Helixweaver (The Warren Brood Book 2)

by Bartholomew Lander

  “I know not. If NIDUS was seeking a child for the Yellow King, then I can only presume their mothers were intended to possess souls. Forgive me. I’m afraid I’m not well informed about soul mechanics.” Spinneretta shook a little more, and Mark felt another warm wetness seeping into his shirt. “Spinny. I believe you did the right thing.”

  Her hands clenched into tight fists, tugging upon the fabric of his shirt. “What about the Vant’therax? Do they have souls?”

  He shook his head. “Hollow constructs.”

  She tightened her grip. “Good.”

  Suddenly, a loud burst of static echoed from concealed speakers in the ceiling. A shrill beep followed, echoed by the matching speakers out in the hall. Then, the sound morphed into a voice. “Goddammit, don’t touch anything. I’m checking right now. Just because you can hear it in the hall doesn’t mean it’s going anywhere else.”

  Mark straightened. “Annika?”

  “Testing. Testing. Well, if this doesn’t work we’re shit out of luck anyway, so cross your fingers.” Annika cleared her throat. “Ahoy, half-spiders and wizards. This is your tour guide, Annika Crane, coming to you live from what I think is a freight elevator somewhere under the lower labs. Operation: Battle of the Vault was a success. We killed four out of seven Vant’therax. Even though three of them slipped away, we got the hand . . . heart . . . thing. Old Man Stupid and Boy Howdy are safe, and barring any changes in fortune we’ll be topside in none too long.”

  Spinneretta breathed a sigh of relief. “Thank God,” she muttered. She leaned into Mark again, and he indulged her with a deeper hug.

  “There’s just one tiny problem. It seems somebody decided that throwing a molotov cocktail into the Vault’s storage unit was a good idea. And it turns out maybe that wasn’t the best thing to do, as it seems to have created . . . well, a lot of fire. Like, Satan-would-be-fucking-jealous levels of fire. Lots of inflammable chemicals down here, and it looks like that fire is spreading really, really fast. And that’s not even touching on the fires that Ralph started upstairs. In light of the fact that this place is about to go up like a gasoline pig with a smoking problem, I recommend you hightail it upstairs as fast as you can.” Her voice then lost its characteristic vigor and dropped to a solemn and sincere tenor. “I really hope you guys are getting this. And I hope you’re all safe. Come back topside as soon as you get this message, alright? Annika out.”

  The message cut off, and in the distance what may have been a fire alarm became audible. “Well,” Mark said, breaking away from Spinneretta’s hug. “Shall we?” She nodded and muttered a short affirmation. Without another word, the two of them pushed their way out of the door and past the small hub room.

  Outside, Kara was still sitting on the floor and clutching her ribs. She looked up at them as they emerged from the shell of the Eleventh Project’s lab. “Are you okay now?” Kara asked, cringing up at Spinneretta.

  Head swimming, Spinneretta rolled her shoulders and looked away. “I’d be more worried about your ribs if I were you. And, you know, about the whole fire situation.”

  Kara laughed, and that sound quickly turned into a cough. Her spider legs reached out and grabbed onto Spinneretta’s, and Spinneretta helped her to her feet. The crushed plates of her lower legs punished her with a sharp nerve pain, and she would have fallen over had she not caught Mark’s shoulder.

  “Shit,” she said under her breath. When was the last time she’d lost her balance? Her legs curled about her torso and she tried to minimize their movement.

  “I’m sorry,” Kara’s voice squeaked from beside her. “Are your legs okay?”

  She nodded. “Yeah.” Each beat of her heart, however, set the cracks in her legs throbbing. She was thankful for the fact that the damage was minor enough that the burst internal tissue had begun to scab over, stemming the loss of blood. It at least wasn’t as bad as Arthr’s wound had been after getting beaten on by Pat. Unfortunately, she suspected that pain was going to last until the next time she molted.

