Spiderstalk

by D. Nathan Hilliard

  There were no spiders…

  …and the cocoon was gone.

  “I don’t understand,” inquired the most feared voice in Sonni’s universe. “I thought you wanted to live.”

  It came from nearby in the blackness. Very nearby.

  I do! I do! She curled into a ball in the darkness. She barely had the capacity left to think, and now responded instinctively. Oh God, yes I do!

  “Are you certain? If I consumed you now, it would be over for you very quickly.”

  Sonni could feel the monster moving over her in the blackness. She knew its fangs and obscene mouth now hovered directly overhead, just inches above. It was a nightmare vision, made all the more insane due to the utterly ordinary female voice it chose to use. A voice that now asked her in all innocent sincerity if she wanted to die.

  “You would be immortalized in me…every thought, every memory.”

  Something hard brushed down her arm, and she understood it to be one of the nightmare’s fangs. Every nerve shrieked and she pulled herself even tighter into a ball.

  No! Please don’t!

  The object lingered near her elbow and hip, then withdrew.

  “Then you still want be my ally? To help me against my enemies?”

  Hope suddenly flooded the darkness.

  Yes! Let me help you!

  “You will do this? You will help me when my enemies come? Even if it’s that woman you saw on the sandbar?”

  Yes! Absolutely! She’s my enemy too. She wanted to kill me!

  Sonni could feel the thing regard her in the dark with its eight hard, expressionless eyes. If it even needed eyes to see her. She didn’t know and honestly didn’t care. She only wanted to be its ally, its partner, anything but something on the menu. Nothing else mattered anymore.

  “This is true,” the voice finally mused. “Now that you have met me and know my nature, they would most certainly kill you as well.”

  She sensed the creature move in the blackness, withdrawing those huge fangs.

  Then we have the same enemies. Please let me help you!

  Once again the darkness seemed to consider before answering.

  “We will most likely be facing the woman again…and she will not be alone. But if you helped, then this time neither would I. It would be a ‘we’ laying in wait for them. They most certainly wouldn’t be expecting that, would they.” The voice went quiet for a second again, then concluded with, “I think I like this idea. I like doing things differently.”

  There wasn’t even enough of the old Sonni left to cringe at how happy this made her. The psychic wreckage that had been her personality now wagged its tail like an eager pup at the thought of pleasing this entity.

  Exactly! Just tell me what to do.

  Sonni noticed the darkness beginning to lighten, and could now make out she lay on the dirt floor of a wooden building. Pieces of loose straw mixed with the sand. Although she could see little but a wooden wall only a few feet in front of the way she faced, she came to understand she was in a barn.

  The light continued to brighten till it reached the level one would expect of a lantern.

  “My face named Addy remembers hiding a rifle in the attic and telling her husband she had sold it so he wouldn’t go hunting deer. I do not believe any of the outsiders who searched the place found it. Can you use a rifle?”

  Yes. She had gotten so used to communicating with this creature mentally, it never occurred to her to start talking again. I had a couple of former boyfriends who liked shooting, and they took me out shooting a lot.

  “Really? You say ‘former.’ Did you eat them?”

  In a different situation the question might have evoked a sense of black humor, but in this case it simply reminded the woman of the alien viewpoint she was trying to communicate with, and how precarious her position was.

  No. We do not do that. When a relationship doesn’t work out, we simply leave and find a new boyfriend. Sonni pushed herself to her feet with shaky caution, then steeled herself to turn and face her new ally. Do you wish me to go see if this rifle is still there?

  She turned to face the inevitable…and almost stumbled in relieved surprise to see the housewife in the headscarf and gloves again. She stood in the center of the barn floor with the large double doors at her back.

  “I have noticed that when you see me you become distressed and very hard to talk to,” the woman said. “So I chose to use this face again. This is agreeable to you?”

  Yes. Thank you. Sonni wilted inside at the thought she might be offending her new benefactor. But I would still have trouble approaching the door because even though I can’t see you as you are, you are still there and I would have a hard time walking around you and avoiding bumping into you.

  “Oh no, it will not be a problem. I’m actually above you, upside down on the ceiling.”

  Sonni looked up before she could stop herself, expecting the worse.

  Nothing.

  If the giant spider truly hung there, then its ability to control what she saw was amazing…a fact further illustrated by the illumination despite a lack of light source in the barn.

  “My eyes are much bigger than yours and see in the dark better. So I’m simply augmenting what you can barely see, while removing myself from the picture, of course.”

  Amazing.

  But it was what she didn’t remove from the picture that really caught Sonni’s attention.

  Two large grayish-white cocoons were strung up amidst the rafters, about ten feet apart. The one on the right was about the right size to hold a human in a near-fetal position. The one on the left was much larger, and enough of its contours showed through the cocoon for Sonni to recognize the curled outline of a horse.

  “Yes, I finally caught the animal earlier tonight. It kept coming back to the barn, then running off before I could go out after it. But then I left a trap. Webs do not have to be vertical, after all. Once I caught it, I realized it could take your place, and we could continue being friends. Besides, it’s much larger and therefore could sustain far more spiderlings. The other one is your mate. He didn’t want to be my friend.”

