Day of the Spiders

by Brian O'Gorman

  And then he saw the shadow that was encasing the hills start to creep around the bend of the road in the distance. He saw the rippling effect slowly build up until the whole of the road was shimmering and shifting. Then he realised what was happening, then he realised….

  He turned away and started to run, his aches and pains from the garage roof exploded, threatening to take his wind away. Cindy was a few hundred yards in front of him, she hadn’t even realised that he had stopped.

  “Run” he screamed with all the force in his body.

  Cindy turned and saw him running towards her, she saw the terror on his face and then she saw what was making its way down the road towards them. She froze to the spot, her mouth gibbering silently at the black wave of horror coming towards them.

  “They’re coming,” roared Thompson. He caught up to Cindy and grabbed her. She let out a terrified yell and then her legs began to pump, her soft and comfortably sprung trainers pounding the road. She started gaining ground, leaving Thompson lagging behind. He was already badly out of breath, and running out of steam quickly. His injuries were just too much for him to keep going. He gritted his teeth hard and put on another burst of speed.

  I’m not going to make it…..I’m not going to make it, his mind jabbered.

  He cast a look over his shoulder. He saw that the spiders had made it as far as the crashed lorry. They didn’t even try and avoid the fire, they simply swarmed over it, the hundreds, thousands, millions of bodies catching fire as they scuttled into it. They started to break through, turning the parked cars into a living, black shapeless mass. The road on Thompson’s side was becoming a carpet of charging spiders. He saw that behind the initial charge that there was a tidal wave of black heading towards them. It was probably only six feet high, but to Thompson it looked like a wall of hell flowing towards them. The blackness spilled out over the sides of the road, covering the grass, enveloping the trees. Death was heading right for them.

  He turned back to the front, letting out a guttural roar. He managed one more burst of speed, setting his ribs and his lungs on fire as he did so. He squeezed his eyes closed for a moment, desperate to survive, desperate to go on just one more day, losing the hope that it would actually happen.

  Then there was another noise, in front and above. A fluttering, a whirring…. He popped his eyes open and saw the helicopter tear across the sky above them. It flew over their heads from in front of them and then took a sharp right turn. A moment later it flew over them again and dropped down smoothly onto the road ahead of them. Someone was leaning out of the chopper, waving to them beckoning them in. Thompson could see the young soldier’s mouth working. He was yelling something to them.

  Come on.

  Cindy made it first and the soldier whipped her with ease into the chopper. The soldier began waving at Thompson, telling him to move faster. He was closing the distance, but much too slowly. The soldier suddenly reached inside the cab and brought out a rifle. For a moment, Thompson thought that he was going to shoot him down. As the soldier fired, Thompson brought his arms up across his face, bracing himself for those metal tipped slugs to hit home, but none of them did. He realised that the soldier was firing at the incoming swarm to try and buy him some vital seconds.

  Thompson made it to the bird. Another soldier popped out from the open back of the chopper and pulled Thompson up. The chopper started to lift up off the floor before he had even got both of his feet inside. He slammed backwards into the seat and scrambled to get his seat belt on. For a few moments, he couldn’t get any air into his lungs. He thought that having escaped that now he was going to roll over and die right here in this helicopter. He looked out of the open door and he saw the carpet of spiders all over the road where he was stood a moment ago. They moved with frightening speed, taking over the tarmac like a spreading pool of dark water. The chopper turned and began to head towards the city, cutting through the air with ease.

  Thompson turned towards Cindy. She was turned towards him, a look of anguish spread across her face. He was just reaching out to grab hold of her hand when he saw it. He saw the spider running up the pale blue of her jeans leg. He let out a guttural yell and brought his open hand down on it. The spider was crushed beneath his hand. He slapped the broken carcass off her and onto the floor of the helicopter. The chopper made a sudden sharp right turn, sending the crushed body out of the open side. Thompson wiped his hand on his trousers, getting the pieces of broken legs and guts off his skin. He didn’t know if Cindy yelled out, it was far too noisy inside the chopper to hear much of anything. He also knew that the soldier was too busy speaking into his headset to notice what had happened.

