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RealmsBrood - Complete
Escape to new Realms with sci-fi and fantasy stories.
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RealmsBrood - Complete
Escape to new Realms with sci-fi and fantasy stories.
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Hello and welcome to Realms! My name is Zach Roush, the writer and reader of Realms. Realms is a sci-fi and fantasy podcast and newsletter that hits your inbox once a month - subscribe to get it conveniently delivered to your phone or computer or spaceship. Then, you can escape to new realms wherever you are - on a walk, on the bus, etc.
Today’s story is Brood, parts 1-3, all in one for your convenience. I am not the narrator for this story - that’s my buddy Cam’s job this time around. Cam Daxon is a writer and Creative living in Los Angeles, and he’d love to work with you if you need someone.
Without further ado, here’s
The humid dawn welcomed Alphonse into her arms with a gasping, clutching desire. He sneered at it: the heavy morning smelling of something sour and old and unforgiving. He went for a cigarette, found his pocket empty, and remembered that he was trying to quit. He popped a mint into his mouth instead.
Al was on his way to Jackson, Mississippi but planned on enjoying his time in Louisville. There was good bourbon to be had and, by God, he would get it from the source. Perhaps there’d be a lady friend or two involved—he just figured out how this dating app worked. He stood there thinking about this little vacation he was on. A week off in so many years wasn’t much to ask for, but his boss had busted his balls for it, asking Al to take a shorter vacation.
“I need to get another job. Can’t go back to that,” Al said to himself as he stood there. A cool breeze broke the fierce snarl of humidity and he took that as a sign. The vacation had gone well already. He’d seen his Mom in Indianapolis, his cousins—who were more like brothers—up by Lake Michigan, and both visits had enriched him. He’d avoided the ex, though he’d been tempted to drop her a line. He didn’t want her to think less of him but after six years of hell… Well, he still felt guilty for downloading that dating app. It was time to get out there again, at the behest of his friends.
He muttered, “Doesn’t have to be serious. Something easy. Light. Fun.” He grimaced and reached for another cigarette. “Damn it all…” Another mint, then.
At that, he decided to drive a while to see if there was much going on in these parts. The motel was hidden away off Highway 64 in some forest that reminded Al of the dense Amazon jungle he’d only seen on TV. Where some thick British voice explained things in a way that put him to sleep. Like the one on the TV, this forest was thick and primordial, lying in wait for its eventual return to glory. Humankind had only dimmed its empire. Long had it grown and died, nurturing life in its boughs and soil, creating a cycle of life that had yet to be broken. The motel manager, Hanu, the only worker around as far as Al could tell, stopped him on the way out.
“Where you off to?” Hanu asked, scratching at a growing bald patch on his head.
“Anywhere with people. You know a spot?”
“Yeah, the local bar. Ain’t much special about it, but it’s cozy. Got like a thousand whiskeys on the menu, if you’re into that. Don’t drink much myself.”
“That’s right up my alley. I’ll head there.” Al pulled out his phone, hoping Hanu didn’t judge this early morning visit to a bar. “What’s it called?”
“Won’t be on your phone there. Only can find it by feel.”
“Feel?” He looked at the man, perplexed. “You joking?”
Hanu smiled. “Of course. Just head five minutes down this main road here, then you’ll see a sign to a gravel road. Called The Pharaoh.”
“Huh. Sounds interesting.”
“Just 5 minutes and take a left,” Al mocked, his voice rumbling with discontent. It had been almost an hour since he'd followed the instructions. The gravel road seemed to have no end. He’d seen the sign, of course, but had yet to see any sign of the bar itself. All around him was sheer darkness despite the rising day; the lights of his Chevy struggled to dissipate. It was noisy, too. Noisier than walking through his uncle’s chicken farm. Al cranked down his window to unveil the raucous, near-painful ringing of insects. Cicadas. But not the mindless droning Al was used to. There was a rhythm. It produced a high ringing song, growing and piercing, and then a sudden drop. It was so precise and surrounding, it sounded artificial.
He looked out into that deep, wooded place, and wondered if he’d ever heard something so loud and disconcerting. His eyes wandered off the road, to his cup. The water rippled from the sound and—
“Oh, shit!”
His tires came to a screeching halt on the gravel road, the truck skidding sideways a little. He’d almost driven right off into the woods.
“Goddamn bugs.”
He navigated the bend with a huff and shortly pulled into the parking lot. The bar’s neon sign shone through the windshield. If you looked in from the outside, you’d see its red letters flashing across Al’s broad forehead: The Pharaoh. His wasn’t the only vehicle there, but there weren’t many to speak of. Not fancy cars, either. They must have been locals or travelers like him.
As he walked up, he noticed them: the thick, crawling carpet of insects advancing up every available surface. Large as his big thumbs, their nymph eyes concealed within a fragile exoskeleton, the cicadas were preparing for the final stage of life by shedding that thin skin. So many nymphs were still breaking through the earth in places, boiling out from the ground. Al inspected a nearby tree, its roots bubbling with new life.
“Yuck,” Al said.
He went to the doors and opened them, and was shocked by the volume inside. The meat of it, the tantalizing flavor of human recreation whacked him in the face. There wasn’t anywhere to sit at all. Standing room only, and the band setting up hadn’t even begun to play. The bar was built right. It had concealed all the frivolity and joy and unscrupulous behavior within. Quite possibly, Al guessed, in an effort to keep that cicada madness out.
“What in the hell?” Al said, astonished, excited. He loved to be where things were happening. And here he was, at The Pharaoh, the place loud and wild like it was Friday night on St. Patrick’s Day and not a Tuesday morning in June.
He squeezed into the bar, hailed the bartender. “Double bourbon, on the rocks.”
“Which one? We only got seventeen hundred of them in stock.”
Al grinned. “Your choice. Nothing too fancy, though.”
The bartender ducked down to grab a bottle. She poured an amber liquid into a square glass over a square cube of ice. Looked a little too fancy at first, but…
“This is The Pharaoh’s ‘house wine’.” The bartender winked.
Al sniffed. Sipped. Malt and fire, brown sugar and desire. Exactly what he was looking for.
“Yup. That’ll do. So, why’s this place called The Pharaoh?”
“Named after the cicadas. The ones outside right now. Rising from the earth and all. S’cuse me.”
She fluttered off to serve the new flocks of thirsty folk. Al pursed his lips, sipped again at his bourbon.
He grinned, smacked his lips. “Pace yourself, Al. It ain’t water.”
The show had yet to begin, and not feeling particularly brave to start up a conversation, he flicked open his phone. Started looking at potential lady-friends to meet up with. Swipe right. Swipe right. Oh, definitely left. Yikes.
One of the right swipes matched almost immediately. He got a message.
From, Cleo: So, not to be weird. But I’m here at The Pharaoh. I’m waving at ya.
“Wow. First time’s the charm.”
Al’s brows flew up. He looked around the room, sweeping back and forth. The large bar with double-height ceilings probably held three hundred people. He couldn’t find Cleo, probably because he had a hard time picking out details in a crowd. Wait, was it that woman, waving? Didn’t quite match the picture. Al waved. The woman shook her head at him, then someone else joined her. Al felt his face flush. Somebody could point right at something and he’d never find it. Something his ex used to joke about all the—
Enough of her. Where was this woman?
“Al!”
Her voice rang out above the din. There she was, a curly-haired woman at a table. She had a seat open, gestured to it. Al’s stomach dropped and a cold sweat broke out. This was new territory. Meeting a stranger through his phone without even chatting first, no time to perfect the pick-up lines or flirt. But her smile was inviting. Thoughts raced through his mind as he smiled back, mechanically, and walked toward her.
Don’t spill my drink, don’t trip, don’t look like a goofy-ass fool, shit what are my priorities, what do I talk about, who am I, do I have BigMac particles in my teeth, did even I brush my teeth, will she hate that I still smoke sometimes, oh God, I’m here I’m sitting down.
“Alphonse, but you can call me Al,” he said, shaking her hand.
