The Spider Children (The Warren Brood Book 1)

by Bartholomew Lander

  Among the delinquents, the Potter’s field was the most infamous of Old Town’s derelict properties. The cottage that had once served as a dwelling for the Potter family had long ago fallen into decay. Half of the two-acre lot, once used for growing crops, was so overgrown by weeds and tall grass that it was difficult to venture far inside. Much of the other half had once been paved over in cobblestones and concrete, and as such had impeded nature’s reclamation to a certain extent. Hard, dried grass covered the walkable area of the barren plot, where sparse patches of tall grass broke through. Farther from the road, the field disappeared into a wall of pine trees. An old wooden fence, eaten by termites and rot, demarcated the edge of the field, and it was here that Arthr saw the first three spectators.

  As Arthr approached the field, he raised a hand and called to his peers. Timothy Brand, Michael something-or-other, and that cute Ashley girl from Algebra. He felt like a celebrity waving to his loving fans. With the fight only fifteen minutes away, there was still time for idle banter with the two boys. He also made sure to smile at Ashley every chance he got. Whenever he did, she’d smile back and drop her eyes. Arthr thought she was currently with one of the two boys, but that would change by the end of the evening. It was not long before more students began to appear from the diverging paths leading away from the field. The three-man crowd soon swelled to twenty-five. Determined to project as vibrant an aura as possible, Arthr focused not on the coming battle, but with getting the guys pumped and flirting with the honeys.

  Five minutes after the appointed meeting time, a loud voice boomed from the path wrapping the pine groves. “Where is he?” the voice demanded. The voice was older but carried the same thick drone of Norman Rhodes, only coarser and perhaps more inebriated. Arthr knew at once it was the man he’d been waiting for.

  Arthr stood from the fence upon which he’d been sitting and turned toward the voice, raising his arm in a mocking gesture of greeting. He stretched his spider legs as far outward as he could to ensure the oaf saw him.

  A small group of five men and boys walked along the fence toward the crowd. There was Norman Rhodes, whose lip still bore a bright scab from their fight, and his imposter-gangster friend Phil who, like always, wore baggy pants and a stupid-looking beanie. The three others were older, at least in their twenties, and each belonged on his own trailer-trash reality show. The shortest of them wore a beanie like Phil’s and carried a dark brown bottle. The next man was tall and lanky with bleached hair that looked like it hadn’t been washed in weeks. It was the third of the older men, however, that Arthr was most interested in.

  Spinneretta had been right about him. He stood just as tall as the lanky man, which put him in the neighborhood of six and a half feet. His shoulders were wide and apish, his arms thick trunks of flesh. The man had no neck that Arthr could identify. He wore a pair of old jeans and a greasy, tight-fitting wife-beater covered in ancient mustard stains. His shaved head and pitted face were reminiscent of Norman’s own.

  As Patrick scanned the gathered crowd, his eyes locked on Arthr’s and his face twisted into an expression of hatred. “So you’re the spider-shithead, huh?”

  Arthr shrugged. “Huh. You’re shorter than I imagined,” he said in a friendly tone.

  “And you’re even more of a fucking freak than Norm said you were. I guess now we know what the feds have been cooking up over in San Solano. Thought haunted alien technology would be a bit less retarded-looking.” The men flanking him chuckled.

  Arthr shrugged again, indifferent to the insult. “I am that I am. I see your friends came to watch you embarrass yourself.”

  Pat’s mouth curled into a light snarl, and he spat into the dirt. “Just brought some witnesses to make sure no one would ever forget what I do to you. But it looks like you beat me to the punch with your little school friends. You’ll wish you hadn’t.”

  Arthr smirked. “Damn, that’s a pretty big mouth. Wonder what it’ll look like when I make you puke your lunch all over the dirt like your brother.”

  Pat scowled and bared his teeth. “You’re in deep enough shit as it is. Should listen when people say not to mess with bulls, cause you’re about to get the fucking horns, you freak-kid.”

  “Yeah, yeah, keep talking. Enjoy it while you can.” He crossed his arms. “After I make you eat your teeth, you won’t be doing much of that anymore.”