  As Thompson’s hand had come down on the spider, its fangs had punched through the denim and into the soft skin of Cindy’s leg, but because of Thompson’s heavy-handedness, she hadn’t even realised that she had been bitten.

  The helicopter flew on towards Hemmington city and the mass swarm of spiders was not far behind it.

  The Plague of the Whisperer

  “The hands of time can only move forwards. Your fate is incoming, whether you like it or not.”

  1.

  Doctor Michael Briggs snapped fully awake, as he usually did these days. It was a very rare occasion where he awoke from sleep in a relaxed and easy fashion. It had become as much a part of his life as eating or breathing. The only difference these day was that the slick of sweat that used to paint his skin was vastly reduced. Sure, the nightmares were still the same, with a little variation here and there, such as a change of location, or a different person becoming the monster he had encountered in the long-dead village of Newtown. He had become accustomed to them. He had integrated them into his daily routine in a similar fashion to a battered child incorporating their daily bouts of abuse into the list of chores for the day. It was just the way it was, and there was no way of changing it. If he had caused a fuss and been jabbed in the rear end with a needle full of sedatives then the nightmares would take a little longer to get going. Even through the cloud of drugs, they would still be there. Sometimes they would add some strange anomalies to the dreams. Perhaps he would be floating above the ground, unable to swim away from the horror chasing him instead of the usual sticky-feet problem that would get him every time.

  He checked the time, and found with some disgust that it was just after ten. He had been asleep for a whole hour. It was pitch black outside the tiny windows, and the honking of the regular gang of geese off in the distance was still at a dull quack, rather than the full chorus that usually greeted the dawn. He lay down for a moment, just to see if the possibility of continuing his sleep was going to be fruitful. However, his sandy-dry throat and the adrenaline hit that bolted through his body when he had awoken had made it a pretty quick ruling, he was done for the night. His regular evening medications that gave him the ability to fall asleep pretty easily, which included a generous hit of an anti-psychotic drug Lobopine, had all but worn off. The usual haziness was still there, and the desperate need for a decent cup of tea, or if the occasion warranted it, a decent cup of coffee.

  He got up off his bed and pulled on his loose jogging trousers over his shorts and put on a vest top. He found his threadbare slippers and wiggled his feet into them. He stretched, relishing the feeling of his bones clicking and popping themselves back into place again. He exhaled and bent himself over and tried to touch his toes. It wasn’t long ago that he could actually pinch his own toes from this position, but age and sleeping on a crappy bunk for so many years had stiffened him up. He let out his breath and tried to reach for his toes again. He felt his spine crackle and then he brought himself slowly back up to a standing position.

  He heard footsteps on the corridor outside his door. There was a rattling of keys and then the thin blind on his door clacked open. It was one of the nurses doing their two-hourly checks. The disembodied eyes peering through the window flicked around the room and then locked on him.

  “You okay Mike?” said the mal
e voice. It sounded like Nurse Peter Decker. Peter was generally one of the good guys, but his brick-shithouse build made him a guy not to be messed with. Briggs had found out, during one of their many late-night conversations that Decker had once been a bouncer. He had joked with Briggs that nursing wasn’t actually much different except that he got some weekends off.

  “Yeah, I’m fine,” said Briggs.

  “Need something to help you sleep?”

  Briggs shook his head. “No….thanks. Mind if I go and watch television?”

  “Not at all, you go right ahead,” said Decker. The blind clicked up again and Briggs heard Decker walk on to the next room to carry on his checks.

  Briggs grabbed his cigarettes and tucked them into his pocket. He opened the door and stepped out into the corridor. The lights always seemed to be far too bright, no matter what time of day it was. There were no dark corners to be found here, none at all.

