Out of the Shadows

by Timothy Boyd

  My hand released its grasp on the bolt, and I stepped back. I had come to terms with the fact that I was charging into my death, but it was not my place to make that decision for everyone. I felt ashamed, a pang of guilt stabbing my heart quickly before retreating. The little girl wouldn’t last nearly as long as the rest of us, lacking the physical strength required to overpower a mob. Her death would be swift and sad, and I would not allow that to happen. I would do everything I could to protect the girl in the pink hooded sweatshirt. The innocent little Annie.

  I mean Mary.

  “What should we do, Bear?” Deb asked.

  Thoughts and ideas raced through my brain, my eyes darting around the bar before settling on the only logical solution to give us the best opportunity to survive: “We run out the back.”

  “To where?” Yoshi wanted to know.

  “Away from here. If we go fast, we can be deep in the forest by the time they figure out we’ve run.”

  “No, we can’t!” gasped Mary.

  The three of us stopped and stared at her a moment. I got down on one knee and looked the terrified girl in the eyes, wiping a tear away from her cheek. “What’s wrong with the forest, Mary?”

  “It’s full of spiders,” she cried.

  In my rush to come up with a plan, I’d forgotten that fact. I looked back and forth from Mama to Yoshi as I stood again, trying to gauge their reactions. Do we go out the front door into a mob of emotionless creatures carrying proverbial pitchforks, or do we charge through the forest potentially full of spiders?

  “The forest is our best option, I think,” added Yoshi.

  My eyes rested on the shelves of booze behind the bar, and I immediately thought, “We need to set a trap to slow them down.”

  The woman from outside pounded on the door, startling us. “Nick Barren, you have thirty seconds to open the door, or we will do this the hard way,” came the creepy voice.

  “Mama,” I said to Deb, placing a hand on her shoulder. “I’m sorry, but we really have to go. We’ll find you a new ship to captain,” I added with a smirk.

  “Please come with us!” Mary pleaded.

  Yoshi was already standing at the door leading out the back, cracking it open, checking for danger. He stood and waited, his gun in his hand, looking at Deb expectantly. “It’s now or never.”

  Deb hesitated, allowing her gaze to scan the place that had felt like her home for many years, and then finally she said, “Fine! Get goin’!” and she pulled Mary along toward the back door.

  Suddenly, from under the front door came a string of spiders. They scurried up the door en masse, like a single entity. They surrounded the lockbolt and formed themselves into what appeared to be a hand, pushing the bolt through its metal brackets, releasing the lock effortlessly.

  As the door abruptly blasted open, I yelled, “Go!”

  The mob quickly poured into the bar, giving chase. Yoshi, Deb, and Mary slammed through the back door as I swiped a bottle of Jim Beam from the shelf, making sure to snatch a bar towel on my way out as well. We charged into the ominous forest, hearts pounding and breaths heaving. The jig was up; there would be no silent escape through the woods.

  I stopped thirty feet outside the door and furiously yanked the bottle pourer from the spout of the whiskey bottle.

  “Bear!” Deb screamed.

  “I’ll be right behind you!”

  Mary was howling in terror, salty streams cascading down her face. Twigs snapped under their fleeing feet. Hurriedly, I twisted the bar towel into a tight strand that I stuffed into the bottle of booze, tipping it so the cloth would become soaked. From the back door, the mob began charging into the forest in pursuit of their prey. Upon seeing me pull a lighter from my pocket, the main woman held up her hand, and they all stopped.

  “Nick Barren, I would not do that if I were you.”

  Furious with them, I spat, “Well, you’re not me!” I ignited the soaked tip of the towel sticking out of the whiskey bottle. The second it sparked into a substantial flame, I lobbed the alcohol through the air toward the crowd of creatures. It hit the woman in the face before it collided with the ground, shattering into dozens of pieces. The makeshift Molotov exploded in a ball of fire that lit up the sky and engulfed the mob, transforming them into plumes of flailing flame-beasts.

