That wasn’t even the worst thing. The reason Banks didn’t get too close was the stench, a sickly odor of corruption he knew too well from the aftermath of old battles. The smell came, not so much from the body but from a spreading pool of gray and green fluid, a puddle into which what was left of the body was slowly sinking.
“How long has it been like this?” Banks asked.
“The smell’s been bad for a wee while, sir,” young Wilkins said. “But I’ve been standing by the window and didn’t pay that much attention until I turned round to see…that.”
“Aye, well, it can’t stay here, that’s for sure.”
He didn’t notice that Maggie had come in behind him and was at his shoulder, her eyes wide with horror as she looked down at the body.
“We should take him home,” she whispered. “His family…”
“…don’t want to see him in this state. Trust me on that.”
He looked down at the body again. The leaking fluids were definitely spreading and the smell was getting worse. He turned to Hynd.
“Sarge? We got any tarpaulin?”
“No can do, Cap.”
Maggie whispered again, “We’ve got the rucksacks. We could…”
She couldn’t finish the sentence. Banks could hardly blame her. The man had been her colleague, maybe even friend. Pouring his remains into a nylon rucksack wasn’t something worth thinking about.
He put a hand on Maggie’s shoulder.
“We’ll deal with it,” he said. “It comes with the job.”
He looked over her shoulder and met Hynd’s gaze. The sarge nodded and went to fetch the rucksacks.
*
In the end, they needed to use a spade from the dig and scooped the man’s remains, like so much wet cement, into the bag of one of the rucksacks, sealing that as tight as they could, then tying the first rucksack inside the second. What had been a man was now a wet ball of skin and pus no larger than a football, wrapped inside two nylon bags. They kicked dust and sand over the puddle of fluid until the stench abated, although there was a malodorous whiff coming from the rucksacks.
They took the bundle out to the main doorway and set it against the wall outside.
“We should at least bury him,” Maggie said, having followed them through.
“Cremation might be preferable,” Banks said softly. “But I can’t spare the fuel. If we get a chance, we’ll do better by him, I promise.”
“We can’t leave him lying against the wall.”
Wiggins spoke, quietly and softly, “Lassie, there is not him, not anymore. Your friend is gone.”
The woman looked like she might argue but was given no time. Across the square, movement on the rooftops signaled that the impasse had been broken.
- 14 -
Maggie struggled to drag her gaze from the tied up bundle of rucksacks, finding it hard to come to terms with how quickly Jim White had gone and been reduced to this state. She only managed to look away when she noticed that the soldiers had become silent and alert.
She looked up and saw what had caught their attention; dog-sized spiders, a score of them, lined the rooftops. They all stood on their back legs, their front legs raised in the air, as if tasting the breeze.
“What are they doing?” Wiggins asked.
“Do I look like the fucking spider whisperer?” Hynd replied.
“I can make a good guess,” Maggie added. “I think they can taste the decay. It was their venom that caused whatever happened to Jim. I think it’s part of the feeding process.”
A rat-a-tat clacking echoed around the courtyard as if in reply, all of the spiders in unison.
“They’re hungry? That’s what you’re saying?” Wiggins replied.
“No,” Banks replied. “She’s saying we’ve got bait.”
Maggie balked at that.
“That’s not what I said. I won’t let you use poor Jim as a fucking enticement.”
“Sorry,” Banks replied. “But he’s a tactical advantage.”
“Tactical fucking advantage? He’s a human being.”
“He was,” Banks said.
And as quickly as it had come, all fight left her. The bald declaration of fact hit her hard and she remembered Wiggins’ and Davies’ words from earlier. White was gone and these soldiers were only looking for a way out of the current situation, a way to keep her and Kim alive. She needed to start helping rather than hindering them.
No time like the present.
“So what can we do now?” she asked.
The spiders stood in a row along the rooftops, tasting the air but showing no signs of venturing down from their high position.
“If they’re happy to wait, I’m happy to oblige,” Banks said.
A high scream echoed through the building from deep inside.
Shit, it’s Kim. We left her alone.
*
Maggie was right behind Banks and Wiggins as they ran along the corridor and into the dig chamber, so she got a far too close look at the spider that was trying to force its way through the gap in the top corner where the walls met.
The only thing that had kept Kim alive was that this beast was too large to get through the hole and had only managed to get its mouth, eyes, and two legs into the room before getting itself stuck. It struggled, fangs clattering, caught in the gray webbing that had covered the hole. Pebbles and dust dropped from around it as it frantically tried to widen the gap enough to allow it through.
Wiggins raised his rifle, aiming for the cluster of eyes.
“Wait, Wiggo,” Banks replied, putting a hand on the barrel and lowering the corporal’s aim. “I want to try something. Fetch me one of the gas canisters we use for the stove.”
The corporal left and returned a minute later. In the meantime, Maggie went to where Kim sat against the wall, her gaze fixed on the struggling beast in the corner. When Banks took the canister, open the valve, and set the escaping gas aflame with his lighter, Kim spoke up, shouting, her voice stronger than it had been for days.