  Mark looked down at the two of them, one hand on his shoulder, and he began to laugh to himself. “I think we’re all a bit worse for wear after all this. Come on. Let’s get out of here before the fires spread and trap us down here.”

  As they started down the hallway, Spinneretta again felt her mind slipping and going numb. When she looked at Kara it was hard to contain the effects her revelation had on her. Sometime—soon—she would have to work up the nerve to tell Kara about what she’d learned. That thought was acidic, for somewhere in Spinneretta’s mind the idea that Kara already knew was too heavy to be ignored. She herself had seemed to stitch together, piece by piece, the picture that Kara had already framed and hung on her wall. But maybe that was okay. Maybe when they were beyond the burning shell of NIDUS they would be able to laugh about the fate they’d defied.

  The question about what they would do now was far from her mind. She was short-sighted, and for now wished only to leave these halls of sin and decay behind forever. Each step brought them closer to the open air, where she could release the pent up ghosts and vermin in her stomach.

  The knocking at the door to her mind now sounded different as she reflected on the voice from another self. The voice—her own voice—was nothing so unfamiliar that she could call it a specter or demon. Likewise, it was nothing so foreign that she would dream of calling it a split in her personality. It must’ve been a nervous manifestation of the Instinct, a mania summoned forth by her mind’s inability to face down Kaj on her own strength alone. But she could not shake the lingering doubt that the voice in her mind was something else. But whatever it was, she was certain of one thing: it was dark, it was ugly, and she couldn’t afford to ever allow it to surface again.

  Her hand found its way to the chain of the bizarre necklace that had once belonged to Mark’s sister. She pulled the pendant out of her shirt and turned it over in her hand. Even the darkness has a silver lining, it read. She smiled a little to herself. When she ran her eyes over the contours of the mist-sign, somewhere in her mind the mystery voice stirred from its sleep. This time it said nothing, and for that she was eternally grateful.

  Soon, they’d meet back up with Annika and the others. They’d swap boasts of their victory, she was sure, but she’d still feel hollow, even after putting this hell behind her. When Annika looked down at her and asked what’s eating you, min spindeltjej, she’d be thinking of Isabella. She’d probably grab hold of Mark’s hand and try to face her guilt head on. His absolution was comforting, but ultimately she would have to come to terms with what she’d done on her own. And so for now, she would just grab his hand and let the river of thoughts carry her where they may.

  And when she looked up upon the pillar of smoke rising from the burning ruin of the Golmont Corporation, a stain across the pristine night sky of their own personal Lethean jail, she could already imagine the toxic thoughts that would pain her. Though NIDUS and the Vant’therax were at their end, there was little closure to be had for her. She knew that whatever had remained of her innocence was now surely forfeit upon that pyre; it was just another burnt offering on the altar to a dead god.

  Coda

  “Jesus, will you wait up!?” Chelsea yelled up the hill after Amanda. “Don’t just drag me along and then leave me behind!”

  “Hurry up,” Amanda said over her shoulder from further up the path. “And keep your voice down.”

  Chelsea sighed and pushed on after her through the shrubs and thickets. Her feet hurt, and the dim flashlight she carried was proving inadequate at keeping her from tripping over the loose stones that peppered the path up to the outskirts. She wished she hadn’t decided to come along. Not only was she afraid of getting found by the overreaching police patrolling the town, but more than that she was afraid of what lurked in the abandoned buildings of Old Town. Namely: ghosts.

  They’d slipped out of the apartment in the dead of night to avoid arousing suspicion, but now she could hear the distinct wail of sire
ns in the distance. She just hoped they weren’t coming for them. As they fought through the tall grass and crested the top of the hill, Chelsea took a look back at Grantwood below. Beyond the sparkling of the town, off near Parson’s Grove, a blazing orange light had begun to flicker. It was hard to tell from the distance, but she thought it looked like fire. That put her mind at ease a little. It meant the secret police weren’t out to get them, but it still didn’t do much to lift the burden of irrational terror from her chest. “Mandy, let me rest a moment, will ya?” she called ahead.

