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Prologue

Three Months After It Soared Into the Forest

Dr. Roberts, Ph.D., adjusted his reading glasses and looked down at the
open file. He moved it closer and then further away in order to get the
right focus, and quickly scanned the medical doctor’s comments.
    “So ...” His eyes looked out over the top of his reading glasses as he
addressed the woman seated before him. “You seem to have lost some
memories.”
    She stared straight ahead, and the good doctor couldn’t help but hold
his gaze a little longer. Pretty, he thought, even without make-up.
    “Don’t worry. We will find your memories.” The clinical hypnotist
was eager to establish his certainty with the client. Taking note that
she appeared to be a natural blond, his eyes quickly scanned the rest of
her.
    Beautiful girl, he thought. I see it even in that dreadful prison attire.
He shifted his gaze back to the file.
    “You’ve been through a lot in the last few months,” he said. He had
recently seen a movie starring Jessica Alba, and he thought that her face
and lips bore a close resemblance, but only in shape—the eyes and hair
were a different color. Sort of the blond-haired, blue-eyed version of Jessica
Alba, he decided.
    The woman was wearing an orange jump suit, and her feet were
chained together. Another chain circled her waist, and both ends were
connected to handcuffs. He didn’t care about the chains or the cuffs. He
had dealt with troubled people for most of his career and had even been
through a little trouble himself.

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    “You reported your husband missing. The police couldn’t find him so
they arrested you.” He turned his head toward the deputy as he spoke
and lingered just long enough to give him a sour look.
    The woman in the chair didn’t respond. She stared straight ahead
with a sad, glossy, almost shocked expression on her face.
    It is an interesting face, thought Dr. Roberts, this time thinking clinically.
Distraught, yes, and full of problems, clearly evident in her swollen
and tired eyes. The trouble looks recent, though. I don’t see the permanent
lines that long-term stress eventually etches into the face.
    Waiting for her to acknowledge him, he took the opportunity to
look once more at her uncommon form. Even downcast and sad, her
light blue eyes captured him, and he wondered if she might have been a
model who sold contact lenses or something like that.
    Before returning his attention to the file, he shifted his gaze back to
the guard and frowned. The guard, who had been staring at the prisoner,
adjusted his stance and looked away.
    The medical notes contained a few lines about insomnia and nightmares
and only confirmed what Dr. Roberts had already observed.
    “Sara, your sleep problems and bad dreams are certainly understandable,
given what the authorities have put you through. I know you must
be eager to find the truth.”
    She stared straight ahead, and the hypnotist skimmed through the
rest of the comments that had been entered by the referring physician,
including a glance at the sleep medications and antidepressants she had
been prescribed. As he read the last paragraph of the doctor’s shorthand,
he wrinkled his forehead and put his hand to his chin:

    ‘Patient claims no memory of the night her husband disappeared.
    Police found spouse’s blood and a second blood sample
    (unknown origin or type) on the fl oor of her house.’

    The doctor paused for a moment, trying to recall the meaning of
‘unknown origin or type’ when used to describe blood. Does that mean
the police don’t know whose blood? Does it mean non-human blood,
some kind of animal, perhaps? At one time Dr. Roberts had worked as
a police psychologist and he struggled to recall ever seeing that term
used. Finally, he gave up and read on.

    ‘Patient discharged a weapon at the scene. Husband still missing,
    presumed dead. Have not ruled out PTSD (Post-Traumatic
    Stress Disorder). A first psychotic break also a likely diagnosis

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    but unable to rule out or confirm. Difficult to proceed with diagnosis
    while patient’s amnesia and depression persist. Response
    to antidepressants has been unremarkable. Recommend hypnotherapy
    to attempt recovery of lost memories.’

