Day of the Spiders

  “He’s very tired, so please go easy on him. His wife is a little…. defensive shall we say?” said the doctor.

  Briggs nodded to indicate his understanding. The doctor went through the large oak door and into the room to announce Briggs’ arrival. There were a few muffled voices and then the doctor waved them in.

  “Ten minutes, that’s all I can give you at the moment,” said the doctor to Briggs.

  “We might need…” began Willis, but Briggs cut her off.

  “Ten minutes is fine, thank you,” he said.

  They went into the room and the door was pulled closed behind them. Thompson was sat up in the bed, propped up by more pillows than Briggs had ever seen in one bed. His face looked pale and pained, that of a man who had been through something of a personal war. His eyes scanned Briggs suspiciously. Thompson knew who he was, Briggs had no doubt about that. Thompson’s wife sat on the chair next to the bed. She looked pissed off and tired. She was steadily scratching at her knee with her long nails and giving Briggs a look that would have stopped a clock.

  “Listen, I’m really sorry to intrude on you like this. My name is…”

  “Briggs. You’re Doctor Michael Briggs. I know who you are, I know exactly who the fuck you are. I’m giving you exactly thirty seconds to get the fuck out of here,” rasped Thompson.

  “I need to talk to you about what happened yesterday, it’s important….”

  “Important? I’ll tell you what’s fucking important, a little girl was killed yesterday. Three years old she was, just three years old. My partner got bitten too and he turned into something….” He broke off, struggling with his emotions for a moment. He composed himself and then carried on. “He turned into something monstrous, a killer, a murderer. That man had a family, kids for Christ’s sake. This all has to do with what happened in Newtown hasn’t it? It has to, otherwise you wouldn’t be here right now. I know you Briggs and I know what you did, now I swear to almighty god, if you don’t leave there’s going to be trouble.”

  “Please,” said Willis. “Please can you just hear us out, just for a few minutes.”

  “Lady, I don’t know what lies he has told you, but he is a killer. If you want to keep on living then you do yourself a favour and get as far away from him as possible,” said Thompson.

  “Believe whatever you want Thompson, it doesn’t matter. I need to talk to you about what happened and I’m not leaving until you tell me,” said Briggs. His patience was wearing a little thin. He didn’t have time for this bullshit.

  “Fine. If you won’t leave, then I will,” said Thompson. He started to get out of the bed.

  “Gerald….” moaned Cindy.

  “No, I’m not staying here sharing a space with him.” He roared. He gingerly stood up, pulled open one of the drawers next to the bed and began to get himself dressed. He pulled on his trousers without bothering to remove the bed robe he had been given to wear.

  “Gerald,” whined Cindy again. She started to get out of her chair, levelling a finger at Briggs. “If he hurts himself, I’m holding you responsible.”

  Cindy stood up with the intention of escorting Gerald out of the room. She managed just one step and then froze. A look of utter horror and fear tore across her face. Gerald, who had taken off the bed robe and was in the process of buttoning up his shirt saw her freeze.

  “Cindy, what is it? Cindy?...”

  Briggs went to try and help her, but Thompson shoved him out of the way. He staggered backwards, almost taking Willis out with him.

  “Get away from her,” Thompson growled. He staggered around the bed towards Cindy.

  Cindy tried to step towards him, but a horrible wet crunching noise came from her leg. She tried to catch herself on the edge of the bed but she couldn’t keep her grip, she began to spill forwards. She would have had a violent impact with the wooden floor had Thompson not made it to her in time. He caught her under the arms and pulled her back up, his face grimacing in the awful pain from his ribs and back. They were under a pressure bandage to limit the movement and he was doped on painkillers, but taking the weight of his wife still caused an incredible amount of agony. He didn’t care about the pain, all he cared about was getting Cindy on the bed. He hauled her up and lay her down on the pillows. He began to move away but she gripped onto him.

  “Gerald, I’m sorry,” she whispered. “I’m so sorry.”