  Pat shook his head, the muscles of his mammoth arms twitching. He was ready to start swinging.

  “Well then,” Arthr said, cracking his knuckles, “shall we get this beatdown under way?”

  “I’d enjoy the calm, shithead. I’d hate to be you when this is over.” He stalked through a nearby opening in the old fence leading into the battlefield, leaving his four companions where they stood.

  Arthr followed, excitement running rampant in his veins. As he reached the collapsed span of wood that served as the gateway, he turned and took a violent, lunging step toward Norman. Norman recoiled in fear, and Arthr exploded laughing as he hopped back to where he’d stood before. “Lighten up, Normy,” he said. “Today you’re not the one on the menu.” His use for the startled Norm gone, Arthr slipped through the broken segment of fence and followed Pat into the field, dried shoots of grass raking against the cuffs of his jeans.

  “Don’t think you’re gonna like the ending of this story, Arty,” Pat said in a mocking tone from several paces ahead.

  “Yeah, well, you’ll think differently once your face is smashed in. Maybe your IQ will go up a few points.” Confident, Arthr strode to a point halfway between the fence and the cottage nestled against the wall of trees. The crowd of high schoolers was beginning to stir in anticipation, and someone shouted a word of encouragement to him. Arthr smiled, certain the voice had belonged to Ashley. He located her face in the crowd and gave her a wink before deepening his stance and letting his spider legs grope the air in intimidation. The mountainous Pat trudged forward a few steps, unconcerned with his legs.

  “Ready to get trashed like your brother?” Arthr said, heart racing.

  “Don’t make me laugh, you fucking freak.” A wide and savage smile came to his lips. “Make no mistake, shithead: I’m going to make you wish you were never born for what you did to my brother. But to ease my conscience for what I’m about to do to you, you get to take the first swing.”

  Arthr scoffed. “I should be offering you the charity, monkey-man. Now close your mouth and put your hands up.”

  A nervous silence descended upon the Potter’s field.

  The evening air stung Arthr’s lungs as his adrenaline began to surge. Spinneretta hadn’t exaggerated the size of the man. He’d expected someone only a bit larger than Norman, but Pat was indeed a giant; the man must’ve weighed at least two or three Arthrs. It was going to be fun, that was for sure. He had hungrily considered what effect the fight would have on his reputation, but seeing Pat’s size made his estimates modest. This was going to be huge.

  With a confidence that smelled like cheap beer, Pat ignored the warning to put his hands up. He instead let his shoulders slump forward, his arms hanging like two meat-pendulums from a tower of arrogance. He’s never fought someone like me before, Arthr thought. He’d strike fast and hard, put Pat’s massive hubris off balance before dissecting him piece by piece. He’d murder the queen. He’d execute the bishops and knights. Depending on the crowd’s reaction, and how much more they wanted to see, he’d consider stepping on a few pawns before giving Pat his mercy and permitting him to leave in humiliation.

  Clearing his mind, Arthr bellowed a furious battlecry and lunged toward his towering opponent. Everyone in attendance shook in surprise from the sound—everyone except for Pat.

  Arthr’s forward speed blurred the world around him. At the center of the vortex stood the mountain of Patrick; long had it stood, proud and majestic in the land of the slow and dimwitted, but today it would fall into the sea. A mountain could be ground to dust by wind, water, and time, and Arthr could do more damage to that
mountain in one moment than those forces could in a thousand years. In one fluid motion, he drew his fist back and let it fly. His punch struck Pat’s chest hard, but the solid wall of bone and muscle told him he’d missed his target by at least a few inches.

  Pat grabbed Arthr’s wrist before he could pull it back. Arthr tried to break the man’s grip, but the gorilla had him beaten in raw strength. With a casual flail of his arm, Pat threw him to the side. Arthr’s forward momentum twisted his balance in strange directions. When his feet adapted to the motion, he spun around to face Pat again.

  “You wasted your first blow, freak,” Pat said.

  Arthr replied by spitting in the grass. A little reckless, maybe. Shouldn’t have missed that attack, but I guess apes are built different. His knuckles glowed with the pain of impact, but he bent his knees and lowered his center of gravity. Pat smirked and went into a loose, apish fighting stance of his own. Arthr smiled and spat again for show. At the edge of the field, the small crowd was moving, cheering.

