“Grab as much food and water as you think we can carry easily, Terry,” she called to him in the kitchen. “Ed and I will look for some bags to carry it all.”
The trio went about their work, and what odd work it was. It felt very strange to be in someone else’s home like this, going through their cupboards and closets and seeing their private life. It looked like a couple might live here, but so far Maggie had not seen any pictures of people to show who the owners might be. She wondered did she know them and were they safe right now?
“There’s not much,” Terry said when Maggie and Ed came into the kitchen to see what he’d piled on the table.
“It will be enough,” Maggie said, and she started packing it up right away. Ed held the other bag open for Terry to start putting things in too. One minute later they left the house to a thankfully still quiet street. Maggie glanced towards her own street, not visible from here, and sighed. Would she ever see her own home again? There was so much she would love to take with her if it had been possible.
‘There’s nothing in that house more important to your safety’ she heard Frank’s stern but caring voice say in her mind. He was right of course - he hadn’t always been, but in this case he was.
A long station wagon came around the corner as the three of them remounted their bikes. They looked at the car and it slowed down and stopped.
“Need a ride out of town?” a friendly man’s voice asked. Maggie was delighted.
“Yes,” she said almost weeping, “That would be great.”
Chapter 49
Charles Landy’s car was as full as it had ever been. The boys insisted on taking their bikes with them and Landy helped them get them into the flat back of the car behind the rear seats. Now the five occupants and the three bikes headed for the road out by his hotel.
They drifted along the winding road Emily usually came to work by and an optimistic frame of mind was trying to assert itself. Too many unknowns still hung over them all, however, for this to be the case. It wasn’t long before the optimism was burst as they came to the end of the longest line of cars any of them had ever seen.
“What the...?” Landy’s sentence drifted off in his astonishment.
“There’s no one in those cars,” Maggie said, leaning forward to see better.
There was a bend in the road not far up and they could see there were cars across both lanes, bumper to bumper jammed together.
“Where is everyone?” Emily asked with a tremor in her voice. Landy opened the door and stepped out, listening, but there was no noise up here, just the now low shouting and shooting from the town left behind. He looked back into the car.
“Looks like it was a good idea to bring them bikes,” he said to the boys “Emily’s is up at the hotel, and I think there might be another rust bucket in the shed I can use,” he added. He could see the old grey ten speed in his mind, but how long had it been since it moved? It would take a full can of oil at least to get the thing greased up.
They got out of the car and started walking with the three bikes along the side of the road. There wasn’t much room as people had stupidly tried to go around parked cars in front of them where there was no room and the odd tyre hung over a ditch in a few places, and they had to work their way around, or over the hoods of the cars depending on fitness levels. It was slow going and eerily quiet, the wind gently rustling the trees on either side of the road. The cars, though abandoned only very recently, somehow gave off the aura of being vacant for many years.
As they rounded the bend in the road, however, it was like an image from a totally different world.
Though there were still cars as far as the eye could see, they were no longer all empty. People, dead and bloody, were strewn in drivers’ seats and passenger seats. Some had made it from their cars before being brought down by what they had to assume had been a huge wave of those deadly and vicious spiders. There was blood everywhere and many of the dead creatures too. The smell was overpowering and they all put sleeves to their noses against it.
“Oh my God!” Maggie exclaimed.
“We better keep moving,” Landy said, taking Emily protectively by the arm. The less time they dwelled on this scene the better. “Just keep moving and try not to look at them,” he advised.
Terry was transfixed by the sight, and Ed was visibly shaking, the tears silently filling his eyes. Landy looked on them both with pity, but he knew it was time for tough love. At least the tears would blur the younger boy’s vision.
“Come on, you two,” he said, roughly shaking each of their shoulders in turn, “I said not to look at them!” His voice was harsh and Maggie stepped between him and the boys and blocked their view of most of what was close to them.
“Let’s go, boys, we need to move on.” The boys said nothing and continued on. Maggie turned to Landy and said, “You and I are not much bothered by those cars, but those boys, and young Emily too are looking for their family’s cars, or any sign of their parents.”
Landy nodded slowly, feeling a little chastened. He hadn’t thought about this; his mind was focused on the immediate future and would be until they were safe or dead. It had to be safe, if only for Emily’s sake. He felt like a father to her and her safety was what drove him on in this mess.
“Let’s hope none of them finds what they’re looking for,” he replied.
Landy moved back to the front of the group, keeping Emily close by. Things moved faster when he was at the head; he knew now it was because he wasn’t as distracted as the rest of them. And yet, he was heading to say goodbye to his hotel for the last time. Every dime he’d had had gone into that place, and it was obvious now he was never going to be able to recoup any of it. Once talk of this town got out, no one in their right mind would ever come here again. Including himself.
