by M H Ryan
The queen staggered near the door, filling the space like a stuffed sausage. It didn’t want to leave. It feared the outside, but I couldn’t make out why. As we got closer, the outside light made its way into the room.
It spit on the ground as we got about twenty feet away, seething. Half of its head gone and dripping with blood.
A dead spider’s leg twitched as I stepped over it. In a reaction, I cut through its leg and watched the appendage move a few times on its own before stopping entirely.
With what little strength I had, I sent the thought that if it stayed there, we’d kill it just like we did every other spider. I crashed the thought into the beast over and over as I got closer.
Its eight legs pressed against the walls, and it filled much of the opening. The last thing I wanted to do right then was to kill the creature and then have to cut through it like some sick butcherer, just to get out of this hamster maze.
We didn’t have the time. The smoke would kill us before we even got through her massive body.
I kept crashing the idea that whatever it thought was outside; we were worse. It didn’t want to face us.
“I’m feeling sick,” Kara said, coughing hard. “I can’t breathe.”
“Me either,” Hanna said. “The smoke is filling our lungs. If we don’t get out of here now, we’re going to die of asphyxiation.”
“I’m sorry, I’m trying,” Aubrey said, barely able to stand herself.
“I don’t want to die with them,” Eliza said on a sob, looking back at the dead spiders.
“Meh, not so bad,” Carmen said, touching some of the black goo on the ground with her hand and then picking it up, looking at it with wonder.
Then she started coughing.
“Move, you eight-legged bitch,” I yelled at the spider.
Then I thought of something. If fear couldn’t get her out, maybe something else could.
I sent the thought as hard as I could at it, and it sunk into the thing. It pushed against the walls, the scraping sound dimming the tunnel. I kept pushing my thought at her, and then it popped out of the tunnel as if it just gave birth to a monster. Just like that, it was gone, and the light from the outside flooded in.
“Come on,” I said, coughing as I moved toward the opening.
The smoke felt thicker, and I pushed right through it blindly as I left the cave. After a few feet of smoke, the air cleared, and I took a deep breath, only to trigger a coughing fit that made the pain in my head so bad I fell to the ground. I remembered to protect Molly as we fell, rolling onto my back and letting her drop on my chest.
The sun, high in the sky, even through the canopy, felt blinding in its brilliance.
I heard the rest of the girls falling down around me, each one coughing and gasping for air. Carefully rolling Molly off me and onto the ground, I got to my feet. We had a massive spider in the area and a hundred monkeys in the trees.
The smoked settled in on the trees, giving everything up there a hazy look. That didn’t stop me from seeing the primates bouncing around in the trees. So many of them were moving around that it became hard to track a single one.
Then I felt it—the queen spider. She had been fooled and was pissed off.
It let out a burst of noises, muffled by the blood in her mouth but loud and powerful. I felt the spiders in the cave. They had found another way. A good thirty of them were making their way toward the entrance of the cave.
They spotted the queen under the trees and near the waterline. It made eye contact with me with those disturbing blue eyes. It stood between us and the raft. The raft would be our only chance of escaping in the shape we were in. Then the giant mother spider ran at us, screeching and kicking up sand.
A monkey dropped to the ground under a tree about fifty feet from us. Then another, and another, and soon, dozens were descending from the trees all around us.
Each breath I took felt like an assault on my lungs, and my head throbbed so bad, it blurred my vision and stifled my thoughts. I lifted my knife and found the girls were moving next to me, looking weak but angry, holding their weapons.
“If this is the end…” Shaya said.
“It won’t be,” Eliza said. “It can’t be.”
“If this is the end, it was one hell of a ride,” Sherri said, holding up her spear. “Bring it on, bitches.”
“Cool, check that out,” Carmen said, looking almost drunk as she pointed at the entrance to the cave.
Spiders poured out of the cave and moving in all directions as they came out of the small opening.
