Spiderstalk

by D. Nathan Hilliard

  It was going to be close.

  The car’s windshield exploded inwards as Adam dove into the front seat. He heard the roar of the huge pistol echo down the street, as pieces of glass showered down around him. Olivia was slouched down in the driver’s seat beside him, eyes wide and face tight, as she peered over the dashboard. Her knuckles were white where she gripped the wheel with one hand while her other fumbled for the gear shift.

  “Sir! She’s coming!”

  Adam heard the thunder of the tall woman’s pistol again, and a hole tore open in the dashboard right beside his head. He stared at it in disbelief. The woman had to be over fifty yards away, and shooting at a target she couldn’t even see. And she damn near got him! A second later Antonio’s pistol answered back as he leaned over from the back seat and returned fire. Adam’s ears rang from the loud blast in the confined space.

  “Olivia, it’s time to leave.”

  “Yes, sir!” Olivia found the reverse gear and stomped on the gas.

  Adam felt mud clods pepper his feet from where they still hung outside the open door, and pulled them in as the car leaped backwards. He cursed desperately as his braces got caught on each other, making it impossible for him to twist into a more useful position. The motion only made things worse. The big sedan slewed around as the spinning wheels dug trenches in the soft turf.

  They weren’t getting anywhere fast. The car’s wheels dug into the soft, wet ground without gaining rear purchase. Adam feared his assassin would have the time to simply walk up to the car and put a bullet in each of them, but after a few more agonizing seconds the vehicle picked up speed.

  Then there was a bone jarring crash and the car came to a stop. Behind them, a car alarm went off and dogs started barking all over the neighborhood.

  “Olivia,” Antonio calmly stated as he rapidly changed clips and resumed firing out the front window, “you’ve hit the raised driveway on the house next door. I’m afraid you can’t go backwards anymore.”

  “Sorry, sir.” The woman was pale beneath her olive complexion. “I’m on it.”

  “What is it with women and driveways, anyway?” Antonio mused as he fired. “Most of you are actually rather good drivers on the road, but get near a driveway and you all become a menace to life and property.”

  “That’s an unfair generalization, sir.” Olivia dropped the car into gear and gunned the gas as the rearview mirror exploded. Adam felt the sting of slivers cutting into his side, and looking up from his position on the floorboard, he could see blood running from a couple of fresh cuts on the woman’s neck and cheek.

  Adam’s face was buried into the seat as the car leaped forward again. They must have rammed into something else, because it felt like his arm and shoulder slammed into the dashboard with brutal force. From the pain in his arm, he briefly wondered if he had broken anything, but more important events were demanding his attention. He experienced a stomach churning moment as he felt the vehicle flounder around in the wet grass of the yard. He couldn’t see anything and the world seemed to be filled with the roar of engines and gunfire.

  Then he felt the car jounce over the curb and the tires bite into the asphalt. There was the squeal of rubber on pavement, a brief fishtailing, and finally the sensation of smooth and rapid acceleration. Adam heard the tall woman’s gun roar again, but it sounded distant and nothing disintegrated in the car this time. He managed to twist around to where he could see his companions again. Olivia drove with both hands tightly on the wheel, her face expressionless but still pale. Only the top of her boss’ head was visible from his vantage.

  Through the open windshield, the reassuring sound of traffic blared, and Antonio’s assistant winced at the air rushing in.

  “Good job, Olivia,” Antonio’s voice sounded from the back seat. “I doubt she will give chase. It would be too risky, and I think she has a minder along with her for this trip.”

  “Thank you, sir,” she replied as her eyes darted toward the spot the rearview mirror should be, then frowned at its absence, “but I believe Mr. Sellars has been shot, and requires your attention...at least till we can get somewhere I can stop and deal with it myself.”

  Adam stared at her stupidly for a moment, then twisted to look down at himself.

  His shirt was drenched in blood.

