by Matt Shaw
The woman getting the unwanted attention was begging for me to tell the man what I knew - fooled into believing him due to what she was currently going through. He wasn’t going to let us go though. I wish she could see that. It was in his eyes. The fact of the matter is, he was enjoying what he was putting us through. They all were. What happened outside, in the real world, just gave them an excuse to act how they really wanted. Deep, dark desires pushed to the surface when faced with death. If this was human nature, I wish I could have joined Ethan. I closed my eyes to stop from having to watch the woman on the other bed but the soldier forced them open again by holding my lids in place.
“You want to stop watching, you know what you have to do...”
“Fuck you!” I screamed.
He laughed. I’m not sure whether it was a genuine laugh or one to simply make me feel at unease. For all I knew, it could be both. “No,” he said, “fuck you!” Just as the other soldier had done, he pulled a knife from where it was fastened to his uniform. Instead of cutting my underwear off immediately, he placed the knife up against my throat. I swallowed hard and braced myself. He laughed again. “Not going to be that easy,” he said. The other soldier was groaning loudly, as though he was going to ejaculate. I looked across to the other woman as the officer, next to me, slit my underwear off with a flick of his wrist. She was watching me, trying her best to ignore the pain the soldier was causing her and trying to not make eye-contact. Perhaps even wishing she were me - at least until the officer started what he was gearing himself up to do. I looked back to him - his penis was in his hand. He was tugging at it, trying to make it stiffen up - something which he was clearly having troubles with. Despite my fear, I laughed in his face. He responded by throwing the knife down onto the floor and slapping me in my face - an open palm from his right hand, his left hand too busy. As he hit me again, I noticed through teary eyes that he was starting to harden. “I’m going to enjoy this,” he said.
I did my best to sound off with another fake laugh, “I’m not!” I told him. I was hoping my arrogant attitude would be enough to make him keep hitting me. I’d sooner take the hits than what he was threatening to do to me. If I was very lucky, he’d even take my consciousness from me.
“I sincerely hope that you don’t,” he said. He grabbed my breast with his free hand and squeezed it hard. I tried my best not to show any pain, or discomfort.
Suddenly a man screamed from outside. It was enough for the officer to look away from me, back towards the tent’s opening. The second soldier looked too, catching the eye of the officer in the process. “Don’t just stand there on show, take a look...” Another scream from someone else. And another. And another. More screaming. I couldn’t help but smile, despite knowing the danger, as I knew exactly what it was. A wave of relief washed through me. Not out of immediate danger but...However it comes, at this point, I’d welcome death.
Both soldiers jumped up. The other soldier pulled his trousers up whereas the officer simply tucked himself away and quickly did his flies up. Once ready, which took seconds, they both ran out of the exit. I looked across to the girls - both of whom still looked absolutely terrified.
“It’s going to be okay,” I told them.
I didn’t know how it was going to be okay. If anything, with what was happening outside, things would never be okay again. At least, not for us. For others, who have survived these past few days, things would be okay again. Just as soon as the weather gets a little colder. As soon as it does, the spiders will just die out on their own. Worst case, maybe they’ll know what’s coming and just put themselves back into the ball shape they use to retain heat...If they do that, though, they won’t be spreading. People would be able to see them and destroy them before the summer comes around again. And, in this country, that could be many, many years. Some years, after all, we never see a summer’s day despite the month suggesting we should.
Gunfire and screaming outside now. The gunfire, and screams for that, are becoming less frequent. Just as I thought they would - the people are losing, unable to cope with the fast spread of the bites and the aggressiveness of the spider hatchlings. An obvious outcome. After all, they were quick to destroy cities and continue to spread. This camp would be nothing to them but a quick breeding ground.
I looked over to the air-conditioning unit, keeping the air cool enough to keep the spiders at bay, and breathed a sigh of relief. We just need to wait this out. Get out of these restraints and use one of the vehicles, outside, to get away from here. Get up North where it’s cooler. A plan Ethan and I should have just stuck with despite the risk of getting stuck, bitten, or even caught in friendly-fire on the way up there.
Suddenly the officer burst in through the tent’s opening. A spider on his neck. Terror in his eyes. He screamed as the spider used its final few seconds alive to bite the officer. He was already dead - just didn’t know it yet. The two girls, unaware that temperature is vital to the spider’s survival screamed too. I even began to panic as the officer started to groan and stumble his way towards me - the spiders already hatching from his blood cells which continued to course around his veins. I struggled against the restraints with little success of getting free. The officer hit my camp-bed and fell on top of me. His groaning face so close to my own screaming face. The other girls in the room also screaming loudly. I could do nothing but watch, in horror, as I could see the shape of the spiders under his skin...All of them moving around, all of them wanting to escape the confines of his body - none of them aware of the lack of required temperature. His limbs writhing around, like a man possessed, as more spiders hatched into life. And then it started to happen. They spilled from his mouth first. I could do nothing but close my own mouth to keep them from falling in. Thankfully, outside of his blood, they weren’t able to survive and were pretty much dead as soon as they left his mouth. It still didn’t stop me from trying to move away from where they landed. Something I was unable to do. They hit my cheek, and rolled off dead. They landed on my neck. They spilt from his nose as though a nosebleed of dead spiders. I couldn’t contain my scream any longer when his eyes started to bulge out towards me. Usually the spiders would climb past the eyes but, because they were dying too close to the opening, all that was happening was that they were beginning to back up. The more spiders that tried to come out - the further the eyes bulged until they suddenly popped out completely. I screamed again as the spiders started to fall from his black eye-sockets. A never-ending sea of dead arachnids dropping onto me. With all of my might, I used my whole body to try and shift his dead weight from on top of me. Nothing. He remained in place as the spiders continued to hatch from his corpse. I tried again and this time, thankfully, he rolled onto the floor. I didn’t even get a moment to breathe a sigh of relief as I watched, in horror, as his arm flopped to the side - more specifically next to the cable of the air-conditioning unit. A final flick of his finger, as the spiders moved from underneath his skin, and the cable was pulled from the unit.
“No...” I said out loud as the machine’s gentle humming slowed until it wasn’t making any further sounds. I started to cry as I struggled against my restraints. The girls on the other side still struggling against their own restraints. I stopped struggling a few minutes later and listened. Perhaps someone survived outside. Perhaps someone would come and get us...Another survivor if there were any others alive in the nearby tents? “Ssh...Wait a minute...” I said to the girls. “Listen...”
We all laid there, in silence. We all laid there, hoping...Listening out for a miracle.
All we heard were the patter of tiny feet on the canvas of the tent. I looked towards the open doorway and froze. So many spiders. Watching. Waiting. My heart raced as the temperature in the tent slowly started to rise. I looked across to the girls who had noticed the same thing as me. I told them I was sorry and, together, we waited.
T H E E N D
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