“Christ, what the fuck is that? Do you think it’s a hernia Laurence? I’ll bet it’s a hernia. That means I will need an operation once we get out of here,” she said.
Laurence didn’t answer, he was trying to control his breathing. Sweat was streaming down his face.
“Right, let’s straighten that arm out,” she said and with no warning she grabbed the blue tinged hand, planted her foot on his elbow and yanked it towards her. The arm made a noise like eggs being broken in a wet towel. The pain flashed white again, hotter and whiter than a million suns. Laurence drew in a breath to scream but he was unconscious before he could let it out.
Minutes could have passed, hours could have passed. Hell, even a few weeks could have passed and Laurence wouldn’t have been aware of it. He became aware of someone humming a tune. It wasn’t one that he recognized, but it reminded him of his mother. She would always be humming a tune, no matter what it was that she was doing. Perhaps he was dead and she was calling out to him to come to her. He willed himself to head towards the sound. It was a strange sensation, not unlike swimming to the surface of a deep pool. Soon his head would be above water again, he would be back…..he would be back…..
His eyes opened and he saw that it was Chloe who was humming. She was tying something to his busted hand. She pulled the knot tight and then looked over her handiwork. The busted hand was still painful, but the pain had dulled to the steady throb of a toothache. It was the same with his broken arm. He could feel pins and needles running up it all the way to his fingers. That had to be a good thing, because he hadn’t been able to feel that hand at all before. He looked down at the broken arm and saw that Chloe had splinted it using the flat end of the cricket bat. There were half a dozen pieces of material tied around the swollen and bruised arm and the pointed end of the cricked bat had been wedged between the sofa cushions. All-in-all she had done a splendid job. The fact that she was singing to herself also gave him a little reassurance that she had calmed down. The fact that the bat was now a medical aid and not a means to let Laurence Johnson’s brains see the light of day was also a welcome relief.
“Thank you Chloe,” he whispered.
She jumped slightly as if she had been woken from a daydream. “Oh, that’s alright Laurence. Now that you are all fixed up, we can talk can’t we?”
“The spiders!” Laurence said. He had almost forgotten about them.
“Oh don’t worry. No more of them have got in. Besides if they do then I will stamp on ‘em, no problem. I bet I scared ‘em off when I fucked up that last one eh Laurence?” she said gleefully.
Chloe came and sat down next to him. The sofa cushions jolted when she sat causing his arm to hurt temporarily. The pain was still significant, but it was nowhere near the dizzy heights that it was before she had fixed him up. The bite on his neck was on almost equal terms with the broken bones now.
“Yeah, you took care of them, and you took care of me. You are really quite something Chloe,” he said.
Chloe turned to him. “Then why did you try and hurt me? I didn’t deserve that did I?”
“No you didn’t. I was looking for your phone so I could call for help. I know that women sometimes shove them down their bras so I went looking. You have such a good body that it got me going. I lost control of myself. I wanted you so badly that I….”
Chloe actually smiled, a genuine warm smile but Laurence could see that there was a hell of a lot of mistrust in her eyes. “Laurence you can be so sweet. We will be fine together. We just have to put things right, that’s all and there is only one way we can do that.”
Laurence prickled. He didn’t like the sound of that. He wondered if she was going to break his legs or something along those lines and then he remembered that his arm was tied to the bat with the remains of his cushion covers on his armchair. He cleared his throat. “How are we going to put it right?”
She turned her body so she was fully facing him. “Well, we can make love, properly this time.”
Laurence felt a combination of fear and a tiny twitch of excitement. Fucking was the last thing on his mind at the moment, but if it got him out of this jam that he was in he was all for it. “But what about the spiders, what if they try to get in again?”
“I told you Laurence, I will squish them.”
Laurence licked his lips, his mouth was incredibly dry. “But, I don’t know if I can do it at all, my arms hurt, my neck hurts…..”
