Page 18 of Girl, Sought

‘I must say, it's a pleasure to meet a fellow aficionado. So few people appreciate the majesty of the insect world.’

‘Same to you.’

‘Can I take your coat? And your bag?’

Peter clutched his bag closer. 'I'll keep it if you don't mind.'

Something in his voice made Alfred's skin crawl. But collectors were allowed their eccentricities. God knew Alfred had his own - the bow ties, the obsessive measuring, the way he couldn't sleep if the cases weren't perfectly aligned.

‘Right this way.’ Alfred led him into the living room. ‘Would you like to see some of my other specimens while I fetch our friend?’

‘Certainly,’ Peter said.

The man moved like someone operating their body by remote control. His gaze slid across the displays without really registering them. Most collectors got excited at this point - asking questions, sharing stories, comparing notes. But Peter just stood there, still as the specimens on the walls. No widening of the eyes at the rare specimens. No sharp intake of breath at the Goliath Spider. None of the telltale signs of a true collector. Just that flat stare, like he was examining wallpaper samples instead of some of the rarest insects on Earth.

‘Quite a collection.’ The words fell dead as autumn leaves.

‘That display took fifteen years.’ Alfred pointed to the cockroach evolution chart. ‘Each specimen had to be caught at exactly the right stage of development. The timing is crucial - a matter of hours can mean the difference between perfect preservation and a ruined specimen.’

Peter nodded without looking. ‘Fascinating.’

‘And here-’ Alfred moved to a case of iridescent beetles. ‘These are from my expedition to Borneo in '92. The locals thought I was mad, camping in the jungle for weeks just to find the right specimens. But look at that metallic sheen. You don't get color like that in captive-bred specimens.’

‘You must be very proud.’

Wrong again. The words were right, but the tone was dead. Collectors had a certain fever in their voices when they talked about their passions. A specific madness that Alfred recognized because he saw it in the mirror every morning. They understood that each specimen was a chapter in a larger narrative. This man treated it like a business transaction. Maybe that's all it was to him, he considered.

‘Can I offer you a drink? I have a lovely Merlot breathing in the kitchen.’

Peter waved a dismissive hand. ‘No, thank you. I'm eager to see the roach, if you don't mind.’

‘Of course.’ Alfred forced warmth into his voice. ‘I'll get it from my study. Please, make yourself comfortable.’

The study lay just off the living room, through an archway lined with moth specimens arranged in evolutionary sequence. Alfred's hands trembled slightly as he lifted the reinforced case. The roach hung suspended in its crystal prison. He cradled it with the care of a priest bearing sacred relics. One wrong move and a hundred thousand dollars would shatter on his floor.

A floorboard creaked in the living room. Then another. Alfred smiled to himself as he heard Peter's footsteps moving from display to display. Maybe he'd misjudged the man. Some collectors took time to warm up, like cold-blooded creatures needing sunlight before they could move. Alfred had known a few like that - awkward at first, but get a few drinks in them and they'd talk etymology until dawn.

Or maybe Peter was just a businessman who saw dollar signs in dead insects. There were plenty of those too. Men who wouldn't know a scarab from a stag beetle but knew exactly how much each would fetch at auction. Alfred had sold to their type before. They treated his specimens like stocks or bonds - assets to be traded, not marvels to be studied.

The footsteps continued their measured pace. Glass cases clinked softly - the sound of someone leaning in for a closer look. Alfred recognized that rhythm. He'd done it himself countless times in other collectors' homes, that careful dance of curiosity and respect. Never touching, just absorbing.

A floorboard creaked near his prized butterfly collection. Good choice, Alfred thought. The Morpho didius alone was worth a small fortune. Any true collector would gravitate toward those iridescent wings. Perhaps Peter wasn't such a cold fish after all. Just needed time to thaw.

Alfred quickly ran through the speech he usually gave to prospective buyers. The history of its discovery, the complex preservation process, the current market value of similar specimens. Business types appreciated that kind of detail. Made them feel better about dropping five figures on a dead insect.

But the words died on Alfred’s lips as he crossed the threshold back into the living room.

Because the scene in front of him defied all logic, all reason.

Peter was standing in the center of the room, facing away from the door, but he was no longer the man who'd entered Alfred's home minutes before.

Something had changed. Something so grotesque, so anomalous, that Alfred's brain struggled to process it.

The man was wearing a mask. But not just any mask. It was an insect mask, a monstrous caricature of a cockroach's head blown up to human size. Chitinous plates, waving antennae, bulbous eyes that glittered with a mad, multi-faceted sheen.

Alfred's first thought was absurd: The anatomical details are wrong. A real cockroach head scaled up would collapse under its own weight.

His second thought was: Run.

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