“Cleo. Not short for Cleopatra, though.” She laughed at her joke. “Pretty miraculous, us matching here and now?”
“Are you kidding me? This whole bar is a miracle. A party like this on a Tuesday morning? All those goddamn bugs outside?”
“That’s what it’s all for.”
“What’s that?”
“Those bugs out there been in the ground for 19 years. Waiting. For this very moment.” “Shit,” he said like it was two words, “you kidding me?”
“No sir,” Cleo replied and smiled. She was missing a tooth on her lower jaw. It shocked and endeared her to Al all the more. He took a longer gander. Freckles. Nice skin. Brown eyes. Not a radical, almost manufactured beauty, as some women he saw on that app were. Her eyes were earnest, searching. Or was Al imagining it? Something struck Al the same way a preacher’s words might have struck him as a child. Something momentous and wonderful and massive was occurring around him and he just happened to walk in. An accidental interloper at the birth of a star.
Was it love at first sight?
Maybe she was just Al’s kind of beautiful. And he’d caught her at a beautiful moment.
They clinked glasses. She was drinking bourbon, too.
“To auspicious moments,” Al declared, then lost Cleo’s words in the music that started playing.
What followed seemed miraculous to Al. Music that pounded and roared in the best sort of way, the band playing mostly things he loved and from many genres of rock; songs from Pink Floyd, Nirvana, Smashing Pumpkins, and even the Front Bottoms.
The bourbon went down easy; jamming to those tunes, a beautiful woman at his side, all the tides and troubles of his life locked away beyond the doors. When the band finished their set, Cleo and Al headed to the bar and went for something more top-shelf. The shots were over forty dollars.
She said, “You already bought the first three rounds, I’ll get this one.”
“But…this is a date, isn’t it? I should…”
“No need for that. This is a special day to be celebrated,” she clinked her glass against his, “and hopefully not forgotten.”
The bar had settled into a rumbling quiet, half the patrons gone with the band, and the rest a mix of locals and interlopers who preferred to keep to themselves. Al set his cup down on the counter and felt something squirming underneath.
“The hell?”
He pulled his hand back like he touched a hot stove. He wasn’t burned. Just terrified at the texture and wriggle of the cicada on his skin.
Cleo laughed. “Oh, they get in every once in a while. Leave their skins everywhere. It’s normal.”
“It’s kinda creepy. You don’t mind it?”
“Never.” She picked up the Nymph delicately like it was a precious gem. “They’re part of the cycle of this old place. This bar is just a bump on a log here.”
“Won’t disagree with that.” They tapped glasses again, but Al looked this time before setting it down.
“Where’re you staying?” Cleo asked.
Al gulped. “Motel down the way. Was a bitch to find this place, but I reckon it won’t be so rough gettin’ back.”
“Well, we could go there or my place. It’s just down the road half an hour. It’s quite beautiful.”
Al tried to casually down the rest of his expensive bourbon. It burned on the way down, burned away a little bit of fear and anticipation. He hadn’t been with a woman, naked or otherwise, in some time. He was lonely. He hoped she was, too, in her own way.
“Your place sounds fine if it’s okay with you.”
At Cleo’s instruction, they took his truck deeper into the forest, deeper than Al thought it should go when he looked at a map of the area. He tried checking his phone to see where they were, but there wasn’t service anymore. Cleo was being lovely, singing along with the country music he’d put on. What were the odds she knew this song? He got the CD from a band from his hometown. And she didn’t seem to be the Indie music type.
Too good to be true, he thought. Nothing new to him. He always felt lucky when a woman spent time with him. So rare, these days, to find a girl he got along with. Wasn’t for any reason he could think of. He wasn’t an extremist, like his brother Dixon, or a recluse, like his cousin Trudy. The last song, Youth Fading Fast ended with its mournful note, not unlike the one the cicadas were singing.
Cleo said, “I’m surprised you know the Sweaty Cowboys!”
Al chuckled. “I’m more than surprised. I’m dumbfounded! That band’s from my hometown. Nobody knows them.”
“I know a lot of music. This way deep in the forest, we don’t get internet or nothing. Radio comes through clearly, and I even get all the smaller stations. Why do you love ‘em?”
Al was abashed. “Well, I suppose it reminds me of home. I’m on the road a lot for work--I represent a chemical cleanup company at all the industry conventions. Anyway, at this old diner in my town, they only play this band’s songs. We’re just proud of them, you know? So, when I hear them, I feel like I’m sitting down on a cracking vinyl cushion and I’m sipping slightly stale coffee from a beige mug. There’s bacon fat crackling, a plate of pancakes sliding, and old men chatting in the corner about how the world’s going to hell. Typical American diner stuff. But it’s home.”
“That’s great. I love that.” Cleo looked out the window. “I like them because they’re so honest. So true. Like that last song: Windows down, wind ripping, heart breakin’; watching you disappear, the one I love and can’t ever leave behind.”
“Yeah. It hurts good, don’t it?” The CD had finished and Al didn’t feel like his drunk heart could take another listen. Too sad, in some ways. Songs of death and taxes, lost loves and long roads. He said, “So, we’ve been driving for a while. Where is this house of yours?”
“Right here.”
“Oh…”
The stalwart legions of trees broke away all at once. A glade bloomed before them, open to the sun like the whole thing was a flower. Al had to stop the truck to take it in; it was stunning. Long grasses stretched a few acres all ‘round, the glade shaped like a wide lima bean. At one “end” of the bean, there was a two-story white country house complete with a wraparound porch, the paint flaking on some of the planks. It stood on a bit of a rise.
“This is beautiful.”
Cleo smiled, the light catching her eyes. She was radiant. Al’s heart pounded. For what it’s worth, hers did too. Not quite for the same reason. “Roll down your window.”
Al did, though he knew the cicada’s song would drive him mad. Then it didn’t.
This glade was silent. Al looked at Cleo like lightning had struck his truck.
She shrugged, a smile playing at the corners of her mouth. “It’s a bit of magic.”
“Shit, I’d say so. It’s dead quiet here.”
“Yeah, I love it. C’mon. Let’s get on to the house.”
“You got it .” Al paused, seeing that Cleo hadn’t turned away. “What?”
She was looking at him closely, peering almost. She put a hand on his leg. “You’re real sweet. Real honest.”
“I try to be…” he said as confidently as he could. What could he say? She made it easy to be that way? Like he didn’t have to pretend to be so macho or like he had everything together or that of late he stayed up and stared at the motel ceiling, wondering if he should go on or not. It wasn’t the time to have that conversation. It was a different time. Their heads were close. Her lips, not far. Those eyes, drawing him in, like they went on forever into her mind and on and on and deeper. Time to kiss her, right?
Don’t rush things, Al thought. He’d done that before. Shit, with a girl like Cleo, how many others had done the same? Bourbon, music, her smile, enchanted him.
Ain’t nobody perfect, Al warned himself.
He grinned and pulled away, dying a little as he did, hoping he hadn’t ruined something by being too careful.
They toured the house. It was old. The house wasn’t even on a concrete foundation. Al got the feeling that they were doing a bit of a dance. Giddy love and bourbon were making them skittish. As Cleo showed Al the parlor, a room oddly filled with leaves and dirt, Al did a double-take. There wasn’t a floor, not at all, just a hollow maybe six feet down.
“What’s going on here?”
Cleo explained quickly, “Renovating. Thinking about putting in concrete floors. I hate how the wood creaks in the winter winds. Sounds like nails on a chalkboard. Scares me half to death.”
“That’s a modern look, for sure. Would concrete look good with the rest?” He didn’t know what to say. He wondered aloud if a little more alcohol might improve his nascent timidity.
She smiled, but not half as big as before. “I’ll make us some drinks. Meet ya on the porch.” It was like she read his mind. He smiled and allowed none of the relief he felt to show on his face. Outside, he reached for his smokes. He found none, of course.
“Shit.” Gum, then. He chewed through the flavor in two licks. “She’s acting differently. What the hell did I do wrong?”
