At the same time, Adam heard a strange keening wail echoing through the havoc and twisted to see its source. It came from the barn where an entirely different nightmare was taking place. A man-formed creature howled and gibbered in the doorway. It flailed its arms and spun in place, shedding small specks of black that hit the ground and rushed straight back to swarm over it.
Gunfire erupted as the stricken man must have squeezed the trigger on his M-16. A gout of fire blossomed from the thrashing figure, spraying the entire backside of the house. Bullets smacked into the wood, and the doorframe beside Adam shattered into a vicious hail of splinters. The tiny slivers of wood drove into his face, causing him to duck and throw up his arm.
Fire lit up the side of Adam’s head, and he wiped furiously at his eye. For a terrified second he thought he had been blinded. Half of his vision went red and the gore on his hand revealed he now bled profusely. At the same time Maggie’s pistol thundered outside, silencing the rifle and making him realize that no matter what the damage, he needed to get back into the fight right now.
With his right eye now weeping blood, he stuck his head back out the door to see Maggie swaying on her knees, her pistol still pointed in the direction of the barn door. She had crawled to where the gun lay nearby on the ground before scooping it up and shooting the stricken man.
Adam would spend the rest of his life wondering why she did it. Nothing in her damaged face showed whether it was out of anger, pity, or in simple recognition of the danger the man now represented. It could have been any of them. Unfortunately, whether it was mercy, murder, or self defense, it was also a mistake.
A mistake she paid dearly for in the very next second.
Adam shouted a warning but it was too late.
Maggie tried to twist around to face the other threat, but the rogue pounced upon her before she could bring her gun to bear. This time its fangs found their mark. And for the only time since he ever encountered her, Adam heard Maggie Weston cry out in physical pain. The monster reared as if in triumph with its fangs buried in the girl’s sides.
Yet even then she continued to fight.
Maggie shoved her pistol under the monster’s fangs and straight into its undulating mouth. With a murderous scream of her own, she drove her arm up to the elbow into its maw and then started pulling the trigger.
At the same time, Adam staggered down the steps and started firing as well. He didn’t even think about it. He just inherently understood that this was the pivotal moment of the fight, and whoever lived or died would be decided right here.
He couldn’t aim at the creature’s head without hitting the woman trapped in its jaws, but another target presented itself. Changing his firing mode to “burst,” he aimed at the oozing hole in the monster’s side. He fired once, twice, three times while approaching at an angle to keep the creature’s wounded side in his view.
With bullets now tearing up its insides, the horror retreated.
The giant reared again, this time to threaten Adam, but it stumbled on its damaged legs. The beast recovered its footing, then changed its focus to freeing itself from Maggie instead. She had emptied her gun, but now took another course of action as if to prove how dangerous an opponent she still remained.
Maggie withdrew her hand, leaving the gun in the horror’s mouth, then formed her hand into a spear and drove it straight into one of its eyes. The orb exploded and the monster gave a mental shriek Adam felt even through the psi-blocker. It continued to retreat, now dragging its face along the ground in an attempt to tear Maggie free.
It finally worked and the woman tumbled on the ground, free of the spider’s jaws. She writhed in the dirt, clutching the large holes in her sides. Adam realized that last attack on the monster’s eye must have used the remainder of her strength.
At the same time, he continued his advance while firing frantic bursts into the wound on the spider’s flank. Desperation now drove him. What the hell did it take to drop this thing? He could see gobs of pale gore spatter out of the hole and knew the rounds were tumbling and tearing up the creature’s innards. Between that, the grenade, and the internal damage done by Maggie’s shots, the monster had to be hurt.
And even as he told himself this, the rogue staggered backward again…then one of its damaged legs buckled and it collapsed to its side.
It was down!
“Die, goddamn you!” Adam yelled in frenzied hope and hobbled closer.
