Spiderstalk

by D. Nathan Hilliard

  But then things got worse.

  He heard Apolo fall ahead of him and start thrashing and swearing.

  “Oh shit!” the man yelled. “There are webs on the ground! Aurelio, get over here! I’m caught!”

  Aurelio took a few steps in his direction, now thoroughly confused over what to do.”

  “Hurry up! Don’t worry, my legs are already tangled up in the webs that would be between you and me. But I need help!”

  Another boom rang out, and Aurelio looked back behind him. He could barely make out the headlights of the van as it smashed into the front of the house. What the hell was going on back there?

  “Aurelio!”

  Not knowing what else to do, he approached the outline of the stricken man sitting on the ground. As he moved closer, keeping a close eye on the ground itself, he could see Apolo was tangled from the waist down in glistening sheets of web. His right hand was bound to his side, and he had just pulled his left out of the glove that had gotten stuck when he tried to pull the stuff off his legs.

  “Your torch,” Apolo gasped. “You have a butane torch in your fanny pack! It’s the fastest way to cut these webs. Hurry!”

  Aurelio snarled as he eased forward, and fumbled at his fanny pack. He had only been on one raid before, and they had done a full equipment check before the raid to familiarize themselves with the equipment. It wasn’t his fault, dammit! He was looking like an idiot and it was all because that damn woman had put this impromptu fiasco together on the spur of the moment.

  “Aurelio!”

  “Alright! Alright! Cover me for a second!” he snapped as he slung his rifle over his shoulder to bring both hands to bear on the pack. He carefully walked over to the man and pulled the canister out.

  He quickly broke the stiff nozzle extension free from where it was attached to the side and fit it over the nozzle. Then he jerked the ring, pulled the trigger, and the little torch sprang to life.

  Unfortunately, that was when Apolo grabbed his leg, almost upsetting his balance.

  “Oh shit! Something just tugged on the web! Oh shit, oh shit!”

  “What are you talking about!?” Aurelio grunted and tried to jerk his leg free. “Let go! You’re going to make me fall.”

  As he struggled to maintain his balance, he noticed the thin trail of webbing running from Apolo’s legs back into the fog toward the rear of the house. That’s when he started trying to break free in earnest.

  “Let go of me! Let go!”

  “Cut me loose, Goddammit!”

  “You son of a bitch! Let me goooo…”

  Something pulled hard on Apolo, and Aurelio was yanked off his feet. For a second, nothing further happened, and the two men stared at each other with fear-widened eyes. Then they were suddenly sliding over the ground at an alarming rate of speed.

  “Let go of me!” Aurelio screamed and started kicking at Apolo’s head.

  He couldn’t see what was at the other end of the line, but he knew he was only seconds away from getting all too close a view. He screamed again, and hammered at Apolo’s head and arm but the other man only blubbered and tightened his grip. A look up revealed the windmill to be emerging from the mists, and something hunched on the ground beside it…something monstrous.

  Aurelio shrieked at the sight of the enormous spider. Although built low to the ground, its back was as tall as a man, and the top joints of its legs taller. Its forelegs worked furiously as it reeled them in.

  “Shoot it!” Apolo wept. “Oh God, shoot it!”

  It was too late for that. His rifle was still slung and he didn’t see how it could possibly drop such a monster in the few seconds left anyway. Besides, he had already decided on another course of action.

  Instead of shooting, Aurelio stuck his torch in Apolo’s face.

  The man screamed again, this time as much in pain as in terror. His face blistered, bubbled and turned black where the high pressure flame tore into it. Aurelio ignored the shrieks, and the smell of burning meat, and held the torch between his eyes. He was almost out of time! Apolo bawled and howled…but finally let go.

  Aurelio tumbled to a stop, almost at the monstrosity’s feet. He looked up just in time to see Apolo get snatched up like a small grub and brought to the creature’s mouth. The doomed man shrieked like a child as the giant nightmare prepared to bite. Its fangs dripped with venom, and a second later they plunged into the screaming man’s body. At their size, the bite itself was as deadly as the poison.

