Janet pulled her own pistol, imagining a large black Jaguar emerging any second now with a small pygmy worker’s head in its jaws. She should have been concerned about that cat after all.
As the security guards inched toward the bushes, which were now eerily still, another Pygmy worker near the cave entrance screamed. Janet and all five security men swung their guns toward the blood-curdling cry.
They all froze in shock.
Sitting on top of the mountain, just above the new cave entrance, were several black animals that defied all rational explanation.
One of them shifted forward a few feet with such speed it looked like it simply skipped ahead in time. It reared back, lifting two long, hairy, segmented front legs into the air as if it were praying.
And now, without a doubt, Janet knew what they were.
Spiders.
The size of cars.
Impossible.
Their shiny, bowling ball black eyes were void of emotion, betraying nothing but a primal need to kill. Janet could see the panicked men reflected in those dark orbs.
A member of the security team screamed, fired his weapon, catching the rearing spider in its flat face, exploding dark green ooze from its eyes.
But all that did was make things worse. The jarred spiders leapt from the top of the rock wall, sailing high and fast and with such precision that the men they’d chosen as prey could not even turn to run before giant hairy legs were engulfing them in hugs of death.
Venomous fangs tore into dark sweaty flesh as the spiders yanked their food into the trees and disappeared back into the shadows.
Janet was only now aware of the cacophony of sub machine guns firing past her head, dampening the horrid screams of men being eaten alive by monsters that were too large to be real.
Someone grabbed her shoulder. It was Gellis. “This way! Run!”
Without thought she grabbed her backpack from the Jeep. She stooped to grab the SATphone from the ground but Gellis shoved her forward.
“Into the cave! Hurry!”
“The phone!”
“Forget it! Go!”
“No!”
She broke free from Gellis, reached for the phone but jumped back in shock. A sailing spider appeared out of her periphery and landed on it, right in front of her. Its legs went up above its head in a war dance, palps twitching rapidly, ready to strike. Its fangs opened like giant wire cutters.
Instead of lunging it flipped backwards as bullets tore into its thorax. Winston kept firing, racing toward it, gunstock secured against his shoulder, sending another volley into its belly, making sure it was dead.
She looked back down. The phone was gone. Kicked away when the spider had jumped on it.
Then she was up again, being dragged by Gellis. “Hurry!”
A pygmy worker was tackled beside her, hairy legs wrapping tightly around him as he screamed into the black bulbous eyes sealing his fate. The man reached up and got a fistful of Janet’s shirt, trying to save himself but instead pulling her toward the monstrosity that held him.
“Let go!” She slapped at his hands, fighting to free herself from his gripping fingers. One of the mighty arachnid’s legs stepped on her thigh. It weighed as much as a man and the hairs on the tip stabbed through her safari shorts and pierced her skin. The worker thrashed to get free, but the fangs came down and stabbed home through his neck and his blood shot out in spurts, coating Janet’s face.
The man’s death grip on her shirt went slack and she rolled free.
She found her legs now, started to run, had only a second to see Winston following her and Gellis toward the cave entrance, firing his weapon as dozens more of the giant spiders scurried over the rock face and leapt at the myriad workers running in panic. She turned back as the coolness of the cave swept over her, looking again for the SATphone. Winston crouched in front of her, just inside the cave entrance, his gun rocking him back and forth as he fired into the madness unfolding outside.
With a rush, one of the giant spiders flew out of the melee and fired itself at the cave entrance, legs splayed out. Winston unloaded his weapon, caught the monster in mid leap with a volley of rounds that sent it crashing into the rock outside the cave, its legs falling over the entrance like prison bars.
Through those legs Janet watched as the giant black and brown spiders leapt from worker to worker, jumping with such lightning speed they were nothing but massive dark blurs. As they leapt they left cables of silk web in their wake. It covered most of the ground and vehicles, as well as a couple of tents that remained half completed.
