Reptilia - or Reptiles as we call them - are a major fixation of mine.
At least, they were at one point. I mean, I still fixate on them; but the past was enjoyable. The past actually had meaning, comfort. I don’t want to think about it anymore; but the thoughts, the factoids, the images, they won’t leave my head.
Not too long ago, my boyfriend - let’s call him Milo - had increased anxiety for a couple months since a mugging incident; he was stressed moreso than normal, with the times he felt safe only around me. It got so bad I had to go everywhere with him so he could do the simplest tasks; within due time, it became draining. I loved him to pieces, but his need to go everywhere with me - even if it was three minutes away from our apartment - was too much. But we didn’t want to end things over this; this wasn’t his fault. I wanted to help him in any way I could.
From there I got the idea of an emotional support animal; the way one helped me through childhood, I’ll never forget it. But here’s the kicker; Milo was allergic to pet dander. He couldn’t get a cat; he couldn’t get a dog. He had a fear of rodents, and birds weren’t his forte.
You can guess what species I recommended.
We decided on a leopard gecko, as they’re the best choice for beginners. I told him everything I knew, my go-to for supplies and adoption, and I’d help him out if he needed it. There weren’t many pet stores near our apartment; the other stores were more than twenty minutes away, and we didn’t have time to go farther than our city thanks to our schedules.
And then he bought the crickets. Milo made the trip himself; I was proud of him for getting motivation, believing the pet gave him motivation to start out. He seemed a bit shaken once he got home; but not from the trip, from the crickets.
Leopard geckos only eat live insects; mealworms are a common snack for them amongst other worms, and the occasional dubia roach is a good alternative, but crickets were a common delicacy. You’ve seen pet store crickets; feeder crickets roaming around tanks when certain lizards are too full or don’t want to bother. They’re a light brown, small-to-medium in size. These feeder crickets were…different. These crickets resembled smaller feeders; same shape, same usual size. They were black as night, like a common black field cricket, and on the occasion, you could see spots of black droplets.
“Oh, god,” I muttered. “You went to the place I told you about, right??”
“Of course I did,” Milo retaliated. “The clerk told me they were safe, but…”
I paused for a minute; a reason I hoped would explain why they were this way popped into my head; “Maybe they’re trying to breed field crickets with feeders?”
“Whatever it is, I can’t go back; they were the only shipment they had.”
In his room sat a three-year-old rescue Mack snow leopard gecko, sleeping until our staring startled it awake. It seemed pure white, with its spotted patterning resembling chunks of coal sitting in the snow. It noticed the bag of crickets; his stance lowered at the sight of food.
As I took the cricket keeper, Milo popped open the bag of crickets; a rancid smell filled the room. Feeder crickets stink when you open their bag, it’s a common occurrence. But these crickets smelled like a mix of ammonia and rotting meat. Milo’s room wasn’t the cleanest, so the stench made his room even grimier than usual. Nausea hit our noses and stomachs; no matter how far I stood - I had to leave the room once to make sure I didn’t throw up all over my boyfriend’s bed sheets - the smell stunk through the whole apartment. Once he managed to put the crickets in the container, the stench got so bad we had to grab our pets and stay out for a while, spraying the apartment with air fresheners and filling Milo’s room with fans facing his window.
Tenants passing must’ve thought we looked mad; Milo held a leopard gecko as it stared into space, while I had a crested gecko and chameleon on my shoulders and an iguana in my arms like a crazy lizard man.
Once the air cleared up, Milo realized he forgot to close the container from the rush of the stench. We expected an apartment full of loose, chirping crickets; but none of them escaped. They sat there, spacing out and hiding in their egg carton pieces, as if they were waiting for our return. Bits of fresh, cannibalized crickets sat on the plastic glass.
