by RR Haywood
In that thrashing she kills more than since it began but still they drop. Still they come. Every house in the country has hundreds of spiders in it. Every acre of land has thousands. There are hundreds of millions of spiders and they have feasted to grow strong too from the flies that grew bloated on the corpses now littering the streets.
Mo remains the sentinel. He can hear them scream wild and terrified but he cannot move to help them. The attack coming against him is too strong. A flick of his eyes down the length of the corridor and the hordes outside the doors in the precinct tell him the others are also pinned down. He strafes a sustained burst of fire to buy a second of time in which he drops his bag and quickly opens the flap to grab the next magazine. He fires again with another burst and hears the click. His hands move fast to eject and re-load as something drops down his neck. He pays no heed but works on. Aiming and firing controlled burst shots. His ears ring from the percussive retorts in the enclosed space. His nostrils fill with the stenches made by gunfire and death. The heat closes in as fast as the infected and sweat pours down his face as something else lands on his head.
Still he shows no reaction. He saw a glimpse of spiders in the shop when he looked so figures a couple have crawled across the ceiling. Creepy crawlies do not bother Mo so he shakes his head to flick whatever it is away. Another drops. Then another. More rain down as they climb through the gaps in the ceiling tiles and crawl through the ruined doorway. He shakes and flinches, twitching at the sensation. Something runs down his left arm that holds the rifle. He flicks out sending it scooting off but keeps firing. It’s dark now but he can see the shadows coming at him and the flashes of bare skin caught in the weak illumination coming from the main doors and windows.
A twinge of pain on his neck. He slaps at it and feels the crunch as he kills the creature. Another one on his left ear. Others crawling down his right arm. More going down his shirt to writhe and bite with fangs that puncture his skin. He grunts with minute flinches and fires to the left, then ahead, then back to the left. The bodies of those he has killed already are starting to impede the new ones coming through. That’s good. It buys time. He braces and fires a whole magazine in one sustained burst as he strafes from left to right then back again. A quick drop to his bag and that movement makes the spiders burst to activity. He pulls a grenade, stands, pulls the pin and shouts. ‘GRENADE OUT…’
That’s all he has time for. To give one fair warning before he throws the bomb across the corridor into the shop where most of the infected are coming from. He drops flat, grimacing for the long seconds before the huge blast shatters more plate glass windows and sends debris flying into the corridor. The shockwave scorching through the corridor dislodges hundreds more spiders clinging to the ceiling who drop to engulf the lad as he rises. Creepy crawlies may not bother Mo but this is something else. This is a second sustained attack of things crawling up his face and biting into his flesh. He digs his torch from his pocket to bathe the area in the bright white light from the super-powered LED’s. What he sees are bodies. Lots of dead bodies shot down from his own hands and hundreds of black spiders crawling fast towards him and yet more dangling from strands of web that glint in the light of the torch. More on the ceiling that seems to writhe like something alive with a seething mass of legs and web.
Movement in the shop opposite. Something heavy crashing about and tripping to land hard. Marcy and Paula screaming behind him. His senses threatening to become overwhelmed and only the hours of drill from Dave keep his mind cold and his brain calculating.
‘GRENADE OUT…’
The second one goes into the shop. He goes flat and waits the few seconds that seem to stretch forever. The bang that comes is satisfyingly loud and accompanied by a wet splatter of what was once human form bursting apart.
On his feet. Fresh magazine into his rifle. Left pistol drawn and re-loaded. Right pistol drawn and re-loaded. He keeps the right pistol out and holds the torch with his left as he ducks to run into the shop behind him towards the screams of Paula and Marcy. His torch picks out the sheer mass of creatures plummeting from the ceiling. It looks like thousands of them. A solid broiling carpet of spiders that crawl over each other and drop down to fresh screams. Spiders on the floor too. Running frantic and pumped on the pheromones secreted.
His eyes scan to take in and assess while his own body is bitten and crawled over. A flash of a memory from a few years ago and seeing kids torturing insects in the local park. He watched mesmerised and somewhat sickened by the gleeful way the children killed and laughed but the method they used was effective. That’s how his mind works now. To seek the most effective manner to kill the enemy and negate the threat. He spins to look and spots the thing he needs. A run across the store with the torch light bouncing and Marcy thrashing wildly while trying to scoot backwards into a shelving unit. He sees Paula rolling over and over across the width of an aisle and even with the coldness of Dave within him he feels a surge of revulsion at the masses of spiders crawling over her.
He gets to the section and re-holsters his pistol then grabs the two biggest he can find. He clunks the tops against each other to dislodge the lids and sprints hard towards Paula. At the last second he drops to his knees and slides the last few feet while pressing the triggers on his new weapons.
Both hiss as they discharge their contents and the air fills with the scented aroma of hairspray. He keeps the nozzles pressed down and reaches Paula to spray down over her body and round the sides. The spiders scurry back from the onslaught and a new furious battle commences. Motion outside. Cans down. Pistols out and he surges up to his feet to fire one after the other at the fresh wave coming through.
