The Ants Come Marching

Three little girls played along the sidewalk.  Two held onto a rope, swinging in sync with one another while the third skipped along with the pattern the other two conjured together.  There were other children, too; playing close to where their parents could see; building blocks, playing in the dirt with army men, or riding on tricycles while their parents watched for the men in masks.
         The two girls on either side of the jump ropes chanted along in parallel voices: “The ants come marching one by one, hurrah, hurrah.”
         A woman screamed as a gunshot pierced through the neighborhood like a thunderbolt.  A man fell to the pavement with blood dripping from a hole in his head; the front of his white house was painted with his brains.
         The little girls continued their sing-along: “The ants come marching one by one, hurrah, hurrah.”
         All the men and women scrambled for cover, gathering up their children who were still playing with their dump trucks and baby dolls.  The neighborhood was swarmed with men in black masks, with long tubes connecting from the mouthpiece of their masks to an oxygen tank on their backs.  They carried guns: rifles, shotguns, pistols; as well as flamethrowers, which one was using to scorch the screaming woman’s house. 
         “The Anteaters are here!” screamed the women.  “The Anteaters are here!” She ran around the burning house, carrying her son in her arms like a teddy bear.  In a matter of seconds the house crumbled to the ground; the woman and child buried with the crackling rubble.
         Still the little girls chanted with the third jumping perfectly in sync with the other two’s movements: “The ants come marching one by one, and the little one stops to cock his gun…” Another shot rang out—a rifle shot—and another man fell to the ground in a pool of blood.
         The Anteaters killed everyone in sight: smashing in people’s skulls with the butts of their rifles until their brains were mush; blowing up half a block with dynamite; burning a married couple as they clung to one another until they were nothing but floating ash in the wind.  They were relentless, and all but the children noticed.
         “And they all come marching down to the ground.”
         More people ran to the far side of the neighborhood with gunfire slowly picking them off as the Anteaters pursued in bloodlust.  An elderly man stopped and crouched behind nearby shrubbery, a small revolver in hand.  A young man came running close by, with an Anteater trailing quickly behind him; a knife gleaming in the afternoon sun.  The old man sprang out of the scrubs, emptying all six rounds into the Anteater.  One bullet went through its goggled mask, sending bones and brain matter flying out the other side; another hit its gas tank, causing it to explode, sending its fellow warriors flying across the lawn in smoke and fire. 
         “To get out of the rain,” sang the girls.
         The old man fell in the freshly cut grass; half his jaw blown off by a nearby rifle shot.  Ash from the burning bodies and houses covered him in an ember of blankets.
         As the surviving people scattered across the distant country side, one of the Anteaters pulled a device out of his overcoat pocket.  His red-goggled lenses peered out at the distant mob of people.  Some of the children were left behind, continuing to play or look around like nothing had happened.  One boy was tossing around his baseball casually at his dad, who was on his back with half his face burnt and bullet holes pasted to his chest.
         The commanding Anteater turned a dial on the device; a ray of light penetrated the sky as a horde of missiles roared across the plateau, seeking the screaming mob of people.
         The three girls continued their chant, ending it with a dramatic: “Boom! Boom! Boom! Boom! Boom!”
         The sky lit up like a fiery mushroom from the explosion.  The screaming turned to a soft whisper, and then silent as the coming night.