“Don’t think patriotism comes into play when you’ve got a situation like Castor has. You ready?”
Nicole moved to the edge of the cliff, wrapped the rope around her leg the way Connor showed her, and began her descent. She moved in tiny increments at first, getting used to letting her feet slow her descent. “It’s not that hard, Am,” she yelled up as her head finally moved below the lip of the rock face.
Amanita went next, using Connor’s hand as a safety handle until she had herself below the lip as well. Like Nicole, she started out slowly until she got the hang of it, then the two of them moved steadily toward the ground.
Connor went next, checking the knot on the tree one last time, making sure the bark hadn’t frayed it. He then tossed the other spool of rope down into the riverbed in case they might need it later.
With a deep breath, he wrapped his foot around the rope like he’d shown the girls, and worked his way over the lip. He had climbed the rope to the top in gym class during their physical training week, rung the little bell someone had affixed to the crossbeam—which had felt triumphant at the time, before he realized it made the other boys feel weak and overweight. And by other boys he mostly meant Seth, who’d barely made it up a single foot.
By the time he was halfway down, Nicole was touching the ground. A minute later Amanita was down, and when he finally touched his feet to the dirt, they were ready to tackle the harder part—climbing up the other side.
The howling in the ravine grew louder, almost like a tea kettle heating up. It swam down the rock walls on either side of them and passed over their heads.
“What’s that noise?” Amanita was spinning in circles, trying to get a bead on where it was coming from.
“It’s wind,” Connor said, not for the first time. But truth be told, it sure as hell didn’t sound like wind from down here. Aside from a light breeze, there was no rush of air hitting them.
“It’s not wind,” Nicole said. She took a few steps forward, in the direction of Jefferson Bridge, which was just a black sketch in the distance. “It’s those things.”
No sooner had she spoken the words than the first one appeared, careening around the bend on the gorge, arms outstretched, mouth open, head tilted back, legs pumping like an Olympic runner.
Nicole screamed, Amanita swore and Connor scanned the opposite cliff, trying to find foot and handholds.
“Up the rocks! Up the rocks!” he shouted.
Both girls raced to the rock cliff, grabbed whatever crevices they could find and started climbing up toward the woods outside of Castor. Only because the cliff on this side was slanted were they able to ascend at all, but the moving was slow and the hisser sprinting at them was moving so fast he might be able to leap above their heads.
Need a weapon, thought Connor. There, that branch. About the same size as a baseball bat, fallen off from one of the trees that jutted out over the ravine. He hefted it as the girls climbed up, stood his ground on the riverbed floor.
“Connor, hurry!” Nicole shouted.
“Just go, I got this.” A fourteen-year-old boy about to bludgeon a grown man with supernatural strength? Hah! Fat chance. But what option did he have?
The monster drew closer, blood-stained teeth snarling and strips of shredded cheeks whipping like tiny flags.
The hisser jumped.
Connor swung.
The branch caught the hisser in the head and sent it sideways into the rock wall. It stumbled, and Connor was on it, smashing as hard as he could, putting all his weight into breaking the skull and killing the brain. Again and again and again. The creature’s neck snapped and the body fell backwards, the eyes fluttered and the undead thing opened its mouth wide and wailed in protest.
Connor drove the branch into its mouth, out the back of its neck and into the dirt, pinning it to the ground. Its arms slashed at anything and everything, its eyes spun in mad circles like a cartoon character.
“Hi, Maynard,” Connor said, finally realizing who he was looking at. The older teen who’d tried to run him off his bike just two days ago. If there was a scourge in the town it was Maynard Drake and everybody knew it. Bully, thief, all around prick. Without hesitation, Connor picked up a boulder the size of a bowling ball and brought it down on Maynard’s face with all his might. There was a mighty crack as the hisser’s skull caved in, and pink ooze shot from the monster’s ears.
The undead former-bully stopped moving. The boulder sat in the depression of its ruined face, a snug fit.
“Goodbye, Maynard.”
Above him, the girls screamed louder and started climbing like they’d never climbed before as two FSX F-14 fighter jets roared overhead, close enough to shake loose chunks of rock from the cliff. Connor now finally realized why that howling was so loud.
Down the gorge, racing towards him at full speed, was just about the entire town of Castor, now abominations. But it wasn’t the ones running through the dry riverbed that made him want to lie down and die, it was the ones running along the walls on either side.
Undead human spiders, he thought, mesmerized by the way their additional arms and legs allowed them to grip the crevices in the rock.
Big-ass undead hissing spiders.
Just fucking great.
Sunday, 10:30am
What made the human spiders even more terrifying than their multiple arms and legs, was that they were an amalgam of different residents sharing one new body. The larger ones were comprised of four torsos, and up to six human heads. From this distance the heads looked like the multiple eyes of a giant tarantula.
This wonder serum that was meant to help soldiers re-grow and reattach limbs, was like human superglue; as long as there was a brain attached somewhere, whatever form of body it picked up would obey its command.
There were hundreds of these spider monsters racing along the gorge walls.