  Apolo spasmed and made a single horrible croak, then his body went limp. The horror’s eight hard eyes seemed to stare back at Aurelio as it bit down.

  The hysterical man crabbed backwards, hoping to get away as it fed. But this nightmare was too smart for that. It dropped the still form of Apolo and covered the distance between itself and Aurelio in a few unhurried steps. Realizing his rifle lay trapped beneath him, he rolled to his hands and knees in a desperate attempt to free it, but it was too late.

  An obsidian leg speared downward, slamming into his back and pinning him to the ground like a bug. Aurelio screamed and clawed at the dirt. His fingers made furrows in the ground but his scrabbling accomplished nothing. Feeling the monster move over him, he couldn’t help but turn his head to see when death would strike.

  The sight that greeted his eyes shocked him almost as much as the horrific visage he had been preparing to meet.

  It was a woman, her hair tied back in a scarf, with one foot planted in his back. Her form had a spectral, immaterial quality as if she were some kind of ghost, but her foot still held him immobile. The face of Karen Sellars, one he recognized from a file his grandfather had showed him, gazed down with an expression of mild curiosity.

  “Ah, that’s better,” she nodded in satisfaction, “I’m starting to get a feel for this veil you Dog People use to mask your minds. Yet I can see proximity is going to be required until I get a better grasp of it.”

  Aurelio whimpered in terror and squirmed under the titanic pressure. He wasn’t fooled for a second by the apparition. His psi-blocker must have still been somewhat effective for the projection’s spectral transparency would deceive nobody into thinking it was the real deal.

  “True,” the ghost conceded cheerfully. “I’m afraid pranks like that will not be within my abilities just yet. On the bright side, I’m now confident it won’t stop me from consuming one of your People’s minds. But I’m afraid I don’t have time for that in your case, therefore…”

  The woman dissolved, and the massive face of a nightmare faded in to replace her.

  It loomed like death itself over the horrified man, blotting out most of the grey sky, and spread its fangs once more. Aurelio screamed as it prepared to strike. He couldn’t believe he was about to die like this. It just couldn’t happen this way!

  And it didn’t.

  A pale object flew out of the fog and hit the spider with tremendous force. It impacted the great arachnid’s exoskeleton with a thunderous crack, causing it to stagger aside. The monster hissed like a steam engine and fought to recover its footing. At the same time, the missile fell to the ground, not four feet from Aurelio’s head.

  It was the top of a concrete bird bath.

  The monster recovered and spun in the direction of this new attack, and Aurelio had to roll aside to keep from being stepped on again. He came to his hands and knees, gasping in terror, and discovered he still remained under the arch of one of the monster’s ebony legs. He was shoulder to shoulder with horror itself. But fortunately for him the nightmare’s attention now lay elsewhere.

  It reared and hissed again as the Spider Tribe woman strode out of the fog. She carried her large pistol in one hand, and in the other she held the base of the bird bath with the same comfortable ease one would a baseball bat. And while her ravaged face made reading her expressions difficult at this distance, nothing in her posture suggested the monster intimidated her in the least.

  As a matter of fact, everything about her suggested quite the opp
osite.

  “You and I have unfinished business, bitch,” Maggie Weston announced, “and this time I’m all out of buttons to push.”

  ###

  Adam jerked up in his seat at the sound of the shot.

  What the hell! Since when did spiders shoot guns?!

  He stared across the road at the line of hunters. They had started walking toward the farmhouse a few seconds ago and had only covered about forty feet. Now they stood in frozen shock, and watched as a figure Adam identified as Cristobal crumpled.

  A second shot rang out and the scene dissolved into chaos.

  The man on the other side of Olivia from Cristobal flopped bonelessly to the ground. Maggie yelled something and shot off into the foggy pasture on the right. She fired twice before disappearing into the mists. The two men at the other end of the line did the same, charging into the field nearest them. On the other hand, Olivia dove to the ground and sought shelter behind a low-lying stump.

