Don't Move

by James S. Murray

  Regardless, all he had was here and now. And it was setting up to be a fight to the death with something that had been perfecting its deadly skills for at least the past few centuries. He rated their chances from slim to zip.

  The arachnid loomed beside him, moving smoothly along the trip line that Megan had disturbed.

  It was clear to Ricky that the creature was blind and likely deaf too. It had yet to detect their presence, even though it was right next to them. Rather, it studied the web, trying to chase down the unexplained disturbance.

  Regardless, fight-or-flight was kicking in. To hell with Megan’s “strategy”—he had to do something. The nervous energy inside him was ready to erupt. If he could channel that into a lethal strike with the fork . . .

  The arachnid turned toward him. Those fangs could slice through him as easily as cutting Jell-O.

  Vargas wasn’t going out this way, gurgling out his last breath while being dragged like a rag doll through the canopy, his face bouncing off tree limbs, then getting the life sucked out of him until his entire body was a dry husk. No chance. If this eight-legged son of a bitch was taking him down, it would have to do it with a pitchfork buried in its ugly head.

  He glanced across to the other three. Megan’s silent expression pleaded with him not to move on the arachnid. Ryan and Emma were now also shaking their heads.

  Vargas drew in a deep breath. His pulse pounded in his ears. The throbbing stress headache made him blink.

  If they didn’t want him to attack the thing and save them, was running an option?

  The thing continued circling the clearing and moved closer to Ryan and Emma. If it attacked them first, he could use the distraction to reach the river and dive in. Keeping close to the bank, he just might be able to keep from drowning. He could toss the pitchfork toward the others and make a break for it. Of course, this option meant certain death for the other three, though it sure beat his certain death.

  No, Ricky. You couldn’t do that to your worst enemy.

  He refocused. Told himself that he controlled his own destiny. He had the ability to get out of this. His hands twitched holding the fork. He readied himself to give it all he had. Sure, it was a one-shot deal, but it was likely their only play.

  A hand clamped around his biceps.

  “Don’t do it,” Megan whispered.

  Vargas shook free of her grip.

  “Just wait,” she whispered. “Please.”

  He drew the pitchfork back, ready to strike.

  Screw her plan . . .

  A heartbeat later, the arachnid shot away from the glade at high speed. It ran past another skein of webs and dashed around the clearing in a wide arc.

  No one moved a muscle or said a word.

  And with that, it was gone.

  Vargas sank to his knees, gripping the pitchfork to keep his balance. He felt drained, as if the creature had already sucked the life out of him.

  Megan, still shaking, let out a long, unsteady breath. For now it seemed they were safe. But how long they could continue to elude the creature, she didn’t know. They had only dodged a bullet launched by her carelessness.

  No one spoke or moved while the monster clambered up into the treetops and disappeared from view.

  A few minutes later, hissing erupted from a remote part of the forest.

  “It didn’t see us,” Emma blurted.

  “Exactly,” Megan replied.

  “Did you know?”

  “It was a calculated guess.”

  “A damn lucky guess,” Vargas replied.

  “Yes,” Megan admitted. “But if we had run, it would have picked us off immediately.”

  Vargas gazed at the three of them. “Just make sure there isn’t a next time.”

  “I won’t make the same mistake again,” Megan replied. “But now we know it can’t see or hear us. If we hit a web and stay completely still, we have a chance.”

  Ryan and Emma nodded.

  “Hate to burst your bubble, boss,” Vargas interjected, “but we also learned one more thing.” He locked eyes with Megan and continued. “That fucker can move silently through these woods without us knowing. It can be anywhere, anytime, and we have no way to track it.”

  His response chilled her. She hadn’t considered this. The arachnid’s abrupt appearance out of nowhere had stunned her, but it also laid out in stark relief just how appallingly little they knew of the creature’s behavior.

  “You’re right,” Megan finally said.

  Vargas looked back toward the campsite. “So what now—”

  “Help me . . .” Rizzo cried in the distance.

  Closer. Weaker. Perhaps near death, though maybe not as close as the four of them had just come. Emma turned toward an area of sparser trees, a hundred yards from the riverbank.

  “We continue,” Megan said. “But, Ricky . . .”

  Vargas eyed her.

  “We need your help. I need your help.”

  And she meant it. If the creature came back, if they found any of the missing parishioners, if any one of a hundred other things happened, it was Ricky who had the best gut instinct and survival skills. Their odds, while already slim, were just a bit better with him around.

  “Will you help me?” she asked.

  Vargas pulled out a half-smoked cigarette from his pack, lit it, and took two more puffs before flicking it to the ground and grinding it out.

  He lifted his head and looked at Megan.

  “Fuck it. Lead the way, boss.”

  Chapter

  Twenty-

  Eight

  The roar of the rapids increased as the four crept along, ducking and contorting their way through the intricate network of webs. Megan looked up every few seconds, aware that the monstrous arachnid could be lurking somewhere nearby. Uncaring stars twinkled here and there between the branches. But the canopy was thick here, shrouding the immediate area in near blackness.

