“You think someone else has been killed?” another of the guests asked on seeing this.
“I hope not,” Landy replied.
“Maybe he knows where the killer is and he’s going to get him,” Emily offered. Landy squeezed her arm. He wished she was right about that, but he had a bad feeling she was not. He saw that Kerry had been watching Garrick rush away too and had heard what had been said at the table.
“I’ll be back in a minute,” he said, patting Emily’s hand as he slid out from his seat and went over to the counter.
“What’ll it be, Charley?” Kerry asked, though he could see she knew he just wanted to talk to her away from the others.
“You heard what was said at the table,” he said, “Two guests of the hotel were murdered and a local man’s body was found in a car parked up there this morning.” Kerry’s eyes widened at this news, but Landy was glad to see this was only in horror and not eagerness to get the gossip.
“Oh my God,” she said and cast a glance to the table. “Emily found them?” she asked. Landy looked back to Emily and then turned to Kerry again nodding,
“I’m afraid so, and it was not something any young girl should ever have to see.”
“Who did it?” she asked.
“Don’t know for sure, but Garrick thinks it was a local man, someone I don’t know, can’t recall the name though.” Landy could recall the name, but he didn’t want to be the one spreading it around if it wasn’t true. A scandal like that getting attached to your name was not going to be shaken off easily.
“A local!” This was even more incredulous to Kerry. She looked at Landy with pity and took a cup from under the counter and poured in some coffee, then leaning behind some bottles on the back shelf she came out with a small steel flask in her hands. “You look like you could use a little something in this one,” she said as she unscrewed the cap and poured a little whiskey into the cup before pushing it towards him.
“I won’t correct you on that,” Landy said, taking the cup and drinking a little from it.
“Sit here a bit, I’m going to top up your pals and give them a little nip too,” Kerry said passing him. Landy thought about pointing out Emily was too young but then stopped. What did that matter today; it might even do her some good.
Kerry turned the mood around soon after. She got the out of towners talking about where they called home and it took everyone's attention from their own inner thoughts for a while. The coffee kept flowing, and it was starting to feel like any normal mid-morning until the screaming started.
At first Landy wasn’t sure he’d heard something. Kerry was talking, and it was a brief noise, far away if anything. He ignored it; possibly he’d imagined it. But then he heard it again, only louder more and saw the others around him reacting to it too. Something was happening and there were a lot of people involved.
“What the hell is going on now?” Kerry said, moving towards the door.
“Don’t go out there, Kerry,” Landy said, he was looking to the sky through the window. She followed his gaze.
“I don’t see anything,” she said.
“Me neither,” Emily said pressing her face right up to the window.
“No, but there’s a lot of people shouting so it could be the clouds again,” Landy said. “Let me have a look.”
The sounds from outside became much clearer once the door was open. Everyone within the diner gathered behind Landy as he popped his head outside and looked to the sky in all directions. There was nothing to be seen.
“It’s not clouds,” he said and stepped outside.
“Where’s the noise coming from?” Kerry asked, stepping out with him. They looked off up the street, and it wasn’t lost on Landy that this is the way Garrick had sped off.
“Sounds like it might be Main Street,” he replied.
“Those science people from State were going up there with the mayor to look at the cloud,” Kerry said. They all made assumptions about this but kept their ideas to themselves.
Screaming started coming from other directions then, and Landy and Kerry spun to face different sounds. Emily came out now and turned in a circle, tears forming in her eyes at the multiple sounds of misery as they grew.
“Where’s the nearest cloud that landed to here?” Landy suddenly asked Kerry, gripping her by the arms. She looked confused for a moment and then said,
“There’s one on the side of the building next door,” she nodded to the hardware store only feet away. Landy looked to the store.
“Something’s happening with the hardened clouds,” he said with dread.
As though on cue, there came a loud cracking noise from the corner, and suddenly it was like a moving white carpet was coming around the corner heading right for them.
“Get back inside!” Kerry shouted, pushing at the group and rushing into the diner.
“No, we need to run!” Emily shouted, but it was Kerry’s momentum that saw the hotel guests follow her at speed like lemmings reacting to their leader. Emily looked to Landy, and they ran towards the Sheriff's Office as the door to the diner slammed shut.
By the time the two hotel workers were on the steps of the Sheriff’s Office, all hell was breaking loose in the diner and the screams were the loudest so far.
Chapter 44
Tammy’s world came into sharp focus at one moment during this current crisis. All at the same time, all the phones were ringing, she got through to Garrick on the radio, Lawrence walked out of his cell and into the office, and Charles Landy and Emily Sounding came in through the front door. Her eyes darted everywhere, not sure who to deal with first but thinking quickly that it should be the Sheriff.
“Sheriff, the phones are jumping, the clouds are breaking open and spiders are coming out, I can hear screaming from everywhere!” she said into the radio.
“Tell me about it!” Garrick shouted back through the static. “Get out of town, tell anyone you see to get in their cars and get the fuck out of here!” Tammy was shocked by the coarse language from a police officer, but of course he was only human too.
