by Jeff Strand
Why had he thought this would be fun?
Jaunty just crouched there for a while, feeling lost.
"Hey!"
Jaunty looked up and saw Depravo signaling to him.
"You've missed the past couple of groups! Interact, dammit!"
Another line of people entered the room. Jaunty didn't want to do this anymore, but he also didn't want to get the others in trouble, and he needed to pay for his share of the trailer and the macaroni and cheese. He wasn't going to let one young woman saying that she hated clowns destroy him.
He popped into view with a hair-raising cackle.
A little girl shrieked and burst into tears.
Jaunty almost wanted to burst into tears himself.
CHAPTER FIVE
"It's time to come in now," Pearl called out the back door.
"Why are you making them come in?" asked Elwood. "They're playing outside. Do you know how long it took me to pry them away from the video games? The only time these kids get any fresh air is when they stay with us."
"It's getting dark out."
"They're staying in the yard. It'll be fine. Let them play."
"Never mind," Pearl called out to their grandchildren.
Elwood and Pearl had only one child, their daughter Donna who lived in North Carolina. She was divorced from her deadbeat husband and had custody of their three boys. She'd had children late in life, as had Elwood and Pearl, but once they got started she'd pumped three of them out in rapid succession. Mason was eight, Oliver was seven, and Aiden was six, so Donna had a permanent twitchy eye.
Elwood and Pearl enjoying having their grandchildren around and had a standing offer that whenever Donna wanted to make the three-hour drive and drop them off for the weekend, she was welcome to do so. She frequently took them up on that offer.
Elwood glanced out the back window. Oliver and Aiden were trying to kick the soccer ball into the net while Mason played goalkeeper. As far as he was concerned, if they were out there getting low-tech exercise, they could stay outside until midnight.
He wandered into the kitchen to grab a beer out of the fridge. He popped off the bottle cap, took a long swig, and quietly belched. Then he noticed movement to his left.
He looked over there. Nothing.
He took another swig of beer, almost emptying the bottle. There was the movement again—something scurrying across the kitchen window. Looked like a spider but it was way too big.
He walked over to the window. It was a spider. Two spiders, in fact. If he weren't still on the first of the two beers he allowed himself every day, he'd think he was drunk. They looked like wolf spiders, and he knew that those bastards grew big, especially in Australia, but if you included their legs these things were as long as his forearm.
"Hey, Pearl! Come take a look at this."
Pearl saw what he was talking about as soon as she walked into the kitchen. "That must be Mason playing a practical joke."
"You think they're fake?"
"You think they're real?"
Elwood walked over to the window to get a closer look. Despite their size, those spiders sure looked and moved like they were real. A third one crawled onto the window.
"Let's bring the kids inside," Elwood told Pearl.
One of their grandchildren screamed.
Elwood and Pearl rushed out of the kitchen. As Pearl threw open the back door, they saw Mason, Oliver, and Aiden running toward them. The grass seemed to be moving.
The kids hurried inside and Pearl slammed the door shut behind them. Elwood gaped out the window. The grass wasn't moving; there were so many spiders crawling over it that it looked like it was moving.
What the hell was happening? Where did they all come from?
Aiden was sobbing and Pearl scooped him up into her arms.
"Did any of you get bit?" Elwood asked.
His grandchildren shook their heads.
"You're safe. We'll just stay inside. They can't—"
His sentence was proven to be a lie before he even finished it. A few of the giant spiders were crawling across the kitchen floor. They weren't moving any more quickly than a normal spider, but they certainly looked like they had targets in mind.
Time to get out to the car and flee.
Elwood took Mason and Oliver's hands as they went into the living room. He looked out the front window. No sign of any spiders in the front yard, and the car was parked close. They'd be fine. He let go of Mason's hand, grabbed the car keys off the hook, and opened the door. The five of them ran out to the vehicle. After the grandchildren were safely in the back seat, Elwood turned to Pearl. "I'll be back in a second. Going to get Harvey."
Pearl nodded. "Please be careful."
Elwood went back into the house and hurried down the hallway. The last door on the right was their bedroom, where their bulldog Harvey would be in his usual spot on the bed. Harvey wasn't a very active dog anymore and didn't leave the bed much except at mealtime and for outdoor restroom breaks. He could no longer jump up onto the bed by himself, so they'd made him a ramp.
A giant spider was on the bed, crawling toward him.
There were a couple of others—one crawling on the dresser and one on the ceiling. At least it wasn't the massive wave of them that were outside. Elwood didn't question how they got inside. They had an occasional mouse problem, so why not spiders?
Harvey snapped at the spider, which seemed unimpressed. It didn't stop moving.
Elwood scooped up the bulldog. Elwood wasn't exactly young, and Harvey wasn't exactly small, so he had to hold the dog against his chest to keep from dropping him.
The spider on the ceiling leapt down upon the bed. It didn't gracefully slide down on a thread of web—the goddamn thing leapt.
Elwood backed out of the room, then yelped as something crunched underneath his feet. He looked down. He'd stepped on two legs of a spider. Quickly, Elwood finished the job. Thank God he'd been wearing shoes.
