Cicada Pt 1

Well, I am not sure if this qualifies as a short story.  Given that it won't fit on a single topic posting that might be a hint that it isn't.  My story is around 10,600 words but it is a fairly rough draft still.  I have been working on my book for so long that I realized that all the ideas I have for short stories and other books need to start coming out as well.  So I wrote this one over the last week. 

Cicada

The small grove of trees had stood for several centuries.  It had endured the onslaught of pests that burrowed underneath its skin, drought, floods, and storms of all kinds.  It had even endured the arrival of settlers that had come on the scene several centuries previous.  The forests had been pristine then, stretching for hundreds and even thousands of miles.  The settlers had come and built their cabins, their general stores, and their forts, chopping down many of the trees that surrounded the small patch of old oaks and ash, but they had let this small grove be. 

The trees didn’t really mind the people, just as they didn’t mind the animals that climbed their limbs or the birds that nested high up in their branches.  They also didn’t mind the insects that spent most of their existence buried deep in the ground amongst their roots, where they fed and grew until they were ready to burrow up out of the ground and cut slits into the bark of the tree’s twigs.

The trees were slow and ponderous and don’t measure time like you or I do, but they still watch and learn and comprehend.  They understand the changes in the seasons but also the changes of generations as the families of birds and animals came and went.  They knew their place in the universe as they raised their branches to the heaven and basked in the glorious rays of the sun. 

***

The father smiled down at his little boy and swatted away what had to be at least the fiftieth cicada to land on his face.  As they walked through the trees in the sizeable backyard he dismissed the idea of trying to speak for the moment.  The noise of the insects was overwhelming and something the boy had never experienced before.  Oscar also didn’t seem to mind the loud insects that filled the air and covered every open inch of bark on the trunks of the oaks and ash trees that populated the small grove.  It amazed Zachary that his youngest child was the one not repulsed by the touch of an insect’s legs or the wisp of spider web he accidentally walked through.  Walter and Amy were disgusted by anything creepy crawly and did their best to avoid everything from ants to daddy long legs.  Not Oscar.  The nine year old seemed to revel in anything sticky, dirty, or alive that he could touch and poke at. 

Zack spotted the old oak at the center of the stand and moved towards it, gesturing to Oscar, who nodded as his father led him forward.  Pointing at the trunk, Zachary watched as Oscar’s eyes grew wide with wonder. 

“They latch onto the tree and molt,” he shouted over the clicks and buzzing cry of the insects.  Oscar stared up at his father, a confused look on his face.  He had heard what Zachary had said but had no idea what it meant.

In response, Zack reached out towards the tree bark as his son’s eyes and ears took in everything around him: the large, wide-spread eyes of the bugs, their transparent, well-veined wings, and the incredible amount of noise they made.  The young boy’s eyes followed his dad’s fingers as they reached to tap on one of the bugs sitting on the tree.  Oscar squinted, puzzled that the nearly two-inch long creature did not react to the tap to its thorax.  He moved closer, absently swatting away another bug that bounced off his forehead and stared at the particular insect his father was still prodding with his index finger.

“It’s just the shell,” Zachary explained, leaning close to the boy so he could lower his voice as he spoke into Oscar’s ear.  The nine year old moved even closer to the tree, ignoring the other cicadas that buzzed and clicked all around him to focus on the pale brown exoskeleton with the split down its back. 

Zack didn’t hear the boy’s ‘wow’ but saw his mouth open and close in surprise as Oscar ran a dirt streaked fingernail across the shell just as his father had.  Tentative at first, Oscar grew bold and drove his stubby finger through the membrane and watched it collapse around his finger.  Pulling back, he looked startled and stared up fearfully at Zachary, who was laughing.

“It’s okay, son, the bug that molted doesn’t need its old skin anymore.”

Relieved, Oscar nodded and stared at the shattered remains of the insect’s exoskeleton.  It remained attached to the tree, like the countless others that adorned the trunk alongside the living insects. 

“How do they make all this noise? Are they rubbing their wings together?” Oscar asked, puzzled.