  He walked the length of the corridor and into the small kitchen. He snapped the kettle on and found a plastic cup sitting on the edge of the sink. He rinsed it out and dumped a teabag in along with two sugars. He had never taken sugar before he had come onto this ward, but the quality of the tea was so bland that he needed the sugar just to give it a little flavour. He added the boiled water and left it to brew for a few moments, not that it would make any difference. Getting any flavour out of the cheap-ass teabags was like drawing blood from a stone. He grabbed a spoon and squished the teabag around and then dropped in a splash of milk. He left the kitchen and went through into the lounge area. He was expecting to see some of the other inmates dotted around, not many of them slept well, but he was surprised to find that the room was empty. He went over the wall-mounted television, reached around the back of it and switched it on. It was set to the news channel by default at this time of night, there was nothing else on that was worth watching. He settled down in the armchair directly in front of the screen and set his cup of tea down on the table next to him.

  The screen lit up in front of him. There was a business report going on. How utterly dull, even considering the hour. He would have rather watched the endless teleshopping that was on all the other channels than watch this rubbish. He picked up his tea and took a precautionary sip. Foul-tasting, check. Too hot, check. He set it back down again. His lungs itched for a smoke. He supposed he could persuade one of the nurses to let him into the outdoor smoking area, even though they usually didn’t allow it. But, he had been very well behaved over the last year. He hadn’t had any trouble since he had words with Doctor Low. That had been the last time he had seen the good Doctor. Their little exchange had led to him being sedated for a week-long period whilst they dealt with his supposed psychotic episode. He knew what the truth of it was, he just hadn’t told Low what he wanted to hear, and he never would. He had the power of stubbornness and the truth on his side. He would be vindicated, he knew it only too well. It was all he had to keep him going, and it was more than enough fuel. He had been going for five years now and he still had plenty of that fuel left in the tank.

  He got up and went out of the lounge towards the nurses station. He met Decker, who was finishing his round and heading towards the station.

  “Any chance I could go out for a smoke?” said Briggs.

  Decker mulled it over for a moment, his face contorting like a bad character actor trying to remember his lines. “Well, you know the rules Mike, but I think I could make an exception in your case,” he said. He jangled his large bunch of keys and found the one for the back door. He led Briggs to the door and let him out. He dug into his pocket and handed Briggs his lighter.

  “Make sure I get it back when you’re done,” said Decker.

  Briggs gave him a thumbs up and Decker left him to it. He fished a cigarette out of his pack and stuck into the corner of his mouth. He snapped alight to it with Decker’s slim gold zippo and dragged deeply. The itch in his lungs began to abate a little and he dragged deeply again. He plumed out smoke into the still, cool night and took pleasure in the feeling of the nicotine rushing through his system. He didn’t think that there was a finer feeling in all of the world, other than a cold frothy pint of ice-cold beer, or the feeling of a good woman next to you in your bed. The other two were as far out of his reach right now as they possibly could be, so he made the best of what he had right now. He had another drag, wonderful. He wondered about how many cigarettes were being enjoyed in such a fashion all over the world, pondering whether or not anyone else was taking as much pleasure from one as he was, he doubted it very much. He walked down the small path that led to the tiny garden area. Usually, during the ten-minute breaks that occurred every two hours during the day, the place would have been full of other inmates sitting around in various states of dress. He went to the far-right bench, the one that was usually reserved for ‘The Don,’ and he sat himself down. The Don, was a hard person to try and figure out. He seemed to have it permanently stuck in his mind that he was some sort of crime boss. The only crime he could ever commit in this place was bringing in the odd bag of M&Ms after he had come back from his allotted free time, where he was allowed to leave the hospital on the trust that he would come back after two hours. Briggs had heard rumour that everything he came back with, he had in fact stolen from the supermarket that was just outside the hospital grounds. He would usually have fed this information to the nurses in exchange for better treatment, but he didn’t think that ratting on The Don would do him any favours. Besides, The Don was a good man to have on his side. His reputation as a man with ‘connections’ was wholeheartedly bought into by most of the other inmates, giving them a little bit of fear of him. Briggs didn’t buy a word of it. He reasoned that if he was so well connected that he would have been gone from the hospital a long time ago. Briggs had still placated him with regular supplies of cigarettes whenever he ran short. The Don always offered him a nod whenever he was out in the garden sitting in his usual spot. About six months ago, the word came around the wards that The Don’s real name was Neville Jones. A twitchy and hypomanic young man by the name of Rebel Wilton had called it him to his face. The Don sure as hell didn’t take too kindly to his hard-man image being sullied in such a fashion and he had punched Rebel, just once, right in the side of his jaw. Some of Rebel’s teeth flew out of his mouth and clattered off the nearby wall before coming to a bloody rest in the middle of the floor. Rebel went down like a sack of shit and ended up impaling one of his own teeth into his left buttock. The Don had been put to sleep for a few days after that incident, but he never missed a beat. He actually had more swagger about him having dished out a one-punch beating. Rebel Wilton wasn’t seen again on the ward.