“What’s going on?” Lawrence asked from the doorway. He looked a sight, but his eyes were back and Tammy was glad to see it.
“Are you near the Office?” Tammy asked Garrick.
“Be there in two minutes!” Garrick came back, and Tammy decided there was nothing more to be said until he was here.
“Lawrence,” she said rushing to him. He took her in his arms, but he was hesitant.
“What happened?” he asked, sounding unsure of himself. Tammy looked now to the hotel staff.
“Come in,” she said waving them from the doorway. “Everyone just sit tight a minute while I answer these phones.”
For more than four minutes Tammy answered panicked residents telling her all kinds of horrors that were taking place all over town. The screaming came from both the phone line and the world outside the windows and intermittent gunshots rang out as well. She ended up having to cut each call short saying there is no Sheriff's Department right now and yelling at the caller to get out town any way they could. The phones were still ringing, and panic was starting to get the better of her when suddenly she heard the voices of Lawrence, Emily and Charles Landy echoing what she was saying on the other phone lines. Had it not been for the terrible message they all had to convey, this moment would have melted her heart.
When the calls finally ceased, each of them took a deep breath and they looked to one another in dazed exhaustion.
“Thank you all for the help,” Tammy said.
“Think nothing of it,” Lawrence said and then quickly added, “I think we better take our own advice though and get the hell out of here.”
“Here, here,” Landy agreed.
Tammy stood up, fully in agreement with this when she saw Emily’s frightened face.
“Can I call my mom?” the young girl asked.
“Of course, honey,” Tammy said, feeling terribly sorry for her.
The door
opened with great force, and Garrick burst in and looked around the room.
“Sheriff!” Tammy exclaimed as though caught doing something wrong. Garrick looked at Lawrence a moment, seemed to take in his eyes and then looked the others over.
“Did my wife call?” he asked Tammy.
“No,” Tammy said, though it was possible she had called to report something and just never said who she was before Tammy told her to leave town and hung up. Garrick’s face looked grim at this news.
“She wasn’t at home either,” he muttered. Then, as though catching himself, he said, “The town is not safe. You all need to get in the nearest car and get as far away as you can.”
“Where should we go?” Landy asked.
“Head for Emerson. Go around the mountains, not through them. There must be millions of those spiders up there too.”
“There’s plenty across the street in the diner,” Landy said, pointing. Garrick went to the window and looked over. The windows were streaked with blood from the inside and a white wave flowed over them.
“Your hotel guests?” he asked, and Landy answered softly,
“Yep.”
Tammy leaned over Emily and said,
“You better make that call now, but my bet is your folks are hot footing it to the hotel where they think you are right now,” Tammy said.
“The hotel,” Garrick repeated, and it looked for a moment like he was going to add something else but stopped. Emily dialed the number quickly and after a short pause shook her head,
“They’re not at home.” She looked scared, and Tammy hugged her tightly.
“Landy,” Garrick said, “Get your car running and take these four people out by the hotel road.” Tammy could see the role of lawman falling from Garrick in the way he spoke. First it was the bad language, and now it was dropping the Mr from Mr Landy when addressing him. It was scary to think there was no law in Gossamer Falls along with everything else that was going on.
“What are you going to do?” Lawrence asked Garrick. Everyone in the room watched the Sheriff’s reaction.
“I’m going to find my wife, and anyone else I can take along for the ride,” he said and before anyone could say anything to challenge this he asked Lawrence, “You said Anderson was talking about ‘mind spiders’ when you came in last night. Do you remember that?” Lawrence looked confused, but a dim light of recollection came to his eyes.
“Yes, that’s what he said,” he replied.
“I think I know what he means. One of my neighbours came out with a dazed look in his eyes and blasted the head clean off a woman passing by his house, and then he came after me. I think some of these spiders got inside his head and were somehow making him go nuts.”
“I saw the spiders come out of the Sheriff’s head when he died,” Lawrence remembered. Garrick nodded.
“I saw the same from my neighbour. It’s probably what happened to Clinton Scarrow to make him kill those people too so watch out for anyone acting strange out there also. Doesn’t matter who it is, if these things are inside them, they could be willing to kill you without even knowing what they were doing.”
Tammy was horrified at this thought, and she couldn’t help but think any one of them in this room could be crazy and try to kill the rest of them at any minute. Who knew if the spiders were already inside any of them yet? She eyed Garrick warily; he’d been acting differently since he came back. His gun on his hip looked huge just then. Was he going to kill them all?
“Do you all know how to fire a gun?” Garrick asked, looking around at them. All but Emily nodded that they did. Garrick looked in thought for a moment and then taking keys from his pocket he went into the office and unlocked the guns cabinet and handed out weapons to each of them. “Don’t use these unless you really have to,” he warned. Tammy didn’t think it necessarily wise to give guns to people who might be about to go crazy, but she couldn't argue with the feel of the gun in her hands and her willingness to use it if anyone tried to kill her.
