Zed sits on the edge of the bed. He hands Detective Travis a cola first, to let him wet his whistle, then he pushes the hoagie filled to the brim with hard work and human flesh closer to the hospital ridden hero.
The restaurant owner stays until his victim finishes the whole sandwich.
“Now get yerself some rest,” Zed says, “you’ll be right as rain in no time.
He walks out of the room and mutters to himself, “sweet dreams you fat fuck.”
Chapter XXIX
Excavation
Alone on the cold ground, Denise holds her breath. The spiders push their pointy, segmented, legs into the folds of her uniform.
A voice sings a haunting song from the ceiling, "hey pretty girl, I'm really glad to meetcha, I smell your sweet perfume and I'm afraid I gotta eatcha!"
Every nerve ending shoots a tiny prayer to Denise's brain to wake her up from this vicious nightmare. Begging to protect the young officer, give her strength against whatever the hell is singing that song.
The spiders continue to tickle. To press against her riot gear.
To toy with her.
Not a single bite pierces her flesh.
* * * * *
Austin and Krystal abandon the shooting gallery for a nice stroll through the forest.
Her hand is soft, delicate. Somehow, despite her athletic ability and hard work waitressing at the Pitt, she never develops a callus.
Austin brandishes his flask of Zed's homemade whiskey, and swigs. "Want some?"
"Are you serious?" Krystal stops walking. "How can you drink after last night? I've probably had three gallons of water and I still feel dehydrated."
She presses on Austin's chest and pushes him back against the weeping willow tree. Her palms stick to the sweat of his plain white t-shirt.
"I'm just not a sissy," Austin smiles.
Her eyes are beautiful, everything about her is perfect. The main concern on his pickled brain is that she'll wrap those plump pillow-lips around his cock. He takes another long pull from the flask and makes a bitter face.
"How's it taste?" Krystal moves her hands to his stomach, casually, keeping the rest of her body a foot away.
"Like manhood!" Austin puffs out his chest.
She rolls her eyes. "I think I'll pass," she leans in and kisses him on the forehead, "I'll be right here when you puke like a little bitch, though," Krystal takes his hand and leads him up a trail.
"How'd you find me?" Austin asks.
"It wasn't hard. Your Aunt said you were in the woods, so I followed the sound of gunfire. I know target practice is one way you like to relieve stress."
"You heard that all the way from my house?" Austin stumbles. He looks down to concentrate on walking.
"I have pretty good hearing," she says, "how do you feel?"
"Drunk," Austin's focus drifts his glance from the ground to the firm muscles on Krystal's calves.
"Don't be an ass," she says, "you know what I mean. If you want me to be your girlfriend you have to tell me this shit."
"Why?"
"Because I don't want it to get bottled up inside you," Krystal gets to a clearing at the top of a mountain and stops. Her neck is covered in sweat.
"That's a helluva hike," Austin pants, "why the fuck'd you bring me up here?"
"It's quiet," she looks around at the city below them. "No one can hear you yell and scream. Say whatever you want to. About your dad, about Katie, about Judd.
"Whatever you need to get off your chest," she advances towards him, "I have no clue what you're going through right now, but I want you to let me in."
Austin looks down at her boobs, "can you let me in?"
She crosses her arms over her chest. "Look, I care about you a lot, but if you want to be my boyfriend, then it's more than just fucking."
"Maybe we should go back to that," Austin gives her a sly smile.
"Dude," she throws her hands in the air, "your dad killed Katie, one of our good friends. Up until her disappearance, she was at my house more than you were."
Austin watches her arms flail up and down.
"Tell me how you feel about that," she says, "let all that built up aggression out on the table. I don't want you to wake up one day and explode, or drink until your liver's the size of a golf ball."
Austin pulls the flask back out, "how'm I supposed to feel?" He fidgets with the lid until he gets it open, "I'm pissed! And I'm mad, and I'm, ya know, just fuckin' pissed! He takes a swig and puts the flask in his back pocket. "I mean, what if I end up like that fuckin' psycho?"