“What the fuck are these things?” Winston yelled, checking his magazine and finding that he was out of bullets. “Where did they come from?”
Janet searched her pockets for her cell phone. “Call Dad. Gotta get help.”
“Give me this.” Winston grabbed her pistol from its holster. He checked the rounds. Six shots. He looked at Gellis, whose ebony face was all but lost in the darkness of the cave. Outside, men continued to scream as the giant black spiders tackled them and dragged them into the trees. “What did you do?”
“I did nothing, sir. I have never seen such monsters.”
“Shit. My cellphone’s not here,” Janet said. “I think it’s in the Jeep.”
“Forget it. There’s no service here.” Winston began scooting them farther into the cave. “Move back. Go. You’re not going out there. C’mon. Move. We need to find a place to hide.”
Janet opened her hip pack to search for her phone, in hopes she had absentmindedly put it inside. In the darkness she couldn’t see the little bits of useless materials the pack held, but it was pointless; she didn’t feel her phone anywhere amongst its contents.
“Hold up.” Gellis was behind her, deepest in the tunnel of the mountain entrance now. He was the only one wearing a hardhat and he switched on the light affixed to the front of it. “There is a slope here. It looks steep. We must be careful.”
Janet turned and saw the dropoff. She could hear the water running down its sides, down toward the gold. They would need ropes to get down it without breaking their legs.
Gellis suddenly looked up past her, shocked, thrusting his hand out toward Winston. “No!”
Janet turned back in time to see Winston get ripped from the cave by a collection of hairy legs wrapped around his head. The security chief fired the pistol aimlessly in panic, the bullets zipping around Janet and Gellis, as he was drawn out into the open afternoon jungle heat and engulfed in a furry spider embrace, fangs already coming down on his shoulders.
With an immediate long jump, another black spider was outside the fissure’s entrance, spinning, seeing them inside, scrambling forward in a mad dash to eat.
“Go away!” Janet cried. “Just go away!”
The spider raced forward, getting its two forelegs in first, then folding the others in near its body to fit through the crack.
“Just leave me alone!” Janet’s fist closed around something in her pack. It felt like a long tube. She drew it out to throw it at the creature but Gellis grabbed it from her hand.
“No. Don’t throw it. Shoot it.”
The spider lurched forward, its head inside the cave, struggling to get further in. Janet pushed back into Gellis’ chest, trying to hide inside his frame.
“Look out.” Gellis pulled the string on the distress flare. A sudden flash of red blinded Janet as the fiery projectile shot out at the enormous spider. The beast jumped back out into the open as the flare hummed by its huge black body.
The next thing Janet knew she was sliding backwards down a long slope, wrapped tightly in Gellis’ arms.
***
The ground shook. More miners, Shumba thought. More men destroying his land. All he could do was ignore it and focus on his task. He knew the giant nest of wild bees was nearby. He’d seen his father collect honey from this particular nest on numerous occasions, mixing the honey with fermented grains for a sweet alcoholic drink the men enjoyed around the fire as
they ate their nightly ration of peacock and porcupine.
The other hunters of his tribe were not far away, but were silent and invisible as they stalked game for dinner. It was only recently that Shumba had been allowed to hunt and forage alone, and he didn’t want to disappoint his family by coming back empty handed. Not only was the honey good for drinking, it was good trade as well, and could yield anything from a new shirt to a day with the tribal educator.
He stepped over the curled roots of the jungle floor and found his bearings. There was the tree with the face of a monkey in its bark. There was the bush where the caterpillars mated. Yes, the nest should be just up the small hill in front of him, near the overlook.