  The wooden barrier was wide enough, but barely had the height to conceal her. Adam held his breath as she started to worm herself into position to try and grab Cristobal. She reached out an arm to snag him, but that was when the distant rifle boomed again…

  …and the fallen man’s head exploded, spraying gore over Olivia and the surrounding grass. Olivia gave a strangled cry and retreated back behind her stump.

  Sweet Jesus! He was out of the fight! What kind of sick bastard is doing this?

  Olivia abruptly popped up behind her stump and fired a burst at the house before dropping back behind cover. A split second later splinters flew off the stump where it took a glancing hit from the unseen rifleman.

  Shit! The straight shooting type of sick bastard!

  He fumbled with the buttons on the video screen, then located Headset One and stabbed his finger into it.

  “Olivia! Do you hear me!?”

  “I’m a bit busy at the moment, Adam.” Her voice was tight but controlled. “What is it?”

  “Yeah, I noticed!” He snatched at the headlight switch and turned them on. “Hang on, I’m on my way!”

  “No! Stay clear. I’m about to fire a grenade. I can end this here.”

  He saw her pop up again, and there was a distinct “thwoop” sound from the grenade launcher attached to her rifle. An instant later a loud “thud” exploded in the distance. Smoke obscured the front of the house, but it wasn’t hard for him to tell the missile had missed the window and impacted against the outside of the house.

  “Damn.”

  “That’s it, I’m coming.”

  Adam dropped the van into gear and stepped on the gas. The tires spun on the roadside gravel when he started forward, then squealed as he accelerated and made a sharp turn across the highway at the same time. He plunged down the driveway, paying close attention to his progress, then cut sharply off the drive and into the grass as he came even with the wreckage of the former line of hunters.

  “Hop in!” he called as he pulled the van between the house and Olivia.

  Of course she didn’t do that.

  “No,” she ran up to his door and gestured toward the house, “we’ve got to take out that gunman or this mission is blown. I want you to drive the van into his window while I follow along and use it for cover. Then grab your rifle and follow me in.”

  “Follow you in?”

  “Yes. We’re going to shoot our way into the house, and take out the gunman before he moves to a different window and kills somebody else. Can you do this?”

  “Sure…whatever you need me to do.”

  “Adam,” She put her face to the window and locked eyes with him. “I mean it. You may have to kill somebody in there. Can you do that?”

  Right then he understood his legs hadn’t been the only reason they left him back in the van…the reason why they even trusted an erratic time-bomb like Maggie more than him. She was from their world, and when the chips were down they knew what she was capable of. Olivia had warned him she came from a people with an ancient warrior tradition, and as he held her gaze he realized she had already shown that if pushed to it she could kill as readily as the Spider Tribe woman. She had been fighting for keeps in that theater, and Maggie’s unnatural resilience was the only reason she had left the building alive. He grasped all this in the brief fraction of time they stared at each other through the window.

  And now the chips were down and she needed to know if she could count on him.

  “Yeah.” He held her gaze. “I can do it. I’ll just shoot bad guys now and think about it later. Okay?”

  “That’s a good way to approach it,” she nodded. “Let’s go.”

  Once again he hit the gas, and the tires slipped then gained traction on the mist-slicked grass. Adam turned toward the house and saw Olivia fall back to the rear corner of the van to keep it between her and the fatal window. He accelerated to a speed she could still keep up with, yet cover the distance in the least time possible.

  Another boom sounded out, and the windshield spider-webbed directly in front of his face.. Adam realized if it had been made of regular glass, he would now have a hole right between his eyes.

  Okay, screw this son-of-a-bitch! I can damn sure shoot HIM!

  Adam saw the curtains of the window fall shut right before the van closed the last few feet with the house. It took out the right corner post of the high porch, then smashed to a stop against the front wall. From the way the van stopped and then rebounded, he knew he had shaken the whole house on its pier and beam foundation.

