Swarm

1

I see the butterfly before the rest of my class. I see it because I am absolutely not paying attention to Mr. Shephard’s droning lecture on some amendment or another. He teaches straight from the book, so there’s no reason for me to pay attention. And that’s dangerous for my anxiety, because my bladder is always like, Bored? Maybe we have to pee!

I’m staring out the window and jiggling my leg up and down. A group of kids are clumped together on the damp soccer field. They should be limbering up for gym class torture, but instead they are staring collectively at a point above the school. The gym teacher stares along with them, which is totally weird. I follow the general direction of their line of sight, tracing the route until I spot exactly what they’re seeing on the roof of the north wing of the school.

It’s a monstrously large butterfly. Butterflies are beautiful. Nature’s masterpiece. There is nothing scary about a pair of colorful wings bobbling up and down on the faintest of breezes.

But, honestly, any insect is scary if you make it big enough. And this thing isn’t big, but BIG, all caps, straight-out-of-a-dream type weird. And that has to be the explanation—I’m dreaming.

Except I can feel my twin brother Keene’s big feet resting on either side of my chair and can smell my best friend Jenny’s perfume, floral and light, drifting back from her desk in front of me. Those kinds of grounding details don’t happen in my dreams. So I must be awake.

Crazy size aside, the butterfly seems normal. It has the coloring of a monarch: orange and black with speckles of white at the wing edges. It’s perched on a chimney I know all too well from staring out the window all semester. The chimney is probably two feet tall. The thing is, with the butterfly’s wings all spread out in the sun, I can barely see the chimney at all.

I kick Jenny’s chair once, then twice, and she whips around, annoyed. What? she hisses.

I point. My whole arm vibrates, my hand shaking at the end of it. I didn’t even realize I was freaked until I see myself quivering.

She gives me an odd look before turning and then visibly startles.

Jesus! Jenny cries, interrupting Mr. Shephard midramble.

Invoking Jesus is enough to get the entire class up and out of their seats. The kids on the far side of the room half stand, craning their necks, while those closer to us crowd over, probably expecting to see a fight on the soccer field. As gasps and shouts of surprise erupt, everyone in the classroom charges at the windows, trying to see what the fuss is about.

Kelly Teehan screams. Then she screams again. She claps a hand over her mouth, eyes wide with terror.

Dude, Keene says.

I don’t like butterflies, she whispers from between her fingers. They creep me out.

People, please! Mr. Shephard says. Can we get back to the discussion? He’s not even curious about what we’re all looking at.

Mr. Shephard, you should probably see this, Jenny says. She gently takes Kelly by the shoulders and says, Maybe you should go to the bathroom and splash some water on your face. It might be gone by the time you get back. Kelly gives the tiniest of nods. Her face has become a funny shade that kind of reminds me of Swiss cheese.

I wonder what color my face is right now. My heart is doing that thing it does when it’s prepping for a full-on panic attack. Not quite racing yet but thinking about it. I’m not afraid of butterflies like Kelly. Nope. I’m afraid of things that break my sense of rhythm. I like my world orderly and neat, and this butterfly is…too big.

It’s only a butterfly, Keene says, putting his hands on my shoulders from behind and resting his chin on my head. He’s very protective, especially when he senses I might be teetering on the edge of a freak out. I’m shaking. I put one hand over his. Our eyes are fixed on the thing out the window as we contemplate it together. Just because we haven’t ever seen anything like it before doesn’t mean it’s bad, he says to me. Right, Shur?

Right, I agree, but it comes out in a whisper because my mouth has dried up.

Mr. Shephard comes to the window, and the annoyance painted all over his face dissolves into something more like disbelief, then morphs again into fear. This has a calming effect on me. If an adult is scared, then this is serious, and I am right to be paranoid.

Mr. Shephard navigates the desks and strides to the phone at the front of the class. Evidently, the gym teachers have decided not to take any chances with the oversized butterfly, because the class is being herded out of sight, back into the building.

