It had been two weeks since we left The Letter House and returned home, but nobody concerned themselves. Our parents were unaware of the entire ordeal, and Tony’s mom claimed that he had ran away and came back when he was hungry. It was the same line we heard time and time again, whenever a kid threatened to run away in the 80’s.
We had gathered at Katie’s house that evening. Her parents were going to be at work all weekend up at Fort Savannah, some major project deadline they said. The Nguyen’s were both government scientists, working on top secret projects at the military base in Eden Falls. Mrs Nguyen, Kim, was a technology specialist that dealt with the bleeding edge of military equipment. Mr Nguyen, Bao, was a behavioral scientist that, while he was always nice to us, always seemed like he was studying us in some way or another.
We didn’t get to Katie’s house that often, because her parents were … weird … but whenever they were going to be out for a while, we piled into their place for movie night and good times. Elijah’s older brother, Thomas, worked at the local Pizza Hut and was our go-to hookup for adventure food. I’m not sure how accurate it is, but growing up, we believed that we invented the bicycle delivery method of hot Pizza Hut pizza in Eden Falls.
I went to Beyond Video earlier that morning, Eden Falls’ local video store, and snagged one of two copies of the newest VHS release, Back to the Future. It was tucked into my jacket like some kind of precious commodity.
Elijah would ride by, pick up the food and bungee cord a hot-box he made out of an Igloo Cooler onto the back rack of his bike. It was always piping hot by the time he got it back to the clubhouse, or one of our basements.
The middle of September in Eden Falls was always pleasant. Upper 70s to low 80’s temperature during the day, low humidity, and a cool, crisp evening in the 60’s was the normal spread. Occasionally the foliage would change early, the cooler it was, and we would see the tell-tale signs of autumn in the orange and red trees. Everyone in town loved the fall season, except for one inexplicit phenomenon that happened every year in Eden Falls.
Love Bugs.
Twice a year, every spring and fall, Eden Falls is swarmed by thousands of red-and-black bugs that coat windows, clog vents, and splatter across windshields. They are a terrible nuisance and make bike riding and other outdoor activities a gross, annoying, and unpleasant adventure for all of us.
Elijah pulled up into the open garage and Ace closed it quickly, batting away the few initial strays of bugs with a badminton racket she snagged from a box near the switch.
I grabbed the cooler off the bike rack and took it inside, with Elijah and Ace bringing up the rear.
“Damn bugs,” Elijah said, running his fingers through his hair. “Always feels like they’re stuck in there…”
Ace crawled her fingers up Elijah’s back, goosing him and saying he’s covered in the swarm.
He wasn’t, but that didn’t stop Ace from being … Ace.
Katie came into the dining room with a set of plates, knives and forks. We’d snagged a couple bottles of Pepsi earlier in the day and filled our cups to the brim. Katie’s family had one of those harvest gold General Electric refrigerators with the ice machine built in. Nobody else on the block had one, so whenever we could, we would enjoy the brisk chill of iced Soda at her house.
“Alright,” I said, standing at the head of the table as if I were somehow in charge. “Let’s bring this meeting to order.”
Everyone was quiet. Katie and Elijah were distributing pizza to plates. Ace handed out napkins and chips, but there was a hush among us as I spoke.
“So, update on Tony,” I said, looking over my notebook. “He’s still confused. His parents think he’s sick and are keeping him at the sleep lab in the hospital to work on his nightmares.
He’s still having some lingering memories and dreams about what he saw.”
Elijah looked up at me. “Why the sleep lab? That’s weird.”
“I dunno,” I said. “They wouldn’t let me visit for long, but he didn’t look good.”
“You know how they are,” Ace said. “Parents…”
Ace’s incoming rant was interrupted by the sound of the garage door opening and a car roaring in. The engine wasn’t even off by the time the door started its descent.
Kim Nguyen rushed in through the door to the garage and closed it. She grabbed towels from the nearby closet and kicked them against the bottom of the door.
“Katie,” she said hurriedly, “Make sure all the windows and doors are closed. You kids close up the fireplace and make sure none of them can get in. Go. Now”
We didn’t hesitate. Katie and Ace rushed to the windows and doors. Elijah and I took the fireplace, closing the flue and ensuring it was locked up tight. I looked at Elijah when we heard the ping… ping… ping… of what sounded like rain hitting the metal flue, then we looked out the nearby window. But it wasn’t rain we saw.
