He saw his mistake too late. There was something hanging in the shadows of the high ceiling and it began to drop as they approached the door. A different kind of spider. This one had apparently built a web in the corner and waited. Its body was a gleaming black and Calvin caught sight of the red hourglass on the spider's abdomen as it got closer.
Calvin raised the Glock and fired until the gun was empty. The Black Widow was wounded, but still in motion. It landed on its long, narrow legs and came right at him. Tessa was still out of it, a dead weight on his left arm. He tried to get the M-4 into position but it had swung around behind him during his flight.
The door he had been trying to reach slammed open and Calvin half expected to see another spider emerge. Instead, a tall, slender man stepped out and fired a big handgun at the Black Widow, blowing huge chunks out of the creature.
“This way,” the man said. “There are more coming.”
Supporting Tessa, Calvin hurried to the door. As soon as he was through it, the tall man closed the door and turned a latch.
“Was she bitten?” the man said, nodding toward Tessa.
“I don’t think so,” Calvin said. “That fucking thing was biting her body armor.”
“Let me have a look.”
“It didn’t bite me,” Tessa said, in a quiet voice. “But it was sure as hell trying. What’s happening here? What are those things?”
“Spiders,” the man said.
Tessa said, “I know they’re fucking spiders. How did they get so big?”
“We’d better save explanations until we reach a more defensible position,” the man said.
Calvin noted that the guy spoke very precisely. “We’re not safe in here?”
Here looked to be a conference room, sadly with no windows to the outside. Still, the walls and doors looked solid enough. It was lit by the yellow glow of emergency lighting.
The man shook his head. “The ceiling is the problem. This building is really one big room, partitioned off, and with false ceilings added. There’s a crawl space above the entire office and there are definitely things crawling in it.”
Tessa said, “Do you work here?”
The man shook his head. “No, like you two I’m here in response to the threat.”
“You’re a cop?”
“I’m an English professor. Retired. My name is Decamp.”
Calvin said, “Do you have any idea what’s going on?”
“I do, but we don’t have time to talk about it. The wolf spiders are hunting us. Listen.”
Calvin listened. He could hear scratching sounds from above. “Shit.”
“Precisely,” said Decamp. “Our best bet is to get out of the building. The wolf spiders don’t like the daylight.”
Tessa said, “That’s what they are? Wolf spiders?
“For the most part. Arachnida Lycosidae. There are some others as well.”
“Like the Black Widow.”
“Yes.”
“Okay, Decamp,” Calvin said. “You got any idea how we can get out of here?”
“That other door leads to a hallway that connects to the manufacturing plant. One of the loading dock doors is open. That’s how we got inside.”
“Who’s we?”
“I came with an associate.”
Tessa said, “Speaking of associates, I hope Perez and the others didn’t walk into this hellhole like we did.”
Particles of dust began to fall as the ceiling panels began to shake. Calvin said, “We need to go. Now.”
“We do,” said Decamp, “Though there is one problem.”
“What?” said Tessa.
“The plant is full of spiders too. That’s why I ran in here.”
* * *
Perez moved in first, not because he had command of the situation, but because he’d been there before and thought he knew the best entry point. There was a large bay door that was already open, so that point became moot.
West came up on his left and then Jenkins was on the right. Perez was five feet, eight inches tall. He worked out every day and he knew that, pound for pound, he could hold his own against damned near anyone. That didn’t stop him from feeling better knowing Jenkins was on his side. In high school they’d called Douglas Jenkins the Ogre, because he was a full foot taller than Perez, and he had him by easily a hundred pounds of hard muscle.
West was taller too, and he was good enough at his job despite his bad jokes, but the thought that West had his back was somehow less comforting.
The lights were out. Emergency lights illuminated just exactly enough of the vast interior to let him know they were fucked. There were exit signs over every possible way out. There were powerful yellow lights in the corners of the vast room. There were also eighteen foot tall warehouse shelves, carefully labeled and approximately ten feet apart from each other in both directions. There was exactly enough room, according to his cousin Guillermo, to let a slow moving fork lift get through. Not one of the gigantic forklifts like they always showed on TV, but a small one, roughly a third the size of a squad car. Unbelievably the lifts still carried a thousand pounds with ease, and Guillermo had once explained that the weight at the back of the lift was literally a one thousand pound counterbalance. All told the lifts weighed in at close to a ton.
Which is why when Perez looked at the forklift, where it rested, smashed through two full lines of anchored, metal shelving, he was nervous.
“Bad day to forget how to drive,” West was talking mostly to himself, but Perez skewered him with a hard look. Guillermo was supposed to be working today. He normally drove the forklift.
It took everything he had not to run in screaming his cousin’s name.
Jenkins looked hard at West and let out a small noise of disgust.
West ducked his head in a move that was fully unconscious. As a rule no one ever wanted to piss Jenkins off, strictly because they had all seen him in action on a few occasions and never wanted to risk getting hit that way.
