Ken cocked his head to one side and frowned. “That’s pretty good boss. I never thought of that. I suppose a patsy would be a nice, neat way to keep everything under wraps…”
“Or stop us finding out who really is responsible,” blurted Simon and he bit his tongue before more could escape. He thought that he could really kick himself sometimes. He could have had the exclusive scoop if this Briggs character turned out to be a patsy, but no, he had to go and tell Ol’ Ken. Brilliant. He decided to divert the conversation. “So, what’s your next move?”
“Well, I think we are going to try and get a closer look at that lot, and maybe try and see if we can find this Briggs and his merry crew,” said Ken, he was almost smiling about it, he was so proud.
“Don’t you think that’s a bit dangerous? You know what happened down in Wythenshaw don’t you? They wiped out an entire hospital in less than an hour.”
“Hey, if it wasn’t dangerous, it wouldn’t be newsworthy would it? Besides, our van is pretty tight, They won’t be able to get in there.”
Simon shrugged, “There’s no arguing with a confident man.”
“That’s right buddy,” said Ken and he turned to leave. Then he paused for a moment and turned back to Simon. “Look, why don’t you tag along? If we work this right then we could get enough footage to keep both of us on easy street for the next twenty years.”
Simon was momentarily speechless. Ken was actually suggesting an alliance? He looked at him for a moment, wondering if he was taking the piss or was he actually serious. Ken was waiting for him to respond. He wasn’t smiling, or fucking around with his phone like he usually did to make himself feel important, he was staring right back at Simon. There was a sweat on his brow, despite the cooling breeze that the higher altitude was giving them. He was licking his lips as if there wasn’t enough moisture in them and then the penny dropped. Ken was scared. Ken needed a backup just in case something went wrong. Ken probably was thinking that there was safety in numbers. Simon felt a pang of pity for him and he could understand exactly where he was coming from. He didn’t want to go down there either, high paying story or no high paying story. He supposed that half-and-half was better than nothing, after all he didn’t have much of a chance to go down there on his own without risking his arse. It made sense after all, to have a getaway vehicle should things go down the shitpan. He stuck out his hand and forced a smile. “O.K. You got a deal,” he said.
Ken’s face lost all of its signs of apprehension. He beamed and plopped his hand into Simons’. They shook heartily. “Good stuff, excellent, excellent,” said Ken. Simon could almost feel the relief washing through Ken’s body. He smiled again, this time without so much effort and the iced wall that he had against Ken thawed a little as he did so. Ken let go of his hand.
“Come on, let’s put a plan together,” said Ken and set off towards his van. Simon hesitated for a moment and then he followed. He had a feeling in his guts that he was walking into enemy territory. They reached the van and the cameraman who was guarding the camera that was fixed on the town eyed him curiously.
“This is Phil he is our operator,” said Ken. Simon offered his name and his hand to Phil. Phil shook, but it was the limpest handshake Simon had ever received in his life. Phil didn’t look like he was enjoying Simon being there at all. If looks could kill, he thought to himself.
“This is Raymond,” said Ken showing Simon to a young man who was in the back of the van pushing buttons. He was more accommodating. His handshake was strong.
“Simon Evans, good to meetcha’” said Ray.
Simon was taken aback slightly by hearing a stranger call him by his full name. Ray saw it and he chuckled.
“I’m very familiar with your work Simon, and I have to tell you, you have a very keen eye.”
Simon was still on his guard, but he couldn’t help but feel a little pride swelling in his belly. “Thanks, I appreciate that.”
Ray nodded and climbed out of the van. “I bet you have seen ‘em up close haven’t you?”
“Yeah I did. I ran one of them over and then a bunch of them came crawling across the road. I hid on the top of my van.”
Ray beamed a big toothy grin at Simon. “I knew it. Do you know you are probably the only media, other than the ones that were outside that hospital, that has seen them up close. Look at the view just above the town, can you see it?”