  If they couldn’t find Rizzo, they needed to get out of these claustrophobic woods. For sooner or later, someone was bound to make a mistake.

  The two likely candidates had refrained from doing anything stupid. For the moment. Both Vargas and Ryan were tight-lipped, with all their energy focused on the task of getting past the trip lines.

  Everyone glanced in all directions, visibly sharing her unease after the creature’s last appearance. And they were potentially heading for one of its known haunts, unless Rizzo had somehow escaped.

  After seeing his battered body being dragged through the canopy earlier, Megan considered it unlikely. She trained her UV light ahead of them, trying to identify the clearest route forward.

  The pattern of webs changed as they neared a small rocky escarpment by the riverbank—roughly thirty feet high, with vegetation sprouting between the stones. Megan halted before the next webwork of filaments.

  The others crowded behind her in another small glade, all of them staring thirty feet ahead.

  The thousands—perhaps millions—of fibers stretching from the forest drew closer together as they ran to the foot of the escarpment, eventually converging a few yards ahead to form a glowing, blue cable as thick as a tree trunk. It disappeared into a pitch-black opening in the rock.

  Megan shined the UV light all around the cave’s mouth, confirming her hunch. No fine threads, no tricky trip wires. Plenty of room to walk around, and no trees.

  “I think we found the creature’s lair,” Megan said. “All the webs converge into that huge cable. It must be able to sit in that one spot and sense the vibrations from millions of webs throughout the forest.”

  “You think the pastor is down there?” Ryan whispered.

  “It’s where Dad’s voice came from,” Emma replied.

  “And you want to waltz right in and get him?” Vargas asked. “That’s wack.”

 
“Would you go if it was your father?” Ryan shot back.

  “Never knew him.”

  “There’s a surprise.”

  “Stop it,” Megan snapped. “Let’s listen and observe for a bit.”

  For the next several minutes, they watched in silence.

  Nothing moved around the cave entrance. No hissing, although, as they had learned, this didn’t mean much. Megan pondered throwing something into the woods behind them to draw the arachnid out.

  If it’s even in there.

  She quickly discounted the idea—they might not be as lucky during its next search of the disturbed area.

  Megan turned to face everyone. “Anybody got any smart ideas?”

  “Yeah,” Vargas said. “We follow the river right here back to the bus. If the spider catches us chilling here in its living room, we’re breakfast.”

  “We have to see if my father is alive, Ricky!” Emma pleaded.

  Ryan said, “We come all this way for you to chicken out?”

  “You wanna stomp on a hornet’s nest, knock yourself out, sport. Enough of this. I’m getting the fuck outta here.”

  “Jesus,” Ryan growled. “Do you give a shit about anything other than yourself?”

  Vargas replied in a sarcastic tone, “You run your mouth a lot, but that’s all it ever is. If you feel frisky, lead the way, pal. Jump in that cave headfirst; let us know what you see.”

  Seeing the two men glare at each other, Megan felt like giving both of them a good, hard slap. The situation demanded everyone’s complete cooperation—not this.

  “Stop it!” Emma snapped. “We can take a look without touching the line of webs. I mean, we got this far okay, didn’t we?”

  Megan nodded. “She’s right. This is the wrong time to bail on everybody, Ricky.”

  Vargas stood defiantly and secured his backpack.

  “I wish you all the absolute best of luck. I’ll take my chances along the river. See you back in the Bronx . . . or not.”

  And with that, he turned to walk away along the river’s edge.

  Ryan sprang to his feet and rammed his shoulder into Vargas’s back. The two men went sprawling onto the rocky bank of the white water. They came up swinging, their punches connecting with dull thuds.

  It seemed unbelievable that they had started a fight, putting everyone’s life at risk at the very point when they could be saving a life.

  “Stop it!” Emma shouted. “Ryan! Ricky! Are you two crazy?” She ran to the edge of the river.

  Megan trained her light on the brawling idiots at the water’s edge.

  Vargas crashed his forehead into Ryan’s face. Ryan responded by sinking his teeth into his opponent’s arm.

  Vargas screamed and thrashed. Ryan swung another punch into the side of his head, though Megan couldn’t hear it over the roaring rapids.

  Vargas spun and wrapped him in a headlock. Ryan threw his body weight backward, making Vargas smash into Emma, knocking her over into the watercress on the bank.

  The men fell into a shallow eddy, where they fought the foaming current and staggered back onto their feet. The river was black in this light and louder than a football stadium full of screaming fans.

  Emma sat up, dazed by the blow. “stop it!” she begged. “You’ll get us all killed!”

  The men ignored her pleas and kept swinging at each other in the knee-deep water while also fighting the torrential current.

  “stop it right now!” Megan shouted.

  It was nearly impossible for the men to keep their footing. Vargas let go and kicked Ryan away. But the force of the kick made Vargas stagger, and down he went. He fell backward, head downriver, and fetched up against a rock. He climbed back to his feet, putting his back to the rock to keep upright.

  “Are you happy now?” Emma cried from where she had fallen in the watercress. “My dad is in that cave, our friends are in that cave, needing our help, and you dumb shits are fighting like fucking children!”

