Brood X: A Firsthand Account of the Great Cicada Invasion

by Michael Phillip Cash

  The girls scurried away on their butts as Seth slowly approached the covering draped over Dom’s face.

  Seth ripped off the cover. Dominic’s eyes were wide and lifeless. His mouth was ajar but his body still moved.

  “Dom,” Seth said lightly.

  Dominic didn’t respond.

  “Dom,” Seth said louder.

  Still nothing. Seth was thinking that Dom was going to spring up and say, “April Fools!”

  Seth gave it all he got. “Dominic! Wake up!”

  A cicada scurried from Dominic’s mouth. Then another and another and another. They began pouring out of him by the dozens. The cicadas pushed their way out of Dominic and all over the living room floor. With every regurgitation of cicadas, Dominic moved like he was throwing up. The bugs had found a new host and were crawling from his stomach through his esophagus and out his mouth.

  Seth turned around, grabbed the camera, and pushed Marni and Lara upstairs. He still needed time to think what they should do next.

  Rushing up the stairs, the cicadas filled up the walls. He flung open the master bedroom door, then the bathroom door. He shoved Marni and Lara in the bathroom and followed. They all heard the scratching of the cicadas on the door and walls outside.

  However loud it had been the past few days outside, the house still muffled the rattlesnake sound. In the house it was deafening. Everyone had to shout.

  They huddled on the floor, exhausted. It was almost morning, and they had all been awake for the past twenty-four hours.

  Seth laid the camera on the counter. It was pointing directly at them.

  Crawling over to Lara, who was lying flat on the floor in tremendous pain, he helped her sit up.

  Her hair dangled in front of her face. She was breathing heavily, labor pains racking her. Seth rubbed her back gently.

  “I did this,” he said tearfully.

  Marni started sobbing along with him.

  Lara felt a contraction and started moaning. She flung herself back to Seth.

  Even lying down, Lara was more uncomfortable than sitting up. She rose and started pacing the spacious bathroom.

  Seth buried his head in his hands, hitting his forehead. He knew they had to get out of there.

  No food, no water, no power, no cell service, no Dominic. He gazed up. No one had a clue what to do. He realized there were two options. One, they could stay in the bathroom until the room caved in from the weight of the bugs, or two, they could try their luck outdoors—well, Lara said babies bring good luck.

  “Let’s go,” Seth said decisively. At first, no one reacted because they were all wrapped up in their own pain.

  “Let’s get out of here!” yelled Seth, startling the girls.

  “What?” said Marni.

  “We’re leaving.”

  Seth rose, taking as much of Lara’s weight as possible.

  “It hurts.”

  “Come on,” said Seth, “we’re leaving.” Hoisting her against his hip, he said, "We don't have a choice. If we stay here, the roof is going to cave. We have to try to get out of here.”

  “Where are we going?” said Marni.

  “We’re leaving. It’s almost morning. Last night was nothing. The cicadas are more active during the day.”

  “And that is why we should stay here!”

  “We’re gonna die here, Marni,” Seth pleaded. “We have to get her to a hospital.”

  Lara was doubled over. “We can’t go outside.”

  “Yes we can. We’re getting in the SUV and we’re getting you to the hospital.”

  “What about the cicadas that just took over your house?” asked Marni.

  “My wife and baby are not dying,” Seth was adamant. He grabbed a towel from the rack and draped it over Lara’s shoulders. “Take the camera, Marni. Keep filming. My kid’s gonna see this one day.”

  A heavy snapping sound surrounded them from above. There was cracking and creaking that sounded like two-by-four wood being snapped in half. Seth knew what it was, but he wouldn’t tell anyone.

  “What’s that noise?” asked Lara.

  “Nothing. We have to move.”

  “It sounds like the house is collapsing,” Marni shouted.

  “Now! We have to go now. Go straight to the garage. Don’t look back.”

  They heard glass cracking, a tinkle followed by a cascade as the bathroom skylight collapsed under the weight of the bugs. The bugs rained down.