  I stood for just a moment to admire my handiwork when, to my surprise, the flames licked upward and ignited the roof of Gravediggers, sending the building quickly into an unstoppable inferno. Most of the mob collapsed to their knees one by one and silently ceased to exist once more. I stood and watched as my home away from home billowed into flames.

  That made two in one night.

  Suddenly, from within the fiery doorway, a nebulous mass exited the bar. It grew larger and larger, forming into something terribly hideous that shook my nerves and stopped my heart.

  Thousands of blazing spiders molded themselves into one, massive, fiery eight-legged beast the size of a small house. Flames leapt from it onto the surrounding trees in the forest, lighting them afire.

  My eyes grew with sheer horror as I watched the woods around me become engulfed with bright orange flickering waves. I had unknowingly started an enormous forest fire! And now this colossal arachnid amalgamation threatened my friends and me, slowly becoming used to its new heft, the fire seemingly causing it no pain.

  “Run!” I yelled to the group as I turned and sprinted as fast as my legs could carry me. I quickly caught up to the other three, our intense flight through the flaming forest taking its toll on our endurance. I glanced back over my shoulder and saw the beast slowly gaining ground on us, and following in the behemoth’s wake was a wall of fire within the trees.

  If the spiders didn’t kill us, the inferno surely would.

  We leapt over fallen branches, madly crunching through dried leaves on the ground, gasping for what little oxygen our lungs could intake. Dodging around tree trunks, we scampered through the bright night, no longer darkened in shadow thanks to yours truly.

  The little girl tripped, crying out as she fell to the ground.

  “Mary!” Deb screamed.

  My heart stopped as I ran back to the fallen child, the spider beast quickly gaining on us. As I reached down to help her up, I fired multiple shots into the fiery mandible of the hulking arachnid. It howled and stumbled backward.

  I lifted Mary from the ground, and she clung fiercely to me, wrapping her arms forcefully around my neck. I kept one arm around her, and I ran, trying desperately to pick up lost time.

  I didn’t know how much farther I could go. I was no longer in the shape I had been in when I was an active-duty police officer, and I’d recently abused my body with booze and sleepless nights. My lungs ached, and my heart begged for mercy.

  The forest stretched on and on, a never-ending prison of exhaustion where we would be forced to run until our hearts exploded in our chests. It was all a twisted game of survival to see who would be the last to die. And I would make sure that Mary won the game.

  “It’s slowing down!” the little girl exclaimed.

  Glancing quickly over my shoulder, it looked as though the giant was finally beginning to succumb to the torturous fire overwhelming it. Ok, hold out a little longer, and then we’ll just have the huge blazing forest to survive, I thought, half cynically and half optimistically.

  Ahead of us, Yoshi suddenly stopped moving, as if he hit some sort of wall and couldn’t go any farther. “Shit!” I heard him cry out, and I watched as his limbs struggled awkwardly to move, but he didn’t go anywhere.

  And then I saw it. The strands of the vast web of filaments that were intricately woven in between the trunks of two trees. Within moments, a score of spiders descended the web that Yoshi had disturbed, and they scurried busily over his body, trying to reach an entry point. “Get out of here!” he commanded.

  “Yoshi! Oh, my god!” Deb cried, her hands over her mouth in shock.

  “Just go!” he pleaded with us.

&nbs
p; Suddenly, Deb screamed in surprise, and I spun to see a single creature wearing a red evening gown bite into Mama’s fleshy arm, a stream of blood squirting from where her teeth had punctured the skin. Without thinking, I raised my gun and put a bullet through the head of the creature that had been lucky enough to escape the bar blaze. Mary clutched tighter to my neck, trying to block out the chaos around her.

  Everything was silent for just a moment as the three of us exchanged knowing glances with one another, finally recognizing that it was likely none of us would survive the night.

  “Deb,” Yoshi said calmly, unable to move as the mass of spiders headed toward his mouth. “Go with Nick.”

  Her face was pale as she looked at the bloody wound on her arm. I reached for her shaking hand and led her along, past her lost friend. We continued on our way as the giant fire spider finally crumbled to pieces on the forest ground while the rest of them began spinning Yoshi into a preservative cocoon, saving him as a snack for later.

