“Okay…that is an interesting proposition. We’re waiting on the Black Hawk, Cameron. Why don’t you come with us, and tell all the Icecap dudes at McMurdo about it? We can do a full report, and then they’ll all come back with a full science team.”
“No.”
“Why not?”
“Because that’s not what she wants.”
“We’re leaving, and you should come too.”
The spider on his shoulder flexed its front legs and teeth and she knew that it was about to leap onto her. She brought the fire extinguisher nozzle up and gave it a blast of carbon dioxide. The thing screeched and fell from Cameron’s shoulder onto the floor. Claire brought her boot down on it hard and the thing exploded.
Cameron’s face twisted into cartoon rage and he let out an actual snarl. Betty was ready to defend herself, when out of nowhere Jazmin rugby tackled him hard. For a small girl, she was surprisingly strong, and Cameron was decidedly less than sporty. He took the hit badly, and Jazmin managed to push him all the way across the room, through the door and out onto the helipad.
Freezing cold air filled the small room and the remaining spiders huddled away from it in corners, ceilings and crevices. Betty and Claire raced after Jazmin and Cameron, just in time to see a long, arachnoid leg reach up and over the far side of the helipad, and begin to pull the monster up.
TWENTY
Jazmin hurriedly disentangled herself from the fallen Cameron and looked around the helipad. After being inside, the sound of the waves and the wind was almost deafening, and she felt the change like a physical shock. Betty and Claire scooped her up by her armpits and set her on her feet. “You okay?” asked Betty, frantically.
“Yeah, I’m fine, I…” her gaze was drawn suddenly to the second of the mother spider’s legs clawing up onto the helipad, and gouging into the concrete. Slowly, the monster’s head rose up into view, its vile, pale pink eyes set in that horrendous black head, scanning for movement – for prey. “Holy shit, we’re fucked.”
Claire clutched her fire axe tightly and looked all around her as dozens of the ice spiders started to crawl across the helipad towards them. The chill was obviously still affecting them, but under the influence of their vile mother, they seemed to be emboldened. “It sure looks that way.”
Cameron groaned below them and Betty put her foot down on his neck. “Stay down, Spider-Man.”
“Wait!” called Claire. “Up there! You see it?”
Jazmin turned her gaze upwards and saw a flashing red light in the distance. “The chopper!” she screamed. “It’s the Black Hawk!”
Jazmin stamped on two spiders that had gotten too close, their bodies exploding into what resembled bone chips and graphite. “Looks like we might get out of this after all. You know what I’m going to do when I get back to civilisation?”
Betty blasted the spiders on her side with a hollow bark of the extinguisher. “What’s that?”
“I’m going to have a six pack, I’m going to smoke a jay, and I’m going to watch all the goddamn Poltergeist movies.”
Betty laughed, and didn’t tell her that she should probably stop at the first one. “That sounds like a plan. Mind if I join you?”
“I was pretty much banking on it.”
Jazmin’s laugh turned into a scream as the floor shifted below them, to a ten-degree slant towards the vile spider monster, which flexed its bus sized pedipalps and its building sized fangs into anticipation of its first meal in a very long time. Betty fell hard on her backside, and Cameron rolled out from underneath her, slipping and sliding down towards the monster. For a moment, Betty thought he was going to slide right into its jaws, but instead he slipped between the beast and the struts of the rig, and simply disappeared from view with a scream.
Jazmin grabbed hold of a nearby strut and tried to get her bearings as the rig shuddered and shook under the terrible weight of the prehistoric monster. She saw Betty grab hold of a railing, but Claire was not so lucky. She slipped and fell, and it was only the quick action of Betty stamping on the hood of her borrowed parka that stopped her from following Cameron down into the water below.
Getting her balance back, Claire slowly kicked and scrabbled her way upright, and held tight onto the railing next to Betty. Jazmin looked up again and while the Black Hawk was much nearer, she was no longer sure that it would be able to land on the helipad at all, given its highly precarious angle. The hollow bark of the fire extinguisher brought her attention back to ground level and the sight of Betty desperately spraying away twenty, perhaps thirty, of the ice spiders.
Claire reached out to an orange box secured to the wall, of the type that might hold a fire axe, or other potentially useful weapon. “Jazmin!” she called out. “Get over here as soon and as safely as you can.”
The monster spider threw up another of its legs over the side, and Jazmin tried her best to suppress a scream of terror, although even if she had let rip it would have been lost in the Antarctic wind. Hand over hand she made her way around the railing and hanging bits of debris to Betty and Claire.
Claire pulled the bright orange flare gun from the box, cocked it and fired it onto the ground about six feet away from them. The yellow white light lit them up in the darkness, and Jazmin convinced herself that she could actually hear the chopping of the Black Hawks rotors as it made its way toward them.
Several of the spiders were also drawn by the fire and some of them even tried leaping towards them in an effort to sink their teeth in, but they were pushed back by Betty’s fire extinguisher, although she was worried that too much blasting would put out the very signal flare that they needed so badly.
Another sickening crunch came as the mother spider brought up another leg over the lip and Jazmin did let out a scream this time. Just as she thought that she was going to go tumbling head over heels into the foul thing’s maw, or into the dark water below, the entire helipad was lit up by the searchlight of the Black Hawk. A voice called down to them through a loudhailer, but it was too indistinct or the wind was too strong for them to hear anything at all.
There was a rattle and a clatter, and a wound steel ladder was thrown down from the Black Hawk. Betty shoved Claire and Jazmin towards it first of all. “You two go, I’ll hold off these guys with the extinguisher.”