He pushed through the dense fronds, swiping them away with his machete. Having walked barefoot since birth, the soles of his rough feet felt no discomfort when stepping on branches and stones. He ignored the mosquitoes and other biting insects that flitted around his face and naked torso. Many of the men in his tribe wore only loin cloths but he preferred the warm, tattered jeans brought by the Toleka Traders, men whose sole purpose in life was to ride from village to village, tribe to tribe, trading clothing, cigarettes and foodstuffs for bush meat and jungle minerals. They came more often these days, many times with white men trailing behind them with cameras and notebooks. The white men always wanted to take picture and ask questions but Shumba subscribed to la loi de silence, the law of silence, for the white men did not need to learn their survival secrets. They enjoyed the dancing and singing Shumba’s tribe reveled in on a nightly basis, but they always winced at the fresh food offered to them. They explained to Shumba, as was usually translated through the traders, that bugs and lizards were not common meals for them. Shumba always laughed at this. Food was food. If it gave you strength, you should eat it.
The bushes finally opened up onto the side of a cliff, the overlook. Beneath him, swaying treetops from the lower part of the rainforest spread out like green water. Patches of mist swam over it all. For a brief moment he stood and watched the birds flying below him, green parrots playing in warm air. The sun was high in the sky now, and the women in his family would be out mixing vegetables together for dinner and weaving liana for rope and nets the men would use for hunting and trapping.
A small rodent darted from one bush to another, momentarily revealing itself near Shumba’s feet. He crouched low and moved quietly to catch it. He was only in charge of getting some honey today but if he came back with other game it would be greatly appreciated.
Aside from his machete, he also carried a tiny spear. This he tapped on the ground in an effort to scare the animal into the open, but it was staying put. No bother, he would flush it out like his father had shown him.
There was a cracking from somewhere to his right, like trees being felled. Snap snap snap! This was followed by distant cries and pleas for help in his native language. It was all very faint, but distinct nonetheless, as if the wind were talking to him.
Shumba sat still and looked along the side of the mountain. The noises were maybe a kilometer or two away but echoing off the rock walls jutting up above the trees. If someone was in trouble, especially a familiar tribe, he should alert his father. Out here in the wild, tribes had to stick together as best they could. There were too many other dangers to not have allies, especially the rebels with their guns and trucks, ravaging the smaller communities on the outskirts of the jungle. Even the Bantu tribes had come around somewhat to forming alliances.
But should he get the honey first, e wondered. Yes, that would only take a minute and then he’d go tell the men about what he’d heard. He could do nothing for anyone right now anyway.
He removed the tiny liana net tied to his belt and made sure the fronds lining the bottom of it were packed tightly. This would keep the honey from dripping off the combs and leaking through to the ground. He grabbed a tree branch to his right, swung out over the overlook, moving above nothing but a ten-story drop, and then landed back onto the jungle floor on the other side of the tree. If his father saw him do that, he might be in trouble, but he liked a bit of adventure. It was a dangerous move, yes, but it was extremely fun. The nest was a few meters in front of him. A swarm of bees covered the tree trunk like a furry, living pelt. He would have to move slowly so as not to annoy them.
Something out of the corner of his eye caught his attention, made him stop dead in his tracks. A red star shooting out over the side of the mountain, about a kilometer away, from the direction where he’d heard the yells. It fell slowly toward the tree tops of the lower montane jungle beneath, leaving a pink ribbon of smoke in its wake.
It was followed by more screams. Then something leapt out from the trees on the side of the mountain, leapt out into space, falling to the lower jungle with legs splayed, a rope of white trailing behind it. If Shumba would have blinked he’d have missed it. It moved so fast! And there was something hanging from under it, something that looked like the arms of a human.
Then it was gone, hidden beneath the lower canopy, shaking the flora as it moved into the jungle’s belly.
***
“Set the tripod up there, dude, I need to get an F-Stop reading.” Derek Pike took a handheld light meter from his vest pocket and placed it next to the large mushroom growing on the side of a moss-covered tree.
“I could have gone to Berlin and done a story about the Egyptian artifacts on Museum Island,” replied his coworker Jack Reynolds, who was swatting insects away from his ears as he tested the stability of the tripod. “They were excavated during World War Two. Egypt wants them back. Says it’s stolen property.”