He put himself between the creature and the fallen Spider Tribe woman and fired three fast but carefully aimed bursts into the monster’s face. Another two eyes exploded and the nightmare hissed like a dying locomotive. But somehow, despite the fact its side and face now poured pale blood, it shuddered and struggled to regain its feet. The damn thing just wouldn’t die!
At the same time the firing pin on Adam’s rifle clicked on an empty chamber.
Shit.
In the next second, three things happened all at once. Adam twisted to snatch another magazine in his belt, Maggie gasped a warning, and the giant stretched out one long ebony leg, caught him by the shoe, and jerked him to the ground.
Agony lit up his foot, and terror ripped down his spine. It had him! He sat up with a jerk, one hand fumbling for a new magazine while the other desperately tried to pull his pants leg up to get at the Velcro strap to his brace. One look at the massive claws that gripped his shoe was all it took for him to know that the rigid plastic brace was the only reason he didn’t have a broken foot. His eyes travelled up the twelve foot arc of the segmented leg to where it began…
…at the shoulder of David’s wife.
“Karen?!” Adam gasped in disbelief.
She panted there on her hand and knees, blood streaming from her face and side, glaring at him with a look of pure murder. It was definitely Karen. She even wore the head scarf he had bought her last Christmas. Yet the ebony leg still grew out of her shoulder like a deformed pipeline and he knew that whatever this was, it wasn’t Karen Sellars.
“So you’re…Adam,” the twisted image of Karen spat and coughed up a glob of blood. “The one Maggie’s been after all this time?”
Adam stared at the horror in mute shock. This must be it. He had either lost his mind, or the world had gone completely insane. And the look on the faux Karen’s face would hardly pass for the model of rationality either.
“You don’t…look all that hard to kill to me,” she continued with a heaving gag. “Let’s…see… if I can finish…what she couldn’t.”
The bloody woman swelled and melted back into the giant arachnid of before. It’s gore-spattered form still lay half collapsed on the gravel. The monster looked done for, but it apparently meant what it said. The grip on his foot tightened and the monster started to slowly drag him toward its fangs.
Adam twisted and scrabbled at the ground but there was no purchase to be found. Realizing both the futility of the effort, and the fact he had already slid two or three feet, he twisted back and attacked the Velcro strap on his brace. It was the only hope he had left. He had to get out of that brace.
He tore at the strap, ripping it open with adrenaline fueled haste before yanking it through the loop on the other side. Now the top of his brace was open. Normally he would only have to untie his shoes to slide his foot out, but that option was closed. The shoe was almost invisible in the grip of the spider’s two claws. It was either pull his foot out of the brace with the shoe still laced shut or die.
Adam squirmed and thrashed, jerking desperately on his leg as he slid closer to the monster’s face. The thing’s grip on his shoe squeezed his foot just as tight, and he despaired of being able to pull free. Not only that, he was out of time. Only a couple of feet further, and the spider’s palpi would be able to grab him and draw him the rest of the way into its mouth.
Its fangs started to spread as it dragged him near.
Adam screamed and redoubled his efforts. He jammed his right heel against the top of the left leg’s brace and pushed down with a
ll his adrenaline fueled might. The pain in his left foot blazed to new heights.
It twisted inside the brace, and a sudden sense of wetness told Adam he had somehow torn the skin on his foot. Now he was bleeding. But that didn’t mean a damn thing to him at the moment since he would have happily gnawed the appendage off if he had the time…bleeding be damned!
Yet it was that blood that made the difference.
Adam sensed the gore slimed foot slip against the hard plastic and realized he had one desperate hope left. As the monster dragged him the last couple of feet and the palpi reached for him, he cried out again and pushed his heel down even harder. This time the foot slid out of its rigid sheath with a sucking “pop.”
Adam twisted to his hands and knees and scrambled away from the horrific maw. He had never covered so much ground on his hands and knees so fast. The fact he did it on hard gravel meant nothing to him. But he still barely made it, for in the next instant an ebony leg drove into the ground mere inches behind him.
