James Axler – Keepers of the Sun

“It’s insects,” he guessed. “Locusts.”

Hideyoshi nodded mutely, turning toward the shogun as if he were waiting for some mystical instruction that would take away the advancing horror.

“Will not” Swallowing hard, Mashashige tried again. “Will not harm us. Cover face and mouth. They may land. They may pass by us.”

The cloud looked to be about a mile or more in diameter, roughly circular.

“Seen them in west Texas,” Jak said. “Stripped crops in minutes. Starved villes.”

“I remember seeing predark vids of plagues of locusts out in the East and the Middle East,” Mildred said, looking apprehensively at the gathering cloud. “Must be millions upon millions of them in that swarm. Sure they aren’t special mutie locusts with a taste for meat?”

Ryan grinned at her. “If they are, then it’s time to start the prayers. Not even your blaster’s going to do much to save us from that many.”

“Couldn’t we hide?” Krysty asked. “Do a runner for that old wrecked train?”

Hideyoshi heard her and his eyes widened, and he called to Mashashige, “The fire-haired gaijin suggests we flee to the bullet train, Lord.”

The shogun didn’t waste a minute. “It might be safer. Each man for himself.”

He turned and led the way, holding the long sword in his right hand, his bare feet kicking up puffs of dust as he ran back, past the slaughtered corpses of the little animals, toward the distant glint of the locomotive.

Everyone followed him, though several of the accompanying sec men kept looking back over their shoulders at the advancing cloud of insects.

“Goin’ to be close, lover,” Krysty panted, running stride for stride with Ryan, her hair flowing behind her like a bridal veil of living flame.

Jak was right on their heels, J.B. and Mildred few yards behind him. As usual, when foot speed was called for, Doc was trailing back in sixth place.

But he was still beating all but one of the sec men and both Hideyoshi and Yashimoto.

They were a quarter-mile from the moldering remains of the bullet train. Risking a glance behind him, Ryan’s guestimate put the cloud of locusts at less than a mile away.

He’d seen something similar, years ago, out on the Idaho panhandle, when he was riding with Trader. Everyone had piled into the war wags, closing all the vents, but some of the locusts still managed to get inside the vehicles. When they’d finally passed on, and everyone had emerged into the blessed fresh air, it was to find that the green oasis where they’d parked had been stripped utterly bare, with hardly a single leaf remaining for a couple of hundred yards around.

The rusting metal of the train was only a hundred paces off, but the closest insects were already pattering to earth around Ryan, settling on the twigs and branches of the bushes. The sky had grown darker so that there were no shadows.

And the air was filled with an ominous fluttering, humming sound, like the sinister, rhythmic dopplering of chopper blades in old movies.

Mashashige was still in the lead, his slight figure seeming to flow effortlessly over the ground. Jak was close second, with the rest of the runners strung out over a hundred yards or more of the narrow trail.

As he got closer to the train, Ryan was able to see the extent of the damage. Other than the stained panels, several of the windows were broken, and it was now obvious that it had been derailed, probably during a skydark quake. It was high off the ground, but the corroded remains of several emergency ladders gave easy access to the interior.

The shogun was there, clambering up one of the ladders into the cab of the locomotive, reaching back immediately to offer a hand to the albino teenager. Ryan’s back was sore from the pounding of the Steyr, and he slowed a little to allow Krysty to climb to safety.

Now, the locusts were falling from the sky all around him, several of them landing on his back and in his hair.

But Ryan ignored them, concentrating on getting aboard the old train, then helping the rest of the group.