It’s the perfect spot for an ambush.
“Back up. Back up now,” Banks shouted.
It took the lad a few seconds to brake, then find reverse gear on the unfamiliar stick, and that was long enough for Banks to look in his mirror and see two of the dog-sized spiders already spinning web side to side across the alley entrance behind them.
*
“Contact rear!” Banks shouted and felt the jeep rock as Hynd and Brock tried to get the mounted gun turned to the alley entrance. Wilkins had the vehicle reversing, slowly back towards the fast-growing web. Above them black shapes loomed, darker humped shadows on the rooftops against the lightening sky.
“Bugger this for a lark,” Banks said. “Floor it, lad. If we don’t get through now, we never will.”
The jeep shuddered as the gun in the back fired five quick blasts. The sound was deafening inside, setting Banks’ ears ringing. He tried to check his mirror but all he saw was a gray blur, coming up fast. He braced his feet in the stairwell, anticipating impact but the jeep’s momentum was enough to drive through the strands of web, although they were slowed considerably in the process. The big gun fired, twice more and the sarge shouted from the back, his voice coming to Banks as if from far away, in a wind.
“Incoming to the east. Multiple bogeys.”
Banks wound down his window and looked out. Dawn was close now, a pinkish glow lighting the horizon. It only served to illuminate the roadway back into the town center, from where a mass of the huge spiders some thirty feet deep filled the road from side to side, scuttling as fast as a running dog, coming straight at them.
“Get us the fuck out of here, Private,” Banks shouted.
Wilkins didn’t pause to question the order. He swung the jeep around until they faced across the road, then floored the accelerator as they barreled into an even narrower alleyway, one just about wide enough to accommodate them. Banks’ wing mirror screeched against the wall for a second then ripped off to tumble away behind them. Up top the heavy gun rattled, shaking the frame of the jeep. Ahead of them, the river was coming up fast at the end of the alley and Banks didn’t see anywhere they could turn to get back to the main roadways.
Three black shadows dropped from the rooftops at the far end of the alley and immediately spun web across their exit. He had a matter of seconds to make a decision and there were no exits on either side of them, not even a doorway or window, only a blank expanse of wall looming over them.
“Floor it,” he shouted and braced himself again.
*
The spiders had managed to spin half a dozen lengths of web across the entrance. The jeep went through them, barely pausing this time. Wilkins hit the brakes as they flew out the alley onto a wooden wharf but their momentum was too great. They skidded in a squeal of brakes and tires on wood, then toppled in slow-mo, off the end of the jetty. Banks felt a split second of weightlessness as they dropped four feet or so into the water, hitting the river with a hard smack.
“Bale out,” Banks shouted and, having to push against the weight of water struggled out of his door as the jeep sank. He managed to stand up, thigh deep, holding his weapon high. He saw Brock trying to save the bodies in the back as the jeep drifted slowly downstream in the current.
“Leave them, lad. At least they’ll get a clean burial here.”
The bodies drifted away, overtaking the jeep and heading away downstream. The vehicle stuck fast as it hit bottom. The sarge stood up on the back. He trained the big gun back to the shore, where half a dozen spiders stood, front legs raised, twitching as if tasting the air.
“Have some of this, wankers,” he shouted and emptied what was left of the belt of ammo into the beasts on the jetty, blasting them into pieces of leg, body, mouth parts, and burst eyes that fell into the water and drifted slowly away alongside the dead bodies.
The gun ran dry, the ringing echo of its boom and roar lasting long in Banks’ ears before a silence fell again around them. All that was left on the jetty was scattered remains of blasted spiders. They waited to see if anything else was going to come out of the alleyway but it stayed shadowy and still.
With the sun rising at their backs, Banks led the men away, wading up river, staying in the water until they were well past the outskirts of the town.
