Terry sliced the shovel blade into the earth, just beneath the pile of yellow-speckled plop. He lifted the mess and deposited it into the sack. He cleared one area and advanced to the next, bringing the bag with him.

  Hacking into the dirt, the shovel blade cut into a handful of the little yellow pods. He paused for a moment, watching as something black oozed out of the yellow. At first, it appeared to be tiny seeds, but then the seeds lifted and became bugs, accompanied by a startling, aggressive humming.

  Terry instinctively swatted at them with his free hand, as if fending off flies.

  Then the buzzing grew louder. He witnessed a swirl of black insects also rising from the paper sack.

  He stumbled backward, dropping the shovel. He waved his arms and cursed. The bugs formed dense black clouds. What is this? Do they bite?

  They looked like gnats.

  Then Terry witnessed more spinning black clouds lifting from other areas of his lawn.

  Holy criminy, it’s a swarm.

  Terry decided to retreat inside the house. He was certain he had some insect repellent, and he would blast this nuisance into submission.

  However, as he quickly marched for his front door, the insects followed. They zeroed in on him, unifying into one big, black force. The buzzing intensified into an ugly, jagged audio assault. The noise entered Terry’s ears, followed by the bugs.

  They infested his inner ears, his nostrils, and his open mouth. They attacked the rims of his eyes.

  Terry’s view of his front door, just ten feet away, deteriorated as black specks overtook his vision.

  Terry screamed, once.

  Then the insects filled his throat.

  Gagging violently, he stumbled into the door and groped for the handle. He found it and shoved the door open.

  Terry fell inside the house, kicking the door shut behind him. Shaking uncontrollably on his hands and knees, he coughed up a black bile. The vomit sputtered between his lips in elastic, phlegm-like gobs, carrying little black particles. He wiped the substance from his mouth and chin.

  His senses began to clear, and he tore at his clothes. He pulled off his shirt and pants, which were still spotted with clinging insects. He shoved them in the corner, quickly joined by his socks and underpants.

  Blue watched curiously from across the room.

  Naked, Terry gathered the clothes and quickly carried them to his fireplace. He tossed them on the crusty steel grate.

  “You little buggy bastards.”

  Terry squeezed a can of lighter fluid on his clothes and drenched the black insects that stubbornly remained dug into the fabric. He opened the flue and ignited the pile with a handheld fireplace lighter with a red handle. An immediate ball of flames illuminated the room.

  Terry mopped up his vomit with old dish towels and tossed them into the fire.

  Watching everything shrivel, blacken and burn, he began to breathe more freely and feel under control again.

  “I was attacked, boy,” he told Blue, who sat on his hind legs, attentive and staying away from the fireplace.

  Terry examined his arms and legs. They still itched with the memory of crawling bugs. He didn’t see any lingering signs of them on his flesh. He didn’t observe any unusual aberrations – no red welts or bumps from bites or scratches.

  He waited until everything had burned to ash. Then he extinguished the flames. He didn’t see a single bug.

  He walked over to the front window overlooking his yard. He didn’t see any hovering clouds of insects. Perhaps they had moved on? He pulled away from the window, realizing he was standing stark naked in plain view, probably not a good idea.

  “Blue, I’m going to shower.”

  Terry entered his bathroom, reached into the shower and twisted the knob to release a blast of hot water.

  He showered his wiry body for a good fifteen minutes with multiple applications of soap. He vigorously shampooed his thinned hair. He couldn’t escape the sensation of those tiny gnat things covering his face and body.

  What the hell were they?

  He had never seen anything like it before, and he was well-versed in the insects and critters of Indiana, having lived in the state his whole life with a lot of time spent outdoors during his years in gas distribution.

  After showering, he toweled off and got dressed in fresh clothes. He returned to the fireplace with a paper sack. He scooped the ashes and dumped them inside. Then he deposited the sack in a plastic trash bag and pulled the drawstrings tight. He brought the bag to a door at the side of his house, peered out the pane glass and did not see any airborne black spots. He quickly opened the door and dumped the trash bag near his garbage cans, then quickly scurried back into the house and shut the door. He dreaded the return of the swarm, buzzing and attacking like an angry nest of amplified bees.

  All was silent.

  Terry walked around the inside of his house, on the lookout for any stray insects climbing his walls or flying in his space. He found none. He stared through every window and didn’t see a single dancing bug over his yard.

  Blue followed him from room to room, tail wagging, oblivious.

  Finally, Terry went to the kitchen sink, filled a tall glass of water and gulped it down. He feared he had swallowed a considerable number of the bugs. He wanted to flush the damn vermin out of his system. Some of them had already been vomited up, but he feared not all of them.

  His stomach twitched just thinking about it.

  Terry entered his den and plopped in his favorite chair in front of the television. He lifted the remote and skated across a few channels until he landed on a ball game. Blue curled up on the floor at his feet.

  After an inning of baseball, the broadcast turned fuzzy. He couldn’t remember the name of the teams or their cities. The score became abstract. The announcers sounded thick and sluggish.

  Terry got the chills. He was freezing on the inside, feeling a hardening of his bones, while his skin perspired with fever.

