Fiends by John Farris

want?"
    "It's probably just a freak of nature, and they'll go away after a while— don't you think? Look at all the owls!"
    "Something weird's going on," Marjory muttered, in her anxiety rocking on the seat. "I need to get in the house. Rita Sue, drive around back, and maybe I'll go in that way."
    "My car is going to get so stuck up with bugs—"
    "Enid's in the house! She could be—I don't know—will you get going, Rita Sue!"
    Rita Sue backed up and turned cautiously into the driveway.
    "Put on your lights!"
    Moths appeared by the dithering score in the headlight beams; they flew erratically toward the windshield, then veered off into the dark. Rita
    Sue drove around to the back porch, stopping five feet from the steps. The porch light was off and there seemed to be fewer moths here, although the Fairlane's headlights had begun to attract them. Rita Sue cut off the lights and the two girls sat in the dark.
    "Okay, I'm going in now."
    "I don't want to sit her in the car by myself!"
    "We'll both go."
    Marjory breathed deep, opened the door and ran up the porch steps where earlier she had broken off the heel of one of her good dress shoes. Moths fluttered coldly against her face like enormous snowflakes. Rita Sue was right behind her, gasping. Marjory flung open the screen door, waited until Rita Sue ducked inside, then followed.
    "There's one!" Rita Sue said, pointing to the inside of the screen.
    "Go on in the house" Marjory told her. She snatched a broom leaning against the washing machine. Another moth was higher than her head, difficult to make out on the unlighted porch. Marjory brought it down with one hard swing of the broom, then bolted into the kitchen behind Rita Sue. Only when she was inside with the door closed did she pay attention to how cold she felt. The girls clung to each other, hearing only the faint music of Enid's stereo upstairs.
    "I got bit again," Rita Sue said forlornly. "On my cheek."
    "You're right; it doesn't exactly feel like a bite," Marjory acknowledged, rubbing the back of a leg beneath her shorts.
    "Do you suppose there's any more of them in here?"
    "Let's go upstairs. But don't turn on any lights."
    "What happens to moths if they don't have a light to attract them?"
    "I hope they'll go away," Marjory said, moving out of the kitchen into the hall. Through the front-door screen she could see plenty of moths; they were, at a distance, spectacular. She didn't know what had happened to the cats. Probably when they began to feel overwhelmed they had crept into the darkness beneath the house. She flipped off the front porch light and went running up the stairs.
    "Enid! Hey, Enid!"
    "Marjory, what on earth?" Enid said, sitting up on her bed bleary-eyed as Marjory burst into her room. She had dozed off reading a book, which fell from her lap.
    "Luna moths!" Now their occurrence was merely bizarre and exhilarating to Marjory, nothing to be frightened of. "Must be a billion of them—they're all around the house."
    "Oh," Enid said, yawning and then smiling. "Those are the real pretty ones. Let me see."
    "They bite," Rita Sue said glumly. She was behind Marjory in the doorway.
    "Moths? I never have heard of—"
    She was looking for her flats to slip into when they heard Arne Horsfall scream, more shocking than a boulder falling through the roof.
    Enid looked up with a galvanized jerk of her head, mouth opening. Marjory stepped back hard into Rita Sue, turning to stare down the hallway at the door of the room in which their guest had gone to bed. She was, instantly, a mass of gooseflesh, her nipples standing out like round drawer-pulls. Rita Sue, knock-kneed, had Marjory by one arm, and her nails hurt.
    But nothing happened to explain the scream. The bedroom door remained closed. Arne Horsfall didn't appear, as Marjory anticipated, berserk, with a blunt instrument or sharp object in his hand to make corpses of them all.
    Enid reacted quickly, trying to unblock her doorway by pulling Marjory in a