  They opened the bathroom door, then the master bedroom door. Sunlight filtered in through the cicada-covered windows. As they entered the hallway, cicadas were everywhere. Not as bad as outside, but there was no exterminator in the world that was going to be able to fix this, Seth thought glumly. “Arizona, here we come.”

  Cicadas started leaping for the moving targets. Seth shot the gun as the cicadas tried to fly on Lara, Marni, and him. They came apart like an overripe watermelon, spilling guts and startling the other bugs.

  They raced downstairs. They made it to the door to the garage and slammed it behind him.

  “Lara, backseat. Marni, up front with me.”

  Lara lifted herself in and Marni entered on the passenger side. Inside the truck, Marni was filming them. “Lara, do you want me to sit with you?” Lara shook her head with an emphatic “no.”

  Seth flipped on the ignition. The SUV roared to life. "At least something works," Seth said grimly. “Lara, Lara baby, how are we doing?”

  “Pain,” whimpered Lara. “Lots. Of. Pain.”

  “Keep breathing.”

  Seth blasted the air conditioning. “Aaaaah, air to breathe. Do you feel it, Lar?”

  Lara was breathing, using the Lamaze technique.

  “The air is warm, but once I get us moving, it will cool down,” he assured her.

  Seth put the SUV in reverse, his hand over Marni’s headrest, and turned around. “Hold on!” He released the break and slammed on the gas. The rear bumper crashed into the garage door with a loud bang.

  Lara squealed. The garage door didn’t budge two inches. Throwing the car into drive, he gently pulled up as far as he could go. With the amount of space he had to work with, he was busting through this. “It’s narrow, but I think I can break through,” he said confidently.

  He threw the car in reverse and slammed on the gas. A loud screech and a bang and this time it made a dent. He slammed his gear back to drive and plowed into some shelving he installed when they first moved in. He reversed again and even faster than before slamming into the garage door. The sides of the garage door separated from their rails. Sunlight streamed in. Cicadas start crawling in through the cracks.

  “The cicadas are coming!” yelled Marni.

  That was it. This was their last bastion. Now the cicadas were in every room of the house including the garage. There was no turning back. Either they were getting out of the garage or dying from carbon monoxide poisoning in their car.

  Seth put the car into drive and crashed into the wall in front of him. He brought the shifter up to reverse. With his foot on the brake, he revved up the gas to eighty miles per hour. Releasing the brake, he took out the double garage door leaving a gaping wound in the face of his house.

  “Yes!” screamed Seth as he sped down the driveway. Happiness turned to utter panic when he looked at his house from the street.

  “Well, that’s a bitch of a repair.”

  Cicadas streamed into the house. The roof started collapsing.

  “Not the house!” Lara moaned as she watched the home she loved collapse in on itself. There was nothing they could do.

  Marni’s car was an indistinguishable lump on the street that didn't even resemble a vehicle anymore.

  He gunned the car in the direction of the highway. The tire tracks behind them left a pile of dead cicadas but quickly filled up with fresh ones.

  Lara panted from the backseat, quickly forgetting about the destroyed home. “This really hurts.”

  “Breathe like Nurse Diesel told you.” Seth was c
areening down the deserted streets. Cicadas blanketed homes. The landscape was dotted with destruction.

  “I thought they sprayed these things to death,” Marni choked out.

  As if on cue, they heard the drone of airplanes dusting the area with more pesticides. They watched bluish flakes drift down coating everything like a blanket. “Looks like they changed the formula.” Seth watched the cicadas start to react to the poison.

  “What are you talking about?” Marni snapped.

  “It was gray before. Now it’s blue,” Lara volunteered between pants. “You think it’s OK to be breathing in this stuff?”

  Both Seth and Marni turned incredulous faces to her. “What? I’m just saying,” Lara shrugged.

  The drone of the duster plane became a loud whine. Marni pointed in front of them as they watched the plane hurdle crazily toward them.

  “Seth!” she yelled. “Look out!”

  Seth swerved onto a lawn as the plane smashed directly into the middle of the street. Flames shot out from the crushed engine.

