Gossamer Falls

by European P. Douglas

  Harry started to walk towards them, not fully sure what he was going to say or do to them. He only knew the end result of it would be that they were all dead. He didn’t much care about the two women, but he would be glad to do away with Garrick. Who did he think he was taking over the Sheriff’s role? What gave him the right to assume he was in charge? Well, it would be the shortest serving term as Sheriff this United States has ever seen!

  The three were scrambling clear of the car as Harry got closer. He mentally asked the Deek to leave these ones to him, and he felt the answer was a yes. Through his mind he could see the spiders surrounding the hotel where Scarrow was, while the ones in town sought out those who thought they could hide at home and ride this chaos out.

  “Get to the factory,” Harry heard one of the women say (the one who was not Garrick’s wife). “I know a few nooks and crannies in there where he won’t be able to find us.” She obviously didn’t think he could hear her say this, and they set off at limping runs towards the ‘Gossamer Springs’ plant.

  “There are no nooks and crannies where a tiny little spider can’t find you,” Harry said as he aimed his gun just to the left of them and fired a shot for fun before he quickened his pace after them. He laughed as they ducked away from the shot, and the young girl screamed out ‘Lawrence!’ She could call who she wanted; no one was going to save her now.

  Chapter 58

  Lawrence didn’t feel good about having to evade Tammy and Garrick as they came after him in the police cruiser. He’d been a little surprised that Garrick had come after him, but then that had been an unfair assumption on the man based on the fact that he had his wife now and would most likely want to get her to safety. But instead he was willing to risk more to come after him, part of the team who’d stuck with him when things were looking grim for Jenny.

  Still, Lawrence felt he was doing the right thing. If he lost them, they would have no choice but to leave town for their own safety. If they had come with him, that would have only been putting them all in even more peril, and that was something he couldn't live with, especially if things went wrong. Which was a very high possibility considering he didn’t even know himself what he was going up against for sure.

  Cutting through the backyards had done the trick; now Lawrence had to think about his next move. It was going to take him an awful long time to get up to Mercy without a car. He was going to have to borrow one from somewhere, but there were precious few around after everyone used theirs to escape. Walking would take over a day to get to Mercy, and if he had to carry food and water at that, he would not be in any state to face anything at all by the time he arrived up there, exhausted and dirty.

  Lawrence stopped in someone’s backyard and listened for the sound of the police cruiser nearby. He didn’t hear it. He went into the house, calling out a few times to let anyone who might be inside know who he was and telling them he was looking for food and water and would be on his way in a minute. There was no response. It felt very strange being in a house like this, not knowing who lived here and what had become of them. Were they dead already or had they managed to escape?

  The cupboards and fridge looked like they had been raided already and this led him to think they might have escaped. Good for them. Lawrence took what little was left and went to the next house. There he found more rations and some bottled water, pretty much all he could carry, and that set the decision to search for a car now. He looked out the front window of this house and saw a car in the driveway. It only took a couple of moments checking the hallway to find the keys. He tried not to think about what this meant for the person who lived in this house.

  The passenger seat was filled with his supplies and he found a few shopping bags - not ideal, but they would have to do - and threw those in too. The car started without a fuss and he set off for his mission. What might end up being the last thing he ever did in his life.

  Lawrence was approaching the junction to join the old Mercy road when he was shocked to see Garrick’s cruiser pass by on that very road ahead. They had come to cut him off; they hadn’t given up yet! This news, though very good and decent of those three people, made his heart sink. They weren’t going to let him go it alone; they were going to insist on getting themselves killed trying to help him.

  There wasn’t much time to dwell on this, however, as another car came speeding through the junction after Garrick’s. The driver didn’t look down the road where Lawrence was approaching from, but Lawrence saw him. There was no mistaking the craven face and worse still the look of evil intent on Harry Sanders’ face. He was going after Garrick and the others, and the police cruiser hadn’t passed by like a car that knew it was being pursued!