  We fled farther into the forest, farther away from the busy spiders, farther away from the flaming inferno, and farther away from lost friends and fading memories.

  * * *

  When we had traveled as far as our weary feet would allow, we ended up in a decrepit neighborhood a few miles away from downtown Franklin. Having lost track of time long ago, I figured we had about three or four hours left of twilight before the sun would rear its ugly head and escape would become improbable. Deb was growing pale and sweaty, sickness beginning to take over. I wasn’t sure what I was going to do about it, nor had Deb asked me to leave her behind. Mary was slipping in and out of sleep on my shoulder as I continued to carry her.

  While we were walking, we had come across some abandoned cars. One had had a window open. I had retrieved a T-shirt from within and had torn strips of fabric to wrap Deb’s arm. Now, the blood soaked through, and there was really nothing more to be done.

  “Bear,” Deb panted, her exhaustion and infection both contributing to her loss of breath. “Mama needs to sit down a minute.” Her southern drawl was slow and thick, and in different circumstances, I would have smiled.

  I saw a simple church with a tall steeple up ahead on the corner and decided to check it out as a possible resting place. Perhaps it was old-fashioned of me, but in my mind the church was a safe-haven, a sanctuary where no evil could touch you.

  As we approached the building made up of huge stone blocks, Deb collapsed onto the front steps, using the railing to assist her decline. I rustled Mary awake and sat her down next to Deb, explaining to her that we were going to go inside the church to rest.

  “Don’t leave us, Bear!” Mary pleaded, placing her small hand on my arm.

  I smiled softly at the girl. “I’m not going anywhere. You guys are coming with me.” I kissed her on the top of her head and helped Deb to her tired feet. We proceeded up the steps, and I cautiously pulled open the heavy, oak door.

  Inside was a small entrance vestibule that led into a modest sanctuary with wooden pews. The outside aisles were lined with simple marble angels, and a few stained-glass windows lined the stone walls. As we trekked slowly through the space, I trembled; the last time I had been inside a church had been for Annie’s funeral. I had sat in the front pew next to Sarah, who sobbed quietly most of the service. When I’d tried to place my hand on hers to comfort her, she’d recoiled. It was then that I knew the end of us had begun.

  At the front of the calming sanctuary, some of the prayer candles on either side of the pulpit were lit, their soft unwavering glow dimly illuminating the church. The ceiling was high with wooden rafters, and our quiet footsteps echoed on the tiled floor.

  I listened intently as we proceeded down the length of the center aisle, but I heard nothing out of the ordinary.

  “Bear,” came Mama’s voice from behind me.

  I turned and saw her leaning against a pew, barely able to stand, staring at me with pleading eyes. I nodded to her, so she sat down to rest.

  “Mary,” she called to the little girl. “Come lay down next to Mama and get some sleep while Bear stands guard.” I saw her wink slightly at me and knew that it was her silent way of letting me know her motives: she didn’t want Mary to be awake for what might come next.

  The girl curled up on the cushioned pew and fell asleep almost immediately.

  Minutes of silence passed between us before I felt secure that we were alone in the sanctuary, and I sat down in the row in front of Deb. I looked around and remembered how comforted I used to feel coming to church as a kid. That comfort was no longer with me.

  “Candles are lit,” she said of the rows of prayer candles at the front.

  I wasn’t sure how she expected me to respond, so I said, “Yeah.”

  After some thought, she continued, “Why ya s’pose that is?”

  “Each one that’s lit represents someone’s prayer.”

  “Is that so?”

  I nodded.

  In my mind, I heard remnants of echoed hymns reverberate from the walls, ghosts of Sunday mornings haunting the air. I felt shame in losing my religion, but I had reached a point in life where I found it too difficult to trust in an all-powerful benevolence. It was easier for me to be ashamed than to put my energy into things like faith and hope.

  “Ya think God hears prayers from people that don’t go to church?” she asked after another minute had passed.