  “Another close call,” said Seth as he dodged between abandoned cars laying at crazy angles, blocking the streets. Seth raced down one familiar street only to find broken trees cut off their way of escape.

  “I can't believe this. You would think the government would have opened up the roads for emergencies like this,” he said to no one in particular.

  “I wonder if the power lines are live,” Lara looked at the tangle of downed wires.

  “Well,” Seth responded, ”we‘re about to find out.” He pressed the gas, squinted his eyes, and drove under a mass of lines. One hit the top of the truck, and they all gasped collectively.

  “I guess power’s out,” Marni volunteered.

  For some reason Seth found that hilarious and started to shout with laughter. Lara and Marni soon followed, and they laughed so hard, tears streamed down their faces.

  It was literally raining cicadas.

  Seth put on his wipers and watched them skitter the bugs away from his windshield. It quickly became sticky with their blood, so he used the wiper fluid to clean his view.

  “There is no help for this,” Seth finally said. “I don’t know why there is no National Guard taking care of this. This is biblical.”

  “I don’t remember going this way to the hospital when we went with Dom,” Marni’s voice cracked.

  Seth squinted through the mess of his windshield. Lara’s contractions were getting worse. She screamed.

  “Lara, you OK, baby?” said Seth.

  She screamed even louder as she sprawled out on the backseat of the car. She was gripping the headrests so tight it was leaving an indent of her hand.

  “Did it pass?” asked Marni.

  Lara shook her head no.

  “Almost there,” said Seth. “We’re getting onto the highway now. Looks like they did clean the main roads a bit.”

  He noticed an abandoned car on the entrance to the highway ramp. He jerked the wheel forty-five degrees, narrowly missing it. Everyone swerved with the motion of the car.

  “Contraction passed,” Lara said with a sigh of relief.

  “Good! Good! Hang on Lar.”

  “Seth?” Marni asked sheepishly. He didn’t answer. “What if the hospital has no power?”

  “They’ll have power.”

  “How can you be so sure?”

  “Keeping the faith.”

  Seth noticed a van heading in his direction. He veered hard right as a van came careening toward them, covered with cicadas. The world spun in a kaleidoscope of colors. Horns blared, and for a minute, everything was silent in the car.

  Their car fishtailed due to the condition of the roads, which were slick with cicadas. No matter how hard Seth tried he couldn’t gain control of the wheel.

  There was a loud screeching sound as the SUV spun out, finally hitting the highway divider with a loud crash. The windows remained intact, but the car body was badly damaged.

  After the crash the interior of the car went dark quickly. Cicadas settled gently over their car. Silence surrounded them.

  Seth was too shaken to move. He mustered any energy he could find and leaned forward to flip on the interior lighting. The wipers swiped at the bug-covered windshield. This brought in more light to the car.

  “Everyone OK?” Seth asked, wiping his sweaty forehead.

  “Help,” Lara meekly said from the backseat.

  Seth turned to see Lara lying motionless on the SUV floor. She was bleeding from her forehead. At impact, Lara hit her head on the air conditioning vent in the back of the car.

  Seth sprung off his seat and jumped in back. He lifted her by her shoulders back onto the seat, her head resting in his lap.

  “It hurts so much, Seth. I don’t think we’re gonna make it.”

  “We’re gonna make it. You’re gonna be fine.” Seth rubbed her forehead. He cleaned the blood off with his T-shirt. They both started to cry. “You’re gonna be fine. I got you. I won’t let anything bad happen to you. I promise.”

  Marni understood now. She understood everything Lara was telling her over the past few months. She knew how much Seth and Lara loved each other, and not even a national emergency was going to tear them apart. She wished she could find that same love with someone. She never felt that way about Dominic, but she had a newfound respect for her friends. For however long they were going to survive, there was no way she would pester her about Seth and his attitude ever again.

  Seth attempted to get up, but Lara squeezed him tight.

  “Please stay,” she said through a well of tears. “I’m scared.”

  “Lara, I gotta get you to the hospital.”