Jenny pulls out her phone and begins to record the thing. It hasn’t moved much, except to spread its wings even wider.

I think it was just born, Jenny says.

Why? Keene asks.

Have you ever seen a freshly hatched butterfly? she asks. Their wings are wet. They can’t fly.

Then how did it get up there?

Jenny shrugs, unable to tear her eyes away. They have strong legs. It probably climbed up there to get to a safe spot in the sun.

Where did it come from, anyway? someone asks.

Is it alone? someone else asks, and this sets my heart to jackhammering. What if it isn’t alone? I can’t even wrap my mind around one, let alone a whole swarm.

The odds that there’s only one in the entire world and we’re the ones to witness it seem pretty low, Jenny says. But unless you’re a flower, you’re probably in no immediate danger. She stares at me pointedly. So there’s no reason to freak.

Everyone please return to your seats, Mr. Shephard shouts over the escalating noise.

We file back through the rows, resigned to more civics. A moment later, our cell phones begin to blat in unison, the sharp, honking sound of an emergency situation.

We’ve heard that nuclear noise a hundred times before, most often for an Amber Alert or, this summer, a tornado warning. Across our screens marches, Take cover. This is not a drill. Danger risk is high. Do not venture outdoors. Seek the lowest, most secure point in your home. Stay away from windows.

And outside one unnaturally large butterfly suns itself.

No reason to freak, huh? I ask Jenny. A flood of adrenaline has chased away the thin calm that I’d felt a moment ago. Now I feel sick.

Before Jenny can answer, the loudspeaker shrieks with feedback.

MAY I HAVE YOUR ATTENTION. This is not a drill. Line up with your classes following tornado shelter-in-place procedures. I repeat, this is not a drill. Everyone, proceed to the gym as quickly as possible. Do not return to your lockers; do not leave the building. The heavy clunk of the disconnecting intercom signifies the end of the order, and there’s a moment when we all just look at each other, like one of us has an answer.

This can’t be a coincidence, someone says.

I want to go home, I whisper to Keene. He tugs his cell phone loose with one hand. I turn in my seat, and we stare at the screen together. Around us, everyone is doing the same thing, trying to get an answer from the Internet. Jenny frowns at her own screen. Unable to resist, I risk another look at the window. The bug is still there, wings rippling slightly.

Oh Jesus, Keene says.

The news says they’re everywhere. We can only see the one, and it doesn’t seem dangerous, but in the world outside our school, butterflies have erupted all over the place. What does it say? I ask. Are they—

Everyone get in line at the door, Mr. Shephard shouts. Years of drills drop us into line almost instantly. We turn to the formation for comfort and protection. I feel a little better knowing we’ve practiced for this. Well, not this, exactly. But for danger. Right?

Because what I was asking Keene before we got interrupted was, Are they dangerous?

2

The class exits in a long, single-file line led by Mr. Shephard. Joining the tail of the stream in front of us, we march in an orderly fashion toward the stairwell.

The order lasts for about twelve seconds. It would have held if everyone were following the protocol we’ve practiced over and over since kindergarten, weather evac drills, active shooter, shelter-in-place and bomb evac, so that we’ll automatically do the right thing when the time comes, kind of like muscle memory. Thing is, in a real crisis, you can never predict how people will react. I know that better than anyone.

At first, a few panicked stragglers pound down the hall, escaping into the back stairwell. Then, others start to step out of line, which starts a wave of chaos. It spreads down the hallway on a wind of whispers. Should we go? Should we stay? What are those things out there? The whispers rise to talking voices, the voices to shouts and screams. Still, the bulk of the line continues to worm its way to the stairwell down to the gym.

My throat is starting to constrict, turning my breathing into a high whistle. I tighten my grip on Keene’s hand, and he looks down at me. We’re okay, he says. We don’t even know if there’s a reason to panic yet. This could all be noise.

