Day of the Spiders

by Brian O'Gorman

  “Robert Green, at your service.” He shook Thompson’s hand. “So, what has brought you to this lovely establishment? Less’un you know somebody that’s giving birth, I’m hazarding a guess that it ain’t good news.”

  Thompson shook his head. “My friend…..work partner, he lost half his arm.”

  Robert offered him that smile again. “Did he get in an accident?”

  “No, he was bitten….” said Thompson and then he bit his tongue. He had almost let the cat out of the bag right there.

  “Bitten? What kind of creature could bite off’un a man’s arm in such a fashion? I don’t see no lions nor crocodiles around these parts,” said Robert.

  “No, no there isn’t. I think it must have got infected,” said Thompson. He wished he had kept his mouth shut. The receptionist was coming over to him which meant that he was going to buy himself a way out of this alleyway he was stuck in.

  “Mr Thompson?”

  “Yes,” he said standing up.

  “This way please.”

  He turned to Robert and offered his hand. Robert shook.

  “Good talking to you my friend,” said Thompson.

  “Hope your friend is feeling better soon,” said Robert. “And thanks for the cash, stranger. You heed my words, you do the best with what you got and you will never go wrong.”

  “Layton Valley, you should check it out. Perhaps sooner rather than later,” said Thompson.

  “I’ll do that Mr. Thompson, sir. Perhaps I’ll set up home there for a while.”

  Thompson turned and followed the receptionist out of the waiting area on Roberts laughter.

  It was along walk through the hospital to the isolation ward. It was long enough for Thompson to wonder what he was going to find when he got there. He and Wells had been through the mill together throughout the years that they had been put together as a partnership. They had put behind bars some of the most vile, despicable pieces of human waste that the country had ever seen, and at the end of each case, they didn’t sit on their laurels, they didn’t pat themselves on the back, they just got on with the job. He wanted to honour their partnership right now by just getting on with the job right now. He needed to make sure Wells was alright and then he needed to make sure that Roberts was going to take his thumb out of his arse and get this situation under control. He didn’t want anyone else coming into this hospital in the same condition as Wells, not on his watch.

  They were three-quarters of the way down the corridor when the first of the screams came echoing down the walls. Thompson instinctively broke into a run. He charged for the door and he was about to try and shoulder charge the lock when it popped open. Doctor Wilson came staggering out of the door and slammed it behind her. The front of her uniform was splattered with gore. Blood was streaked across her chest and halfway up her face. Some of it was still running down her clothing and dripping onto the floor. Wilson frantically turned the lock with hand that were shaking badly. A moment later something crashed into the doors from the other side, something big and heavy. That ear-splitting shriek blasted out from inside the ward.

  “Need guns…..” rasped Wilson.

  “What? What are you talking about?” said Thompson.

  “We need someone with a gun, right now…” she shrieked. The door banged again, as if to highlight the point.

  “What is it?” said Thompson.

  “Katie….it was Katie…she killed Renfrew…she….she…”

  The door crashed again, this time it looked as if the right-hand door buckled a little.

  “We have to evacuate…..get the army in here…..” cried Wilson. Thompson was looking at her dumbfounded. Wilson grabbed him by his shirt and shook him. “Do something” she roared in his face.

  Thompson grabbed his radio and began to call for assistance.

  The door banged again. The top of the right-side door bent forwards a little, just enough for a small hole to open up. Wilson grabbed Thompson.

  “Let’s get out of here,” she yelled.

  Through the gap in the door something began to poke its way through. Thompson couldn’t make it out, his mind wouldn’t unscramble the image he was seeing. It looked like there was a huge, misshapen spider leg poking through the hole. Then Wilson was pulling him down the corridor. He turned his head forwards so he didn’t fall. They passed one of the fire alarm buttons that was littered all though the hospital. Wilson balled up a fist and punched the glass as hard as she could. The fire alarm began to wail all around the building.

  “What the hell happened in there? Where’s Wells?” roared Thompson.