Zack leaned down and only heard the word ‘noise’ but got the gist of what his son was asking.  He shook his head and went to one knee so he was eye level with the brown eyed, darkly curly headed boy.  Oscar was growing up too fast, just like Zachary’s other kids already had.  The naïve curiosity would be replaced by teenage cynicism far too soon, just like it had done to Walter and Amy when the twins had hit thirteen.

“No, but that’s a really good guess,” Zachary said as he pointed at another cicada near the crushed shell.  This one was still alive.  “See how its body is vibrating?”

Oscar squinted, his nose only a couple of inches away from the bug.  His father snickered, wondering how soon it would be before the kid needed glasses like his older siblings did.  After a second Zack realized it wasn’t that the boy’s vision was bad but that Oscar was totally fascinated by the tiny movements of the cicada’s thorax as it vibrated repeatedly.

Oscar nodded at his father and Zachary patted him on his head.

“Their bodies contract and expand repeatedly.  They’re built so they can make all that noise as loud as possible to get a mate.”

Oscar looked confused.  “What’s a mate?”

Zachary laughed.  “That’s a discussion for a different day.”

***

The young man pushed the glasses up the bridge of his nose and leaned back in the lawn chair.  There was a warm breeze but he could not hear its whispering chorus through the trees as the cloud of insects clicked and buzzed like some grass trimmer that had gone mad with power.  He shook his head and looked down at the document again.

It was his copy of his father’s will. 

It was still hard to believe that Zachary Winston was dead and already buried.  He was only fifty eight but his heart didn’t seem to care.  It had stopped despite the fact that the widowed biology professor was still full of life and had three children and two grandkids, with another on the way, all of who loved him dearly. 

Oscar mumbled something under his breath as he reached for his beer and took a long swig out of the cold can.  It was still hard to believe that the old man had left him the house.  Amy wasn’t happy about that.  Despite the fact that she and Walt both got pretty much all the furnishings, the two cars, the RV, and the summer cottage down at Lake Cumberland, it was the house she desired.  It didn’t matter that the world was falling apart around them either.  Oscar’s older sis still wanted what was coming to her.

Amy had always been unhappy.  When mom died in the car accident when she and Walt were fifteen the death had affected her the most.  She needed her mom to guide her through the pitfalls of teenage life despite the fact that the two females had fought non-stop from the moment Amy got her first period.  She was also upset because dad had the chance to know Morgan, Walt’s little girl, and Kyle, Oscar’s son, long before he died.  Amy, five months pregnant with her first child, used the fact that dad would never get to meet her child to make it clear that she was the one who was suffering the most of Zack’s three kids.  Oscar grumbled quietly.  Amy’s little pity party was painfully hypocritical since she and her annoying husband Nick hadn’t taken the time to come visit pop in over two years.

Suddenly, the patio door burst open and Kyle, the rumblin’ stumblin’ maniac, as Oscar called him, came charging out from the house at his dad.  Opening his arms just in time, Oscar grunted as the four year landed on his lap.  The boy was bigger than most kids his age, thanks to a bottomless pit of a stomach.  They boy ate whatever was put in front of him and still claimed he was starving.  Lori complained that they should be investing his college fund in McDonald’s stock, because then they might actually get a return on the massive investment they had made to the restaurant chain.

“What’s up, buddy?”

Kyle shifted on Oscar’s lap until he was facing his dad.  His cool blue eyes stared seriously up at his father and his chubby cheeks puffed in and out as he concentrated on what he wanted to say.

“Mommy’s sad.”

Oscar adjusted his son to get more comfortable.  In the present position his legs would go numb inside of a minute as the hefty boy dug the heel of one of his sneakers into his father’s thigh.  Hissing in relief as the shoe kicked off his leg and Kyle’s body was snug in the crook of his arm, Oscar sighed and puzzled over whether or not he should talk to his boy about what was happening just yet. 

Kissing the top of the blond boy’s head and whispering “I know, I know,” in his ear as he held him close, Oscar stared out at the grove of trees and felt helpless.  It had been difficult enough explaining poppy’s death to the boy.  Also explaining that mommy was upset because the world as they knew it might very well be coming to an end was just too much.  That was more than even Oscar or Lori could cope with at the moment. 