- 8 -
Maggie was at the doorway with more coffee and another of Wiggins’ smokes when they heard, distant but immediately recognizable, the rat-tat of gunfire, which came sporadically for several minutes before falling quiet. She saw the look that passed over Wiggins’ face.
“Trouble?” she asked.
“It wasn’t one of ours, that’s for sure. That sounded like a bloody cannon.”
“Rebels?
“Possibly. But I’m not leaving you to go and have a look, so keep your knickers on, lass.”
“And any more talk like that, you’ll be counting your teeth in your hands the next time,” she said and smiled to show that she meant it.
Wiggins smiled back.
“Glad I know where I stand. Could you go and tell your people not to worry? They might have heard. Keep them calm. The cap and the lads will be back soon. The sun’s coming up.”
She looked out over the courtyard to see light in the sky through between the houses lining the east-side alleyway. It also meant she had a closer look at the dead spider than she’d wanted.
“There’s something you should know first,” she said and told him about the mosaic and the spider depicted in the center.
“Fucking hell,” Wiggins replied when she was done. “And it’s authentic, this mosaic of yours? Not a modern hoax?”
“Nope, totally kosher,” she replied. “Yon spiders aren’t anything new around these parts.”
“You’d think somebody might have mentioned them, somewhere along the line?”
“Aye, you would. I’m guessing they’ve been keeping away from people, wherever they’ve been. And to answer your next question before you ask it, no, I don’t know why they’re here now. Maybe the rebels found them, disturbed them, got them riled up. But I don’t know for sure.”
“I don’t even want to know,” Wiggins said, looking out over the courtyard.
Maggie saw the worry in his face.
“They’ll be back soon,” he whispered.
“And if they’re not?”
“I’m not even going to think about that for an hour or so yet,” he replied. “But if it comes to it, I’ll call in a ride to get you out of here and Davies and I will go and fetch our pals.”
“I hope it doesn’t come to that.”
“Me too, lass. Me too.”
*
When Maggie returned to the chamber, Kim was on her knees in the dig and had now uncovered two-thirds of the mosaic. There was nothing new to see that was as startling as the initial reveal of the huge spider in the center but there was one thing that hadn’t been noticeable before. In the upper right quadrant of the mosaic there were other spiders, equally as large as the one in the center, depicted as emerging from a cave in a hillside. The contours of the hill were immediately familiar; it was the same escarpment they were on now, down to a detailed depiction of the old city on the skyline.
When she pointed it out to Jack Reynolds, she quickly discovered he’d lost interest in the archaeology.
“So what?” he said. “Does it help? Does it get us closer to home?”
“It’s why we’re here.”
“Not anymore it isn’t. Did your boyfriend at the door make the call? Are we getting the fuck out of here any time soon?”
“He’s still waiting for the others to come back.”
“Yeah? It’ll be a fucking long wait if that shooting was any indication. Yes, I heard it, loud and clear. If the bloody rebels don’t get to us, then we’ve only got the fucking spiders to worry about.”
“They seem to be keeping their distance. Killing one of them seems to have given them pause.”
“Pause? They’re fucking spiders. Don’t credit them with any
kind of critical thinking. We’re rats in a trap in here. They’ll get in. We’ve all seen the movies. They always get in.”
“This is real life,” Maggie said. “This isn’t a movie.”
“Are you sure? Because it feels exactly like a fucking monster movie to me.”
The conversation ended there as Reynolds went to sit against the wall, staring blankly into space. Kim wasn’t speaking either, fully intent on her work with brush and trowel. Maggie envied her the focus, wishing that she had something to keep her mind off poor Jim White, or the impossible dead spider in the courtyard outside.
To make matters worse, she realized she wanted another cigarette. She busied herself in making another pot of coffee, although it had been only half an hour since the last. She never drank any of it, for as she was about to pour she heard a loud curse out in the corridor, then the building echoed with the roar of gunfire.