They worked methodically, scanning a different section each, Mag-lights cutting through the darkness in spears that revealed less than what Perez wanted to see.
He worked his way through the twilight to the forklift. There was something dark and hairy at the end of one of the massive tines at the front of the machine. Whatever it was had been pasted into so much goo when the forklift hit the shelves. Bits and pieces of the thing were painted across several surfaces. Enough to let him know that whatever it had been, it most certainly wasn’t human.
“Arturo.” His name was hiss-whispered from his right and when he turned that way a wave of relief poured through him at the sight of Guillermo.
Before Perez could open his mouth, his cousin was pointing up and making a gesture to tell him to go softly.
Looking up was maybe the biggest mistake of his life. Once he saw them he couldn’t unsee them. Across the ceiling of the warehouse there were hundreds, possibly thousands of spiders. There were so many that they literally crawled over each other and they varied in size from just a little over the length of a hand to something that looked closer to a prize-winning pumpkin. They came in different colors, different patterns, and enough varieties to make his mind dizzy. He barely noticed that last part because he was trying to suppress a scream.
Perez had always had an issue with spiders. Maybe not a full on phobia, but he didn’t like them. They gave him the creeps. This? Every hair on his body was standing on end. There was a part of him that wanted to run away, wanted to get the fuck out of the building and head for the hills.
That wasn’t going to happen.
He swallowed hard and then nodded. His pistol was aimed for the roof. He intended to keep it that way.
He waved to Guillermo to come to him and his cousin nodded.
Jenkins loomed behind him and spoke softly. “The fuck man? Ain’t no way those are real.” Hearing the tremor in his friend’s voice was oddly reassuring.
West spoke up too, his voice loud and snarky. He had no
t looked up apparently. “Number of times I’ve said that to a stripper is scary, man.”
Jenkins looked blue murder at the other cop. Another voice spoke softly, coming from the left. “You’re not very smart are you?”
Perez looked at the source of that voice. He was dressed in a nice suit, dark blue. The man was a cop’s nightmare when it came to descriptions. Average. Average height, average haircut, Caucasian male. His hair was brown. His eyes were brown. He was nondescript in the worst possible way. The only thing remarkable about him was the expression of exasperation on his face.
The man was staring hard at West, who looked right back, irritated at being talked to that way by a civilian. West sucked in a hard breath and was maybe thinking about making a nasty retort, but he stopped when the man pointed to the ceiling.
“Oh. Fuck.” The words were whispered. West actively grew paler as he stared at the shapes above him, his mouth dropping open in surprise.
Above them the teeming nightmares continued to crawl and, oh Madre Dios, they were growing. Perez stared hard at one of them – a black, glossy nightmare that almost looked like it was made of polished glass it was so shiny. It was impossible, but the thing was growing bigger.
West drew his pistol and aimed as best he could with shaking hands.
Guillermo moved as quickly and as quietly as he could, muttering prayers under his breath.
The stranger was looking at the roof and scowling, his longish face drawn down in a look of utter disgust. There was no fear. No terror. He was the only person in the immediate area who didn’t look ready to shit himself.
Guillermo was too busy looking at the roof. He tripped over the webbing at his feet and fell hard.
That web was thin, but it sang as Guillermo let out a squeal of shock and caught himself on his hands, narrowly missing breaking his face on the hard concrete.
Perez watched the thread vibrate and his eyes tracked it upward into the shadows. An instant later something big was dropping from above and heading for Guillermo.
“Oh God! Help me!” Guillermo’s words were screamed.
Just that fast Mister Average was on the move. At least a hundred feet of space separated him from Perez’s cousin but he covered that distance at a speed that was unsettling and grabbed Guillermo by the scruff of his work shirt.
Fabric tore with a loud, ripping purr, but the sound was nearly lost under Guillermo’s scream as he sailed toward the open bay door.
Guillermo came straight at Perez and instinct made him duck away. Jenkins let out a grunt that told Perez all he needed to know. Either he’d caught Guillermo or he’d broken his fall.
The man in the suit was holding what was left of his cousin’s shirt in one hand and looking up as the first of the giant spiders dropped from above. He caught the tattered fabric in his fingers and spun his hand, wrapping his fist in the cloth before he stepped forward and punched the first spider in its head. The creature let out a hiss as it rocketed back on the web it used to descend, swinging high into the air, a massive tether ball that chattered and worked to control the swing with eight impossible legs.
The stranger looked at him and smiled – smiled! – and said, “You should run.”
Perez answered in the only way that made sense to him. He fired on the second spider as it dropped toward the man who had just saved his cousin. The bullet punched through the abdomen of the spider and the thing fell away and landed, twitching, trying to right itself.
That gunfire may as well have been the signal to start the race. Bloated shapes dropped from the ceiling, some descending on webs and others skittering down the walls of the structure. Adrenaline soared through Perez and he forced himself to breathe and focus. It didn’t matter what they were. It only mattered that they were the enemy. It mattered that a civilian was in trouble.