  “They changed, they both changed. They turned into….” She broke off, scrambled her phone out of her pocket and showed Thompson a picture that she had snapped.

  When Thompson saw the picture, he couldn’t believe it, he wouldn’t believe it and then the door of the isolation ward was broken right off its hinges. The creature that had once been Katie Underwood began to emerge from the broken hole. When he saw it, Thompson began to understand.

  Wilson pulled at Thompson’s sleeve. “Run,” she screamed.

  They charged down the corridor, turning a sharp right towards the main body of the hospital. Thompson could hear the tapping and skittering of the spider-like legs of the beast as it chased them. Any moment now he would feel the weight of it crashing down on him, pinning him to the floor to do god knows what to him. They reached the lift and Wilson began pounding the button. By sheer good luck the lift was on their floor and the door slid open. They both got inside and Wilson hammered the button for the ground floor. Thompson looked up the corridor that they had just run down and he saw the creature scuttling towards them. The six extra legs that Katie had grown were clumsy, awkward even, but they still managed to propel her down the corridor and towards them with alarming speed. The two front legs which were by far the most dexterous looked to Thompson like they had grown out of the pulped remains of her own arms. Katie’s distorted features saw the lift door closing on Thompson and Wilson and it let out a screech of frustration. It put on an extra burst of speed, but it was too late. As the lift door closed, the Katie thing crashed into it and let out another yell. It was just that little bit too slow. The new legs that it had grown were taking some getting used to. It began to make its way back to the isolation ward. The Wells thing was still trying to stand when she had left to go after Wilson and Thompson. She was halfway back to the ward when the Wells thing came scuttling around the corner. It stopped to look at her for a moment and then it charged down the corridor. It stopped only when they were face to face. They knew, both of them knew what they had to do next. Something deep inside of them was telling them what the next phase was. They started to move again. But they were in no hurry. They had all the time in the world.

  After all, their day was about to begin.

  23.

  Perry Williams had fallen asleep on his couch around ten minutes after returning to his home. It was the curse of the night shift that his body clock was set to sleep mode even after everything that had happened today. When he had arrived home, he saw that there was a policeman now standing in front of the door at Boris’ place. God only knew what was going there. Perhaps they had found Boris dead, rotted down to nothing more than a few scraps of flesh and bones. It wouldn’t have surprised him. Little did he know just how accurate that his perception was.

  It was his intention to head straight upstairs and pack everything that he thought Katie would need into her purple rucksack. It wasn’t big enough to fit everything in, but it certainly would have done her just for now, at least until he knew exactly how long she was going to be in the hospital. The moment he had walked in through the door and found himself amongst familiar surroundings, a huge wave of tiredness crashed over him like a wave in a high wind. He thought that it would be fine if he just sat down for a moment and gathered himself. Perhaps he could shut his eyes for five minutes whilst he got his head together again.

  A few moments later he began to
snore. He didn’t wake up again until someone began to bang on the front door. Such was the suddenness and the violence with which they knocked that he jumped straight up off the couch. He stood there for a moment, his head still swimming with sleep and his senses unable to process what had snatched him from his slumber in such a violent way. The banging on the door came again, and he stumbled through the room and into the hallway. Again, the banging. Christ, did they have to knock so loud?

  “I’m coming” he roared. He gripped the handle and pulled the door open.

  “You have to evacuate, right now.” said the woman at the door. It took a moment for Perry not only to register what she had said, but the fact that the woman looked like she was dressed in army gear.

  “But, I just got back…I…”

  The woman caught hold of his shirt. “You have to evacuate now, the whole street is going up,” she bellowed into his sleep puffy face.

  Without another word, she dragged him out of his house. He fought her at first and then, as he made it out onto the street, he saw the flames. All of the houses up the street were burning. Flames rose up into the air, sending a column of smoke up into the early evening sky. He saw two more army men standing in the street, and it looked to him like they were wearing flamethrowers. Was that even possible? Why would they be torching the street?