As Milo grabbed a cricket with the plastic tweezers, it squished through the grip; a liquid seeped through, escaping the insect as it dripped onto the wooden floor, ammonia-like scents and a ‘squelch’ emitting through the room. The stomach area is squishy and grimy, like a gummy bear; but even the legs seemed to squish a bit with the stomach. Cricket legs don’t squish when obtained with tweezers; they’re sturdy enough to the point where ripping out the leg would include the meat connecting it. But this one…this one’s legs churned and squashed with the impact of the squeezing.
But the head is what caught me off-guard. It continued to move as if nothing was wrong, chirping and not bothering trying to squirm away from the tight grip held upon its body; no flailing, no attempts to escape. Its antennae twitched and its head turned as it stared straight at Milo and I, its eyes empty.
“Is there anywhere else to go for feeders?” Milo stared at me with desperation.
All I could do was observe the cricket my boyfriend held between pinching sticks; “If there was, I think I would have said something by now.”
Milo dropped the cricket into the lizard’s container, more liquid dripping into the tank carpeting. The gecko studied the cricket; eyes widened, throat sac speed increased, and tail wagging in the form of a snake slithering activated inside the reptile, preparing to pounce.
“Wait,” Milo spoke up. “This doesn’t feel right, I-“
But the leopard gecko struck. The cricket never tried to squirm; it wasn’t dead or swallowed all the way yet, but it didn’t even bother to try to escape either. It let the liquid from its body emit from the leopard gecko’s mouth as the reptile, in haste, licked its lips as if it was a sort of reptilian nectar.
We’d be a cheeky bunch in a normal situation, cheering and watching in awe as the reptiles ate and struck insects; feeding my lizards was like a dad watching a football game. But all we could do was watch as the gecko paced out and resumed back to its den to sleep, more liquid dripping out; it refused to eat more for the day.
The gecko ate it the correct way, not even flinching or showing hesitation, choking, or disgust; but the way the cricket acted, moved, had no effect or reaction to getting eaten…was it diseased? Dying? Did we give our gecko a diseased insect?
Throughout the week the gecko was starving, glass surfing and acting as if it hadn’t been fed in days, despite its constant consumption of crickets. When Milo or I weren’t able to give it a cricket in a certain amount of time, it would seize out, stopping once a cricket landed into its tank. It ate one a day, then two after another day, then three, then four. No matter how many times Milo or I called the pet store, they only had those crickets. It got to the point where I could hear one of the employees yelling through the phone to stop whining.
At one point we even had to go to a vet; the gecko was fine. Nothing was wrong during those days; it was healthy, happy, and acted normal until we put it back in its tank; and from there, the seizing started back up.
And about a week later, a crash and a thump emitted from the apartment that night.
I’m a rather deep sleeper; not even the loudest noises could get me up. But when this noise echoed through our halls…something was wrong. I grabbed a flashlight, forcing myself out of bed to combat any paranoia planning to implant me to my mattress. My door leads to a straight line to our small living room; you’d be greeted with memorial pictures of my reptiles throughout the years on the walls. There in the hall laid broken photographs and claw marks; faint, fountain pen-esque claw marks, sharp enough to make tears into both the walls and the photographs, with strikes reaching interior wood.
To the left of the path halfway through the hall, you’d spot the kitchen. The kitchen was a complete mess, having also been scratched, torn, and ripped apart from wall to wall, drawer to drawer, shelf to shelf. The fridge was the safest culprit of the attack; it wasn’t raided, but those sharp claw marks scratched the front of the fridge as cool air danced on my skin. Despite the fridge being clean, the bug traps weren’t; large scales stuck to the sticky contraptions, sharp and pointed, as if something was trying to eat the dead bugs. Closer to the end of the hallway on the right was Milo’s room; the glow of faint lights from the outdoors leaked into the hallways; a normal occurrence, as he likes to leave a creak open. For the most part, he’s quiet at night; but my ears perked as i overheard a soft, quick shuffle from within, thinking nothing of it.
And from there stood the living room; frames hung clawed memorials, the roof held tall, dangling bug traps with scrapped mouth scales, the couch had shredded pillows, and tail marks indented into the walls. But those were material objects; they could be replaced, and paintings – even if their original counterpart’s meaning would be lost – could be repainted. What broke my heart the most in that moment though were from my reptilian containers.