    He closed the file and looked up.
    “Have you ever been hypnotized before?”
    A slight turn of the head meant no.
    “Well, don’t worry.” The doctor smiled.
    “I’m not going to make you run around clucking like a chicken or
anything like that.” He waited for her to acknowledge his attempt at
humor, but she just stared at him.
    His smile faded into a nervous cough. Apparently she has never been
to one of those low-life, stage hypnosis shows, he thought.
    “Yes … well.” He cleared his throat, put his serious, professional face
back on, and then turned to address the guard. His tone was an impatient
one.
    “Can we get these chains off ?”
    The deputy who had escorted the prisoner into the room looked
at the woman and then at the doctor and then once again back at the
woman. Sweat glistened on his forehead. He acts like he’s never been this
close to a woman before, thought Dr. Roberts. The request to remove the
chains caused the deputy to begin clipping and unclipping the holding
strap on his holster, and Dr. Roberts immediately recognized the stress
lines that appeared on the deputy’s forehead.
    “I … I’m not supposed to do that,” the officer said.
    The older man frowned, took off his reading glasses, and leaning forward,
looked sternly at the deputy.
    “Your job is to see that this woman gets her treatment, is it not?”
    He nodded and said, “Yes sir,” but quickly added, “and to see that she
doesn’t escape or hurt anyone.”
    “I need the chains removed so that she can relax. Relaxation is critical
to the induction of a successful hypnotic trance. Th at door behind
you is the only way out of this room, and I see no evidence of physical
violence in her record.”
    “Sir, she shot her husband!”
    Dr. Roberts paused and stared at the deputy, stalling while he considered
the possibility that this pretty girl with the light blue eyes and
innocent face might actually be guilty. He considered himself a good
judge of character, and a few seconds later, he rejected the notion.

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    “Well, we shall see about that in a moment. I don’t believe it for a
second. If you believe it, then don’t let her have your gun. Now, please,
unchain her.”
    The deputy’s face looked as if he were being asked to do something
dreadful. Dr. Roberts watched the young man as he shifted his eyes
nervously back towards the woman. She hardly had moved since their
arrival. Finally the officer gave in. He went about it gingerly, and keeping
his holster as far away from the woman as he could, he unlocked the
cuff s and chains that bound her. She appeared to move only enough to
allow the chains to be pulled away.
    “Thank you,” said Dr. Roberts, turning to address the patient.
    “In a moment I’m going to ask you to relax, and then, I will guide you
back in time. You will be able to recall with perfect clarity everything
that has happened to you. First I’m going take you through a series of
relaxation exercises designed to put your mind at ease and to enhance
your recall. Then we will go back in time to solve your problem. Are you
ready to begin?”
    Sara barely moved, but the good doctor saw her head incline slightly
forward and knew that she had understood.
    “Good. Lie back on the couch now, please, and get as comfortable
as possible. Take a deep breath and slowly exhale. That’s it. Now, allow
your eyes to close …”

Chapter 1
The Silver House in the Forest

(21 years earlier)
A vivid dream greeted seven-year-old Sara, and she awoke feeling calm
and tranquil. A smiling boy stood next to her, and she looked at him,
blinking her eyes to chase away the sleep. She lifted her head and realized
that she wasn’t in her bed.
    “Where am I?” she asked, and felt her heart rate increase until it
thumped against her chest.
    “When you arrived, you called it the silver house,” the boy said, and
he looked into her eyes, and she felt a calm feeling sweep over her. His
stare continued and her heart rate slowed until she didn’t notice the
thumping anymore.
    Sara sat up, yawned, and then inspected the circular room where she
had been sleeping. She didn’t remember her arrival. The walls glowed,
and the bed—which looked more like a table—felt soft and spongelike.
    “Who are you?” She asked, and immediately an image appeared in
her head, and it resembled an embellished letter “Y”. Along with the
image came a clear understanding that the boy had somehow printed
the symbol directly to her brain, and that it represented his name.
    Sara looked at the vivid image in her mind. It appeared in three
dimensions and was loaded with surface details—bumps, grooves,
raised edges, beautiful colors—and she could rotate the image in any
direction just by willing it to turn.

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    “I can’t call you that,” she said, referring to the image. “I don’t even
know what it is.”
    Without much emotion, the boy looked at her, and from his expression,
Sara guessed that he had realized his error.
    He was a cute boy. Cuter than Jeremy Salem, and Jeremy Salem was
the cutest boy in school; all of her friends agreed.
    “In your language my name is hard to define,” he said, “but when any
of my kind needs to summon or refer to me, they use that symbol. In
very simple terms, the symbol means: Series Alpha, Managed Human-
Hybrid Research Protocol Number Three.”
    Sara laughed. “That can’t be your real name. Don’t you have a normal
name?”
    The cute boy didn’t laugh and instead stared deep into her eyes, and
a dream appeared in her mind. The dream felt like a memory, and in a
brief second, she remembered a moment when she had called the boy
“Sam”.
    “Sam,” she said. “I called you Sam.”
    Sam nodded and Sara guessed that he must be about seven years old
like her, but he was more serious.
    “You called me ‘Sam’ and I did not like it because it does not accurately
describe me. Later they made you forget me,” Sam said. “I made
you remember again.”
    “Thanks,” she said, smiling.
The boy added, “I suppose ‘Sam’ is acceptable. That name does not
accurately summarize my existence, but it will be more efficient than
using my identification tag since we must communicate with human
speech.”
    “You talk funny,” Sara said.
    “I am sorry,” Sam said. “In my studies I have begun to scan your
earthly literature and media in the hopes that I will be able to blend in
more appropriately with your race.”
    “It’s okay,” Sara said.
A short pause followed and then Sam began again.
    “I have a secret,” he said. “I have figured out how to open the door to
the outside.”
    “What door? It’s just a wall that goes all around us.” She stood up and
turned all the way around to confirm her statement.
    “Watch,” he said, “and be ready to come with me.”
Sam walked to the wall, and as he approached, a Frisbee-sized circle
darkened the dim glowing surface. He stared at the blackness, and
strange symbols appeared, one at a time, their outlines glowing like

