The captain clapped him on the shoulder in a show of affection. “Just a hunch that didn’t pay off. Long story short, we thought that you were under the mental control of some spiders from Earth’s distant past, but it turns out you’re just kind of an asocial dick. Which is good news all round. See you for dinner.”
The three women left him alone, the door shutting with a percussive click.
“You know I could have told you that without you having to torture me!”
***
“You can’t find them? What the hell do you mean you can’t find them? We got to look harder!”
Bobby reached up and gently pulled Captain Anna down into her chair again. He, Kurt and Cameron had gone looking for Roger and Claire, but they couldn’t be found anywhere. “Ease down, Captain. They could be anywhere, doing anything. She’s not in her place, but…well…Roger’s door was locked. They could just be…well…you know.”
“She’s not his type,” said Betty, lighting a cigarette.
“How do you mean?”
“He doesn’t go for white girls.”
“I guess that means you weren’t his type either,” joked Kurt.
“He was never mine.”
They all jumped as Anna thumped her fist down on the table. “Look, something weird is going on on this rig and it all comes back to those geodes and those spiders. I want the last two found, and now it turns out that two members of my crew have gone missing, too. That concerns me. As one of them wasn’t technically a member of my crew, is totally new to the area, and represents a large part of our funding, it concerns me greatly. I want those last two spiders, I want Roger and I want Claire. If you’ve got to break down Roger’s door, I’ll gladly pay for the repairs out of my own pocket. I don’t care. I just want them found.”
Betty stubbed out a cigarette and reached for her coffee. “Okay, let’s assume the worst case scenario – which is that they are under the influence of the Spiders from Mars, here. You ever gone for a wander down in the depths? I mean like the real ‘engine room’ stuff we’ve got here? If someone wants to stay hidden, then down in the gears and machines…you’d be undetectable.”
“Are the spiders capable of projecting that much mental influence?” asked Cameron, who’d wrapped up his hand in rather an excessive bandage.
“We don’t know,” said Jazmin. “We’re dealing with the total unknown.”
Kurt spoke up. “Speaking for myself – and I assume Betty felt the same – I had no idea I was under any influence at all. Even now it seems like a half remembered dream.”
He looked across to Betty who nodded her assent.
“I’d guess there are limits,” said Cameron. “I mean, you say that your notes are gone from the computer? Okay, assume the spiders made you do that – why didn’t they go the whole hog and make you smash up the entire lab? Surely that would have been a more thorough job.”
“That’s easy,” replied Bobby. “Camouflage.”
“How do you mean?”
“Kurt smashing up the lab would have set alarm bells ringing. Him just deleting files from the computer? It could have been weeks or months before we found that. The spiders don’t want to do anything that draws attention to themselves.”
Cameron nodded. “That makes a sort of sense. Something like a trapdoor spider of the mind.”
Anna tore open a Twinkie box. “A lovely turn of phrase. Back to the case – what to do next?”
“I think I know where the spiders are,” said Jazmin.
“You do?”
“They have to be where Betty and Claire originally searched. That’s how the spiders got her and Claire. Roger was with Cameron, and Cameron wasn’t affected. Kurt was with Bobby and Bobby wasn’t affected. Therefore it’s the only option that makes sense.”
“The boiler room,” said Betty.
FOURTEEN
Anna nominated Bobby and Cameron to check out the boiler room. She didn’t think it fair to throw Jazmin into a potentially dangerous situation, and she knew for sure that neither Cameron nor Bobby had ever been under the influence of the spiders. Betty was brave, and Kurt was large, but she didn’t wholly trust them to deal with either the spiders or potentially dangerous members of her crew. Who knew what remnants of the spiders’ power could still hang over them?
Bobby carried a large torch to penetrate the gloom, and Cameron carried a crowbar he’d found, in case things did turn nasty. Bobby put his shoulder to the door and forced it open with a protesting squeal.
“Was that you, or the door?” joked Cameron.