“Burn it. Burn the fucker.”
Banks turned to her and smiled.
“That’s the general idea, miss.”
He stepped forward, taking care to keep out of the way of the spider’s mouth and applied the flame to the webbing around it. The result was spectacular. Fire flared, yellow and green and blue as the web went up with a whoosh. Banks had to stand back as a halo of flames encircled the beast. It thrashed and let out a high wailing squeal. Its struggling became frantic as it tried to back away from the flame, only to get more entangled in web, which itself then caught fire, encasing the whole gap in the wall in fire.
By the time the flames started to die down, the spider had stopped struggling. The front end of it caved in, a lump of ash and burnt carapace, only a dark hole left where the eyes had been, and finally there was only two badly charred legs hanging from the hole to show it had been there.
“That went well,” Wiggins said.
*
“Thanks,” Kim said to Banks.
The captain smiled again.
“Your idea. Or, your wee mural here’s idea anyway,” he said and looked at both Kim and Maggie. “You two are the smart people here. Why don’t you put your heads together and see if you can come up with something else that might help us?”
Banks left, leaving Wiggins at the door to watch the gap in the wall. The hole looked wider than before, as if the spider’s death throes had caused structural damage to the wall.
“What do you think is through there?” Maggie asked Kim. “You mentioned tunnels earlier.”
“I did? I don’t remember. But yes, the literature talks of tunnels, mine workings, perhaps even tombs from several different cultures.”
Maggie stepped over to pick up one of the lights and took it over towards the gap.
“Careful, lass,” Wiggins said from the door. “Don’t get too close. Spiders are sneaky wee buggers.”
“I want a wee look through there, that’s all
,” she said. “Keep me covered.”
She had to stand on tiptoe to see anything, then had to push the light through the gap at the full extent of her arm. She got a sight of a wall covered in ornate carvings, the paint on the rock looking fresh and vibrant although she knew it must have been hidden for centuries, perhaps millennia. The whole expanse of wall she could see was covered, ranks of carvings reaching to the limits of her light. When she called out, the echo from the new chamber beyond told her it was a much larger space than the room in which she stood.
“Kim, come and look,” she said. “We’ve got a major find through here.”
“Come away, lass,” Wiggins said. “Find or not, there’s no way you’re going through there. It’s not going to happen, so put the idea away.”
“I’m an archaeologist,” she said. “It’s what I do.”
“Aye, maybe. But you can’t take it with us when we get out of here tonight. So let it be. You might get a chance to come back at a later date, when it’s safer.”
Maggie looked through to the new chamber again.
So close.
“Look, I’ll only be a minute. I’ll take a camera through, at least get it recorded. You can cover me from this side.”
Wiggins shook his head.
“No can do, lass. The cap would have my balls for breakfast.”
She smiled.
“Not even for a promise of a curry and a bottle of wine when we get home?”
He laughed.
“And I thought the spiders were sneaky buggers. Sorry. I’m in no hurry to get busted back to private on my first trip out. And that’s what you’d be doing to me if you push it. Please. Don’t.”
“Then I’ll see if I can appeal to your captain,” she said and made for the door.
“Good luck with that,” Wiggins said with a laugh. “He doesn’t like curry.”
- 15 -
“Nope,” Banks said a few minutes later. Maggie had come to him with a tale of a new find that needed recording for posterity and she’d made a good case for herself but he couldn’t allow it. It was too risky. “Wiggo was right to keep you out. For one, we already know there’s spiders through there. It’s too dangerous.”
“The thought of new wonders never before seen, just out of reach, is something I’d never be able to live with. And besides, you said yourself you wanted intel about a possible escape route?”
“That was before I found out that fire works better than bullets against these buggers. We’ll burn our way out of here through the alleys if we have to.”
“Let me go through with Wiggins,” Maggie said. “Two minutes, tops, and I promise I’ll be careful. He can check for a possible way out, I take a few photies, and everybody gets what they want?”
Banks looked out over the courtyard, to where the exits were all closed off with thick web and to the black shapes lined up along the rooftops. The more he considered it, the more he thought that a backup plan was a good idea.
“Okay, then. But I won’t send Wiggins through. I’ll accompany you on your wee jaunt.”
“Thank you,” she replied and smiled. “Wiggins was going to cost me a curry anyway.”
“In that case, you owe me a pizza,” he replied. “Lead on.”
*
Wiggins raised an eyebrow when he saw that Banks had yielded to the woman but wisely kept his mouth shut.
“I’ll go first, you follow me, and Wiggo watches our backs,” Banks said to Maggie. “And any time I say enough, it’s enough and we get out of there. Understood?”
She looked up from where she’d been checking the batteries on a digital camera and gave him a mock salute.
“I should come too,” Kim said but the other woman hadn’t left her place sitting against the wall and Banks saw she’d said it but not meant it and a hint of relief showed in her face when he spoke.
“Nope. We’re pushing our luck as it is. A quick in and out is what’s needed here.”