Always the reasonable one, while I am Miss Worst Case Scenario.

Nathan, my brother’s best friend, emerges from the tide. His backpack is slung over one shoulder, and his face is grim with determination that turns to relief when he spots us.

Dude, what are you doing? Let’s go! Nathan says, grabbing Keene’s backpack and tugging him less than gently into the center of the corridor. I’m hauled along and grab Jenny’s hand to bring her with us. I would never leave Jenny behind.

All around us, the line is falling apart, becoming a mob. Someone screams, How are they supposed to protect us? Those are monsters, not a freaking tornado!

We haven’t practiced for this. Keene might be right—we might not even know if this is a thing to panic over, but the mob is barreling toward hysteria all the same.

A scuffle breaks out ahead of us. The fragile order shatters, and the mob stampedes up and down the hallway in both directions.

I don’t like this, I moan.

We’re out of here, Keene shouts, tugging me along in Nathan’s wake. I can feel Jenny’s hands weighing down my backpack as she holds on for dear life. The fire alarm goes off, and the emergency lights flash white-blue. I almost fall, tripping as we get through the door to the back stairwell. Jenny steadies me from behind.

Finally, we spill into the bright morning. There’s a new housing development across the soccer field, a nest of interwoven neighborhoods. A group of kids, probably the ones who live over there, take off in that direction at a trot, bunched together. One girl puts her backpack over her head like a shield.

Where are we going? Nathan asks over his shoulder, barely slowing his pace.

Our house, Keene says.

No, I say. We need to get Little. Our baby brother is at day care and he needs us. We should get him so Mom doesn’t have to stop on her way home.

Above us, more butterflies float up and down on a light breeze that rustles the early fall leaves. We turn away from the soccer field, following the sidewalk around the edge of the school to the parking lot, barely watching where we’re going. Although they all share the same monarch butterfly coloring, they vary in size. Some are bigger than the first one I saw by the chimney and some are no larger than a squirrel.

They’re so…big. Jenny’s eyes are wide, her voice awed.

Yeah, I’d really like to not have one touch me, Keene says.

Butterflies don’t have mouths, Jenny says, snapping into lecture-mode. Facts ground her, and she’s always ready with some trivia in any situation. They have this, like, straw thing they put into plants, and it sort of sucks the juice out. They could not bite you if they tried.

That doesn’t make them any less scary as shit, says Keene.

Mothra, Nathan adds. He’s jumpy, twitchy, hands clapping together, off his thighs, on the straps of his backpack.

Hey, maybe that’s the emergency! Godzilla’s on his way. I say. I try to sound jokey, like this is more fun than terrifying.

We round the corner to the parking lot, and Keene swears under his breath. Loads of people have ditched and are streaming to their cars. Almost as many cars are headed inbound, parents picking up their kids, spouses come for teachers.

Keene’s beater is parked close. We hurry to it. Jenny and I slide into the backseat, Nathan and Keene climb into the front.

Do you not believe in trash bags? Jenny asks, slapping an empty Gatorade bottle into the debris field on the floor.

Do you want to walk? Keene counters, but his heart isn’t really in it. This is their usual banter, triggered by reflex. He’s eyeing the parking lot, the other drivers, the sky.

I tug my phone free from my back pocket. No message from Mom yet. Should I call her?

Yeah. Tell her we’ll meet her at home with Little, Keene says.

The phone rings and rings and rings. I hang up and try again. Nothing. No answer, no reassuring voice of my mother. This time, voicemail picks up.

Mom, I say. We’re worried. The school was going into lockdown, so me and Keene left. We’re going to get Little, and we’ll meet you at home. Can you call me back? Love you.

I hang up.

I can’t get through, Nathan says, twisting to see around his seat back. "Just Network Busy, over and over."

Jenny frowns at her screen. Me too. Keep trying. Everyone is calling at once.