*
She headed for the doorway, only realizing when she exited into the corridor that she didn’t have any idea what she might be able to do to help. The shooting was coming from the room opposite, accompanied by some creative swearing.
“Is that all you’ve got, fuckers?”
She looked in and saw Davies at the window, firing out into the street beyond. He let off three more quick shots, then stopped and shouted.
“Watch your three o’ clock, Corporal. They’re headed your way.”
More shots, slightly muffled, came from the front at the main door. Davies turned to look at Maggie, then his gaze went over her shoulder to the chamber beyond.
“Hey, give that a rest.”
She turned to see Reynolds pushing the chamber door closed from the inside, his neck muscles straining with the effort.
Wiggins stopped shooting at the front doorway long enough to shout out.
“Incoming. Multiple bogeys.”
Davies looked to be in two minds, which gave Reynolds enough time to finish what he’d started. The door swung, closing faster. Davies finally stepped forward but was too late to stop it. The last thing Maggie saw was Reynolds’ grim smile before stone rasped loudly against stone and the door shut firm in her face.
- 9 -
By the time Banks and the three other men reached the heights of the escarpment, they were sweating hard in their suits. Any dampness from their soaking on the river had already dried off in the rising heat of the sun during the thirty minutes it had taken them to reach the old city.
He’d kept them in the river long enough to get well clear of the town and to ensure that none of the spiders were following them along the bank. Once on dry land, he’d run them hard up the hill, both to doubly ensure escape from any pursuit from below and in worry at what might be happening to Wiggins and the rest back inside the walled town above. Despite checking over their shoulders every few steps, they’d seen no sign of any more of the spiders; they’d got free and clear on that front. But as they approached the town walls, they heard the familiar sound of weapons fire from somewhere in the warren of high alleyways of the old city.
Banks tried his headset radio.
“Wiggo? Come in?”
He heard only static in response. If it was Wiggins doing the shooting, he wasn’t going to hear much of anything above the sound of his weapon.
“Double time, lads,” Banks shouted and led the squad forward.
*
They were stopped in the first alley by a wall of gray web that reached from ground to rooftops some twenty feet above.
Hynd tried hacking at it with his knife but it was inches, perhaps feet, thick; an impenetrable wall. The sarge wiped the knife on his trouser leg, leaving a thick gray smear.
“No way through this way. It stinks like shite too, Cap, so don’t get any on you.”
They retreated away, quickly found a second route in another alley but found it too blocked to any access. The sound of gunfire intensified, a second shooter joining the first.
Something doesn’t want us to see what’s going on inside.
Banks tried to part the web with the barrel of his rifle but succeeded only in embedding the last inch of the barrel in the sticky fibers, needing all his strength to recover the weapon. Hynd had more luck this time with his knife—this web wasn’t as thick or deep as the last one and he successfully cut a long slit vertically that could be widened with two of them carefully using their rifles to hold the lips of the slice apart. Banks slipped through first, taking care not to get tangled, then turned to do his bit holding the cut web open for the others to come through.
Wilkins was the last through but before he made it a shadow fell on them, cast by movement on the rooftop above. Two spiders, each as big as a large dog, fat bodied and with red-eyes fixed on the four men, descended fast over the parapet and scurried down the walls with a scrape of hooked talons on stone.
Banks and Hynd took out the closer of the two with a volley of three shots each. Their target fell, twitching, at their feet and Hynd buried his boot right over its red eyes, grinding it into the sand. They turned their attention upward but they were too late to get the second. It stopped scrambling and dropped, a dead weight, to land on top of Brock. The private tumbled and rolled in an attempt to get out of the way but was immediately caught in a new thread of web from the spider’s rear end that tangled his hands around the rifle. Chattering, clacking black fangs, each as long as an index finger reached for his face.
“Get this fucker off me,” Brock screamed.