  Lawrence stepped on the gas, but before he even got to the corner he heard the worst happen. The horrible din of metal bodies colliding followed rapidly by screams and broken glass, and Lawrence turned the corner just in time to see the police cruiser come to a halt with its roof crushed to the ground. He looked quickly around for the car Sanders had been in and saw it skidded up on a grass verge. Sanders was getting out and Lawrence stopped the car.

  There was movement in the cruiser, and he was happy to see the grey of Tammy’s sweater shuffle towards the windows. She was okay! But looking at Sanders, Lawrence saw Tammy and the others were not out of the woods yet. Sanders had his gun pointed at them as they fled the wrecked car, and he fired before Lawrence could do anything at all.

  The shot was wild and Sanders was laughing - he had missed on purpose; he was playing with them! Tammy and the others scurried through some trees, and Lawrence knew at once they were heading for the factory. That would be a good place to hide from a man, he thought.

  “Lawrence!” he heard Tammy cry out in terror, and he knew then his mission to the mountains would have to wait. Sanders was going to have to be dead before that could happen.

  Putting the car back in gear, Lawrence floored it and made straight for the walking Sanders. The former deputy heard the noise and turned, the gun barrel raising, and he fired directly into the windscreen. Lawrence ducked to one side, losing the flow of the car as he felt it leave the road and bump along over an uneven surface. He glanced up and let it run a little more to get farther from Sanders and then brought the car to a halt.

  Staying low, Lawrence peered in the side and rear mirrors looking for Sanders but couldn’t locate him. He took a deep breath and lifted his eyes above the back of the seat, fully expecting the split second image of smashing glass as a bullet came into his forehead. Thankfully no such thing happened, and there was Sanders walking off through the trees to follow Tammy and the others to the factory.

  Leaving Lawrence alive had been a fatal mistake for Sanders, he thought. No one knew the ‘Gossamer Springs’ factory like he did, and Harry Sanders would find that out to his peril if he dared to step inside that place.

  Chapter 59

  “Everyone upstairs!” Landy shouted as they all backed away from the menacing form of Clinton Scarrow in the lobby of the ‘Clear View Hotel’. No one needed to be told twice, and they all fled up the first flight to the landing.

  “What are we going to do?” Maggie asked. She looked to Terry and didn’t like the look of him at all. His skin had gone all white and pasty and he was sweating. This had started happening outside before the spiders came, and she’d looked down at the cut on his leg and felt that was the cause of it. Had it become infected?

  Landy was looking out the landing window as though to confirm what they knew about the spiders surrounding the place.

  “There’s an attic up at the very top,” he said to them. “We might be able to hold that man off from there,” he said. No one said it, though Maggie was sure everyone was thinking ‘what about the spiders,’ but that was something they’d have to deal with separately no matter what happened now.

  “Why don’t we split up and hide in the rooms? Split up?” Ed Tipping said nervously, his hands gripping Maggie’s shirt, though she was sure he was unawar
e of it.

  “We don’t want to go into any of the rooms, believe me,” Landy said, and Maggie was sure he shuddered as their eyes met. She understood at once what was in there.

  Emily leaned down to Ed’s eye level.

  “The attic is the safest place in the hotel,” she said to him, and Maggie had to applaud the young girl’s attempt to sound upbeat with all they were confronted with. Maggie didn’t believe they were going to get out of this alive, but she sure as hell was not going to give up. If the worst came, she would find a way to kill the two boys herself, to save them the horrors of any other kind of death. She closed her eyes a moment and pictured Frank over in Korea. Had the day he died been as crazy as this one?

  Scarrow’s slow, pounding steps came on the stairs and the group moved on. Maggie was thinking about the idea of all of them just rounding on Scarrow and attacking him at once, but that was bound to be a mess, and at least one of them would likely feel the full weight of the axe in such an assault too. They might win out, but the cost would be too high.