‘Paula…use the cans…PAULA…’
She’s gone. Lost to the panic of the knowledge that her body is covered in the thick hairy legs of spiders. All she can do is protect her mouth and ears. That’s all she worries about, stopping them gaining entry to her body with twisted images in her mind that they’ll lay eggs and hatch baby spiders in her brain.
The wave of infected is killed. Mo drops, holsters and takes up his secondary weapons to re-commence the other side of the battle. The air becomes thick with spray. Choking even. He coughs and sputters as the spiders cough and sputter and run back away from the vile chemical warfare being waged against them.
‘Fuck yes,’ Mo mutters at the new idea in his head. He drops one can, digs in his pocket for his lighter and thumbs the wheel to create flame. A quick cast round. The situation is critical. Heavy armaments are needed.
He pushes the nozzle to jet the contents at the flame that ignite with a foot long arc of pure burning fire.
‘Yeah bitches,’ Mo shouts his warrior’s cry and drops to use his flamethrower, burning spiders to a crisp as he destroys their immediate environment. The bigger ones flame for a second and crawl on fire before curling up as the moisture is taken from their forms.
The effect is brilliant but not enough. The jet of flame can only be focussed in one place at one time. He grabs the other can, ignites the spray and revels in the glory of now having two flamethrowers.
He runs round Paula, burning the ground around her. She tries to roll and he shouts at her to remain still but she’s still gripped by panic. If she rolls she’ll get burnt. Mo drops on her, wedging his knees either side of her back to pin in her place while flexing round to send his jets of flame at the spiders. He aims up to kill the ones overhead. Hundreds drop instantly but they fall dead and crispy.
Movement outside again. Cans down and as he lifts his thumbs from the nozzles so the flames end and plunge the room back into a near pitch darkness. Torch in mouth. Pistols drawn and he rises to fire over the shelving and cuts down the infected charging in.
It’s the combination of the sensation of Mo’ voice, the light and heat of the flamethrowers and the booming retorts of the pistols that finally break through Marcy’s mind. Like someone surging from freezing cold water she gasps and opens her eyes to see Mo firing and the air fi
lled with the stench of hairspray. Hairspray? Why hairspray? A whole series of connections are made within the fluidity of the human thought process and as she reaches the conclusion so Mo ceases fire, drops and ignites one of the cans then takes up the other to ignite from the first and thus re-create his dual flamethrowers to recommence his genocide of the fuckers trying to eat his Paula.
She’s in. Marcy is so in. She tries to surge up but trips and falls back down so instead goes for an ungainly half crabbing crawling motion as she uses the light from the flames to find the shelves filled with hairspray. She takes two and screams while shaking her head to rid the big one hanging off her nose and smashes the back of her hand into her face hard to kill the spider but also knocks herself staggering back. Blood streams from her nose as the Gods laugh at the new extra layer of misery she suffers.
‘ME,’ she says that one word to Mo and in that one word he sees she is armed and ready. She will hold the line and wield her flamethrowers with guts and courage. He ignites her cans and the darkness is pushed back another few inches. They go to work and four beats two any day of the week. Four jets of flame cause carnage to the enemy. They scorch the ground and the air and Marcy revels in the slaughter. She stamps and roars in defiance then starts coughing from breathing air now so thick with chemicals. Blood sprays from her mouth that had poured down from her bloody nose. She steps back while coughing and kicks Paula in the head.
‘Ow,’ Paula says, literally kicked back to her senses. She looks up with wide eyes to see four arcs of fire jetting around and above her. Heat too. Heat and light and it stinks something awful.
‘Shit,’ Mo drops his cans and yanks his rifle round to focus on the door and the infected still coming in. Paula goes for his cans and takes up the weapons.
‘Light me,’ she growls at Marcy.
‘What?’ Marcy coughs, spraying blood while spraying fire.
‘LIGHT ME,’ Paula demands, maddened with rage and ready to kick spider arses, or set them on fire instead.
‘What?’ Marcy coughs, her eyes watering from the fumes. ‘I think I’m getting high…’
Paula lights herself by aiming her right can at one of Marcy’s flames. She lights her second and grins with sadistic pleasure from a face covered in small sore lumps made by spider bites.
‘ARSE IT,’ her flamethrowers go out. The contents exhausted. ‘MAGAZINE,’ she bellows, running across to grab fresh rounds from the shelving unit. Lids off, nozzles depressed and she lights the spray to join in.
A battle of two fronts is waged. Mo holds the door. Marcy and Paula hold the rest as they slowly set fire to Boots the Chemist.
Twenty-Four
Everything is okay. Everything will be fine. Breathe. Breathe in and breathe out. It will be today and that’s fine because everything is okay. Everything is fine.
She has the towels. She has the water. She has the gas stove ready to boil the water. She has pain medication. She has sterilised surgical scissors ready for cutting and that’s good because everything is okay. Everything will be fine.
She’s scared. Terrified even. The fear of having to do something alone and without any help. What if it goes wrong? It won’t go wrong. Everything is okay. Everything will be fine.