“I don’t want to live through this. I’m going to have nightmares for the rest of my life if I do,” Aubrey said, staring at the spiders coming out of the cave.
More monkeys were falling from the trees, and now they were hooting, hollering, and stomping on the ground. There had to be hundreds of them now. I searched for the alpha, in a hope to reach him, but the smoke stung my eyes so much, everything was blurry.
Monkey, spiders, queens, and almost nothing left in us. Any one of those things we could have handled, but all of them at once? We didn’t have a realistic chance. I yelled, gripped my knife, and planned on fighting to the very end. Nothing was going to hurt my women.
Chapter 36
She’s with you. We all are, Murrack whispered in my head.
The ocean breeze blew, and I felt something touching my arm.
A dandelion fluff fluttered on my arm. It blew off, and I watched it floating through the wind, as if being pulled along by something unseen. Then it landed on a monkey with two females standing on either side of him—the alpha.
My breath left me as I said, “Thank you, Lyra.”
I reached out to my hairy friend and didn’t waste a moment, as we didn’t have more than one left, and placed the idea that we were to be protected at all costs. A command from Lyra. A plea to help.
It sunk in his mind like a stone in water, and everything changed.
The alpha hollered and hooted, and the monkeys stopped pounding on the ground and jumped into action.
The first thing they moved to were the spiders piling out of the cave entrance. They jumped on their backs, pounding them in the face and ripping their eyes out with their mouths. The spiders, shocked at first, moved quickly and began their own attacks, biting and stinging the monkeys.
It was a losing battle for the spiders, though. The monkeys were quicker and dodged most of the attacks against them. It wasn’t long before the spiders were rushing back into the cave, being chased by fifty angry primates.
That left the queen by herself, injured and staring at us.
I knew now what it feared out of the cave—it was the monkeys. It searched the trees with its one good eye and it felt doom, as well as any creature of its intelligence, could.
The monkeys hated the big bug, and I had a feeling this war had been coming for a long time. They fell from the trees, landing on the massive queen spider. It flung them off, only to be replaced by a dozen more. It screeched, calling for help, but the monkeys were at the cave entrance, keeping what was left inside.
I tried not to look away from the sickening end of the queen as the primates used their hands to pull the guts from the thing’s head, savaging destroying its body.
The queen spider let out one final cry and then fell to the ground in a thud. Dust kicked up around it, and the monkeys paused in their destruction, covered in black blood. They gathered around the carcass, and I felt the joy in them. The adrenaline and happiness flooded through them all in a wave.
The alpha joined them and started jumping up and down, screaming and hollering. They all joined in, making for a chaotic scene of deafening proportions.
“What the hell just happened?” Hanna asked, coughing a few times and wiping a tear from her dirty face.
“Jack saved us,” Eliza said. “I wasn’t sure if it was going to happen, but it did.”
“We all did it,” I said. “I’d be dead in there without you all.”
I pulled Eliza against me, and she started crying into my shoulder. Then Sherri and Aubrey rushed over to me and hugged me as well. Kara jumped into the four of us, wrapping her arms around my neck and hanging on. Shaya hung back but I waved her over and she rushed in, hugging us as well. Kara squeezed me tighter in her embrace.
“You’re choking me,” I said, laughing as I let go of them and set Kara back down. “How are the girls?”
“They’re alive,” Hanna said, kneeling next to Emma and feeling her wrist.
Benji coughed and rolled onto her side. She blinked a few times and then kept her eyes open, staring at me.
“We’re alive?” she asked.
“Yes.”
“Cool.”
“Yes, it is,” I said and helped her up to a sitting position.
Cass sat up as well, coughing and holding onto her head. “That sucked so bad,” Cass groaned. “I’m never going into a cave again.”
“I don’t know, that was kind of crazy but kind of awesome as well,” Sherri said, touching the redness on her leg and wincing.
“Kind of a waste, if you ask me,” Carmen said as she inspected one of the dead spiders. “Those things were proof of how powerful the stones can be and now they’re dead. We didn’t have to end it like that.”