Cleo stepped out and Al nodded at her stiffly. All the smoothness was gone. Where did it go? Where had it evaporated to? The suave cowboy he’d been at the bar had hung up his hat and put up his boots and now-
“Mint Julep Lemonade. Personal recipe. Learned it awhile back.”
“Thank you, Cleo.” They stood there, quietly sipping their drinks. “Mind if we sit?”
“Yeah, here, around the corner’s the best view.”
Two rocking chairs waited for a couple of love-drunk people if they could be found. Al settled in, happy to avoid Cleo’s eyes. He took a sip and smacked his lips. Tart drink. Heavy on the bourbon. “How long have you held this land?”
“Oh, generations,” Cleo answered wistfully. “Longer’n America, certainly.”
“How so?”
“My blood’s always been here, in one form or another. The world around always changes, but this glade remains itself. As do I. As do we all, I guess.”
Al sipped and nodded. Nodded and sipped. The quiet persisted over the grasses, waving in the wind and looking like simmering oil, or shimmering metal. Reminded him of timelessness, somehow.
Al cleared his throat. “Listen, about, you know, almost kissing.” He couldn’t look her in the eye. “I’m not that forward. Not my style.” She watched him. It urged him onward, and he sort of let it all out. “I get scared, you know? Most men would jump off a cliff to even talk to someone like you. But me? I’d let them jump. I’m just not that type of guy. I don’t need to jump to, you know, the physical stuff.”
She didn’t answer, persisting only in her watchfulness. The wind tossed her hair lightly.
“ I…Shit. I messed it all up. I shoulda kissed you. I—”
“Stop, Al.” He clapped his jaw shut, sipped his drink. A breeze came through, stirring the humid air. Cleo let the wind speak to her, even tilting her ear to it. She sighed. “It’s strange. To not be expected to just get on with it, I guess. Threw me off. Most men I bring just get it over quick. But your fear…your caution. It’s respect. I ‘preciate it. It saved you, to be sure.”
“Saved me?” From sheer embarrassment? From ruining what this was?
Cleo put her glass down, got up from her chair, and offered a hand. “Let’s try that kiss. You have my permission. ”
Al was shocked. Was this…? No. Enough wondering. Enough questioning. He briefly considered slapping, pinching, and biting himself. He settled for downing the drink. It burned. It burned and fired him up and…
He coughed and said, “Just to be clear, the kiss…and?”
“Yes, and.”
Their eyes locked. They’d found it again, that delicious magnetism. They pulled it taught, pulled themselves toward each other until they met body to body, lips to lips. Equal force enough that Al bit his lip. He flinched away and laughed. Cleo laughed too.
Al demurred. “A bit….”
“Fast?” Cleo said.
“Yeah. But, again?”
Their eyes locked. They’d found it again, that delicious magnetism. They pulled it taught, pulled themselves toward each other until they met body to body, face to face. Equal force enough that Al bit his lip. He flinched away and laughed. Cleo laughed too.
Al demurred. “A bit….”
“Fast?” Cleo said.
“Yeah. But, again?”
They kissed more gently, like caressing the petals of a tulip. Al wrapped his arms around her and they leaned against the porch wall, the heat rising in that simmering afternoon. They were hot as the air, hotter. The buzzing, buzzing, buzzing, rising and falling. Was that song in his head or outside of him?
An urgency called desire pounced.
They made a stumbled entry into Cleo’s home; a shirt dropping here, jeans there, two pairs of boots. Al hadn’t felt like this before. Not for some time. A pause, a panic. Al, going back for the wallet, making sure he had… Shit. Maybe I should ask…
He looked at her halfway up the stairs, mostly naked. His heart pounded.
He said, “Any…you know, ‘no-nos’ or?”
She laughed. “Get up here!”
He smiled. She smiled. Bare feet raced up creaking stairs, lovers giving chase. Their footsteps soften on a long hallway rug. When had Al last felt so safe in his own skin?
They reached a doorway at the end of the hall. They smiled and went through.
The cicadas were calling through the glade, their vibrations reaching through the air, touching everything, delving deeper and deeper, even into the frames of that old house down to its bones. Something was awakened. Something was released. Two beings were awakened and freed and changed by the touch of skin, that oldest of remedies oft-replaced for cheaper things.
Something had changed indeed.
Darkness. An aching head. A dry tongue.
“Ah…shit.” Al sat up. “Cleo?”
Not in the bed. Not in the room.
“My head…” It was ringing. Buzzing. “Those goddamn bugs… Don’t they only sing during the day?”
“Yes,” Cleo said. Her voice sounded clear but oddly distant.
“Cleo? Where are ya?”
Silence. Except for the cicadas. He sat up and put his feet on the floor. A leathery material met his soles. A leather rug? Weird. Hadn’t noticed that, but Al hadn’t been particularly focused on decor before.
“Light…” he groaned. He found a lamp on the bedside table. Didn’t work, but he found water. He drank. It was stale and dusty, for some reason, but his throat was salved. His head cleared a little, restoring higher cognition. “How long did I sleep?”
“Long enough.”
“Cleo, are you playing hide and seek?” He rubbed crusts out of his eyes and looked at his feet.
Cleo’s face was there between his feet.
“Jesus!” He almost jumped out of his own skin. He was on top of the bed, staring at the thing. “Cleo? What the hell is this?” Nothing. “Cleo!?”
He jumped over it and went to the window, pulled away the dusty curtains to look at the thing on the ground. It looked like Cleo, to be sure, but on second glance, more like an empty sack made in her likeness.
The more he looked at that naked, deflated skin bag the more queasy he got. Was this part of some fetish? Some sex thing Al hadn’t signed up for?
“I’m getting kinda weirded out here….”
“I’m waiting.”
“But where are you? Your body’s…here?”
Al was ready to jet. He hadn’t meant this to be a one-night stand, but if this got any weirder…
He said, “I’m not a judgmental person. I met plenty of people into--uh--unique things. It’s just not my thing.” He racked his brain. “Maybe we can have some coffee and talk about this?”
No response. The cicadas sang at a higher pitch for a moment before dropping off. The cup on the table shook so hard from the sound it fell before Al could catch it. Water dumped over the Cleo-thing, dripping and pooling like it would on skin.
Al looked away and decided he should find his pants and get the hell out of dodge.
“Levi’s are downstairs, I reckon.” He didn’t relish the thought of leaving the semblance of safety he had in the room, but there wasn’t any way in hell he could stay up here.
Old wood creaked. Groaned. Every step. The house wasn’t the same as before. The walls! Had they been so moldy, so decrepit? Had the furniture been so eaten and musty? Another bedroom. Had that been there before?
He cracked it open. A copy, almost, of the one he’d left. Another bed. Another set of strewn-about clothes. Another sack of skin, and…Bones. Bones on the bed. Cast in the forge of the falling sun.
How much time before dark?
“I gotta get out…I gotta leave,” Al uttered and slammed the door. Where were the stairs? How had he gotten so turned around? Had he been roofied? Drugged? Or just too drunk to function? Ah, right, they’d gone to the bedroom at the end of the hall. Stairs were to his left, then. He walked slowly in the half darkness until he reached them. He took the stairs slowly, trying to peer around the bend. Found his jeans on the bottom step. Keys and wallet still in there. Nothing missing, except his underwear. He looked around for Cleo, or, rather for what had potentially used her skin..
Nothing. Nobody. Sunset on pale walls. Chair rail scuffed and decrepit. Soil and dirt and what looked like half-eaten roots everywhere. This wasn’t the same house. Couldn’t be!
Al rasped, “Where the hell am I?”
“Come to me.”
“Where the hell are you, Cleo?”
“The parlor.”
He crept forward, down the narrow hall, finding drippings of something organic and moist on the walls and floor, leading to the parlor. Across from it, the way to the kitchen. Perpendicular to both rooms, a screen door that led to freedom. The cicada song was sharp as glass in his ears.
He ran. Threw open the screen door. Stomped down the stairs and dashed out into the grass, his jeans barely hanging on—his mom always told him his skinny ass wouldn’t hold up pants without a belt—when he remembered his truck was on the other side of the house. He screeched to a halt.
