately noticed a nest above the garage. Seeing Sharon still shaken, he worked to calm her down before mentioning the small nest he’d found. Since the hornet was gone and the nest was minor, they searched online and decided not to disturb it. Hornets, after all, eat mosquitoes and other garden pests. As long as Sharon avoided the hive and did her gardening at dusk instead of in the morning, they reasoned, the hornets shouldn’t be a problem. Sharon agreed, appreciating the idea of organic pest control.
For a couple of weeks, things were fine. But over time, her husband noticed the hive was growing—now nearly the size of a basketball. He took a few photos, curious to see how large it would get.
One afternoon, he came home to find Sharon at the sink, washing her arm, tears welling in her eyes. “I got stung by the biggest bee I’ve ever seen,” she said, showing him a stinger the size of a rose thorn still embedded in her arm, the skin around it angry and red. He fetched tweezers, removed the stinger, and helped clean and bandage the wound.
Sharon explained she’d been weeding near the air conditioner when she noticed a small hive above the kitchen window. Just then, their dog Tessi jumped up on the house, causing a vibration that sent a huge hornet flying out. Sharon instinctively shielded her face, and the hornet stung her arm. She dropped everything and ran inside.
Her husband checked the hive above the kitchen window and was stunned—it was even bigger than the one above the garage. Realizing the problem was escalating, they decided to call pest control.
The next morning, Sharon called several local pest control companies, but appointments were booked out for weeks or even months. Meanwhile, the swelling in her arm worsened, radiating heat through the bandage. She waited for her husband to get home before removing it, and together they saw the wound had become swollen and possibly infected. He advised her to wash it gently and redressed it.
That night, Sharon couldn’t resist squeezing the swollen area in the shower; a small amount of pus came out. Later, as she stood in the bedroom, her husband’s concern briefly turned to passion, but afterward, he insisted on treating her wound with antibiotic ointment and anti-itch cream.
The next morning, Sharon managed to book a pest control appointment, but it was still two weeks away. The hives continued to grow at an alarming rate, wrapping around the house. Sharon could no longer let the dog out safely, resorting to daily trips to the park.
When the pest control technician finally arrived, he was so shocked by the size of the nests that he refused to handle the job alone, promising to send a team. Sharon, terrified, drove to her husband’s office to tell him what had happened. He reassured her, and they decided to spend the evening out before returning home.
Upon their return, the hives had engulfed much of the house. Her husband bravely cleared a path for Sharon to park in the garage, then distracted the hornets so she could get inside safely. Once inside, he called the pest control office, only to learn it would take at least another week to assemble a team for the job.
That night, Sharon’s arm worsened, the swelling spreading and the skin growing hot and red, dotted with tiny pinpricks as if she’d been stung a hundred times. In tears, she agreed to go to the emergency room in the morning.
The next morning, her husband awoke to an ominous buzzing. Looking over, he found Sharon’s body covered in hornets, their numbers so thick they seemed to replace her skin. The dog, too, was being swarmed. As he screamed and leapt from bed, Sharon slowly stood, her voice eerily calm: “It’s alright, darling. They’re our family. They’ve come home to take care of us.”
Looking outside, he saw nothing but darkness—the hive had consumed the house, turning Sharon into their queen, swarming the dog, and now, coming for him.
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