  Then she turned to the attic, picturing a narrow stairs (as she’d never been in the hotel before) and remembering a battle her husband had always talked about back in Ancient Greece. He’d told her that someone (Spartans she thought but couldn’t recall for sure) had fought in a narrow gap in some cliffs and had been able to see off a much larger army than their own by using this tactic.

  They would be doing something similar here. If the stairs were narrow, Scarrow would not be able to swing the axe at them and they would also have the advantage of height. They would be able to throw things at him, do what they could to unbalance him and then rush down in attack if the opportunity arose - which she didn’t see any reason why it wouldn’t. Then the spiders would be the problem again - ‘Stop! One thing at a time!’ Frank said into her stream of thought.

  “Why don’t you all just stand still and face the inevitable!” Scarrow called to them as they trampled across the first floor hall to the far end where the stairs to the second floor was. “They might even want to use one of you,” Scarrow added as though this was something that might interest those fleeing for their lives.

  That phrase ‘use one of you’ ran through Maggie’s mind and it made her feel sick. If this man had been taken over somehow - like in that movie she’d seen with the aliens under the ground changing everyone to do their bidding. That horrible wailing music came to her mind. She’d heard the name of the instrument somewhere before - the theremin; was that what it was called?

  At that moment, Terry let out a sharp groan and vomited violently against one of the hotel room doors. He dropped to one knee, his body trembling as it tried to support his weight.

  “It’s his leg, I think,” Maggie said as she and Landy bent down to help him up.

  “You two keep going on up,” Landy said to Emily and Ed. “Make ready to shut and lock the door when we get there!”

  “Come on, Terry,” Maggie said patting him on the back. “You can do it.” His leg was surely infected. All around the cut was red and very irritated looking, and the cut itself looked to have started bleeding again. Landy looked at it and then to Maggie. Once more she understood his meaning without exchanging a single word. He thought the leg was going to have to come off if the boy was going to be saved. She fought the tears at this idea, knowing it was saving her that had caused the cut to happen in the first place.

  “Just leave me,” Terry slurred. “Something’s wrong with me that can't be fixed.”

  “Don’t talk like that, kid,” Landy said, and with a heave he lifted Terry off the ground and over his shoulder. Maggie was surprised he was able to do it, but they didn’t have time to think any more on it as Scarrow rounded the corner at the top of the stairs.

  The smile on the killer’s face was nothing short of horrifying; the dried blood of the dead mixed with his own on his cheeks and chin, the broken teeth in his foul mouth and the lazy yet purposeful evil of his blue eyes.

  “Howdy, pretty lady,” he said to Maggie, grinning. “I think I could find a use for you in one of these bedrooms if you don’t want to die with the rest of them.” The idea made her feel sick to her stomach, and she spat down the hall in his direction (nowhere near him, but the gesture was the same).

  “You go to hell, you filthy animal!” she said, and she pushed at Landy as they started to climb to the second floor.

  “You have it your way,” Scarrow laughed after them as they heard his feet coming slowly across the landing, “But I’ll do what I want anyway when the time comes!”

  All the fear Maggie had felt that morning outside her house came back to her and somehow seemed to stack up on top of the fear of the moment. She felt dizzy as they ran up the stairs, and she grabbed onto the handrail to make sure she didn’t fall backwards.

  Terry’s glazing over eyes met hers, and she saw they were losing him. A long dribble of saliva was hanging from his mouth and bobbing as Landy took each step.

  “It’s going to be okay,” she mouthed to Terry. He made no indication he understood.

  They reached the second floor hall and now Maggie could see the short narrow stairs to the attic, and it spurred her on some. This was where they were going to defeat him. This is where they had to defeat him. If not, all was lost.

  Chapter 60

  “Sorry, Sheriff!” Tammy Dern said as she tossed a rock through the reception doors of the ‘Gossamer Springs’ bottled water plant.

  “I don’t give a damn how we get in right now!” Garrick said, and he took out his gun to clear the glass around the frame so they could all get inside without getting cut to pieces.

