by Nora Penn
“What was that?”
James put his hands over Carol’s ears so that she wouldn’t hear what he was about to say.
“He told the citizens that they should all shove their fingers up their ass.”
“What!?!”
“Crazy, right? I don’t know if it was a practical joke, or what?”
Hannah thought about this for a second. “It’s hard to say. Maybe he got hit in the head or something and was talking nonsense. It could happen.”
“But you would think that one of his men would stop him. I mean, he’s surrounded by officials. You would think that one of them would stop him from saying something like that. After all, everyone has been waiting to hear from him. They want words of hope, and to hear him say something as offensive as that was a real blow to morale.”
Hannah wasn’t sure what to say. “Well, let’s hope he comes back on and that he’s more sensible the next time around.”
James nodded and they trudged on.
As they walked, they passed huge heaps of dead spiders, which made James think of his conversation with Bigsby the New Yorker last night, who said that the number of spiders was dropping. Maybe they were starving, James wondered to himself. That would certainly be a relief. He also saw numerous spider “skins,” which made him wonder if the spiders discarded their old shells in the manner of scorpions. The discarded skins were unpleasant to look at. They looked more or less like deflated spiders, except that they were translucent, as if they were made from gray Jello, and they were so light that the breeze could blow them around. As they explored the town, the spider skins blew around them like tumble weeds in an old Western movie.
They walked past the pharmacy that he and Steve had looted and found a grocery store that had been broken into. Although the front doors were busted open, the contents of the store were mostly still intact. James waved Carol and Hannah in silently. The idea was to grab as much water as they could carry and then head back to the motorboat.
As they crept through the darkened aisles, Carol caught sight of some tasty treat.
“Can I have some candy, Daddy?” she asked, a little too loud for James’ liking.
Shhhh, he said, putting his fingers to his lips, and then whispered “Okay, sweetie, but just one kind.”
He hated to be stingy with Carol, especially considering her headaches and how much she suffered. His instinct was to give her whatever she asked for, merely to see her smile. But he knew that if she got sick, or got a cavity and needed fillings, it would be hard to arrange for a doctor or dentist. Although the short term rewards of sweets certainly appealed to her, as her father he had to keep long term goals in mind. That was always the case with parents and children, of course, but in the days after the spider apocalypse this dynamic was telescoped out to an even greater degree. Almost any indulgence carried a hidden danger. Long-term thinking wasn’t simply a good idea. It was something their very lives depended on.
As Carol decided between Sour Apple and Watermelon Jolly Ranchers, a rustling sound came through the doorway they had just entered through.
James’ heart sank as he recognized the familiar sound. He cast his eye to the front of the store and saw the immense shadow of an eight-legged creature stretch across the tiles. He only prayed that the visitor was alone, although he knew that was unlikely, considering how the spiders tended to travel in swarms. Judging from the length of the shadow, the spider was the size of a large dog.
Hannah had heard the rustling also, and rushed over to Carol. The very pregnant woman gently pulled her daughter away from the candy section and guided back to the rear of the store. James pulled his pistol out of his holster and quietly clicked over the safety.
As the spider came around the corner of the aisle, James saw that it was much larger than a dog. It was closer to the size of a cow. Fuck, he thought, to himself. These things are getting bigger and bigger. He positioned himself between the spider and his family.
The spider, seeing a juicy meal before him, clicked its mandibles and hissed in eager anticipation. Again, there was the sickening sound that reminded James of boiling pretzels. The giant spider reared up and waved its twitching legs. The spiky hairs that bristled on the wriggling appendages made the nerve-fraying rustling sound that James despised. A liquid that might have been saliva, or venom, or even some kind of acid, dripped from the spider’s fangs, which were as long and as sharp as kitchen knives. This acidic substance fell in thick globs to the floor where it bubbled and sputtered in corrosive puddles. The multiple eyes of the spider seemed to be filled with a predatory delight.
James raised his pistol and took careful aim.