"Curt didn't raise you," she says softly, "Judd did. Didn't you think that Judd was your dad until, like, five years ago?"
"It's still blood. He's still the man that humped my mom long enough to make a baby, even if he didn't raise me," the whiskey kicks in harder.
"Nature versus nurture," Krystal tells him.
"He killed her, Krystal. My own fucking mom, the woman that could've made my life complete, coulda made my whole world complete."
"What?"
"Yeah," Austin walks over to a tree with a V style shape. He sits down in the middle of the split. "I guess he caught her cheating, so he murdered her."
"How'd you find out?"
"Judd called me last night when my phone was locked up in the safe. He told me everything.
"After that he said my dad was in the hospital and I needed to go talk to him. Curt confessed, even if he didn't have a tongue to say it.
"No tongue?"
"Yeah, I guess he cut it out himself. I asked him if he killed my mom, and the bastard said yes."
"I'm so sorry, babe." Krystal walks over and stands in front of Austin, she rubs the top of his head slowly, interweaving his thick, golden locks between her fingers.
"I want to stab him in the fucking heart!" He yells."I know my Mom was cheating, but he coulda just let her go, find a new girl. All these years I thought she was just a selfish bitch that cared about a guy more than me, now... everything's backwards."
"He did it in the moment," she pets his face, "It was a crime of passion, and it fucked him up." Krystal's sympathetic voice purrs, but does little to comfort her boyfriend.
"That's it?" Austin gnashes his teeth together and slowly stands up pushing her hand off his head.
"No, that's not..." Krystal tries to correct herself.
"You can't say that my mom fucking around enabled him to kill Katie," he leans against the tree, "it was two different ballparks, two different fucking sports! Katie was just a waitress he met at the BBQ Pitt who was trying to pay off her student loans."
"I know baby," Krystal puts her around him but Austin falls back into the crevice of the tree. "I don't know what to do, but I'm here for you." She guides Austin's face into her cleavage, and Austin quickly puts his focus on her instead of his father.
* * * * *
Skaggs paces around the sweet smelling cop. He gets on his knees and crawls out of her sight, taunting his vixen. He moves close to her trembling face and sniffs.
The heat of her breath sticks to his cheeks, and the smell of mint mouthwash tickles the inside of his nose.
"Hey little girl, it's really nice to meetcha," he whispers in her light pink ear. His tongue, rippled with white bumps hangs out of his mouth, dripping drool on her tight jaw line.
Skaggs leans in and licks the sweat from her face.
* * * * *
Detective Daniels tosses rocks over his shoulder. "Are you lazy jerks gonna help or what?" the thin detective turns around, expecting to see the two bums goofing off, but instead, he stares as Wolf spiders attach themselves to his partner.
The spiders rapidly wrap Marley's fingers together with silk webbing, disabling his hands. The handsome detective falls on the ground as the beasts continue to tie him up.
One of the creatures latches on to the iris of Marley's eye, blinding him, while some enter his mouth.
Marley bites the spiders for survival, crunching their exoskeletons in between h
is white teeth.
Two furry beasts pull one lip to his nose, and the other to his chin. His jaw plays tug of war with the Wolf spiders, but he loses and his mouth is open for entry.
One arachnid wraps Marley's thick, red tongue in silk, constricting the organ until it turns purple.
The spider locks its fangs deep into its dinner and decompresses Marley's taste-tester.
Two other spiders crawl down the dark man's throat, choking him while more monsters burrow into his brown hairy flesh with their sharp serrated segments.
Legs pierce through layers of fat and muscle until the carnivores drain the meat.
The beasts split and divide his body like Thanksgiving dinner.
* * * * *
Denise pants faster and faster, starting up like a lawnmower. She unfreezes and rolls around crushing her four-inch captors.
With her knife still in hand, she stabs blindly at shadows. The flashlight continues to roll away and the beam becomes less and less visible.
Swinging wildly in the darkness, she hits spider abdomens, human legs, and a man's chest.
Almost on her feet she kicks and spins.