  Once more Arthr yelled, throwing himself forward with another burst of speed. He kept his eyes trained on his target, noticing the careless way Pat’s left arm drifted out and away from his center, leaving a massive hole in his armor. That was where he’d strike.

  As he neared, Pat’s left arm drifted further away from his core and opened the target wider. Then that arm flew forward in a horizontal arc. Before Arthr knew what had happened, his eyes were inundated with a foreign material. His lids clamped shut, and his hands groped at his stinging eyes. A coarse, grainy texture was plastered against the skin of his face. Sand. He wiped at the invading material, but something smashed into his head and the world began to spin. A deafening ringing erupted in one ear, and as the ground roiled and pitched he felt dried shoots of grass scratching at his face.

  Concealed pebbles gnawed his ribs just as the sand gnawed his eyes. Shit, not good. Dizzy and disoriented, he rolled onto his stomach and pushed himself halfway up, clenching and releasing the muscles in his eyelids in an attempt to flush the sand from his sockets. A throbbing pain radiated from his jaw to his neck and forehead.

  “Why you crying, shithead?” Pat jeered.

  Arthr clenched his teeth. The insult was more painful than the sand, and despite the burning in his tear-drenched eyes he forced his lids open. Restricted to a liquid blur, Arthr’s vision did nothing more than paralyze him with a thousand tiny needles. A kick came arcing upward from the ground, and Arthr couldn’t even attempt a dodge. The blow sent him sprawling, and when he came to a rest he tasted metal. A flaring stripe of heat tore through the middle of his lips.

  Finding up and down once more, he tried again to push himself to his feet. Something hot dribbled down his chin. He got as far as one knee before he heard Pat’s laughing voice and froze. He listened through the ringing in his ears for the sound of movement, of laughing, anything that could telegraph a coming attack. After a tense moment, he finished climbing to his feet and batted quickly at his eyes with the back of his hand.

  He cracked his lids open again, but the illusion of vision was still not enough to protect him. The laughing voice was upon him and he felt the end of a log smash into his gut. The blow would have sent him to the ground again had something not seized his shoulder. Arthr’s stomach twisted against Pat’s fist. His hot-blooded vigor cooled to tepid water. The next attack hit him in the side of the knee. His leg buckled, and the ground struck the folded limb, sending an electric pain through his calf and hip. His lungs seized, and his spider legs made automatic twitching motions in an attempt to fill his bloodstream with oxygen.

  “I told you, freak,” Pat said from above, “you’re gonna wish you were never born.”

  Thick fingers asserted their hold around two of his spider legs. Arthr realized too late what Pat meant to do. He fought back with all the force he could muster in those legs, willing his other limbs to join the fight. Staving off the overpowering strength of the ape masquerading as a man, Arthr pried the hand on his right leg open long enough to slip it free. But as soon as he did, Pat poured all his strength into his other hand. With a sick downward motion there came the sound of tearing and cracking.

  When the pain reached Arthr’s brain, he let loose a howl of agony. He fell back and rolled onto his side, all strength melting away. His hands went to his spider leg, but he couldn’t force them to confirm what he already knew. There was a disgusted movement of the crowd, a collective gasp of utter horror that turned his stomach. Through his blurry sight, Arthr beheld the leg snapped backward against its third joint, the chitin plating cracked and broken. From the mangled joint, thick blood bubbled out of the exposed tissue.

  His mind danced at the precipice of darkness and clung to consciousness by willpower alone. But only a single frayed thread now remained of that will. His teeth ground nothing. Every muscle in his body felt like it was on fire. The agony of the destroyed joint was compounded by a sharp and far more morbid pain—some of the broken shards of chitin must have embedded themselves in the soft tissue beneath the exoskeleton. With each quiver and tremble of his muscles, those shards seemed to cut deeper. Nausea flooded his body; he was spinning, whirling faster and faster.

  Only when his lungs were empty did Arthr realize the horrible ringing in his ears had been a ghastly scream blasting through his own throat. He thought he could feel the disgust and horror coming from the crowd at the fence. And as he lay there shaking, Pat’s long shadow fell over him. With a seemingly calculated cruelty, the apeman reached down, seized him by the hair, and wrenched him into a sitting position.