“Shit!”
With his heart in his throat, Adam snatched up the rifle he had dropped by the fallen Spider Tribe woman. His other hand pawed at his ammo belt as he ejected the empty magazine and this time found one still full of bullets. He scrambled another four or five feet, then stopped and slammed the new magazine home in the rifle.
It was time to end this.
He turned and rose to his knees…to finish the monster off once and for all…then froze with his heart in his throat.
The giant was regaining its feet.
The beast tottered on unsteady legs, and ichor poured from its mouth and side, but it slowly lifted its body from the ground. It listed and staggered, but once again it towered over him and the fallen woman and raised its forelegs to attack.
Adam realized that with only one brace he couldn’t even get to his feet. Retreat was not an option. Even worse, the way the monster swayed made the precise type of aiming necessary to hurt the thing almost impossible. A glance down at Maggie revealed there wouldn’t be any more help from that quarter either.
So with no other choice before him, Adam flipped the selector switch to “full auto,” and emptied the magazine in the direction of the monster’s face.
He screamed in defiance as the rifle roared, The M-16 devoured the magazine, spitting a large gout of flame as he fought to keep it on target. Another mental shriek made his head ring so he knew at least a few of the slugs found chinks in the creature’s armor. It was everything he had left, yet he already doubted whether it would be enough.
But that’s when the black van rushed out of the fog and crashed into the great spider.
Olivia.
Adam had forgotten how quiet the vehicle was, and apparently the monster hadn’t heard it coming either. It was on them before either of them realized it. The heavy van hurtled into the horror’s left, uninjured side with tremendous force, and Adam heard one of its legs snap like a gunshot. Its weight and momentum carried it forward, driving the monster sideways as it did. Then the creature fell over on its side right as the armored machine smashed it into the corner of the barn, trapping it against the large building.
It wriggled exactly like one would imagine a pinned spider would…if the spider had legs thick as mast spars. They hammered the van with a sound like thunder, and one clawed foot smashed through the driver’s side window.
“Olivia!” Adam screamed.
A couple of seconds later the leg retracted, tearing the door off with it. Adam inhaled sharply when he saw the driver’s seat sat empty. What the hell? Then he realized she must have retreated to the rear of the van and made for the vehicle’s rear doors.
He scrambled for the discarded brace that now lay alone on the driveway. It only took him a few seconds to pull the knot in the laces loose and jam his foot back into the plastic sheath. The pain barely registered as he jerked the brace the rest of the way on and fumbled with the Velcro strap.
Another loud thump sounded and he looked up to see Maggie’s spider rejoin the fight. It landed on the top of the van from where it must have been hiding on the roof of the barn, and leapt straight to the attack. Trapped and desperately injured, the rogue had no defense left against the smaller predator. Molly skirted the monstrosity’s legs, scuttled up on it, and drove her fangs right near the spot where the yellow and black abdomen joined the white carapace.
The monster had been on its last legs, and a pool of the pale gore already spread from under the front end of the van, but Adam was not in the mood for taking chances and wished Maggie’s spider a silent “bon appétit.” He had begun to wonder if anything could take the beast down. But even as the thought crossed his mind, he saw the creature’s legs tremble and begin that curl characteristic of a dead spider.
The monster was dead.
They had won.
But at what cost?
CHAPTER TWENTY
AFTERMATH
The rear door of the van opened just as Adam reached for the handle, and Billy Clayton hopped out.
“Billy?” Adam stepped back in astonishment.
“Here,” the teen grunted and handed him his cane. “Your chick’s still in the house, but you might want to pay closer attention to this. Where’s Maggie?”
Adam struggled to reorient to the kid’s surprising appearance and answer the question, but Billy spotted her stricken form and rushed over to her with a cry. He suddenly felt like a huge heel for going to the van instead of checking on the downed girl first, but he had thought Olivia was driving and might have been further injured when the giant spider had smashed the window.