  “What on earth do you have to be sorry for? I’ll get the doctor they’ll…..”

  “It’s too late Gerald. I love you….. Mr. Policeman,” she said and then she smiled.

  “What? What are you talking about? I’ll get the doctor and…” and then his foot kicked something on the floor.

  “Oh Jesus,” said Briggs. Willis clapped her hand over her mouth.

  Cindy Thompson’s leg had come away from the rest of her body, just above the knee. It had slipped seamlessly out of the bottom of her jeans when Gerald had lifted her onto the bed. Gerald turned and looked at the floor. He saw the leg, that beautiful smooth leg that he had stroked as it lay across him every evening whilst they watched television, lying on the ground. The severed end was covered with the same rotting green flesh that had been present on Wells’ arm when it had come loose. She had been bitten, she had been infected and that meant only one thing.

  Cindy closed her eyes and began to shake and convulse.

  The change had begun.

  12.

  Keller had asked for a chair to be brought up to the top of the barricade. He had been scanning the horizon, looking for any activity, but he hadn’t seen a damn thing. Not a twitch, not a scuttle, just nothing. Everything was quiet and deserted. Now he was sat with his binoculars in his lap, smoking a cigarette and making the most of the orders that he had been given. Most of the fires that had been burning on the road had pretty much gone out. It was a fine day, a little cool, but fine nonetheless. Now and again he would radio Taber and tell her nothing was happening. He did it to a point where Taber had roared down the radio only to report to her if something actually happened. If he did it again she was going to come right over there and cram his radio up his arse. He Roger’d that one with a smirk, happy that he had gotten under her skin a little.

  Such was his complacency that he had started to nod off in his seat and by the time the commotion in Centre Park began to happen he was almost fully asleep.

  **

  The anger amongst the people in the park, mostly about the fact that not a single mobile phone or app would connect to the network, was just starting to tip over to the point where the military were having to pull their guns on the gathering crowds to keep them back. Some of them gathered rocks, bottles and large sticks to brandish at them. It was looking increasingly likely that things were going to get ugly.

  But then there was a soft poom from behind them. It was followed by the clang and hissing of glass hitting the floor. Some of the people towards the back of the mob heard it and turned their heads up towards Suicide Towers. Then they saw it. They saw the creature climbing out of the hole that had once housed a window. A good portion of the concrete around it and a generous chunk of the cladding had been torn away. The creature clung to the side of the white and green striped tower, its leg span big enough to cover four whole floors. From where the people were standing it looked like the biggest spider there had ever been on the face of the earth. If any of them had been a little closer, they would have seen that the creature still had some of the facial features and the smooth dark-skinned body of the late Doctor Ochre. The creature ran to the top of the tower, moving with a speed that was both graceful and terrifying to the people that saw it.

  The people at the back of the mob began to scream and point. Some of them took videos and pictures with their otherwise useless mobile phones. The terror rippled through the crowd, until they were all looking up at the tower. Some of the soldiers saw it and they began to mobilise, co-ordinating their operations to go and get the monster at the top of the tower.

&nb
sp; But it was too late. The spiders were already ahead of them.

  The monster on the tower began to emit a sound. Such was its volume that the mass of panic was dropped suddenly into silence. All of them stood, their heads craned up to the tower, listening to that strange noise.

  Click-click

  Click-click

  Click-click.

  The sound echoed all around the city, bouncing off the walls of all the tower blocks, off the floors of the roads and pavements. It vibrated through everything.

  Subtly at first and then with increasing fury, the ground beneath Hemmington City began to shake. People fell to the floor, some of them clinging onto the vibrating ground. Some tried to run, but their feet were thrown out from under them. Buildings began to split, the cracks running up from the ground, popping windows like over inflated balloons, showering the streets and the people in shards of glass. Fingers, toes and a few noses were sheared off by the falling glass. Even the combined screams of the people of Hemmington could drown out the noise.

