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Murder hornets hail from Asia. Queens can grow to two inches long, which is why they’re also known as Asian giant hornets.
Beyond its size, the hornet has a distinctive look, with a cartoonish and fierce face featuring teardrop eyes like Spider-Man. Orange and black stripes extend down its body like a tiger, and it has broad, wispy wings like a small dragonfly. The hornets use mandibles shaped like spiked shark fins and can wipe out a honeybee hive in a matter of hours, decapitating the bees and flying away with the thoraxes to feed their young. For larger targets, the hornet’s potent venom and stinger—long enough to puncture a beekeeping suit —make for an excruciating combination that victims have likened to hot metal driving into their skin.
In Japan, they kill up to fifty people a year. Murder hornets arrived in the United States last fall. No one really knows how they got here, but I could give them a couple of clues. I ordered mine from the dark web. You’d be surprised what people keep as pets.
They didn’t come cheap, but then, as they say, you get what you pay for.
The kid, whose name turns out to be Darryl, met me off an old county road just before sunset. He didn’t enter the woods, but I don’t blame him. I wouldn’t either. He parked his souped-up sports car where I instructed him to, which should have been his first clue that something was off. No teenage girl is that thorough.
He sat in his car a while, checking his hair, tidying up, doing whatever it is kids do, before he text me, or rather Veronica, who he thought was me. He wanted to meet at his car. I agreed and told him I’d be there soon.
As luck would have it, just as I expected, he killed the engine, let his windows down, and waited.
Darryl was a big kid, bigger than I’d remembered, which is maybe why it took a little bit for the chloroform to work its magic.
The wooden box was built about six hundred feet off the road. Inside of the wooden box is a camera and a little light. It’s kind of shaped like a coffin but a little bigger, a fact for which I was glad. When I had the guy build it, he asked what I wanted and I couldn’t exactly say I wanted a coffin, so I said make it look like a coffin, but not. It’s for a prank, I said. He could see it on YouTube; I’d send him the link, after. People do a lot of stupid stuff online, so basically after forking over two Benjamins, there were no other questions asked.
But not everything went so smoothly. For one, I regret the six hundred feet instantly. It was a real shit-show getting it out there. Even an almost coffin is not a small thing. Second, not only do I have to haul it 240 steps, I have to drag the kid out there as well. Then after he’s hopefully dead, I have to haul him back. All in a day’s work, I suppose.
Anyway, once he was chloroformed up, I did manage to get him out to the box, and with a lot of sweat equity and a little more chloroform, I managed to get the ball gag in before stuffing him into the thing. I cut a small hole in the top on my own, just big enough to feed the hornets through and add a little handle. Then like a pumpkin, easy-peasy I placed it back on. If these things were to escape it would be very, very bad seeing as they can fly up to twenty miles an hour. They can cover long distances in no time. Who knows where they’d end up? There are a few people I like— not many, but a few—and I know a thing or two about karma.
Although, perhaps I’m getting ahead of myself.
Once the lid was on, things really started to fall into place. First, I waited for Darryl to wake up. Thankfully, it didn’t take long, because the sun was about to set and I don’t care for the woods at night.
He panicked a bit, which was to be expected. And yet, he too, thought it was a joke, that someone was pulling a prank on him. “You’re right,” I said. “Everything is a joke, and all the world’s a stage. I just need you to answer a few questions for me.”
It was tough getting answers out of him, and not just on account of the ball gag. Fear can have surprising effects on people. Sadly, I was worried that we’d have to do without words. “I need you to tell me how this feels. Can you do that?”
He mumbled something inaudible, which helped me know this wasn’t all for nothing.
Threading the bag with the lone hornet in it, through the hole, I explained what it was. Which of course only caused more terror in poor Darryl. Lots of shrieking and flailing about like a fish ensued after that, at least as much as one can when trapped inside of a pine box.
“It’s padlocked, Darryl.” He seemed to calm a bit at the sound of his name. “How does it feel?”
The shrieking grew louder as he was stung. “Does it feel like having red-hot thumbtacks being driven into your flesh?”
He mumbled something else, which I can only assume was in the affirmative.
“Good,” I said, before feeding the others in. “Darryl?”
There was more noise from inside the box.
“Your boxmates earned their nickname ‘murder hornet’ because its aggressive group attacks can expose victims to doses of toxic venom equivalent to that of a venomous snake.”
Grabbing the burner phone from my back pocket, a couple of taps brought up the footage from inside the box. Not exactly award-winning cinematography, but it served its purpose.
The kid’s death didn’t take long. All in all, it was a bit anticlimactic, to tell the truth.
In my imagination, I had t
o kill the hornets, and then I had to drag the kid back to the car, drive it elsewhere, and set the scene to make it look like he died in his car, in a park. In the fantasy version, I trapped a hornet in with him for effect. The following day, I’d dispose of the box.
In reality, I just lit the whole thing up in flames and watched it—and the hornets and the body—burn. Then I just left the charred heap of disappointment in the woods. It’s such a shame that reality intrudes on our good intentions. But like I said, things are hectic at work. Sometimes good enough has to be good enough, and there’s one less disrespectful teenager running around, so we should all be glad for that.
I did expend some effort moving the car to a second location. No point letting a giant red flag stay that close to the crime scene.
Even so, the most disappointing thing, aside from knowing I could have done better, was the lack of the media reports about the murder hornets, the ensuing frenzy, and the inkling of satisfaction that I caused it.