As they moved, while the others looked at the cars and the carnage on the road, Landy looked at the smashed and crushed spiders on the ground. He noted that they sounded like crumpling glass underfoot when he walked over the dead ones. They were the oddest little creatures he’d ever seen, but at least it was clear now some kind of spider had taken home in the mountains and it dispersed its eggs in a flossy substance to spread around.
This was normal enough in the natural world, spread the seed as far as you can to have more chance of survival. The poison on the clouds was just the defence mechanism that would also allow for a more successful continuation of the species. Someone in some zoo or something somewhere would know what kind of spider this was and would have a way to get rid of them. All Landy knew was whatever they were, they were not native to this state - there was no way everyone would not have been aware of such a thing if they were.
That was all for the future, though. Right now they had to get the extra bicycles and leave the town for somewhere safer.
Chapter 50
Had Harry Sanders been himself, his feet would have been both very tired and sore by the time Gossamer Falls came into view, that is through his own eyes. All the time he’d been walking back to the town, he’d been able to see countless images of what was happening all over.
This thing inside him, which for some reason Harry had come to think of as the ‘Deek’, could see everything the eruption of tiny versions of itself could see. The images flashed through Harry’s mind, but they were so fast he could barely register what he was seeing in most cases. The Deek seemed very pleased with the situation, however, and Harry felt a new wave of energy to spur his jog on even faster.
Harry met the road now where Clinton Scarrow had blocked the route and cars were backed up for a long way back down to town. It was a massacre ground now, both spiders and people dead everywhere. Harry could feel the evil glee of the creature inside him, and the images slowed down and Harry too was able to see what had happened here not too long ago.
In one sense the scenes and sounds of violence were somewhat sickening, but the more he saw it through the Deek’s eyes, the more powerful and incredible it became. Harry felt
that power in him now and felt it was strong enough that in time he could control the entire world. These thoughts came to him as though from another place, but he let them in and revelled in them.
“What of your dead?” Harry asked, though he needn’t have spoken out loud to be understood by what was essentially him now. As if controlled from within, Harry’s eyes scanned the ground and looked at the husks of dead spider bodies all around, thousands of them, and realised at once this number was of no consequence at all. Everything was replicable in time. Even if a million spiders died taking this town, it would mean next to nothing to the Deek. It was living for the first time in a while, and it would savour every chaotic evil moment of it.
Harry could feel Scarrow now, feel the evil he was doing and the joyful rage that coursed through him, and Harry was sure it was a pang of plain old human jealousy that ran through him. He quickened his pace by his own effort now. The sooner he got to town, the sooner he could join in and feel the way he craved beyond measure since the Deek entered his body.
“Deputy Sanders! Oh thank God!” a voice called out to him as a man emerged from the trees. Harry knew him, though not well, Mr Douglas who worked in the high school. His face was white with shock and exhaustion at what he must have already had to endure and escape, and he felt the police were now going to tidy up the loose ends for him and get him out of here.
“What can I do for you, sir?” Harry said in his most formal Sheriff’s Deputy tone. He gave the air of a man, however, who had no clue what was going on all around him. Douglas looked at him nervously, his optimism sinking below the surface rapidly.
“What are we going to do?” he said, new tears coming to his eyes. Harry looked at him without emotion and replied,
“Do about what?” Now Douglas’ face bore the look of dealing with insanity and he backed away from Harry a half step. Harry could see he was rethinking his strategy but was coming up with nothing at all.
“The spiders?” Douglas said, his hands held out close together, palms up and making an arc around as if to point out that they had been everywhere. Harry looked around his feet, finding it hard not to smile, and then made a look of astonishment before looking back to Douglas.
“You know what I always say, Mr Douglas,” Harry said with a big grin on his face as he removed his gun from his holster on the side hidden from the scared man, “If you can’t beat them, join them!” With that he lifted his gun to Douglas’ head, and there was just enough time for Douglas’ eyes to widen in horror before the terrific boom blasted his head to pieces.
It felt good, as good as it had felt on the mountain when he killed those men. It had been a pity Karrier had escaped, but it won’t have done him much good. The same way it hadn’t done Anderson any good to come rushing up there after them. Harry had found the former Sheriff’s body while he’d been coming after Karrier. He knew the spiders had been inside Anderson but hadn't managed to take full control before he pulled the gun on himself and fired.
Harry thought of this in a very clear and logical manner, but it never crossed his mind that the same thing had happened to him. Moment by moment he’d been losing the idea of Harry Sanders and was becoming Deek. What this meant, his human cognition had no real idea, but he knew it was something powerful and old, very old.
Once everyone in town was dead, Harry didn’t know yet what the Deek wanted to achieve. It felt like unbridled evil, like it was driven from some real force that could not be denied. Whatever it was, it was the most powerful thing Harry could imagine there being in the world. And he was at the heart of it.
He continued on down the road, looking at the mass devastation that had been done along here, hundreds of people dead on only this couple mile stretch of road, and who knew how many more in the fields and trees off to the side as the panicked populace fled in all directions trying to escape. No one was going to escape. Not this time.
