PEST CONTROL
By Sofia Diana Gabel
Sofia
Diana Gabel started life in Sydney, Australia, but her family moved to the
United States when she was very young. Home wasn’t settled for a long time and
included living in Toronto, Canada; Henrietta and Buffalo, New York;
Northridge, Southern California; a short stint back in Sydney, Australia; Reno,
Nevada; Dallas, Texas; Daytona Beach, Florida, with an eventual semi-settled
life in Ojai and Ventura, Southern California as a single parent to her three
daughters.
Perhaps
the unsettled partial nomadic lifestyle is the reason she loves to travel and
is never fully satisfied with where she’s living. Moving around and travelling
to different countries are adventures which serve as potential settings and
plots for stories. A multi-genre fiction writer, with degrees in environmental
science and archaeology, and coursework in creative writing and criminal
justice, she enjoys being out in nature, keeping up on archaeological
discoveries and learning about the law, criminal behavior and police procedures
(all with, once again, potential for stories!)
When
she's not glued to her desk writing or researching, she loves to spend time
with her family and hairless Sphynx cats. Writing is a true passion, born from
a love of the written word and how those words can transport the reader to
different places or worlds and deliver them back to reality, safe and sound.
Website: http://sofiadianagabel.com/
Twitter:
@sofiadianagabel
Environmental
Satire / Thriller
Date
Published: November 24, 2014
Joseph Vogorev hates spiders and loves money. As the president
and CEO of chemical giant Pest No More, he develops a neurotoxin pesticide
specially formulated to target only arachnid species. When outspoken
environmentalist Gale Pacalis realizes the potential for planet-wide
devastation, he wants more than anything to bring Vogorev down. With a host of
quirky friends, he collects data to prove Arach-No-More’s lethality. Teenaged
Amelia joins his group because she’s personally invested; her pink kneed
tarantula, Pinky, died. It’s a race to save the world, but as Gale and his
friends go head-to-head with Vogorev, the many obstacles they face makes it
seem impossible to win. Mainly because Vogorev has unlimited money and a
limited conscience.
Excerpt
Vogorev
waved the aerosol can in the air. “The specialized and patented nozzle on this
can disperses the contents at five hundred feet per second. Not exactly the
speed of light, but still pretty damn quick.” He chuckled.
There
was a strained silence and then a lone high-pitched voice called out, “Those
are spiders up there!”
Gale
looked up at a tank right above his head. The lady was right. The outline of
spiders pressed against the plastic was unmistakable; all of those little legs
writhing and clawing to get out. There had to be thousands of them in the
tanks, throwing themselves against the side as if they were crazy. Before
anyone else had the chance to react, a scraping sound echoed off the walls as
the bottom of the containers slid open and hairy tarantulas rained down over
the audience amid screams and shrieks. Gale stared at Vogorev and saw how he
calmly depressed the spray nozzle for several seconds, then smiled and took a
few steps backward.
The
audience was frenzied, jumping up and down, brushing eight-legged bodies off
their pin-striped suits and designer dresses. Gale shook a spider off his head
and stepped over a couple of carcasses as the investors exchanged horrified
glances with one another. They were trembling and shuddering and holding onto
each other. The spiders, however, did nothing.
When
Vogorev spoke, the people paid attention as if he was a messiah, “I told you to
trust me. Look around. The spiders are all dead. They were dead long before
they even hit the ground.”
Gale
picked up a carcass at his feet. True to Vogorev’s word, the spider was dead.
They were all dead. Thousands of tarantulas lay on the floor as if a mass
arachnid suicide had just occurred.
Sofia
Diana Gabel started life in Sydney, Australia, but her family moved to the
United States when she was very young. Home wasn’t settled for a long time and
included living in Toronto, Canada; Henrietta and Buffalo, New York;
Northridge, Southern California; a short stint back in Sydney, Australia; Reno,
Nevada; Dallas, Texas; Daytona Beach, Florida, with an eventual semi-settled
life in Ojai and Ventura, Southern California as a single parent to her three
daughters.
Perhaps
the unsettled partial nomadic lifestyle is the reason she loves to travel and
is never fully satisfied with where she’s living. Moving around and travelling
to different countries are adventures which serve as potential settings and
plots for stories. A multi-genre fiction writer, with degrees in environmental
science and archaeology, and coursework in creative writing and criminal justice,
she enjoys being out in nature, keeping up on archaeological discoveries and
learning about the law, criminal behavior and police procedures (all with, once
again, potential for stories!)
When
she's not glued to her desk writing or researching, she loves to spend time
with her family and hairless Sphynx cats. Writing is a true passion, born from
a love of the written word and how those words can transport the reader to
different places or worlds and deliver them back to reality, safe and sound.
Twitter:
@sofiadianagabel
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