“Bite me spider!”
He pulled the trigger and sent a bullet through the center of the spider’s head.
The spider kept advancing, although it did sway a bit on legs that suddenly seemed less steady. James fired again.
The second shot did the trick. The ravenous gleam that had animated the spider’s eyes only a moment before suddenly departed, as if someone had turned off a light inside the spider’s head. James felt enormous relief as the spider crumbled to the ground in a heap and began leaking black blood from its damaged head. Its mandibles opened and closed a few more times and then came to a halt.
“Thank God!” Hannah sighed behind him. “Good shot Daddy!” Carol cried, echoing her mother’s sentiment.
Then James’ daughter did something that none of them expected, but which in hindsight would make James smile wryly, as it clearly showed that he and his daughter were cut from the same cloth. Carol, having seen her father vanquish one of the giant spiders, ran forward to the dead beast and pulled at one of its fangs. The fang came loose and she kept it as a sort of souvenir. Both James and Hannah shouted out to her to get away from the animal. Carol retreated back to their side in two seconds flat, but she kept the spider’s fang, slipping it into the back of her One Direction backpack.
Carol had gotten back to her family’s side just in time. At that precise moment the front of the store filled with shadows and the air was filled with the rustling sound of hairy legs brushing against one another.
The family ran to the back corner of the store, where beverages were still stacked up in a cooler. James opened the cooler door and pushed the shelves of bottles and cans, causing them to topple backward. He held the cooler door open as Hannah and Carol slipped inside, and then pulled it shut behind them. The three of them were in a small dark space, filled with stacks of beverages. Since the store was without power, the cooler wasn’t actually cold, a fact which James was grateful for, considering that he had no idea how long they would have to stay inside the cramped space.
The family watched horrified as the store filled with spiders, ranging from the size of small dogs to the size of horses. They were all the same sort and had the same predatory expression in their clusters of black eyes. The spiders had seen the family make their escape and scuttled over to the cooler’s glass door, where they promptly began raking their hairy legs against the glass.
Although giant spiders are extremely dangerous, their legs are the least dangerous thing about them. Spider legs are rather weak, in truth, due to the fact that whatever solidity they have comes from the outer shell rather than any bones inside. The outer shell, or skin, of the Black Hermit Spider, in particular, is not tough and their legs tend to bend when the spider strikes them against objects. Therefore, even as the spiders attempted to batter the glass door and smash it, all they accomplished was to make a terrifying racket.
Trapped inside the darkened cooler, watching the horrifying spectacle with eyes peeled wide, James made the observation that all the spiders would have to do to get to them was to hook a leg behind the handle and pull at the door instead of swat at it. But, as fate would happily have it, the spiders were either too stupid to attempt this move, or had some other strategy which defied easy explanation. Although he hardly cared about such things, he found himself wondering what it was exactly that spider
s thought about, and what sort of ideas ran through their strange brains.
Chapter 15
I am SOOOOO hungry. So terribly hungry!!!!!!!!!!!!!! All I want is food. FOOOOD!!!!
But not just any food. NO!!!!!!!!!!!!!! I must have the fresh flesh of the two legged monkey! Those delicious hairless apes that live in shiny boxes. What a fine thing the flesh of those creatures is!!!!!!!!!!!!!! YES! I can almost taste it. I can imagine the delicious taste travelling up my fangs! Making me happy!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!
I have eaten the four legged beasts that stand in the field. They are OK. Not terrible. But not that good either. Not like the two legged ones. The two legged beasts are the BEST!!!!!!!!!!!!!!
When I left the lair not long ago my belly was empty. It was awful. What a terrible feeling it is to be hungry!!!!!!!!!!!!!! It is the worst feeling in the world!!!!!!!!!!!!!! But then it is so good to satisfy the terrible feeling!!!!!!!!!!!!!! It is so good to make a bad thing go away.
