Brood X: A Firsthand Account of the Great Cicada Invasion

by Michael Phillip Cash

  “Oh no,” Lara said.

  “I’m glad he changed the batteries,” Marni said sarcastically.

  Lara was defeated. “Don’t blame Seth. It’s my fault too. Just leave the camera flash on. It’s fully charged.”

  ***

  Seth entered the kitchen from the garage door entrance. “Car radio doesn’t work. Static.”

  He approached Lara who was standing still and scared in the middle of the kitchen. He was at a loss for words. Feeling responsible, he closed his arms protectively around her.

  “Guess the spray worked well, huh, Seth?” Marni acidly informed him.

  This lit the fire that had been brewing from day one. Seth had had enough of Marni’s snide comments.

  “Why don’t you pull down your pants? Your genital warts will surely scare them off.”

  Lara was shocked those words could actually come from Seth’s mouth. “Seth.”

  “Now shut up and let me think,” he topped it off.

  “You dick,” Marni said softly, but with enough venom it could kill a small bird. She said the next best thing she could think of directed to Lara.

  “Why did you even marry this loser anyway? He can’t even hold a job.”

  “Same deal with you, Marnes,” Seth was not going down lightly. “I go through jobs like you go through guys.”

  “You are unbelievable.”

  “Funny, Dominic didn’t say that about you.”

  “What?” Marni asked incredulously behind the camera.

  Marni leaned over to the kitchen table and fingered the picnic utensils tray they had left out. She didn’t have a good pitching arm, so she threw it in the most hard-ass girly manner she could. It didn’t matter; once the tray hit Seth the impact blasted plastic utensils around the kitchen area. At impact Seth slowly moved his head away unfazed. His body stayed still. The plastic knives and forks were scattered all over the floor.

  “Enough!” Lara shouted, playing referee. “Enough, you two! Don’t we have enough to worry about?”

  “Get out!” Seth said quietly to Marni.

  “Maybe you should leave,” Marni said behind clenched teeth.

  “This is my fucking house! You leave!”

  Lara had to do something or Seth was going to explode. Marni was touching buttons that were fast approaching Defcon five.

  “OK, listen,” she started. “We have to check on Dominic.”

  Lara pushed Marni out of the kitchen. Seth was left standing in a disintegrating rage. Maybe he should throw Marni outside with the cicadas and let her nag them to death.

  In the living room, Dominic was quaking.

  “Dom!” Marni shouted. “Dom! Can you hear me?”

  “I…I’m…gonna puke.”

  Dominic leaned over and let up a sour bile tinged with brown. It was a bloody brown. Something inside him was hemorrhaging.

  “Seth!” Lara cried. “It’s Dominic! Come here, something’s really wrong.”

  Seth rushed into the room.

  “Dom!” Marni knew this wasn’t good, but there was nowhere she could take him.

  “I can’t breathe,” Dominic said, choking on his own vomit.

  She sat him up and patted him on his back. Marni dragged over an ottoman for him to lean on. His color returned and he whispered, “Water.”

  The girls looked up at Seth as he barked out several orders.

  “Give him some room. Let him breath. We gotta find some water. Marni, get him a piece of bread. Lara get him a glass of water.”

  Both girls sprang into action and rushed to the kitchen. Scarcely a minute later, Seth heard the groan of pipes and Lara’s high-pitched call from the other room, “The water isn’t working!”

  “What?” Seth shouted.

  Seth crouched and patted Dom on his shoulder. “You look better already dude. I’m gonna go get you some water. Call if you need me.”

  Seth was getting more nervous by the second. He dashed into the kitchen. Lara was going through the cabinets looking for the extra water Jimmy provided.

  “Seth, where did you put that water Jimmy gave you?”

  “What?”

  He started playing with the sink faucet. The water groaned and clanked. A trickle of brownish, brackish water dripped down.

  Lara screamed, “I know how to work a faucet! There is no water! It’s not working!”

  Seth wasn’t listening. He parted the shade of the window over the sink. Marni moved woodenly over to the shade to stand beside him.