Chloe stood up and rummaged in her back pocket. She pulled out a little baggie that was full of blue pills. His memory flashed back to last night. He had taken one of those and within the hour his dick was harder than steel and it stayed that way for most of the night.
“Take one of these Laurence, then we can do it properly. When we get out of here we can sort out moving in together and our wedding. It will be all so perfect.”
“Woah…just a second, a wedding?”
Chloe’s face fell, “Yes, our wedding. You can’t make love to me and not marry me Laurence. If you don’t want to marry me then there is no point in you being here is there? Perhaps I should take that bat back.” She started forwards and Laurence put up the broken fingers to stop her.
“No…no…it’s fine……I just wanted to make sure that you were sure, if you know what I mean.”
Chloe stopped mid step. Her face lit up again. “Of course I’m sure Laurence.” She said. She kicked the remains of the spider that she had stamped out of the way and then scooped up the whiskey. There was still a tiny bit in the bottle. She put it on the cushion next to Laurence and then she fished out one of her blue pills. She shoved it in Laurence’s mouth, opened the whiskey and held the bottle to his lips. He drank the little whiskey that was left and the pill went down his gullet along with the fiery liquid. Chloe knelt on the floor in front of him and began to rub his slightly damp crotch.
“Right then, we just have to wait for you to wake up don’t we,” she said.
21.
Shannon had a pistol stashed away in one of the overhead cupboards. She had taken it down and was busy pushing bullets into the clip. The rest of the crew were looking at the road ahead as they began to arrive in Newtown. The outskirts of the town were sparse, save for one of the two railway stations that the town possessed. Lorna had expected it to look like a post- apocalyptic town like she had seen on so many films and television programs about the end of the world. She expected burnt out cars littering the streets, thousands of pounds worth of money blowing about in the breeze and buildings in a state of ruin, or on fire. But there was none of that. Everything on the surface looked exactly the same as it had done before she had left. There were no signs of any spiders, at least not in this part of the town. Johnny had slowed right down so that the van wasn’t making too much noise as it moved. Eventually they reached a set of traffic lights which were still in full working order. The van turned left onto the main street which was a long, open road lined with retail shops and cafes. Towards the end of the street in the distance was the dome of spiders. Being this close to it meant that they could see just how many spiders there were making up the dome. None of them were moving except for the occasional ripple of shivering. Each time it happened the spiders made the strange clicking sounds that they had first heard in the car park a million years ago. The clicking was so loud that they could hear it even through the double glazed glass in the windows and the steady purr of the van’s engine. As they made their way down the road the pavement started filling up with the bodies of the residents of Newtown. They were all in different states of mutilation. Some looked they had been torn open from the inside out, others looked like they had been deflated, robbed of all the bones and muscle that made up a human body. On either side of the road there was a small, drying stream of pinkish goo. They all knew it had come from the bodies but none of them wanted to say it out loud. Flies were buzzing around the air in their thousands and settling on the bodies of the dead. Amongst the human wreckage there were dozens of smashed spider b
odies. The residents of Newtown had managed to take some of those bastards with them. Lorna didn’t want to look at it all, she was certain that she was going to see someone she knew but, mercifully, most of the bodies were too broken to clearly recognize. Yet at the same time she felt compelled to look, the scene in front of them was so unbelievable that it didn’t even seem to be real. A foul, decaying smell began to fill up the van, making it hard to breathe. Lorna began to feel her stomach starting to churn. She pulled up the neck of her top and placed it over her nose. It filtered some of the smell out, but not enough for her liking. Denton Road was coming up on the right hand side, which was where they had all agreed they would stop and let Lorna and Shannon out so they could cut round and create the distraction. Johnny turned the van slowly, drove part of the way up the road and then pulled the van up to a stop. He killed the engine and for a moment there was total silence. Then the dome of spiders shivered and clicked making them all jump. Lorna began to feel the first real twitches of fear beginning to build inside her. Everything that had happened from the spiders in the car park to right now being parked up in the street where she was supposed to get out and cause a mass of spiders to come and chase her, had felt unreal, almost as if it were a film with special effects and a cast reading out their lines. But now it was becoming the real thing. Now the talking was over and it was time to put everything they had discussed into action. They were going to try and save thousands, heck even millions of lives by what they were doing. That was a huge burden of responsibility that she was feeling. But she knew that she had to do her part, otherwise more towns, more cities were going to end up like Newtown, with the dead covering the streets. It didn’t bear thinking about. She decided that, yes she was going to be scared but she was going to do it anyway, it was far too important to be chickening out now.