  Oh.

  The woman looked up at the ceiling and frowned. She brushed her filthy, straw-filled hair out of her face and regarded the smaller cocoon with eyes completely empty of the spark that used to give them life.

  Now they viewed the world with a thousand yard stare.

  You should have been her friend, Carl, the new Sonni mused in numb indifference. The accommodations are a lot roomier. But I guess we all make our choices. Anyway, I gotta go. Me and my new bestie have plans to make, and people to kill.

  ###

  Antonio watched Cristobal escort Adam out of the clearing and gave a mental sigh of relief.

  Now there was one less random factor to blow this situation all to hell. He understood Adam’s outrage at the turn of events, but his spur of the moment advance on Grandma Lilah had almost gotten them all killed. The Chieftain had already been nervous about the presence of an outsider at this meeting, even one who had a passing acquaintance with their reality. Antonio knew it had only been a gesture on the part of someone who wasn’t used to being in situations where poorly thought out moves ended in gunfire, but it wouldn’t have made any of them less dead.

  At least that was one less thing to worry about.

  Besides, with him gone Antonio wouldn’t be distracted by the enormous urge to march over and choke the shit out of the man. He could save such things for later. For now, all he had to do was ignore the same temptation regarding his niece…although this latter impulse was tempered by the knowledge of how embarrassed she must be.

  He had debated sending her back to the hotel with Adam but decided that would be one humiliation too many, especially with Cesar and Aurelio looking on. He would be damned before he did anything to disgrace her in front of those two. Besides, she had a job to do here and the only thing he could do for her was show his confidence in her ability to get on
with it.

  Starting right now.

  Antonio turned back and addressed his counterpart from the Spider People.

  “I would propose,” he began, “we conduct the next part of our business in English. I have found the experience of conversing with you tonight in our tongue to be both a fascinating and enlightening experience, and I am hopeful for the opportunity of doing it again in the future. But there are definite differences in our respective usages, and I think the upcoming subject is too important to risk a misunderstanding. Is this agreeable to you?”

  The other Chieftain, Samuel Hitch, tilted his head with thumbs still in his pockets. This was one of the traits of the Spider People that bugged the hell out of Antonio, but Olivia had warned him about this. Speaking their language without the usual gestures made everything the man said seem non-definitive and flat. It removed emphasis from the equation, making the meaning of some statements hard to gauge.

  “I s’pose I can see the sense in that.”

  Antonio found his switch from Karankawan to southern accented English almost as odd as the gesture problem…his own version of the language being so richly accented with Spanish. But at least now they would be operating in a format where clarity would not be an issue. This was a good thing because although all three spiders had retreated into the trees, none of them had returned to their webs yet. They remained out there in the darkness which meant despite the stoic expressions of the three men, they were still jumpy after Adam’s display of anger.

  “Excellent.” He nodded, then gestured at Olivia. “Then, with your indulgence, I am going to have my second present our position and our offer. This is because the presentation will involve pictures and technology…an area which she is far more qualified to utilize than I. Is this acceptable to you?”

  Hitch shrugged, thumbs still in his pocket, and looked at Olivia with interest.

  “We’re listenin’.”

  “Very good. Olivia?”

  “Yes sir.”

  Olivia stepped forward, the very personification of “all business.” She carefully pulled five slender tablets from her shoulder bag, withdrawing them slowly so as not to cause alarm. Then she turned each one on. Their screens glowed brightly in the dim clearing, illuminating her face from below and giving her a slightly sorcerous appearance.

  “Do not worry about how to operate these.” She inclined her head and handed two over for the men of the Spider Tribe to share. “They are slaved to my tablet, and I will simply be using them to display images for you to view as I proceed.”

  She then handed one tablet to Cesar, and finally one to Antonio himself.

  Antonio saw that all the screens currently displayed lines of commands and the type of code he could only classify as gibberish. His initial instinct to ignore it was so strong he almost missed what she had done with his tablet. But as he started to look back at her he noticed the cursor flashing and realized his device featured two extra lines, and they were written in plain English.

  Sir, keep your distance from Grandma Lilah. It appears she can read through our psi-blockers if she makes physical contact.

  And for what it is worth, I must also revise an earlier assessment to now conclude that Tucker Sellars is almost assuredly a talent.

  Antonio’s face betrayed nothing as he took this in. He simply glanced at Olivia in acknowledgment of the message.

  “I would like to start tonight with a picture some of us are already familiar with,” she lectured and tapped her screen. “As we all know, this current situation began last year with the deaths of David and Karen Sellars. What you may not have known, is that David Sellars took a picture of his killer about forty seconds before she struck. ”

  All the other screens lit up with the fuzzy picture of the big spider. The three men of the Spider Tribe held their screens up to peer at them. It took a couple of seconds, but then a look of alarm spread across their face.