Bobby dropped his voice to a whisper. “Shut up, man. If the two zombies, or the spiders are in here, then the last thing I want to do is warn them we’re coming.”
“Because they won’t have heard the door anyway?”
“Shut up, Cam.”
Bobby swept his torch across the corridor that greeted them. “Do we want to split up?”
“Are you serious? In what horror movie is that ever a good idea?”
“Good thinking.”
The darkness around them was all encompassing. The sun shone weakly through the door they had entered through, but it seemed afraid of the blackness inside. Bobby stepped inside and swung his torch left, right and up and down. “Man, this place is big. It looks like it shouldn’t able to fit on the rig, never mind in this little corner.”
“That’s quality engineering for you, man,” said Cameron, following him through. “So, do we go left, right or straight ahead?”
“Let’s go left, then work our way across.”
“All right.”
Their footsteps seemed amplified in the large, echoing chamber of the boiler room. Every touch of their boots on the gantry floor seemed to shudder across its entire length, and it triggered a million silken tripwires, alerting the remaining spiders to the intruders’ arrival. Cameron kept the beam of the torch to the floor so that they didn’t tread on, or trip over, anything.
“Why aren’t there any lights in here?” he whispered.
“There probably are – it’s just I can’t remember how to switch them on.”
Bobby came to an abrupt stop as he saw the webbing stretched across the floor in front of him. “What the fuck is this?”
The webbing wasn’t just like the thin strands of a spider web you find in any corner of a house, or even the thick cushioned bedding he’d seen tarantulas make in zoos and pet shops. It was so thick it was almost like woven material; as thick as a carpet or curtain. He swept the torch up and down, and saw that the webbing continued up the walls and onto the high ceiling. He slowly brought the beam back to the floor and looked to see how far it continued. The entire floor was carpeted for the length of the corridor.
“My god. They moved in,” whispered Cameron. “In less than twenty-four hours they colonised the boiler room. Of course! It’s warm here. They can…oh fuck…”
“What?”
Cameron grabbed Bobby’s arm and swung the beam of the torch to a point just ahead of them, about seven feet up from the floor. “How could they have done all this so quickly?”
“It’s a totally new species, Cam. We don’t have a damn clue.”
Bobby lowered the beam further and let out a full scream.
The torchlight had come to rest on the face of Claire Flynn, wrapped up tight in the webbing. Her skin was pale and her eyes closed. The webbing stretched across her neck, through her hair, and partially across her mouth.
Cameron slapped Bobby and whispered, “Keep your fucking voice down.”
“Fuck you, man!” Bobby whispered back. “Is she dead?”
Cameron reached forward, and touched her neck, feeling for a pulse. “Yeah. She’s cold.”
“We’ve got to get the fuck out of here, man. Let’s go get everyone else, and come back here in a group to burn this whole fucking thing down.”
Cameron backed away slowly. “Yeah. That sounds like a real fucking good idea.”
Bobby turned away from the dead w
oman and let out another scream as he walked straight into Roger. “Jesus fucking Christ, Roger. You scared the hell out of me. How long have you been dow-?”
Bobby didn’t get to finish his sentence as Roger’s utility knife flashed up and into his neck. Bobby let out a coughing gargle, and dropped to his knees, clutching at his throat to stem the flow of blood. The torch bounced and rolled across the floor, and Cameron saw the nest in white light pulses of nightmare. He saw Roger pull Bobby up by his hair and stab him twice more. He saw the geodes swinging in their web. He saw the ghostly face of Claire flash by, and he saw three of the spiders crawling down the wall towards him. He swung at them with the crowbar, ripping the wall of webbing and sending them flying.
He shoved hard at Roger. “Fuck’s sake, man! What’re you doing?”
Roger turned to him and his glazed over look told Cameron that he was fully under the control of the spiders now.