  It was like a scene from the Bible. They were all different sizes, ranging from miniscule upward to four inches. They were dangling from rooftops, crawling onto cars. Homes looked like beehives. The streets were obliterated. Heavy with bugs, phone lines were drooping from the poles.

  “Oh my God,” Seth said it. Marni thought it.

  “Listen,” Seth reasoned. “They pumped him full of antibiotics. He looks like he’s got a hangover. You don’t know if it’s from the bite or…”

  “When you visited Jimmy,” Lara interrupted, “he gave you a box of water. We’re out. Dominic should be drinking. In fact, I don’t think I drank enough tonight either.”

  Seth was absorbed in the scene outside. “Water,” he murmured, remembering how he first refused the offer of an extra water supply.

  “How many do you have left?” Lara pressed.

  “I left it in the pantry in the laundry room.”

  Marni interrupted, “Um, were they blue packets called Emergency Water? I think Dom and I finished them a couple days ago.”

  Seth turned to her, his face a mask of rage, “How dare you! You, you, you thoughtless bitch!”

  “I’m sorry!” Marni pleaded, her face drained of all color, her eyes imploring, “I am so sorry Seth. I never thought…can we fight about this later please. I’m scared Seth.”

  Seth’s anger deflated like a spent balloon and suddenly he realized nothing mattered anymore. He had to find a solution to this madness. He had to protect his family.

  “Try the bathroom,” he ordered.

  They ran to the bathroom, but Seth already knew what he was going to find. “They’ve clogged the water,” he said, watching the sluggish drip from the sink. “Don’t flush; let’s use just one of the bathrooms. Everybody use the one on the lowest level of the house.”

  “It’s going to stink,” Marni offered.

  “No shit, Sherlock,” Seth replied grimly.

  Lara moved next to Seth. She scratched her belly and then wrapped her arms around herself protectively. “I’m getting really scared.”

  Dominic was on the floor, his face bleached of all color. His body rattled, hitting the wooden floor in a seizure. Lara grabbed a blanket from a closet. She got on her knees next to Marni. “Help me wrap him up, Marni,” she demanded. “Help me wrap him up.”

  Seth crouched down. “I’ll get him on the couch.”

  “What are we going to do?” Marni wailed.

  “They’ve ordered everybody to stay put.” Seth looked straight into Marni’s face.

  “Who said that?” Marni shrieked.

  “Do you want to know before or after I get him on the couch? Marni, he’s lying in a pool of puke. Man, Dominic,” he hefted Dominic onto one shoulder. “Seriously, dude, couldn’t you have made it to the bathroom?”

  “Seth!” Marni snapped.

  “I’m only trying to lighten the mood.” When she left, Seth turned to Lara. “This is bad. He should be in a hospital, but I don’t want to take you out there, and I’m not going to leave you alone.”

  Lara didn’t want to be left alone either. “We need the car for the baby and me,” she whispered, sweat dotting her lips. She looked like a wet cat.

  “I know. I know.”

  “What are we going to do for water?” Marni called out, clearly at the end of her rope.

  “You should have thought about that before you finished our emergency supply,” Seth shot back. “Use the toilet.”

  “Seth, I don’t think I can
drink toilet water,” remarked Lara.

  “Well, we’re gonna find out.” Seth said as he laid a limp Dominic on the couch.

  Seth moved to the front hallway bathroom.

  “Something smells awful here.” Lara held her hand over her nose.

  “I don’t know what you’re talking about.” Seth looked at her queasy face. He then darted into the kitchen and grabbed some plastic cups sitting next to the now-defunct refrigerator.

  His bare soles slid on a gooey stain coating the floor near the fridge. He went down hard on his ass cursing roundly.

  “Seth, are you okay. What’s all this?”

  Seth pulled himself up, grabbed a dirty dish towel and wiped his sticky foot. A large brown puddle oozed from the door of his stainless steel refrigerator. He could smell the odor that was bothering his wife’s sensitive nose. Opening the door, they caught a stench of rotting food.

  “Oh, I forgot to clean out the fridge when we lost power. I’m sorry. “

  “Ugh, that smells.” Marni stood in the entrance of the kitchen. “All that ice cream, gone.”