  I took a deep breath and allowed her question to ruminate in my mind. “I believe that if you take the time to pray, then God will take the time to listen.” It wasn’t a lie; that’s what I believed. I just stopped taking the time to pray, so God stopped listening to me.

  She coughed, her breathing becoming more like deep wheezes of air trying to be pushed from her throat.

  I thought about what may happen to this world in a matter of days if something weren’t done to stop this invasion. There would be no surviving. Mankind was being exterminated, like a bug infestation, ironically enough. As I stared at the painting of Jesus Christ on the wall at the front of the church, I vowed to kill as many of the spider creatures as I could before I went down.

  Behind me I heard Deb’s pew creak and groan as she fought to rise to her feet. I stood up to help her, but she waved her hand at me to step back. “Let me do this myself!”

  I stood back as she limped forward down the center aisle toward the pulpit. I saw her sides expand and contract slowly as she breathed heavily to keep herself alive. She approached a row of candles, reached into her pocket, and pulled out a pack of matches from the bar. After a few attempts, the wooden stick finally struck properly, and a tiny flame flared into existence from her fingertips. I saw her mouth move with silent words as she touched the flame to the wick of one of the unlit candles.

  A deep emotion welled within me, and my eyes began to sting with wetness. She eventually blew the match out and headed back to the pew, collapsing once more to rest.

  I stared at her for many moments before gathering the courage to say, “Mama, you know that won’t save you.”

  She took as deep a breath as she could muster before responding, “That ain’t what I prayed for.” She looked down at Mary, peacefully sleeping beside her, and she brushed a strand of hair from the girl’s face.

  I felt my cheeks flush, ashamed by my assumption that she would pray for something so selfish as her own survival when, in fact, she had prayed for Mary’s.

  Many minutes of silence passed between the two of us, neither willing to talk about the night, neither ready to say goodbye. I decided to rest my eyes, but just as I closed them, Deb spoke softly, a quaver in her voice.

  “Bear,” she began. “You know what I’m gonna need ya to do, right?”

  Yes. I knew. The same thing Sarah had wanted.

  “I want it to be you, Bear. Ya hear me?”

  My chest clenched and a knot of air clumped into my throat. I wasn’t sure how much more of this I could take. “I hear you,” I responded.

  “You know how l
ong I got?”

  I shook my head. “Sarah got bit. She stayed alive for hours before…”

  There was no reason to finish the sentence. Deb knew what I meant.

  “Your bite is worse than hers, though,” I continued. “So, I don’t know.”

  I didn’t enjoy discussing the death of my friends with them like it had become so commonplace that I should follow it up with, “So, how are the kids?” I wanted so badly to sleep. And perhaps never to wake up. Or maybe when I woke up, the world would be right again, and this would all have been a massively awful nightmare brought on by the whiskey. If that were the case, I would swear to God right now that I would never drink again.

  “I saw ‘em get inside,” she finally said.

  I turned to look at her, my brow furrowed.

  “The spiders. When she bit me, I saw a couple spiders crawl out of her mouth and into the wound.” She looked down at the bloody bandage that was wrapped around her arm, examining it, as if it held mysteries that she fought to solve. “I think that’s how it works. They jus’ need to get in, and the bites make it easier.”

  I nodded softly. Her explanation made sense of the biting – nothing more than a way for an infected host to latch securely onto its target so the alien creatures could enter, but it was just a guess; we simply couldn’t know for sure how any of it worked.

  At the front of the church, a door creaked open. I leapt to my feet, my gun in my hand and ready for action. A middle-aged man entered the sanctuary wearing black dress slacks, a black button-down dress shirt, and a white collar. He paused at the sight of us and said, “You are trespassing in a house of God.”

  I put up a hand to calm him. “We just needed to rest for a few minutes. My friend is wounded, and the little girl needed to sleep.”

  The reverend approached us now, probably because my voice hadn’t been emotionless, and because I hadn’t asked him to join my creepy community cult.

  “You must leave this church,” he commanded.

  I was shocked by his anger. “I’m sorry?”