“Shit!”
“Al. Come to me.”
He answered, “How the hell are you speaking? You’re body’s on the floor! Is that not you?!”
“Come. To. Me.”
The world flipped. Al’s stomach turned with his body. His body was flipping. The glade, the fiery sky, the rotting ranch house, all spinning. And then he was back inside the house, the parlor specifically, thrown onto a dirt floor. The vertigo struck him from toes to top, making him retch violently. Bourbon. Lemonade. More bourbon. French fries?
He remarked, “Don’t remember those.”
“Alphonse.”
He wiped his mouth, knowing that this was something weird and wrong. “I was outside. Now I’m inside, ” he said without looking up. “You’re not Cleo.”
“Look at me.”
He sighed. He knew he wouldn’t be able to go anywhere. Whatever powers were at work here, they wouldn’t let him go.
“All right. I’m not running”
His head led his eyes. Before him was the end of something, a tail or some such. A segment, rather. Bristling with sharp hairs, long as his fingers. Another segment attached to it, and another, and another. All of them pulsing, wriggling with hidden spasms, thick as the two-hundred-year-old oak tree outside his childhood home. He kept raising his head.
More segments. A dripping fluid. A leg—two legs, no, six! More than there should be for any creature this size—but did Al know of any creatures this size that weren’t mammals? They didn’t exist. Shouldn’t. Now he saw broader segments covered by transparent, folded structures. Wings!
And at the head of it all, this beast, this thing that trailed from the ground and up the wall and clung to the high ceiling, were jaws and mandibles and four sets of human eyes. The call of cicadas rang louder and louder, like a scream the size of a world. Al laughed, at first. The shock was too much.
“Al,” it intoned without a mouth, without teeth or tongue. “I told you that you had saved yourself.”
He laughed some more. “You sound like Cleo.”
“I am. And I am not.”
“Who--what in the hell am I looking at?”
“I was here long before the age of humans.”
“So, you’re a…a…cicada?”
“Correct.”
“Okay, well—”
“You do not need to understand more than what you see.” The thing with Cleo’s voice detached from the ceiling. He stood as still-human eyes—Cleo’s eyes—leveled with his. He was ready to run, to bolt and throw caution to the wind. It betrayed his every instinct to stand there. Then, that segmented abdomen slithered around him. No way out. Those great mandibles clacked against each other—tock, tock—like an old grandfather clock counting down. Its body hissed as it inhaled and exhaled, bestowing upon the human a perfume that reeked of ancient undergrowth and fresh spring all at once, of things that died only to be reborn, and yet others Al had no name for and never would.
Subscribed
Al’s eyes bore into Cleo’s. The woman he met that morning. A lifetime ago.
Al was trapped with this thing. No way out. His brain chugged through the bourbon strain, trying to put the pieces together. What was it that happened to real cicadas? They crawled out of the earth. They molted. They mated. And then laid eggs to begin the cycle again.
Which stage was Al part of?
“The bones,” Al said. He paled. “Look, I wasn’t ever interested in just…”
“Al, I know you. I know you through footsteps and vibrations. I know you through light you cannot see and sounds you cannot hear.” It broke eye contact. “I cannot bring myself to complete the cycle. You are genuine. Many a human I have engaged who wanted nothing more than to…conquer.”
“Well…shit.” He laughed once. “Call me lucky…”
“No. You are good. You are good and you may go. But quickly! Quickly…Alphonseeeeeeeee.” A rumbling ensued inside the cicada’s body. Those eyes, those deep brown pools, blinked, were replaced by completely white eyes bloodshot through. They were turning red. Her segmented body opened up a way through.
Al leaped through the window, glass crashing and piercing him as he rolled. He yelped and shouted like a dog, got his feet under him, and made for his truck.
The sun was going down, the shadows long and reaching and menacing
The truck wouldn’t start.
“Oh, come on. Please.” A false start. A shudder from the engine. The house behind him was shivering, shaking, groaning. Wood was flying off the sides, shingles sliding down and pattering the earth. A great groan overtook the scintillating whir of the cicadas and became a new call, a new song that heralded a great change.
“Oaaaaaaaaaaaaahhhhhhhhhsssssss.”
The hiss at the end told Al all he needed to know. Cleo was gone, given over to the undying cycle of the glade.
The truck wouldn’t start.
“Aw, hell.” He popped it into neutral. The rise that the house sat on let him get the truck rolling. He pushed it. His ass hung half-out, his cheeks bared to the rising moon.
The engine turned over just as the entire house exploded behind him.
“God almighty!” He raced against the last of the light, dying as he would die: slowly and limned in red. His truck shook and rumbled, and not from the engine.
Dirt clods and bundles of grass burst toward his truck in a wake of destruction, its epicenter a hulking, leaping mass; red-eyed, mandibles opening wider in a grin of hunger. Its wings were fluttering out, pushing it on with increasing speed.
He looked forward. Where was the road? Where? There! He steered toward the thin gap that marked his escape route.
He screamed, “Come on! Come on!”
Al flicked on his headlights, illuminating the way out of the glade. The only way. A maw of life before, one of death behind. Those red eyes were so bright now he could see the glow on his dash. He pissed himself.
“Make it stop,” he begged, his heart pounding hard enough to hear over that stupid, horrible, insane cicada song. “Goddamn, that noise!”
A slavering set of chitinous jaws. A song that rippled across his skin. A woman, a beautiful woman who was true to him even when she changed…had she even been real?
His eyes flicked to the mirror. And then he was through.
He didn’t pump the brakes like he should have. He nicked the corner of his truck on trunks and bushes, skidded out sideways, and smashed the vehicle into an old tree. He smashed his head against the glass, making his head spin. Dizzy, delirious, he looked back. A curtain of twilight had embraced that old place, from the boughs above to the roots below. A tunnel out to the glade was still apparent, though it was fading fast. A great, steaming, horrible mass lingered. As the sun died, two sets of red eyes floated, it seemed, attached to that mass.
Al breathed. He waited. His mind cleared. The eyes returned his patience in kind. Al, in an act that would dumbfound him forever, got out of the car.
He stood there, shirtless, bleeding from a temple, swaying slightly from the dizziness. He wanted to look this timeless, hungry beast in its eyes and respect it for what it gave him: a chance, even though he was but a blink in its eternity. Even though he was just meat and a source of genetic material.
An age. A lifetime. An eon passed.
The eyes moved on, dragging their body with it, singing that song that Al would never forget, never shake. The ruler of this ancient place would lay its eggs and die and be reborn, as it has done since it ruled this forest. In some time, another mate would be needed.
Al felt the weight of his survival like a barbell dropped on his chest. He sat in the dirt. He coughed. He laughed. He blubbered. His face spewed snot and tears. He couldn’t believe it. He’d met, did the nasty with, and escaped something beyond his comprehension.
Al’s crying turned into laughter. Cackling. A broken staccato of choked, impossible humor.
“She…swiped right on me. That thing!”
He laughed and laughed, only stopping when his body started shivering. Night’s coolness had descended, breaking the heavy heat of the day. Al stood, his gaze unwavering from the glade. He got in his truck, the door creaking closed, breaking the near-stillness around him. Crickets chirped. An owl hooted, then left its branch in a silent swoop. Night was all around. Al listened to it all, expecting to hear a roar, a thunderous chase. But nothing. Here he was, a human who had survived a thing he could tell no one, and yet…And yet…
He wondered what it would have been like, to be eaten alive. A strange thought.
Putting the truck in gear was no trouble. Driving it straight wasn’t either, despite crashing into a tree. The trouble was driving away at all. He kept looking into that rearview mirror, hoping to see those red eyes. He’d felt so alive and more in tune with instinct than anything else. Returning to normal life, hell, returning to the motel didn’t seem as real as that monster, or Cleo, for that matter.
How could he go back to that life, now?
He applied the brake and pulled his truck to a stop and turned around in his seat. His tired eyes bored into that wooded corridor with an empty ache, a forbidden sort of longing emerging from deep inside him. His shaking hand went to the key in the ignition. The truck’s lights went out.
