Cry of the Cicada (Short) Read online

Cry of the Cicada

  By Rebecca Brae

  Copyright © 2010, BraeVitae Inc.

  Table of Contents

  Wolfe Residence. Wednesday, July 2 – 23:37

  Wolfe Residence. Thursday, July 3 - 04:22

  Base Camp. Friday, July 4 - 06:46

  Forest. Friday, July 4 - 11:03

  Wasteland. Friday, July 4 - 11:24

  Wasteland. Friday, July 4 - 13:28

  Base Camp. Friday, July 4 - 20:42

  Base Camp. Saturday, July 5 - 01:14

  Gravel Road. Saturday, July 5 - 02:29

  Base Camp. Saturday, July 5 - 05:15

  Forest Near Base Camp. Saturday, July 5 - 05:34

  Gravel Road. Saturday, July 5 - 05:39

  Base Camp. Saturday, July 5 - 05:40

  Base Camp. Saturday, July 5 - 11:10

  About the Author

  Chaos Bound (Mist Warden #1)

  Wolfe Residence. July 10 – 23:37

  Kate Wolfe sat cross-legged on her bed, besieged by a legion of rumpled papers. The soft hiss of her television barely impinged on her consciousness as she searched through the piles.

  She pulled her glasses off and rubbed her dry eyes. “Where the hell is the chem-sys analysis for subject 5?" She shuffled through the pages for the third time and growled as a few slid onto the floor. "Come on. It has to be here. I just saw it. FUCK!"

  "Mom, you said a baaaaaaad word...I heard it," accused Kate's eight-year-old daughter who had been skulking in the hall. "I'm gonna tell grandma. She's your mom, so she can tell you off when you do naughty things."

  Kate jerked in surprise. "Sasha! Don't scare me like that! And what did I tell you about eavesdropping?"

  “It’s rude.” Looking slightly guilty, but not at all sorry, she slid into the room and leapt onto the bed. Papers scattered everywhere like leaves in an autumn breeze. "Boy mom, you think my room is messy. Yours is way worse. You doing homework?"

  "Trying to," Kate said, gathering the renegade pages.

  "Mom?"

  "Yes? Hey, wait a minute. What are you doing up? Your bed time was..." Kate checked her watch. "Wow, over three hours ago. Have I been working that long? I think it's time for me to catch a few winks too." She yawned and shoved her laptop onto the bedside table.

  Sasha frowned down at her hands. "I had a bad dream. There was this tree and it was alive and it chased me and I couldn’t get away." She squeezed her eyes shut. "Sorry...it was just...stupid I guess..." She examined her slippered feet with the intensity of someone eyeing a scorpion.

  Kate pounced on her daughter and gave her a thorough tickling. After Sasha had giggled enough to leave a grin on her face, Kate said, "Sash, it’s okay to have bad dreams. Everybody has them. Even big things like fearless, old Jake have nightmares."

  They both giggled as their geriatric German Shepherd woofed in his sleep and twitched his legs.

  Obviously declaring victory over another fiendish monster-cat, he gave a mighty bark and jerked awake. He nervously scanned the room, looking for the monster whose bestial bellow had woken him. Surprised to find his two roommates so rudely staring, he gave a 'huff' of annoyance and settled his head back onto his paws.

  Kate put an arm around Sasha and kissed her forehead. "All right sweetheart, why don't you sleep with me tonight? I’m going to watch the news, so try to get to sleep quickly or it’ll give you worse dreams. Plus, you have to get up early tomorrow for science camp. And I will kick you out of bed," Kate threatened as she pulled the blankets over Sasha and tweaked her nose.

  Sasha contentedly snuggled down and murmured, “K mom, I'll try," but her eyes drooped closed before she finished speaking and her last word was not more than a sigh.

  Propping herself up on her pillows, Kate flicked though the channels and eventually found the late news. A war had broken out in Rwanda and refugees were pouring out of the country, trying to find a safe haven; an oil spill in the Pacific was being cleaned up by some new clotting agent; the government was announcing more cutbacks in health care and education...”

  One report caught her attention. A newscaster with ruby lips bent into a frozen smile chirpily notified viewers that there was a new form of seventeen-year locust, or Cicada, decimating a forest in Florida. Authorities were also investigating the report of an attack on a herd of cattle near the park’s northern border.