Chapter 51
Lawrence, Tammy and Garrick were still roving around town looking for Jenny Garrick. There were few people about by now, but individual screams were heard from all over as hiding spots were uncovered and the devil spiders flooded in to the fresh victims.
Gunshots rang out in other places as people did their best to defend against the former neighbours or were just desperate enough to fire both barrels of a shotgun into an approaching horde of the glassy arachnids. How many ‘last stands’ were being made in Gossamer Falls this spring day?
With each passing moment, Lawrence - though he didn’t say it - felt hope slipping away. Every scream, every gunshot that could be heard from far and wide was another person from town being killed. Was it possible Jenny Garrick was still in town, if she was indeed still alive? He was beginning to think not.
Lawrence didn’t regret his decision to help Garrick in the search, however, he knew it was the right thing to do, but something deeper in his mind had also wanted him to stay in town for a little longer. It was like he knew he’d seen something that would be of use but was unable to recall it. Some clue or knowledge had come to him, either up on the mountain near Mercy or else while he’d been delirious with fever in the jail cell. He knew something important - he just had no idea what it was!
Garrick was shaking his head and Lawrence asked,
“What is it?” Garrick didn’t look to him but said,
“We need to get you two into another car so you can get out of here.”
“We’re not leaving you until we find her,” Tammy said before Lawrence could even react. She was right of course. Wasn’t she? He was beginning to doubt himself, though he couldn’t say why.
“You’re going to get yourselves killed!” Garrick said, more forceful with the couple than he’d been so far.
Tammy’s hand lifted from the back of the seat and rested on Garrick’s shoulder a moment before she squeezed it,
“We’re going to find her,” Tammy said in a soft soothing voice. It sounded like she knew this for a fact.
Could she know something they didn’t?
Lawrence glanced at the side of Tammy’s face. Where was this paranoia suddenly coming from? With the purpose of bringing a halt to this line of thought, Lawrence turned and looked out the window once more, seeing the beautiful vista of the mountains to the East.
The mountains, that was where the answer to everything was. The clouds came from there, the spiders came from there, and Harry Sanders had been possessed by something up there. Whatever it was that was behind all of this, it was the mountains where it could be found.
To anyone else, this might have been the simple logical reasoning behind everything, but it wasn’t like that for Lawrence. He knew he was right without having to apply any logic to it. He could feel it, knew now that he’d felt it while he was up there in the mountains with those poor slain men. But how could he explain that to Tammy and more so Garrick?
They would think he’d been infected by one of these spiders and was showing the first symptoms of it. There was only one thing for it. He was going to have to ditch Tammy and Garrick and go it alone up to Mercy. He’d find whatever it was, knew he’d be drawn to it even if he couldn't see it, and hope to have the strength of will to do something about it, something to end it all. Lawrence looked again at Tammy. That she survived was all that really mattered. How he’d love to be around to see it, though.
“One more sweep and we’re leaving,” Garrick said after not talking for what seemed like a long time. The tone was resigned but final.
“Alright,” Lawrence said as Tammy shrugged at him, out of ideas.
“Once we’re in Emerson, we can start to publicize this thing and there will be a focal point for people to gather. It might take a few days, or even a week, but people fleeing town will hear we are still looking for them and they will call or meet us over there,” Garrick said, speaking as though this were a certainty for most people but surely really hoping it would be the longest case scenario before he knew his wife was alive if they didn’t find her in the next half hour
.
“There will be no corner of the world that won’t hear about this,” Tammy said.
Lawrence simply nodded along to all of this. His mind was back up in the mountains as he tried to remember all that had happened. When had he known things were starting to turn wrong? Had they all felt it and none of them had the need to say anything? What did Harry Sanders do when he stepped away from the group just before he turned back to shoot them all?
Lawrence had seen him turn away, but had he noticed anything different about him by then? Had a spider just scaled his clothes and rushed inside his ear or something? Would he have at least flinched at this? Surely yes, but in Lawrence’s mind pictures this didn’t show.
Or...
Was everything Lawrence thought he had seen real? Tammy had told him how much of a wild fever he had when he got to town, driving Sheriff Schall’s car and with blood all over him. Had everything he thought he remembered before that been part of his fever? Was it possible he’d been the one who’d killed everyone else, including Schall and then went crazy from it?
Though he felt it couldn’t be true, in another real sense he saw how easily it could be the case, and he felt sick with fear at the idea. Had the spider left his own mind since to crawl into someone else? It would explain how he knew, just fully knew, the root of the evil was in the mountains and...
A new knowledge landed with a thud.
The evil was no longer in the mountains, not the body at least. It was here now, in Gossamer Falls, and this was the last chance to stop it. Lawrence looked at Tammy as he broke out in a cold sweat. Thankfully she wasn’t looking at him and he started looking wildly around, feeling the eyes of the evil somehow on him. Was he a part of this evil? Was it possible?
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