This debut confined space thriller features killer “butterflies”, and mental health representation in a story that shows that sometimes your greatest strength is what the world sees as weakness.
Intrigued? Well read on to discover the synopsis and an excerpt from Jennifer D. Lyle’s Swarm, which is out November 7th.
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 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.
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 or birds to be seen.
“They’re smarter than we are. Look at these people, just walking along,” Jenny says.
“Maybe they don’t know yet,” Keene says.
“We should yell at them to get in their cars,” I say.
“We’re not opening the windows.” Nathan shakes his head, almost a spasm more than a deliberate motion.
“These people… It’s like with a tornado warning,” Keene says. “You know, there’s always that one guy mowing his lawn because he doesn’t believe it’s going to happen.”
“Bill,” Jenny and I say in unison.
Bill Hockstetter is our across-the-street neighbor and a bit of a character. He does not believe in tornado warnings, climate change, or the need for taxes. He also has a very large gun collection, assembles his own bullets, and makes the best cheeseburger chowder in the state (a champion four years running).
“He’s probably stringing up a crossbow,” Jenny says, and Little brings his red face out from my side.
“Really?”
“Yeah, man,” she says. “You kill monsters with a crossbow.” And there it is. Someone has used the “m” word, and there’s no taking it back.
“You kill them with a stake,” Keene says.
“That’s vampires.”
“Werewolves are killed by silver bullets. Not crossbows.”
“A silver crossbow bolt would work on either of those,” Jenny says, warming to the topic.
“You may have a point,” he says. “A bolt is pretty stake-like, and I guess silver on the pointy part is more or less the same as a silver bullet. But still, I mean, a crossbow for these? Wouldn’t a shotgun make more sense?”
It’s nice to have something like a normal flow of conversation in the car, to distract both ourselves and Little, even if the topic is Effective Monster Slaying.
The light turns. We’re waiting for the front car to roll when a scream tears through the air.
In front of the bakery, a woman stumbles across the sidewalk. She swats at herself with one hand, trying to get something off of the sleeve of her red shirt. I recognize her. She owns the place, must have been in the process of closing up like the other downtown businesses. I can’t come up with her name. That’s what my brain chooses to focus on. Sandra? Sarah?
The woman streaks towards the front car at the light. Her shirt isn’t red, my busy, busy brain realizes. It’s the same shirt she always wears at work, the pink and brown one that matches the sign in the window. But it’s drenched red with her blood.
“Holy shit, go around,” Nathan whispers.
“What’s happening?” Little asks, the pitch going up on the ing as it dawns on him that it must be bad. He cannot have seen, but I cover his eyes anyway.
“Keene!” Jenny says. “Go!”
Keene throws a wild glance over his right shoulder and pulls around, narrowly missing a parked car. The man in the front car is getting out to help. A large orange and black mass squirms on her arm, and I think of that maw full of needle-sharp teeth. Sandra-or-Sarah whipsaws her arm and a splatter-fall hits Keene’s window, a red drizzle. It glistens like rubies in the morning sun, and I can’t tear my eyes away. The droplets are speckled black like flawed jewels.
Then we’re past and moving too fast, shooting through town.
“I need to get home,” Nathan says.
Keene squares his jaw, teeth clenched. “We’re not stopping.”
“My parents!” Nathan shouts, turning on Keene.
“Jesus, Nathan. You just saw someone get eaten,” Keene snaps. “Do you really think I’m stopping?”
“But—”
“Nathan,” Jenny says and drops a hand on his shoulder. “Think. They aren’t home. They’re at work. We’re better off staying together for now. We can call them once we get to the Riordan’s to let them know you’re okay. They can pick you up the second the shelter-in-place order lifts. But Keene is right; we can’t stop. We need to be somewhere safe.”
His mouth moves and I think he’s going to argue more, but he slumps, deflated, and nods. Jenny pulls her hand back and looks at me, eyes wide. I don’t know for sure, and it might just be my paranoia piping up, but I don’t think Nathan’s parents are going to be picking him up any time soon. These things are hunters—and there are more of them with every passing hour. How long until they’re everywhere?