  He was manhandled to the opposite side of the road and he lost his footing on the kerb and spilled to the floor. He looked back at the burning homes, the horror of his own dwelling catching fire began to rise up in him. Then he saw something else, something starting to cover the outer skin of his house and the ones next to it. He saw the darkness creeping into his own front door, coating the white walls of his hallway. Whatever it was, it was alive and moving. It began to spread across the road towards him. It was only then that his eyes began to focus properly. The adrenaline pumping through his body pushed the last of the sleep from his brain, making it clear again. The darkness coming towards him and consuming his house was made up of spiders. Hundreds, thousands of them, all scuttling across the road towards him. He was about to scramble to his feet when he was yanked up by his collar.

  “Run, get out of here.” The woman shrieked in his ear.

  He took off down towards the far end of the road, as fast as his legs could carry him. Behind him, he heard the woman who had pulled him out of his home begin to scream. He looked back and saw her being consumed by the creeping carpet of spiders. He saw her eyes, bugging out with terror and pain, and her open mouth, fixed in that final scream, and then….

  Whhooooshhhh…..

  One of the soldiers turned his flamethrower on her. She was engulfed in the fire. Perry saw her burning body fall to the ground, thrashing and flailing in the ball of flames. The spiders that had clung to her body were turned into pieces of ash almost instantaneously. The rest of them began to run away from the heat and up the road to where Perry was standing. He turned and ran as hard as he could. He heard the whoosh of the flamethrowers again and again and he could swear that he could feel the heat from them at his back.

  He got clear of the street and onto the main Hemmington Road. He headed south, running as much as he could. He slowed to a fast walk, heaving air into his lungs. He bent over double for a moment, trying to gather himself, trying to get through his head what he had just witnessed. He had to get to the hospital, just to talk to Katie, to tell her what had happened. He stood up straight again and started to walk. The hospital was only ten minutes down the road. He would be there soon, he reassured himself. Then he could try and make sense of what had just gone on.

  His hands patted his pockets, looking for his mobile phone, but then he realised that he had taken it out and put it on the arm of the sofa as he always did when he was planning to have a few quiet moments on the sofa. He cursed himself for his mistake, swearing out loud and patting his pockets again in case the phone had magically been transported. Surely there would still be people at the hospital, he prayed that there would be people at the hospital, just to break him out of the weird feeling of disassociation that he felt from seeing his street overrun by spiders.

  He started forwards again, going at a steady jog instead of the all-out pelt he had run at before. He reached the point in the road where it bent sharply to the left. This was known as scrap corner due to the excessive amount of crashes that had occurred on this bend by boy racers and other foolish drivers who took it too sharply. The road had been temporarily jammed up with traffic in both directions on more than one occasion whilst the twisted remains of another vehicle was lifted from the scene. The local council had been inundated with complaints about it for, what seemed like an endless run of months and years. The only action they had taken so far was to erect signs on both ends of the corner advising motorists to take it easy on the bend. The signs had pretty much no impact on the number of written-off cars that had resulted from the bend, and so the complaints went on.

  Perry came around the bend and the hospital building loomed ahead of him. A roadblock had been put up cutting off the right hand turn to the hospital. It wasn’t a police roadblock either, it was the army again. Two high-sided army vehicles stood behind the metal barriers, almost fully blocking the view of the road ahead. Two soldiers, armed with rifles stood at either side of the blockade. Perry froze to the spot, wondering if he should retreat and try and find another way around. But before he could decide, one of the soldiers shouted over to him.

  “Oi, come over here.”

  Perry paused for a moment and then began to walk slowly forwards. His body was coiled like a spring, ready to dive for cover if they tried to shoot at him. However the soldiers kept their guns down and allowed him to approach.

  “Where have you come from sir?” said the soldier. His cool blue eyes stood out from under his helmet like piss holes in the snow.