  Pat smiled a sadistic, toothy grin. “I’m just getting started with you, Arty,” he said, barely audible.

  Another punch smashed across Arthr’s face, flattening him against the ground once more. His ears rang yet louder. A gushing stream of something warm and wet ran down his forehead. Holy shit, he thought, this guy is really going to kill me. This is it. The stream of blood reached his right eye, and a pain worse than the sand forced it shut. He was trapped between worlds of light and dark.

  The spinning was back, and this time it felt like it would take him. He was certain now: this was how he was going to die. Pat meant to kill him, in front of thirty or so witnesses, for no better reason than him beating up his pig-headed brother. No shame, no conscience, no honor. And worst of all, he couldn’t even fight for life. His resolve had drained away like ice water from a vivisected sponge. I wonder if this constitutes hate-crime, Arthr found himself thinking in a daze. The earth shuddered beneath him as Pat drew closer. If he was lucky, the fucking Sasquatch would just smash his head in with a rock and be done with it.

  But at that moment, Arthr heard a voice that did not belong to Pat. At this, the nadir of his existence, Arthr heard and fixated upon only that one voice, for it challenged everything he had ever known. Until that very moment, he had never believed in God. Perhaps it was his desperation driving him to delusion, or perhaps Pat had crushed the part of his brain that controlled logical thought. Whatever the reason, there was no mistaking what he heard. And though that voice spoke only two words, he abandoned all doubt of the higher powers that be. That voice could only have been an angel—an angel of mercy sent to end his suffering and deliver him from evil. Pat, the crowd, the birds, the wind—all of creation fell silent at the sound of those words spoken from on high:

  “That’s enough!”

  Chapter 16

  The Instinct

  Spinneretta had made it as far as the antique store near Three Decks before her anger cooled down. That she’d let such a childish comment carve its way under her skin was disgusting. But acknowledging it did little good. Worse than that was the realization of how close she’d been to giving in to the impulse to pounce on Arthr and give him the beating that fate had thus far spared him. Now the trace of that strange adrenaline had receded, and in its place was a thick regret. If I took a swing at him, that’d make me no better than him. Arthr’d blamed his slip on what he’d called his fighter’
s instinct, something which clearly did not apply to her. Spinneretta scoffed. Fighter’s instinct. Well, it must be some kind of instinct, anyway.

  Leaning against a brick wall outside the store, she tried to swallow her anger. What’s with this petty spite, Spins? she thought. You can’t just pretend this is the most important thing going on right now. A deep breath. She just needed to calm down. Definitely didn’t need to think about what that terrible detective may have been discovering at this very moment. No, not going to think about her at all.

  With a sigh, Spinneretta pulled out her phone and found Amanda’s name at the top of her contacts list. She pressed call and lifted the receiver to her ear.

  Two rings, a click, and then a greeting from a familiar voice. “Hello-hello?”

  “Hey, Mandy,” Spinneretta said, trying not to sound flustered. “I, uhh, somehow ended up near your end of town. Want to do something?”

  “Huh? Is the fight over already?”

  Spinneretta kicked a discarded soda can, and it struck a lamp post with a dull clang. “Doubt it. I’m not going.”

  “What do you mean you’re not going?”

  “I thought it was pretty self-explanatory. Arthr’s an asshole, and I’m not going to give him the satisfaction of showing up.”

  “Don’t you think that’s sort of shallow?” Amanda’s voice was gentle but judgmental. It was an older sister tone.

  “I don’t think that, no,” Spinneretta said. “He needs to learn sooner or later that you don’t get to treat people like shit and still get what you want.”

  “That’s sort of missing the point. Isn’t it your responsibility to keep an eye out for him? Like, isn’t that part of the siblings’ code, or something?”

  “I don’t remember signing anything like that.”

  “It was probably hidden in the fine print. Think about it this way: if anything happens to him, who are your parents going to hold responsible?”

  “Him. Mom’s warned him half a dozen times by now. I warned him, too, so it’s on him.”