  “All that meat...” Seth looked sadly at the decaying garbage. “Get a bag Marni, we have to clean this up.”

  “I’ll do the freezer in the basement,” Lara told them sadly.

  Seth shook his head. “Marni will do it. Right Marn...” he challenged her to refuse him, but she shook her head defeated.

  “Can we please worry about the water first?” Marni pleaded. “I will clean as soon as the lights turn on.”

  Seth went back to the bathroom and furiously scooped up toilet water into each cup and put them side by side on the sink counter. Marni and Lara were horrified.

  “Seth,” said Lara.

  “Drink.”

  He held a cup out for Lara. She took it but couldn’t muster up the courage to drink.

  “Drink.”

  “Seth, how about…” Marni was trying to think of something. “It smells.”

  “Here…watch.”

  Seth grabbed the cup and downed the water. He spit a little bit from the sides of his mouth and gagged a bit as it went down hard.

  He was thirsty but not overly thirsty. He could have easily waited until the next morning for the water to be turned back on. He needed to show the girls, actually prove to the girls, that in a crisis situation, there would be nothing wrong with drinking toilet water.

  The girls went still.

  “Shouldn’t we boil it to kill whatever bacteria could be in there?” said Marni.

  “How? You want me to go out there and use the gas grill?” He pointed to the carpet of bugs outside. “The electric stovetop is not working. She has to drink. She could dehydrate. The doctor even said it.”

  “I think I would take dehydration over drinking this,” Lara whined.

  “Bottoms up,” Seth said as he forced the cup up to Lara’s mouth, who submissively drank the water. Marni followed suit.

  Lara quickly held her nose as she downed the water. Marni still filmed with the camera while she sipped it. It was bad. The taste was metallic and uric.

  “Ah, see,” Seth said, trying to lighten the mood. “Wasn’t that bad.”

  Lara tried to digest. She put the cup down on the bathroom sink. “Awful.” She kneeled over the toilet.

  “I think I’m sick,” said Marni.

  Just the comment made Lara even queasier. She pushed Seth out of the way and puked into the toilet. Marni flung the camera at Seth and puked with Lara.

  “If anyone has a plan B, I’m open to suggestions,” said Seth. “What are we going to do without water and with Dominic?”

  Lara looked up from the toilet, green. “Let Jimmy take him to a hospital.”

  Seth smiled in agreement. “Not just a pretty face, my Lara. All I have to do is get to Jimmy’s and have him use his tank of a car to get Dom to the hospital. And…” He wriggled his eyebrows feeling lighter. “Get us some extra water. I tell you, I won’t even mind bringing Jimmy’s mom back with me. I bet she’s birthed a kid or two in the last hundred years.”

  They made their way out of the bathroom to the living room where Dominic lie half dead on the couch.

  Seth spoke directly to Dominic in a reassuring tone. “I’m going to the neighbor’s to get help, Dom. We’re gonna beat Brood Ten.” Marni sat next to Dominic on the couch and held his unresponsive hand.

  “I’ll go with you,” Lara volunteered.

  “Not until pigs fly are you stepping one foot outside,” Seth responded.

  “How about when the Northeast becomes overrun with cicadas?” Lara shot back.

  Her nausea was slowly passing. Solutions felt better than complaints.

  “No.” Marni slid off the couch. “I’ll go.”

  “No, you’ll stay here.” He pointed to Lara. “And you’ll stay with her. Here. Period.”

  The girls followed Seth out of the living room, the sound of cicadas loud in their ears.

  “Man, that’s so irritating!” Marni covered her ears with her hands.

  “This is quiet. The news reports said they get more active during the day,” Seth assured her.

  “Listen, Seth.” Marni grabbed his shirt. “I have to go with you. Two sets of hands are better than one.”

  “What about Lara and Dominic?”

  “Lara is safer here than anywhere else. If something happens to you, you may need help. Aside from that, we have to document your bravery for…”

  “Quentin.”

  “Quincy,” Seth and Lara spoke at the same time and then giggled, tension easing.

  “She’s right,” Seth answered. “Besides, she can help carry back supplies from Jimmy’s.