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numbers on a scoreboard inside the dark circle. Many different symbols
cycled across the blackness, and Sara watched with interest. The boy
aimed his attention at the symbols and seemed to be concentrating, as
if he were making them appear with his mind. At last, the cycle stopped,
and the small circle grew larger and larger before finally dissolving into
a doorway. Sara’s eyes adjusted to the dim moonlight, and just outside
she could see some familiar trees from the forest behind her house.
    “Come on,” he said in a low but excited voice.
    Sara moved toward the opening, and Sam took her hand and led
her out into a small clearing in the trees. Before they ducked into the
forest, she looked back at the round silver house and marveled at its
size, much bigger than the room they had just left. They ran together,
excited and laughing, deep into the evergreens, finally crawling under
the large drooping branches of an old pine tree. Sara recognized the
tree and knew that they were near her backyard. As they climbed under
the branches, Sara noticed that the boy’s belt was glowing softly and
seemed to be illuminating the immediate area around them, brightening
as the branches blocked more of the full moon light.
    “Hey, do you know how to play jacks?” she asked.
    “Jacks? No. What are jacks?”
Sara reached into her pocket and pulled out a ball and several little
metal jacks. Above her, way up in the tree, a cicada began to chirp, and
she paused, concerned.
    A disturbing image appeared in her mind. The sound of the buzzing
cicada seemed to repair a broken link in her brain, connecting the
cicada’s sound to a memory cell. The image should have matched the
sound of the tiny cicada perched in the tree, but it was incomplete. The
loud buzz of chirping cicadas was common and familiar, but Sara had
never actually seen one up close. Her brain filled in the details and delivered
to her mind’s eye the hideous image of a gigantic insect with an
oversized head and large dark eyes. In one hand, the creature carried a
slender stick.
    “We have to hurry before the fairies find us,” she said.
    Sam laughed now for the first time. “They are not fairies, silly. They
are my parents. Anyway, you are not supposed to remember them.”
    “They look like fairies. They carry wands. How come you don’t look
like them?”
    “I’m different. Anyway, we’re not from around here. My parents are
scientists from far away. I’m a scientist too.”
The two friends played jacks for a while, and Sara laughed and joked
and managed to get Sam to smile a few more times, but he kept his

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voice low and sometimes put his finger to his lips motioning Sara to
quiet down. She did her best to lower her voice because she liked this
boy. He was fun to play with, even if he did talk funny, and anyway, he
was very cute.
    After playing for a few minutes, Sam’s face turned serious and he
stared straight ahead as if in deep thought. “My dad’s mad,” Sam said,
keeping his voice low as always.
    “Why?”
    “We were not supposed to leave. They had some meeting, and now
its over, and they are looking for us.”
    “How do you know that? How do you know he’s mad?”
    “He told me—in my head—but I didn’t answer.”
    “Why not? You shouldn’t disobey your parents.”
    “I know, but I wanted to stay with you longer.”
    Suddenly Sara’s eyes shifted towards some rustling leaves, and she
saw ugly long gray fi ngers pulling aside the tree branches.
She screamed.
    A hideous face appeared, similar to the image in her head, and large
black eyes stared at them both. The creature had almost no lips and
no eyebrows or hair of any kind. Not a fairy, she thought. It’s a giant
cicada!
    The face was expressionless, a small frown maybe, but Sara knew
that Sam had been right; the creature was angry.
    Just then, Sara heard her mother calling, faint, as if from far away,
and she sounded anxious. The creature held a long, slender stick in his
hand, and at the sound of the woman’s voice, he quickly reached in and
tapped Sara on the forehead. Her eyes fell shut, and she lost consciousness.
“SARA?” The loud voice of her mother nearby caused Sara to awaken.
    She was now alone under the pine branch.
Sara looked around, and wondered how long she had been asleep
under the big tree. I was playing with someone, she thought, but could
only recall the vision of an ugly insect—a small cicada with large eyes
and an unfriendly mouth.
    “SARA?” Her mother called again and Sara perked up, her thoughts
broken by the friendly and welcome voice.
    “I’m over here Mom!” She crawled out from under the tree and ran
toward her mother’s voice.
    “Sara, what are you doing out here in the middle of the night? Is
someone else here? I thought I heard voices.”
    Sara stopped and wrinkled her forehead, thinking.

