The roaches were singing. That’s what woke me up.

I’m lying in bed, coming in and out of sleep, and my half-aware mind is wondering where the hell the choir is coming from. Did I leave the radio on and it somehow got tuned to some gospel station? That would explain why the singing voices sounded so high, so tinny. From the next room it sounded like a weak AM station.

So finally I get up, grab my glasses, slap them on and make my way to the kitchen.

I’ve got a nightlight in there so I don’t bust my ass in the middle of the night getting a glass of milk. I know, I could just turn on the light, sure, but you don’t turn on overhead fluorescents at three in the morning. Not if you plan on trying to go back to sleep.

So the nightlight gave me enough that I can see, once my eyes had adjusted. And what I saw was that a dozen roaches had dragged a roach motel out from under a counter and to the center of the floor. A roach was tied to the top of the motel and all the others were gathered around and they were singing, all in these weird syllables that didn’t seem to mean anything.

The exception was the roach on the motel. And it didn’t take his tiny, reedy voice saying over and over again, “No! You mustn’t! You’re all mad!” for me to figure out was going on here. It was a human sacrifice. Roach sacrifice. Whatever.

The singing stopped. A roach, one of this big, nasty mammajammas, you know, the kind you reassure yourself isn’t actually in your house and yet you know they are? Yeah, that kind. He moved up to the motel and I was trying to figure out what the hell was wrong with his head. Then it struck me. He was wearing a spaghetti strand, curled up around his head like a turban or something.

I was just remembering that I had made pasta last week when he spoke, again, in the same kind of tiny voice. But he demanded respect and authority. Imagine how you would feel watching James Earl Jones deliver a speech. You know, if he were only an inch long. And wearing pasta.

“Our brother has forgotten the faces of Ul’rey’makra,” the James roach boom-squeaked. Or something. It sure sounded like Ul’rey’makra.

“Ul’rey’makra,” the roaches chanted. “Of the many faces,” they said as one.

“And Yrtrrz, the moth with a thousand eggs,” James roach said.

“Eggs, a thousand eggs,” came the reply.

“And, too, Llellchandra, the blind mealworm drummer, he who sits in the drain at the center of creation.”

“Drumming the beat of the cosmic heart,” the roaches sighed.

“You mustn’t do this!” the captive implored. Kinda like McCarthy at the end of Body Snatchers, panicky like that. Except, you know, small and on a roach motel.

“Help him, my brothers,” James roach said. “Help him check in. Ul’rey’makra awaits him.”

“Check in,” the roaches said as one, moving closer, pushing and shoving McCarthy roach as they did so. “Check in. Only Ul’rey’makra can check you out.”

And they forced McCarthy roach into the motel. Once he was inside there then came a strange mixture of sobbing and screaming, followed by silence. Then, the most booming, unnatural, bloodcurdling yet smallest laughter I had ever heard. Then, silence that remained unbroken.

This done, the roaches pushed the motel back in its place and then scattered. Me, I went back to bed.

Although I made a mental note to get some more of those roach motels. I don’t know what they put in them, but I do know I used to have a hell of a lot more than a dozen roaches in this apartment.