It was the bugs.
I’d lived through plenty of Love Bug swarms. Every kid in Eden Falls had. But this… this didn’t feel like a nuisance. It felt intentional. Like we’d triggered something just by being together in this house.
They were swarming onto any window they could reach. The small black-and-red bodies pelted the glass in erratic waves, a rattling hiss rising as their soft shells collided. Some splattered instantly, streaking the glass with thick, oily residue. Others clung. Writhing. Wriggling. Climbing over one another in a frantic, disorganized tangle.
“They’re not flying right,” Elijah muttered. His face was close to the glass now, eyes tracking the movement. “They’re… pushing. Like they’re trying to get through.”
I took a step forward, watching as three of them skittered into the corner of the window. One stopped, then flattened itself against the glass. It didn’t move. Its legs locked out wide like it was bracing against something.
Another joined it.
Then another.
Within seconds, a perfect circle had begun to form, each bug anchoring itself to the next, mandibles twitching, legs motionless. I felt my chest tighten.
“What are they doing?” I whispered.
Elijah shook his head. “That’s not random.”
Behind us, Kim’s voice cut the silence like a scalpel.
“Check the vents. Bathroom fans. Under the sink. Anywhere air can get in. Tape them shut.”
There was no explanation in her voice, just urgency. Katie and Ace scrambled down the hall, towels and duct tape already in hand. Elijah and I stayed by the window, transfixed. The circle had filled in now, solid black and red, pulsing faintly as the center spun, not the bugs themselves, but something beneath them. A flickering spiral, like light through a zoetrope.
I stepped back. “Elijah…”
But he was already moving, backing away with wide eyes.
Across the room, Kim yanked open a drawer and scattered folders across the dining table. Schematics, forms, pages stamped with government crests and words I couldn’t understand. Her hands were shaking. Her lips moved, forming words she didn’t say aloud.
“This isn’t right,” she finally muttered. “They’re not acting like insects. They’re responding to…” She caught herself. Slammed the drawer closed. “They’re responding.”
“To what?” I asked.
Kim didn’t answer. Her eyes darted toward the fireplace, then to the windows, then back to her papers. Outside, the buzzing was intensifying. It felt like we were in an airplane hangar with the engines on. There was a physical force to the disturbance in the air, the weight of the bugs and their wings fluttering.
Ace appeared at the hallway archway, eyes wide, duct tape still dangling from one hand.
“They’re in the attic.”
Katie turned to her. “What?”
Ace pointed upward, hand trembling. “I…I heard them. Skittering across the rafters. Like rain, but wrong.”
Kim dropped the papers she was holding.
“How?” she muttered. “The ventilation’s sealed, the eaves…” She spun around, grabbed the hallway closet door, and yanked it open. A rush of cold air spilled out as she retrieved a long, black metal case from the back. She didn’t hesitate. She set it on the table, undid the latches with a practiced flick, and opened it.
It had the same Fort Savannah logo as the one we saw in The Letter House, in the illusion of Tony’s room. We all knew Katie’s parents worked up at Fort Savannah, but seeing the military hardware first hand was something altogether different. The box had a weight to it, not just physical but it’s presence dominated the small hallway with a forbidden feeling.
Inside was a weapon. Not a gun, at least, not one I’d ever seen. It looked like a flashlight had been grafted to a tuning fork, connected by thick copper coils and etched with strange concentric grooves. Small red diodes blinked to life along its spine.
Katie stepped forward, her voice small. “Mom… what is that?”
Kim looked at her, eyes hard.
“Go to the basement. All of you. Now.”
“What’s going on? Why are you scared?”
“Now, Katherine.”
We didn’t argue. Elijah was already moving, tugging at my sleeve. Ace pulled Katie back by the hand, and the four of us bolted down the steps as the sound above us shifted.
No longer buzzing.
Now it was scratching.
Hundreds of tiny claws scraping across wood. Searching.
At the bottom of the stairs, in the cool dark of the basement, we huddled together, eyes flicking between the door and the ceiling above. The sound followed us, muffled, but moving. Tracing the beams.
Katie stood apart from us, staring up, her mouth a thin, tight line.