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    Her mother continued. “I swear you scare me to death. I go to check
on you, and you’re not in bed, so I come outside and hear you, out here
in the dark, laughing and then, screaming. What’s going on?”
    “I … I was playing with my friend,” she said.
    “At three-o’clock in the morning? What friend?”
    “I don’t remember his name. I think we were playing jacks.”
    “Sara, there are no other houses anywhere for miles, and you don’t
have any friends out here.”
    Sara looked up at her mother but didn’t speak. She felt confused.
    Her mother squatted beside Sara, held her at arm’s length, and looked
directly at her. “Could it be that you have an imaginary friend?”
    Sara considered this. It felt like he was a real friend, but she couldn’t
remember his face or his name. She looked up at her mother’s eyes,
concerned and visible in the bright moonlight.
    “Yes,” she said at last. “He must be an imaginary friend.”
    The little girl saw a worried, uncomfortable look cross her mother’s
face, and eventually Mrs. Gathers took Sara’s hand and started back
toward the house.
    “Well, I guess it’s okay for you to have an imaginary friend,” her
mother said. “God knows there aren’t many real kids living around here.
But I don’t want you ever leaving the house in the middle of the night
again. Okay?”
    Sara couldn’t remember leaving the house, but she nodded “okay”
anyway.
    Then her mother seemed to have an afterthought and stopped walking.
    “Sara?” She said turning toward her daughter. “This imaginary friend,
he’s not an adult, is he?”
    “No,” she said, this time with more confidence.
    “Good.” Her mother said, and they walked back to the house
together.

Chapter 2                         Buy The Cicadas Here
Avoidance

(Ten Years Later)
Sara sat, uncomfortable in her formal blue dress that didn’t quite make
it down to her knees, wishing she could have worn blue jeans. The dress
was beautiful and expensive, purchased by her mother, Sara guessed,
to entice her to go to the school prom. She was seventeen and about to
receive an award.
    The mayor of Rapid City turned from the podium and smiled at her.
She tried not to look nervous, but her seat was adjacent to the stage in a
special section reserved for the award recipients, and she felt like most
of the crowd was watching her. The hard metal folding chair didn’t make
it any easier to relax, and she wanted the ceremony to be over.
    “Before I can hand out our final award tonight,” the mayor said,
speaking into the microphone, “I have to say a few words about our
young recipient, Sara Gathers. Sara has been busy lately, but not on the
dubious activities that one might normally associate with today’s teenagers.
When night falls after a hard day of classes and schoolwork, you
won’t find Sara cruising the streets with her friends or heading into the
forest for one of those destructive, rave parties that many of you have
expressed great concern about.”
    Sara felt her face turning red. He barely knows me. How could he possibly
have any idea about what I do?
    “No,” the mayor continued, “Her mother assures me that you won’t
find Sara engaging in frivolous social activities or wasting time at teenage
hangouts.”