Hating himself for leaving, he went to turn and run from the boiler room when he suddenly felt arms around him. Claire had burst forth from the webbing wall and grabbed a hold of him. “Cameron…don’t leave me…” she whispered. “Please…”
Cameron screamed again. “You…you’re alive?”
“Please…get me out of here…”
Cameron became a hero for the first and last time in his life.
He spun around and cracked Roger across the back of the head with the crowbar. The large engineer flew into the thick webbing coating the walls and slumped over. Grabbing Claire around her waist, he ripped her legs free of the itchy, creepy silk and dragged her with him. She could barely walk so he had to haul her with him, her feet banging a rhythm of terror on the metal floor as he ran as fast as he could for the exit and its beacon of daylight.
Fearing that Roger or the spiders could follow him at any moment, he barreled through the doorway and helped Claire gently to the floor outside. He quickly pulled the door shut and slammed his shoulder into it. The door squeaked part of the way into place, but rust, disuse and salt spray had caused the door and frame to not fit quite so well as they should have. He slammed his shoulder into it again and again, squeezing it closer and closer each time; knowing that should Roger recover and force it from the other side, he wouldn’t stand a chance.
A high pitched squeaking noise drew his attention and he saw one of the spiders in the open corner near the floor. Redoubling his efforts, he leapt up and threw his entire bodyweight into it and the door finally wedged shut, chitin and rock dust spraying from the crushed spider.
Cameron quickly threw the bar across the door and clicked the padlock home. Finally, with the immediate threat over, he fell to his backside and struggled to get his breath back.
“Cameron?” said Claire weakly. “Thank you.”
Cameron struggled to his feet, every muscle aching, and helped Claire to stand. She leant into him, and he hugged her back. “It’s okay, we’re out of there now. Let’s get back up to the Captain and the rest of the crew, and we can tell them all about what happened.”
She pulled him closer to her. “I can’t remember what happened. It’s all like a dream. It’s like I kind of half remembered it.”
“Yeah, that’s what the others said. Don’t worry, you won’t be alone. Kurt and Betty had similar run ins. You’ll be okay.”
“Where’s the key to the padlock?”
“What? Why?”
“Where is it?”
Cameron was confused but didn’t want to break the hug. “It’s…uh…still in the lock. Don’t worry, I’m sure none of the spiders can work a key.”
“Okay.”
Cameron saw her hair move gently to the side, assuming at first that it was the wind, but a microsecond later he saw the white legs and fangs of the spider that had ridden her shoulder the whole time. Its back legs tensed and it jumped forward. He pushed Claire away and fell hard on his backside, as the hideous thing crawled across his face. Its front legs and fangs hooked into his bottom lip and he felt it bite hard. Freezing pain ran down his jaw and neck as the ice spider pumped its venom in.
He looked to Claire for assistance and saw her unlocking the padlock. For a moment it felt to him as though that was a very bad idea. Then he got to his feet and helped her pull the door open, before following her back into the boiler room.
FIFTEEN
Jazmin and Betty pushed open the doors to the canteen, scaring the life out of Anna and Kurt, who had been waiting in nervous anticipation.
“We kicked down Roger’s door,” said Betty.
“Well, we took a fire axe to it.”
“You’re mouthy for a work experience kid, you know that? Anyway, yeah, we broke it down. No sign of Roger or Claire. Room looked, well…pretty normal to be honest. His room was usually organised chaos, you know, and there was nothing out of the ordinary there.”
“So they’re still missing?” said Kurt.
“I’m thinking ‘missing presumed dead’,” said Betty, lighting a cigarette. “Captain, we need back up here. We’ve got people missing. We’ve got weird, telepathic spiders. Now, this is the point where you’re supposed to go Quint and smash up the radio. So I’m going to ask you very nicely not to do that, please.”
“We should radio Icecap,” agreed Captain Anna. “A few spiders in the air conditioning we could manage. This is getting beyond us.”
“Hold on,” said Kurt. “Shouldn’t we wait for Cameron and Bobby to come back? They could have found them, or they may have news on the spiders themselves. I’m not against radioing for help, but I do think we should wait for all the information first.”