  “No time,” Amanda said. “We have to hurry.”

  Chelsea groaned and followed, her fear of being left alone yelling louder than her feet. Once they made their way through the tall grass, they headed along the old dirt road that once served as the main link between Grantwood and Mount Hedera. It was not long before they passed the Potter’s field. It was a lonely, solemn sight. It made Chelsea think of Spinneretta and Arthr. Somehow the dark of the night made it all too real. She missed the two of them more than anything.

  Following that path further, they entered a grove of gray ash. The grove must have sprung up sometime after the abandonment of the outskirts began, for the trees broke apart fences and split property lines. As they walked, Chelsea kept her eyes trained on Amanda’s back. She didn’t dare look off to the sides of the road. The broken shells of the old homes, punctured and eviscerated by rising trees and choking vines, flanked their path. The foreboding sensation grew deeper, and each crunch of leaves and twigs around them became the sound of an encroaching murderer—or the Norwegian Killer.

  After walking through the dense clump of trees, tripping over planks of wood strewn about in every conceivable angle all the while, the girls emerged on the other side of the grove. There, the greatest number of abandoned structures awaited them. They pushed themselves on toward where the next hilltop broke into a sheer cliff face above.

  “What exactly are you hoping to find here?” Chelsea asked, barely above a whisper. “And what does any of this have to do with Spins?”

  “To answer both of your questions,” Amanda said from two paces ahead, “I don’t know. But there has to be something. Dad says Grandpa’s house hasn’t been entered since he disappeared, and that he had enemies. So there might be some clue about everything that’s going on.”

  “Sounds like a stretch to me.” A nearby storefront gave her a death glare with its smashed in window-eyes. Against her better judgment, she sent the beam of her flashlight toward the building, and the forest of tall grass growing inside the hollow exoskeleton made her shiver. She wondered how any of their classmates could get up the nerve to break into and drink in places so obviously haunted. She could imagine Indian burial grounds far less pernicious than these corpses of civilization.

  A short while later, they turned off the main road and cut through another overgrown path running alongside a dense cluster of homes. Amanda stopped in front of a two-story building crushed between two great deadwood trees. “This is it,” she said, sounding apprehensive. “Number fourteen.” Her flashlight illuminated the crumpled remnants of the mailbox, where the number was just barely legible.

  “Great, let’s just get this over with,” Chelsea said.

  Amanda reached into her pocket and pulled out the old key her father had given her. She turned it over in her hand once and approached the door. She slid the key into the lock and began to fiddle with the mechanism. After a few moments, there came a loud crunching, and then a click as the tumblers turned. The door creaked open. The fact that the door opened at all seemed incredible to Chelsea; she had expected a fight between shoulder and hinges before they entered, but the ghost tenants of this house must have been expecting them.

  Inside the home, they found a mess that spoke of ages of abandonment. The air stirred with motes of dust that danced in the girls’ flashlight beams. Chelsea coughed, trying to exorcise the smell of mildew from her nostrils. She squinted, dust stinging her eyes. The living room was in a state of progressive ruin. What was once a couch had been reduced to a wooden frame. All the cushioning had been shredded and scattered, destined to become the nests of uncountable birds and possums. A table nearby held a stack of books and ledgers, one of which was open to a nondescript page of numbers and names written in faded ink. Innumerable fragments of plaster and chipped wooden paneling littered the decayed carpet. The entire room gave off a foreboding presence, and Chelsea couldn’t help but shiver. “I don’t like this,” she said.

  Amanda began to walk deeper into the vacant ruin. “Then you should’ve stayed home.”

  The two searched the house, looking for anything that could have acted as a clue. Aside from a ruined snapshot of daily life decades ago and discarded nests of invasive pests, they found little. Chelsea continued to tremble; she could almost feel the ghosts of the home’s previous occupants breathing down her neck, preparing to appear in a swirl of shadows and tear them apart.