  “Where do we go from here?” Jenny asked, looking to Tammy. It was Garrick who spoke up though,

  “You two go hide and don’t come out until I call you, no matter what you hear. It’s pretty dark in here, and I think I can get the drop on Sanders if he tries to come in here after us.” He was looking back through the doors and into the trees beyond.

  “No, Alan, we need to stay together,” Jenny said, tugging at her husband’s arm. Tammy felt a little awkward being in the middle of this despite all that was happening.

  “Tammy will get you somewhere safe, Jenny,” Garrick said to her. “I’ll be done real soon and then we can get out of town.” He spoke as though he were sure this was what was going to happen, and even Tammy cheered up a little on hearing it. Jenny looked indecisive, and Tammy added her weight to the argument,

  “Come on,” she said, taking hold of Jenny’s shoulders, “I can get us so well hidden no one would ever find us in here!” She forced a smile and Jenny tried her best to return one.

  “Be careful,” she said to her husband as they separated.

  “I've got a lot to be careful for,” he replied, and Tammy could see he meant it. Taking Jenny by the hand, she set off down the dark corridor towards Chuck Dollinger’s old sleeping spot.

  It was strange being in the factory when the lights were out and no one was here working. An odd nostalgia came over her as she understood this would be the last time she was ever in this place, the only real job she’d ever known (save her few hours working for the Sheriff’s Department since last night).

  “I don’t like this,” Jenny said, their steps echoing through the long corridors.

  “It’s going to be fine,” Tammy said, “You heard your husband; he knows what he’s doing.”

  “No one knows what the hell they’re doing today!” Jenny snapped back. Tammy didn’t bother looking to her or making a reply; the last thing she wanted was an argument on top of everything else she had to deal with. The thing she wanted most in the world right now (apart from Lawrence Karrier being here with her) was to lie down in a comfortable safe bed and get a good long sleep under her belt.

  A shot rang out from where they’d come from, and it startled both women into a jump as they grabbed each other in fright. They listened, but there was no other noise for now.

  “That must have been Alan shooting at
him,” Jenny said hopefully. That was possible, Tammy thought, but she wasn’t sharing Jenny’s optimism.

  “Probably,” Tammy said, but she was pulling on Jenny’s resistant arm. “Best we keep going until the Sheriff calls us like he said,” Tammy suggested. She had a bad feeling. If it had been Garrick shooting, he must have missed or else he’d be calling to them by now. The idea that Garrick hadn’t been the shooter didn’t bear thinking about.

  “He’s going to call us in a second,” Jenny said, that bright hope still undismayed in her voice. She wasn’t even considering it wasn’t Garrick who had fired the gun. Tammy could only hope she was right.

  “Jenny!” Garrick’s anguished, pained voice suddenly rang out, “Run!”

  That voice was the single most heart-breaking thing Tammy had ever heard, and she couldn’t even begin to imagine how it had felt to Jenny. That was her husband dying down there. Using his last breaths to try keep her safe. Hot, salty tears filled Tammy’s eyes and she let go of Jenny, not sure what to do.

  Jenny was shaking, a long silent cry coming from her mouth as she took a few steps back the way they’d come. Tammy grabbed her and started in the opposite direction, pulling hard on her.

  “We’ll be killed if we go back that way!” she said, fighting back fresh tears.

  “My husband,” Jenny wailed, the sound travelling like a cannonball through the silent factory. Tammy grabbed her shoulder firmly and pulled her face close to her own,

  “Your husband wants you to live!” she said through gritted teeth, “And I’m going to do all I can to see that he gets what he wants.”

  “Sounds like we have a little bit of a catfight going on down there, Meow!” the rasping, mocking voice of Harry Sanders came to them. They both jumped again in fright, the sound so close to them, but it was impossible to tell in these corridors how the sound was travelling. He could still be a long way off. Tammy held a finger to her lips and Jenny nodded; she was back in the fear of the moment for now. Good old human self-preservation was kicking in. They started away along the hall as quietly as they could.