Day of the Spiders

  “I have to take you through right now,” said Decker.

  “Wha?.....” muttered Briggs, his mind still fragmented from his nap.

  Decker bent down so he was in Briggs’ ear. “Doctor Low is here to see you.”

  Briggs’ mind came back into focus, fast. The last time he had seen Low he had ended up slapping him right out of his chair. What on earth could he want with him now? More to the point, why was he here in the middle of the night?

  And then he looked at the television again, still they were reporting terrorist attacks, still they had no actual coverage. The adrenaline sparked in his body. He got up out of his chair, straightened himself out and clapped Decker on the shoulder.

  “Lead the way,” he said.

  Decker led him through to room three, tapped on the door with his knuckle and then opened it up. He held it open to let Briggs in and then left the room, closing the door behind him.

  Briggs looked at the man sat in the corner of the room. This guy had been the bane of his life for the last five years. This guy had tried to get him to change his story to fit what the world’s media, and the government that he had been employed to serve had labelled him. Five years of digging his heels and sticking to his guns. He knew that one day the truth would set him free, he knew it deep in his heart.

  There was something different about Low’s demeanour this time. He wasn’t grinning and peering over his glasses in that condescending manner that he usually did. It usually sent the message that they were about to get on the same old merry-go-round again until one of them ended up walking out of the room. It was usually Briggs that did the walking, soon to be followed by a needle full of sedatives, whether he had done anything to deserve it or not. Briggs went and sat down on the seat directly opposite Low. He also mentally noted that Low wasn’t carrying the weighty file that contained everything in Briggs’ history, including every single conversation that they had been through. No, this time he was simply sitting in his chair, his arms folded and with an unreadable expression on his face.

  “Well?” said Briggs, waiting for the bullshit to start.

  “I have some people on their way that want to talk to you Mike,” said Low. He looked as though he had been given a turd to eat and no matter how bad the taste of it was, he wasn’t allowed to spit it out.

  “Is that so? What makes you think that I want to talk to them?” said Briggs.

  Low shook his head slowly. “I don’t think you are in a position to play games.”

  Briggs laughed bitterly. “I am in no position to do anything other than watch television, eat terrible food and smoke enough cigarettes to make me throw up. It’s all I’ve had to do for the last five years. In fact, I’m starting to rather enjoy it.”

  “These people that want to talk to you are in a very prominent position,” said Low, picking his words carefully. “They could hold the key to you getting out of here and out of my hair, which I can tell you would be an absolute mercy. I would advise you to comply.” His voice was monotone, as if he was reading from a script.

  “I don’t have to do anything of the sort. You forget Mr. Low, that I have absolutely nothing left to lose. I…..”

  Briggs was interrupted by the door opening behind him. He turned around to see Decker holding the door open and two men dressed in suits and ties that probably didn’t leave much change from a grand came inside. Low looked up at the men and shrank back in his seat a little.

  “Out,” one of them yelled and Doctor Low leapt out of his seat and went out of the door. The two men grabbed a chair each and positioned them in front of Briggs.

  “Who the hell are you guys? Are you the secret service? MI5? Spies in the house of love?” said Briggs.

  Neither of them looked impressed with Briggs’ attempt at humour.

  “Doctor Michael Briggs?” said the taller of the two men.

  “That’s me.”

  The two men sat down, almost in unison.

  “Are you the manufacturer of the virus known as codename: Whisperer?”

  “Manufacturer? I haven’t heard it put quite like that. I drafted it, formulated it, created it, and when I was told to go and use it I got royally fucked over for it, but I guess you guys already know that,” said Briggs.

  “Did that virus cause the creation of a swarm of venomous spiders?” said the tall man.

  “That’s my understanding of it, yes.”

  “Could you tell me sir, how that was allowed to happen?”

  Briggs sighed. He had been over this story a thousand times. “Look, the virus had a large biological element to it. It was a basic lifeform, programmed to bond to spider DNA and change it so that the life cycle of the spiders was shortened considerably. Nobody, and I mean nobody could have predicted what the virus did the moment it was released.”

  “Would you care to enlighten us?” said the shorter man.

  “I don’t know for sure, because I was never given the opportunity to dissect and study any of the mutations, but the theory that I have is that the biological element of the virus became rogue. It decided that it wanted to survive. It became the primary lifeforce in every spider that it infected, but it was still young, it was still learning. It must have grown far quicker than it was ready to, which is why the spiders were mutated. The concentration of the virus was far too strong. It should have been withdrawn and reconstructed and made to be weaker and more docile, but I never had the chance to do any of the study, nor any of the modifications, because I have been kept here ever since it happened.”

  “Newtown was bombed Doctor Briggs. Surely that virus would have been destroyed in the fire, am I correct?”

  “No, you are not correct. You would have had to destroy it on a cellular level. Just burning it would have created residue that would have been carried by the smoke in the fire, or the remains of any of those spiders. You would have had to clean that site as you would with a town littered with radiation. As long as it is there on a cellular level, it will survive.”

  There was a silence in the room for a few moments, the two men gave each other a look. They both stood up.

  “You need to come with us Doctor Briggs,” said shorter man.