Shannon came over to her. Her complexion had taken on a paler tone than normal. Lorna was pretty sure that she was feeling the same way. For some reason, it gave her comfort to think that she wasn’t alone in being afraid. They were all human after all.
“Do you have everything you need? Watch, water etc.” said Shannon.
Lorna checked her small backpack, on loan to her from Johnny. She had her own watch on her wrist, a present from Laurence during the days when he actually gave a shit about making her feel special. The time was set correctly and she had got a new battery for it just three weeks earlier. There were two bottles of spring water in her pack. Her mobile phone was in her trouser pocket and it had Briggs’ and Johnny’s numbers added to it.
“Check,” she said feeling mildly stupid.
“Right. I got my gun, so if things get out of hand, I can hold them off for a little while,” said Shannon.
“Hope you are a good shot,” said Lorna.
“Oh, I am honey, believe me I am.”
Briggs had brought the laptop over and he pointed to the map on the screen. “Right here is where I think the center of the spider mountain is. I am certain that we will find the queen in there. Knowsley Street West. Do you know that road Lorna,” he said.
Lorna was struck dumb for a moment. She knew it all right. “That’s where I live….lived.”
“Shit. You could have been sharing a street with it and not even known about it. Right then. You have to take the spiders on a big old circular tour of this town and bring them right back to us. When they realize that we have the queen then they will try and protect her and that means they will come after us. I don’t know what the armies plan is right now and I don’t care. We are going to lead them to Layton Valley. Hopefully the army will see that they are clear of civilization and they will put the screws to them. Then we can all go home and have burgers for tea. Lorna and Shannon, it’s time to get going. We have no more time to waste. You know the drill and we will be waiting,” said Briggs. He went to the side door, unbolted it and opened the door. A waft of the horrendous smell that greeted them as they arrived in Newtown came in through the open space. Lorna wasn’t sure, but she suspected that they all gagged at exactly the same time. She picked her pack up and put her arms through the straps. Shannon went out of the door first. Lorna was on her way when Briggs patted her shoulder and whispered “I will wait for you.” She looked at him, nodded and then stepped out of the van and onto the road. It felt strange being outside of the van. The air was cooler as the afternoon was turning into evening. The spider dome shivered and clicked again causing her to almost trip over the kerb. She looked up at the mass of spiders clinging to each other and she wondered for a moment how they would ever outrun them. Since she had got out of the van she could hear a rustling noise. It reminded her of autumn leaves blowing in the wind. She even looked round for them, but then she realized that it wasn’t the leaves she could hear, it was the spiders’ bodies rustling together as they continually fought to stay in formation. Shannon grabbed her arm, making her jump.
