Spider Legs

by Piers Anthony

  “Got it.” Falow quickly looped the rope around Elmo's trunk, then handed him the anchor. Elmo took a breath, clutched the anchor to him, and sank down into the freezing brine.

  In a moment he saw Lisa. She was relaxed in her unconsciousness, her hair floating around her head in a reddish cloud. Beautiful even in death. Except that he wasn't going to let her be dead.

  He kicked with his feet, still clinging to the anchor. He was falling through the water, but able to move laterally this way. He had to get over the pycno. He saw the monster's action, in slow motion. One huge spider leg was drawing the girl in to the snout. The monster didn't seem hurried, being certain of its prey.

  Elmo reached the leg. He hooked the anchor over it and let go. Of course the anchor could pull on the elephant-sized leg just slightly, but it was enough for the pycnogonid to take notice. As the creature grew curious about the anchor, Elmo caught hold of the girl by her nearest extended arm and hauled her in to him as hard as he could.

  The leg felt the jerk and moved. It caught at the anchor, perhaps taking it for the girl. Lisa came free. Elmo kicked his feet and stroked with his free arm, heading upward, hauling the girl along with him. He was aware that the spider could readily intercept them and eat them both. But it was an animal, and tended to focus on one thing at a time. Right now it was the anchor. He used his fading energy to get them as far as he could saving nothing for the future.

  He reached the surface. He lifted Lisa as high as he could—and his last strength gave out. He found himself fading, his sight dimming. He would drown—but he had saved Lisa. That was what counted.

  Then she was roughly hauled from his flaccid grasp. He realized that he had failed after all, and now he had no reserves to summon. The agony of his rib cage, suppressed for the duration of his effort, was now surging back to overwhelm him. No choice but to let it happen.

  “Get him up!” And hands were on him, hauling him out of the water. Falow, on the lifeboat—but where was Lisa?

  “Lisa,” he gasped as he flopped into the boat.

  “We've got her,” Falow said. “We stopped the bleeding. Giving her artificial respiration. She'll make it.”

  That was all he needed to hear. Elmo let go of the last vestige of his consciousness.

  CHAPTER 29

  Shop

  "THAT WAS A brave thing he did,” Natalie said. They all looked over the rail as the lifeboat was hauled up to the deck. There was no sign of the sea spider. Occasionally they felt jerking bumps coming from the underside of the ferry, but they did not want to think about what it probably signified—meat being torn away from the body, and limbs torn asunder. Lisa and Elmo had been saved, but they were not the only ones who had gone overboard. The captain was trying to make a survey, but all they knew was that there were several people gone. Their body parts now made a trail through the cold sea as wide as the ferry lane, for all sharks.

  “Get this boat out of here fast!” Falow shouted to Captain Calamari as he clambered out of the lifeboat.

  “Top speed is 50 knots. It will take a minute,” Calamari shouted back.

  “Do you have any explosives or flare guns?”

  “Just a few flare guns.”

  “OK, get them out; we may need them.”

  Many hands took hold of the unconscious man and girl and carried them across the deck. “Take them to the coffee shop,” Falow directed. “It's the best place to attend to them.”

  “It's warm” Natalie said. That was the most important thing, for people who had been almost fatally chilled.

  The ferry's engines made a humming noise, growing louder and louder, passing through a cry and into a scream. Natalie saw Captain Calamari looking at Rudolph the engineer.

  “Something's slowing the ferry's forward motion,” Rudolph said.

  “I can guess what it is,” Calamari said with an exasperated sigh.

  Natalie followed the bodies into the coffee shop. Both were breathing, but neither looked good. Lisa was missing her left thumb and had scrapes all over her raggedly clothed body. There was blood on her leg from the cut vein. Elmo had a great bruise on his chest, and his breathing was labored; he probably had several broken ribs. “I'll tend to Lisa,” she said, kneeling by the girl as the others cleared back. “You check Elmo, Nathan.” She tuned out the others.