He leaned the empty rifle against the rear of the van and hustled back over to where Billy knelt next to Maggie.
“Maggie!” Billy coaxed. “Hold on! Help is on the way!”
As Adam reached them it was plain to see that “help” probably wouldn’t get there in time, and there would be damn little it could do if it did.
Maggie was dying.
It was a testament to her incredible constitution that she still lived. Her clothes were nothing but blood soaked tatters from the grenade, and a gaping hole in her side revealed two snapped ribs where the monster’s fang had driven through. Or at least he thought they were ribs…they glistened a shiny black in the bloody gash. He could only assume another such wound lay under the ragged mess opposite from it. Even as Adam watched, a shudder went through her long frame and he knew it wouldn’t be long.
“Billy,” she gasped. Her eyes were wide and she stared at the sky. “Get out of here. You gotta go!”
“Not gonna happen.”
“Billy, you don’t understand…”
“I said no! Screw them! They can all kiss my ass! None of this should have happened!”
Her hand fumbled and caught Billy’s arm, as her eyes sought him out. The wince of pain on the boy’s face showed why he hadn’t taken her hand to begin with…and also how much he hated himself for it.
“Listen…to…me…” she panted. “They did…what they had to do.”
“What?” Billy stared at her in disbelief. “Like hell!”
“It’s…Molly.” Fresh tears streaked the gore on her face. “I messed her up. All that hate…all that craziness…it’s bled over into her. It twisted her up inside. And now…and now she’s dangerous. I thought maybe with time…I could fix her. But now…but now…”
“Maggie…”
“I’m dying, Billy.” She choked, recovered, and locked eyes with him. “And when I do…when there’s nobody to control her…”
Adam looked up in alarm and over at where the large arachnid sat atop the fallen giant. It squatted there, unmoving, staring back.
Waiting.
Something in its silent, still attention chilled him to the bone. He returned his gaze to the pair beside him to see Billy also regarding the big spider with the same wariness he had on the bridge.
“Go…” the girl breathed in harsh gulps. “Go in the house. Close the doors. Get…in the bathroom. Hi
de in there…until help gets here…”
“But…”
Adam saw the look of appeal Maggie sent his way, and immediately understood what she wanted.
“Billy,” he knelt down by the boy, “she’s right…we’ve got to do this her way.”
The glare Billy gave him was so full of pain it hurt him to see it.
“I need your help,” he continued in an urgent voice. “I need you to go and carry Olivia to the bathroom. I would do it, but it isn’t safe. My legs aren’t recovered enough, and there’s too much chance I would hurt her.”
“But...”
“Please.” He laid his hand on the teen’s shoulder. “I need you to do this for me. We’re almost out of time. I’ll stay with, Maggie. I promise, I won’t leave her until I have to. But we’ve gotta move!”
Billy gazed at him hard, his jaw clenched, then down at the dying girl.
“Goodbye, Billy,” Maggie whispered through clenched teeth. “I’m glad you came back. But now it’s time to go.”
The teen appeared hurt, as if she had slapped him, but he stood and took a step back. He looked from her, to Adam, then back to her again. Adam could see him struggle for words, and knew the kid would never, ever find the ones for what he wanted to say. Instead he straightened, and settled for what there was.
“Goodbye, Maggie.”
With that, Billy turned and strode for the house. He never looked back, even when he reached the door. He simply walked straight in…
…leaving Adam alone with the woman who had spent the past month trying to kill him.
But he could see right away it wouldn’t be for long.
Maggie’s eyes widened and she arched her back with a shaky gasp. Her fingers clawed into the dirt. Another shudder went down her frame and she moaned something in her language he didn’t understand.
Adam didn’t know what to do. Instinct told him to hold her hand, yet he knew that would most likely result in him getting his own hand crushed or torn off. But he couldn’t just do nothing. Somehow, it didn’t seem right to watch her die like this…completely isolated from contact due to her own terrible strength.
Spiderstalk Page 50