Ray pointed and Simon looked. At first he couldn’t see anything at all and then he saw the dark speck in the sky. After staring at it for a moment he began to realize what it was. “That’s a news chopper isn’t it?”
“That’s correct my friend. That’s the BBC taking shots from the air. Ken has been scanning the radios for the last few hours. The army have set up road blocks on every road in and out of Newtown. Just before you arrived I head a radio message saying that this Doctor Briggs fellow was at one of the barriers. I haven’t heard anything since then.”
“Yes, Ken was telling me. What the hell was Briggs doing there, he is a wanted man, surely they must have arrested him or something?” said Simon.
Ray smiled, “That was exactly the question I asked myself. Why? Why would he go into the lion’s den. I tell you something my friend, I want to go down there and find out.”
“Now that would be a scoop wouldn’t it. That would be the story of the decade. Perhaps we could get him to tell us if he is innocent or if he is actually trying to kill people,” said Simon. His adrenaline was starting to pump. The danger of the giant spider dome was slipping further and further towards the back of his mind. The idea of getting to talk to Briggs and getting a healthy payday were growing clouds right across his judgement.
“We could all come out of this with a very healthy retirement if we find Briggs” said Ray.
“O.K. then. Where do we start?” said Simon
“Funny you should ask,,” said Ray and led him into the back of his van. There was a small table towards the back with an open laptop. Ray gestured towards one of the two chairs and Simon sat down. He tapped a button on the computer and the screen sprang into life. He typed in a password and the screen lit up with a map of the Newtown area. He turned the screen so Simon could see it. He pointed to one of the roads on the map.
“Here, on the east side of Newtown. It’s the road that cuts right through Layton Valley. That’s where Briggs showed up. I don’t know the exact location of the roadblock, but if we drive down there I’m pretty sure we will find it and. If they have arrested him they will need to have him extracted from that point. All we can do is go down there and see if they will let him talk to us. If not, we at least get to film where he was apprehended and possibly get a statement from the soldiers that are down there. I know it’s a bit of a long shot, but it could be all we need..”
Simon pondered it for a moment, what was the worst that could happen? They could get turned away by the army roadblock and they could end up back up here watching the whole thing from afar. “Alright, let’s go for it,” he said. Ray nodded and got up from his seat. He went outside and began to gather up the rest of his crew. Simon began mentally preparing himself for what they were about to undertake.
Once more unto the breach dear friends, he thought.
20.
The first thing that Laurence felt was the tearing pain in his arm and the pain in the opposite hand. Sitting at a distant third was the bite on his neck which was barely even registering because of the pain in his arms. It took a few moments for him to remember exactly where he was and what had happened to him to cause him such discomfort. Then he had remembered what he had done to Chloe. He had forced himself upon an unconscious girl and she had turned on him in a big way. She had used the very bat that was meant to protect him against him in the worst way. He opened his eyes and was surprised to find that he was sitting on the sofa. He had no earthly idea how he had managed to get there whilst he had been out for the count. Then he saw Chloe. She was sitting cross-legged on the floor opposite him. His trusty bat
was lay across her knees and she was staring at him in a way that made him feel like he wanted to throw himself on the mercy of the spiders rather than deal with her again. He looked down at his broken arm. It was bent backwards in a way that nature never intended. The whole thing had swollen up to twice its normal size and the hand that was attached to it had taken on a rather sinister blue colour. He foolishly tried to make a fist with it. There was a small amount of movement but the bolt of pain that flashed through it made him grit his teeth and squeeze his eyes shut as hard as he could. When the spasm had passed he had a look at the broken hand on the other side. His hand was flat on the arm of the sofa, but the three middle fingers were bent all the way backwards and resting on the back of his hand. He began to feel faint, his head swimming in a way that made him feel sick to his stomach. He took some deep, shaky breaths and managed to get himself under some sort of control. Chloe hadn’t moved, she was just sitting there on the floor and watching him. There was a ghost of a smile on her face, as if his suffering was enjoyable to her. It made him feel uneasy, no, it made him feel terrified. She had clearly lost her mind after what he had done and he had to try and stop her from perhaps caving his fucking head in with that bat of his.