  The field in the middle of the park, which had been turned into the base for the army began to distort. The middle of the field began to rise up, turning itself into a hill, tipping over the tents and marquees, forcing vehicles to roll away from it or to tip over onto their sides.

  Then everything stopped.

  The silence was broken by the screams of the wounded and the muttering of people as they got up off the floor. They saw the ground that had been pushed upwards into a grassy peak in the middle. They came closer to it, again with their mobile phones out, snapping pictures, taking videos. The silence prevailed just long enough, just long enough for everyone to drop their guard a little. Then the creature on the tower let out an ear-piercing screech, an inhuman roar that caused the masses to collectively put their hands over their ears.

  Then the ground lurched.

  The grassy hill in the middle of the park suddenly burst open. Chunks of grass and dirt flew in all directions hitting people, killing some, blinding others. Those that weren’t injured saw the fountain of black erupt from the new hole in the middle of the park. It shot thirty feet in the air and rained down again. Then the panic that had been brewing inside the people in the park came to the surface as they saw what the black chunks raining down were. Legs uncurled, fangs flexed, ready to bite.

  The spiders had scattered from the road and gone down into the drains, the sewers and the old tunnels that had been under the city for a hundred years. Thousands, millions of them came streaming out of the hole in the floor. The people tried to run, but the spiders were too fast and too large in number. They swarmed over the screaming people, biting, injecting them with their poison.

  The creature on the tower started to roar.

  13.

  Cindy was starting to convulse just as the ground underneath them began to shake.

  Briggs stepped forwards and grabbed Thompson by his arm. “Let’s get out of here,” he yelled, trying to pull Thompson away. Thompson yanked his arm out of Briggs’ grip.

  “Leave me the fuck alone,” he yelled.

  “She’s changing, isn’t she? She’s becoming one of them,” said Willis.

  “I won’t let it happen, I won’t let her become one of those things,” yelled Thompson.

  “Come on, we can get you out of here. We have a helicopter….”

  “I’m not leaving her like this do you understand? I have to take care of her.” He screamed at Briggs.

  Briggs didn’t quite understand what he was talking about, but Willis knew. She went out of the door, looked up and saw Monsun in the corridor. He was growling into his radio trying to find out what the hell was going on. Willis shouted him.

  “What is it?” he yelled over the noise of the ground shaking. Windows were bursting all over the building and the noise was incredible.

  “We have an infected. You need to deal with it,” yelled Willis.

  Monsun cocked his gun and headed for the room. Willis pushed through the door and fell down. She crawled across the ground until she had found a wall to lean on next to Briggs.

  Thompson was at the foot of the bed. He had a cut over his right eye and blood was streaming down his cheek. He looked up and saw Monsun, and he saw Monsun’s gun.

  Thompson was about to yell at Monsun to give him a gun, but it was at that moment that the ground stopped shaking. Monsun looked at the woman on the bed and he hissed in a breath. He raised his gun towards her.

  “No, please. Please, let me….let me….she’s my wife,” said Thompson his hand raised.

  Monsun drew a pistol from his belt. He clicked off the safety and looked at Thompson.

  “I’m a police officer,” said Thompson.

  Monsun handed him the pistol.

  Thompson pointed it at Cindy.

  Cindy had two new appendages growing out of her upper abdomen. Blood was arching out of the new holes in her body. Her one remaining leg drummed the bed and kicked out in pain. Her eyes were rolling back in her head and a steady stream of foam was running out of her mouth. A horrible choking, gargling sound was coming from her throat. Her hands began to split open, spilling green mucus onto the pure white bed linin. Chunks of skin dropped and slapped to the wooden floor. Cindy’s wedding finger fell off, and the ring she had worn since the day they had been married came free and rolled under the bed. Cindy let out a deep, guttural roar. Whatever it was on that bed, it wasn’t Cindy anymore. It was an abomination.

  He pulled the trigger, just once. The bullet blew out one of Cindy’s eyes and tore the back of her head off. Blood and clear spinal fluid was thrown all over the wall behind her and began to run down the pristine white pillows.

