The Locust March

I was in the middle of a tedious animation frame when my phone buzzed twice, then fell silent. It was Marisol, a name I hadn’t seen in months. She had a habit of calling at odd hours, but two missed calls felt urgent. I saved my work and called back, half expecting a mundane emergency.

Marisol answered on the first ring, breathless with excitement. ‘You won’t believe who’s back in town. Remember Leo? From high school? He just messaged me on Facebook. He’s on leave from the Navy and wants to meet up.’ Her voice pitched like a kid on Christmas morning.

I hadn’t thought about Leo in years. He’d been a quiet, intense guy who joined the Navy right after graduation. We’d lost touch, but the idea of seeing him again sparked a warmth in my chest. Marisol conference-called him, and his voice crackled through, deeper but familiar. We chatted like no time had passed, and we agreed to meet at the old icehouse on the edge of town that night.

The icehouse had been abandoned for as long as I could remember. It was a looming concrete structure with rusted pipes and shattered windows, a place we’d dared each other to enter as teens. Marisol and I arrived at dusk, the sky bleeding orange and purple. Leo was already there, leaning against his beat-up truck, a duffel at his feet. He looked older, leaner, but his eyes held a flicker of something I couldn’t place—maybe fatigue, maybe something else.

‘Glad you came,’ he said, offering a half-smile. ‘I wanted to see this place one last time before I ship out again. Got some memories here.’ We exchanged awkward hugs, then he led us inside. The air was thick with dust and the smell of decay. We picked our way through the dark, using our phone flashlights to avoid the debris.

Leo started telling stories—about boot camp, about the ocean, about his bunkmate who swore the ship was haunted. His voice echoed off the concrete walls, and for a moment, it felt like old times. But then he stopped mid-sentence, tilting his head as if listening to something. ‘You hear that?’ he whispered.

Marisol and I shook our heads. He frowned, then shrugged it off, moving deeper into the building. We followed, stumbling into a large open room that might have been the main freezer. The walls were lined with rusted metal shelves, and the floor was slick with grime. In the center, there was a strange pattern scratched into the cement—a series of concentric circles with jagged symbols between them.

‘What’s that?’ Marisol asked, her light tracing the grooves. Leo’s face went pale under the beam. ‘It’s a summoning circle,’ he said, his voice barely audible. ‘I found it last time I was here, but I didn’t think anything of it. I was just a kid.’ He knelt down, tracing one of the symbols with his finger. ‘Actually, I kind of… I might’ve triggered something. I mean, I drew a symbol from a book I found at the library. Just for fun. I never thought—’

The floor began to vibrate, a low hum that grew into a drone. The symbols started to glow a sickly green, and the air grew cold, so cold our breath fogged. From the cracks in the cement, a black, oily substance began to seep, pooling in thick blobs. They started to writhe, taking shape—legs, antennae, bodies. Locusts. Not the normal kind, but massive, each the size of a rat, with glossy carapaces that reflected our lights like mirrors.

‘Run!’ Leo shouted, but before we could move, the locusts swarmed, not at us, but into the air, forming a dense, buzzing cloud. They blocked the exits, their wings beating a sound like a thousand screams. We huddled together, and Leo was crying, admitting he’d activated something, that it was his fault. But there was no time for blame.

The locusts began to land on us, their legs digging into our skin, their mandibles clicking. They didn’t bite—they just crawled, covering every inch of our bodies until we were stationary, encased in a living armor of chittering insects. I could feel their tiny legs probing, searching, and then a sharp sting as one injected something into my neck. My vision blurred, and the last thing I saw was Marisol’s terrified face through a haze of wings.

I woke up in a field, the sun glaring down, body aching. Marisol and Leo were beside me, groaning. We were whole, but on our arms, the locusts had left marks—not bites, but intricate, circular patterns, like tribal tattoos etched in black. They didn’t fade. They seemed to move, subtly shifting if I stared too long.

We never talked about that night, not really. We went back to our lives, but I noticed things. A strange humming in my ears that never went away. A sense of being watched. And every so often, I’d catch a glint in Marisol’s eye, a flicker of something non-human. We started to dream of the same thing: a vast, dark field underneath a green sky, millions of locusts marching in unison, and in the center, a figure that raised its hand, beckoning.

Last week, Leo shipped out again. He sent me a text that just said, ‘It’s not over.’ I tried to call, but his number was dead. And now, I’m sitting in my apartment, the lights flickering, and the air is thick with a familiar buzz. The marks on my arms are warm, and I can feel them pulsing like a second heartbeat. I think they’re calling me. And I’m afraid that soon, I’ll answer.

The Locust March is coming. And I’m part of it now.