Thank you for reading Brood! Please share to grow this publication:
Hello and welcome to Realms! My name is Zach Roush, the writer and reader of Realms. Realms is a sci-fi and fantasy podcast and newsletter that hits your inbox once a month - subscribe to get it conveniently delivered to your phone or computer or spaceship. Then, you can escape to new realms wherever you are - on a walk, on the bus, etc.
Today’s story is Brood, parts 1-3, all in one for your convenience. I am not the narrator for this story - that’s my buddy Cam’s job this time around. Cam Daxon is a writer and Creative living in Los Angeles, and he’d love to work with you if you need someone.
Without further ado, here’s
The humid dawn welcomed Alphonse into her arms with a gasping, clutching desire. He sneered at it: the heavy morning smelling of something sour and old and unforgiving. He went for a cigarette, found his pocket empty, and remembered that he was trying to quit. He popped a mint into his mouth instead.
Al was on his way to Jackson, Mississippi but planned on enjoying his time in Louisville. There was good bourbon to be had and, by God, he would get it from the source. Perhaps there’d be a lady friend or two involved—he just figured out how this dating app worked. He stood there thinking about this little vacation he was on. A week off in so many years wasn’t much to ask for, but his boss had busted his balls for it, asking Al to take a shorter vacation.
“I need to get another job. Can’t go back to that,” Al said to himself as he stood there. A cool breeze broke the fierce snarl of humidity and he took that as a sign. The vacation had gone well already. He’d seen his Mom in Indianapolis, his cousins—who were more like brothers—up by Lake Michigan, and both visits had enriched him. He’d avoided the ex, though he’d been tempted to drop her a line. He didn’t want her to think less of him but after six years of hell… Well, he still felt guilty for downloading that dating app. It was time to get out there again, at the behest of his friends.
He muttered, “Doesn’t have to be serious. Something easy. Light. Fun.” He grimaced and reached for another cigarette. “Damn it all…” Another mint, then.
At that, he decided to drive a while to see if there was much going on in these parts. The motel was hidden away off Highway 64 in some forest that reminded Al of the dense Amazon jungle he’d only seen on TV. Where some thick British voice explained things in a way that put him to sleep. Like the one on the TV, this forest was thick and primordial, lying in wait for its eventual return to glory. Humankind had only dimmed its empire. Long had it grown and died, nurturing life in its boughs and soil, creating a cycle of life that had yet to be broken. The motel manager, Hanu, the only worker around as far as Al could tell, stopped him on the way out.
“Where you off to?” Hanu asked, scratching at a growing bald patch on his head.
“Anywhere with people. You know a spot?”
“Yeah, the local bar. Ain’t much special about it, but it’s cozy. Got like a thousand whiskeys on the menu, if you’re into that. Don’t drink much myself.”
“That’s right up my alley. I’ll head there.” Al pulled out his phone, hoping Hanu didn’t judge this early morning visit to a bar. “What’s it called?”
“Won’t be on your phone there. Only can find it by feel.”
“Feel?” He looked at the man, perplexed. “You joking?”
Hanu smiled. “Of course. Just head five minutes down this main road here, then you’ll see a sign to a gravel road. Called The Pharaoh.”
“Huh. Sounds interesting.”
“Just 5 minutes and take a left,” Al mocked, his voice rumbling with discontent. It had been almost an hour since he'd followed the instructions. The gravel road seemed to have no end. He’d seen the sign, of course, but had yet to see any sign of the bar itself. All around him was sheer darkness despite the rising day; the lights of his Chevy struggled to dissipate. It was noisy, too. Noisier than walking through his uncle’s chicken farm. Al cranked down his window to unveil the raucous, near-painful ringing of insects. Cicadas. But not the mindless droning Al was used to. There was a rhythm. It produced a high ringing song, growing and piercing, and then a sudden drop. It was so precise and surrounding, it sounded artificial.
He looked out into that deep, wooded place, and wondered if he’d ever heard something so loud and disconcerting. His eyes wandered off the road, to his cup. The water rippled from the sound and—
“Oh, shit!”
His tires came to a screeching halt on the gravel road, the truck skidding sideways a little. He’d almost driven right off into the woods.
“Goddamn bugs.”
He navigated the bend with a huff and shortly pulled into the parking lot. The bar’s neon sign shone through the windshield. If you looked in from the outside, you’d see its red letters flashing across Al’s broad forehead: The Pharaoh. His wasn’t the only vehicle there, but there weren’t many to speak of. Not fancy cars, either. They must have been locals or travelers like him.
As he walked up, he noticed them: the thick, crawling carpet of insects advancing up every available surface. Large as his big thumbs, their nymph eyes concealed within a fragile exoskeleton, the cicadas were preparing for the final stage of life by shedding that thin skin. So many nymphs were still breaking through the earth in places, boiling out from the ground. Al inspected a nearby tree, its roots bubbling with new life.
“Yuck,” Al said.
He went to the doors and opened them, and was shocked by the volume inside. The meat of it, the tantalizing flavor of human recreation whacked him in the face. There wasn’t anywhere to sit at all. Standing room only, and the band setting up hadn’t even begun to play. The bar was built right. It had concealed all the frivolity and joy and unscrupulous behavior within. Quite possibly, Al guessed, in an effort to keep that cicada madness out.
“What in the hell?” Al said, astonished, excited. He loved to be where things were happening. And here he was, at The Pharaoh, the place loud and wild like it was Friday night on St. Patrick’s Day and not a Tuesday morning in June.
He squeezed into the bar, hailed the bartender. “Double bourbon, on the rocks.”
“Which one? We only got seventeen hundred of them in stock.”
Al grinned. “Your choice. Nothing too fancy, though.”
The bartender ducked down to grab a bottle. She poured an amber liquid into a square glass over a square cube of ice. Looked a little too fancy at first, but…
“This is The Pharaoh’s ‘house wine’.” The bartender winked.
Al sniffed. Sipped. Malt and fire, brown sugar and desire. Exactly what he was looking for.
“Yup. That’ll do. So, why’s this place called The Pharaoh?”
“Named after the cicadas. The ones outside right now. Rising from the earth and all. S’cuse me.”
She fluttered off to serve the new flocks of thirsty folk. Al pursed his lips, sipped again at his bourbon.
He grinned, smacked his lips. “Pace yourself, Al. It ain’t water.”
The show had yet to begin, and not feeling particularly brave to start up a conversation, he flicked open his phone. Started looking at potential lady-friends to meet up with. Swipe right. Swipe right. Oh, definitely left. Yikes.
One of the right swipes matched almost immediately. He got a message.
From, Cleo: So, not to be weird. But I’m here at The Pharaoh. I’m waving at ya.
“Wow. First time’s the charm.”
Al’s brows flew up. He looked around the room, sweeping back and forth. The large bar with double-height ceilings probably held three hundred people. He couldn’t find Cleo, probably because he had a hard time picking out details in a crowd. Wait, was it that woman, waving? Didn’t quite match the picture. Al waved. The woman shook her head at him, then someone else joined her. Al felt his face flush. Somebody could point right at something and he’d never find it. Something his ex used to joke about all the—
Enough of her. Where was this woman?
“Al!”
Her voice rang out above the din. There she was, a curly-haired woman at a table. She had a seat open, gestured to it. Al’s stomach dropped and a cold sweat broke out. This was new territory. Meeting a stranger through his phone without even chatting first, no time to perfect the pick-up lines or flirt. But her smile was inviting. Thoughts raced through his mind as he smiled back, mechanically, and walked toward her.
Don’t spill my drink, don’t trip, don’t look like a goofy-ass fool, shit what are my priorities, what do I talk about, who am I, do I have BigMac particles in my teeth, did even I brush my teeth, will she hate that I still smoke sometimes, oh God, I’m here I’m sitting down.
“Alphonse, but you can call me Al,” he said, shaking her hand.
“Cleo. Not short for Cleopatra, though.” She laughed at her joke. “Pretty miraculous, us matching here and now?”
