THIS IS AN EXCERPT OUT OF A PUBLISHED NOVEL BY WELL-KNOWN TRUE CRIME AUTHOR BRIGETTE ALOIS. SHE SHARES HER RESEARCH INTO THE PARTICULARLY VILE STRAIN OF FLIES FOUND AT EACH OF THE ORIGINAL "MAGGOT MAN" CRIME SCENES, AS A RETIRED NEWS ANCHOR WHO WAS ACTIVE AT THE TIME OF THE KILLINGS.
--File 008: The Truth Behind the Flies--
I still remember the very first crime scene I was privy to, as a news anchor. I had developed a good relationship with local homicide Detective Berkley, and later, with Agent Bartosz. They respected the need to report to the public, and we respected their requests to withhold information and release specific details at specific times. The point of the latter was to control what the target thought we knew, versus what we wanted them to think we knew. It was a game of cat and mouse, and we worked well together. It was a symbiotic relationship all around.
Unfortunately, despite being the sort of business partnerships most news anchors would kill for (particularly on the FBI side of the deal), the Maggot Man was the last thing I officially reported on in the business. The worst I see now are crime scene photographs, and you might find it hard to believe that somehow, those are better than what I saw during the Maggot Man killings.
Not that anything will ever match the horrific vileness of those crime scenes. There have been worse Serial Killers since... and yet, at the same time, in some weird kind of way, none of the Serial Killers following him come close. This monster targeted very specific, innocent victims, strangled them, and then watched as his little pets consumed their bodies rapidly and voraciously.
Jake Grantham was objectively brilliant. Had he gone on to become a fully functioning, sane adult, he probably would have become legendary in the field of entomology. What he did with those flies would have made Dr. Frankenstein cry out in utter delight and amazement.
The flies themselves looked, at first glance, mostly normal. They were bigger than the average flesh fly- family sarcophagidae- of which they were deemed to be kin to. They had the same white striping of an average flesh fly, and maybe they buzzed a little more loudly, but if you saw one of them in your house during a normal situation, you'd think just the same about them as you would toward any other fly.
They were nothing of the sort.
Grantham's Flies don't bite- perhaps an evolution that Grantham opted for on purpose, to avoid making them TOO aggressive- but the speed at which they consume borderlines on a serious lack of control. They possess traits of various species of botfly and flesh fly, including the ability to parasitize a host- INCLUDING humans- with their eggs and larvae. Whereas the botfly uses mosquitos (and other options) to transfer their larvae into the living host- thereby allowing the eggs to grow deep in the layers of the skin- Grantham's flies lay their larvae directly into the body, where they hatch and consume their way out of the host.
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The maggots are surprisingly capable of absolutely tearing through the tough flesh of a mammal, living or deceased, in nothing short of an hour. Their incubation period is supremely short, at which point they furiously and violently begin to carve their way through the host.
The maggots themselves are perhaps even more violent than the flies.
Flies in general are considered dangerous because of the number of deadly diseases that they can transmit with very little trouble to themselves. Outside of Grantham's flies, many of the known species of these infuriating pests are actually known to be good for pollination.
Grantham's Flies appear to have no such inclination toward any good for the planet. They desire to eat, consume, and produce offspring, ad nauseum. Their appetites are impossible to sate, and they produce viable offspring at inconceivable rates.
Less reported during the crime spree of Jake Grantham was the aftermath of his murders. Pest controls were furiously at work for months following the reveals of the Lost Girls, as the media affectionately- and sadly- began to refer to them. Infestations were on par with that of bed bugs; illnesses were rampant, hospitals packed to the brim with people being eaten from the inside out, and the battle to eliminate this plague of Biblical proportions was bordering on nuclear.
The news was asked to downplay the severity of the flies. We acquiesced, because hysteria would certainly not have helped containing the contamination... but sometimes, I wonder if that was the right move.
What move was there even to make? Tell people that there were killer flies on the loose, intent on laying their horrific babies in their guts and then tunneling straight through them to restart the cycle? It sounded like some sort of B-horror movie you'd catch in a two-for-one ticket.
We've gotten that whole nightmare under control at last, and there are still these rigorous, strict protocols in place for fly infestations among veteran pest control teams. We jokingly referred to them as the "Fly Swatters", but in reality, it was a war involving some seriously harsh chemicals that I pray won't have equally bad consequences in our futures. The medication victims had to take was a veritable pile of pills, all to subdue any possible infection, and eliminate the parasites burrowing through you.
Jake Grantham was entirely human... but the things I saw in those days, just fifteen years ago, feel so... so fresh. Flies terrify me. The sound of buzzing sends me in a near hysteria, something my younger grandchildren find silly and endearing.
I'm glad they do, because it means that monsters like Jake Grantham are put away.
Maybe Grantham was human, but those crime scenes felt like looking upon the face of the Devil himself.