From through the door Oscar could still hear the television blaring, though much of what the newscasters were reporting on was drowned out by the sound of the crazy pack of insects over by the trees.  As one of the large bugs flew past his eyes, Oscar gently slipped his son to the ground and moved over to the door to shut it before another one of those damned cicadas got inside, like the three they had found crawling across the kitchen table the night before.  He knew they were only around for a couple of weeks but that was fourteen days more than the man designated bug assassin by his wife would have preferred.

As Oscar stepped up to the sliding glass door he peaked inside.  The furnishings were still sparse after Amy had come through like a tornado, taking every last table and chair in the place.  Lori had insisted on moving a few things over from their modest apartment in the city but they had not given much thought on whether they would be moving in or sticking with the old place.  Not with everything else that was going on in the world.

Oscar saw Lori sitting on the loveseat that looked incredibly lonely in the big family room, watching CNN and dabbing her eye.  As he slowly began sliding the door closed, Oscar decided to dip his head inside so he could hear the reporter, despite his better judgment.  He had stopped listening to the news a day before, when it simply got too ghastly to fathom anymore, but Lori had kept on watching, hypnotized by the carnage on display 24/7. 

“…breaking news out of Detroit, where the National Guard has set up road blocks around the city in hopes of curtailing the progress of virus.  The most recent estimates are that well over 40% of the population has been infected.  In response, the Canadian government has barricaded the Abassador Bridge leading to Windsor and is considering further border blockades as necessary.  Reports that several suburbs in the metro area have already had cases of infection reported at local hospitals are being vehemently denied by authorities…”

Oscar quietly shut the door without saying a single word to his wife.  He knew another request that she shut off the TV and try to forget the news would go unheeded and would probably start a fight.  Lori had been unable to reach her sister in Charlotte over the phone for the last few days and she kept watching for any news on North Carolina or the east coast in general.  Instead, she kept hearing more and more stories about more Midwestern cities showing signs the virus had touched down.  Detroit was less than 250 miles away and wasn’t the only city hit in the region.  Chicago had been a hotbed for reports on the peculiar virus for the past five days and Pittsburgh had been shut down entirely.  It seemed like it was only a matter of time before Cincinnati had its first reported case of infection. 

Oscar took a deep breath and closed his eyes.  The stories about the virus, and its supposed mortality rate, were terrifying.  But that paled in comparison to what happened to the victims after they died.  Sliding his fingers underneath his glasses, he rubbed at his tired eyes and tried to put the images of the old woman out of his head, but his mind kept flashing back to her.  The reporter had been on assignment in some morgue in the basement of a massive hospital, talking about the hoax regarding the dead coming back to life.  When the old woman sat up the slab next to him and tore out his throat on live television, no one thought it was a hoax anymore.

The sound of the insects overwhelmed Oscar again as he turned back around, a feeble smile on his face.  He expected Kyle to be sitting in one of the lawn chairs or perhaps playing with a few of the toys they had brought with them from their apartment but the boy was nowhere to be seen.  Oscar’s eyes narrowed as he expanded his search past the concrete patio to the rest of the back yard. 

“Kyle!  Get back over here!  I don’t want you playing in those trees!” 

Oscar was already rushing across the lawn as he realized his son could not hear him over the buzzing and clicking of the cicadas.  The four-year old had already entered the grove a little over a hundred feet from the back of the house.

Repeating his son’s name, Oscar growled in frustration as he saw that his boy had picked up a stick and was poking at the bugs that covered every last inch of trunk and branch space on the old oak and ash trees.

When the twenty six year old finally reached his young son he grabbed the stick away.  “Kyle, I’ve told you to stay away from the trees for now.  These insects are just pests.  You don’t want to play with them.”

The boy ignored his father as he pointed at one of the empty shells he had poked with his stick.  “It’s crunchy, dad!  That’s so cool!”

Oscar swatted several cicadas away as he stared into the fascinated eyes of his son.  One had landed on the boy’s shirt and the preschooler’s reaction surprised his father.  Instead of screaming or swatting to get the bug off Kyle giggled and touched it gently, as if it were a family pet.  The bug vibrated slightly and moved a little in response to the fingers of the boy but seemed uninterested in flying away just yet.