  She checked Lisa's hand. There was little bleeding; that was one benefit of the freezing water. But the girl would never have a thumb again. Then she felt around Lisa's body, heedless of any proprieties; she needed to know whether any bones were broken or skin torn. There didn't seem to be any such damage, apart from scrapes across her abdomen where the spider had picked her up. Then she bandaged the rip on the leg, stanching the bleeding there. It would have been worse, but for the numbing cold.

  As Natalie was about to do the same for the shorn hand, Lisa groaned and opened her eyes. Natalie shook her head in appreciation; the young had marvelous powers of recovery. “You're safe,” she said soothingly. “Elmo rescued you.”

  “Elmo,” the girl repeated. “I saw—his hand. Coming to save me.”

  Now Elmo stirred, hearing his name. “Lisa?”

  “I gotta get up,” Lisa gasped, trying to sit.

  “Relax,” Natalie said, pushing her back down onto the mat. “It's over. You're in the ferry, in the coffee shop.”

  “I know. Gotta. Get to. Elmo.” She struggled up again.

  Natalie sighed, and helped her, providing support. Lisa made it to her hands and knees and crawled over to where Elmo lay. She winced as her thumbless hand ground into the deck, but didn't stop. She halted with her head over his. “You saved me,” she said.

  Elmo managed a smile. “I had to,” he replied.

  Lisa put her head down to his. She kissed him on the mouth. Then she collapsed, exhausted.

  “I think Lisa has changed her mind,” Natalie murmured.

  “I agree,” Nathan said, handing her a bandage.

  Elmo's eyes moved to her, questioningly.

  “She was aware of your interest, but she didn't like your hands,” Natalie said, sure that she was not now betraying a confidence. She lifted Lisa's mutilated hand and got to work on it. “Now she has lost her thumb, and I think it's safe to say that she believes you will not hold that against her.”

  “That, too,” Lisa breathed.

  “But—” Elmo protested weakly.

  “I think the two of you need to talk. Can we get you to a chair? I think you'll be more comfortable, if you can manage it.”

  Nathan helped Elmo sit up, and then to stagger a few steps across the room. Natalie helped Lisa similarly.

  Natalie checked the bandages on the abrasions which covered Elmo's right side, where the pycnogonid scratched him. The man was sitting in a metal chair as he planted his feet flat on the floor and gripped the edges of his seat.

  “Ouch,” Elmo said. As Natalie adjusted the last bandage on his skin, the flesh around his cheeks went white. His head was a dull red, gorged with blood. That was one reason she had thought it best to get him vertical.

  “Just sit there for a while and rest,” Natalie said. “I'm sorry we don't have a medic here, but in my first-aid opinion you will survive if you take it easy until we can get you to the hospital.”

  “I don't think I could move if I wanted to,” Elmo replied. His long teeth were clenched tightly together and his voice was shaky.

  Lisa, now sitting beside him, reached for his hand with her bandaged hand. “When I was drowning, I had a vision,” she said, her voice getting stronger. “I saw myself, six years of age, at play in the pine forest by my white and brick colonial house. The pine needles on the forest floor rustled as I walked through them with my sneakers. My parents held my hands. My frisky German shepherd dog, Princess, wagged her tail and followed us. It was sort of nice. Then I woke on the boat, feeling awful, and I knew you had saved me.”

  Elmo smiled wanly. “Sorry about that.”

  Falow, Nathan, and Natalie retreated to a tab
le far enough distant to give the couple some privacy, though near enough so that they could offer help swiftly if necessary. At their table was a huge ashtray. Natalie looked with distaste at the smoking cigar sitting in the ashtray but did not get up to remove it. She became aware of the tension in the coffee shop. The ferry passengers were now well aware that they faced a threat as horrible as any they could have imagined.

  Bill, the teenage boy behind the counter, produced a giant-sized pink bottle of anti-diarrheal medication. He stared at the label for a few seconds, shook his head, and put the bottle back on the stand full of medicines. One of the men on a stool at the counter pealed nervous laughter so loud that other people at the counter—fishermen and tourists for the most part—craned around. The laughing man looked as if he were going to have a nervous breakdown.

  “Look, we may only have a few minutes before it attacks again,” Nathan said. “Even with the ferry moving at full speed, it may be able to catch us.” He sketched a diagram on a piece of paper showing the anatomy of the sea spider. “Here's what I think the insides of this monster look like, according to what I know from smaller species.”

