by Hall, Andrew
‘Anyway, next thing I know, I’ve woken up today like this,’ she said. Tabitha looked down at her grey hands, still covered in silver blood. She wiped them on her jeans.
‘Well I’m glad you came around when you did,’ he said, shell shocked, looking back at the spidery silver corpses on the road.
‘So tell me what happened next,’ said Tabitha.
‘Well, like I said, all this happened three days ago. In the middle of the night. The sky turned white, like lightning, but… everywhere. It’s hard to explain. Then all the lights went out. Everything just stopped working.’
‘EMP,’ Tabitha muttered. Something straight out of a film.
‘What?’
‘EMP,’ she repeated. Hadn’t he heard of that? The man just shook his head, bemused. ‘It’s something from science fiction,’ she explained. He shrugged. ‘Electro-Magnetic Pulse… it fries every circuit in the blast radius.’ She felt like a knob for saying blast radius. No one said that.
‘Does it do that?’ he replied, nodding up behind her. Turning, Tabitha saw a fallen satellite buried in the roof of a shop.
‘…Yeah,’ she mumbled, staring at it with a grim fascination. It was huge, ruined. A hulking lump of space hardware sticking out from mossy roof tiles. An even stranger sight than the rubble of shops around it.
‘Well, I’m Dev, by the way,’ he said, holding out his hand. Breaking the hard silence of a dead world.
‘Tabitha,’ she replied, shaking his hand as gently as she could. She could see the shock in his eyes then, the moment he took hold of cold metal instead of soft warm skin. He didn’t pull away though; he had the courtesy not to mention it either. His smile faded to a haunted stare.
‘I just saw my brother die, before you found me,’ he said, hoarse voice trembling. He clamped a bloody hand over his eyes, sobbed for a moment, and wiped the tears away down his dusty cheeks.
‘I mean, what is this?’ he said, looking around at the shattered world. ‘Is it punishment from god or something? They’ve killed everyone! What are we supposed to do?’
‘I don’t know,’ Tabitha mumbled quietly. Hesitating, she put a grey hand on Dev’s shoulder as he sank down to his knees on the road. His sobs clashed against the silence and the peaceful birdsong. The sky was a gleaming blue. Towering clouds shone white in the sun. Their world had ended; Earth had carried on as if nothing had happened. The thought struck her then, a hard grim revelation. This was a new world now. And it wasn’t one that tolerated weakness. Every gap and shattered window could have a spider inside it, waiting for its chance.
‘We should get moving,’ she said softly. Tabitha stamped her own raw grief deep down. Buried it under a good layer of grit, to dig up later when she could afford to. If they both fell apart now, the world would soon finish them off.
‘Come on,’ she insisted. She took Dev’s hand to pull him to his feet. ‘It’s dangerous here. We should get going.’ Dev stood up, wiped his bloodshot eyes, and nodded sadly.
‘Where to?’ he said, his voice thick with grief. Tabitha looked around at the world, and tried to think where they could go. She glanced down again at the cuddly toy in the puddle. She picked it up, wrung the grimy brown water from it, and sat it upright on the kerb to dry in the sun.
‘We’re going to look for survivors,’ she said. ‘Then we’re going to get out of here.’
They walked on in silence for a while, keeping an eye on the walls and windows. The only sound was their footsteps in the eerie silence.
‘Tell me more about what happened,’ said Tabitha, leading the way down the high street. ‘That satellite fell down on the shop back there, so what else?’
‘There was a plane,’ Dev replied quietly. ‘It just… dropped out of the sky into the sea. We could hear the survivors, screaming in the water. Something was eating them.’ Tabitha glanced at him. He stared blankly down the road as they walked. Haunted. ‘The street lights all went out, and then all the cars wouldn’t start,’ he said, frustrated. ‘Nothing worked. Our phones didn’t work. TVs and radios didn’t work. There weren’t even any police. Then the next thing we know, the army turns up.’
‘What happened then?’ said Tabitha.
‘We were all standing outside after the power cuts,’ he said, shaking his head. Choking up. ‘It was pitch black, nobody could see anything,’ he was sobbing. ‘Those spiders came out of the dark, from the beach and... all we could hear was screams, and… things just falling out of the sky.’ He looked a million miles away, wiping away his tears.
