Status: Lost muse with this story.

Here Comes the Boom

When The Cicadas Stop Crying

Jason stretched lazily on the love seat, watching the news with haphazard intrigue while his mother and father chattered away. North Korea was threatening South Korea, gay rights were being discussed in court, blah, blah, blah. It was nothing he hadn't heard before. Running a hand through his messy hair, he looked over at the window. His brother was long gone from the yard, probably tapping on a tree in the woods with his drum sticks. The thought made him grin from ear to ear. Turning back to the television, he yawned.

His mother was suddenly interested in what the broadcaster had to say and turned up the volume.

"We've just received word that the patients being quarantined here have somehow managed to escape, causing worry of a virus pandemic. The patients exhibit symptoms including but not limited to: slowness, drooling, vomiting blood, rotting skin, putrid smell, and worse yet, a taste for human flesh.

If you see anyone who is showing any of these symptoms, please stay very far away, it has been tested that anyone bitten by these people will develop the disease as well.

What-- oh, goodness, we just received news that all workers at the accident site have in fact been infected..."

Jason starred at the television in disbelief. Soon, he heard the frantic screaming of the people outside. Without a second glance to his parents, he ran out the door as fast as he could with one thing on his mind. Find Frankie.

Jason bolted through the thick foliage, listening for tapping or humming that he could claim to be Frankie. His mind was running in a million different directions-- fear, disbelief, denial, fascination. Dodging a patch of briers, he stumbled over the root of an old oak tree, almost falling. Finding his balance, her stopped and listened, trying to rationalize the situation.

The quarantined site was less than two miles from their home. Though the undead were slow, they weren't slow enough to not hobble all the way over to the forest that lied behind their home. They had played in this woods, climbed the trees in this woods, swam in the stream. Never once had he been afraid of the shifting shadows or the creaking of cicadas.

Suddenly, he realized that for the first time in his life, he was terrified of this forest that had been a home to him in his childhood years.

He strained his ears to listen for something, anything, a sign that Frankie was alive. The more he listen the more he realized it was quiet, too quiet. Even the cicadas weren't creaking.
He walked numbly and blindly through the forest, tripping over roots and stomping through brier patches. When all the sudden he heard a shout from behind a large bush,

"Get away from me you smelly freak!" was all he heard before a sickening crack rang through the silence. Jumping over the bush he found his brother, pants down and covered in zombie gunk.

Jason huffed with relief, short-lived. The creature groaned, sending chills down his spine. Rising up slowly from the ground, the thing's jaw hung limply from the hinges it hung on, thin flaps of skin keeping it from peeling off. Patches of skin were missing, blood and fragments of bone and teeth were covering his clothes. Groaning, he moved in towards Frankie again.
Jason roared, pushing Frankie behind him.

"Your drum sticks! Give me your drum sticks! The broken one!"

Frankie hurriedly threw his drumstick at his older brother trying not to hit him. Grabbing the drumstick, Jason charged forward, stabbing the drumstick deep into the creature's forehead.

Clotted blood spurted limply onto his clothes and face, making him want to vomit. The smell was truly terrible. The nimble piece of wood creaked beneath his fingers, the strain of being used to puncture bone and brain matter almost too much. Behind him, Frankie watched with horror as the zombie slumped to the ground, his temple decimated. His brother retracted the stick, brain matter and clotted jelly of blood falling off.

Stumbling back, Jason looked down at the twitching corpse on the ground. It was a scene from movies he'd watched with his brother too many times. His eyes rolled back into its shattered skull, its fingers curling idly as the last of the neurons in his vacant head fired down to it's body. The cicadas remained quiet, fearful.

His mama had always told him when the cicadas ceased to cry, bad things would happen.