  Briggs crossed his arms, “Like hell I will, you owe me a damn explanation as to why you are here, who you are working for and why the hell you are so interested in the Whisperer. Why don’t you arrest me? Take me in front of a judge, charge me with buggering sheep if that’s what gives you a hard on. Five years I have been sat in here and suddenly you two clowns show up and tell me I have to go with you? Fuck-a-doodle-doo. You can kiss my fat one.”

  “We anticipated that you might give us that answer,” said tall man.

  An arm suddenly went around Briggs’ neck. Tall man and shorter man pounced on him before he could even begin to struggle. He felt the sting of a needle in his upper arm, the same thing that he had felt over a dozen times since he had arrived on the Tulip Suite. He was going to sleep and there was nothing he could do about it.

  He gave up even trying to struggle, he waited for the drug to smash though the blood supply in his brain, and a moment later the off switch inside his head was clicked.

  The darkness enveloped him again.

  3.

  The murky image began to swim in front of his eyes. He knew what it was from the moment it began to come out of the fog, like a ship about to crash into the rocks. The murkiness took shape, showing him the broken residential street, littered with the remains of human bodies and broken giant spiders. The stench of the decay filled his nose, making his stomach turn over and his throat tighten. This time, he wasn’t wearing the protective suit, he didn’t have the small rifle containing the tranquiliser dart. He was utterly exposed.

  He turned his head slightly and saw the writhing, stinking mass of spiders, clumped together to build a protective tower up into the sky, such were the sheer numbers of them. He knew what was waiting inside for him, he had seen it in his nightmares so many times since the day it had
happened.

  Sure enough, the tower of spiders began to fall, their bloated and stretched bodies slapping against the tarmac. Some of them broke open on impact, splashing the ground with a sickly red and yellow pus. Some of them landed on their backs and were unable to get themselves back on their feet. The rest began to charge towards him. He braced himself for the stinging bites, the paralysis, the torrent of festering creatures to embrace him. Instead they ran past him, as if he was invisible.

  He heard the shrieking roar. He felt his blood turn cold. It was coming for him all over again. It was….

  Bang…

  The image in front of his eyes began to falter.

  Bang…

  The image vanished. He began to feel a burning sensation against his right cheek.

  Whack….

  His eyes popped open. Shorter man was standing over him, his hand raised. It took Briggs a moment to realise that Shorter had been slapping him in the face to bring him around. His right cheek felt like it had been doused in hot water. There was a coppery taste of his own blood in his mouth. He tried to stand up, but his arms wouldn’t move. The rattling of metal on metal brought to him the realisation that he had been cuffed to the arms of the chair he was sitting on.

  “Just take it easy,” said Shorter.

  Briggs, safe in the knowledge that he wasn’t going anywhere relaxed and sat back in the chair. He looked around the room he was in. He knew straight away that he was no longer on the ward, but instead inside some kind of police interview room. There was a large mirror on the wall to his left that he knew was a two-way. There was a camera in the top-left corner, its red light illuminated just to let him know that everything was going on the record. At the very least, it offered him a small layer of protection from immediate harm. He kept an eye on that light, because if it winked out at any moment then he would likely be in trouble.

  Shorter went and stood at the side of the door opposite Taller. A moment later the door opened and a squat man, wearing an obviously custom-made suit waddled in through the open space. Briggs knew him straight away. He had seen him on the television often enough. It was Bernard Layfield. It was the Prime Minister of Great Britain.

  There had been an election two years ago, and Layfield had never been off the television. His bald head, accentuated by the horseshoe of hair around the sides and the back of his skull, looked perpetually sweaty. He looked like a man that was permanently overheating, not just by the pressure of the job, but by an appalling diet that obviously consisted of too many mixed grills and vintage wine. Every time Briggs had seen him on the television, ranting about the raging amounts of government debt, and the high levels of unemployment, he wondered to himself how a man in such dreadful shape could possibly have lived for so long. He had wondered how he didn’t just drop dead in the middle of another one of his rambling speeches, delivered with the gusto of an experienced blowhard. It had also crossed his mind that Layfield must have been a terribly smelly man who, no matter how many times a day he showered, must have stunk like a pig taking a bath in a variety of turds.

  Layfield squeezed himself into the chair opposite Briggs. They were separated by a large metal table that Briggs guessed had been bolted to the floor. Briggs was a little star-struck by Layfield’s arrival, but the feeling was doubled over by an overwhelming sense of revulsion. He had never cared for Layfield, or his policies, or anything about the man. But he had struck a chord with the British people, the disenchanted and disenfranchised poor folk, who had been desperate for change. His victory couldn’t have been called anything else other than a landslide. Briggs had been watching the election coverage all night when it had happened. He saw the jubilant, sweaty Layfield shaking hands with other well-suited people, kissing women on the cheek, and puffing out his cheeks, as if the whole event had overwhelmed him.

  And, here he was now, sitting right in front of him, looking just as sweaty and out of breath as he had done on television. A faint waft of bodily odour, encased in a thin seal of deodorant and matching aftershave, met Briggs’ nostrils. He had been absolutely spot on about the way that he had smelled, so he could be pretty certain that his other judgements on Layfield were on the money.

