— Fiction —

Giant Radioactive Ant … in Love (Excerpt)

With the success of Stephenie Meyer’s vampire abstinence parable novels, the Twilight series, publishers are scrambling to move forward with their own monsters-in-love novels. From werewolves to zombies to witches, things that go bump in the night are now doing a whole different kind of “bumping” for their tweenage audiences. But what monsters are left? We snagged a preview of one of these upcoming novels that promises to set the hearts of young-girls-deeply-confused-about-love-and-sexuality afire. Here now is your exclusive look at this upcoming cash-in novel.

C H A P T E R   7

HASTITY SWALLOWS walked like an angel—a dark and haunted angel—down the crowded hallways of Central High School.

She stopped in front of her locker. Everyone knew that Chastity was the prettiest girl in all of New Mexico. But she had a dark side too—it was said she once smoked half (half!) of a menthol cigarette. That was a lie. It was actually a clove. All of the boys called her a “lesbian weirdo.” But she knew it was totally because they wanted and desired her.

Chastity reached a pale, ghost-like hand towards her combination lock. Suddenly, behind her, she heard it. “CLICK-CRICCK-CRICCCK-CLICCK!”

That noise, Chastity now knew so well. That insectlike mating call. But Chastity, pale and haunted Chastity, wasn’t having any of it. Not today. Not now. Of all times.

No, not this time.

“I’m not talking to you. Not anymore,” she said with a tremble in her throat.

But she couldn’t take it.

Finally, she turned. Stared straight into the coal-black eyes of her true love. And those black, compact eyes stared right back at her. Without even blinking. Most likely because Giant Radioactive Ants have no eyelids. “CRICKITY-CRICK-CRACK,” he said, an antenna brushing across her cheek.

Chastity brushed it away with a cry, “NO! Don’t think for one second you can sweet-talk your way out of this one!”

Slowly, the Giant Radioactive Ant backed away from the lockers. Almost tripping over the six giant legs that supported his massive body. Chastity reached out to him.

“Wait! Giant Radioactive Ant! Wait! I can’t help myself! Don’t go! I love you! I’ve loved you ever since your irradiated colony crawled out from that nuclear weapons testing site. I know what you’ve sacrificed for me. Turning your back on the Giant Radioactive Ant Colony’s mission to destroy humanity as a result of our scientific excesses! You gave it all up to attend high school with me … the human girl of your dreams! But now, Giant Radioactive Ant, I want to know one thing—can I trust you to be faithful?”

There was no answer from the irradiated arthropod.

Tears filling her eyes, Chastity exclaimed, “You know what? You’re not just a Giant Radioactive Ant … you’re a Giant Radioactive ASS!”

The Giant Radioactive Ant rubbed his antennae together. That was how Giant Radioactive Ants brooded and this Giant Radioactive Ant was the broodiest. Theirs was a love that society—both human and giant insect—would not allow and could not understand. A human female and an irradiated insect monster male. He was a fertile male drone and he wanted her to be his fertile female queen. But she said they could never consummate their love. Because they were incompatible species (and also, mainly, because she was saving herself for marriage). In Giant Ant Monster society there was a special term for girls like Chastity. Loosely translated into human-ese, it was “prude.”

Sure, she’d stroked his thorax a time or two, but nothing beyond that. His mandibles opened and snapped shut again. She glared at him. His antennae swept the air—the chemicals he detected told him one thing—she was pissed at him and also, strangely, aroused.

“Who is it?” she cried, “Is it Mothra? Is this some sort of Asian fetish? Is that it? She’s a slut you know that, right? God, answer me, Giant Radioactive Ant! What do I have to do to break through the exoskeleton to get to your heart? I’ll never carry your larvae to term if you can’t be honest with me!”

Giant Radioactive Ant’s black, chitinous body glowed under the hallway lights. Almost as if it sparkled. He could carry ten times his own body mass, but the weight of his feelings was crushing him. Or so Chastity liked to imagine. He opened his mandibles. Chastity leaned in close, hoping for the answer she’d been waiting for. A declaration of eternal, forbidden love. A love that transcended species and that those scientists from the Army declared “completely outside the realm of scientific possibility and would probably result in the destruction of all mankind.”

Giant Radioactive Ant opened his mandibles and—

Barfed up the regurgitated sloppy joe from the cafeteria. He’d been holding it in there since second period and was feeling pretty famished at this point.

Chastity rolled her eyes. “I should have dated the Creature from the Black Lagoon instead. He may smell like fishsticks … but have you seen his abs?! O.M.G.!”

Giant Radioactive Ant began to wonder if maybe his Giant Radioactive Mother had been right after all…