The swarming

Sit down children and I shall relay to you a story, not just any story; but one that you know well but do not really know at all. This is a story of a family and the hardships that they faced. It is a story of sorrow and woe, one of joy and happiness. It is a story that has and will span the ages with its simple truths and gives us all things to think about in our daily lives. It is about a journey, not just of a man, but of mankind, it has all of the complexities of mankind. It shows our brutal side, our loving side, and even our foolish side. There is wisdom here and points to ponder that seem to have no answer. It has romance and cannibalism, sacrifice and greed. It is about the end of the world and the beginning, about honor and what is right, about what we hope to become, and where we come from. It is a story that some say can not be true, but we have proof that it is. It is a story that needs to be told, but can not be understood in a single telling. It is a story with no morale, yet it is full of them. It is a story that requires attention and thought to be understood.



2012, 14, May. Naples, Texas 0700 hrs. Damn! It started early, how could he have made such a drastic miscalculation? The swarming was starting and it was a month before the calculated time; this was devastating. Maybe these were just limited ‘early tentacles’ and would subside, but even if they were it still meant the calculations were wrong. The swarming was suppose to be in response to the environmental pressures, had he miscalculated those pressures or was it something else? He frantically ran over the calculations in his head as he gathered all of the non-perishable food and piled it unto the table. He was on edge because he had seen a swarm the day before in Dallas, he was not sure where it had come from, but seeing the way it moved from house to house devouring everything that stood in its way; he did not wait around to find out either. He had been there to take a last look around before he headed back up to Maine. He was driving through when he saw the smoke and his curiosity got the best of him. Driving up on an overpass, he took out his binoculars and saw the swarm. As it moved through the city it killed all that stood in its way, feeding members into the fray to die as the rest overwhelmed its opposition. It was merciless in its advance. He vividly recalled watching as a cop tried to make a stand against it. When he had emptied his shotgun, he resorted to his sidearm, and was finally overwhelmed by the sheer mass of the swarm as it continued on; like a tsunami. Seeing this, Mac got back in the truck and headed straight for the farm.



The farm was not a large one, about forty acres; there were some horses, emus, and sheep on it. Most of the farm was pasture for the horses and sheep with a shooting range out back of the house. The house was small by modern standards but very comfortable. The cabinets were hand made out of knotty pine 1x4 and shoved full of non-perishables. This was his brother’s house when he had recently died. He and his wife had picked this spot to settle down in their old age. It was on this little piece of Texas that he and his loving wife, who had been his high school sweetheart, lived the end years of their life. His brother had survived the death of his beloved and had stayed strong for their children, but time and age had finally caught up with him. They had lived an exciting and unusual life and supported each other through it all. Their children had slowly drifted away and settled in other parts of Texas. It seemed that when all of the kids had moved and he was left alone, he had lost his will to live. None of the children wanted to be bothered with the place so Mac had come down to take care of everything. The children had told the lawyers that they relinquished all rights and that he should contact Mac, that he would take care of everything. Mac was tormented by the fact that they seemed so removed from their parent’s death.



Being here in Texas, dealing with his brother’s death when the swarming started was devastating on many levels. This was his worse case scenario coming true, it had caught him not only unprepared but half of the country away from where he needed to be when the swarming started. Looking out the kitchen window he could see the ‘treasure shed’ where his brother, who had been a fortune hunter during his younger days, kept all of his treasures. He had hacked his way through the jungles of places like Guatemala and found Aztec and Mayan gold and artifacts. He had sold most of them to museums or gave them to the government of the country they were found in. He loved the excitement of the hunt and had hoped that someday he would be the one that found the lost treasure of the Inca. Mac dropped the last of the food onto the table and went out to the shed, he knew that there was nothing there of particular value for the coming trip. He gathered the artifacts and wrapped them carefully in plastic freezer bags and then into large contractor bags with crumpled newspapers separating them. Most of it was just gold Inca figurines and Mayan pottery. There was some gold dust and a few precious jewels from South America. Taking the large bags, he went down by the road and buried them. Depending upon what type of society emerged from the survivors of the swarming, he wanted to be able to let them know where these treasures were, if not; then they were back in the earth where they had come from and could survive until discovered again.