  “The police did get this picture,” she guessed at the source of reaction, “but fortunately misinterpreted and dismissed it as an optical illusion. Yet this does illustrate a dire problem I will get back to shortly. But first, I must ask you a question so I know we are not wasting your time making a proposition based on a false scenario.”

  The three men regarded her wary curiosity as she paused.

  “May I proceed,” she continued, “on the assumption the spider in this picture is a new young Matriarch that has gone rogue, and you have been in the process of trying to kill it since this event? May I further conclude the spider had already killed the Sellars couple and was in the process of trying to get to Tucker Sellars when she was interrupted by members of your people? And finally, am I safe in assuming this same spider is the cause of the disappearance of Curtis and Abigail Morlin?”

  The Spider Tribe Chieftain looked at her with suspicious surprise, and then glanced over at Grandma Lilah. The old woman stared at Olivia for a second, then shook her him.

  “I do not read minds,” the young woman assured them. “I just finally have enough facts at my disposal to make reasonable extrapolations. May I proceed, or do I need to reevaluate my scenario before doing so?”

  The white haired man studied her for a few seconds before giving her a slow nod. Antonio could imagine the last thing the man wanted to do was confirm or deny things involving guarded secrets. And Olivia had now demonstrated her expertise at extracting truths from tiny tidbits of information.

  “Go on,” he grunted.

  “Thank you.” She again gave a respectful incline of her head. “If the previous scenario is indeed true, then I have to report that both of our tribes now stand in grave peril. This new Matriarch is obviously young, reckless, and intends to continue to prey on outsiders. She has to be eliminated before she exposes both of our existences to the outside world. She is also powerfully psionic or your tribe would have already dispatched her yourselves. But you can’t get close to her, can you…at least not with effective numbers.”

  None of the Spider Tribe spoke, but their lack of reaction was all the admission anybody needed to see Olivia had nailed it again.

  “Given the above facts, I can conclude there are only two possible solutions to our problem before she causes a catastrophe…which she most assuredly will do before much more time passes. The first solution is for your old Matriarch to venture out and hunt her down herself.”

  Not a sound stirred in the dark clearing. The Spider People simply stared at Olivia with faces bearing no expression whatsoever. At the same time, Olivia tapped and gestured on her tablet, causing a new image to appear on all their devices.

  This featured a graphic rendering of two spiders, one over twice as large as the other and both against a graphed background.

  “Since your Matriarch is still considerably larger than the rogue, I’m assuming that factors other than size must be involved in your reluctance to implement this solution?”

  Now even Antonio looked over at Olivia with surprise. How had she come by this knowledge? It must have been very recently or she would have included it in her reports.

  Apparently not everybody was so impressed.

  “She ain’t that small no more,” Grandma Lilah snorted from her bench, without looking up from the knitting she had taken up. “Your picture is almost a year old. She’s grown since then. In more ways than one.”

  “Indeed?” Olivia arched an eyebrow at the old woman. “Can you tell me by how much?”

  “She’s about a twenty-five footer now.”

  Olivia didn’t respond right away, instead focusing on doing something with her tablet. A few seconds later the pictures of the two spiders flickered, with the smaller one having grown to about three fifths the size of the larger.

  “Corrected,” she stated as the new image came up. “Then things are even grimmer than I thought. I can only surmise by her reluctance to engage this rogue earlier there is no chance she will go out and do it now?”

  This time it was the Spider Tribe Chieftain who answ
ered.

  “The Great Mother will not go out to hunt the rogue.”

  The statement had all the finality of a tombstone.

  “I see,” Olivia nodded, as if expecting nothing else. “Then there is only one other possible solution to this dilemma…and I believe you know what it is…but it is not my place to offer it. Yet before I finish, there is another photograph that is vital for you to see.”

  She tapped her tablet again, causing a new picture to crop up on all of their computers.

  “This,” she continued, “is a satellite photo taken from a common Internet map site. While it is at maximum magnification, this is a magnification anybody can see on their computer. I direct your attention to the lower left quadrant of the screen.”

  Not having seen this before either, Antonio peered at the photo as directed. It was a top down view of a forested area, a very odd angle to view the subject of this photo, but it only took him a few seconds to see it.

  It was a massive spider, hanging between two pine trees.

  “I present to you, your Matriarch,” Olivia continued. “This is the photo I used to get the scale for the earlier graphic. Over a million people access this Internet site every day. Fortunately, Weyrich is not a common destination but you still see the problem. You are near the river and some people use sites like this for Internet tourism and sightseeing.”

  Now even Antonio felt sick. Their secrecy and survival the past few years had been as much a matter of luck as anything else. Since his people hadn’t been aware of the Matriarch’s existence until a couple of weeks ago, the oversight on their part was understandable. But why hadn’t the Spider Tribe been aware of it?

  “Just so you know,” Olivia continued, obviously responding to the stricken look on everybody’s collective faces, “I have hacked into their database and altered the picture. For the moment, that threat is removed. But these sites update their photos from time to time, and this will be a recurrent problem. Having said this, I now conclude my report so wiser heads may deliberate these matters.”