Kneeling down next to his son, the man who had stood in the very same grove with his father seventeen years before felt a sudden flood of memories come crashing down.  Oscar had forgotten all about when the cicadas had come before and how his biologist father had shared some amazing information on them.  Zachary Winston knew that his boy loved all things creepy and crawly.  The cicadas, with their seventeen year life cycle, were particularly fascinating for both of them. 

The father, his eyes moist, put his arm around his son as he suddenly realized why his own father had given him the house and the land that surrounded it.  He remembered how Zack had casually mentioned that the cicadas were coming a few months back.  Oscar’s felt his stomach clench in pain as he realized that the moments he had shared with his father in this grove at the age of nine was a memory the old man had cherished and remembered long after the cicadas had burrowed back into the ground.

Kyle, still watching the bug crawling on his shirt and giggling as it tickled his chest with its vibrations, did not noticed his father’s face growing somber with old memories.  He also did not notice when it brightened slowly.  But when Oscar suddenly tickled him along the ribcage Kyle laughed and stared up at his dad.

“Do you know that cicadas molt, Kyle?” 

The boy had a puzzled look on his face.  “Malt?”

Oscar grinned and gave Kyle a big toothy grin as he shook his head.  The world might be falling apart all around them but he realized that this might be his one opportunity to share a magical experience with his son, just like his father had shared one with him all those years ago.

“No, I said molt, not malt,” Oscar said.  He kissed his son’s forehead.  “But how would you like a cicada malt?”

Kyle scrunched up his face, just like he did every time his dad said something gross, and shook his head.  Oscar let out a huge belly laugh and hugged his son, ignoring the bugs that were alighting on their exposed skin and clothes.  Suddenly, the cicadas no longer seemed like pests but more like old friends. 

***

The strange mix of noises swirled together in a disruptive cacophony.  Low moaning predators shambled through the small grove of trees, their voices blending in with the endless buzzes and clicks of the tiny creatures that swarmed the area.  The vibrations from the abdomens of the winged insects seemed to disrupt and confuse the degraded minds of the wretched and rotten human forms stumbling through the stand of oak and ash trees.

The trees, with all their wisdom and patience, did not really mind the foul creatures as they dragged their bloodless fingers across their surface and scooped handfuls of the bugs into their mouths.  This species was something new to them but there had been countless other creatures, both big and small, that had crossed paths with the trees over the many long decades of their existence.  The trees could sense that they were odd and different from all the others but that made no real difference to them.

The meal the three forlorn figures made of the cicadas was not a satisfying one.  In fact, one of the creatures, his eyes cloudy with plague, stared at the hollowed out shells of the creatures that had already molted and puzzled over them.  The living bugs buzzed around him, not fearful or concerned that the zombie might consume them.  One crawled across his scabbed face and moved slowly inside the vacant cavity where the rotting man’s nose once had once sat.  The sharp front legs of the bug did not irritate or tickle the creature, whose nerve endings had been stunned into insensitivity many years before.  Even as the insect, genus Magicicada, explored the sinus cavity and the rotting meat and bone surrounding inside of it, the creature that had once been human took no notice.

What did upset the ghoulish monstrosity was when another of its kind, the female, tried to scrape some of the crawling bugs off his body and cram them into the hole that had once been her mouth.  The skin surrounding the opening in her face had been ripped away long ago and all that remained were some ragged tendrils of desiccated flesh.  He pushed her away, ignoring the enraged hiss as the female zombie scratched at the putrid flesh on his arms.  As she stumbled backwards, still enraged at the disruption to her meal, she stepped on hundreds of empty cicada shells that lined the slightly muddy floor of the grove.  After a final angry hiss the rotting creature turned towards the tree she was standing next to and began scraping more of the insects into her gaping maw.

The third of these inhuman beasts, the smallest of the three, ignored the minor spat taking place nearby and focused its energy on sniffing the air.  This zombie had retained much of its olfactory system while its companions had been stripped of theirs when they were transformed into the walking dead.  It could sense a greater vitality somewhere nearby, though the bugs that buzzed and vibrated with life all around distracted it.  Still, the life force of something far greater was close.