My crested gecko lay dead on its enclosure floor, back broken from an impactful fall; the water from its dripper released small drops into its open, gaped mouth. Nearby, sticks and fake vines from my chameleon’s enclosure scattered across the floor as more glass shards danced around them; A stick from the impact broke the chameleon’s arm. But the one who got it worst of all was my iguana; with arms contorted and disfigured, its head turned to break its neck, and body stepped from a large creature’s foot of sorts, it laid stuck to the floor. She stood motionless, at peace as her one open eye looked at me, pupil to pupil connecting.
All I could do was stare, trapped in this dark, inky room full of glass, tears of wooden splinters, and my deceased pets. I stood confused, terrified, motionless as the sight sunk into me, the night feeling overwhelming as small, ambient noises filled the space.
Milo.
I dropped my flashlight, thoughts racing for being so stupid not checking in on Milo sooner. For god’s sakes, he’s my boyfriend! The intensity of the situation made the adrenaline rush, with the ten second scramble to the door feeling like forever.
I flipped the light switch.
The Mack snow stood atop Milo’s bed; it grew to the point where it almost made a perfect circle around the room. What were once small, cheese-grater type teeth turned into the size of alligator fangs, uneven and dented but still nubby. Its swelling tail leaked drops of fat from its large bumps, having gone from small circles to large mosquito bites; it seemed unphased by its leakage, not even bothering to fix it, let alone look at it. Fingers, which on a leopard gecko looked limp and broken despite being fine, helped the creature lift itself off the ground, contorting and moving on their own as if they were eels. The same smell and mess from the crickets Milo bought seeped through its mouth, a stench I could once again smell from afar with an open door. Its eyes, as black as the crickets were, boggled out of its head, falling out and dangling on the occasion but being pushed back in thanks to its tongue.
And right in front of me - right god damn there - the gecko was eating Milo from the head up, making small bites and sucks like it would as if it were to eat a cricket or mealworm. Milo wasn’t moving; he seemed stuck, the illusion of leg kicking and squirming through the sides of my eyes whenever I had to turn away; but whenever I was able to look, his movement was nonexistent. I shook Milo’s leg without thinking; the leopard gecko emitted a terrifying screech, revealing – in its mouth – a half-eaten torso of Milo, the small crocodile-like teeth having made imprints.
It didn’t move. It didn’t bother to strike. All it wanted to do first was eat, and eat, and eat everything in the small apartment it could consider food, evident by bug traps; but not until it finished its first meal, a meal similar a baby mouse of only a few days. I stood motionless with the lizard, glancing at a pocket knife on Milo’s dresser and grabbing it with hesitation; I didn’t want to do this. This reptile was supposed to help Milo’s anxiety; this was supposed to be the creature I could treasure with the person I loved the most. My grip on the end of the knife tightened; the leopard gecko, distorted and monstrous, stared at me with fingers moving like eels, the appendages crawling towards me. My own fixation being against me – as if it had ever favored me – felt like a stab in the back, a painful twist of cruel fate, as if this was all my fault.
The moon faded into the rising day as a familiar screech echoed through the apartment that night.
Now I’m temporarily staying with my brother; of course he doesn’t believe a giant, mutated leopard gecko killed my boyfriend, but who would? Not like I told him, let alone going to tell anybody; he damn thing shriveled up after the blade hit, wincing from a giant monster, to a normal gecko, to ashes and dust. Ever since those events, reptiles are all I can think about, moreso than normal; those events, that night, and the never-rending thoughts of reptile factoids and information gathering around like a vortex. The pet store I went to did shut down due to bad business; whatever the hell happened to those crickets, I’ll never know. It’s only been a few days since the incident, but eventually they’ll find Milo’s body; it’s still out there, in the open, unable to be hidden and waiting for someone to come, for the police to arrive, asking me questions on if I did it or not.
They’d never believe it was those damn crickets.