  Thompson lowered the gun. He let out a scream of dreadful anguish and turned away from her.

  “I’m sorry Thompson,” said Briggs. “I’m so sorry. There was nothing anyone could have done, it was….”

  “For the best?” said Thompson in a raspy and broken voice. “I know what’s for the best,” he said.

  He raised the gun up again and fired. The shot hit Briggs in his shoulder. Willis let out a scream of terror and backed away from him as fast as she could. Briggs clawed at the wound, unable to register the fact that he was hurt. Blood dribbled onto the wooden floor beneath him. He held out his bloody hand towards Thompson, a smile of disbelief breaking on his face.

  “I….I…..I’m…..”

  Thompson fired the gun over and over. Briggs’ body was twisted and thrown in every direction as the bullets smashed home, tearing arteries and smashing through bones. The final shot caught him in the bridge of his nose. He went down, his mouth fell open spilling a river of his own blood and brain fragments into his lap.

  Thompson fired again, but the gun clicked, letting him know it was empty. Thompson handed the gun back to Monsun.

  “I owed him that,” said Thompson.

  “No argument here,” said Monsun. “A lot of people owed him that.”

  “You don’t know what you’ve done,” said Willis.

  “What did you say?” said Monsun.

  “You don’t know what you’ve done,” screamed Willis.

  “What is she talking about?” said Thompson.

  Monsun shrugged, “Beats the hell out of me.”

  Willis put her hands on her head and began to pull at her own hair. “You don’t know what you’ve doooooone,” She screamed, over and over again. She looked down at the battered body of Briggs. She saw the blood. That precious blood of his, running all over the floor.

  “She’s in shock, that’s all. She’s…..”

  Monsun was cut off by the window breaking inwards. A torrent of spiders flooded in through the broken pane. Monsun raised his rifle and began to fire his gun as fast as he could. He took some of them down, but they were outnumbered. Around four-hundred-thousand to one.

  Willis closed her eyes tight and put her hands over her ears. She waited for the sting of the bites to come, but after a few moments she realised that they had stopped.
She cautiously opened her eyes again. The room was flooded with spiders. They had bitten Monsun and Thompson to the point where they couldn’t move. They lay on the floor, twitching occasionally, snoring in breaths. The spiders had stopped just in front of where Willis was stood. One of them ran up her front, right up to the crook of her neck. She held her breath, not wanting to move an inch, desperate to swipe the spider away. It ran onto her face, its legs tickling her skin and then it stopped for a moment, its feelers tapping the surface of her nose, sampling, tasting.

  Then it jumped, spreading its legs out as it fell. The moment it hit the floor the rest of the swarm began to retreat, back out of the broken window again. A few moments later the room was empty. Willis backed up into the wall. She slid down, covered her face and started to cry.

  Outside the Hurst centre, the spiders began to pile up on top of each other. More and more of them came, turning themselves into a huge organic tower, surrounding the building in a black, festering cocoon.

  The spider had sensed something about Willis. It had tasted it in the sweat coming out of her pores. She had mated recently, and the chemical changes in her body had already begun. She had mated with a carrier, and her child was going to be the next generation, the new queen.

  14.

  Two helicopters were flying over Hemmington when the tower of spiders began to build itself. One of them was carrying survivors that had been evacuated from Layton Valley. The large chopper had already been told to divert away from Hemmington, it was now unsafe, not fit for habitation. It was a war zone according to the reports coming out of there. Mary Benson could see what was going on down in Hemmington. Jax wanted to look, but she said no, it would give her more nightmares. Most of the ground had turned onto a black writhing carpet of spiders. From the sky they could see the incoming wave of bigger spiders that had flooded out of the ground in Layton. Every populated area below them was a no-go. They were going to have to go further afield if they were going to stand any chance of survival. The word going around the twenty-or-so people in the back of the large helicopter was that they were heading for the coast.