‘Jesus,’ Tabitha mumbled, giving the sobbing man a hug. He smelled of dust and sweat. She looked around at the ruins of her home town, and let Dev let go first. He nodded his thanks for the hug, and wiped his tired eyes with dusty hands.
‘So what about the army?’ she asked him.
‘They got butchered like the rest of us,’ he replied, sniffling. ‘All their night vision and stuff, that all stopped working too. There wasn’t much of a fight. It was just screaming, all night. The morning after, there was no one left. Just me and my brother walking through town, and five or six people we saw down the street. They didn’t see us. But we couldn’t shout to them, in case the spiders found us.’
‘How have you survived?’ she asked him.
‘Just hiding,’ Dev replied. ‘That’s all we could do.’
‘So you’ve not tried to get out of town?’ she said, watching him wipe the tears from his eyes.
‘Yeah, we did try,’ he replied, his voice faltering. ‘Ever since it happened, we were trying. There’s no way out though. Those things are everywhere.’
‘What about the sea? Getting on a boat?’ said Tabitha.
‘Have you seen those things in the water?’ he replied. ‘They’re eating all the boats anyway. There’s no way out. There’s spiders in the sewers too. You can hear them at night when you’re trying to hide. You can’t sleep. You just have to keep moving and hiding, looking for food.’
‘Jesus Christ,’ said Tabitha.
‘Yeah.’ Dev agreed, wiping the cold tears off his dusty cheeks.
‘So, where are these other survivors you saw?’
‘Don’t know,’ Dev shrugged. ‘We only saw them once. They could be dead by now.’
‘We should try to find them,’ Tabitha suggested.
‘There’s no point,’ he replied. ‘It’ll get us killed.’ His eyes widened with a sudden realisation. ‘Hey, we can get out of town now!’ he said. ‘You can handle the spiders, we’ll be alright! We can get out!’
‘Not until we’ve found those other people,’ Tabitha insisted. Dev scoffed at the idea, stared at her in disbelief.
‘But everyone’s already dead,’ he said.
‘You don’t know that,’ Tabitha replied. ‘They might have survived, like you.’ Dev was shaking his head.
‘We’re missing our chance to get out,’ he argued.
‘They might still be alive,’ said Tabitha. ‘We owe it to them to find them.’
‘They’re not our problem,’ said Dev, shaking his head. ‘It’s not like they came to find me and my brother. I say leave them to it.’ Tabitha looked at him in shock. Was he really that cold? ‘We don’t have to make this complicated,’ said Dev. ‘Let’s just get out. It’s every man for himself now, anyway.’
‘Really?’ Tabitha replied, disbelieving. ‘So, I should have left those spiders to kill you then? Is that what you mean?’
‘Hey, behind you!’ he said, pointing over her shoulder. A spider was stalking down from the wall of a dry cleaners behind her, baring its mouth.
‘What!?’ she yelled at it, pulling her carving knife from her belt. The spider hesitated, and didn’t come any closer. ‘So I should have left you to die?’ she asked Dev. ‘I should have let those things kill you?’ Dev looked from the spider back to her.
‘…Look, you’re right,’ he sighed, dropping his shoulders. ‘I’m sorry. You saved my life. But… this is our chance. Look, we could get out of town right now
,’ he said, pointing down the road. ‘Just a couple of streets to the town hall, then we can take the main road and get out. You could fight us a way out, I could watch your back. It’s simple.’
‘No,’ Tabitha said stubbornly, walking off towards the market square. She couldn’t protect the ones she loved any more, and it burned a hole in her heart. But maybe there were more people out there she could help. She had to try.
‘Well, I’m going to make a run for it,’ said Dev, looking at the shattered tower on the town hall. ‘Straight to the town hall, then out down the main road,’ he said. Tabitha stopped and looked back at him.
‘They’ll come after you,’ she replied, looking up at the buildings. There were spiders dotted around on half-hidden walls, splayed out flat against the bricks. Watching. Dev looked up at them and hesitated.
‘And that one,’ Tabitha added, nodding at the spider outside the dry cleaners behind him. Dev backed away from it. ‘But, it’s up to you.’ She turned and walked away. Dev stared at the spider on the street, edging its way towards him.