  “Corsica Road. I was told to run. They had flamethrowers…..there were spiders everywhere. What’s going on?” spluttered Perry.

  “Can’t say for sure just yet. We have been told it’s a terrorist incident.”

  Perry frowned. None of it made any sense to him. “Terrorists? That doesn’t…”

  “That’s all we are prepared to say at the moment sir. You need to clear the area,” said the soldier in his robotic voice.

  “I have to get to the hospital, my girlfriend is….”

  “The hospital has been evacuated. She will have been moved over to Hemmington. I would suggest that….”

  The soldier didn’t finish his sentence. From behind the roadblock there was an almighty crash. Glass came flying over the roadblock causing the soldiers and Perry to shield their eyes. A moment later there was a chorus of shouting and rapid gunfire. The two soldiers jumped over the barrier, drawing their guns and vanished between the vehicles. The gunfire lasted for less than a minute. Through the popping of bullets, Perry could hear screams of agony and a sound of something splattering across the floor. Perry felt the ground underneath him shake, as if something heavy was treading on the floor nearby. Alarms from the cars lined up in the car parks began to howl and wail. The ground shook again and again. More screams of pain rang out, echoing around the street. Again and again the screams rang out until the gunfire and the bellows of anguish were gone.

  All that remained was the vibrating of the ground and the ringing of the alarms from cars being shaken by the turbulence. Perry was frozen to the spot for a moment, wondering if he should just run for it, but his curiosity was too great. He made his way around the roadblock and ducked down behind the front of one of the vehicles. He waited for a moment, breathing hard, his heart a steady beating drum in his ears. He forced himself to rise up slowly so that he could look over the front of the van and see what had happened near the hospital. As the view opened up before him the horror that was already pulsing through his body stepped up a notch. The bodies of the soldiers were strewn all over the road leading up to the front of the hospital. Most of them had been torn apart, as easily as one might tear pape
r. Blood, intestines and severed limbs littered the floor, some of them still twitching with the convulsions of their sudden death. Perry wanted to stop looking at it, just close his eyes and hope that it was all just an illusion, but he couldn’t. He couldn’t tear his eyes away from it. He was utterly transfixed by the carnage that had happened in such a short space of time.

  He caught sight of something moving out of the corner of his eye. He snapped his head towards it. When he saw it, when he saw the thing that had caused all of that carnage, his vision began to swim and his legs threatened to buckle beneath him. If he hadn’t been hanging on to the vehicle he would have crumpled to the floor.

  The monster in front of him was almost beyond description. It was the legs that he saw first, those long insect-like legs that were growing out of its body. The surface of the skin was shining and wet, as if they were still new, not hardened to the outside atmosphere yet. They were holding the body of the abomination off the floor. It was swaying slightly, as if there was a stiff breeze blowing. The body was still mostly human. It was bloated and bruised all over from its head right down to its dangling feet. The bottom half of its face was missing, from the nose down. It looked as if it had been torn right off in a horrible accident. In the shredded and bloody ruin, two large fangs were curling downwards, fangs that were big enough to tear a human body apart. The creature lumbered over to where Perry was hiding. He was utterly powerless to do anything about it. His legs felt totally numb, barely able to support his weight. All he could do was stare at the monster in front of him. His eyes flicked all around its body, finally coming to rest on it eyes, those green eyes, that looked to him like they almost carried the sparkle of the stars from heaven itself.

  And that was when he realised. He realised who was standing in front of him. The muscles in his legs began to work again. He pulled himself up and walked around the edge of the truck. Now there was nothing between them but the clean fresh air of the oncoming night. The monster took a couple of steps backwards. He saw her. He saw the metal rod, attached to the human leg that had been broken on the floor of their bathroom this morning. He saw the red hair, matted with human blood but the glow and the styling of it still intact. Then he looked at the eyes again. The eyes that he had seen lit up with life and her love for him, every time he had learned in for a kiss, every time he had held her in his arms and told her that everything would be just fine as long as they had each other.