“What are you talking about?” Aubrey asked.
“Didn’t you guys feel it? The power in them? They had the black stone stuff running in their blood.”
I looked at my arms and chest, covered in the stuff.
“Crap,” I said, grabbing some leaves and trying to smear it off.
“Don’t bother, it’s not active out of their body,” Carmen sighed. “Such a shame.” She stared at the cave where a few dozen monkeys still stood.
I stretched my senses in the cave and felt the spiders, though they were deep into it and scared. They wouldn’t be coming out again anytime soon.
“Whoa, look at that fire,” Sherri said, pointing to the sky.
Way up, high into the sky, the smoke trailed upward. The tree we set on fire burned at the top of the island like a candle. The branches and leaves had flames and smoke covering them all. The fire seemed contained to the single, big tree at the top of the hill, and I heard it crackling as it burned. The trunk had a fire burning through the middle, as if it started from the inside. Smoking and flaming branches fell from it and hit the ground below.
“Wow,” Kara said. “That is crazy.”
“Beautiful,” Hanna said, admiring the blaze.
“Think the monkeys will turn on us?” Aubrey asked, looking around at the hundreds of them.
“No, they won’t hurt us,” I said, making sure I kept a soft connection with the alpha just in case.
“Should I let her go?” Carmen asked. “I kind of want to let her go.”
“Let go of who?” Sherri asked.
“Lyra,” I said, almost forgetting that Carmen still had her bubbled. “You still have her? Yes, let her go.”
Carmen let out a long breath and then smiled.
“She’s gone. I think,” Carmen said and looked confused.
A dandelion flew by me. Then more of them. Soon a flurry of them stirred up around the ground and sent leaves and dirt swirling around about ten feet off the ground.
They fell all at once, and standing in the middle of the aftermath was Lyra, still wearing her silk dress but looking paler, weaker than before. Her eyes didn’t glow anymore and were golden brown.
“Lyra?” I asked and grabbed my knife. “You left us to die in there.”
“I assure you, I had no choice,” Lyra said. “Please, I don’t have much time or energy left, and I want to use it to do what I promised.”
“Home,” Cass said, looking to the ocean.
I stopped and glared at Lyra.
“Yes, home,” Lyra said, avoiding eye contact with me while looking at her hands as if for the first time. Then she gazed at Carmen. “Amazing what you did. You kept me from it when it was dying. Thank you.”
“For what?” Carmen asked. “All I did was block your ass from using whatever powers you have. Not that I felt much coming from you. Probably could use a few stones in ya, if you know what I mean.”
“I do know what you mean. You saved me more than you can ever know. But you have a burden, my child,” Lyra said, walking toward Carmen. “With what little I have left from the Tree of Olmera, I want to help you specifically because you are carrying more than you ever should.”
“Help me with—” Carmen started to say.
Lyra punched Carmen in the stomach, and Carmen let out a cry of pain. It wasn’t just a punch, I realized—her hand was in her stomach.
“What are you doing?” I asked, rushing to her with a knife in hand.
“Saving her. Saving you all from what she would have become,” Lyra said and pulled her hand out of Carmen.
Carmen fell to the ground, and Lyra held up a black stone, about twice the size that I’d seen it last time.
“She had this in her, eating away at her, and with her power, she would have been the death of you all. I have freed her from it.”
The massive tree on the hill made a cracking sound, and then it split in two, collapsing to the ground on either side of the hill in a shower of sparks and ash. The island shook from the impact.
At the same moment, the tree fell, so did Lyra. The stone fell out of her hand and on the ground.
I had the urge to grab it but stayed back.
Cass threw her piece of metal at it and wrapped the thing up, falling to her knees from the effort.
“Carmen?” Hanna asked, touching her friend’s hair as she inspected her midsection, but there didn’t appear to be any wounds.