  “I take it that you know who I am,” said Layfield. He laced his hands together on the table in front of him.

  “I’ve seen you on the box once or twice, but no more than that. I can’t stand the smell of bullshit, see?” said Briggs. Shorter step forwards and raise his hand. Layfield put up an arm to stop him.

  “Leave it be,” he warned. “It’s quite alright. If I was in his situation I would be angry too.”

  Shorter returned to his position next to the door. Layfield started to speak again, but Briggs cut him off.

  “It’s all bullshit isn’t it?” he said.

  Layfield’s eyes began to twitch. “You had better explain that statement to me.”

  “Before I say anything more, could you release one of my hands so I can smoke?” said Briggs.

  Layfield took a snoring breath. “I don’t see why not, but be warned Briggs, these men are armed, you try anything…. anything, and they will blow you apart. You be nice and I’ll be nice right back ‘K?” he said. The prick almost sounded magnanimous. Briggs offered him a nod. Layfield gestured to the men stood behind him and taller stepped forwards, pulling a key out of his pocket. He unhooked Briggs’ left hand and then brought out a pack of cigarettes from his other pocket. He offered one to Briggs and then clicked a light to it with a cheap looking lighter. Briggs dragged and then chugged out smoke in Layfield’s direction. Layfield’s expression didn’t change as the smoke billowed around him.

  “That’s a really nasty habit you have there, Doctor Briggs,” said Layfield.

  Briggs shrugged and took another hit off his smoke. “Well, if you live the life that I’ve had for the last five years then there isn’t much else for you to do other than pick up shitty habits.”

  Layfield smiled briefly, then his face returned to his television face, one devoid of all emotion. A closed book.

  “Your case has been very unique Doctor. We have never had an event like the one that happened in Newtown in the history of this great country. Many, many lives were lost that day, both in the town and in the hospital where the outbreak began. The repercussions of that day were felt throughout the world. Most people didn’t even believe it, even when it was reported on television. Even the people who had loved ones killed, they didn’t believe it. The story, to them was so far-fetched, so ridiculous that they largely rejected it. It was only the people who were there and saw it with their own eyes that gave it any credibility. But, the masses have shouted them down over the years, to a point where the truthers are now considered conspiracy theorists and that you Doctor Briggs were responsible for unleashing bio-chemical weapons both in the hospital and in Newtown. We kept you in the Tulip Suite for your own protection.”

  Briggs stared at him wide-eyed, his cigarette forgotten between his fingers, and then he burst out laughing. Layfield smiled politely as he laughed. He laughed until tears ran out of his eyes and spilled down his cheeks. Eventually the laughter dried up and Briggs wiped his streaming eyes with his sleeve. He took another pull on his cigarette and then he mashed it out on the table in front of him.

  “So, let me get this straight. It wasn’t the government that kept me locked up, it was the people?” said Briggs.

  Layfield shrugged. “If that’s the way you want to look at it.”

  “It wasn’t the people that gave me that assignment. It wasn’t the people that refused to listen to me when that virus went rogue. It was you, and your kind. You bombed Newtown, you wiped it off the face of the earth, and you tried to take me out too. You lot kept me locked up all these years, and now I’m hearing about terrorist attacks all over the television, and just like magic, your fat arse is suddenly sitting in front of me trying to justify your position on why I have been locked away ever since. Why don’t you just knock off the bullshit and tell
me why you are here and more importantly, why I am here,” said Briggs. He sat back in his chair, trying not to breathe the horribly sweaty air in the room.

  Shorter stepped forwards again. “Why don’t you just show some fuckin’ respect,” he growled.

  “Go fuck yourself,” Briggs retorted. Shorter stepped forwards and was again cut off by Layfield who sent him back to his post by the door.

  Layfield leaned forwards. “Alright Doctor Briggs, I’m going to level with you,” he said. Out of the corner of his eye, Briggs saw the red light on top of the camera blink out. Some heavy shit was about to go down, he thought to himself.

  “There have been some major incidents, all of them within the town of Layton. I don’t know how good your geography is Doctor Briggs, but Layton sits just six miles from where Newtown once stood. During the explosion, most of the homes in Layton lost their windows, such was the force of the blast. The first incident happened in Layton General Hospital. Two people, one a civilian, the other a police officer were in an isolation ward together. The girl had suffered a broken leg and the officer had lost part of his arm in an accident of unknown origin. Both of these people were bitten by a spider during the course of the day. The hospital staff would have been none the wiser, but the same morning, a three-year-old child died as a result of a similar bite and the investigating officer handed in a specimen that he found at the scene.”

  “It was a spider wasn’t it? A mutated spider of some sort,” said Briggs.

  “Not mutated at all Doctor Briggs. It was almost a perfect example of a British house spider. But it was one of those spiders that inflicted the bite on the officer in the hospital.”

  “Did it kill him? Did he die?” said Briggs.

  “No Doctor, he didn’t,” said Layfield. He lowered his head for a moment, the sweat on the bald spot was beginning to run small rivers down the shiny skin.