Now there were several spiders in the hallway. If he tried to run, he'd risk dropping Harvey, so he did a quick walk, crushing another spider that came straight at him without fear.
There were a couple of spiders on the living room ceiling. He gave them a wide berth as he hurried toward the front door, wondering when Harvey had started weighing eight hundred pounds. Harvey whimpered but didn't struggle to get out of Elwood's arms.
A spider gracefully slid down on a thread of web.
It was right in the middle of the open doorway. If this giant spider invasion were happening a few years ago, Elwood would've just ducked underneath it, but he had a bad back and this was going to be a more difficult process. He couldn't put Harvey on the floor and let the bulldog run to the car—there were now spiders all over the driveway.
Another spider descended. Surely the spiders weren't consciously trying to trap him in his home, but it did stop at a point lower than the first spider, making his escape through the doorway even more of a challenge.
Elwood needed at least one arm free, so he shifted Harvey's weight, struggling not to drop the dog. He grabbed a jacket that was hanging next to the doorway and frantically waved it at the two spiders, dislodging them from their webs. As they hit the ground, he stomped on both of them.
A third spider was beginning to descend in the doorway but it hadn't gotten far, so Elwood ducked underneath it and went outside, taking the jacket with him.
There were hundreds of spiders in his front yard. Where had they all come from? Many of them were already crawling on the car. Mason, Oliver, and Aiden were screaming in the backseat, but it seemed to be in response to the overall terror of the situation and not because a spider was back there with them.
He hurried over to the car, almost losing his grip on Harvey but managing to not drop his beloved pet, though he dropped the jacket. There were several spiders crawling on the driver's side door, including one that completely covered the door handle.
The passenger side had fewer spiders, but Pearl needed a new hip a
nd she'd injure herself trying to scoot over the center console into the driver's seat. No way could Elwood lift his foot high enough to squash the spiders on the door.
If they opened and closed the door really, really quickly, he should be able to get Harvey into the back seat with his grandchildren before any spiders got inside. He couldn't open the door himself, though.
"Oliver! Aiden! Get as far to the other side as you can!" he said. He would've waved to demonstrate, but he didn't have a free hand. The boys immediately did as they were told.
"Mason, you're going to open the door and I'm going to put Harvey in there. A spider or two might get in. Grab something to crush them with."
Mason nodded bravely, and held up a hardcover Hunger Games book.
A spider crawled over Elwood's shoe. He ignored it and held Harvey next to the door. "Now!"
Mason opened the door. Elwood tossed the bulldog into the back seat. Mason closed the door, bisecting a spider that tried to get inside.
Elwood didn't think any spiders had gotten in there, but then Mason started smashing something with the book, over and over. When he held it up, spider guts were smeared all over the back.
So now Elwood had only his own safety to worry about.
He looked over at his jacket. Several spiders were crawling on it.
He considered taking off his shirt and using it to brush the spiders off the door, but truthfully the process of removing his shirt would take longer than just finding something else to use. Getting old sucked.
He used his left foot to squash the spider that had crawled on his right foot.
Elwood made the mistake of looking to the side of his house and for a moment was completely paralyzed with fear. He couldn't believe how many spiders were headed this way. It was like a river of them.
Where had they come from? It was as if God said, "Well, humanity, you had a decent run, but it's time for your extermination, so have fun as you die screaming!"
He could not afford to stand there, paralyzed with fear. Every second counted.
He glanced around the yard. Aiden had been playing with a plastic toy truck earlier, and it was the closest spider-crushing item available. Elwood walked over to it, groaned as he bent over to pick it up, and then returned to the car.
It hadn't taken very long, but the number of spiders on the car had already doubled. He should've told Pearl to get in the driver's seat—he didn't want her to leave him behind to perish, but she could've at least driven the car to a less spider-infested area while he followed on foot.
He used the plastic truck to smash a few spiders that were in the way, then opened the driver's side door. He got inside as quickly as he could, which was not quickly enough to stop some spiders from crawling inside before he closed the door.
How many of them? Eight? Nine?
"Everybody watch out," said Elwood, as he took the keys out of his pocket and shoved them into the ignition. "Some of them are in here! Mason, be ready with that book!"
"Okay, Grandpa!"
The car, a reliable, fuel-efficient automobile, started when he turned the key. Elwood squished two spiders with his foot and one with his elbow. Where were the others?
One was right there on his leg. He cried out and slapped it with his bare hand. That wasn't enough to crush it. He balled his hand into a fist and smashed it a few times until it was unquestionably dead. No time to wipe the gook off his hand—he grabbed the steering wheel and floored the accelerator.
"They might have gone under the seat, so everybody put your feet up," he said.
"What's making this happen?" asked Pearl. "Floodwaters driving them out from where they were living?"
"I just want to know how they got so big. They may have spiders like that in South America or something, but not here in Virginia. This is crazy."
"I see some legs!" Oliver shouted.
Elwood couldn't see what Mason was doing, but he heard a few thumps. Then Mason sat back up again. "I got it."