“Chloe,” he said, but his throat was dry and it came out as no more than a whisper. He swallowed and he tried again. “Chloe. I’m sorry for what I did. I …..I couldn’t help it….I’ve never done anything like that before….I…” he ran out of words, what else could he say? He had no idea.
“You were going to rape me Laurence. You were going to do it to me and I never said you could. You should have at least asked me Laurence. I would probably have said yes. I enjoyed it last night. We had lots of fun and drinks and when we did it here I loved it. But, if you want to be my man Laurence you have to learn the rules. The first rule is, you do not rape me, no matter how much you want it, no matter how much you need it, I have to say yes, do you understand?”
Laurence nodded his head like a man possessed, “Yes, I understand totally.”
“Good,” said Chloe. She took hold of the bat and stood up. She waved the bat right under Laurence’s chin. He recoiled in terror, causing a fresh batch of pain to flash from his broken bones.
“The second rule is, you do not under any circumstances whatsoever fucking rape me,” she screamed suddenly. The spiders outside began to gossip again. Chloe opened her mouth to say something else when her eyes flicked downwards. She took four steps backwards and raised the bat. For a moment Laurence thought that she was about to charge at him and cave in his skull. He felt his bladder loosen for a moment and a small jet of urine splashed into his underwear. Then he realized that she wasn’t looking at him, she was looking at something on the floor next to him. He cast his eyes in that direction and he saw something coming out from under the sofa. At first it looked to him like black string and then he realized that it was something much worse. It was the legs of a spider. The legs stretched out halfway across the floor and then flexed. It took Laurence a moment to work out what they were doing. They were gripping the floor and pulling the rest of the spider along. A thin, almost transparent body suddenly popped out from under the sofa. The rear half of the spider was so long that it was dragging the front half of it downwards. The body was about the same size of Laurence’s bat and its spindly legs made it the same height almost as Chloe.
“Kill it,” said Laurence in a breathless voice. He tried to move away from it but the exploding pain was threatening to knock him out again. “Just fucking kill it Chloe,” he said, a little louder this time. Chloe was looking at the spider, her mouth open and the bat only half raised. The spider reared up at her, wobbling from side to side on its skinny legs and then it half turned and saw Laurence. It hesitated for a moment, still wobbling as if it was in a stiff breeze and then it began to advance on him. Laurence kicked out at it, catching one of the front legs and breaking it inwards. The spider stumbled but then it resumed its advance, listing awkwardly to one side and dragging its newly snapped leg along for the ride. The kick had caused another bolt of pain. Laurence was breathing heavily, a sweat beading on his forehead. He knew he couldn’t do anything to fight it, it was inevitable. But, better to go this way then be slowly smashed to pieces by a crazy woman and a bat.
“Come on you fucker, come and get me,” he said. The spider mounted the sofa where Laurence was sat. He could feel its legs tickling the exposed skin on his arms. His flesh crawled with revulsion as if every single part of him wanted to fight the spider off. Its mutated body was right over his face. Laurence could see that it had long fangs protruding from the front end, fangs long enough to pierce his skin. It began to lower itself towards his face. He was about to close his eyes when there was a noise. It was a whooshing sound, one that he had heard before. It had come from his bat, skimming through the air and connecting with the spider that was trying to give him a lap dance. There was a muted thwap as the bat made contact and the spider was thrown against the wall near the window. Three more of its legs came clean off upon impact. The spider tried to stand, but its body had been popped open by the impact of the bat. It looked to Laurence like a small collection of almost transparent guts were hanging out of the split in its body. It dropped to the seat at the other end of the sofa. Its remaining legs began to shiver and curl inwards towards the smashed remains of its body. The severed legs were scattered around it, all of them convulsing and twitching. Laurence turned to look at Chloe. She was standing back from the sofa and the dying spider with the bat raised, ready to hit it again. She saw that it was done for and she stepped back, lowering the bat as she did so. She turned to Laurence and began to laugh. The sound of her laughter was high and shrill and it made Laurence want to put his hands over his ears. He even twitched his arms to do so, but the pain sang its merry song on him and shut the movement down straight away. Chloe laughed until her face began to turn a dark shade of scarlet. Laurence was certain that he was the next victim of the bat until she stopped laughing suddenly and the bat slipped from her grasp and banged to the floor. She began to clasp at her mid-section. It looked like she was giving herself a big old hug for a moment and then she dropped to her knees.