  "Locusts my ass. Can't you people get anything right?” Kate scowled at the television. “A basic web search would have told you that Cicada aren't grasshoppers." As an Entomologist, she couldn’t help taking it personally. The lack of accurate information in the news, especially when it came to science related issues, was disgusting.

  But it does sound interesting, providing they got any details right.

  She turned the television off and pulled up her covers. Every once in a while, there was a particularly prolific brood capable of wiping out whole fruit orchards, but she’d never heard about them being aggressive toward animals.

  Adult Cicada were short-lived and their activities revolved exclusively around procreation. After mating, females cut holes in tree bark, laid several hundred eggs, and then died. The nymphs would hatch, drop from the tree, and burrow into the ground to feed on roots for most of their seventeen-year life. Driven by unfailing instinct, they surfaced when the time was right, matured, and restarted the cycle.

  Kate had always been in awe of how consistently purposeful, exacting, and devoid of nonessentials the insect world was. They were perfect little biological robots, programmed to make room for the next generation.

  What would it be like…spending seventeen years digging in the shadowed earth, completing a grueling pilgrimage from my burrow into the mysterious branches of a tree, suddenly sprouting wings, and flying into a brilliant sky…and then I quickly mate, lay eggs, and die. Dead before even getting used to my new wings, before seeing my children.

  Kate curled an arm around Sasha and held her close. Shortly, her snores joined Sasha and Jake’s.

  Wolfe Residence. July 11 - 04:22

  The incessant shrill of a phone jerked Kate out of a rather pleasant dream involving whipped cream, chocolate sauce, and a lot of cheesecake.

  “What?” She growled into the receiver, hoping to scare off whoever had interrupted her sleep.

  “Uh, hello? Ms. Wolfe? It’s Dr. Basil…”

  Kate’s sluggish mind tried to place the woman’s voice but kept drifting off into thoughts of rich, piping hot Italian food. She made a mental note not to skip a meal again.

  The woman on the phone waited a few seconds and when no response came, she continued. “Marilyn Basil. ND Enterprises. The one who signs your cheques.”

  Kate cringed. “Oh! Sorry, Dr. Basil. I didn’t…I mean, had I realized it was you.” Less than three months on the leading biotech firm’s contractor list and she was already impressing the higher-ups.

  “It’s all right,” said Dr. Basil. “I don’t usually call people at this hour, so we’re even. That having been said, I do have a good reason. I was impressed with your work on the Utah gypsy moth infestation. So, I want you to have first dibs on what could be a very interesting project. Did you see the news last night?”

  “Most of it.”

  “Good, then you probably heard about the Cicada problem in Florida. Some government officials finally got off their asses and did a fly-by. Surprise, surprise, turns out it’s much worse than they thought. The media has agreed to keep a lid on it for now, but we’ve been contracted by the Department of Agriculture to develop a targeted pesticide...before the scope of the issue is reported to the general public. Considering the adults will only be around for five weeks, we want you down there right away. What do you say?”

  “I
really appreciate the offer.” Kate yawned and struggled to sit up. “But, I don’t think I’m available. My daughter stays with my mom when I’m out of town, and she’s in Hawaii for the month.”

  After a brief pause, Dr. Basil offered, “Take her with you. There’s a generous budget on this one and the access roads are decent enough to transport trailers to the base camp, so your accommodations will be comfortable. I’ll hire a camp leader who can double as a nanny. We need the data collected and samples sent back to our lab within the week, so you shouldn’t have to be there long. You could even head over to Disney World after. I took my family last year and we barely managed to pry the kids away from the park.”

  “I’ll need to talk it over with Sasha. Can I get back to you in about an hour?”

  “No problem. If you accept, we’ll get you tickets on the earliest possible flight.”

  “Sounds great. I don’t think there’ll be any complaints from the daughter department. She’s always begging me to take her to the lab, so she'll be more than thrilled to come out in the field.”

  After saying goodbye, Kate gratefully sank back onto her pillow, her mind already planning what they would need for the trip.

  Base Camp. July 13 - 06:46

  "Sasha, I don't want you to come on today's hike. And don't look at me like that." Kate warned.

  Sasha pursed her lips and fixed pleading eyes on her mother. "But you know I can keep up with you."

  “You are staying here with Melanie. That's final. Besides, it’s not you keeping up that I’m worried about. I don't think Melanie can keep track