I
The sun stood high in the sky, bathing the neighborhood in white light. Its heat was oppressive, but it was June in Florida, and that was to be expected. Morgan looked out from his flimsy lawn chair at the vast expanse of green below his feet. He was proud of his yard and spent significant portions of his income maintaining it. It was a showyard, one that people slowed down to admire when they drove through the neighborhood. He had spent most of that morning trimming the edges and laying out more fertilizer. Now, he watched with satisfaction as his brand-new sprinkler oscillated its spray in even swaths across his pride and joy.
Morgan reached below him to the small Igloo cooler that rested beneath the chair. Without looking, he flipped the lid open and grabbed one of the long-neck Budweisers that rested inside. He popped the cap and downed about a third of the beer in one gulp, following it up with a long belch. The sweat beads that were congregating above his brow bothered him little, so long as the beer in his mouth was cool and refreshing.
Behind him, Morgan could hear the screen door on the patio open. His wife, Helen, came out in a bathrobe, her hair wrapped in a matching towel.
"Are you ever going to get to the dishes, Morgan?" She said, walking up behind him.
"If I told you I'll get to 'em, then I'll get to 'em," Morgan replied, taking another sip of his beer.
"You're all talk and no action," Helen chuckled. "One day, I'm gonna up and leave you, and you ain't gonna do nuthin'. I'ma marry me a man with more money and bigger dick than you, and you're gonna sit here with your goddamn lawn happy as a clam."
"If you wanted a big dick and bigger bank account, why the hell did you marry me?" Morgan said, polishing off his beer.
"Because you told me you had both of those things!"
"You act like my dick isn't big," Morgan said, reaching beneath him to extract yet another beer. "It was plenty big enough for you. I don't know what changed."
"Just do the goddamn dishes, okay?"
"Whatever you say, honey."
Helen turned back towards the patio but was stopped by a strange chirping coming from nearby. Morgan heard it, too. It sounded as though it was in the distance, but its location was impossible to detect. The sound was new, something Morgan and Helen had never heard before, and it made them uneasy. "What the hell is that?" Helen asked.
"I don't know, Helen. Sounds like crickets."
"I ain't never heard no crickets that sound like that before."
"It ain't a katydid year, is it? I could'a sworn we just dealt with a whole mess of those guardian Katydids a few years back. Ain't we?"
"That ain't katydids," Helen said.
The chirping was growing louder. It seemed to be all around them and yet from no specific source. Helen walked to the edge of their yard and peeked over the picket fence that cordoned off their property from their neighbors. There was no sign of anything unusual. Children played in their backyards, in hoses and pools, or on dirty trampolines. Men stood by their barbecue grills, and their wives bathed in the sun. In other words, it was a typical Saturday in June.
Helen moved to the other side and peaked over into their next-door neighbor's yard. Sammy, a forty-something divorcee, was lying beside her pool, back to the sun, the straps of her bathing suit top undone.
"Can you hear that, Sammy?" Helen called out to the woman.
Sammy's head was lying face down on her crossed arms. When Helen spoke, Sammy did not move. Helen asked again and again, but Sammy remained motionless. Helen frowned and then returned to Morgan.
"What did she say?" Morgan asked, cupping his hand over his eyes to shield them from the sunlight.
"She's passed out, poor thing. Gonna wake up a lobster if she ain't careful."
"She's a sun bunny. I'm sure she did it on purpose."
The chirping was now incessant and all around them. The feeling of unease inside Morgan and Helen quickly grew to fear. The very ground beneath them seemed to be vibrating, though only slightly. They both knew in an instant that something was terribly wrong.
"We need to get back inside," Morgan said, rising slowly from his lawn chair.
They heard the scream first, then the sound of the ground ripping apart. Helen raced over to the fence line and looked over at Sammy. She was screaming in pain and horror as a monstrous insect mangled her leg in its giant mandibles. It had emerged from the ground right next to where she had lain, attacking her in an instant. The beast pinched his mandibles together again, and Sammy's plump and tanned leg tore away from her torso. The ravaged appendage fell into the mouth of the creature while the rest of Sammy lay in a bloody heap beside it. She screamed for help, but it was of no use. A second creature emerged from the ground before her, and together, the giant bugs ripped her body in half and manically dined on her flesh.
Helen watched this all happen in a matter of moments. Her eyes were so horrified by what she had just witnessed that she barely noticed the creature making its way out of her own lawn. It was roughly the size of a kayak, with legs that lifted it a few feet into the air and mandibles that resembled large machetes. When she saw the beast emerging from her yard, she screamed in horror and raced to the patio, ignoring Morgan entirely. He was frozen stiff in his chair, petrified with terror. Helen reached the sliding glass door and remembered her husband. She looked back in time to see his frozen form being eviscerated by the giant insect. There was no time to scream.
She raced inside, slamming the sliding glass door behind her and locking it. She turned and quickly rushed upstairs to Morgan's workout room. She peered through the blinds into the backyard and looked in horror as three of the giant insects tore at the remains of her husband. From what she could see of the other yards, her neighbors were in the grips of the same peril, their muffled screams slipping in and out of the incessant chirping. Her stunned mind could not fathom the enormity of the infestation before her.
Directly across from her backyard, she saw one of them beginning to crawl up the side of her neighbor's house. Soon, the others followed its lead, reaching the upstairs porch and its opened windows in no time. Helen stood motionless in shock and horror, beginning to realize she was trapped inside with no hope of escape.