“Chloe?” said Laurence, suddenly concerned. He had figured out that the spider that had got in the room had almost certainly got in under the opening between the living room door and the floor. He didn’t know if he was imagining things, but it felt like the sofa was being jostled from underneath. Chloe was his last line of defense against them getting in. The only weapon he had at his disposal was his size ten feet and he didn’t think that it would get him very far.
“It hurts,” said Chloe in a strangled voice. She managed to straighten up and she pulled up her top to show her midriff. Her body wasn’t the same shape as it had been before. She had a good narrow waist and well-rounded hips, a classic hourglass figure. Laurence had run his hands, his tongue over every inch of those curves the night before so he felt like he knew every inch of them. The narrow waist was now bulging at either side. The right side looked like it was more prominent than the left. Chloe ran an exploratory hand over it and then drew it away as if it was infected.
“What’s happening to me,” she suddenly yelled at Laurence. She was starting to get her colour back which was a relief, but her increasing anger was still keeping him right on the edge. The jostling under the sofa suddenly increased in ferocity. The sofa was suddenly jolted upwards and it came back down to the ground with a bang. Laurence was thrown on his side, his body weight came crashing down on his broken arm. He bellowed in pain and tried to right himself, but his broken arm wouldn’t bear any weight at all and he was forced to lie on top of it. The pain was white-hot and sizzling, the worst kind of pain he had ever had in his whole life. He looked over at Chloe. There was another spider in the room. This one had the same spindly legs as the last, but its body was round and fat like an oversized plum. The skin on the top of the body looked as if it had been peeled back, exposing a large wound that had
a steady stream of pus oozing out if it and onto the carpet below. It stood in front of Chloe for a moment. It stretched its legs, pushing the body upwards. It managed to touch the ceiling, leaving a pus mark on the paintwork. Chloe looked up at it for a moment and then she took up the bat and swung. She took all of its legs out in one fell swoop. The bulbous body dropped to the floor and then it began to try and stand up once more. All of its legs had been smashed at the bottom half. The spider was still trying to get up using the parts of its legs that still worked. Chloe got to her feet, uttered a guttural scream and them smashed her foot down on top of the spider’s head. The body popped like an over-inflated water balloon, sending chunks of congealed pus flying in all directions. The smell coming from it was incredible. For a moment, Laurence couldn’t breathe the smell was so overwhelming. Chloe tore her foot from the dead spider which had begun convulsing on the floor. Its legs flailed and thrashed around, whipping Laurence as they did so. After a moment the thrashing began to die down and soon the new corpse in the room was totally still. Chloe wiped her foot almost absent-mindedly on the carpet, smearing spider guts all over it. She looked over at Laurence and saw that he was lying on his busted arm. She came over to him, stepping over the dead spider and she knelt down next to him.
“Right Laurence, I’m going to sit you back up again now. Then we have to deal with that arm. It needs straightening out and then it won’t hurt so much anymore. Once I have done that then we need to talk don’t we?”
Laurence couldn’t say anything, he nodded his agreement. Chloe stuffed a hand under each of his increasingly sweaty armpits and them hauled him up into a sitting position. Even through his almighty pain Laurence was astounded at how strong Chloe was. He wasn’t a small man and she managed to lift him up with almost no effort at all. He held his breath as she did it, not wanting to roar down her ear and piss her off again. She was stood up in front of him. She had her top up again and was caressing the strange bumps that had appeared under her skin.
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