There’s no way to outrun them, he thought. He glanced up over his shoulder and saw that the girls had made it half way up. The rock face was slanted enough they could almost walk up, like ascending narrow stairs.
He picked up the branch he’d used to brain Maynard Drake with, leaned it against the rock wall. He quickly tied one end of the other spool of rope to it, then held it like a spear. When he threw it at the oncoming mayhem, he said a little prayer. Mom, Dad, if there’s a heaven and you’re up there, now would be a good time to help.
He turned and climbed up the rock face, digging his hands into the tiny crevices and fighting for a good spot to get a foothold. He climbed up two feet, three feet, four feet.
The roped spear landed in the middle of the hissers and was kicked up by thousands of running feet. It wrapped around their legs and pulled them to the ground in a great tangled mess. But the monsters on the walls kept coming, as did the thousands of hissers who merely ran over their fallen brethren.
“Hurry hurry hurry!” Amanita was already at the top, looking down at them.
The planes circled back and Connor looked up just in time to see the first missiles fire from their underbellies. Lightning fast streaks of explosives whistled through the air and hit the gorge cliff about a hundred yards from Connor, sending human spider zombie meat into the air like parade confetti. Then the planes passed overhead and banked left, circling around for another attack.
As if that wasn’t enough, two AV-8B Harriers roared into view and made a beeline for the ravine. What looked like two canisters fell outward from under their wings and careened through the air.
Connor barely had time to register their impact before the napalm flames shot along the cliffs walls searing everything in its path. A vast majority of the undead were caught in the attack and fell instantly, the scent of burning meat and hair carried forward on the thermals. The human spiders tried to scurry up and over the rocks but were sucked into the flames where they burst apart like beans in a microwave.
Connor waited for the tsunami of flames to curl over him and burn him to a crisp but the line of fire did not reach him. The heat did, howe
ver, and he felt the hair on his legs curl up, felt the skin on his face blister. He heard the girls screaming overhead, saw Amanita fall sideways with her hands over her face, saw Nicole bury her head in her chest as her clothing rippled under the hot winds.
The burns were superficial, but they stung and when Connor slid his hand into another cranny, it felt like he was climbing up the inside of a giant oven.
“Connor!” Nicole lost her grip and fell, her feet kicking him in the head. Somehow, she got hold of the rocks beside of him and hung there. He grabbed her, steadied her until her feet found the slope again. Her face was beet red from the heat, her hands were bleeding from climbing.
Over her shoulder he saw a handful of flaming human spiders racing along the rock wall toward them. Even while dying they were hungry.
“Keep climbing!” he shouted.
The first two planes circled back and their missiles were streaking through the sky, impacting on the rock wall diagonally opposite them, taking out whatever monsters scurried there. Pebbles hit their backs like bullets from a machine gun. Both he and Nicole wailed in pain, but they held on. If they fell to the ground they were done for.
Together they scrambled further up, racing toward Amanita’s voice: “They’re coming back! Hurry!”
Connor didn’t know if she meant the hissers or the napalm planes. It didn’t really matter, either one was going to kill them if they didn’t reach the top and get into the woods immediately.
He pulled himself up, his feet working along the inclined ridges of the cliff. The top was so close now, he thought he could reach it. Amanita was on her belly, reaching down with her hands to help.
“Conn-!” Nicole was yanked from Connor’s side.
He reached for her, saw her stricken face as a monstrosity of conjoined undead humans enfolded her within five grasping multiracial, arms.
“Nicole!”
She fought the arms and legs, but there were too many and she was too small. The human spider’s three heads hissed and sank their teeth into Nicole’s neck. Blood spit out and splattered the cliff wall.
“NO!” Connor yelled, still reaching for her. Overhead, Amanita’s cry of protest rose to the heavens.
The hissing spider beast looked at Connor with its six eyes and three mouths and started pulling Nicole back toward the flames. One of those heads was Lieutenant General Winston W. Davis, and it was his arm that gripped Nicole around the neck.
Connor tried in vain to move right, but he was too slow. The spider moved back quicker, its numerous arms and legs able to find more footing as it scurried.
The napalm planes banked into view again. There was no mistaking their trajectory this time.
Sunday, 10:34am
She had planned on attending medical school someday. Mom wanted her to, and her teachers always joked that she’d be a doctor. That was the kind of thing teachers said to the smart students to make sure they didn’t waste their lives on drugs or unrealistic dreams like acting or writing or music.
The next four years of her life had seemed such a magical open road, where the transition from child to adult was paved with discovery. She had wondered if she’d be popular, what after school clubs she would join, what new friends she might make. She had wanted to have a boyfriend, and had spent long hours at night thinking that maybe she and Connor could give it a shot. Sure, she knew the way it would probably pan out, that they’d go to different colleges and end up as friends. That’s the way high school was. You never married your high school boyfriend, unless by some twist of fate you both reconnected in your thirties or something. But mostly that was the stuff of movies.
She’d thought about who would be her first lover. That territory was so unknown, so confusing and scary, but with Connor it might have been safe.