“So the sarge’s wife tells me,” Wiggins replied with a grin.
“Game head on, Wiggo,” Banks replied. “Any eight-legged fucker shows up, put it down hard and fast.”
Banks handed Wiggins his rifle, hauled himself up and through the gap, getting oily ash over his palms for his sins, and got his weapon back before dropping down into the other side. He kicked aside the dead body of the spider, then stood with his back to the wall, switched on his gun light, and washed its beam across the room. He saw why Maggie was so interested. The room was some twenty feet square and lined from floor to eight feet tall ceiling in large panels of stone-carved and painted frescos. They didn’t look Roman. Banks was no archaeologist but these had a sense of an even greater age and if he had to hazard a guess, he might say Babylonian, given the epic beards on show in some of the carved men and the ancient weaponry on show in their hands. The spiders that were depicted in the carvings were the same though; large as chariots and emerging from holes in the ground to wreak havoc.
He was examining a scene of graphic dismemberment—men and spider—when Maggie pulled herself through to join him. She immediately set to taking pictures. He left her to it and stepped over to examine the only exit.
He knew before he reached the door that it was going to open into an even larger area beyond; he heard the echoes of his padded footsteps and felt a breeze on his face, cool and welcoming after the stifling heat out in the building through the hole.
More of the gray web hung around the door and when he shone his gun light out into the open area, there were steps leading down into a vast underground cavern. Web hung everywhere he looked, in thick mats across openings and stretched in cat’s cradles like rope bridges over the rocky roof. But apart from the dead one he’d kicked out the way, there was no sign of current spider activity.
There was a definite drag mark leading down the steps and off into the gloom beyond his light and at first, he was at a loss to explain it. Then he remembered: Reynolds must have been taken this way. He decided not to mention it to the woman behind him, at least not until they got back to the other side. All he heard was the soft whistle of wind as if coming from a distance and the click of the camera as Maggie took picture after picture.
*
He knew something was coming before he heard it; there had been a subtle change in the breeze, a hint of acridity and a shifting of the air.
“Time to go,” he said, taking Maggie by the arm and leading her towards the corner
“I’m nearly finished.”
“No, you are finished.”
Then they heard it, the now familiar rat-a-tat clacking of a spider, somewhere, not too far away, out in the larger chamber and definitely getting closer.
“Quickly now,” he said. “Get out of here.”
Maggie took several precious seconds to stow the camera safely away inside her shirt before scrambling up the wall to the hole, her feet not taking hold on stone that was slimy with the oily residue of dead spider. Banks had to turn away from the doorway to give her a boost, cupping a foot in his hands and lifting, hard, throwing her up through the gap in the wall.
The spider clacking was even louder now, right outside the doorway.
“Come on, cap,” Wiggins shouted.
Banks knew that if his own foot slipped the same way that Maggie’s had then he wouldn’t escape an attack.
“Fetch that gas canister, Wiggo,” he said. “Then cover me.”
He turned his back to the wall, weapon raised, light shining on the doorway. The rat-a-tat clacking went up a notch, frenzied now, and a shadow, a large one, moved in the larger chamber outside the door.
“Cap?” Wiggins said above him and he looked up, saw the canister in the corporal’s hand, and nodded.
“Drop it.”
He caught it smoothly, then had to lower his rifle to get at his lighter. As if aware that the weapon was no longer trained on it, the spider came into view. It wasn’t as large as the big ones he’d seen outside but it filled most of the doorway. It clac
ked its fangs together fast, as if in anticipation of an easy meal.
“Come and get it, fucker.”
Banks opened the valve on the canister, stepped forward, flicking the Zippo open and rolling the wheel at the same time. It took immediately and he applied it to the gas, sending a sheet of flame washing over the spider. The flame also took hold on the web around the doorway, which flared up yellow and green as it burned and dripped, viscously, like napalm, onto the spider’s body. The creature gave out one high squeal and retreated fast, patches of burning web stuck to it, still flaming.
Banks went to the doorway and saw the burning beast escape into the darkness. But the flames showed him something else; red eyes, reflecting yellow and green in the flames.
Scores of them.
*
If he’d turned and ran then, he knew he’d make an escape easily.
But that’ll leave this lot at my back.
He had a better idea.
Avoiding the already diminishing flames, he stepped out of the doorway, down three of four steps.
“Cap?” he heard Wiggins shout, worriedly.
“Be back in a sec,” he said.
The rat-a-tat clack of spiders in unison echoed around the chamber. They’d seen him and he heard the scratch of hooked feet on stone as they came forward.
He opened the valve of the canister to full, set the lighter flame to it, and threw the can into the largest mass of thick web he could reach. He was already turning back up the steps when it went up like a grenade at his back, sending a sheet of flame running all along the length of the chamber’s roof, dripping blobs of melting, burning web on the spiders below. They thrashed and squealed in frenzy, their attempts to escape only spreading more flame around. He waited long enough to see the flame take hold on the walls, then turned and ran for safety.
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