  But, that was the nature of the daily grind in the Tulip Suite. They came and went with such regularity that Briggs never really knew any of them. He was the only mainstay, part of the furniture, a regular. Even the staff had turned over three times since he had first arrived. They normally didn’t stay for more than a year, such was the daily grind of dealing with the mentally infirm, and the long shifts that they all seemed to work. He had seen it all.

  He took his last drag and then pitched his dog-end into the grass. He toyed with the idea of having another, but his head was pretty light as it was. He made his way back inside, went to the nurses station to hand Decker his lighter back and then went into the lounge again. He took his seat and picked up his cup of tea. It was just at the optimal temperature for drinking. He took a swig and turned his eyes to the television screen.

  There was a breaking news story unfolding on the screen in front of him. The suited newsreader looked as though he had suddenly been thrust into something that he was very ill prepared for. Even under the powder that was dashed over his skin before he went on the air, a visible sweat was breaking out. Briggs got up from his seat and hiked the volume up.

  ‘….getting reports of two terrorist attacks in the town of Layton. Armed police have been called to Layton General Hospital to deal with an incident of unknown nature
at this time. The other incident is on Corsica Road which is just near the main Hemmington Road that runs through the centre of the town. There is apparently a major fire happening too. The reports we are getting are that these two incidents are linked. We have no further information at the moment, but we will bring you more updates when we have them.’

  Briggs watched the screen and listened carefully, his cup of tea forgotten in his hand. A small fizz of something begin to build up in his insides. It took a few moments for him to work out what it was that was bubbling up in his innards.

  Hope.

  As awful as it was to see something terrible happening to people out there in the wider world, he couldn’t help but feel ignited by it. There had been other incidents before, and he had felt that buzz of hope, only for it to come to nothing. But still, it was there.

  Hope.

  It was that terrible blinding hope that all he had been saying for all these years was about to come to pass. He had hope that his virus, his creation that had been unleased on the world to try and heal it, that had turned into something so monstrous that nobody could have stopped it, had finally risen from its fiery grave again and would put him back in the drivers’ seat once again. It was too beautiful a fantasy to resist.

  He would know soon enough. If it was what he thought it was, then something would happen, and it would happen soon.

  He decided that another cigarette would be a good idea after all. He drained his cup, grimaced and went to find Decker to let him out again.

  2.

  “There’s someone here to see you,” said Decker.

  Briggs had been napping in his chair, leaning back as far as he could, his legs crossed and his arms folded across his chest. He hadn’t even been aware that he had gone to sleep. He checked his wrist to look at the time and then he realised that he hadn’t put his watch on when he had gone walkabout in the middle of the night. He squinted at the television and saw that it was just past midnight