At 9:18 PM, the maple by the driveway began to hum. Not loudly. Not at first. Just a thin electrical sound in the leaves, like wiring warming behind a wall.
By morning, there were shells on the bark. Wings in the grass. Red eyes on the screen door.
Brood XIV had come back.
The Seventeen-Year Clock Beneath the Lawn
Periodical cicadas live most of their lives out of sight. For seventeen years, they feed from tree roots beneath sidewalks, yards, parks, cemeteries, and old fence lines. Above them, houses sell. Children grow. Roads get widened. Trees come down.
Underneath, the brood keeps time.
In 2025, Brood XIV rose across parts of the eastern United States, including Kentucky, Tennessee, Ohio, and nearby regions. Billions of bodies surfaced in a brief, synchronized emergence expected from early May through June.
They were last above ground in 2008. If the rhythm holds, their descendants will not return as adults until 2042.
Most summers have cicadas. That sound belongs to heat. But periodical cicadas arrive differently. They do not wander into the season one by one. They come up together, molt together, call together, mate, lay eggs, and die within weeks.
A buried calendar, opening all at once.
When the Body Keeps Moving
The strange part is not only that Brood XIV returned.
Some returned wrong.
Massospora cicadina is a fungus specialized for thirteen-year and seventeen-year periodical cicadas. It consumes reproductive tissue and replaces the insect’s abdomen with a chalky plug of spores.
From above, an infected cicada may still look almost normal. Wings folded. Legs gripping bark. Red eyes bright. Then it turns, and the back of the body is gone.
Researchers estimate only about two to four percent of Brood XIV may be infected. That sounds small until the trees are full of billions. Rare things become visible when the ground itself seems to empty.
The infected cicada does not behave like a movie corpse. It does not stagger. It does not announce itself. It flies. It calls. It tries to mate.
That is what stays under the skin.
The fungus can alter male cicada behavior, causing infected males to flick their wings like receptive females. Other males approach. Courtship becomes contact. Contact becomes dust. The spores move on.
The body keeps obeying after part of the body is no longer there.
Sex, Spores, and a White Dust
Scientists have found cathinone in Massospora-infected periodical cicadas, a stimulant compound also found in khat. National Geographic has reported that related Massospora fungi in some annual cicadas have contained psilocybin.
Nature does not need a haunted house. Sometimes chemistry is enough.
Evolutionary biologist John Cooley once described the phenomenon as sex, drugs, and zombies. The phrase has a bright edge to it, almost funny, until you picture the actual animal: a cicada landing on a screen door, singing with half a body, a pale fungal mass where the abdomen should close.
There is no malice here. No plan we would recognize. Only timing, pressure, hunger, and spores waiting for the next opening.
Researchers still do not know exactly when resting spores infect cicadas. Soon after hatching. Years underground. Near emergence. The answer remains in the soil, where the story spends most of its life.
Mycologist Matt Kasson has spoken about the difficulty of studying something that disappears for nearly seventeen years at a time. Science can name the fungus. It can test the compounds. It can map the sightings.
But the image remains simple.
A living insect. A missing abdomen. A song that continues.
What To Do If Brood XIV Finds Your Yard
Despite their numbers and noise, periodical cicadas do not bite or sting. They are native insects, and their brief emergence feeds birds, mammals, reptiles, and even fish when bodies fall near water.
If they appear near your home, leave them alone when you can. Avoid pesticides. They can harm more than cicadas, and the emergence is temporary.
Young trees may need protection. Females cut small slits in branches to lay eggs, and dense emergences can damage saplings. Fine netting can help protect young trees while mature trees usually weather the cycle.
If you find a cicada with a chalky missing abdomen, take clear photos from several angles. Do not harm it. Upload the sighting to iNaturalist or Cicada Safari with a general location.
Citizen-science photos help researchers track Massospora cicadina during short emergence windows. Scientific American reported that public sightings could help reveal where the fungus appears during Brood XIV’s 2025 return.
There is something uneasy about helping by looking closer. About leaning toward the insect instead of stepping away.
But that is how the map gets made.
The Sound After Midnight
The chorus lasts only a few weeks. Then it thins. One tree goes quiet. Then another. Sidewalks collect shells. Gutters catch wings. The welcome mat holds small dry bodies in the morning light.
The eggs hatch later. The next generation drops down from the branches and slips into the soil.
The ending is not an ending. It is a descent.
For the cicadas, the clock starts again. For the fungus, death is not failure. Spores settle. Dirt closes. The yard becomes storage.
So if you hear cicadas after midnight, listen carefully.
Not for the loud ones.
For the one that keeps singing after something is missing.