To still the terrible hunger, I had to eat a four legged thing that stands in the grass. It swished its tail as it stood and then it ran away when it saw me. Which is so much fun!!!!!!!!!!!!!! I love when my food gives me sport!!!!!!!!!!!!!! It’s like eating twice. First there is the pleasure of the chase! And then there is the pleasure of eating the chased thing!!!!!!!!!!!!!!
The two legged beasts have been very scarce lately. Which is bad!!!!!!!!!!!!!! I think that maybe they are mostly all devoured. There are just a few hardy ones left. These are the ones that are hardest to kill. They are the ones that give the most sport!!!!!!!!!!!!!!
I was still devouring the four legged beast when I saw my brothers running!!!!!!!!!!!!!! They had the lust in their eyes of a hunger run. I could tell they were hunting two legged beasts from how excited they looked!!!!!!!!!!!!!!
The two legged beasts had gone inside one of the boxes where they keep their food. Their dead food that doesn’t move or give sport. How would they want to eat such food?????????????????? Even if the taste is good, the lack of sport means that it is bad.
I went inside the box and saw my brother fall down dead. OOOOOH! This means that the two legged beast will give much sport! Perhaps even make sport of me and my brothers! The two legged beasts have a way of pricking our skin with tiny objects! They have powers! The tricky little animals!
When I saw my brother fall my hunger increased! It doubled! It multiplied! Like the broods of our sisters, my hunger teams! !!!!!!!!!!!!!!
And now I see them, the hairless beasts with two legs! They are hiding behind the clear thing! But we will get them! Because the two legged beasts cannot escape!!!!! They cannot escape! They will be punished for tasting so good!
Do you hear that, two legged beast??????????????
You cannot escape us!!!!!!!!!!!!!! You cannot escape us!!!!!!!!!!!!!! You cannot escape us!!!!!!!!!!!!!! You cannot escape us!!!!!!!!!!!!!! You cannot escape us!!!!!!!!!!!!!! You cannot escape us!!!!!!!!!!!!!! You cannot escape us!!!!!!!!!!!!!! You cannot escape us!!!!!!!!!!!!!! You cannot escape us!!!!!!!!!!!!!! You cannot escape us!!!!!!!!!!!!!! You cannot escape us!!!!!!!!!!!!!!
Chapter 16
A large spider pressed its multiple eyes against the glass and stared directly at James. The hunger in the creature’s eyes was loathsome to behold.
While the spiders were pressing themselves against the cooler, James prayed that one of their legs wouldn’t slip behind the door handle and manage to pull it open. There was a vacuum seal that held the door snug, but there wasn’t much to it, and even though the spider’s legs seemed weak, they were strong enough to tug the vacuum sealed door open. At least he would guess as much. His survival and the survival of his family depended on the spiders not getting lucky and opening the door by accident. He wondered if the spiders even knew what a door was.
As he had this thought he witnessed the harrowing sight of the large spider’s legs curl behind the handle and tug on it, breaking the vacuum seal.
At precisely that same instance there was a deafening crash. An RV came hurtling through the glass front of the store, sending bits of shattered glass and debris flying towards the back. The vehicle plowed through the store’s displays and aisle shelves, crushing every spider between it and the back of the store. The RV finally came to a halt about one foot from the cooler where James and his family were hiding.
James looked at the large spider that had opened the door and saw what could only be called shock in its multiple eyes. As the spider worked its mandibles in frustration, the RV lurched forward and crushed it. There was an audible splat and black blood painted the front of the cooler.
The black blood drained away and James looked through the cooler door in amazement. He saw the older couple from yesterday, Bill and Sonja, sitting in the RV’s front seat. He couldn’t recall a time he had been happier to see anyone in his life.
The remaining few spiders that hadn’t been crushed by the RV scattered in every direction. James could see them clamber out of the front of the store, dragging bent and broken legs and leaking copious amounts of black blood.
As James and his family watched in a state of happy shock, the couple in the RV backed their vehicle up a few feet, so that James could open the door fully and let his family back out of the cooler.
