The Anthills of Doom

The Anthills of Doom

An exhausted Carol sat on the porch fervently plotting her next move. It was a heavy burden for her, at the tender age of three, to be the family hero. She was a secret hero at that. She needed to be. She'd told the family about those evil hordes in the lot next door and the adults did not pay her any mind. So, it was up to her.

She had a faithful dog, Penny, who would sit and guard while she was on her raids. She needed the protection and also warning if she were about to be caught. She wasn't technically allowed to be in the area next door. Mamma had said there might be snakes there. Carol had never seen but one snake, but she know they couldn't be worse than the real danger lurking there in the tall grass. Besides, not all snakes were bad. Mamma had said rattlers were bad, but as long as Carol listened carefully, she wouldn't get bit. They always made a weird shaking sound before they bit, and Carol would be able to run away first. That is how it happened on TV.

Then there were the Blue Racers. Carol's head wanted to see one of those snakes, but her stomach did not. Mamma said that they were as fast as cars, which was very scary. But she also said that if you got them going, then jumped out of the way, they would just race right past you. Carol reckoned that a snake as stupid as all that couldn't be very dangerous. Where Mamma grew up, there were also snakes that swam in the water called "cotton mouths." They were poisoned somehow, Carol figured it had to do with the cotton. She wondered if she placed cotton balls in the water and the snakes ate them...would that make the snake unpoisoned?

But here there was no water, so she figured there would be nothing but those gardener snakes. They didn't bite people, Daddy said. They kept the bugs away. Carol had tried to sneak out one night after a gardener snake had been spotted hiding in the bushes. She wanted to watch it since snakes had no hands to use for gardening. She had been very quiet. Just as she got outside Penny had barked, waking her parents. She was spanked soundly and put in bed before she could see any snake gardening.

But Carol really didn't care about the snakes this time. She only cared about the ants. Ants were evil, which is why her mother sprayed them with the ant killing spray. A whole city of them lived in the vacant lot next door. Carol also knew they weren't planning to stay there. The man across the lot had put poison on the lawn. 'To keep them from invading my yard,' he had said. Once tipped off to the ants real intentions, she'd told her father. Daddy told her there wasn't anything to worry about.

She'd decided to see for herself. She walked into the vacant lot and saw what would become the fuel for many nightmares. There were tiny ants and huge ants, black ones, red ones and some were both red and black. Their homes - the anthills - varied in size, some were short and fat, others were tall and thin. She felt the little creatures crawl up her legs; her heart nearly stopped. She was filled with horror and ran screaming to Mamma.

Mamma brushed away all the ants and all her tears. She reminded Carol that ants were food for frogs and lizards. They weren't dangerous. Because of this, they were going to leave them alone. Maybe the adults didn't know, but Carol did. Those ants were bent on world domination. When Carol cried to Daddy he said he wasn't worried about them either. He was going to leave them to 'their own devices.' Carol would stop them, she just had to be smart. Daddy had told her that a small smart army had the ability to beat a big one any day. That was how the Americans got free.

Carol hadn't figured out who the Americans needed freed from, but she didn't ask either. Daddy had said it as if it was something everyone knew about. If Carol thought to ask, she would become so uncomfortable she would stop before the question met the end of her tongue. She was smart, and outnumbered. She had to do it right. Carol went snooping around the yard of the man who had told her about the ants in the first place. She didn't find the poison, all she got was a spanking for being out of the yard. Poisoning them was not going to work. She started collecting frogs and toads from her yard. She placed them in the ant city, next to the anthills. It seemed like a very wondrous plan, until she noticed that nothing seemed to change. The frogs were big enough to eat many of the ants every day. Why were there still so many ants?

The answer she found horrified her, and made her feel guilty. She saw a dead, squished toad on the sidewalk. It was covered in ants. There were so many ants that it was hard to distinguish whether it was a frog or a toad, but the poor thing was dead. Carol knew the ants had done it. They must have fought back and swarmed the toad. She wondered how they flattened him, though, and figured it had to be painful. She knew she could never use them as soldiers against the ants again and she prayed that Jesus would forgive her. She hadn't known that ants could kill a frog.

Now she had to devise a new plan. She walked to the end of the yard to watch her enemy. She spied a small anthill on her side of the property line, and she stomped on it. Ants ran out. Instead of attacking Carol, they started rebuilding their little house. A faint tickle touched her brain and she strode determinedly to her backyard. There she found a fairly substantial stick. She ran into the vacant lot, dragging the stick behind her, destroying as many anthills as possible. It was enough to prevent an invasion that day. She slept peacefully that night, knowing all was safe.