When demons attacked my children…

Recently, in an author interview, I was asked to describe one of my scariest moments. I've been scared many times in my life. Nights that shattered my heart and soul to pieces–when I thought the fear would consume me and spit me out. Nights that left me broken and scarred.

But there's one memory that haunts me the most…

The night demons attacked my children.

The phone rang. I checked the caller I.D., shocked that my friend was calling me from Holland. I stepped out on the front porch so I could take the call without the noise of my three little girls interfering.

We only got as far as "hello" in English and Dutch when my all of my kids ran outside screaming.

"Mommy! Mommy! Something is wrong with the house. We have to move NOW!" They were hysterical. I thought for sure the house was on fire… or worse.

I ran inside, expecting a huge disaster, but didn't see anything.

My oldest pointed across the room. "Look there, Mommy. In the kitchen. I was just watering the plants. I don't know what happened!"

I looked across the living room into the kitchen, but still didn't get what the emergency was. My friend waited on hold patiently—paying a fortune for each minute my children screeched about our house.

Then I saw them. My stomach clenched in disgust and my heart tried to escape my chest and run away in fear.

We were under attack from multiple directions. Mutinous, evil and more dangerous than they looked, they infiltrated our home in small, mobile teams of soldiers.

My beautiful African plants—the only plants I'd ever been able to keep alive longer than a week—were covered in a black swarm from hell. Long lines crossed our white walls like living, moving scars.

Ants.

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Image Credit Flickr User Thirteen of Clubs

Apparently, when my daughter watered the plants it signaled an entire army of ants that it was time to come out of hiding and attack.

I feared and loathed them in equal measure, and now they were taking over my kitchen. My children began to scratch and cry from bites the demons had already managed to inflict on their innocent flesh.

I screamed and begged my friend across the world to come save us from the ants. Give me dragons, demons, blood sucking monsters—anything but ants.

Knowing that I was the only hope my children had of survival, I faced my fears and rushed the offending plant life—which had apparently been hosting entire battalions of evil—outside to the backyard. I sent the girls to the bathroom to bathe and mitigate the damage to their skin and preceded to spray every inch of my kitchen, and the plants, with every chemical I could find in my cabinets.

Our house quickly became a toxic site habitable only by those in HAZMAT suits.

My poor African plants, impervious to neglect, dehydration and abuse, finally succumbed to the tortures of poison. Once the air in the house was safe to breathe again, we were able to resume our lives. But it took many weeks to stop scratching imagined, and real, itches from the monsters that once invaded our home.

My Dutch friend mocked my fears, accusing me of overreacting. He took back his mockery when I emailed him the pictures.

Anyone would have been blind with fear had they seen what I saw that day.