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Of course. Mother. I should have known. Sara wanted to cover her
face and bury it in her lap, but she just braced for more.
    “In fact, during the night of her own high school prom, Sara Gathers
was nowhere to be seen on the school grounds.”
Great. Why don’t you just tell the whole town that I’m a social zero.
    “How do I know this?” The mayor continued. “Because I was at the
soup kitchen standing next to Sara, as she helped feed some of the poor,
less fortunate, souls who were in line that night.”
    Okay, I know it’s an election year, but you were only there for ten minutes,
and I was only there because my mother wanted to punish me for
not going to the prom.
    The mayor droned on a bit longer as Sara drifted into her own
thoughts. Mother should be grateful, Sara thought. She doesn’t have to
sit and worry at night, wondering when some boy will be bringing me
home. Sara was seventeen years old, and as far as she could remember,
had never been alone with a boy.
    She had no interest in dating. Boys were okay when other people
were around but to be alone with one, especially in the dark, made
her shudder. Th e concept of a darkened dance hall also disturbed her
greatly, almost as much as the dreary path into the forest behind her
house at nighttime. Her mother tried for months to get her daughter
into counseling but Sara refused. “I don’t have a problem with boys,” she
insisted. “I just don’t have any interest in the ones I know.”
    Many asked. Sara was friendly enough. Her classmates voted her
president of the Student Council, and later she won two categories in
the yearbook—“Most Likely to Succeed” and “Prettiest Girl”. She didn’t
try to destroy the boys who asked her out; on the contrary, she went
out of her way to be friendly and personable. A strange dynamic played
out in her brain. She liked people, including boys, and she enjoyed their
company (as long as they were in groups and under good lighting), but
always, if any chance existed for her to end up alone with a boy, she
would come up with an excuse to avoid it.
    “I have to help out at the soup kitchen,” she told Ryan McCormik, a
few months earlier just outside the school. Ryan was the school’s Homecoming
King, and when Sara’s mother pulled up in the car after school
one day, she overheard as Sara made up this new excuse.
    “Fine,” Mrs. Gathers said, after Sara closed the car door and they
were on their way. “I think it’s commendable that you would rather volunteer
at the soup kitchen than go out with a cute boy. I’ll drive you
there myself.”

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    “Oh, come on Mom,” Sara replied. “You know I only said that because
I didn’t want to hurt his feelings. I’m not really planning to go there and
work.”
    “So what happens when this handsome boy says that he will volunteer
at the soup kitchen with you?”
    “No way! Th ere’s not a boy in this school who would do that. Volunteer?
Just to spend time with me? Uh, uh.” Sara shook her head and
laughed at the idea.
    “Someday someone’s going to call your bluff and you won’t know
what to do.”
    “No chance, mom. You find me the boy who’s willing to feed and care
for smelly old homeless people, and maybe he’ll deserve to go out with
me.”
    “Okay,” her mother said with an edge to her tone, “I’ll keep my eyes
open for the boy willing to work the soup kitchen. For your sake I hope
he’s as handsome as that ‘Ryan’ boy you just turned down. In the meantime,
I may have raised an antisocial girl, but I didn’t raise a liar. We’re
going to the soup kitchen, and that’s that. And by the way, you shouldn’t
disrespect those pour souls who may not be as gifted and talented as
you are. God gives more to those who are grateful.”
    Sara apologized for the comment and insisted that she was not antisocial,
but her mother made good on the promise anyway, and the soup
kitchen surprised Sara. It turned out to be brightly lit and full of people.
    On her first night as a volunteer, Sara recognized an old woman
who had hobbled in out of the cold and made her way over to the line.
Sara didn’t know the woman’s name, but remembered her face because
she used to walk the sidewalk next to the high school parking lot. She
always seemed to be carrying a plastic grocery bag, and the boys called
her “Mrs. Beardface”, because her face always looked as if she had a
four-o’clock shadow. They made fun of the woman as she sauntered by,
and sometimes would run up and knock the bag out of her hands. Their
mean actions made Sara furious, but she never interfered or tried to
stop them.
    The woman, wrapped in an old shawl and permanently hunched forward,
made her way through the soup line and tried grasp an upsidedown
soup bowl. Sara watched as she dropped it back on the stack, her
shaking fingers apparently too cold to get hold of it. Sara picked up the
bowl for her, and as she did, felt the woman’s cold fingers against her
own. Looking through clouded eyes and wrinkled skin, the old woman
watched as Sara filled the bowl with warm soup, all the while staring at

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Sara’s face as if in wonder of her. Sara decided to carry the bowl out to
the table in order to avoid a potential dropped-soup-bowl explosion.
    She held the bowl in one hand and helped the woman to a seat at a
nearby table. Sitting opposite, she put her hands over the woman’s cold
fingers and held them, transferring some of her warmth. The woman’s
fingers shook, and Sara looked into her eyes and saw them as unhealthy
and sad, the kind of eyes that have seen hard times for many years. Sara
did her best to smile at the woman who returned Sara’s gaze with apparent
interest.
    “You have the most beautiful eyes,” the woman said, and Sara
blushed.
    “Thanks,” she said.
    “I’m cold,” the woman said, her speech slightly slurred. “I’m trying
to warm up, but this chill is hard to shake.” Sara removed her own coat
and draped it over the woman’s shoulders and then came back around
to face her, smiling.
    “Thank you,” the woman said. “Maybe you’re an angel.”
    “No,” Sara said, alarmed by the comparison. “I’m just a girl.”
    “Not just a girl,” the woman insisted, this time with more force. “You
have a glow about you—like an angel.”
    This made Sara so uncomfortable that she excused herself and
returned back to the serving line. I’m no angel, she said to herself. I’m
just a big fraud.