“Hanna?” Carmen said, looking confused. “What happened?”
“What do you think about hideous, giant spiders?” Hanna asked.
“Gross, like, I hate spiders totally,” Carmen said.
Hanna hugged her tightly. “I’m so glad to hear that.”
I went to Lyra, who still lay on the ground, keeping my knife at the ready.
She looked up at me with tears in her eyes.
“What we did here today will not go unnoticed,” Lyra said. “We have tried to hide you from him, but I am afraid that is all over with. He will not stop until he has you all. With your friend, it may already be too late.”
“Who?”
“Areo,” Kara said, kneeling next to Lyra and me.
“Yes, her. She is special,” Lyra said and took a deep breath, closing her eyes.
“Stay with us,” Kara said, holding Lyra’s hand.
She opened her eyes and smiled. “You felt the Olmera,” Lyra said.
“Guys,” Sherri said, swaying to the side and stumbling a few steps. “I don’t feel too…”
She fell to the ground.
“Sherri,” I said and rushed to her.
She looked pale and sweaty as I reached her. When I touched her, she felt hot with fever.
“They stung her,” Lyra said, looking weak. “She will die.”
“No, no, she can’t die,” Benji said. “There has to be something we can do.” Benji looked around to us for answers.
I held Sherri’s head up a little off the ground. “Can you hear me?” I asked, but she didn’t respond. Her body was limp in my hands.
“Fix her,” Eliza yelled at Lyra. “I know you know how.”
“There is a way, but it will be a tough choice for you all to make,” Lyra said.
“Whatever it is, we’ll do it,” Aubrey said.
“The place you come from has a spring. Submerge her in it and it will take the poison from her,” Lyra said.
“We are so far from that,” Aubrey said. “Can she make it that far?”
“She will not make it,” Eliza said. “But Lyra can help us get there, can’t you.”
“You are right, my child but this is the tough choice that I suspect isn’t a tough choice at all for you people,” Lyra said in a whisper. “I have many
powers and many stories to share but only a few minutes before the tree falls entirely away and with it most of me. I have the power for one more feat: I can take all of you home.”
“You can get us home?” Cass asked.
“Yes, but you need to tell me which home you want me to take you to?”
“Yin Island, our home,” Benji said. “We have to save Sherri.”
“As you said, it’s not a choice at all,” I said, feeling the hot and sweat coming from Sherri. “Take us there now.”
“Carry me to your craft. My powers are weakening and I may only get you close to it,” Lyra said.
Shaya rushed to her with Benji and Aubrey. They picked up the small women. I picked up Sherri in my arms and we rushed to Luna. The monkeys moved to the sides of us, watching us all as we made our way to the shoreline. We passed the carcass of the queen spider and I avoided looking at the torn-apart corpse. I would be happy to be off this island.
I climbed onto the craft and held Sherri in my arms. She looked terrible as if the very life was being sucked out of here. “Sherri, hang in there. We’re getting you home.”
I kissed her forehead and felt the heat against my lips.
The rest of the girls got onto the boat and sat Lyra down near the mast.
“Kara,” Lyra said, reaching for her.
Kara kneeled next to her. “How can I help?”
“You felt the Olmera,” Lyra said, repeating what she had said earlier before Sherri collapsed. “It can live on through you.”
“What will happen to you?” Kara asked.
“I’m not sure. Carmen has done something in me that I didn’t think was possible but I think once the tree dies, I will be reborn in a way,” Lyra said.
“Listen, either get us the fuck home, or I’m going to do some reborning on your ass,” Aubrey said, holding onto Sherri with me. Panic and tears filled her eyes.
“Yes, please,” Benji said.
“Very well, I only wish we had more time… Gather close, my children, tight at you can and hold on to each other as if your life depended on it. We don’t want to lose anyone and time will want to pull us apart. Don’t let it.”
I carried Sherri and we all huddled at the mast, pressed together with Lyra getting to her feet in the middle.