  When they climbed the rickety stairway and came to the upstairs bedroom, a possum nesting in the carpet started at their arrival and sprinted away, nearly scaring Chelsea out of her skin. Her heart had trouble keeping up with each unexpected terror, but Amanda just continued on to the bedroom. What could Chelsea do but follow?

  This room, more than the wrecked kitchen and forlorn children’s bedroom, had a haunting air about it. Here, Chelsea found herself shaking harder. No matter which way she cast her flashlight, the creeping shadows morphed into murderous shapes. “Come on,” Chelsea whispered. “There’s nothing here. Let’s go. Please.”

  “We’re not done,” Amanda said, moving deeper into the room. When she threw open the closet, Chelsea half-expected a swarm of bats to come screeching out. Instead, she found only a pile of old boxes and clothes that had been eaten through by generations of vermin.

  Amanda began to rummage through the junk in the closet. “There’s gotta be something here.”

  Chelsea, meanwhile, took to scraping her light along the edges of the floor, trying to ground herself and stop thinking about the demons lurking just out of sight. Heart pounding, she paused when her light revealed a small chest in the corner, just behind the door. “Hey,” she said. “What’s this?”

  Amanda stopped what she was doing and followed her gaze. “That?” She walked over to where the chest sat and crouched down to study it. It was a small wooden trunk with rusted strips of metal supporting its frame. The lock, too, was rusted beyond any reasonable suspicion of functionality. She hummed to herself. “What do you think? Why would Grandpa have a locked chest in his room? Think it holds the material he was using to blackmail a crooked senator?”

  “Jesus, it’s just a chest! Probably hiding all of his porn mags or a gun or something else stupid.”

  “Well, guess we’ll see about that.” Amanda pulled the Swiss Army knife her father had given her from her pocket and peeled one of the blades open. She eased it through the gap in the lid of the chest. Once the blade was lodged deep within, she pushed down on the handle with all of her weight. The lock broke, and the lid to the chest popped open. As the dust inside swam upward to join its friends in the air, Amanda reached into the chest and pulled out a thick black garment.

  “Ugh,” Chelsea said, secretly disappointed. “Just a clothes hamper.”

  Amanda examined the thing. “What is this? Is this a robe?”

  “It’s ugly, whatever it is,” Chelsea said, disinterested.

  As Amanda let the garment fall to the ground, she peered deeper into the box. “Hey, wait, what’s this?” She reached inside once again and pulled another object out. Chelsea drew closer, her own curiosity growing. It was a large, heavy satchel.

  Amanda opened the drawstring of the bag and pulled its mouth open. Chelsea looked over Amanda’s shoulder and shone her flashlight at the contents. The bag contained a number of assorted trinkets: a package of black candles, a loop of chain, a silver disk upon which was inscribed a bizarre symbol, and what appeared to be a thick old book.
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br />   “What the hell?” Chelsea said.

  Amanda pulled the book out of the bag and brought it into the illumination. An anonymous apprehension dawned upon Chelsea as she stared at it. Though it looked innocuous enough, it disturbed her on some fundamental level. The cover was a dusty yellow color, bound in what looked like canvas. There were no designs or artwork to be found on the cover; there were only three words, handwritten in ink: The Repton Scriptures.

  About the Author

  Born in 1989, Bartholomew Lander is a programmer, writer, and spider enthusiast. He currently works as a game client developer in Gothenburg. Inspired by such greats as Robert W. Chambers, H.P. Lovecraft, and Stephen King, he began writing The Warren Brood in early 2012, shortly before the world ended. Bartholomew is enthralled by technology, coffee, languages, and all manner of folklore and Forteana. With a style described as both dark and absurd, he seeks to share his unique vision of weird fiction with the world.

  Visit Bartholomew Lander’s website at: BartholomewLander.com

  Or, follow him on Twitter at: @BartLander