    Sara left the soup kitchen that night without her coat and gloves (she
had given them away), but with a better feeling about herself than when
she had arrived. Even though she knew that her real reason for being
there was just an excuse to avoid something else, she thought, at least
it’s a good excuse.
    Sara continued to use her “good excuse” anytime one of those uninteresting
and scary boys wanted to take her out on a date. She used
the excuse so often that when the prom committee decided on the stupid
theme of “We’re Not Alone”, complete with aliens and flying saucer
decorations to go along with the darkened dance hall, it became a nobrainer
that Sara would be working the soup kitchen that night.
    Although her mother agreed that Sara’s volunteer work was impressive
and commendable, Sara could easily see her mother’s dismay. Mrs.
Gathers’s plan to get Sara interested in boys had backfired and had given
Sara the perfect excuse to continue her avoidance. It also won Sara an
award.

14             Shawn Penning               Buy The Cicadas Here

    Back at the ceremony, the mayor was nearly finished with his speech
about the importance of community service. He seemed convinced that
Sara was a great person, but she still didn’t feel that way.
    I wonder if any of these people know that I work the soup kitchen
because I’m afraid. I wonder if they know that I would do anything to
avoid dark places and buzzing insects.
    “And so,” the Mayor said at last, “here she is! At seventeen, the youngest
person ever to win our annual medal for public service, Sara Gathers!”
    Sara felt her face flush red but she stood up and accepted the award.
The small crowd clapped politely, and the cameras flashed. Along with
the commemorative plaque, Sara also won a two thousand-dollar cash
award that could be applied toward higher education. She thought she
might want to be a nurse.
    That night, Sara drifted off to sleep with a smile on her face, but in
the morning the good feelings were gone, and she felt weary. Sara had
only rarely experienced a good night’s sleep. Such a luxury was difficult
when she knew that, just outside her window, high up in the trees, the
buzzing cicadas were holding little sticks and frowning, staring down at
her through the windows with those big black insect eyes.

Chapter 3                    Buy The Cicadas Here
Pain

(The Next Morning)
Sara opened her eyes to the annoying sound of loud static from her
radio-alarm clock combined with a drumbeat-like thumping noise.
Sara’s mother was pounding on the door.
    “Sara! Wake up!”
    She felt heavy, and her head ached as if she hadn’t slept at all. Must
have been those damned bugs, buzzing all night and keeping me awake,
she guessed. Sara reached for the snooze button and managed to find it
on the third attempt.
    “Sara? Are you up now?” Her mother was still yelling through the
door. “That thing has been going off for twenty minutes!”
    Rather than yelling an answer, Sara dragged her feet across the carpet
to unlock the bedroom door and then turned back toward her bed.
Her mother entered and followed.
    “Why do keep your door locked? What do think I’m going to do?”
    “I’m sorry, mom.” Sara said, yawning. “It makes me feel safer, that’s
all. I lock my windows too.”
    Sara’s mother surveyed her daughter as she sat back down on the bed,
and Sara guessed that her mother was about to say something stupid.
    “You know, I found someone who can help with that, Sara. Her name
is Doctor …”
    “Mom! Please. We’ve been through this. Just because we live out in
the middle of nowhere, and it makes me nervous enough to lock up the
house, it doesn’t mean I’m crazy.”