  “Aw hell, not again,” Adam groaned as Antonio’s powerful hands grabbed him and hauled him out off the floorboard and onto the front seat. His shoulder and arm lit up with pain, and he knew this time he had fared worse than mere pellets under the skin. Blood now smeared the seats, and the agony in his arm made it difficult to concentrate. He clutched at his bicep, trying to slow the bleeding, when he felt a sharp sting in the side of his neck.

  He turned his head to see Antonio withdrawing a hypodermic needle and putting a cap back on it.

  “What the hell?” Adam gasped in shock.

  “For the pain,” the other man answered, although it seemed from a great distance. Adam noticed Antonio had blood running down the side of his face and neck as well. He must have been grazed in the head, but at the moment appeared to be ignoring it. It was hard for Adam to focus enough to tell exactly where the man had been hit, and the world seemed to be fading by the second. He tried to maintain consciousness, but found the will to hang on too slippery to grasp. It seemed that thought was abandoning him, leaving nothing but pain and exhaustion.

  Then the pain went away, and Adam went with it.

  CHAPTER FIVE

  UNEVEN ALLIANCE

  Adam realized he must have been conscious, at least in some form, for a while before becoming aware of it.

  Facts seemed to drift to him of their own accord, in no particular hurry to form any sort of cohesive whole. The dim light reminded him of his room back in the hospital…before all the gunfire and screaming started…an impression reinforced by the bandages wrapping his arm and shoulder. That’s right, he remembered with difficulty, I’ve been shot. But now it all seemed distant and remote.

  And it was quiet.

  Only the sound of some distant air conditioning system provided a background hum to alleviate the silence. The muted drone worked with his semi-conscious daze, combining to create a sense of peaceful serenity. His bed felt warm and comfortable, a nice change from the floorboard of that sedan with all the shattered glass around him. Any situation not involving blonde amazons with enormous guns trying to kill him had to be an improvement.

  Didn’t it?

  What exactly was his situation?

  Adam found it hard to marshal his will, or his thoughts, but used that as added incentive to force himself into action. It took a supreme effort to turn his head so he could get a better grasp of his surroundings. It felt like his brain sloshed in his skull from the movement, and he made a mental note not to do anything in a hurry. The drugs in this place were definitely dispensed in a more liberal manner than the nurses at the last hospital allowed.

  Unfortunately, “this place” appeared to be a large restroom.

  He looked over to see a row of toilet stalls running along the opposite wall. With a groan, he shifted his head so he could see more of the room, and spotted a line of three sinks with accompanying mirrors hung on the white-painted cinder brick wall. Continuing his scan, he saw the wall at his feet featured a gray metal door with a push handle. He didn’t doubt it to be locked, just as he didn’t doubt his current role as prisoner.

  Large, four-bulb, fluorescent light panels illuminated the room, but there must have been a dim setting since only one bulb in each panel currently burned. In the gloom, he could now make out he rested on a wooden, fold-out cot.

  “Okay,” he sighed to himself, “it ain’t the Hilton, but I’m not chained to a wall in some basement either.” The sight of his braces standing at the end of the cot gave him some small measure of relief as well. At least his “hosts” were willing to let him walk if he felt like it. Considering his current shape, he knew he didn’t present much of an escape risk.

  H
e had no hope of breaching the cinder brick wall, and in his condition he didn’t think he could escape through the ceiling either. At least not until the drugs were out of his system.

  Then he could focus on improving his situation. Although he probably owed Antonio thanks for saving his life, and preventing him from bleeding to death afterward, being held captive had not been part of the deal.

  ###

  “You brought him here? Have you lost your mind?!”

  Antonio grimaced at the expected outburst, remembering how he had been asking Olivia a variation of the same question a mere hour ago. Her answer had been both precise and vague at the same time. She claimed there were variables to the situation she still needed to acquire in order to understand the bigger picture, and she wanted to hang on to those she already had.

  “He was brought here unconscious, Cesar,” he soothed, “and is now locked in a bathroom in the basement level. He will have no idea where he is when he wakes up.” The fact that Cesar was the only Elder around the table doing any talking indicated a poor mood on the part of the Council in general. The other three figures sat motionless in the darkness, letting their silence speak their displeasure for them.