  The others listened intently as he pointed to the diagram with his pencil. “I've circled areas which you should aim for,” Nathan continued. “The small palp legs are located just behind the chelicerae and have sensory hairs. If you hit these, the animal will probably be in extreme pain and unable to attack. The small leg just behind this is the ovigerous leg. It's used by the male to carry the female's eggs. If you knock this out, it will prevent the monster from breeding. The nervous system is made up of a dorsal brain, circumesophageal ring, paired ventral gangila, and ventral nerve cords. If you hit the cord, it will probably paralyze some of the legs. But try to hit the main brain.”

  “How about the legs?” Natalie asked. “Can we cripple it by taking out the legs?”

  “Each of the huge walking legs contains eight independent segments. They're quite tough, and the pycnogonid can survive and walk even if a few of the legs are completely destroyed. Don't bother aiming for the big legs.”

  “What about the eyes?”

  “Its five eyes are located far apart, helping it to triangulate on prey. Very efficient. But it's doubtful you'll be able to knock out all five of them. Go for the brain or those strange eyes on its proboscis. It evidently uses them to zero in on people on the deck.”

  When she was sure she understood their best strategy of attack, Natalie walked over to the counter, away from Nathan and Elmo, curious to hear what the passengers were talking about. Bill motioned her to join them.

  “Coffee?” he said.

  “Please,” said Natalie. The boy placed a cup on the chipped Formica counter and poured hot coffee into it. A few of the other men at the counter had sodas. The lumberjack with the beer belly was eating from an aluminum frozen dinner tray.

  “How about some pumpkin pie to go with that?” The boy spoke quickly, obviously nervous. “Homemade. Pumpkins from Tiffany's orchard over on Main Street. Picked today.”

  “No, thanks,” Natalie said. “How can anyone think about eating?” The boy did not answer her, and just nodded his head.

  “Why don't we all just stay in the coffee shop until morning?” another passenger asked. “It can't get us in here.”

  “That's just what we're doing,” said Bryan, the lumberjack, in a pensive tone. Bryan was a big, almost handsome man with the ruddy complexion and strong presence of a man who often worked in the woods. “Just stay in here until someone rescues us.”

  “Good idea,” Natalie said. “You should stay in here with the others. But we're going to try to destroy it if it attacks again—before it has a chance to destroy parts of the ship or break through some of the wooden doors and glass windows. Assuming that we don't get moving fast again soon, and leave it behind.”

  “Think you'll kill it?” the boy asked.

  “Yes,” Natalie said. But she was afraid the boy detected a hesitancy in her voice that was not at all reassuring.

  CHAPTER 30

  Hunger

  UNDER THE SEA, delicate, evanescent sea anemones flowered beneath the pycnogonid's legs. Polyps were in bloom, undulating to some unheard rhythm, combing the sea water with long, slender tentacles. Nearby were strange corals. Some had convoluted surfaces, like the sulci of a human brain. From within the convolutions rose thin worms resembling red strands of rubber. The sea floor looked like a living carpet. A few small fish patrolled, searching for food, but shied away from the spider whenever it moved its legs. Some were large—barracudas and the like.

  The sea spider looked up and saw a golden cone of light cut through the water. It was the light from a high-powered flashlight held by a passenger on the ferry. As the light penetrated the clear waters it reflected off a school of small fish, which sparkled like stars.

  Suddenly the billowing skirts of a lion's mane jellyfish glimmered beneath a small vault of ice. The jellyfish was a mobile restaurant for small crustaceans, which snatched scraps of food from the jellyfish's open maw. This area of the sea seemed to be a zoo of life, because of the abundant nutrients and rich oxygen concentration.

  As the jellyfish drifted, its skein of stinging tentacles touched the pycno's back leg, but the sea spider did not feel any pain. More important were the distressing signals from other parts of its body. For the first time, the spider felt pain from some of the gunshot wounds. A new experience. No critical nerve paths had been destroyed, so it retained full mobility.

