“Not yet,” Banks said. “We need to give the others a chance to at least get some way up the slope. How much ammo do you have?”
“Half a mag and a clip in the pistol.”
“Same here,” Banks replied. “Let’s see how many of these buggers we can take down with the rifles. Save the pistols if we can and back off as slow as we can. We only make a run for it if that big white fucker looks like coming our way; we’d need a fucking cannon to make a dent in that.”
The six others were already down off the slab of rock and had made their way to the foot of the rocky slope. Brock was clearly struggling, some paces behind the others and was about to tackle the incline when Wilkins dropped back to lend him a shoulder.
Above Banks and Hynd, the first of the smaller spiders made a tentative attempt to negotiate the overhang, before losing its footing and falling, a thrashing tangle of legs, at Banks’ feet. He put a single bullet in its eyes and crushed its body under his heel.
The sound of the shot rang around the chamber and brought an answering rat-a-tat clacking from the white spider, three beats that echoed as loud as the gunfire and brought an immediate response. Spiders, varying in size from the small, dog-sized up to the ones as big as cattle or bigger, poured out of the cavern entrances on the far side of their queen and, as if coordinated by some invisible signal, came on at speed, heading straight for Banks and Hynd.
- 22 -
The shooting started before Maggie and the others were a quarter of the way up the slope. It was hard going, rock and loose pebbles underfoot, and they often slid back a step for every two they took upward. Brock and Wilkins were lagging ever farther behind, Brock being unable to put any weight on his bad ankle, which meant the two of them were negotiating the slope like a team in a three-legged race and with little success in prospect.
Below them, only now reaching the bottom of the slope, Banks and Hynd fought a rearguard action against a growing army of spiders, taking them out a single shot at a time, then backing away before finding another target.
Wiggins turned to Davies.
“Get the women up top and make sure it’s all clear,” he said. “I’ll give Wilkins a hand with Brock and hang back to back up Cap and Sarge.”
“Bugger that women and children first shite, Wiggo,” Maggie said. “You know I can handle a pistol. Hand it over and I’ll do my bit. Joe can take Kim if she wants to go.”
Kim took Maggie’s hand again.
“As you said, bugger that for a game of soldiers. I’m staying.”
“God save me from mouthy women,” Wiggins said with a wide grin. He took his pistol and handed it to Maggie.
“I know,” she said before he could say anything and gave him her best Glasgow accent. “Aim the pointy end at the fuckers and keep firing until they bugger off.”
Wiggins grinned again.
“My sisters are going to love you.”
He left her standing with Kim and Davies and went back five steps down the slope to where Wilkins and Brock struggled over a patch of loose pebbles.
“Miss?” Davies said.
“You’d better start calling me Maggie, or there’ll be trouble,” she said. “And I’ve got a gun now.”
It was Davies’ turn to grin.
“I was going to say, we’ll wait for those three to catch us up, then we make a push for the top.”
“What about your captain and sergeant?” Kim asked.
Davies pointed down the slope.
“They’ll be fine.”
Maggie wasn’t so sure of that but the two men were alive and backing away slowly from an advancing swarm of spiders. The smaller ones had become more cautious, coming forward more slowly now in the face of the rifles. But that had only served to give the larger, cattle-sized beasts time in which to come up out of the caverns and join the attack. The nearest of them was only ten paces below the two men and coming on fast. The sergeant took it out with a shot in its eyes but two more immediately scuttled into the vacated space and the two men had to retreat to avoid being overrun.
*
It took Wiggins and Wilkins another minute to get Brock up to where Maggie stood with the others. The wounded private was clearly struggling, his face gray and lined with pain at every step. Davies had them put the man down on a rock and Wiggins and Wilkins took guard while Davies bent to look at the ankle.
Maggie saw it was bad, but worse than that, she smelled it was bad. The bandages, fresh not that many minutes ago, were soaked through with stinking black and green fluid and black necrosis showed in his flesh both above and below the extent of the bandage. Brock’s eyes fluttered and he struggled for breath.
“I’m done,” he said. “I can’t go any farther. Go on without me, I’ll cover for the captain and sarge.”
“Don’t talk shite, lad,” Wiggins said. “You got this far, didn’t you? On your feet, Private. That’s an order.”
To his credit, Brock made the attempt and got halfway up before his leg gave way beneath him but that brought a fresh flare of pain and a yell from him that echoed around the chamber even above the gunfire from below. It also brought another wash of stench from his venom-soaked bandages.
Maggie wasn’t the only one to take note. The giant white spider lifted up its front legs, tasting the air in the same manner as she’d seen the smaller ones do outside when they caught a whiff of poor Jim White’s remains.
Three of the large spiders in the forefront of the attack at the foot of the slope also mimicked the giant’s response.
They think he’s food.
Brock looked up at Wiggins.
“Thanks for looking after me, Corp,” he said. “Tell my maw I went out fighting.”
He looked up at Maggie and winked.
“Bait, eh? That sounds like a plan to me.”