The diminutive creature growled, displaying an uneven set of disgusting and jagged teeth that had gone black long ago.  Its eyes darted out at the edge of the grove, where it spied row upon row of ruined and wrecked structures that had collapsed long ago in one of the many great battles its kind had waged against the last remnants of humanity.  It, like the other two zombies, had wandered into this grove of trees and away from the abandon city streets because the cicadas had lured them from their search for larger prey.  The glow of life, for lack of a better term, tortured these strange creatures that lived in a realm that teetered between that of the living and the dead.  They despised the stench of life in all its forms.  The very blood that coursed through the living being’s veins was an abomination to these stagnant wretches.

Moving away from the trees, the child-sized ghoul did not bother to swat at the cicada walking across its sunken left eye, even when the insect decided to slice into the deflated orb and burrow inside.  The walking pus-bag was totally focused on moving towards the closest of the ruined buildings, which was where the true prize was.  The living creature was hidden from view but couldn’t avoid being detected by the supernatural senses of the undead boy.

Moaning with excitement, the zombie sniffed the air once again, confirming that there was indeed life hiding inside the ruined heap standing before it.  The structure had retained part of its foundation and one exterior wall but the rest was a pile of ashen and warped wood and old shattered bricks. 

Picking up speed, the rotter gravitated to the source of the agonizing smell, its grunts and groans of anticipation growing louder but still being drowned out by the mating call of the cicadas behind it.  The two other zombies had remained in the grove, content to cram as many insects down their throats as possible, unaware of the discovery of a much more potent life force a mere hundred feet from where they stood. 

There, just behind the free-standing wall, was the animal presence that taunted the undead child.  The feral creature growled in anticipation and hooted in a vague facsimile of pleasure.  It had no idea if the source of the scent was another scrawny dog, perhaps a raccoon, or even a skunk.  It preferred human meat but they had been scarce in this region for countless years.  None of the walking dead that roamed the area had seen any people in over a decade, though their comprehension of how much time had passed was non-existent. 

The crumbling wall, which had been the back of a house, had stood defiantly since a horde of zombies plowed through its windows and doors years before.  Even as nature expressed its desire to lay it flat the wall resisted and held on as a faded monument to a world that had long since passed on.

The living dead boy, who had been named Barry when he was human, stumbled over a pile of shattered roofing tiles as he navigated through the wreckage.  The child, who had grown up a mere twenty miles from where he now stood, maneuvered awkwardly around the wall, ready to devour whatever he found.

Surprise is not something the undead are known for but when Barry saw the human crouching behind the wall holding a long sword in its gauntleted hands, its weakened synapses were slow to react and it simply stared at the man, giving the hidden figure more than enough time to thrust the katana under its open jaw and up through its mushy brain.   

The stocky man reacted quickly, retracting the blade before gravity claimed the corpse and pulled it to the ground.  Before the body had found its final resting place amongst the dusty remnants of the house the warrior had already dipped back into the shadows, his dark garb hiding him from sight.  The armored figure knew that he could not hide for long from the other deaders, as he called them, since they relied on more than just sight to hunt.

Kyle was a ranger and dressed in his normal field apparel.  It draped loosely off his body but much of it was fashioned out of hardened leather, at least at the “Death Points”, as they were dubbed.  Death Points were the spots on a human body the deaders were most likely to attack first, whether they surprised you or if you were totally prepared for them.  The neck, forearms, shoulders, and ankles were all covered up effectively to prevent a set of teeth from sinking into flesh, at least on the first chomp.  After that it was your wits and reaction time that counted far more than armor.

On a mission like this, where they were deep in deader territory, Kyle liked to wear a bit more armor than usual.  Hard plastic padding that had been used in sporting events before the Turn had been reconfigured for combat missions, though actual battles with the undead were unheard of.  Human beings had been relegated to the dark places, where they cowered and dreamt of a world where the dead did not walk. 

Most of the warrior’s face was covered by an old motorcycle helmet that had been modified with a metal face guard where the old plastic one had sat.  His cool blue eyes were the only part of him currently visible and they surveyed the surrounding area from his hiding place.  Kyle took a calming breath though he knew that his heart rate had not increased substantially during the zombie attack, if the slaughter of a child could even be called that.