“Are you kidding me? This whole bar is a miracle. A party like this on a Tuesday morning? All those goddamn bugs outside?”
“That’s what it’s all for.”
“What’s that?”
“Those bugs out there been in the ground for 19 years. Waiting. For this very moment.” “Shit,” he said like it was two words, “you kidding me?”
“No sir,” Cleo replied and smiled. She was missing a tooth on her lower jaw. It shocked and endeared her to Al all the more. He took a longer gander. Freckles. Nice skin. Brown eyes. Not a radical, almost manufactured beauty, as some women he saw on that app were. Her eyes were earnest, searching. Or was Al imagining it? Something struck Al the same way a preacher’s words might have struck him as a child. Something momentous and wonderful and massive was occurring around him and he just happened to walk in. An accidental interloper at the birth of a star.
Was it love at first sight?
Maybe she was just Al’s kind of beautiful. And he’d caught her at a beautiful moment.
They clinked glasses. She was drinking bourbon, too.
“To auspicious moments,” Al declared, then lost Cleo’s words in the music that started playing.
What followed seemed miraculous to Al. Music that pounded and roared in the best sort of way, the band playing mostly things he loved and from many genres of rock; songs from Pink Floyd, Nirvana, Smashing Pumpkins, and even the Front Bottoms.
The bourbon went down easy; jamming to those tunes, a beautiful woman at his side, all the tides and troubles of his life locked away beyond the doors. When the band finished their set, Cleo and Al headed to the bar and went for something more top-shelf. The shots were over forty dollars.
She said, “You already bought the first three rounds, I’ll get this one.”
“But…this is a date, isn’t it? I should…”
“No need for that. This is a special day to be celebrated,” she clinked her glass against his, “and hopefully not forgotten.”
The bar had settled into a rumbling quiet, half the patrons gone with the band, and the rest a mix of locals and interlopers who preferred to keep to themselves. Al set his cup down on the counter and felt something squirming underneath.
“The hell?”
He pulled his hand back like he touched a hot stove. He wasn’t burned. Just terrified at the texture and wriggle of the cicada on his skin.
Cleo laughed. “Oh, they get in every once in a while. Leave their skins everywhere. It’s normal.”
“It’s kinda creepy. You don’t mind it?”
“Never.” She picked up the Nymph delicately like it was a precious gem. “They’re part of the cycle of this old place. This bar is just a bump on a log here.”
“Won’t disagree with that.” They tapped glasses again, but Al looked this time before setting it down.
“Where’re you staying?” Cleo asked.
Al gulped. “Motel down the way. Was a bitch to find this place, but I reckon it won’t be so rough gettin’ back.”
“Well, we could go there or my place. It’s just down the road half an hour. It’s quite beautiful.”
Al tried to casually down the rest of his expensive bourbon. It burned on the way down, burned away a little bit of fear and anticipation. He hadn’t been with a woman, naked or otherwise, in some time. He was lonely. He hoped she was, too, in her own way.
“Your place sounds fine if it’s okay with you.”
At Cleo’s instruction, they took his truck deeper into the forest, deeper than Al thought it should go when he looked at a map of the area. He tried checking his phone to see where they were, but there wasn’t service anymore. Cleo was being lovely, singing along with the country music he’d put on. What were the odds she knew this song? He got the CD from a band from his hometown. And she didn’t seem to be the Indie music type.
Too good to be true, he thought. Nothing new to him. He always felt lucky when a woman spent time with him. So rare, these days, to find a girl he got along with. Wasn’t for any reason he could think of. He wasn’t an extremist, like his brother Dixon, or a recluse, like his cousin Trudy. The last song, Youth Fading Fast ended with its mournful note, not unlike the one the cicadas were singing.
Cleo said, “I’m surprised you know the Sweaty Cowboys!”
Al chuckled. “I’m more than surprised. I’m dumbfounded! That band’s from my hometown. Nobody knows them.”
“I know a lot of music. This way deep in the forest, we don’t get internet or nothing. Radio comes through clearly, and I even get all the smaller stations. Why do you love ‘em?”
Al was abashed. “Well, I suppose it reminds me of home. I’m on the road a lot for work--I represent a chemical cleanup company at all the industry conventions. Anyway, at this old diner in my town, they only play this band’s songs. We’re just proud of them, you know? So, when I hear them, I feel like I’m sitting down on a cracking vinyl cushion and I’m sipping slightly stale coffee from a beige mug. There’s bacon fat crackling, a plate of pancakes sliding, and old men chatting in the corner about how the world’s going to hell. Typical American diner stuff. But it’s home.”
“That’s great. I love that.” Cleo looked out the window. “I like them because they’re so honest. So true. Like that last song: Windows down, wind ripping, heart breakin’; watching you disappear, the one I love and can’t ever leave behind.”
“Yeah. It hurts good, don’t it?” The CD had finished and Al didn’t feel like his drunk heart could take another listen. Too sad, in some ways. Songs of death and taxes, lost loves and long roads. He said, “So, we’ve been driving for a while. Where is this house of yours?”
“Right here.”
“Oh…”
The stalwart legions of trees broke away all at once. A glade bloomed before them, open to the sun like the whole thing was a flower. Al had to stop the truck to take it in; it was stunning. Long grasses stretched a few acres all ‘round, the glade shaped like a wide lima bean. At one “end” of the bean, there was a two-story white country house complete with a wraparound porch, the paint flaking on some of the planks. It stood on a bit of a rise.
“This is beautiful.”
Cleo smiled, the light catching her eyes. She was radiant. Al’s heart pounded. For what it’s worth, hers did too. Not quite for the same reason. “Roll down your window.”
Al did, though he knew the cicada’s song would drive him mad. Then it didn’t.
This glade was silent. Al looked at Cleo like lightning had struck his truck.
She shrugged, a smile playing at the corners of her mouth. “It’s a bit of magic.”
“Shit, I’d say so. It’s dead quiet here.”
“Yeah, I love it. C’mon. Let’s get on to the house.”
“You got it .” Al paused, seeing that Cleo hadn’t turned away. “What?”
She was looking at him closely, peering almost. She put a hand on his leg. “You’re real sweet. Real honest.”
“I try to be…” he said as confidently as he could. What could he say? She made it easy to be that way? Like he didn’t have to pretend to be so macho or like he had everything together or that of late he stayed up and stared at the motel ceiling, wondering if he should go on or not. It wasn’t the time to have that conversation. It was a different time. Their heads were close. Her lips, not far. Those eyes, drawing him in, like they went on forever into her mind and on and on and deeper. Time to kiss her, right?
Don’t rush things, Al thought. He’d done that before. Shit, with a girl like Cleo, how many others had done the same? Bourbon, music, her smile, enchanted him.
Ain’t nobody perfect, Al warned himself.
He grinned and pulled away, dying a little as he did, hoping he hadn’t ruined something by being too careful.
They toured the house. It was old. The house wasn’t even on a concrete foundation. Al got the feeling that they were doing a bit of a dance. Giddy love and bourbon were making them skittish. As Cleo showed Al the parlor, a room oddly filled with leaves and dirt, Al did a double-take. There wasn’t a floor, not at all, just a hollow maybe six feet down.
“What’s going on here?”
Cleo explained quickly, “Renovating. Thinking about putting in concrete floors. I hate how the wood creaks in the winter winds. Sounds like nails on a chalkboard. Scares me half to death.”
“That’s a modern look, for sure. Would concrete look good with the rest?” He didn’t know what to say. He wondered aloud if a little more alcohol might improve his nascent timidity.
She smiled, but not half as big as before. “I’ll make us some drinks. Meet ya on the porch.” It was like she read his mind. He smiled and allowed none of the relief he felt to show on his face. Outside, he reached for his smokes. He found none, of course.
“Shit.” Gum, then. He chewed through the flavor in two licks. “She’s acting differently. What the hell did I do wrong?”
Cleo stepped out and Al nodded at her stiffly. All the smoothness was gone. Where did it go? Where had it evaporated to? The suave cowboy he’d been at the bar had hung up his hat and put up his boots and now-
“Mint Julep Lemonade. Personal recipe. Learned it awhile back.”