“Come on, don’t think about it, if you think about it then you won’t do it, trust me,” said Shannon. She began to lead the way back to the main street. They had to walk down the center of the road, picking their way over the mangled bodies of people and spiders. Thankfully there wasn’t too many of them out on the road and it was easy to cut a trail right round them. They were getting nearer to Lorna’s street. It was on the road that veered off to the right. They passed Al’s place, where Lorna had enjoyed many a cooked breakfast and a fresh cup of coffee on many occasions. The place was shuttered up, and she hoped that he had managed to stay alive. He was one of the most highly regarded men of Newtown, often giving free food to the few homeless people that passed through the town. She focused back on the road ahead. They were nearly at the right- hand turn. Lorna’s heart was pounding so hard that she could feel it making her eardrums bulge. She wondered how many times she had walked down this street, just doing normal, everyday things and now here she was, in a version of hell that she could never have imagined. Shannon got out her gun and held it to her side whilst she was walking. She was deep breathing, her cheeks puffing out as she blew the air out of her lungs. She was nervous and Lorna was glad of it. If she wasn’t scared right now then she wasn’t human. They were on Knowsley Street, the place that Lorna had called home for so long. The last time she was here she was breaking up her marriage, walking out of her home for good. She had no idea what was to become of her after all this was over, but it had to be better things. They made it halfway down Knowsley Street. The left hand side of the road was covered in silky objects. They were spider webs, Lorna knew that much, but there were piles of them stacked up on the pavement.
“Cocoons,” whispered Shannon. “Food reserves. Probably more dead bodies.”
Lorna felt a shiver go up her back. She didn’t want to end up like that, she would rather have eaten a bullet. The road ahead came to an abrupt end. The spider dome began right here. They could see them stacked up on top of each other. There was a constant movement among them as if they were trying to steady themselves. The ground around the bottom of the pile was littered with broken spider bodies. As they looked, one of the spiders fell from higher up and burst open when it hit the ground. Blood and pus splattered in all directions and the broken spider twitched twice and then it was still.
Shannon raised her gun, “Right, let’s get this party started. I’ll take some shots at them, that should be enough to make them come after us. Get ready to run O.K?”
Lorna nodded and Shannon pointed her gun at the dome. She was just about to squeeze the trigger when the spider dome started to shiver and click. This time it didn’t stop, instead rising in volume and ferocity.
“What’s happening?” said Lorna.
“I don’t know,” shouted Shannon. Her voice could only just be heard over the noise the spiders were making. They were shaking and vibrating in an absolute frenzy. Then just as suddenly as they started they stopped again. The air was totally still in the wake of the noise. Shannon and Lorna were frozen to the spot, almost hypnotized. Suddenly a chunk of spiders fell off t
he dome. Some of them burst open and some of them landed and began to scurry towards Shannon and Lorna. Then another bigger chunk came off, and then another. Shannon let out a shriek and began firing her gun at the oncoming spiders. Some of the bullets pinged off the concrete, some of them struck the spiders, breaking them into pieces upon impact. She kept on firing until the gun clicked empty. Lorna grabbed her arm and began to pull her away. The spider dome was coming down and all of them were coming after the two women.
“Come on, we have to go,” roared Lorna down Shannon’s ear. It was enough to snap her into action and they started to run. Lorna looked backwards just once and saw a wall of spiders hurtling towards them. As she tuned back around she almost tripped over the remains of a half-eaten human. She managed to dodge it just in time. She knew that at any moment they were going to be consumed by the spiders. There was just too many of them and the collapsing dome was spreading them out quickly. She was running as fast as her legs would carry her, but even with all of her gym visits she was beginning to tire. Her lungs began to hurt every time she tore in a breath. Shannon was a little faster than her too so she was going to be the one that was caught first. She was going to die, right here and right now.
“Over here,” shouted a voice, a male voice and one that she recognized. She saw Al leaning out of the door of his café. He had pulled the shutter up just enough to allow him to lean out. Shannon had seen him waving his arm at her, gesturing to her to go towards him and she changed direction. Lorna felt a burst of energy well up within her and she managed to pick up the pace. The rustling and clicking of spiders behind her was almost on top of them. They got to Al and he stood aside to let them in. He pulled down the shutter just as the street began to fill up with the spiders. The shutter banged and shook as the monsters crashed against it. Al shut the half-glass door and turned the lock. The shutter continued to crash against the door and the window. Al and the two women backed away from it. The shutter near the door banged against the door hard, causing the glass to crack.
Dawn of the Spiders: Special Edition Page 14