Ahead of us, the line of cars inches forward as the light changes. I close my eyes and send up a prayer to the traffic gods that no one panics and pulls out into another car, causing a jam at the entrance. As we make the turn onto the main road, we pass a long line of cars waiting to get into the lot.

I try texting. Left a voicemail - call or text, service sucks. Love you.

As if to make my point, the text hangs for a long moment, then fails.

Jenny pats my knee.

I ask. Should we have stayed?

Keene grunts. The last place I want to be during an emergency is trapped in a gym with 1,200 people I can’t stand.

3

In and out, okay? Keene says, as he steers the car into the neighborhood where Little’s day care is.

Yeah, yeah, no chatty-chatty. We don’t have his car seat, I say. He’s going to freak. Little does not like rule breaking, and always in your car seat is a Big Rule.

I’ll tell him the cops said it was okay, Nathan offers. He’ll believe me.

Three cars linger at the curb outside of Ms. Caroline’s house, a McMansion on a cul-de-sac. At the circle’s center sits a huge island garden with a little bench, slate paths, and a sea of bright late-summer flowers. Above the garden, a pair of butterflies are doing butterfly things, one normal size and the other one of the monstrosities. So big, floating, and peaceful. The sun is warm, probably feels good on its wings.

I climb out onto the soft green grass of Ms. Caroline’s manicured lawn, still damp with morning dew. A woman in a smart business suit and heels hustles her daughter toward one of the waiting cars, passing me without so much as a glance in my direction.

The day care has its own entrance down the driveway, into the finished basement. I slide my shoes off and gather Little’s things from his cubby: Billy Bear, his backpack, his bright blue sneakers with Cookie Monster smiling up from the sides.

Oh! Thank goodness, Ms. Caroline says as I come down the stairs. I haven’t been able to get ahold of your mother. We’re trying to close early what with this…whatever is happening. Shawn?

No one in the family ever calls Little by his real name, but he only wants to be Shawn at day care because Little is a baby name. He emerges from the inner room, sees me, and shouts, Shur! How come you’re here? Where’s Mommy?

Mommy’s at work, I say. We’re going to take a ride with Keene and Nathan and Jenny back to our house.

Nathan! He claps his hands and darts for the stairs. I need my shoes!

I smile at Ms. Caroline. Hopefully we’ll see you tomorrow.

Well, stay safe and stay inside, she says. The news isn’t saying much, but I don’t like the looks of those things. They’re too big and too…sudden.

Outside, the butterfly garden has more visitors, large and small. Little points at a butterfly the size of a chihuahua. That’s a big bug.

You like butterflies.

I don’t like those ones. They’re too big.

Jenny waits by the car door. Hey kiddo, you get to ride with us.

Little frowns into the back suspiciously. Where’s my seat?

In Mommy’s car.

I can’t drive without my seat. It’s against the law.

Well, Nathan says, leaning out of the car window, we have a secret to tell you, but only if you super promise to keep it quiet. No one can know.

What? Little asks.

Promise not to tell?

Promise! Little says. But what?

The police called us and said to pick you up and bring you home safe, Nathan says. "And when we told them you had no car seat, they said it was so important that they would give us permission this one time to not use a car seat. But they made us swear you would use a seat belt, and you would never, ever tell anyone that they changed the rules especially for you."

For real? Little asks, looking to me for confirmation.

I nod. Yeah. And Keene will drive super-duper safe.

Can we get ice cream?

We can eat some ice cream at home later, buddy. We need to get back to see if Mommy is there yet.

Mommy is coming home early?

Yep.

With Little firmly settled between us, I reach over with the middle belt, cross it over his lap, and hand it to Jenny to click home. He bounces his legs. This feels weird. I can see right up to the windshield!

Keene glances in his side mirror and pulls out into the street. He maneuvers around the garden island, crawling along. The butterflies are harder to ignore. At least one floats over almost every lawn, most high up, but some lower to the ground and closer to the street.