  Ryan took a lurching step toward shore, reaching out to help Emma to her feet. She held out her hand toward him.

  Before their hands met, something crashed in the undergrowth.

  Megan stiffened.

  Emma looked over her shoulder and opened her mouth to scream.

  Eight black legs appeared over the top of her.

  Before Ryan could clamber ashore and reach her hand, Emma’s body shot back toward the thick vegetation. She pulled up two fistfuls of watercress in a futile attempt to keep from being dragged away.

  It was no use.

  Within a heartbeat, her body vanished from view, snatched away by the monster.

  A few seconds later, her garbled screams rang through the forest.

  Megan and Vargas stared in shock. It all had happened in the span of perhaps three seconds. Megan turned her gaze toward the burrow in the side of the mountain.

  The creature scuttled past the thick cable, with Emma writhing in its mouth, and disappeared into the pitch-black cave.

  “emma!” Ryan cried out, still struggling not to get swept downriver. “no!”

  But she was gone.

  Chapter

  Twenty-

  Nine

  Vargas stared, dumbstruck by what he had just witnessed. His upper arm throbbed from when the fight had turned dirty. Ryan stood a few yards upriver, struggling to maintain his balance in the treacherous current, although the eddy was calmer there. His stubborn rage had probably cost the life of his girlfriend, the woman whom Vargas considered “the one who got away.”

  In any other situation, he would knock ten shades of shit out of the asshole. But they didn’t have time for that right now. It could wait till tomorrow—if they survived that long.

  Vargas took a few long, deep breaths to calm himself. The current had him pinned against a rock the size of an SUV, and his back ached from repeatedly bashing into it. He tried to step away from the rock and nearly got whisked away. He dug his fingers into a crack and held on for dear life.

  His options seemed clear enough: make it to shore and get killed by the monster, or stay here and drown.

  At the top of the eddy, Ryan struggled toward shore.

  “Emma, no!” he cried again.

  Even though Vargas was barely a dozen feet away, he had scant chance of helping Ryan escape the river. He had to find his own way out first.

  Think, goddamn it.

  Back pressed against the rock, Vargas looked around him. If he shifted right, the current would whip him away and he’d be a dead man. The shore lay to his left—tantalizingly close, but a whirlpool separated him from the river’s edge. If he got caught in that, it might keep him under for an hour then spit him out for the crows and coyotes downstream.

  He looked upriver toward Ryan. Fighting the current seemed an impossibility, but the water was calmer up there.

  If he could work his way up, he might have a fighting chance.

  The raging water seemed to hold him against the rock with one hand while pounding him with the other. And eventually, a surge to one side or the other would dislodge him. He couldn’t stay here long.

  Vargas looked upstream, beyond Ryan. Another twenty feet upstream, a massive log sped through the rapids, coming right toward the man.

  Ryan hadn’t spotted it.

  Vargas hated the guy, but still . . .

  “Ryan!” Vargas shouted. “Watch out!”

  Ryan turned to look upriver, but too late. The log slammed into his chest, knocking him off his feet. His body went under, and the log jammed itself squarely between two rocks, pinning him completely underwater.

  “Fuck!” Vargas shouted. He used all his might to fight the current and reach the log up ahead.

  “Megan, help me!”

  Wasting no time, she leaped into the eddy where Ryan was, and tried to move th
e stuck log. Its sheer mass, compounded by the tremendous force of the river, made it impossible to budge.

  Fighting the current with all his strength, Vargas took a step upstream, then another. The current pushed and tugged against his legs, twice nearly toppling him, but he fought it, and moments later, he reached the log.

  Ryan was completely underwater, wedged between the log and the rocks below. His arms flailed frantically.

  Ricky planted his feet against the boulder behind him and pushed with everything he had.

  Nothing.

  “Push, on three!” Vargas shouted. “One . . . two . . . three!”

  Megan and Ricky strained to budge the log.

  “It’s not gonna work!” Megan shouted.

  Vargas thought he heard a muffled shout. “Get his head above water!”

  They grabbed Ryan’s shoulders and tried to lift his head. His body inched up a tiny bit, but he was still several inches below the surface.

  Ryan stared up at them in desperation. He had been underwater for almost a minute.

  “lift!” Ricky shouted.

  They pulled as hard as they could.

  Nothing.

  Ricky grew frantic, trying to rock the log out of position. Nothing worked.

  Ryan’s body began to convulse underwater. His shoulders jerked. His single flailing arm began to slow. He was drowning, breathing river water deep into his lungs. His brain and body were being starved of air, only two inches below the surface.

  “no, no, no!” Megan cried out.

  After one final convulsion, Ryan’s body relaxed.

  His dead eyes, still wide open, stared up at the surface, looking for a salvation that would never come.

  Chapter

  Thirty

  Tears streamed down Megan’s cheeks as the river ran smoothly over Ryan’s face. Screaming out an anguished, primal howl, she staggered back onto dry land. She sank onto all fours and slumped against a rock.

  As helpless as last year . . .

  She had never felt so entrapped in such a wide-open space. They still had hours of darkness until daybreak. A long time to survive between a deadly river and an even deadlier enemy.