Anna slumped into a chair. “You’re right. We’ll give them another twenty minutes. If they’re not back by then, we radio Icecap for as much assistance as they can throw at us.”
Jazmin shuffled uncomfortably over to another table and sat down. She didn’t feel she could leave, but didn’t want to sit down in the atmosphere around the Captain at the moment. It felt wrong to just be sat there waiting for news of the others, but there was nothing else to do. She sat, playing with her fingers nervously, and didn’t know what to suggest. She looked up as Betty sat next to her and offered her a cigarette, which she accepted shakily.
“You don’t smoke, do you?”
“I thought I might take it up.”
“You want me to light it for you?”
“Uh…sure.”
Betty lit the cigarette and passed it back to her. “Draw a small amount of smoke into your mouth – not too much, or you’ll cough. Then take in some air and draw it all down into your lungs.”
Jazmin did as she was taught. A couple of times she felt a cough twitch at her stomach like a hiccough, but she held it down.
“Then let it out.”
Jazmin exhaled a cloud of smoke, and Betty smiled at her. She felt a little light headed, and a little more relaxed. Betty rested her hand on hers and said, “We’re going to get out of here, you know. Don’t worry.”
***
Cameron unlocked the door to the control room, and swung it open vaingloriously. Claire followed him inside and watched as Cameron switched on the lights and began powering up the colossal control panel that occupied the span of the windows. She looked across the space in the centre of the rig, where the Prospero hung just above them.
“What do you need me to do?” asked Claire, rubbing absently at her hair, pulling out tufts of webbing.
“Nothing so far. You can just stand there and look pretty,” said Cameron. His practiced hands danced across the control console, lighting up LEDs and causing gauges to flicker into life. “The thing’s set up so that it can be operated from here. This is the brain, the nerve centre, of Prospero. The rest of Tempest Outpost is just a frame to hang it from.”
“You think we’ll bring up more eggs?”
“We both know we will.”
“Yes.”
The room buzzed and vibrated a little as Cameron pulled a lever that looked like a main circuit breaker. Claire lifted her
eyes up and saw the Prospero begin to turn gently. “It’s working.”
“Of course it’s working.”
The massive drill bit began to twist faster and faster as Cameron threw switches, adjusted dials and jabbed at touchscreen interfaces.
“And…fire!”
Cameron hit the large red button, and the tone that had been resonating through the entire control room kicked into higher gear. The Prospero span and dropped down, past the window in front of them and down into the ocean. Claire flinched at the splash, which sprayed water droplets against the glass, even at this height. The barrel of the drill continued down into the ocean, and Cameron tracked its progress on the touchscreens.
“Five, four, three…contact.”
The room shuddered again and the spinning drill hesitated momentarily as it crashed into the underwater bedrock, grinding soft stones and pulverising sand.
Claire moved her hand to Cameron’s shoulder. “Did we break through?”
“Yeah. It’s all good. We’re through.”
“What now?”
“We wait.”
***
Everyone in the canteen leapt to their feet as they felt the Prospero kick into life. “What the fuck is going on?” demanded Captain Anna. “Who the fuck is firing up the drill?”
“Cameron,” said Jazmin. “It’s got to be. I mean, he’s the only one who can operate the control panels, right? It’s his baby.”
“She’s right,” said Kurt. “But why isn’t he looking for Claire and Roger? Why would he and Bobby decide to just fire up the drill for no reason? You don’t suppose he…oh, god…”
“What? What do you mean?” asked Captain Anna.
“It’s obvious, isn’t it?” asked Betty. “They got to him. One of the last spiders must have gotten to Cameron, and now they’re making him fire up the Prospero. You know why, right?”
“Shit. They want reinforcements.”
“Bingo. I’ll head down to the control room, see if I can’t talk some sense into him. Kurt, you come with me. We might need some muscle.”
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