Before any of them could move to stop him, Brock rolled away to his right, sending himself tumbling in a flurry of loose rock, dirt and pebbles, not down towards the captain and sergeant but off to one side, heading directly toward a large mass of web.
“Badger, get the fuck back here, that’s an order,” Wiggins shouted but the private was already thirty, forty yards away, tumbling and rolling. By this time, Banks and Hynd were in full retreat and catching up to their position fast. A large number of the spiders broke off from the hunt, front legs raised and tasting, before turning and making directly towards where Brock had finally come to a halt, stuck tight in a fibrous mass of web.
Luckily for him, he had his arms free and got his pistol out in time to put two spiders down that were almost on him.
*
Wiggins was yelling profanities when Banks and Hynd arrived at their position.
“What the fuck happened?” Hynd asked as Banks put two shots into a large spider. It fell backward and took four more with it as it rolled away in a tumble of rock and rubble, buying them precious seconds of respite.
“Badger’s playing the fucking doomed hero,” Wiggins replied.
They all looked down the slope and saw Brock fumble in his jacket. The flare of yellow and orange as he flicked on a lighter showed as a bright spark in the gloom.
A mass of scuttling spiders encroached on his position. His yell of defiance carried clearly up the slope.
“Come and get it, fuckers.”
Brock applied his lighter to the web below him.
- 23 -
Banks saw what was about to happen in his mind’s eye even as the flames took hold and Brock burned.
“Run,” he shouted. “This place is going up.”
Without needing to be ordered, Wiggins and Wilkins, as two of the men with the most ammo remaining, covered the rearguard action while Davies hurried Maggie and Kim on at the front. Banks and Hynd, both now reduced to their handguns, were in the middle doing what they could to both run and pick off any of the attack that the two men behind them couldn’t handle. What firing they were doing was limited to an occasional swivel, turn, and shoot, for the bulk of their attention was on running; the f
ire in the cavern had quickly turned into a conflagration.
The white giant thrashed and clacked its fangs like gunshots as molten, flaming web dripped down from the roof and spattered across its body, staring new fires in the web around it. The huge bulk of its body quivered and it thrust itself out of the space it had been inhabiting, making for the slope, either hoping for escape upward, or attempting to seek revenge on the squad. It hardly mattered which, for if the beast reached them before they reached the top, it would be game over for all of them.
Banks was already feeling the strain of the climb at calves and ankles and his breath came heavier at the exertion. The white spider and a large entourage of others of various sizes, were advancing fast, coming up and out of what was now a wall of flame below them. Waves of scorching heat washed up from below, fanning the flames in the cavern to greater intensity and Banks saw that it was now spreading over the roof. If it burned above them, they’d have the napalm-like drips to worry about as well as the spiders.
“Sarge, we’ll need that gas,” he said.
Hynd took one canister for himself and Banks took the other.
“Do we light them?” Hynd asked.
“No, lob them down towards the fire. Once they heat up enough, they’ll go up like Roman candles. The delay might buy us enough time to get up top.”
They tossed the canisters in unison, lobbing them high over the heads of the two men at the rear and down towards the spiders to land in front of where the giant was leading its troops upward. Both cans came to a stop outside the range of the flames.
There was no time to stand and wait to see if the flames would engulf the gas canisters; the pack of spiders, too many to be held back, scuttled towards them. Many of the beasts were burning and flames licked at the rear of the mass of them, taking heavy toll of their numbers. The rat-a-tat clack of a chorus of fangs echoed loud above the gunfire.
The squad fled upward, as fast as they could manage.
*
The canisters went up as Davies and the women reached the opening at the top of the slope. One of the small tanks blew directly underneath the giant white, blowing a huge, burning hole in its belly that spread quickly to engulf the whole beast. Its death throes screeching rang around the chamber like nails on a chalkboard. The second canister took out a dozen of the smaller beasts and two of the horse-sized ones and set more flames dancing around what few patches of web were not already burning.
The heat had become stifling, every breath a searing hot pull of pain in Banks’ chest. Only the sight of the opening and Davies and the women waiting for them at the top of the slope kept his aching legs pumping. Wiggins and Wilkins were now running alongside them, both men having expended their rifle ammo in the retreat.
Spiders snapped and clacked at their heels and the first drops of molten, burning web began to spatter around them from the ceiling high above.
They arrived at the top ahead of a wall of flame falling from the roof in a fiery waterfall and threw themselves out of the chamber and upward into fresher, cooler air.
*
There was no time for rest. Heat came up behind them as if they stood in front of an open furnace door and spiders, some burning, were right at their backs.
The opening led, not outside into the open ground as he’d hoped, but into the inside of a ruined tower. A wall of rubble blocked any quick escape out onto the escarpment and the only immediate retreat available was up an internal flight of stairs against one of the tower walls.
“Up,” Banks yelled, pushing Davies ahead of him. “It’s our only chance.”
The staircase was narrow. Davies went up first, Maggie and Kim hard on his heels, Wiggins next, then Wilkins, with Hynd, then Banks at the rear. The nearest spider, one of the dog-sized ones, was on him as he reached the bottom step. He used his rifle like a club, swinging the stock hard against the beast’s body, sending it sailing away to tumble downward. The opening below him was already filling with a mass of burning spiders, all attempting to flee the flames at their back, only a few of them paying attention to the escaping squad.