16             Shawn Penning                Buy The Cicadas Here

    “I didn’t say you were crazy, dear. I’m just saying that, well, you were
just a little girl when your father died, and its been hard and maybe
there are some things you need to talk about.”
    “Mom, enough with dad’s death and how it screwed me up. I don’t
feel like having this discussion right now, and I’m going to be late for
school.”
    Mrs. Gathers paused and looked once more at her daughter with that
same familiar pathetic concern on her face that Sara had seen many
times before. The silence made Sara uncomfortable, so she changed the
subject.
    “My stomach hurts.”
    “Again? Are you having your period?”
    “No, mom, that was two weeks ago. And it doesn’t feel like that, it’s
more of a sharp pain, like before.”
    “Well, maybe I should take you back to see the doctor again.”
    “Right, so he can tell me that there’s nothing wrong, and that I should
see a shrink? That doctor, mom? I’m sorry I mentioned it.”
    “Sara, I only want to help you. I’m worried, that’s all.”
    “I’m sure it’ll be fine by tonight. It always is. If you really want to help
me, then find that stupid bug who lives in my room. He’s freaking me
out.”
    “A bug?”
    “Yes. There’s a cicada in here somewhere. I saw him again last
night.”
    “Honey, your windows are locked tight. Are you sure you didn’t just
dream it?”
    “No, mom, I didn’t dream it. I heard him buzzing and I remember
seeing 3:08 AM on my clock and then I saw the stupid bug as clearly as
I see you.
    “Well, where did it go? I mean, did you try to take care of it?”
“If I knew where it went, I wouldn’t be asking you to find it!”
Sara heard her own rough tone and noted her mother’s frown and
backed off a little.
    “Okay, I saw the cicada—I’m not really sure where, but I definitely
saw one—and then I must have fallen back to sleep, because right after
that, I woke up to you yelling and my clock going off and my stomach
hurting.”
    Sara looked at her mother and saw the disbelief on her face. It wasn’t
the angry ‘quit lying’ type of look, it was the ‘you poor dear’, pathetic
look. Sara took a deep breath to help control her own emotions as her
mother spoke.

THE CICADAS             17           Buy The Cicadas Here

    “Okay, dear. Why don’t you get ready for school. I’ll take a look right
now and see if I can find anything.”
    “Fine,” Sara said, and made a rapid escape to the bathroom.
Suddenly a male voice broke in and, for just a moment, Sara became
aware that she was no longer seventeen years old. Eleven years had
passed and she was under the direction of Dr. Roberts, hypnotherapist,
and she was recalling and reliving her younger years through the magic
of hypnosis.
    “Sara, I want you to focus on the day you just described,” Dr. Roberts
said. “You are seventeen years old, and it is still the same day but I want
you to go back to 3:08 AM. Did something or someone wake you?”
Sara spoke directly to the hypnotist now from her state of trance. “I
don’t want to remember that. I’m not supposed to remember that.”
    “Its okay, Sara. You are safe here, and it is okay to remember everything.
When I snap my fingers, you will be at that place and time again,
and you will see what is happening.”
    Dr. Roberts snapped his fingers and Sara returned to her room and
saw the time, 3:08 A.M. She was seventeen again, and as she turned
from the clock display, she immediately began to scream. The full moon
cast enough light to illuminate a hideous insect-like creature standing
over her bed, and at least two others were also in the room. She saw
them as a giant cicadas and felt as if their large dark eyes were sending
shivers of terror into her body.
    “No! No! No! I don’t want to go through it again!”
    Sara continued screaming and was slipping out of the trance before
Doctor Roberts took control and attempted to give her a calming suggestion.
    “You are okay, Sara, everything …”
    “I’m not okay! They’re here in my room and I don’t want to go with
them!” Her breathing was rapid, and she could feel her heart thumping
against her chest.
    “Let’s skip ahead two hours, Sara.” Dr Roberts spoke quickly now.
    “When I snap my fingers it will be two hours later.” [Snap!]
    Sara stopped screaming.
    “Where are you now?”
    “I’m outside the silver house. Sam is with me.”
    “Tell me about Sam. Who is Sam?”
    “He’s gorgeous. He has dark blue, almost black, eyes and a smile that
makes me melt. He can send good feelings into my brain. He’s about my
age, and he’s nice to me when the cicadas are hurting me. He doesn’t