  “How do we even know there is a hospital? Please don’t go, Seth; I can’t take this! It hurts so much.”

  “Listen to me,” he said. Lara opened her blue eyes and locked them with Seth’s. He wiped her tears again now mixed with the blood from her face.

  “I’m taking control.”

  A loud horn broke through the car like a shotgun.

  “Seth!” yelled Marni.

  “No.”

  “It’s headed right for us!” Marni wailed.

  “No, no, no, no, no! Hold on!” Seth echoed throughout the car. He curled to cover Lara’s head and chest. Marni gripped the armrest as tight as she could.

  An out-of-control Mack truck was headed for them straight on. It bounced around the highway like a loose ball in a pinball machine. The driver must have gotten off the wrong exit and was heading east, while every other car was heading west.

  It broke through cars like they were papermache. The truck was covered with cicadas. The window was completely blacked out from those bugs. “Why doesn’t he clean them off with his wipers?” she wondered, watching the truck barreling toward them.

  The wipers of Seth’s SUV wiped away at the gathering bugs. The truck was flying down the highway and getting even closer.

  “We’re going to die,” said Marni.

  “Don’t look!” yelled Seth.

  “This is it.”

  “Marni, stop looking!”

  Fifty feet away. Wipe. Forty feet away. Wipe. Thirty feet away. Wipe.

  “Turn the wipers off, Marni,” ordered Seth. “We won’t feel anything.”

  A hysterical Marni leaned over and switched off the wipers. The bugs quickly filled up their view. They noticed that the bugs had started poking the glass.

  The horn blared and sounded closer.

  Seth was praying out loud. “Please forgive me. I am sorry. I am sorry for what I did to my family.”

  Marni was breathing in quick pants. Lara was actually wishing she was dead; the pain was too great.

  The horn enveloped the entire car. It blared just to the right of Marni’s window. She gripped harder. Seth clenched his teeth so hard he was afraid he was going to break them. It didn’t matter at this point. The truck would turn them into a pile of dust in just a second.

  The truck horn went right through the car an
d behind them. Seth unglued his eyes. A loud explosion was heard from behind. This blew the bugs off the back window.

  Seth meekly turned around and saw an oil tanker spilled onto the side of the road in flames. Thick black plumes of smoke billowed from its tank.

  “Are we dead?” asked Marni.

  “I hope so,” Lara said.

  “Not by the hair of my chinny-chin-chin! Yes!”

  He saw the destruction behind them. The truck missed them by inches, possibly centimeters. He briefly wondered if the driver even made it out of the wreckage alive.

  Seth climbed over Lara and into the front seat of the car. “I guess we're not done yet. I’m gonna go for act two.”

  Seth tried to start the car; the engine groaned as the car shook and stalled. Taking a deep breath, his face red, Seth tried again and this time the car started. “Come on, come on.” Success, no stalling. Seth winked to Lara and said confidently, “Let’s get this show on the road.” The car roared to life.

  He flew down the highway dodging abandoned cars, wondering briefly if people were still in the vehicles. Prayers slipped from his agnostic lips, and he discovered his newfound piety comforting. They were going to make it. He had to get his wife to the hospital before the baby made his grand entrance.

  “Here it comes again,” said Lara.

  “How far apart are you?” asked Marni.

  “It’s close.”

  “How close?”

  “Really close!” Lara roared from behind clenched teeth.

  “It should just be a few more minutes,” assured Seth.

  “I can’t take this anymore!” yelled Lara as she banged her fists against the headrest.

  “If we survive this, I’m never having sex again,” remarked Marni, looking at Lara's distressed face.

  “It’s here,” Lara panted.

  “We’re almost there,” Seth urged.

  “No, it’s here!”

  “What’s here? What do you see?” Seth was looking outside for a clue, but all he saw was the infestation.

  “Seth!”

  “I think…” said Marni.

  “Seth, the baby’s coming,” Lara wheezed.

  There was still five more miles to the hospital. With the treacherous roads, there was simply no way he was going to get her there on time. Seth knew it was his time. It was his time to grow up.