One of the larger, cattle-sized ones took note of Banks’ position and came forward onto the steps after him. He tried to use the rifle to club it like the last one but this beast was onto the trick and caught the weapon fast between its fangs. A tug of war ensued, one that threatened to pull Banks off the stairs and back down into the thronging spiders below. He let the spider have the weapon and, in the same movement, drew his pistol and put a single shot into its eyes. It fell, a dead weight, down onto the stairs at his feet, providing a barrier that served as a blockage to allow him to retreat faster upward and he was half a dozen steps higher before the dead beast got tugged aside by three of the smaller ones. They all stared directly at Banks as they came up the stairs behind him. He retreated, firing.
By the time he reached the top of the flight and joined the others on top of the tower, he’d nearly emptied the clip of the pistol.
More spiders kept coming up the stairwell.
*
He expected the others to have come up with a plan of escape but found them all standing on top of an open tower, looking out over the escarpment. He saw why they hadn’t descended when he looked down.
It was full dark now but the carpet of stars and the red glow from fires provided more than enough light to see by. Several vents on the hill billowed out smoke and flame even as spiders came up out of them; hundreds, thousands of spiders, a mass of them covering the whole of the hillside. They varied from the dog-sized ones, to the cattle-sized ones and several that looked to be the size of small houses.
- 24 -
Maggie went to Davies’ side when he stepped forward to cover the stairwell; he was the only one of the squad with ammo remaining in his rifle and she had Wiggins’ pistol. The scene down the stairs was one from hell, a fiery conflagration in which spiders scurried up and over and around each other in frenzy to try to reach the stairwell and safety. There were some of the smaller ones on the stairs, coming up. Davies let them close in, hoping for a clear shot.
Maggie heard Banks at her back, on the satellite phone.
“We need an evac and we need it fast.”
She didn’t hear what was said at the other end but heard his reply clear enough.
“Two minutes. Got it. Come in on my signal, I’ll leave the line open.”
She had a glance over the small parapet, all that stood between then and the horde of spiders out on the hill. The beasts weren’t paying attention to them at the moment but if that changed and they attacked, two minutes was going to seem a hell of a long time.
*
Davies took out the nearest two spiders with clean shots into the eyes. There was already one of the much larger ones at their back, pressing forward, a thing larger than a bull, fangs clacking angrily as it scurried upward at a full run, knocking the smaller ones aside in its rush, sending them down, shrieking, into the flames.
Davies put two shots in it but missed the eyes and it kept coming. Maggie braced herself in a two-handed stance, fighting the tremble that threatened to spoil her aim. She took a deep breath and put two quick shots right into the center of the cluster of red eyes. The shock sent pain through her wrists and the crack of the weapon deafened her but she looked down to see the beast fall backwards into the fiery pit below.
Their shots had done more than deafen her. They’d caught the attention of the spiders out on the plain. Tens of thousands of red eyes turned as one and stared up at the tower.
Excited rat-a-tat clacking echoed across the night sky above the escarpment.
- 25 -
“Here they come,” Wiggins shouted. They had two walls and a stairwell to defend and only Davies with any real firepower. Wiggins took his handgun from Maggie.
“No offense, lass, but I think I can do more damage with it.”
Banks set Wilkins to watch the stairwell, had the women stand in the center of the tower away from the parapet, then put Wiggi
ns and Hynd on the north side while he and Davies took the west, where the bulk of the spiders swarmed.
“Don’t shoot unless they start climbing,” he shouted. “And pick your targets. The chopper is inbound, any time now. We need to survive the next minute.”
Even as he said it, they heard a distant thump of rotors.
“Lights coming in over the river, Cap,” Hynd shouted.
“Okay, everybody, get ready to move, this is going to be tight.”
He got on the sat phone.
“Good to see you guys. I hope you’re packing. We need a strafing run before you come for us.”
“Rebels?”
“Something a bit more exotic,” Banks said, then had to put the phone in his pocket. Two large spiders scrambled up the wall directly below his position, scuttling upward as if defying gravity.
*
Davies sent the first of the two spiders back to the ground but needed three shots to do it. Banks put three into the other, right over the eyes, and it too fell away but when another took its place and began to climb, he pulled the trigger of his handgun and came up empty. Wilkins stood above the stairwell, surrounded by smoke and blasts of heat rising from below, firing down the steps. On the other wall, Hynd and Wiggins fired calmly and steadily downward and kept the beasts at bay. But it was a matter of seconds before they’d all be out of ammo.
The chopper came to their aid, cavalry riding over the hill at the last minute. It arrived over the north cliff of the escarpment and the pilot must have taken in the situation quickly, for he flew the length of the hillside, twin guns blazing, blowing a swathe of spider parts, legs, and gore into the air in a ten-meter-wide road.
“Yippee Ki-Yay, motherfuckers,” Wiggins shouted.
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