Banks stepped forward and put his weapon at the beast’s eye, making sure he wasn’t going to hit Brock before putting three shots into it. The front of the beast blew apart in gore and tissue but the legs kept kicking and it continued to weave web around Brock’s arms before Banks and Hynd kicked it aside and put three more rounds into it to keep it quiet.
Brock rolled and tugged but his arms were completely encased in gray fiber.
“Lie still, lad,” Banks said. “You’re making it worse. Let the sarge get at it.”
Hynd had to use his knife again to try to free Brock, while Banks turned to Wilkins. The lad had tried to get his gun up to help in the fight and in the process had become completely tangled in the web that ran across the alley. His whole left side, from shoulder down to knee, was encased in a thick mass of the webbing. Like Brock, his frantic struggles to free himself were only making matters worse.
“You too. Stand still, lad,” Banks barked. “That’s a bloody order.”
He had to lower his rifle to get out his knife and with Hynd likewise busy untangling Brock, they had nobody covering them. Banks’ back felt too exposed as he worked at the web, having to put all his strength into the cuts and slices. He left large patches of web attached to Wilkins’ clothing and gear and it stank like wet shite but he was more concerned with getting the lad free quickly than with doing an aesthetically pleasing job of it.
He was cutting, having only managed to free Wilkins’ left arm when the lad looked up and all color drained from his face.
“Sir, I think we’re in trouble.”
Banks followed his gaze. Spiders, at least a dozen of them, lined the rooftops on both sides of the alley.
*
“Sarge,” Banks said, glancing down. “You about done with Brock?”
“Five seconds, Cap, on the last strand.”
He turned back and looked Wilkins in the eye. He spoke as he cut.
“No sudden movements now, son,” he said. “I reckon it’ll take another minute to get you out of there. So calmly does it. No shooting unless they start to come at us. Give me some warning if they make a move.”
He went back to cutting, working faster now.
“Clear,” the sarge said below him. “We’ve got your back, Cap.”
Hynd stood away from Brock to allow the younger man to roll to his feet. The movement stirred the spiders into action and two of them leaned over the edge of the parapet, the clicking of their fangs sending a rat-a-tat echo along the alley.
“You n
eed a hand with that, Cap?” Hynd said.
“Nearly done. Keep us covered. Don’t wait for an order, shoot the fuckers if they move.”
His gloves were covered in web that felt like heavy-duty glue under his fingers, it stank to high heaven, and the knife was being blunted with the work, less efficient with every cut and slice. He was down to Wilkins’ knees and had to kneel on the ground to get at the last piece holding the youth in place.
He got lucky and was in the right place at the right time to see, dimly through the gauze of the web, more spiders advancing towards them from the far end behind Wilkins’ back. It had gone quieter now; the shooting deeper in the town had stopped and the only sound to break the silence was the rat-a-tat clicking of the spider’s communication. It was getting more rapid, more frenzied. An attack would come at any time.
He was cutting at the web at Wilkins’ knee when the shooting began; he didn’t know whether Brock or Hynd fired first but it hardly mattered. The alleyway filled with the roar of weapons fire and pieces of spider legs, bodies, and a slimy, foul-smelling gore fell in rain around them. Above Banks’ head, Wilkins had enough freedom to train his own gun up toward the roofs and joined the action, adding another thunderous roar of fire to the chaos.
Behind Wilkins, beyond the web, the alley filled with more spiders, a black mass of them scuttling quickly forward. Banks cut the younger man’s knee free of the web as the first of the attackers reached the web and, using its fangs as scissors, began cutting its way through.
“Time to go,” Banks shouted and, knowing they’d follow him, set off at pace along the alley, firing as he moved at spiders which were now coming over the lip above and making their way down the walls in a black wave.
He had to slow long enough to discard his gloves; the web had made them too sticky to be of any use. Hynd overtook him and took point. Banks let the two younger men pass and looked back. The spiders had made short work of their web and now filled the alleyway behind them, coming on fast, even while more dropped to join them from above.
Operation Syria Page 4