Digging into the small satchel draped over his shoulder, Kyle pulled out a bulky device.  Whispering into it, he lifted the speaker to his ear and tried to hear if there was a response over the horde of insects buzzing and clicking around him.  The noise the bugs made was maddening and unlike anything Kyle had heard in his twenty plus years.  There was a similar noise he had once heard but that had been fifteen years ago, when he was still on the run from house to house and town to town with his Uncle Walt.  Those dark days had taught the boy the meaning of hard edged words like death, anger, and vengeance.

The faint memories of that sound still haunted his dreams.  It had sounded like a massive hive of bees being stirred up.  But the noise had come from nothing as benign as bees.  Instead, it had been thousands upon thousands of deaders; deaders that had finally found the refugees hiding out in an old National Guard Armory. 

Some fool had led a pack of the devil’s spawn straight to their doorstep.  More followed until there were so many that their corruption covered every inch of earth for nearly a mile around the compound.  The six year old boy had faint memories of the carnage that wiped out the roughly two hundred and fifty human beings that day.  His uncle had been one of those killed, along with everyone else Kyle had known for more than a week.  Seventeen children and four adults managed to escape but only by dumb luck.  As the zombies smashed their way through the perimeter of the base someone stumbled across a manhole cover and the small group hid beneath the armory in the dark depths of the sewer.  There they stayed for four days, listening as the undead picked over the remains of their families and friends overhead.  The buzzing noise persisted as they waited and drove six of the children and two of the adult’s stark raving mad.

“Repeat the last Jensen, I can’t hear you,” Kyle whispered into the makeshift walkie-talkie.  Like so many things, it had been cobbled together from bits and pieces of technology that could still be made to work.  The two-way radio, modeled after what had once been a child’s play thing, was invaluable to Kyle and the other rangers prowling the wastelands. 

The ranger nodded, though he realized Jensen couldn’t see him, and pressed the button that allowed him to transmit.  “Copy that.”

Twisting his neck, Kyle felt a satisfying crack as he took a swipe at one of the weird bugs floating in front of his eyes.  They were like giant horse flies though far more interesting looking.  The ranger moved until he could see over the wall and confirmed the two other stiffs were still dancing around in the old grove of trees, doing their best to clear away the endless supply of insects from the trees.

“Idiots,” he grumbled as he rose up and slid the katana back into its sheath.  Most of the deaders were idiots, morons, or goons in Kyle’s estimation, but that did not mean he didn’t respect them as enemies.  That had been the downfall of far too many of his fellow rangers and the soldiers and civilians that had come before him.  Human’s had a tendency to take for granted their mental and physical superiority over the undead.  It was far too easy to forget how easy the ugly bastards could take you down.  Even a little scratch was a un-death sentence.

Taking one last look around, the highly trained warrior assured himself that his earlier reconnaissance had been accurate: there were no other threats besides the two stiffs in the grove within a one mile radius.  He took off at a sprint towards the trees and the heaviest concentration of cicadas.  Kyle wondered where that word came from and why it had suddenly popped into his head.  He somehow knew that the insects came up out of the ground to mate and then died after their eggs hatched.  He also knew the empty shells he was stomping on were the molted remains of the bug’s exoskeleton. 

Kyle shook his head to clear it of such odd thoughts as he removed the wakizashi from his second sheath.  He needed to clear his mind of vague memories of the education he had received before the Turn so he could concentrate on the task at hand.

The woman had barely turned after sensing the potent life force boring down on her when a spray of black ooze splashed from the tear in her throat.  Her eyes widened at the sight of a human being just before her head tumbled back and away from her body.

Kyle let his momentum carry him forward as he darted between the trees.  Stopping short, he stared at the male deader standing before him.  It had reacted to his presence the same as the woman but was still several feet away.  It had also heard the crunch of the bugs underneath the ranger’s feet as Kyle had charged across the wooded area. 

The warrior smiled and watched the pathetic shadow of humanity advanced on him.  It was not often that the ranger got a chance to savor the moment before a kill like this.  Somehow, this moment seemed sweeter than any Kyle had ever experienced before.  Something about this place felt faintly comforting and vaguely familiar.   It wasn’t just the old oak and ash trees that cradled him in their comforting grasp; it was the strange insects that floated like a dense cloud all around him.  It was as if a part of him, something from his forgotten past, had burrowed up from the dark depths of his soul in an effort to remind him of how things had once been and could be again. 