  But the pycno was still hungry. The moving cone of light from the ferry acted as a magnet, a beacon, for the creature. It rose again from the frigid blackness to intercept the ferry.

  The sea spider rose through a cloud of four-inch ctenophores, which looked like a herd of half-inflated footballs gliding in the icy sea. It rose through cigar-shaped shell-less snails known as sea butterflies.

  It ascended through a world of teeming life, but its only purpose now was to cause death.

  CHAPTER 31

  Snack

  A LEG CAME over the rail. Then another, followed by the great snout. Another siege was starting.

  Natalie saw it. She had her Llama .32 automatic, but only one more bullet. Her mouth opened wide, making a short guttural sound. The muzzle of her gun wandered back and forth. She trained the gun at the head as it appeared, knelt, and fired.

  She missed. The head had made an unpredictable jerk, dropping back down into the water. The pycnogonid couldn't have timed it better if it had tried. It was as if fate was with it.

  The boy with the viotar had just removed his hexagonal rimless glasses, cleaned them, and put them back in place, hiding two pink spots high up on his nose. Suddenly he saw the sea spider and his glasses dropped as he screamed. One lens cracked. He should have run immediately, but instead he got down to scramble for his glasses.

  The creature's sinewy organs of manipulation groped for the boy and grabbed him around the thigh. The pycno's leg tapered from a thickness of a human hand at the point where it held the boy to more than two feet in diameter where it disappeared over the rail and descended into the sea. It was brown on top and pearl white on its underside, where various sharp spines protruded.

  The boy looked to his right, seeing what had grabbed him. His eyes opened wide. “Get it off me! Take this friggin’ thing away!”

  “Oh God,” Nathan whispered.

  The leg began to pull the boy toward the rail. From the boy's pocket fell a small aerosol bottle of breath freshener. The deck began to leave splinters on his arms. As he was just about to be pulled into the sea, he grabbed onto the rail and yanked himself back onto the deck.

  “Help,” he yelled as he looked at his hand. A sharp crescent of metal on the rail had torn the nail on his thumb right off; all that remained was a bleeding half-circle of ragged flesh. The leg pulled some more.

  “Hey, help me. Do something,” he cried in shock and pain. As he opened his mouth, some of the smooth bristles from the creature's le
g entered it, caressing his tongue and gums. A quick gagging noise came from his throat. “Damn it, do something.” One of the bristles abraded his lips, surely igniting sparks of pain all the way to his skull.

  “Christ,” Nathan said as he came out of the coffee shop to see what was happening.

  Natalie was the closest, and she grabbed the boy around under his armpits and pulled as hard as she could. For a second she made some progress, but than the leg began to exert even more force. The spider might be somewhat haphazard when it cast about, but once it had something, it had enormous power. Both Natalie and the boy were drawn across the deck. A half empty pack of chewing gum fell from another of the boy's pockets.

  Nathan joined them and pounded on the pycno's leg with a ballpoint pen. It was all he had at the moment. For a second it seemed to have an effect, surprisingly, but he realized it was probably because the spider was trying to take stock of this minor distraction.

  Then another giant leg rose out of the water toward them. It grabbed a chunk of Natalie's hair and pulled it out by the roots. Just as suddenly as it appeared, this second leg disappeared back into the water, with the black hair still in its grip. Natalie thought of all those shampoo commercials about split ends, and started to laugh, and then to scream.

  The leg appeared again and began to make scratching sounds on the ferry's deck. The tip of the leg slapped Nathan in his side. It felt as if he had been hit by a cold hammer. Then it slammed Natalie and grabbed her arm.

  “Someone give us a hand,” Nathan shouted, not having time to consider how strange those five words sounded in this context.

  But no one came. Those who hadn't sensibly fled remained too terrified to respond effectively. They just stared, backing away. Where was Falow? Nathan thought.

  Natalie looked down and saw the first leg around the boy's hips. It was working its way into his skin. The boy grimaced in pain as some of the spikes tore like razors through the fabric of his Star Trek T-shirt. The spikes dripped some clear liquid. Where the liquid touched the boy's shirt, tiny holes appeared. One spike dug deep into his shoulder and blood began to ooze from the deep hole the leg spikes left.