“Thank you, Cleo.” They stood there, quietly sipping their drinks. “Mind if we sit?”
“Yeah, here, around the corner’s the best view.”
Two rocking chairs waited for a couple of love-drunk people if they could be found. Al settled in, happy to avoid Cleo’s eyes. He took a sip and smacked his lips. Tart drink. Heavy on the bourbon. “How long have you held this land?”
“Oh, generations,” Cleo answered wistfully. “Longer’n America, certainly.”
“How so?”
“My blood’s always been here, in one form or another. The world around always changes, but this glade remains itself. As do I. As do we all, I guess.”
Al sipped and nodded. Nodded and sipped. The quiet persisted over the grasses, waving in the wind and looking like simmering oil, or shimmering metal. Reminded him of timelessness, somehow.
Al cleared his throat. “Listen, about, you know, almost kissing.” He couldn’t look her in the eye. “I’m not that forward. Not my style.” She watched him. It urged him onward, and he sort of let it all out. “I get scared, you know? Most men would jump off a cliff to even talk to someone like you. But me? I’d let them jump. I’m just not that type of guy. I don’t need to jump to, you know, the physical stuff.”
She didn’t answer, persisting only in her watchfulness. The wind tossed her hair lightly.
“ I…Shit. I messed it all up. I shoulda kissed you. I—”
“Stop, Al.” He clapped his jaw shut, sipped his drink. A breeze came through, stirring the humid air. Cleo let the wind speak to her, even tilting her ear to it. She sighed. “It’s strange. To not be expected to just get on with it, I guess. Threw me off. Most men I bring just get it over quick. But your fear…your caution. It’s respect. I ‘preciate it. It saved you, to be sure.”
“Saved me?” From sheer embarrassment? From ruining what this was?
Cleo put her glass down, got up from her chair, and offered a hand. “Let’s try that kiss. You have my permission. ”
Al was shocked. Was this…? No. Enough wondering. Enough questioning. He briefly considered slapping, pinching, and biting himself. He settled for downing the drink. It burned. It burned and fired him up and…
He coughed and said, “Just to be clear, the kiss…and?”
“Yes, and.”
Their eyes locked. They’d found it again, that delicious magnetism. They pulled it taught, pulled themselves toward each other until they met body to body, lips to lips. Equal force enough that Al bit his lip. He flinched away and laughed. Cleo laughed too.
Al demurred. “A bit….”
“Fast?” Cleo said.
“Yeah. But, again?”
Their eyes locked. They’d found it again, that delicious magnetism. They pulled it taught, pulled themselves toward each other until they met body to body, face to face. Equal force enough that Al bit his lip. He flinched away and laughed. Cleo laughed too.
Al demurred. “A bit….”
“Fast?” Cleo said.
“Yeah. But, again?”
They kissed more gently, like caressing the petals of a tulip. Al wrapped his arms around her and they leaned against the porch wall, the heat rising in that simmering afternoon. They were hot as the air, hotter. The buzzing, buzzing, buzzing, rising and falling. Was that song in his head or outside of him?
An urgency called desire pounced.
They made a stumbled entry into Cleo’s home; a shirt dropping here, jeans there, two pairs of boots. Al hadn’t felt like this before. Not for some time. A pause, a panic. Al, going back for the wallet, making sure he had… Shit. Maybe I should ask…
He looked at her halfway up the stairs, mostly naked. His heart pounded.
He said, “Any…you know, ‘no-nos’ or?”
She laughed. “Get up here!”
He smiled. She smiled. Bare feet raced up creaking stairs, lovers giving chase. Their footsteps soften on a long hallway rug. When had Al last felt so safe in his own skin?
They reached a doorway at the end of the hall. They smiled and went through.
The cicadas were calling through the glade, their vibrations reaching through the air, touching everything, delving deeper and deeper, even into the frames of that old house down to its bones. Something was awakened. Something was released. Two beings were awakened and freed and changed by the touch of skin, that oldest of remedies oft-replaced for cheaper things.
Something had changed indeed.
Darkness. An aching head. A dry tongue.
“Ah…shit.” Al sat up. “Cleo?”
Not in the bed. Not in the room.
“My head…” It was ringing. Buzzing. “Those goddamn bugs… Don’t they only sing during the day?”
“Yes,” Cleo said. Her voice sounded clear but oddly distant.
“Cleo? Where are ya?”
Silence. Except for the cicadas. He sat up and put his feet on the floor. A leathery material met his soles. A leather rug? Weird. Hadn’t noticed that, but Al hadn’t been particularly focused on decor before.
“Light…” he groaned. He found a lamp on the bedside table. Didn’t work, but he found water. He drank. It was stale and dusty, for some reason, but his throat was salved. His head cleared a little, restoring higher cognition. “How long did I sleep?”
“Long enough.”
“Cleo, are you playing hide and seek?” He rubbed crusts out of his eyes and looked at his feet.
Cleo’s face was there between his feet.
“Jesus!” He almost jumped out of his own skin. He was on top of the bed, staring at the thing. “Cleo? What the hell is this?” Nothing. “Cleo!?”
He jumped over it and went to the window, pulled away the dusty curtains to look at the thing on the ground. It looked like Cleo, to be sure, but on second glance, more like an empty sack made in her likeness.
The more he looked at that naked, deflated skin bag the more queasy he got. Was this part of some fetish? Some sex thing Al hadn’t signed up for?
“I’m getting kinda weirded out here….”
“I’m waiting.”
“But where are you? Your body’s…here?”
Al was ready to jet. He hadn’t meant this to be a one-night stand, but if this got any weirder…
He said, “I’m not a judgmental person. I met plenty of people into--uh--unique things. It’s just not my thing.” He racked his brain. “Maybe we can have some coffee and talk about this?”
No response. The cicadas sang at a higher pitch for a moment before dropping off. The cup on the table shook so hard from the sound it fell before Al could catch it. Water dumped over the Cleo-thing, dripping and pooling like it would on skin.
Al looked away and decided he should find his pants and get the hell out of dodge.
“Levi’s are downstairs, I reckon.” He didn’t relish the thought of leaving the semblance of safety he had in the room, but there wasn’t any way in hell he could stay up here.
Old wood creaked. Groaned. Every step. The house wasn’t the same as before. The walls! Had they been so moldy, so decrepit? Had the furniture been so eaten and musty? Another bedroom. Had that been there before?
He cracked it open. A copy, almost, of the one he’d left. Another bed. Another set of strewn-about clothes. Another sack of skin, and…Bones. Bones on the bed. Cast in the forge of the falling sun.
How much time before dark?
“I gotta get out…I gotta leave,” Al uttered and slammed the door. Where were the stairs? How had he gotten so turned around? Had he been roofied? Drugged? Or just too drunk to function? Ah, right, they’d gone to the bedroom at the end of the hall. Stairs were to his left, then. He walked slowly in the half darkness until he reached them. He took the stairs slowly, trying to peer around the bend. Found his jeans on the bottom step. Keys and wallet still in there. Nothing missing, except his underwear. He looked around for Cleo, or, rather for what had potentially used her skin..
Nothing. Nobody. Sunset on pale walls. Chair rail scuffed and decrepit. Soil and dirt and what looked like half-eaten roots everywhere. This wasn’t the same house. Couldn’t be!
Al rasped, “Where the hell am I?”
“Come to me.”
“Where the hell are you, Cleo?”
“The parlor.”
He crept forward, down the narrow hall, finding drippings of something organic and moist on the walls and floor, leading to the parlor. Across from it, the way to the kitchen. Perpendicular to both rooms, a screen door that led to freedom. The cicada song was sharp as glass in his ears.
He ran. Threw open the screen door. Stomped down the stairs and dashed out into the grass, his jeans barely hanging on—his mom always told him his skinny ass wouldn’t hold up pants without a belt—when he remembered his truck was on the other side of the house. He screeched to a halt.
“Shit!”