Her tirade is cut short when Skaggs grabs her hand and squeezes. Denise feels each of her fingers pulse rapidly. The loud crack of her bones splitting rings in her eardrums before reality sets in. On her knees, she screams as loud as she can. The knife drops on the ground.
Skaggs presses the girl awkwardly down, twisting her body sideways. The pressure mounts up until her knee caps shift to her shins. Denise's bones pop out of their joints and break like twigs.
Through all the pain Denise feels his hands massage her stomach and squeeze her breasts.
He lightly scratches his manipulated fingernails across her tone abs, but stops at her love handle.
Pain shoots from her neck as Skaggs pierces his fangs in. The sound of slurping weighs heavy against the chill of rapidly losing blood. Her eyes flicker.
What feels like a million years of torture ceases as Skaggs thrusts his razor blades into her liver.
* * * * *
Judd, Bert, and Officer Ellington go down a stone set of stairs.
"These man-made?" Bert asks.
"Yeah, they built 'em a long time ago," Judd says, "this used to be a hot spot until a couple kids died here in the seventies. After that, they abandoned it and broke the dam holding back the water. Still in pretty good shape though."
"How'd they die?"
"One kid, twenty-somethin' if I remember right, fell down a deep hole and cracked open his melon. The other one, teenager this time, got a stalactite through the chest."
"Like a spike?"
"Yup," Judd says, “just like a spike. They closed it down sometime in the late fifties.”
"How'd you find it when you were younger, Judd?" Officer Ellington, a heavy set female officer asks.
"The river dried up from time to time. The water would get low, evolution gave way. Only a handful of people know it’s here, well not anymore that’s for sure.
"All these cops crawling around, place’s gonna be a goddamn zoo. I tell you what, we never went all the way to the bottom, most of us guys only got about a quarter down this staircase."
"Too deep?" Bert asks.
"Yeah. These tunnels go halfway to hell, Bert. Maybe even clear down to the devil's door."
* * * * *
Denise's blood tastes like sweet copper. It floods into his mouth as soon as he punctures her lower organs.
After Skaggs has had enough, he rises to let the spiders attack his kill. The cave stinks like rotten eggs as Denise's pants soak up shit and piss.
Skaggs leaves the half empty blood bag to his furry helpers and effortlessly moves the rocks from the entrance way, hungry for a different flavor of blood.
Chapter XXX
From The Cave to The Grave
Arachnid guts paint the cavern as Underwood sprays a full clip at the miniature monsters. What doesn't hit them destroys Marley's carcass or bounces off the cave walls.
After they're all dead, Underwood admires his handiwork. "I got 'em good, huh Daniels?"
Underwood looks over at his mentor and cringes. The armor protected Daniels' chest, but his face is in shreds from ricocheted bullets. The large officer falls and his knees crunch on the dead spiders.
'I'm such a fucking idiot' he thinks to himself.
Detective Daniels was smart, and never hesitated to teach those around him. When Underwood got out of the academy, no one believed he would last a week. Except Daniels, he treated everyone with respect, and now he's dead because of negligence.
* * * * *
Washington hears the sound of gunfire. He sheaths his badass blade and brings out an AR-15.
His team follows close behind in the wide open area. "Turn around ya'll, it sounds like they started the party without us." He looks back for an answer, but instead sees an army of spiders attacking Dwight and Kessler.
Washington smashes the little monsters with his size twelve steel-toed boots, but they won't stop. The Bayside cop lights them up with lead from his machine gun, killing all the spiders he can.
Kessler's not quick enough and they tunnel underneath her vest, up her pant legs, and in any other opening they can find.
Afraid to shoot her, Washington throws his gun on the ground and attacks using his blade. Washington pushes the female officer to the ground and slices the spiders in two, the ones he can catch that is. Despite his best effort, she dies in his arms.
The monsters retreat back into the cave clay, more like a battalion than a group of unwanted pests.
Dwight, an ex-marine sworn into the civilian world, swipes the beasts off with a machete before smashing them into the rock. He's a rookie on the force but a natural killer. He wipes the thoraxes off his shins. "What the fuck were those things?"