“Hop inside!” Bill called from his rolled down window.
“Hurry!” Sonja cried. “You don’t know how soon the spiders will be back!”
James opened the back door of the RV and helped Hannah inside. She had to move gently so as not to bump her enormous belly. Carol climbed up behind her. When both ladies were safely aboard, James went around to the opposite side and let himself in. No sooner had he closed the door, than Bill threw the vehicle in reverse and stomped on the gas. The RV was of a rugged make, more like a Hummer than a regular RV, and managed to back over all the fallen debris and dead spiders behind it without getting stuck.
When the RV was back in the parking lot, it was besieged by a new wave of spider reinforcements. They fell upon the RV with fury. It wasn’t that they wanted revenge. It was that they were insane from hunger. Filling their bellies mattered more than avenging their dead kin. The ravenous arachnids threw themselves at the RV’s windows and did their best to break through the glass with their ineffective legs. Bill threw the vehicle into gear and shot forward. A few spiders managed to cling to the RV as he drove off, but these fell off as the vehicle gained speed.
When they were finally out of the spiders’ range there was time for introductions. Bill and Sonja knew James, of course, but they hadn’t yet met his family.
“This is my wife, Hannah, and my daughter, Carol…” James said, and Hannah and Carol made their greetings to Bill and Sonja.
The elderly couple explained that they had seen the family’s fishing boat slowly sinking and watched in worry as the husband, wife, and child piled into the motorboat and took it to shore. Knowing that the area was heavily infested with the giant spiders, they decided to hop in their RV and see if the family is okay. When they saw the spiders close in on the store they knew that the family had to be inside. They drove by and saw the family inside the store, through the glass front windows, which is how Bill and Sonja knew they had hidden themselves in the cooler. Otherwise Bill wouldn’t have tried something as risky as driving into the front of the store the way he did.
The rescued family was exceedingly grateful to the older couple. Even so, Hannah had to politely ask the older man to slow down as he drove over bumps, due to the fact that she was very pregnant.
“Oh, my goodness,” Bill said with palpable shame. “I momentarily forgot.”
Sonja gave Bill a playful whack with her hand and told him to stop driving like a gorilla.
“Yes, I forgot to make one very important introduction,” James piped up. “Which is to introduce our son, Ben, who we estimate will be born any day now.”
The elderly couple congratulated the younger couple, and the conversation turned to family and the joys of home life. Bill and Sonja waxed nostalgical
ly about their children and their many grandchildren. They were especially proud of their grandson, Dylan, who was in the Army. Bill mentioned that he himself had served in the military. From the way the old man spoke, James could tell that Bill was very patriotic.
As they drove along, the older couple explained that they had taken up residence in an abandoned lighthouse. They had fortified the place from top to bottom, to make it impervious to the spiders. Since the lighthouse had limited ways of being accessed – just a single doorway at the bottom – they felt they were safer there than they would be in a house, which had numerous points of entry. They added that the younger couple and their daughter could stay with them for as long as they needed.
As they drove along, James had a series of reflections, which were mostly positive, but which caused him an undercurrent of unease. First of all, he realized that he was indebted to Bill and Sonja, the couple who he had robbed at gunpoint the day before. Of course, he really didn’t have a choice at the time. His wife was in danger and he needed to protect her at all costs. He did what he had to do. But knowing that their initial meeting had been so unpleasant, he was especially grateful to the older couple for giving him a second chance. They were truly great people and he was deeply touched by their generosity.
The undercurrent of unease came from the realization that if the elderly couple hadn’t come along precisely when they did, he and his family would certainly be dead. It chafed at his sense of manhood that he had allowed the situation to deteriorate to this point. But then he told himself that things were equally bad for everybody, and that in fact most of humanity had died in the spider apocalypse. Give yourself some credit, James told himself. His final thought on the matter was merely that, at the end of the day, it is the goodness in peoples’ hearts that matters the most. He resolved to always remember this, and to be a better man all around.