“Go up past the hotel,” Garrick went on like he was giving them orders, “If Emily’s parents’ car is there, pull in and honk the horn until they come out. Don’t get out of the car for any reason. If their car is not there, just keep on driving out of town, you got it?” He was primarily speaking to Landy who was going to be their driver, but he looked them all over as he spoke.
Tammy nodded along, not really thinking about anything when she noticed Lawrence was shaking his head. She looked up at his face questioningly. He turned his body to hers and took her face in his hands.
“I need you to get in the car and get to safety,” he said. “I’m going to stay with Deputy Garrick and help as much as I can.” His eyes were set deep in his head and Tammy couldn't understand why he was saying these things. Didn’t he want to get away with her, for them to start all over again somewhere far away?
“No,” she said, but in truth she didn’t even know what she was saying no to anymore; everything was just so exhausting. Guilt pinged in then as she heard his words echoed in her head and saw the sad eyes of Garrick (Lawrence didn’t know he was the Sheriff now) and saw the all too human fear for his wife's safety. Of course, Lawrence would have to help him. And so would she.
Chapter 45
As soon as Eugene Allgood saw those spiders spray all over and kill the two firemen, he knew the writing was on the wall. It didn’t matter what happened now, this town was doomed and the best thing he could do right now would be to cut his losses and run.
To his credit, the mayor hadn’t become mayor of Gossamer Falls in the first place by not possessing a certain level of shrewdness. He’d understood for example, that his own business interests were never going to make him a rich man unless he got some political heft behind him. What better way to do this than being the mayor? He’d lined his own pockets nicely in both legal and illegal ways over the last ten years and he supposed his run of dumb luck had to come to an end at some point. He just never thought it would end with him running for his life!
Allgood was also shrewd enough to understand, even as he ran from the scene, that this same scene was going to play out at all the other cloud landing sites in town and pretty soon anyone left would be dead. The screams that started to fill the quiet morning air all over confirmed this to him.
Perhaps the most shrewd thing, however, was that he knew at once that if there was a general panic in town, people were going to jump into every available car and try to leave town by one of the two roads out. That would only lead to roadblocks and fraying tempers, and those spiders weren’t going to sit back and watch. They’d be all over these cars in a flash as soon as they were all backed up.
With all of this in mind, Allgood was running to only one place. He was heading for the lake and his boat. He’d float away in safety while the rest of the schmucks of this town killed one another in a mad dash to escape.
After a couple of streets, Allgood recognised that the same heavy running steps had been with him since Main Street. He turned for the first time to see Gough panting along behind him. It was irritating, but it could be worse. He thought about pointing out Gough was a Sheriff’s Deputy now and he should be back helping out instead of running away, but that would be too hypocritical, even for a politician.
“Where are we going?” Gough called when he saw Allgood look back at him.
“Just keep coming!” Allgood replied; he didn’t want others to hear him say he was going to his boat. That might cause a stampede behind him and make it impossible to launch into the lake. Screams were coming from all over and people were running everywhere. Worried citizens stepped out onto the streets to see what all the commotion was about. Some called to their mayor, but he ignored them all. It was every man for himself.
Allgood was getting tired and he was in the wrong clothes for extended running. For years he had been a regular sight jogging around town, ingratiating himself to the townspeople with a cheery wave and hello while showing them he was strong and fit at the
same time. Right now he was glad of all the jogging for if not for that he would have had to stop a long time before now. He could hear the laboured breaths of Gough still behind him. Gough had tried to emulate his boss in what was no doubt another brown-nosing exercise, but Allgood had told him it wouldn’t look good for the mayor to have a running buddy and that Gough should do his own jogging in the afternoons after work, which his underling had of course done.
Finally the docks came into view. It wasn’t the glorious sight Allgood had envisioned, however, and the unsettling sight before him was no better than anywhere else in town right now. People were running about screaming, and waves of spiders were moving too, crawling heavily over the marina bar. Some boats had already set sail, and those people looked back on Gossamer Falls with horror and disbelief. Others were running along the piers jumping into boats and pulling inexpertly at ropes trying to untangle the boats in a frantic bid to escape the carnage. Peering to the very end he saw they hadn’t made it to his own boat yet, but it was only a matter of time.
Just as he set foot on the first plank of his pier, strong hands took hold of Allgood and spun him around. A man of about fifty, whose face he knew (despite its contortions of fear and horror) but couldn’t put a name to in the moment, pressed close to his own.
“What are we gonna do, Mayor?” he asked, wild-eyed.
Turned back the way he’d come had discombobulated Allgood for a moment and his eyes took a moment to adjust. He looked past this man and over his shoulder saw Gough coming, but behind him, on his tail as it were, were thousands of those little white spiders. Allgood pushed hard into this man’s chest to get away from him and sent him falling into the water with a huge splash.
Without hesitating, Allgood turned and ran once more to his boat. The man in the water was thrashing about and screaming, but Allgood didn’t have a moment to look to see about him. He reached his boat and undid the guy line and then was fumbling with the second one when Gough was just about on him. The asshole had led the spiders right to him!
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