‘Fine, hold up!’ he said, defeated, running from the spider to catch up with her. Tabitha scratched an itch on her cheek with her strange rough hands. Her fingers felt like sandpaper. She waited for Dev to catch up, and together they wandered on into the urban ruins.
‘So what’s going on with you, anyway?’ said Dev. ‘You got stung by one of them, so now you’ve got some weird superpowers or something?’ Tabitha walked on in silence. She watched stray newspapers shifting around on the road, rustling and tumbling in the breeze.
‘What about the air force?’ she asked him, changing the subject.
‘What?’
‘Alien invasion… where was the air force? Fighter jets and things?’
‘No idea,’ Dev replied. ‘Busy fighting them everywhere else first, probably. I don’t think this town’s high on their list of priorities.’
‘True,’ she conceded. ‘So, where was the last place you saw these survivors?’
‘Like I said, I don’t know. Last ones we saw were on the street around the Queen’s Head.’
‘Right,’ said Tabitha, turning down a side street towards the old pub across town.
‘This is insane,’ said Dev, watching the high walls of the shops for spiders.
‘Saving people’s lives is insane?’
‘They’re already dead,’ he insisted.
‘We don’t know that.’
‘Well, they’re probably dead.’
‘Get over there.’
‘What?’
‘Over there!’ Tabitha snapped. She pushed Dev away as a spider jumped at them from a doorway. She reached out for its silver legs and regretted it, and pulled away with a deep cut on her forearm. Before she could pull her knife there was a sudden echoing gunshot, and the spider dropped dead on the road.
‘What are you doing?’ Tabitha snapped, furious.
‘What?’ said Dev, confused. ‘I killed it,’ he objected. ‘I saved your life.’
‘Yeah, with a really loud gun!’ Tabitha argued. ‘What happened to you last time when you used your really loud gun?’ Dev stared at her, puzzled.
‘All those spiders came chasing after you?’ she reminded him.
‘Shit,’ he said, as the mistake dawned on him. Already they heard a distant chittering noise, and legs clattering down brick walls. Tabitha looked back down the road. Silvery shapes swarmed in the distance.
‘Run.’
Dev and Tabitha sprinted down a side street onto the small town square.
‘Not that way!’ Dev said breathlessly, pulling Tabitha away. ‘Stick to the walls!’ Tabitha looked back at the swarm as they ran. Half the spiders had followed them down the side street; the rest had carried on down the main road.
‘More corners,’ she said, gasping for breath. ‘We need to turn more corners and lose them!’
‘This way!’ said Dev, running on down another side street towards the shopping precinct. Tabitha had never run so fast in her life. Mortal fear pushed her on; a desperate dread pounding in her chest. Their running footsteps echoed in the silent shopping precinct beyond. Pillars and walls of miserable sixties concrete. Dev led them on down a piss-stink alleyway, past the dead market square. Every turn lost a few more spiders behind them.
‘Queen’s Head!’ said Tabitha, when Dev looked to her for direction. They sprinted on down the street for the pub as the last few spiders scuttled on behind them.
They were gasping for breath by the time they reached the pub. Tabitha peered around the wall, back down the road.
‘They’ve gone,’ she said breathlessly.
‘Sorry,’ said Dev. ‘For the gun.’ He was staggering around on sore legs outside the pub’s front door.
‘You’re an idiot,’ Tabitha replied. She couldn’t remember the last time she’d been brave enough to call someone an idiot. She couldn’t remember any time, actually.
‘I’m sorry,’ he repeated, gasping for breath. The pub sign creaked a little in the wind over their heads.
‘Just get me a drink,’ she said, staggering to her feet. Neither of them saw the spider scuttle across the road behind them. Tabitha screamed in agony and saw a bony black needle wriggling out of her thigh. She tore the spider off her legs and kicked it away onto the road. Dev’s hand hovered over his gun; he hesitated and looked around for another weapon instead.
‘Back!’ Tabitha warned him, backing away from the spider herself. ‘Just get inside the pub!’ the spider coiled up its legs and pounced at her. Tabitha gasped and met it head-on, grabbing its scrambling legs. Trying to get a solid punch in. She screamed when its claws sank in; one in her arm and one in her stomach. She landed a punch on its head and wrestled it to the kerb, and pummelled it into the road until it stopped moving. She staggered back and sat down on the road beside it, weak and breathless.