“How’s that?” Derek asked. He put the light meter away, picked up his Canon digital camera.
“Nazis raided the catacombs during the war, took all the loot. Lots of gold and silver and statues and shit.”
“The Nazis loved their gold, didn’t they. Me, I hate gold. Reminds me of my ex wife. Looks cheap.”
“The gold or your ex?”
“Both. That tripod set?”
“Yeah, it’s stable. Either way it’s a sore spot with Egypt these days. But Germany ignores it. They still have Nefertiti’s head.”
“What? Like, her real fucking head? That’s fucked up, man.”
“No, it’s just a bust. Tell you this though, if it represents her accurately she was a damn hot woman. Point is, it would have been a good philosophical piece. But, no, here I am covered in ants while you dick around with fungus.”
“Well, why didn’t you take that assignment, then? If you knew this one was fluff.”
“Because I wanted to see the African rainforest. Chance of a lifetime, they said. See where life began.”
“And?”
“And… there’s certainly a shit load of life here.” Jack swatted another bug on his arm, looked up at the trees towering above him. At the end of the day it was cool, he thought. They’d spent a night with that strange Pygmy tribe their guide had introduced them to, everyone singing around the fire (he still stank like smoke). Then the two-day trek into the mountains, watching monkeys and snakes high in the trees, camping out in the jungle at night and listening to the mysterious sounds of wildlife around them—so damn loud it almost rivaled the level of noise outside his Brooklyn apartment. It truly was unlike anything on Earth. If it wasn’t so humid and full of bugs he’d even consider cracking a smile. But he liked his pessimism, he liked how it irked this new staff photographer. It was the only entertainment he had up here.
“And you don’t think this is a good time?” Derek bent down and studied the two-tiered brown mushroom he was about to photograph.
“What?” Jack asked, having forgotten what they were even talking about.
“A good time, dude. Are you having any fun at all, is what I’m asking.”
“I thought it would be more exciting. I thought, you know, there’d be something more compelling to write about out here. Not salad fillings.” He crushed a mosquito on his neck. “These fucking things are relentless.
I had to get four hundred shots before coming here, you’d think one of them would include a repellent.”
“More exciting, huh? You want to write about the civil war and genocide? Congolese health care reform. Maybe rogue alligators attacking people?”
“I dunno. Something. I’m certainly not gonna win any awards with this crap.” He motioned to the mushrooms. “Are you ready?”
“Just about.” Derek screwed his digital camera onto the tripod and messed with the depth of field. “I’m gonna take some test shots. Can you set up the laptop?”
Jack took the computer from his backpack, hit the power button and let it fire up. This battery was still half full. He had two more charged up, thankfully. “If nothing else I figured we’d see some big-tittied bush women running around all naked.”
“Hey don’t look at me. I just go where they assign me. I wasn’t here, I’d be in some other shit hole filming something equally as stupid. I once went all the way to China to film slippers. Five days in Jieyang taking photos of the same shit I have in my closet at home.”
“A child labor piece?”
“Nope. Just slippers. Export focus. I don’t know, I didn’t write it, man, just shot the crap.”
Jack set the laptop on the backpack. “How long have you been with International Traveler?”
Derek connected his camera to the computer via a USB cable and snapped a pic. The mushroom appeared on the computer screen. “I told you this already. On the plane.”
“Humor me, I’ve run out of conversation. I don’t feel like talking about mushrooms.”
“Need more light,” Derek said.
“There is no light here.” Jack looked up at the tree canopy covering them. “I know the sun is up there somewhere, but fuck me if I can find it.”
“At least you don’t need light to write your story. This is driving me mad.”
“Seriously, how do I make mushrooms an interesting read? I’m here in the Congo. If ever there was an opportunity to write about the militias and rogue alligators it would be now. But Bill only wants a piece on damned mushrooms. I pay student loans every month for a journalism degree that is better served at a gardening store than in a national travel mag.”
Salticidae Page 2