“My parents work on weapons,” she whispered. “Not just bombs. Signal weapons. Sonic disruption. Psychological interference.”
She turned to look at me, eyes filled with something I hadn’t seen in her before.
“They were never scared of anything before tonight.”
Katie’s mom stood at the top of the stairs, that strange, humming weapon clutched in her hand. Its soft red diodes blinked against the dim ceiling light, casting faint spirals along the walls. For a brief moment, she looked like Ellen Ripley from the Alien movie to me. Bold, armed, badass. But the moment passed quickly when she gave us the command.
“You stay down here,” she said. “Do not come up until I get you.”
She didn’t wait for a response. The door slammed shut with a finality that made all of us flinch.
A moment later, the hiss of duct tape filled the silence, slow, steady rips, muffled by the thick wooden door. Then the light leaking through the edges began to disappear, one sliver at a time, until we were sealed in, the basement wrapped in a dull silver border.
None of us spoke.
There was a weight in the room now, the kind of silence that made you hear things that might not be there. A faint creak in the ceiling above. The flutter of wings, distant but rhythmic. The sound of your own heartbeat where it didn’t belong.
Katie sat down slowly on the bottom step. Elijah leaned against the support beam, his hands jammed into his hoodie pocket. Ace paced the floor, her boots barely making a sound on the concrete.
“What the hell kind of bug needs a gun?” she whispered.
I didn’t answer. Nobody did.
Somewhere above us, something thudded against the wall. Then again. Heavier this time. Not the skittering of insects, but a weight. Like something was testing the frame of the house.
Katie looked up.
“My mom said they respond to signals. What if they’re not just bugs?”
Another thump. Louder.
A pause.
Then a dragging sound across the ceiling, like claws pulling across wood.
Or fingertips.
Ace stopped pacing. “I’m not crazy, right? This feels like the house is breathing.”
Elijah didn’t look up. “No. Not breathing.”
He raised his head slowly. His voice was steady, but quiet.
“Listening.”
I don’t recall ever being in Katie’s basement before that day. At first, it looked to me like your average Virginian basement, low ceilings, exposed beams, a faint smell of concrete dust and stored holiday decorations. But the deeper I looked, the stranger it got.
Most of our houses had those old gravity furnaces, the kind that looked like metal monsters in the dark. Big cast-iron beasts with tentacle ducts that groaned to life in the winter. I used to think they were alive. Maybe I still do.
The Nguyen’s system was different. Cleaner. Advanced. Their furnace, if you could even call it that, was a sleek, vertical tower of matte black metal with a line of blinking red LEDs across its face. It stood on a raised concrete pad like it was something sacred. The ducts branching from it were spotless, labeled, and suspended with military precision. Not a speck of dust. Not a single cobweb.
But the furnace wasn’t the weirdest thing.
In the far corner, mostly hidden behind stacked totes and a deflated exercise ball, was an enclosure. At first I thought it was just a storage cage, one of those chain-link closets some basements used to keep tools or holiday junk locked up.
But this wasn’t chain-link.
It was copper-colored mesh. Fine, tightly woven, and bolted to an aluminum frame. The whole thing formed a perfect cube, maybe eight feet by eight, with a single door secured by an industrial latch. It hummed faintly, not audibly, but I could feel it, like a pressure against the skin.
Inside the mesh room was a wooden table. Just that. No chairs, no tools. On the table sat a handful of devices I couldn’t name: a metallic disc with prongs around its edge, a case of glass vials glowing faint green, and something that looked like an old ham radio, but sleeker, streamlined, and completely out of place.
“Uh…” Elijah stepped beside me, his voice low. “Why does your dad have a Faraday cage in your basement?”
Katie didn’t answer right away.
She walked slowly to the cage, her fingers brushing the copper mesh like she was testing for a current.
There was no reaction, no spark, no sound, but she paused anyway, like she felt something we couldn’t. Her hand lingered against the mesh, not pressed hard, just resting there. Testing. Waiting. Maybe listening.
The air felt different near the cage. Still and tense, like whatever was inside was holding its breath. Katie didn’t move.
“He said it’s to block signals,” she said quietly. “Not just from getting in… but from getting out.”
As if it had been listening this whole time, the radio inside the cage blinked to life. One red light. Steady. Watching.