"Good boy," said Elwood. Now that he was safe, he found himself wanting to burst into tears, but he kept himself calm. He didn't want Pearl and the grandchildren thinking he didn't have everything under control.
He blinked some sweat out of his eyes.
He realized that his left arm was going numb, but he didn't have time to deal with that right now, or the tightness in his chest.
"Are you okay?" Pearl asked.
Elwood tried to reassure her that he was fine, but couldn't get the words out. He tried a different tactic, sarcastically asking why she thought he'd be okay right now when nature was running amok all around them, but he couldn't form that particular sentence, either.
Then a stinging pain shot through his ankle, which he didn't think was one of the symptoms of cardiac arrest.
He looked down and, yeah, there was a spider on his foot. He shook it off. The pain didn't fade.
Elwood tried to explain to everybody what was happening, explain that Mason might have to climb over the seat and drive, even though he was only eight years old, but the only sound he could force himself to make was to cry out again when another spider bit him.
This was immediately followed by a third bite. Whether it was a third spider or the first one again, he didn't know. But he did know that he couldn't just let these things keep biting him, especially if he was simultaneously having a heart attack.
The smart course of action would have been to stop the car, deal with the spider problem, and then resume driving. Terror, pain, and the dizzy spell kept Elwood from making the wise decision. He was driving too fast under normal circumstances, when he was fully alert and aware, and in his current condition there was no real way this could end except for the car smashing into one of the many trees in the area.
Elwood, who had not fastened his seatbelt, smacked into the steering wheel.
Pearl, who had not fastened hers either, smacked into the dashboard.
There were cries of pain from the back seat.
Elwood wanted to just slip into a relaxing sleep, but sat up and shook it off. He could sleep later. Right now he had to get his wife and grandchildren out of this nightmare. Pearl wiped blood from her mouth and looked into the back seat. "Is everybody okay?"
"I hit my head," said Aiden.
"Mason? Oliver?"
Mason and Oliver indicated that they were okay. Elwood's sense of relief only lasted an instant, because everything suddenly went into sharp focus. He was aware that this had not been a minor accident. He couldn't have hit the very large tree more directly if he'd been specifically aiming for it. He would not simply be putting the vehicle into reverse, backing up, and driving off to safety.
The other very important thing he somehow hadn't noticed was that both the front and rear windshields had shattered in the accident.
This removed the appealing option of "just wait for help to arrive." Elwood retained the presence of mind not to curse around his grandchildren, but he couldn't project a sense of serenity. He was freaking out, and he was pretty sure everybody knew it.
They could outrun their attackers. They were just spiders.
Okay, maybe he and Pearl couldn't outrun them, but the children could. The children would be safe. Harvey, too.
Elwood looked around to orient himself. He really hadn't driven very far. If he'd gone a little further before he crashed the car, they might be away from the wave of spiders, but here there were still plenty of them around.
"Boys, you're going to get out and run," Pearl said, looking into the backseat. "Hold each other's hands. Just run as fast as you can down that road until you reach Mrs. Craft's house. If the spiders are there, just keep running. Don't let go of each other's hands. Do you understand?"
Elwood couldn't hear anything, but he assumed the boys were nodding.
"Grandpa and I will be fine. Don't worry about us."
"The spiders are gonna get you!" said Aiden.
"No," said Pearl. "No, they're not. Go now. Go."
The back door
opened and the boys scrambled out of the car. Some spiders had already crawled onto the crumpled front hood. Elwood did everything he could to stay awake. It was surprising that various aches kept him up at night, yet he was having trouble remaining conscious despite the agonizing pain in his foot.
A spider crawled in through the broken front windshield. Elwood looked around for the plastic truck but couldn't find it.
"Can you run?" Pearl asked.
Elwood nodded, even though he definitely couldn't run.
He turned to watch the boys. Mason, Oliver, and Aiden all fled, with a frantically barking Harvey running next to them. They were holding hands, just like Pearl told them. They were good boys. They'd be fine.
Aiden fell.
His brothers pulled him up.
There was something on his back.
"Oh my God!" Pearl wailed.
Aiden fell again, taking Oliver with him.
"We have to go help them!" said Pearl, throwing open the passenger-side door. Elwood didn't know how he felt about this.
Oliver got to his feet, and Elwood could see that he was covered with spiders, which snapped Elwood out of his lethargy. He tried to tell Pearl not to get out of the car, explain that if three healthy young boys couldn't outrun the spiders, an old lady sure as hell wasn't going to make it, but she'd already gotten out of the vehicle.
Mason frantically tried to pull his brothers up.
All three of the boys were screaming.
Harvey was running in circles and barking, though the dog didn't seem to have any spiders on him yet.
Now both Aiden and Oliver were covered with spiders.
Mason, God bless him, refused to leave them behind, even though Elwood could see that the younger brothers were doomed.
Pearl, miraculously, made it about twenty feet before the spiders brought her down. Much further than Elwood would've expected.
Mason fell.
Harvey ran off.
More spiders poured into the vehicle. Elwood brushed them off his arms and legs and chest and face but more kept coming.