  This put the driver’s side door wedged against the little porch. But with the window now blocked, Adam wasted no time in grabbing the rifle left lying between the front seats for him and sliding over and out the passenger side door. He hustled around the back of the van as fast as he could.

  The front steps and door came into view in time for him to see Olivia kneel in the center of the porch.

  She twisted the fire select switch on the M-16, aimed at the point where the van met the wall, then pulled the trigger. The effect was impressive. Splinters and cartridges flew as the gun roared. With surprising control, she did a slow, waist-level sweep across the front of the house with the rifle firing in full automatic.

  Then Olivia stood, expertly swapped magazines, and kicked in the front door right as Adam caught up with her.

  That’s when everything really did go to hell.

  She stepped through the door in a low crouch, rifle at the ready. Something must have caught her eye because she immediately swung to the right. Her rifle barked and another boom went off at the same time.

  And right before Adam’s horrified eyes Olivia got hit and spun to the floor.

  Adam followed right on her heels with a bellow, and turned to face the source of the shot. His finger tightened on the trigger as he did. Killing had just become something well within his capabilities, and he cheerfully intended to start right now. But the sight that greeted him still made his blood run cold.

  It was a woman…and she was a wreck.

  Her hair stood almost straight out from her gaunt face like a fright wig. Her eyes were dark and sunken, and her teeth showed in a rictus snarl. Blood and filth covered the polo shirt and shorts hanging from her frame. And the hellish look in her eyes had more in common with a rabid animal than a human being.

  But the hunting rifle in her grip was fully functional and she worked the bolt with feverish efficiency as she took aim again.

  Adam fired first, and the M-16 shook the air like a cannon in the small space. The fire selector must have been set on burst, for the rifle bucked in his hand as it spat out a brief volley of bullets. They hit the woman on the right side of the chest, and Adam saw blood splatter on the paint behind her as she staggered back into the wall.

  She coughed, spitting more blood onto her chin and shirt. Then she laughed, and to Adam’s horror she raised her own gun and returned fire. He gasped and tried to dodge at the same time as her weapon blasted.

  His M-16 was slammed back
into his chest and his hands went numb from the sudden shock. It tore loose from his right hand, scraping some of the skin off his trigger finger as it did. The bullet itself deflected from the rifle’s main body and smashed the face of a grandfather clock standing nearby.

  Adam knew he was lucky to be alive, but he wouldn’t be for long if he didn’t do something damn quick. His own weapon now hung useless and the filthy creature he fought had already starting working the bolt on her rifle again. But what could he do? If he ducked back around the door, she would have an open shot at Olivia, and this creature had already shown no qualms about shooting a downed opponent.

  That left him only one option.

  He lurched across the small room and grabbed at her gun as she brought it to bear. His hand slapped the barrel and fire lit up his arm as the weapon went off. He had just managed to knock it aside but the bullet still sliced a groove up his forearm before burying itself into a wall. With his other hand, he punched her in the face as hard as he could.

  That didn’t work as expected either.

  He felt her cheekbone give under the blow, and thought for a second the fight might be over right there. But then she exploded into a clawing, kicking, and biting nightmare. The rabid harpy managed to rake his eyes, bite his arm, and kick him in the groin all in the space of a second.

  Blinded by pain, it was all Adam could do to hold onto her and prevent her from getting loose so she could take another shot. It was like fighting some kind of diseased creature. She fought like a wild thing and smelled of shit, sweat, and stale piss. He gagged in nausea, then howled as she sunk her teeth into his shoulder. He was losing this fight! And with her practically on top of him, he finally lost his balance and the pair of them crashed to the floor.

  But this turned out to be in his favor. His legs were no longer as much a factor as they struggled on the floor. Now weight and upper body strength became more important…although ferocity continued to matter as well.

  She continued to bite and claw, and now his own blood welled through his shirt. It was only with supreme effort and a groan of pain that he managed to tear his shoulder free of her teeth. The agony was exquisite…and the respite was brief because she immediately sank her fangs into his forearm instead.