‘Shit, are you alright?’ said Dev, coming closer.
‘No,’ Tabitha mumbled, pale, clutching her bleeding thigh with both hands. The wounds in her arm and stomach were pouring too. Her silver blood pooled on the kerb and trickled down into the gutter. She felt it setting in; a throbbing pain so fierce and maddening that she just wanted to collapse on the pavement.
‘Here, let me tie this around your leg,’ said Dev, hurriedly pulling off his jacket. Tabitha gasped at the pain when he tied the sleeves tight around her thigh.
‘Lie back,’ he said, kneeling down on the road. ‘We’ve got to raise your leg up, to slow down the bleeding.’ Tabitha lay back on the pavement, and felt Dev’s hands grip her ankle and gently lift it off the road. She gritted her teeth at the pain and stared at the blue sky above, and lay still for a while to catch her breath. She felt faint; lightheaded. How much blood had she lost today? All of it? She looked over at her kill. Slowly the dead spider’s silver legs curled up tight against its body, like some weird flower closing away from the sky.
‘It looks like the blood’s stopped,’ said Dev, having held up her leg for a while. ‘You just can’t get a break, can you?’ he said gently, lowering her leg back to the road.
‘Doesn’t look like it,’ Tabitha replied, taking his hand as he helped her to sit up. ‘At least I’m still here though, I suppose.’
‘Little Miss Brightside,’ he said hoarsely, smiling. ‘Come on, I’ll get you that drink.’ Tabitha took his hand and gasped with the pain as she hobbled up.
‘Are you alright?’ he said. ‘Sit down back down if you need to.’
‘No, I’m fine,’ she lied, staggering to her feet. ‘It’s safer inside the pub.’ She felt like collapsing. The world felt far away. She freaked and backed away when she saw floating seeds drifting by.
‘What? They’re just dandelions,’ said Dev, giving her a funny look. Tabitha watched them. They were dandelion seeds.
‘I thought...’ she mumbled.
‘What?’
‘I thought they were spiders,’ she said wearily. ‘Let’s just get inside.’
‘Tha
nk god they left something here to drink,’ said Tabitha, perching on a barstool. Dev passed her a bottle of rum from behind the bar.
‘Don’t you want something to go with that?’ he said, with his sniffing nervous tick.
‘No, it’s fine,’ she replied, unscrewing the bottle cap with a whispering grind. ‘If there’s a time and a place for a really strong drink,’ she said with a smile, looking around at the gloomy pub. She gulped from the bottle, gasped, and took another swig. She felt it go down like a hard warm bolt of light, and tasted the spirit fumes on her breath. Dev took the bottle and knocked a gulp back himself.
‘I don’t know why I didn’t come in here more often,’ Tabitha said sarcastically, looking around at the murky old pub.
‘Yeah,’ Dev chuckled. ‘It just looks the same at the end of the world.’ The place was filled with over-varnished tables on an ancient threadbare carpet. It had always smelled of sour ale and stale smoke in here, and the closed curtains gave everything a glum half-light. Tabitha rubbed her fingers over her cuts, healed and itchy, brushing away bright crumbs of dried silver blood. The scars faded and vanished completely. She wouldn’t even have a few badges of honour left to show for her fights.
‘So, we’re just here to get rat-arsed on rum?’ said Dev. The glass bottle clinked against Tabitha’s metal hand as she took it back.
‘Well, it doesn’t look like there’s any survivors around here,’ she said, taking another gulp. ‘So yeah, I’d say getting rat-arsed is a good plan B.’ Dev cracked a smile, and took the bottle back.
‘To plan B then,’ he said, raising the bottle and taking a big gulp. He coughed at the taste. Tabitha took a swig and put the bottle down on the bar, and glanced around. The pub was starting to look better already.
‘So, do you always dress like that, or is it just an end-of-the-world thing?’ he asked her.
‘Dress like what?’ she replied.
‘Well, like a mountain climber,’ he said with a grin. He must have meant her plain outdoorsy t-shirt; a breathable fabric kind of thing. And the hiking boots.