He had a plan for the swarming and had calculated the survival of him and his family at nearly ninety percent as long as luck did not interfere too much, but this put the entire plan in jeopardy. He could only hope that the rest of the family would stick to the plan and that he could get there in time to help. He had managed to sell the place with livestock included so he was not worried about them starving but knew the fate that awaited them during the swarming was not much better. Should he take the motorcycle and make a mad dash for home or take all of this food and arms with him. The cycle was faster and took a lot less gas, but it offered a lot less protection. He decided to compromise and loaded the cycle in the back of the Silverado, if he ran into a swarm he could abandon the truck and outrun it on the bike; but this would mean losing all that he thought about bringing with him. The food and arms could prove to be the difference between life and death after the swarm when the siege began. Mac went around and drained every gas tank on the farm into what ever containers he could find and stored them in the front of the bed. Next he went to the barn and opened up the chest freezers, starting with the ammo, he loaded the truck. 5,000 rounds of 7.62x39, 1,000 of 7.62x54, 2,000 of .45ACP, 2 bricks of .22 magnums, 10 bricks of .22LR, and 300 rounds of 20gauge .00 buck shot. Based on the ammo he grabbed 3 SKSs, the 2 Russ.Com. sniper rifles, four Kimbers (2 with .22 conversions already on them), the H&K, and the two Mossberg pumps; loading them all he stored them in the crew cab except the H&K, which he tucked into his belt.



After his treasure hunting days, his brother had settled down and got a job training the special forces for jungle survival, they had lived for years in Panama and Costa Rico training the troops. He had been hired because of his vast knowledge of the jungle and self defense tactics. Mac had always said that his brother was the only person that he knew that could walk into the jungle with only a knife and come out a month later weighing more than when he went in. He had always been a ‘gun nut’ like Mac and had an impressive collection that he kept in chest freezers to keep them out of the weather and had put them under lock and key in the shed. The shooting range out back would have shown even the most casual observer that he was not only proficient with firearms, but loved to shoot. Loading the food in the rear of the bed, filling any empty spaces with containers of water, stuffing in a couple of tarps (in case it rained),and putting Rusty (a Redbone hound that his brother had as a sentry) into the cab, he was ready to start the trip. Mac was an almost sixty year old Marine; he was in good shape for his age as far as strength goes. He did have occasional flairs of Sciatica and Bursitis from his military service and from working hard all of his life. Standing five foot and nine inches with blonde hair and blue eyes, he was not a large man; but many people had said that they were afraid of him because of his size. He did have a fifty-three inch chest and fifteen inch biceps which did make him appear bigger, but all in all, he looked like an elder Viking warrior with his graying beard and scarred body. Mac forces himself to push the reasons for the miscalculation out of his mind as he settles in for the long trip. Mac had always been amazed at how similar the lives of he and his brother had paralleled. Mac had gone into the Marines at a very young age and was a sniper for two tours in Viet Nam. He was convinced to leave the marines and go to work as a troubleshooter and mole-hunter for part of the alphabet soup. He had only left the government at the insistence of his young wife. He, like his brother had fallen in love with a young country girl and had remained with her and planned to until he died. They had both settled down in the country and both hunted and collected guns. They had the same political outlook and even made comparative predictions for where the country was headed.



It is a waste of energy to concentrate on things that can not be changed and to second guess concepts that could make you doubt yourself, with the swarming starting it was necessary to spend all of his energy on the present and have faith in his problem solving abilities. The swarming was going to be one of the most devastating times in human history, billions of people would most likely die and in a very short time period. In order to survive each person would have to have all of their wits about them, re-engage their animal spirit and/or have a lot of luck on their side. The swarms were going to be ravenous, merciless, and brutal, leaving a path of death and destruction behind them. They will consume everything in their path and destroy anything and anybody that tries to stop them. Mac constantly reminds himself of this as he pulls onto the county road and heads away from the small Texas farm that his brother had built. Looking back he sees it one last time and is glad in a way that his brother is not alive to witness this, and in the distance he sees a cloud of smoke rising from the neighbors place down the road. Looks like he was timing that closer than he should he kept thinking. He had chosen a path to avoid the areas where he expected the swarms to form, it will more than double the distance that he has to travel, but if he is to survive he has to avoid the swarms. The plan was to start out following Interstate 30 east and then 67 North, skirting any place that a swarm might come from. He just hoped that he was right about where the swarms would originate from!