“Al. Come to me.”
He answered, “How the hell are you speaking? You’re body’s on the floor! Is that not you?!”
“Come. To. Me.”
The world flipped. Al’s stomach turned with his body. His body was flipping. The glade, the fiery sky, the rotting ranch house, all spinning. And then he was back inside the house, the parlor specifically, thrown onto a dirt floor. The vertigo struck him from toes to top, making him retch violently. Bourbon. Lemonade. More bourbon. French fries?
He remarked, “Don’t remember those.”
“Alphonse.”
He wiped his mouth, knowing that this was something weird and wrong. “I was outside. Now I’m inside, ” he said without looking up. “You’re not Cleo.”
“Look at me.”
He sighed. He knew he wouldn’t be able to go anywhere. Whatever powers were at work here, they wouldn’t let him go.
“All right. I’m not running”
His head led his eyes. Before him was the end of something, a tail or some such. A segment, rather. Bristling with sharp hairs, long as his fingers. Another segment attached to it, and another, and another. All of them pulsing, wriggling with hidden spasms, thick as the two-hundred-year-old oak tree outside his childhood home. He kept raising his head.
More segments. A dripping fluid. A leg—two legs, no, six! More than there should be for any creature this size—but did Al know of any creatures this size that weren’t mammals? They didn’t exist. Shouldn’t. Now he saw broader segments covered by transparent, folded structures. Wings!
And at the head of it all, this beast, this thing that trailed from the ground and up the wall and clung to the high ceiling, were jaws and mandibles and four sets of human eyes. The call of cicadas rang louder and louder, like a scream the size of a world. Al laughed, at first. The shock was too much.
“Al,” it intoned without a mouth, without teeth or tongue. “I told you that you had saved yourself.”
He laughed some more. “You sound like Cleo.”
“I am. And I am not.”
“Who--what in the hell am I looking at?”
“I was here long before the age of humans.”
“So, you’re a…a…cicada?”
“Correct.”
“Okay, well—”
“You do not need to understand more than what you see.” The thing with Cleo’s voice detached from the ceiling. He stood as still-human eyes—Cleo’s eyes—leveled with his. He was ready to run, to bolt and throw caution to the wind. It betrayed his every instinct to stand there. Then, that segmented abdomen slithered around him. No way out. Those great mandibles clacked against each other—tock, tock—like an old grandfather clock counting down. Its body hissed as it inhaled and exhaled, bestowing upon the human a perfume that reeked of ancient undergrowth and fresh spring all at once, of things that died only to be reborn, and yet others Al had no name for and never would.
Subscribed
Al’s eyes bore into Cleo’s. The woman he met that morning. A lifetime ago.
Al was trapped with this thing. No way out. His brain chugged through the bourbon strain, trying to put the pieces together. What was it that happened to real cicadas? They crawled out of the earth. They molted. They mated. And then laid eggs to begin the cycle again.
Which stage was Al part of?
“The bones,” Al said. He paled. “Look, I wasn’t ever interested in just…”
“Al, I know you. I know you through footsteps and vibrations. I know you through light you cannot see and sounds you cannot hear.” It broke eye contact. “I cannot bring myself to complete the cycle. You are genuine. Many a human I have engaged who wanted nothing more than to…conquer.”
“Well…shit.” He laughed once. “Call me lucky…”
“No. You are good. You are good and you may go. But quickly! Quickly…Alphonseeeeeeeee.” A rumbling ensued inside the cicada’s body. Those eyes, those deep brown pools, blinked, were replaced by completely white eyes bloodshot through. They were turning red. Her segmented body opened up a way through.
Al leaped through the window, glass crashing and piercing him as he rolled. He yelped and shouted like a dog, got his feet under him, and made for his truck.
The sun was going down, the shadows long and reaching and menacing
The truck wouldn’t start.
“Oh, come on. Please.” A false start. A shudder from the engine. The house behind him was shivering, shaking, groaning. Wood was flying off the sides, shingles sliding down and pattering the earth. A great groan overtook the scintillating whir of the cicadas and became a new call, a new song that heralded a great change.
“Oaaaaaaaaaaaaahhhhhhhhhsssssss.”
The hiss at the end told Al all he needed to know. Cleo was gone, given over to the undying cycle of the glade.
The truck wouldn’t start.
“Aw, hell.” He popped it into neutral. The rise that the house sat on let him get the truck rolling. He pushed it. His ass hung half-out, his cheeks bared to the rising moon.
The engine turned over just as the entire house exploded behind him.
“God almighty!” He raced against the last of the light, dying as he would die: slowly and limned in red. His truck shook and rumbled, and not from the engine.
Dirt clods and bundles of grass burst toward his truck in a wake of destruction, its epicenter a hulking, leaping mass; red-eyed, mandibles opening wider in a grin of hunger. Its wings were fluttering out, pushing it on with increasing speed.
He looked forward. Where was the road? Where? There! He steered toward the thin gap that marked his escape route.
He screamed, “Come on! Come on!”
Al flicked on his headlights, illuminating the way out of the glade. The only way. A maw of life before, one of death behind. Those red eyes were so bright now he could see the glow on his dash. He pissed himself.
“Make it stop,” he begged, his heart pounding hard enough to hear over that stupid, horrible, insane cicada song. “Goddamn, that noise!”
A slavering set of chitinous jaws. A song that rippled across his skin. A woman, a beautiful woman who was true to him even when she changed…had she even been real?
His eyes flicked to the mirror. And then he was through.
He didn’t pump the brakes like he should have. He nicked the corner of his truck on trunks and bushes, skidded out sideways, and smashed the vehicle into an old tree. He smashed his head against the glass, making his head spin. Dizzy, delirious, he looked back. A curtain of twilight had embraced that old place, from the boughs above to the roots below. A tunnel out to the glade was still apparent, though it was fading fast. A great, steaming, horrible mass lingered. As the sun died, two sets of red eyes floated, it seemed, attached to that mass.
Al breathed. He waited. His mind cleared. The eyes returned his patience in kind. Al, in an act that would dumbfound him forever, got out of the car.
He stood there, shirtless, bleeding from a temple, swaying slightly from the dizziness. He wanted to look this timeless, hungry beast in its eyes and respect it for what it gave him: a chance, even though he was but a blink in its eternity. Even though he was just meat and a source of genetic material.
An age. A lifetime. An eon passed.
The eyes moved on, dragging their body with it, singing that song that Al would never forget, never shake. The ruler of this ancient place would lay its eggs and die and be reborn, as it has done since it ruled this forest. In some time, another mate would be needed.
Al felt the weight of his survival like a barbell dropped on his chest. He sat in the dirt. He coughed. He laughed. He blubbered. His face spewed snot and tears. He couldn’t believe it. He’d met, did the nasty with, and escaped something beyond his comprehension.
Al’s crying turned into laughter. Cackling. A broken staccato of choked, impossible humor.
“She…swiped right on me. That thing!”
He laughed and laughed, only stopping when his body started shivering. Night’s coolness had descended, breaking the heavy heat of the day. Al stood, his gaze unwavering from the glade. He got in his truck, the door creaking closed, breaking the near-stillness around him. Crickets chirped. An owl hooted, then left its branch in a silent swoop. Night was all around. Al listened to it all, expecting to hear a roar, a thunderous chase. But nothing. Here he was, a human who had survived a thing he could tell no one, and yet…And yet…
He wondered what it would have been like, to be eaten alive. A strange thought.
Putting the truck in gear was no trouble. Driving it straight wasn’t either, despite crashing into a tree. The trouble was driving away at all. He kept looking into that rearview mirror, hoping to see those red eyes. He’d felt so alive and more in tune with instinct than anything else. Returning to normal life, hell, returning to the motel didn’t seem as real as that monster, or Cleo, for that matter.
How could he go back to that life, now?
He applied the brake and pulled his truck to a stop and turned around in his seat. His tired eyes bored into that wooded corridor with an empty ache, a forbidden sort of longing emerging from deep inside him. His shaking hand went to the key in the ignition. The truck’s lights went out.
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