  “It’s still reckless, Antonio. But then after engaging in gunfights on suburban streets in broad daylight, you might not notice a little thing like that, eh?”

  “We were attacked,” Antonio grinned around his unlit cigar, “and didn’t have a choice.

  “It seems our adversary’s new asset has a real disdain for subtlety…along with an outstanding pair of legs.”

  “This isn’t a joke! Not only did you risk exposure, you risked the life of a very valuable young asset of our own.”

  Antonio felt Olivia stiffen where she stood beside his chair, and laid a hand on her arm in the darkness. He counted on her formal nature and sense of propriety to prevent her from speaking out in anger at this gathering, but still thought the gesture necessary to let her know he understood her feelings. He knew she didn’t appreciate being used as a basis for an accusation against him, especially by a group of people who would not even deign to let her speak in their presence.

  “My choice of companions is an operational matter, Cesar,” Antonio replied quietly. “Unless the purpose of this meeting is to determine my fitness as Chief, operational matters are at my discretion and not subject to review. Is that the purpose of this meeting?”

  The two men stared across the table at each other, the challenge hanging in the air.

  “Okay, that’s enough,” Delgado quavered from the other side of the room. “Cesar, stop it. No, Antonio, it’s not the purpose of this meeting. On the other hand, we have had a major incident and now we are housing a prisoner. It’s not questioning your competence to want an explanation, and I for one am waiting for the posturing to come to an end so we can get to the business of those explanations. Can we do that?”

  Antonio and Cesar stared at each other a few seconds longer before Antonio leaned back in his chair and addressed the other Elder.

  “Of course, Delgado. You’re right, as usual. Let’s get on with things.” He gestured toward the large TV on the far wall. “Olivia, would you please?”

  The lights dimmed further and the first of the two pictures on Adam’s laptop appeared on the screen.

  “Gentleman,” Antonio intoned, “allow me to introduce David, Karen, and Tucker Sellars. David is the brother of the man who has been at the center of this firestorm, and who now resides in our bathroom basement. This picture was taken about half an hour before the three of them vanished off the face of the planet.”

  “When was that?”

  “Last June, Marcos. When Adam Sellars was in the hospital because of his car accident.”

  “They don’t look terribly unusual.”

  “No,” Antonio waved his cigar for emphasis, “As far as we can tell, they were about as ordinary a suburban family as you could expect. Yet less than half an hour later, David Sellars is leaving this message on what he thinks is his wife’s phone, but in reality he dialed his brother by mistake. Olivia, if you would please.”

  The hushed voice of David Sellars filled the dark room.

  “Karen, check your phone, dammit!” The strain and fear in his whisper couldn’t be missed. “Karen, if you get this, then get out of here! Take Tucker and drive! Don’t wait for me, just go! Go to that little OOUUUPHH!!”

  Nobody spoke as the sounds of violent thrashing ended the recording. They had a certain air of finality, like the last kicks of a deer in the jaws of a lion.

  “Right before he sent that message,” Antonio’s somber voice betrayed his own certainty about David’s fate, “he took this picture with his cell phone. Olivia?”

  The picture of the family in the car was replaced by the slightly out-of-focus picture of the spider. All four Elders leaned forward, examining the photo.

  “The police,” Antonio continued, “and Adam, believe David was trying to photograph something near the distant trees and the spider got in the way, while also messing up the focus. That is not the case.”

  For a moment the silence continued. Then it was Cesar himself who gave a low whistle.

  “Then that thing is not close to the camera?”

  “No, it is exactly where it appears to be…hanging between those two trees. There is no illusion.”

  “Madre de arañas! How big is it?”

  “We’re working on it.” Antonio put the cigar back in his mouth, “But it’s big. Really big.”

  Muttered conversation broke out in the room.

