You know those signs you see on a highway right as you’re coming up on a border, imploring you to leave behind any firewood you might have, and pick up something new when you arrive? “Buy local, burn local” it’s a simple message, trying to make sure that you’re not helping an unwanted camper hitch a ride somewhere they shouldn’t be. You’d hate to be the reason a camp got shut down because your fifteen-dollar bag of wood invited an infestation of pine beetles to terraform a serene paradise into a field of hollowed wood stalks, wouldn’t you?
Now sure, it starts simple enough, you swing by to pick up a friend for a weekend getaway. They toss their bags in the back, along with some wood so you can start a fire after camp is set up. You get busy talking about that trail you’re going to hike or get caught up in an argument about who could swim to Dead Man’s Point first, and you don’t hear the wood start to creak. It’s not too loud, just a whisper amongst the excitement for the weekend, but it groans, like an old wooden floor protesting a midnight intruder.
You start telling stories around the fire but decide to call the night early when your friend laughs at you for forgetting how the Goatman story goes. You douse the fire and go to bed, but there, untouched on the side of the camp are the final pieces of your groaning firewood, and under the cover of night, it’s time. From the soft underbelly of the bark, they writhe out to their new surroundings, a blank canvas ripe for chaos. Their numbers are small, so they’ll pick easy prey, perhaps a tree that some youth tried to fell before a ranger informed them that live trees are to be left alone, or maybe they just find an old, tired pine that doesn’t have the fight in it that it used to.
The beetles find their mark and prepare for the feast, burrowing into the flesh of the tree and gorging on its innards. When they’ve fed, all that remains is a labyrinth of timber, made soft from the fungus they secrete from their mouths, and their eggs, which will hatch and give way to the larvae. The larvae will start slow, growing on fungus left for them, before growing big enough to continue on their parents’ destructive work. Soon the tree, like the firewood before it, will start to groan, a cry at being consumed from the inside and poisoned by the fungus. It’s not a quick death, no. These unwelcomed guests can live in the tree for as long as ten months, wintering down and suckling away life force so they might pupate and join their parents as full gown terrors the next summer, all the while killing branches and changing the trees needles from green to yellow, and eventually red. Where once a few beetles feasted on the weak, now many gorge on the strong. In only a matter of years, a forest left unchecked can easily find itself crippled by these grim wood reapers.
But what if I told you, that they don’t always only have a taste for wood?
It started in the Fall; a neighboring town had to ship over some patients because their hospital was overwhelmed. We live a little out of the reach of your regular metropolises, so it’s not uncommon to shift your problems from town to town to try and sort it out where best you can. We didn’t have a big hospital, in fact, our doctor only flew in every other week, but it wouldn’t be an issue to give beds to few run-down workers from the next town over. We thought, “they’ll make good company for the older people who stay here for care.” We were told they suspected some kind of dietary anemia was to blame. They were dogged, but hadn’t been doing anything extra ordinary, just bushed from wake up to sundown. We were assured they should just need some monitored rest.
Well, it didn’t take long for our older residents to pick up that “dietary anemia.” Not only that, but their fingernails started to turn shades of yellow, could be something to do with jaundice? The doctor was still four days away, so all we could do was make sure they were comfortable. But that wouldn’t matter, by the time the doc was scheduled to arrive, they’d all passed. What’s worse was the town over was in a stir, and all medical professionals were called to assist, so we were told to keep them in the morgue till things calmed down and proper autopsies could be conducted.
It wasn’t long after that, people started saying they swore they’d heard someone walking around their houses at night, but get up to look around and find no one, not even a trace of anything out of place. People would complain their backs were sore, and soon enough the majority of our little town was starting to feel like they’d been hit by a bus. No energy, weak joints, it was a slog just get out of bed. We tried getting a hold of the neighboring town to get a doctor back, but no one ever answered.
That was when I decided to go for a drive. I packed up my truck and headed down the old dirt road that connected us. I don’t know if I was hoping to find a downed phone line, or some kind of military grade quarantine, but what I came across wasn’t anything I could have predicted.
I had dismissed them on the way in, a splat on the windshield, a thud on the mirror, nothing out of the ordinary for driving in the fall. But then they became so thick, I couldn’t keep them out of mind anymore. Tens of thousands of beetles lined the buildings, but the streets, stoops, and windows were lined with bodies. Old, young, large, fit, everyone was just…laying there. From my driver’s seat I could see their ripped shirts and pants, covered in dried blood. I wanted to vomit, but I didn’t want it in the cab of my truck, and I DEFIINITELY didn’t want to open my window or door.
I threw my truck in reverse and raced back to my town. I needed to check the bodies at the hospital. The town had been quiet since our mass outbreak of the sleepies, so I didn’t meet much resistance as I raced down the main drag to the hospital, and even less as I let myself into the morgue. I cracked one of the doors, and to my dismay, a handful of beetles crawled out to meet me. I shuddered and gagged, but I needed to know. I pulled a trolly out from its frigid home and saw them. Holes, all over the body. This time I couldn’t stop myself and retched all over the floor. As I steadied myself, I saw them. Either awoken by the smell of a new meal, or the heat of my previous lunch, a new handful of beetles writhing their way out of the body.
Needless to say, I bolted. I ran back to my truck, turned the key, and drove till I couldn’t drive anymore. Now I’m exhausted, holed up in a hotel, trying to think of who I can even talk to about this. I think after a good night’s rest, I’ll be ready to figure out my next move. It’s strange though, I could have sworn the room was carpeted, but I can hear the wood floors creaking.