18             Shawn Penning            Buy The Cicadas Here

stop them, though. I think I’m in love with him, but he doesn’t protect
me from the giant cicadas.”
    “Are you and Sam alone now?”
    “Yes. Today they let us go outside of the silver house together. I think
Sam convinced the others to let us be alone. My stomach hurts from
what they did to me.”
    “Okay, Sara. You are safe and calm now. Go ahead and stay in this
place and allow time to move forward at its normal pace. When I snap
my fingers, you will be fully back in that place and time, that night with
Sam [Snap!].”
    The night was bright from the full moon and nearly windless, and
Sara held Sam’s hand, as they walked slowly through the forest. She
smiled and squeezed his hand and felt playful. He looked at her, his own
face beaming. Dark, confusing memories still lingered fresh in her mind
from whatever had just happened in the silver house, and she felt a bit
of pain in the area of her stomach (or was it her uterus? She wasn’t quite
sure), and relief that whatever had happened was over.
    She felt conflicted about Sam. She was attracted to him and clearly
had affection for him, and he possessed powers over her that she could
not explain; he could send thoughts and memories into her mind, and
they acted like a tranquilizer and calmed her. Being with him felt like
taking a drug—kind of a high, an emotional peak—but always with a
subtle feeling of danger and recklessness. There was an awareness that
the high would end, and that there would be a crash and then regret and
fear. Still, in this moment, she did not want to be anywhere else.
    The pain was an annoying sidebar. Sara didn’t know what had just
happened in the silver house but felt that Sam had nothing to do with the
pain, only with the relief. Her stomach churned, and her face beamed as
she gazed upon his handsome face, and she didn’t mind the pain. In fact
she accepted that she must go through it in order to have this moment
with him. It felt like a chore that must be done, a duty that must be performed.
There would be no choice in the matter, but do it willfully and
earn a reward.
    She loved Sam, but she didn’t know why. He had the ability to look
into her eyes and restore memories that she didn’t know she had. She
felt like there were broken connections all over her brain, and with one
look from his dark eyes, he could repair a connection and bring back a
memory.
    Sam restored several memories for Sara, memories that stretched
across time. There were memories of her and Sam playing together in

THE CICADAS             19            Buy The Cicadas Here

the forest at age seven, memories from when they were twelve, and a lot
of memories from the last three or four years. In just a few moments’
time, a past was returned to Sara that she did not even know existed.
She remembered recent encounters with Sam, as their friendship turned
into something more. She remembered their first kiss.
    Now, bathed in moonlight, he turned to her, took her hands, and
gazed into her eyes. She moved closer, and he mirrored her movements.
They kissed, her eyes closed and angled up to his. She released his hands
and pulled his body closer to hers, and he responded in kind, kissing her
neck and moving up to her ear. She felt numb all over and pushed him
back enough, so that she could lock her lips with his, and the numbness
turned into a throbbing, tingling sensation and she squeezed his body
tight against hers, enjoying his presence in the embrace.
    For now, Sara didn’t feel the pain in her uterus. Her body trembled
in Sam’s arms, and she could have stayed there all night with him. She
kissed him again, and at first he reflected her passion and kissed back.
    Then she felt his body tighten with tension, and she stopped and looked
at him. His face held a sad expression, but even so, she couldn’t help
thinking about how very attractive he was.
    “They are coming,” he said.
    Sara did not know exactly who was coming, but the significance of
their arrival appeared in her mind, and she didn’t question Sam further
about who they were. She felt like he had transmitted those feelings to
her, so that she would not waste precious time asking questions about
them. Instead, her questions were about Sam.
    “Will you come back soon?” she asked. Sam looked solemn.
    “I’m seventeen today,” he said without smiling.
    “Well, happy birthday,” she said. “I don’t even have a gift for you.”
    “No, you don’t understand,” he said. “I’m at the end of my cycle which
has taken seventeen of your earth years. I will be going through some
changes, and I won’t be able to see you for a while.”
    “Changes? What changes? How long is ‘a while’?” She asked.
    “Several of your earth years. The others will come, but I won’t be with
them, and you probably won’t even know that they were here.”
    “Several years?” Sara felt sad and wanted to cry. “Why do you have
to go?”
    “It is necessary for my continued learning. My brain requires an
upgrade, so to speak; a time to mature and develop.”
“Will I remember you?”
“In here,” he said, taking her hand and placing it over her heart. “I
will be in here. I will be part of your feelings for a while, but the effects

20             Shawn Penning            Buy The Cicadas Here

will gradually dissipate over time until my return. But then I can restore
some of your memories.”
    Sara started to sob and closed her eyes and hugged Sam, and they
stood holding each other, not wanting ever to let go. Suddenly Sara
heard a twig snap, and she opened her eyes upon the terrible sight of
what she thought was a giant cicada standing just two feet away and facing
her. She didn’t even have time to scream before the creature tapped
her head with the stick, and everything went blank.
    In the next moment, her mother was yelling, the alarm was buzzing,
and she could recall only one thing from the early morning encounter—
a cicada. Her mind held the image of a tiny but hideous little bug; an
invader who somehow managed to get in through the locked doors and
windows. It had an over sized gray head and large black eyes, and the
memory of it made her shudder.

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