The civilian didn’t seem to agree with that assessment. He moved, grabbed the leg of the closest monstrosity and threw it as easily as he had Guillermo. It smashed into two more of its kind and the man charged right at Perez.
“I said move! Now!”
Perez slid to the side, prepared to let him get past, but the man planted a hand on his chest as he came through, and hurled him backward. Perez had been braced, his feet properly spread and his weight well distributed but that didn’t matter. He was lifted and thrown back, not with intent to hurt him, but to get him out of the way.
His head spun a bit and he reached to get the man off of him but it was too late. He had already stepped past and turned around and was heading back for the bay door.
West was firing into the building. He didn’t really aim, but instead cut loose, firing again and again. The only thing working to his benefit was that the collection of nightmarish shapes was packed closely together and every bullet hit something anyway. Jenkins, down on one knee and protecting Guillermo, aimed and fired, aimed and fired.
The stranger jumped high, caught the bay door’s edge and hauled the entire affair down with brute force that should not have been possible. Somewhere inside the structure a loud clang sounded and Perez could see the motor and chain assembly that should have been holding the door open falling from above and taking a few spiders with it.
The door smashed into the ground and jumped back up a few inches. From inside the building all he could see were the spiders. Oversized, scrambling toward the entrance, and moving in ways that would haunt him for as long as he lived.
Several of the damned things got through the narrow opening and immediately went for the stranger and for West, both of whom were too close to the doorway for their own good.
West pointed and fired and hit what looked like a wolf spider dead in its face. The entire shape pumped backward and collapsed against the narrow opening. Something inside the building roared and West flinched. Perez was pretty sure he flinched too, but it was hard to say when he was trying to look everywhere at once.
West fired again and got no satisfaction. The weapon was empty. He dropped the spent clip and pulled another from his belt, his eyes locked on the thing coming his way.
He wasn't going to make it.
Perez fired three rounds into the thing coming at his partner before it dropped. The first round had it turning to look in his direction, six bulging black orbs focused on him, and it lunged hard in his direction. The second bullet carved a trench across the back of the thing. The third went through the face and exited near the back end and the thing dropped.
While he was shooting, the stranger had forced the door closed.
“Let’s go!” He moved past the shattered remains of the giant spider and grabbed West’s shoulder, spinning him toward Perez. “Move! The door won’t stop them!”
“We can’t let them just get away!” Jenkins roared. His pistol was in his hand and pointed down. Guillermo stood next to him on shaking legs.
“I’ll be slowing them down, slick, but there’s no way in hell we’re stopping them from here. That warehouse is already overflowing.” As if to make his point the rolling steel door shuddered and buckled slightly.
The stranger reached out a hand and slapped the metal as if to warn off what might be on the other side. Perez gritted his teeth. “You’re only pissing them off!”
That grin again. That mad, sickening grin, and the stranger said, “Run. They’re going to take a few minutes to follow us. They won’t be using that door at any rate.” He started running to prove his point, heading back toward the front of the building.
As he ran the place where the man had touched the door started to glow. The light had a yellowish tint at first and then as it grew brighter the color was bleached away. Perez squinted and continued to look as whatever was behind the door started screeching and thumping the metal.
From fifteen feet away he could feel the heat coming off the door and he could smell the stench of burning metal and worse things. “It’s not here! I have to find Decamp and let him know.”
“What’s not here?” West was running hard, while Jenkins covere
d their backs, with Guillermo at his side.
“Whatever the hell summoned or created these things. Can’t just be a spell. There has to be a focus.”
“Say what?” The stranger stooped down in mid run and grabbed up a rock the size of a small apple. The projectile whipped through the air and pulped the head of another spider, this one coming from above them off the edge of the roof. It shrieked and sputtered and dripped vile fluids across the ground as it crashed into the dirt and gravel.
“Something is causing these creatures to mutate and grow, and it’s getting worse. We thought it was in the plant, but it’s not.”
“What the fuck are you talking about?” West’s voice was cracking and his eyes were too wide, his face shocky.
“Just get to the front of this place. We’re going to have to regroup with Decamp.”
Behind them the heat was fading and the glow that had become overwhelming faded down as well.
Behind them the untouched metal doors were bulging now as the giant spiders tried to pound their way through.
Guillermo was screaming. Jenkins turned and fired.
Perez looked back just in time to see the door explode outward, vomiting a cascade of squat bodies and long, multi-jointed legs. He shivered as if he had a fever.
The spiders came on.
The stranger physically yanked him around for the second time. “Stop fading out on me! RUN!”
Perez bit into his lower lip and felt a sharp pain as his teeth broke flesh. It was a trick he hadn’t used since Iraq, but one that worked to help him focus and get past the threat of shock.
None of this could be happening. None of it made sense. It was happening just the same and he had to accept that.
Training took over when the thing came at him from the rocks nearby. He opened fire and blew the carapace of the spider apart.
SNAFU: Unnatural Selection Page 7