Flipping the wakizashi to his left hand, Kyle pulled his katana free from its sheath and crossed his arms in an X, until they looked like a giant pair of scissors.  Moments later the razor sharp blades sliced the zombie’s head free from its body in one fluid motion.  Ignoring the squirt of black blood that bubbled from its neck, Kyle immediately pulled off his helmet, revealing a youthful face and a mop of dark blond hair.  Closing his eyes for a moment, he took in a deep breath as countless tiny insect bodies bounced against him.  Opening his eyes, he moved to the nearest tree.  It was the biggest in the stand, a knotty old oak whose branches grew high into the sky.  Every last inch of its trunk was covered in cicadas, both living and dead.  Their bodies buzzed and vibrated and Kyle reached out to touch one.  At the last moment, his fingers moved towards one of the hollow, insect-shaped shells instead of one of the live ones.  As he pressed inward on the remains he felt something like an electrical charge surge through his body running from the tip of his finger straight towards his heart.  An emotion, like nothing he could recall feeling before, washed over him and the ranger could barely breathe as he collapsed to his knees. 

Kyle’s eyes felt moist as he sucked in a lungful of muggy July air and tried to come to grips with the swirl of strange memories bouncing around inside his head.  He had always known he had a mother and a father.  His uncle Walt had not only told him stories about them but had written many down in a journal he had given the boy. But why was he thinking about them now, as if they were somewhere close by, calling out to him?  The desire to rush back to the base and read those old stories again was nearly overwhelming. 

Something had drawn him here.  That was clear now.  When Command had announced they wanted to re-map a huge segment of the eastern half of the old city Kyle felt a strange twinge in his gut.  The old maps hinted at streets and towns that held part of his history, as it did for so many others.  But there was more to it than simple heritage.  Something more profound. 

Kyle and Jensen had the privilege of doing reconnaissance in the “dark” areas of the world.  As the tandem with the best record for successful incursions into deader territory they got their choice of prime assignments.  Kyle had risen quickly to the rank of Captain and Jensen was his Lieutenant and spotter.  They worked silently and quickly, getting in and out fast.  Their missions typically consisted of surveying an area, clearing out the small packs of zombies they came across, and monitoring the migrations of greater hordes roaming the wastelands.  They sketched out rough maps and hopefully gave the living room to expand into, though more often than not their reports indicated an area was far too dangerous to repopulate.

After retrieving their new orders this time around, Kyle had decided to diverge from the preplanned route Command had laid out for him and Jensen.  The Lieutenant never questioned Kyle’s instincts and didn’t now.  The Captain’s intuition had saved them on far too many occasions for the eighteen year old to start quoting regulations.  Besides, their mandate required they improvise and adapt as the situation demanded.  So what did it matter that Kyle switched their course almost immediately, long before they were exposed to any danger?  It was his mission to call and Jensen was happy to oblige his superior officer, even if said superior officer had a confused and far off, distant look on his face when he made his decision.  This particular suburban landscape and more specifically this particular neighborhood really had no salvage potential, like the commercial district that had Command drooling, but so what?

Kyle could hear Jensen’s voice asking for confirmation on the kill over the clicking and buzzing of the insects.  The ranger knew if he did not respond immediately his Lieutenant would move in even though his orders were to bail if there was any trouble.  It was just how the rangers operated even though the rest of the world operated differently.  When someone went missing these days, chances were they had become an upright corpse.  The undead outnumbered the living by a thousand to one and their ranks swelled every time a community or an individual was wiped out.  But none of that mattered to the rangers.  They brought their partners back from the shit, even if they had to shove a knife through their skulls to do so.

Kyle lifted the radio to his mouth and answered with a simple “affirmative” as he stood up and looked over at the burnt out ruin that had once been a house.  The tingling sensation that he recognized as faint childhood memories was growing stronger and the ranger knew this place meant something to him.  He had been drawn here, pulled without even realizing it.  Perhaps because of what his Uncle Walt had written down or perhaps because he remembered a time in his childhood spent in this place.  The cicadas meant something as well.  Their buzzing and clicking that was so similar to the buzzing of the undead and yet so profoundly different.  The sound was comforting, healing to him somehow.   

As he gave Jensen a status update over the radio, Kyle broke into a big grin.  He was home.