  “Tell him you insist his mother stay here with us,” Lara added. “Safety in numbers, you know.”

  “Sure,” responded Seth. “She can sleep with us in our bed.”

  “Wait a minute!” Lara screamed. “You can wear the wetsuits.”

  Seth responded, “What are you talking about?”

  “You know, the wetsuits we picked up in the Bahamas. If they protected us from fish, the cicadas won’t be able to penetrate them.”

  ***

  Dressed in wet suits, complete with scuba masks and Burberry mufflers around their necks, Marni and Seth made a comical pair.

  “We look like fashionable lunatics,” Seth remarked.

  The scuba gear, remnants of their honeymoon, would allow them to wade through the sea of cicadas outside.

  Lara came from the basement with two pairs of Ugg boots and commented, “You’re going to broil, but you have to be covered. I think I have nylons.” She rushed to her bedroom.

  Seth moaned, “Are you ready, Tonto?” He turned to Marni.

  “Who said you get to be the Lone Ranger?”

  “You look like a Tonto.”

  “Well, you sound like one,” Marni spit back.

  “Stop. Jimmy’s house. Remember—water, Dominic, baby due.”

  “To infinity and beyond.”

  “I guess that means I’m Woody.” Marni gave Lara a long look.

  They stood at the doorway. Lara lit a candle so she wouldn’t be completely in the dark.

  “I feel like I’m about to go on a really scary roller coaster that I just simply don’t want to go on,” Marni murmured.

  “You made the height requirement.”

  “This is bad.”

  “Stay here then.”

  Marni took a long look at Seth, her brown eyes sad. “No, I can’t let you do this alone.”

  They looked at the door and slowly opened it. Cicadas covered the entire screen. The sound made them both recoil with alarm.

  “Oh. My, God,” whispered Marni.

  You couldn’t see anything past the front door.

  “We’ll go slowly. You follow me. Don’t make loud noises. If one lands on you, don’t freak; just take it off. If a lot land on you, I can’t help you.”

  Seth slowly opened the front screen not to wake the sleeping cicadas. He looked
back at Lara and mouthed the words, “I love you.”

  Lara started to cry, tears tracking down the side of her face, and whispered back, “I love you too.”

  They slithered silently outside and closed the door behind them.

  ***

  The summer night was pitilessly hot. It was mainly quiet except for the distant echoes of the trillions of cicadas covering the land. There were no signs of humans. It was a black lunar landscape; the cicadas covered every surface.

  With each step, their legs were knee deep in insects. Cars were abandoned in the streets; power lines smoked. It looked like a movie set, and Seth admitted he underestimated the infestation. There were no streetlights, and power was out all over, but Seth could hear the distant thrum of a generator somewhere in the neighborhood. It was Jimmy’s, Seth thought confidently. He expected the house to be lit up like Disneyland. But it wasn’t. Jimmy’s house felt like it was miles away, and he heard his own breath noisily in his head. From the corner of his eye, he saw Marni recording the mess. The camera flash lit a narrow path.

  Within minutes his feet were coated with the blood and guts of the insects. The cicadas beneath the living ones were dead from the spraying. The top layer, about a foot worth of bugs, were very much alive, and sleeping. It was like walking on a balance beam.

  Seth positioned his footing very slowly hoping not to make any sudden movements to awake them. Thinking this only brought on the sudden snap of a twig that was below a foot of cicadas.

  The sound was louder than he expected. A group of the bugs flew away clumsily, bothered by their slumber being disturbed.

  “I think I just shit my pants,” he said softly.

  His gorge rose to the back of his throat, and he tasted acid. “Maybe Jimmy will have Tums,” he thought grimly.

  Seth walked in front of Marni, the soft squish of the insects warm on his feet. He could hear her gagging.

  “Make sure you get a picture of what’s going on out here,” Seth said in a breath.

  “Why? You think you’re gonna forget it?” Marni snapped back.

  “No. I want to show Dom and Lara what they’re missing.”

  Thinking he saw a pale oval of a face in the window across the street, he gave a wave, but he faintly saw only the drapes pulled back into place.