The fear comes again. The fear that brings the tears to her eyes and the deepest wish right now is to have her mum here. Her mum is dead. Everyone is dead. Her bottom lip trembles, the panic rises but she has to swallow it down.
‘Everything’s okay, everything’s okay, everything’s okay.’
The mantra helps soothe her nerves and eases the throb in her head that comes when she thinks about her mum and what it means to be a mother. Which is what she will become today.
She cradles her swollen belly and feels the life inside. The life of a child that she has grown from nothing to something. The life inside that today will come out and become part of this world in all its decaying broken filth.
The sob breaks from her mouth as the pain comes again. The contraction that signals the time is coming. She bends with a grunt to navigate past her stomach to feel between her legs for any signs of her waters breaking. They said she would know but what if she doesn’t know? Her body is going through so many changes right now she could miss anything. It’s dry. That’s good.
Her spot is chosen. The kitchen floor that has been scrubbed and made cleaner than any operating table. Every side, every cupboard door and handle, every surface, every edge and well, just about everything in the room has been anti-bacced once, twice and thrice. The kitchen is at the back which means any sounds she makes will be muffled from being heard at the front.
Throughout the morning she paces the house, breathing in, breathing out, leaning, sitting, pacing and breathing. The contractions come but the space between them doesn’t reduce. She checks between her legs periodically and keeps wondering into the kitchen to be absolutely sure her birthing area is ready.
As the day wears on so the contractions come marginally faster but the pace is painfully slow. She sweats from the heat and drinks water to replenish her fluids. She eats tinned fruit and sits on the toilet while tapping her feet nervously.
Her boyfriend is dead. He went out on the Friday night it happened to get Doritos and salsa dip. She was craving. She had to have them. She absolutely had to have them. She told him this. He laughed and teased until she threatened to waddle to the shop herself but he pulled his trainers on and kissed her on the belly and on the head before going out to the car.
He never came back. She waited and even tried calling him but her phone signal was gone. She mused for a while, paced about and started getting irritated because all she wanted was fucking cheesy snacks and salsa dip. He didn’t know what it was like to have cravings and a body that was doing weird things.
After an hour she called her mum on the landline but it rang out. Her mum never went out on Friday nights. She tried again. Tried her boyfriend. Tried her friends. The lines were either jammed, engaged or ringing out.
After two hours she turned the television on and caught the last few minutes of the news anchors sobbing at their desks from a world breaking apart. It was everywhere.
Now, twenty days on and she has done everything she can to be ready. Her baby will come today. The contractions have started.
She is scared. She wants her mum, her boyfriend, a friend, anyone. To do this alone is too much. She breathes and calms. She thinks and panics and so the day goes as the pains come closer together.
Then, in the afternoon, she hears them. She hears the feet running outside and in a minute of mistaken hope that help has come she rushes to the window to pull the curtain back. Her hand clamping over her mouth prevents the scream of fright coming out at the street thick with those things. All of them running towards the town centre. So many. So so many. Men and women. Old and young. Elderly and children. All of them possessed by whatever the thing inside them is. All of them focussed on one task as they move with military precision.
The cramps come harder. The pains radiate through her body. She staggers back from the window as the tops of her thighs grow wet from the waters coming out. Shock hits. Her heart rate thunders. Her breath comes fast and shallow as her body and mind go into shock.
She gets into the kitchen, to her refuge, to her birthing area and lies down in the chosen spot surrounded by towels. She weeps. She weeps from pain and fear. She weeps silently for the horror of the things outside after near on twenty days with only glimpses of them in the distance.
There she stays. Silent and terrified as the cramps come and the natural stages of her body dictate the transition towards the birth.
She doesn’t know anything about her neighbour from the top of her street going into his shed to shove his finger at the big spider in the corner. She doesn’t know when that spider bites into that finger. Nor does she know when that spider rampages to infect the other spiders that rampage to infect the other spiders. She doesn’t know that house by house the hundreds of arachnids beco
me infected with a virus that drives them in one direction.
She only knows that she is lying on her back with her knees bent and her legs open while sobbing and trying to breathe through the contractions. She freezes at the sight of that wolf spider running across her ceiling and she remains frozen in absolute terror when the hundreds behind him run across.
She hears the scuttling claws and catches sight of more running across walls and across her kitchen worktops. She doesn’t know they are infected. She doesn’t know they are driven to go in one direction and do nothing other than that. All she knows is for a few minutes her kitchen and birthing space is thick with spiders and the panic rises until she’s ready to scream.
Then they’re gone and it’s like it never happened. Five minutes later she convinces herself it was a delusion brought on by fear and panic. That makes her focus on breathing again. Breathe in. Breathe out. Cope. Deal with it. This is happening and everything is okay. There were no spiders. It was a trick of the mind.
Still those contractions come slowly and it takes hours for the pace to quicken. She sweats constantly, unaware of her body dehydrating rapidly in the intense heat. She focusses solely on the pain and the contractions.
The afternoon gives way to evening. The heat grows worse. She hears the running feet many times outside but there is nothing she can do and so as the breathing becomes panting so the urge to push starts to build.