We leave the neighborhood and pick up speed back on the main road. Keene says, I think I’m going to take the back—

A butterfly slams into the windshield, solid as a bird, and everyone screams. Little keeps screaming, his mouth open as wide as it can be, eyes popping.

The butterfly, easily two feet from wingtip to wingtip, clings to the windshield wiper, belly flat against dirty glass. On any butterfly, on any moth, there’s a head, a thorax, and an abdomen covered in fuzz like fur, sometimes black, sometimes mimicking the coloration of the rest of the bug, but on this butterfly…

On this butterfly…

And the legs. Usually it’d be stick legs, delicate, ticklish on human skin, an innate sense of fragility, like the wrong move could snap one. But these. These are thick, bony, exoskeletal. The legs of a crab, but ebony, each ending in a claw that grips the rubber part of the wiper and cuts it away.

But the legs aren’t why Little is screaming, screaming still.

The segments of the thorax split vertically and spread, revealing a mouth filled with jagged, pointed teeth. A line of saliva sticks, spanning the gash, and it snaps at the windshield uselessly, opening and closing. A black wriggle inside might be a tongue.

Get it off, man! Nathan shouts and lunges for the windshield wiper control, even as Keene stares straight ahead, hands locked at 10 and 2, completely frozen. The wipers begin to move, and the skeletal legs scratch along the glass, leaving a mark. The butterfly-crab does not let go, and Nathan hits the control again, setting it to high speed with a whack of his palm. On the return trip, the butterfly hangs on, but the next flip sends it sailing into the slipstream of a passing car. It tumbles away on the wind before righting itself. I turn in my seat to follow it. The maw has disappeared; the legs are tucked. It’s just an abnormally large, but otherwise unremarkable, monarch butterfly once again.

And Little screams like he might never stop.

4

As we drive, the only sounds are road noises, wind whistling by, and Little’s occasional snuffle. We are stunned into silence. Little is too shaken to truly cry, but anything could set him off. He presses his face to my side, not wanting to see any other butterflies. It seems wrong to call them butterflies, but I don’t have a better word besides monster, and I’m not sure I want to go there yet. I keep one arm around him, hugging as best I can with the seat belts between us.

The way home takes us through downtown. I expect a ghost town, for people to have figured out that these are not passive nectar-sippers but rather full-fledged prey beasts with dragon teeth. We roll to a stop at a light behind two other cars. Some of the stores are closed, like the noodle shop, which would ordinarily be prepping for the lunch rush. The consignment shop next store usually has a few things out on the sidewalk, an antique bicycle or refinished end table to lure pedestrians, door propped open in an invitation, but not today. The front window is dark.

But other places are still open, and a handful of pedestrians are on the sidewalks. Some are nervous, glancing at the sky, but many seem oblivious. Maybe we are making incorrect assumptions about the danger level. Maybe they know something we don’t. But I don’t think so. Nothing with that many teeth can be benign. My anxiety clicks up another notch watching them amble about their business like it’s any Friday in early fall.

Jenny cracks her window, letting a slim breeze float in.

Nathan snaps, Close that! You’re going to get us killed!

Chill, she says. It’s open a millimeter.

Close it! he yells, metallic hysteria crowding his voice.

Jenny closes the window and says dryly, Maybe close the air vents too. Don’t want them coming in that way.

She’s not serious, but Nathan doesn’t catch the sarcasm and slams his vent closed. Keene whacks him and says, Dude. She was joking. Nothing is getting in through the vents.

How can you be sure?

That would be like a bird coming through a screen, Keene says, eyes rolling. I know you’re scared, but pull it together.

No birds, Jenny announces.

What? I ask.

There are no birds. No squirrels either. When was the last time you were downtown and didn’t see a crap ton of both?

Jenny is right: The downtown pigeons are borderline aggressive, especially outside the bakery, and the squirrels are bold almost to the point of tameness. But there are no squirrels