Now she would never know. She’d never know the trepidation of a first date, she’d never know the fun of finding a prom dress, she’d never know the excitement of joining a punk band or cheering for the football team, she’d never partake in late night conversations in Denny’s, she’d never greet customers at the local fast food chains where the other high school students worked. Worse, she’d never grow old and have kids and a career and look back on what she was able to leave on this earth. She would disappear and that was that.
Nicole felt the three mouths clamp down on her neck, felt all those teeth pierce her soft flesh and rip at her veins. The pain was glorious, far more stimulating than any razor blade across her thigh could be, more satisfying than her pinching fingernails at their sharpest moments. There was a transcendent release of endorphins in such pain. She felt ashamed, but it felt oh so good, because this was truly feeling…for once.
Immediately she felt herself go dizzy, felt something else enter her bloodstream. Along with her incredible fear of dying right now, she also felt an insatiable need for blood and meat coursing through her.
It’s that fast, she realized. The virus, whatever it is, passes that quickly.
Already she was staring back at Connor, his arm outstretched to her, his mouth in a gaping O as he tried in vain to save her. She wanted one more kiss with him, but she also wanted to eat his face and dine on his insides.
Oh God, she thought, I’m turning. I don’t want to be one of these things. Please don’t let me turn. I don’t want the earth to remember me as some flesh-eating demon. Please just let me bask in this pain and ride it into darkness. Don’t let me turn Connor into this. He doesn’t deserve it.
Then don’t give in. Save him. Save them all.
She reached into her pocket and pulled out the flash drives. Once more the teeth sank into her flesh. She flung the drives toward the boy she would never kiss again. Then she was hauled backward, and the teeth found the top of her skull.
She let the pain roll over her, and in that final deluge of white hot light, she ceased to be human.
Sunday, 10:34
Connor saw the two drives flipping through the air. His arm was outstretched, a futile attempt to save a girl he’d come to love, as if his fourteen-year-old muscles could fight off the furor of the raging undead. One drive flew past his head, arcing into the dry riverbed below. He snatched his hand out and caught the second drive before it could get past him. He saw Nicole’s smile when he caught it. He wanted that to be enough, for Nicole to know her death wasn’t wasted, but of course it never would be.
Her smile became a zigzag of anguish. He screamed as her body went limp and she was drawn under the spider’s mutated abdomen of human torsos, where the three heads bent low and went to work on her flesh.
He wanted to die right then and there, but he felt fingertips brushing his head. Amanita was bending over the lip of the cliff and was trying to pull him up. “Fucking move, Connor!”
She was crying, bordering on hysterics, but she was maintaining whatever modicum of rational thought she could and he had to hand it to her, the girl was tough. “The planes are coming!”
Connor watched as Nicole’s sneakers fell down to the winding line of dry dirt that had once been a mighty river. One of the sneakers still held her foot and calf.
“Connor! Now!” Amanita’s fingers found a shock of his hair and pulled tight.
It was enough to snap him from his frozen stare. He shoved the flash drive in his pocket and dug his feet into the cliff, leapt up with all his might.
Amanita’s finger’s closed around the back of his shirt, then got a hold of his waistband and pulled.
He was at the lip, crawling up, his upper body on flat land now, his legs coming up next.
“Up up up!” Amanita yelled, her arms under his shoulders now.
He heard the thunder of the jets coming in, felt the air pressure around them change, whipping around like a vortex. He heard the cry of something destructive speeding to the earth above them.
Together, they ran for everything they were worth.
Sunday, 10:35am
The two canisters of napalm struck the edge of the cliff twenty feet from where Connor
had been. The human spider feasting on Nicole’s corpse disintegrated in a whoosh of ash. Nicole’s bones were blown into the ravine, where thousands of hissers writhed in flame, slowly dying.
The wall of fire swelled up over the lip of the cliff and rushed at Amanita and Connor, who could feel the intense heat burning their backs.
This is it, thought Amanita. We almost made it. We almost mattered. She felt the hair on the back of her head catch fire.
And then she was falling, dragging Connor down with her. Water swallowed her, cold and dark, and it was just as well she couldn’t breathe because they were dying anyway and she’d rather suffocate than burn.
She opened her eyes and saw shades of orange and red and brown. Connor’s face was besides hers, his eyes closed, his mouth open in a scream that shot bubbles above their heads. At least I didn’t die alone, she thought, and put her head against his.
The red glow above them flickered and danced, and then was gone.
He was up before she was, hauling her to her feet. She rose into hot air and smoke, the crackling of burning trees and bushes filling her ears. She looked down and saw she was knee deep in a water-filled hole. Leaves floated on the surface, camouflaging it. No wonder they hadn’t seen it until they fell in.
“What the…?”
“Some kind of ditch,” Connor said, brushing his wet hair out of his eyes. “Thank God for the rains last night. You okay?”
All around them, the forest burned. Behind them, the hissing screams of the burning undead played like the soundtrack of hell.
She nodded yes, saw her own current condition reflected on Conner, who was soaking wet and red with burns.
“They’re burning it down,” Connor said. “They’re burning Castor to the ground.”
Up through the flaming trees, in between the clouds of smoke, they could see more planes, maybe twenty in all, circling their hometown like vultures.
Hissers Page 24