12 to 18 inches below the ground the cicadas sleep for 17 years, feeding on the sap from the trees. I know this. I have it all pictured in my head. The chemicals, the trees, the cicadas sleeping and drinking; always drinking. The ground is getting warmer. The cicadas red eyes pop open like they're spring loaded. They stir, only this time it's different. The ground moves and bulges. Basketball sized lumps of dirt shift, and you can hear the muted buzz of the 17 year cicadas moving toward the surface.

I watch from the window; the blinds parted. I see the ground moving. A head emerges. It's night; a huge dark shape buzzes behind the shed. I can hear them. Thousands of them, buzzing in the distance. Suddenly it's quiet. All I can hear is my breath coming in short gasps. I crane me head down and press my face against the glass, desperately trying to see in every direction at once.

BAM! Suddenly a huge duffel-bag sized body slams against the window. BAM! Another. I hear thumps on the roof. My family screams. I hustle us all down the stairs into the basement.

The 17 year cicadas have come, only this time mankind's disharmony with nature has twisted them into flesh-eating monsters. Why didn't anyone warn us? Why didn't Al Gore cut out that self-serving shit about the elections from "An Inconvenient Truth" to make time to warn us of the dangers of atomic super bugs?

But I am prepared. Downstairs I have flashlights. Batteries. I have food to last a thousand days, fresh water and toiletries. I also have guns. I have guns and a room full of ammunition. Shotguns, .22's, handguns. If the ATF knew of this stockpile they would've been kicking down my door months ago when I first suspected the 17 year cicadas may be more than an icky novelty.

I have constructed a flame-thrower out of a super-soaker, a flint, and a backpack modified to hold containers of kerosene. I don a football helmet, motocross pads, and a pair of science goggles. I sling the kerosene pack across one shoulder and across the other a backpack containing a huge home-made battery. I have constructed a mobile bug-zapper. It is a mesh of chain-mail kept at a distance from my body by non-conductive rods that attach to my make-shift body armor. I connect the alligator clips to the battery. "Stand back!" is say in a firm, patriarchal voice, "daddy has to go to work". My family stares at me in respectful awe as the chain-mail shield crackles to life like a deadly reverse Faraday cage.

I slowly ascend the stairs to the kitchen. I can hear the horrific buzzing and the clang of pots and pans being thrown about. I press the kill switch for the cage on my hip just long enough to kick the door down before the zapper activates again. There is a mighty CRACK CRACK CRACK as I push against the wall of giant cicadas. I can see the beak-like sheaths of the cicadas' mouths dripping with acidic saliva. It sizzles and smokes on the shitty linoleum of my kitchen floor. CRACK! Another cicada bursts in an electric ball of light.

My battery won't last forever, so I pull a sawed-off shotgun from my pant leg. As my hand flies up it flicks the kill switch off again just in time for me to open fire. BLAM! BLAM! The cicadas erupt in bloody clouds. There are so many of them! They can smell my delicious flesh so they begin to swarm around me. I can't fire fast enough. I grab a butcher knife from a knife block on the counter as I swing my body around and round-house kick a group of mutant cicada bastards in the face. I feel a crunch as my foot connects with a head, killing the monster instantly. While my body is twirling from the momentum of my kick I slash out with knife, slicing two of the insects almost in half. By the time I'm back to my normal position I'm firing again.

I drop the now empty shotgun and pull two nine-millimeter pistols from my belt. I don't even have to aim; I just shoot into the undulating mass of cicadas. I only stop to flip on my industrial bug-zapper and jam another two clips into my guns and start firing again.

I can now move into the kitchen. I activate the cage again and slam the pistols back into my belt. I move toward the back door, taking a moment to pull the flame-thrower around to the front of my body. I twist a knob to get the fuel flowing. I pull the trigger and the flint sparks, lighting a pilot light about 4 inches from the end of the barrel. I step around the corner into the yard. The cicadas are there; tens of thousands of them. I fire the flame thrower blindly into them. I see flaming bodies of cicadas desperately trying to get out of the way, but the air is so thick with them that they can't move. One erupts into flames. It panics and slams itself into the mass. More of them catch on fire. I can hear them sizzle, and there is a sick whistling sound as gas escapes their exoskeleton while they burn to death. I laugh.

I am also smoking a cigar during all of this.

I make it to the shed. The cicadas have not yet broken through so I have a moment to arm the explosives I set up as soon as the weather started getting warm. The triggering device is a modified clock radio. I set the alarm for ten minutes. That should be long enough for what I need to do. I watch the seconds start to tick by for a moment before I fling the door open, letting loose a torrent of flame that starts a huge cloud of cicadas on fire. They slam into the ground, black smoking husks.

I pull the trigger again and the stream of flame peters out. "SHIT!" I yell, pushing the switch for my cage to "on". It crackles for a moment, and then nothing. Suddenly I can feel the cicadas slamming into me, only now they aren't erupting in blue electrical explosions. The cage offers a little protection, but not for long.

I press against the side of the house, pulling out the 9 millimeter hand guns again. I fire blindly, but it does little good. If they don't get through my cage and dine on my flesh, they'll suffocate me to death. I madly push the switch for my cage, hoping it will fire up again but nothing happens. I am being crushed against the side of the house. I punch and kick to no avail.

Suddenly, a huge fireball erupts in the middle of the swarm. I can feel the heat of the fire and the burning bodies falling around me. When the air clears a little I see my wife standing by the back door with a recycling bin full of Molotov cocktails and a lighter. "Hope you didn't think you could have this cookout without me?" She says.

We grab the boy and fight our way to the front yard. I fish out my keyring and push a button on a small black fob. There is a "beep beep" sound of an alarm deactivating, and a pneumatic "pssssssst". We can see the many lights of my heavily modified RV shining through the fog that suddenly appeared for some reason. "Hop in!" I say. We all pile in. It is huge and black. Razor wire lines the outside, expect for a small area where the gun turret is located. It starts immediately, the loping sound of the diesel engine comforting us.

"Let's roll!" I say. The bugs are slamming against the side, but it's futile for them. I push a button and the razor wire electrifies, sending off an epic shower of sparking cicada bodies. As we pull out of the driveway the clock radio clicks on, detonating the explosives. I can see a huge burning mass of bug bodies behind me.

We drive south, stopping occasionally to rescue friends and family. Some of them are dead; their eyes and brains eaten out of their heads by the murderous bugs, but all the really cool people are alive, and they realize my full awesomeness. They sit in the back of the RV playing cards. I look at them in the rear view mirror and smile as a drive through the fog of mutant cicadas.