  “It’s the Matriarch,” Delgado offered in an awed voice. “It must be. I didn’t even believe she existed! Those poor bastards walked right into the Mother Spider.”

  “So she’s real!” exclaimed Alejandro, who almost never spoke at these meetings. “I knew it!”

  “That’s what I’m thinking, as well,” Antonio agreed. “Although none of us have ever seen the Matriarch, the old tales insist she exists and speak of her as being very large. It appears they weren’t exaggerating.”

  “But how could they have been allowed to get so close to her? None of our best hunters have ever penetrated to the areas where she must stay. At least not in recorded history.”

  “Nobody’s perfect.” This came from Marcos. “And it would actually be easier for somebody with no covert intentions to slip by them than one of us. But to get so far into their territory…they must have been near the old settlement itself!”

  Excited conversation continued, and Antonio felt Olivia squeeze his shoulder in a silent bid for his attention.

  “Hmm?” He leaned back.

  She held up her tablet computer so he could see it. A corner of its screen showed live footage of the bathroom downstairs. Olivia had placed a small camera on top of one of the stall dividers, so she could monitor their guest while this meeting took place. Now it showed a disheveled Adam slowly trying to swing his legs around so he could sit on the edge of the cot.

  “Can you put that on the big screen?” he murmured.

  “Yes, Uncle.”

  “Go ahead. I can use this to help steer the meeting.” Antonio turned back to the conversation in progress, as Olivia started entering rapid instructions to the tablet. A few seconds later the fuzzy picture of the spider was replaced by the stark image of the basement level bathroom. The lighting was bad, forcing the camera to turn up its ISO and thus making the picture grainy and weirdly contrasted.

  The conversation in the room muted as attentions were turned back to the screen.

  “And now,” Antonio announced, “allow me to introduce the current man of the hour. This is Adam Sellars.”

  “That’s him?” Cesar exclaimed. “He looks like some kind of concentration camp refugee…in need of a haircut.”

  “He’s had a rough year. He breaks up with his fiancée eleven months ago, then a couple of months afterward nearly dies in a car wreck that injures his back and ruins his legs. As if that’s not enough, he gets hit
with about twenty pellets of number one buckshot in a swimming pool a couple weeks back, and then today is hit by what I can only describe as a hand cannon. Mr. Sellars has seen better days.”

  “Which brings us back to our original problem,” Delgado’s shaky voice cut in. “Why do they want this man dead so badly and why shouldn’t we toss him to them or kill him ourselves?”

  “I can’t answer the second question,” Antonio responded, “without knowing an answer to the first.”

  “Well it’s got to have something to do with his brother.”

  “Agreed. But what? As far as I can tell, his brother died immediately.”

  “Can we be sure? Maybe she only cocooned him.”

  “I really don’t think so.” Antonio shook his head. “Arthur Weston told Adam that David and Karen were dead…but mentioned the boy was still alive.”

  “Why keep the boy alive if you kill the parents?”

  “Good question. Although it looks like the Matriarch killed the parents, and they decided to keep the boy. I’m not sure how that works either, and who exactly made what decision.”

  “Exactly!” Cesar’s voice cut across the room. “We don’t know the little details. But what we do know is it created an incident which has put the Spider People on a war footing so serious they are willing to come here to finish it. Bringing that man here was a grave mistake that has endangered us all.”

  “Cesar, please…” Antonio held up a hand.

  “No! You listen. They have already blown up a swimming pool at an apartment complex, and shot up a hospital, for God’s sake! They want this man dead, and now we know it’s probably due to some trespass on the part of his family. That’s unfortunate for him, but it’s not our problem. The correct course for us is to either kill this man in such a way they will know about it, or to dump him somewhere for them to find.”

  “He has a point, Antonio,” Delgado chimed in. The frail old man coughed and cleared his throat. “While your adventure today has provided us with some unprecedented intelligence, it also drives home the danger of the situation. The Spider People are at war, and it appears to be a personal matter. Keeping this man alive does nothing but risk our own security.”