"Hell if I know man, but they fucked Kessler up. You see this?" Washington asks, "Right now we need to..."
Kessler starts to shake, but it's not from rigor mortis. Spiders evacuate out of her cheeks and stomach, spreading her skin to make their escape.
Washington jumps back.
Dwight rips her body apart with bullets killing off the rest of the spiders. "Let's catch this junkie and get the fuck outta this cave."
* * * * *
Skaggs pushes through the rubble from his do-it-yourself earthquake. Seven spiders crawl off Denise's dead body and join their master.
"Looking for me?" Blood and bits of flesh drip out of Skaggs' mouth.
"Skaggs?"Underwood asks.
"The one and only," Skaggs spits out a piece of skin and takes a bow.
"Did you... Did you eat Denise?" Underwood twitches his bottom lip.
"Some of her, not the parts I wanted to, though," Skaggs winks, "I let my friends have the rest," he surveys the area, "looks like you've already met those little guys, huh?" The spiders crawl from their master towards Underwood.
Underwood grabs his assault rifle and let's off two rounds before the clip runs out. Neither hit Skaggs.
"Wasted all your ammo on my creepy crawlies, didn't ya?"
The spiders surround Underwood.
"Hold on kiddos," Skaggs motions for them to stop with the palm of his hand, "let's give this meal a chance to defend itself."
Underwood tosses his gun and pulls a stainless steel knife from his boot.
Skaggs gives a Grinch-like grin and crouches down, "she tasted real nice Underwood."
"Fuck you!" Underwood paces from side to side, keeping his eyes glued to the monster. "How'd you know my name psycho?"
"I know a lot about this team now. Good ol' Denise lent me her brains," Skaggs taps the side of his head with a razorblade finger, "you, Marley, Daniels, Judd, all of ya," he sticks his tongue out, and licks the edge of the razor, the steel slides across the bottom of his tongue. "And now you..." Skaggs slices into the meat of his flavor-saver, "get to find out all about me." The razor blade splits through the middle of his tongue like a lizard.
"It's beautiful up here, huh?" Krystal walks over to the other side of the mountain facing the town.
The smoke from the BBQ Pitt faintly flows near the clouds. To the right, the top of a cabin is in the distance, Katie's final resting place.
"Not all of it," Austin looks out across the disillusioned town, "but from all the way up here you can't tell how fucked up the world is." Austin wraps his arms around her waist from behind.
"The world isn't fucked up," Krystal leans her head back and places it on Austin's shoulder. She tightens his arms around her waist and looks back, into her boyfriend's bright eyes. "Just some of the people are. If we look at everything with the glass half empty we can't move forward.
"Your dad is a piece of shit, and it's terrible what he did to Katie, but that doesn't mean this whole town is fucked up." Krystal turns around to face him. "Or the whole world for that matter," her hand glides against the uneven stubble on Austin's face, "we," Krystal slides her hand to the back of Austin's head, "you and I," she pulls him close until their noses touch, "aren't fucked up."
The tip of her mouth eases softly into his, wrapping itself around his top lip, tight but soft, until she kisses him.
Her lips roll back and forth allowing their tongues to come free and dance together.
Austin gently rubs Krystal's back as she glides her fingers from his head to his sides.
She pulls out of the kiss and slowly unbuckles his belt.
"We're a little fucked up," Austin nibbles on the back of her neck as she unzips his pants.
His cock is as hard as a tree trunk. She pulls the skin of his shaft up and down. Austin leans his head back and guides Krystal's head to his crotch.
She bends at the waist and inhales his dick deep into her esophagus, tickling her gag reflex.
Krystal's tonsils seize the tip of his penis squeezing him into the pleasure zone.
His breath comes out in rigid gasps.
Her throat releases, and slowly slides off his dick. She slurps the foam of her spit off the tip and continues to caress him with the calluses of her hand.
Austin pulls down Krystal's shorts and rubs her crotch slowly, massaging the moist liquid before sliding his fingers in and out. She moans with satisfaction and sucks on his ear, licking his lobes.
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