  “I gotta call Dr. Carlson,” he said, rising from his chair. He advanced two steps and then crashed to the floor, without pain. His entire body felt numb and foreign. He squirmed and wiggled to sit up and return to his feet.

  “This is bad,” he said.

  Terry entered his living room, where he still had an old-fashioned landline telephone. He owned a cell phone but couldn’t remember where he had left it and rarely used it anyway, sticking to the familiarity of a simple touch-tone phone that had been a reliable presence in his life for nearly forty years.

  He reached for the phone but only grazed it with his fingertips before collapsing again to the floor.

  Unlike before, he could not get back up. His limbs became useless rubber. His stomach seized up with terrible pain. He gasped for air. His entire body felt angry and aflame.

  Terry lost complete control over his physical movements. He began to vibrate, as if crackling with electricity. He became consumed with an overwhelming nausea. Every ounce of his being wanted to throw up, as if he had digested something very, very poisonous.

  Terry experienced a rising bulge travel up his torso from his intestines to his chest to his esophagus. It blocked his airway, and he couldn’t breathe. His eyes bulged. His vibrations intensified, flopping him like a fish out of water. His back arched unnaturally as his vision became blurred and distorted. He opened his mouth wide.

  Terry vomited violently, expelling his inner being.

  His eyes squeezed shut, and when they opened again, he was staring into his own ghastly face. How was that possible? He witnessed up close the grotesque, frozen expression of terror he was feeling inside. His lips stretched wide, stuck in a hideous grimace.

  Like a camera moving in reverse, Terry’s perspective of his own face slowly pulled back to take in more of the living room. It took him a moment to realize he was lifting up and staring down. His physical identity remained frozen on the floor, on its back, as Terry’s point of view elevated to watch himself from the ceiling.

  He tried to cry out and only emitted a thin, desperate squeak.

  Blue began barking. He circled Terry’s stiffened form on the floor and lifted his nose to sniff the air. He sensed something was wrong.

  Terry watched helplessly, a floating cloud of consciousness above his own body.

  Am I dead? Did I have a heart attack? Is this my soul?

  He watched as Blue settled into a sitting position next to his owner, patiently waiting for him to wake up.

  Terry tried to direct his movements, and it seemed to have no effect. He floated delicately, like a balloon, at the mercy of random currents.

  All he could do was watch and think. He felt nothing, aside from the psychological horror that consumed him.

  Why can’t I just die in peace?

  He remained a passive, shapeless presence in the house, a silent witness as the sun outside began its descent, darkening the room.

  Blue wandered around a bit but always returned to Terry’s body, sniffing it, even licking its face at one point, without receiving a response.

  Twice the phone rang, and Terry was unable to answer it to beg for help from the caller. The ringing continued and then the caller gave up.

  He thought about his son, Jeff, and daughter-in-law, Marcie, who lived nearby. Surely they would check up on him, eventually?

  Who would take care of Blue?

  He wanted to cry simple tears, but even that was not possible.

  He thought about his deceased wife, Louise.

  If he was now dead, would he be reunited with her? Did she go through this same separation of body and spirit?

  As light drained from the house, he wanted to sleep. He craved unconsciousness. But he was not physically tired or physically anything.

  He settled into a bland state of invisible existence, a mere observer, as if watching the world’s most boring movie. Hours passed.

  Then, in the middle of the night, it suddenly wasn’t so boring anymore.

  In a sudden jolt of movement, the body of Terry Jenkins sat up.

  And Terry Jenkins watched it happen from across the room.

  Blue rushed over, tail wagging.

  Terry’s physical being stood up on his feet, blank faced, ignoring the dog.

  Blue sensed something was not right. The dog’s temperament turned from affectionate to suspicious. He began to growl.

  Terry’s physical form ignored the animal. It took slow, shuffling steps toward the front door. Blue followed, keeping a watchful distance, rigid with tension. Moving stiffly and without emotion, Terry’s body left the house like a sleepwalker. The door shut firmly, automatically relocking. Blue remained inside.

  Terry’s consciousness tried to comprehend this latest bizarre development.

  Where did I go?

  Blue returned to the living room. He paced anxious circles and finally settled down on the floor, ears still perked up, on alert for further happenings.

  Terry wished he could follow himself. Was he dead or not?

  He had lived a lifetime of normalcy in a small Indiana town, working a basic job at a local utility company, now widowed and retired, collecting model trains and following baseball, attending church on Sundays and keeping up with world events. He didn’t drink much, never tried dope, but here he was hallucinating something terrible.

  He was a good person, never in any trouble with the law, friendly with his neighbors, patient and calm. He was not deserving of some kind of divine punishment, like being pulled from his material presence and trapped against the ceiling while his body stalked off resembling a zombie in a horror flick.

  He tried again to call out to Blue, desperate for any kind of response to validate that he still existed.

  But the sounds Terry produced were small, easily ignored.

  Nevertheless, he kept trying.

  Finally, he produced a kind of moan that caused Blue to lift his head.

  Blue’s response filled Terry with a small blossoming of hope.

  I’m real.

  * * *

  Now a full day had passed, uneventfully, with nothing to do but reflect on all the strange events that led him here.

  Daylight had returned to the house.

  Blue had finished the remaining food and water in his bowls and needed replenishment. He also needed to go out. It was possible he had already relieved himself somewhere in the house. Terry had no way of knowing.

  After hours of silence, Terry heard the sound of scuffling feet approach his front door on the concrete walkway.

  Blue hurried over, tail wagging.

  The doorbell chimed.

  Blue began barking, loud.

  Help, help, save me, I’m trapped, Terry tried to shout.

  But he only produced a small, guttural groan.

  Blue continued barking. The doorbell rang again.

  Then Terry heard voices on the other side: his son and daughter-in-law.

  It was hard to make out the words, but they were clearly wondering where he was, sounding worried. They switched from the doorbell to knocking on the door and trying the handle.

  Then he heard something that filled him with hope: “…go back and get my key.”

  Jeff had a spare key to his father’s house. It was rarely used, but he had one – it had been in his possession for a long time and came in handy many years ago, before Blue, when Terry and his wife Louise went on cruises and needed someone to check on the house, bring in the mail….

  Jeff and Marcie’s footsteps faded as they returned to their car. Terry heard the opening and closing of car doors, the start of an engine.

  Blue remained sitting by the door.

  Terry waited in fear and desperation for their return.

  Chapter Seven

  Greg and Susan met Eryn Swanson at the Riverwoods Campgrounds. The investigators had departed, leaving behind an intricate maze of yellow police tape roping off sections of the site, tightly wound across trees. The scene was desolate and frozen in time. Wind rustled the leaves and an occasional squirrel scampered around the tents and recreational vehicles.

  A gray sedan sat idle near the entrance, crashed into a large oak tree, having swerved off the main path.

  Eryn was a young and energetic reporter with short dark hair, inquisitive eyes and quick steps. She moved along the tape barrier, providing a succinct summary.

  “This is how the sheriff found it,” Eryn said. “At least seven people missing. They searched this whole area, all the trails. The state police are involved now. They spent the last day looking for clues.”

  Greg stepped closer to a stretch of yellow tape surrounding a camping vehicle.

  “Stay outside the tape,” Eryn said. “You don’t want to add your footprints. The investigators will be back.”

  “This,” said Greg, pointing.

  Susan joined him at his side.

  Greg pointed to a small mound of dirt, slightly darker in tone than the surrounding ground, speckled with split yellow eggs.

  “Those things again,” Susan said.

  Eryn joined them to see what they were looking at.

  Greg explained the sightings at his house and Susan’s brother’s house. He showed Eryn the pictures on his phone.

  “So what is it?” Eryn said.

  “We have no idea,” Greg said. “I’ve looked around the neighborhood. It’s not widespread. It only seems to appear at places where people disappear.”

  Susan walked the perimeter of the secured site. She discovered another cluster of yellow spots.

  Greg took more photos of the unexplained phenomena. Eryn followed him with curiosity. Susan remained several steps ahead of them, searching for additional evidence.

  “Check this one out,” she said.

  Greg and Eryn caught up with her.

  She pointed to a collection of yellow eggs that appeared plumper and luminescent. “These look different.”

  Greg leaned over the police tape, trying to get a closer look. “They are different,” he said. “They’re bigger, they’re not creased. It’s like…. They haven’t hatched yet.”

  “So there’s something still inside?” Susan pulled back with a grimace.

  Eryn stared at the small, slick bulbs. “That’s really strange.”

  “I’d love to know what the hell that is,” Greg said.

  “We can find out,” Eryn said. “I have a contact at the Indiana DNR, Department of Natural Resources. They have a division focused on plants and insects, invasive species. There’s a guy, his name escapes me, he’s an entomologist. They have offices in Indianapolis. I have an appointment in the city tomorrow for another story. You know, maybe I can….”

  Eryn turned away from the tape. She hurried over to her car, unlatched the door and leaned in. She brought out an orange-tinted, reusable plastic water bottle. She unscrewed the black cap and poured the water on the ground, jiggling the bottle to shake out the remaining drops.

  Then she returned to where Greg and Susan stood at the police tape barrier.

  “Okay, don’t tell anybody,” she said.

  Eryn ducked under the police tape and took a half dozen steps into the investigation scene. She reached the unhatched eggs and bent down with the open-mouthed water bottle. She scooped the eggs inside, using the black lid to push them.

  Once she had collected the eggs, she lifted the bottle and screwed on the cap.

  “We’ll have our answers tomorrow,” she said, ducking again under the tape, returning to Greg and Susan.

  Eryn searched the ground for a moment until she found a long stick. She picked it up and scraped away her footprint impressions in the dirt inside the investigation scene.

  “Wherever these campers are…it will also explain what happened to my brother,” said Susan, turning to Greg. “And your family.”

  “It’s all connected,” he said. “It’s got to be.”

  “This might not be the last of it,” Eryn said. “It could keep happening. It might be happening right now, somewhere else. They brought in the state police, and they could bring in the feds – there are vehicles here with out-of-state plates.”

 

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