“Don’t be a hero! Get going with us!” shouted Jazmin.
“Will you fucking go, already?” demanded Betty.
Claire was already several rungs up the ladder, and Jazmin followed hot on her heels. The Black Hawk was forced to bank sharply as the rig shuddered under the weight of the spider once more. Betty’s heart sank as she saw it pull thirty feet or more away from her. She blasted the surrounding area, and couldn’t help but notice how light the fire extinguisher was getting.
Up on the Black Hawk, Jazmin shouted at the man who helped her aboard. “There’s still one of us down there. You need to go back for her!”
The man nodded. “We’re going to swoop back as soon as we can, but that…you saw that thing, right?”
“Yeah. I saw it. Doesn’t this thing carry any missiles or bombs or shit like that?”
“Military ones, for sure. This is a privately owned chopper. All we’ve got is a winch, horsepower and a bad-ass look.”
“Fuck it. Go for her now!”
Betty looked up as the Black Hawk and its ladder swung back towards her. She reached up and grabbed it just as it passed by, gripping with all her might. At the exact same moment, the mother spider brought the bulk of its weight up onto the helipad, and the entire Tempest Outpost let out a screech, a crash and a groan, and began to fall sideways into the ocean. Betty let out a scream as she felt her shoulder dislocate from the pressure of carrying her entire body weight. She dropped the extinguisher and desperately gripped onto another rung. Up above her, the ladder began to be winched in, until the Icecap co-pilot, Jazmin and Claire could pull her into the cargo bay.
Betty fell over onto her side, only partly conscious. Through the moonli
ght she saw the mother spider and all of Tempest Outpost collapse, crashing with an almighty noise back into the ocean. She thought for a moment of all the friends she had lost over the last two days, and mourned them. She also thought that she had come very close to being permanently under the sway of the spiders herself, and it was only a happy accident that had broken her from the spell. She looked over at Claire and saw that the same thought had occurred to her, too.
They watched the rig collapse and crash downwards for as long as it remained in sight, but there was no sign of the mother spider. A few small fires had broken out where electrics or fuel supplies had malfunctioned or been broken open, but there was no big explosion that served as a full stop to their ordeal. Just a limp semi-colon; or perhaps a question mark? Who knew what else was down there? How many of the spiders survived? How many eggs were still down there, waiting to hatch?
Claire rested her hand on her shoulder. “Are you okay? Are you hurt?”
Betty winced. “I think I dislocated my shoulder, but nothing too bad, no. You?”
“I’m fine.”
Betty sat up and leaned back against the interior wall, and felt Jazmin pull her into a hug. She rested her head on the young girl’s shoulder and closed her eyes as the Black Hawk banked and sped them away to Icecap McMurdo.
The End
Read on for a free sample of Crazy Eights
PROLOGUE
One thing Buckeye loved was taking a shit in the woods.
He tugged on the leash, his four paws scurrying over the summer leaves and dried twigs as he yanked his owner along the beaten path that led further up the Allegheny Mountains. His golden fur brushed against the bellworts, capturing pollen that caused a slight itch to begin spreading. Buckeye paused, using his hind leg to scratch it away as best he could.
“Who’s a good boy?” the man on the other end of the leash asked.
Buckeye panted. He was a good boy. For nine years he’d been a good boy, and he loved his owner more than anything in this world. A world that was small and large all at once. Small because sometimes it was only four walls with limited space to move around in, and large on days like today when those walls disappeared and he could stretch his legs in the warm country air.
“What a beautiful day, right, Buckeye?”
The retriever sneezed, turning his attention back toward the ground. He picked up on something—something familiar and exciting. The scent of a small, furry animal with a twitchy nose that always seemed to elude him. He tugged harder on the leash, eager to search out the rabbit so he could chase it, because he loved to chase things, even if they always got away.
“Whoa, slow down there, buddy. What’s your hurry?”
He ignored the voice of his owner, scampering forward, his nose picking up the trail. It wasn’t strong yet, but he knew the further along he went the more noticeable it would become, and from there he might be able to track it down and at least get a good look at the small animal. Even if he’d never be able to catch it.
“Who’s a good dog? Who’s a good dog? Good boy, Buckeye, good boy.”
His heart leapt at the sound of his owner’s voice. He loved it when he spoke like that. His normal voice was deep and serious, but when he spoke to Buckeye it changed. Became higher and friendlier. It made Buckeye feel loved, and he loved love.
He also loved rabbits, and the scent he’d smelled became stronger, just like he knew it would. He raised his eyes and looked ahead, hoping to get a good look at it. He scanned the forest, searching through the trees and brush for the little critter, but no, there was nothing. He dipped his nose, continuing to seek it out, and then all of a sudden the trail went as cold as that white stuff he liked to jump around in sometimes. Snow, his owner called it. He loved snow, and love, and rabbits, and shitting in the woods.
But this new scent, the one that replaced the rabbit, wasn’t very pleasant at all. It smelled…dangerous.
Buckeye barked. No sir, he didn’t like it one bit.
“Hang on boy, I want to get a look at this.”
He looked back at his owner, who was holding something in his hand that he panned across the countryside, when really he should have been paying closer attention to what was in the woods. Didn’t he smell it?
“God, what an amazing day outside, huh?”
It was an amazing day. At least it was up until a few moments ago. Now Buckeye wasn’t so sure. This new scent was strong in his nostrils. It was old, and dangerous, and smelled like trouble.
He had to do something. He had to warn his owner because if he didn’t he’d feel bad if something happened to him.
Buckeye barked. Louder this time. There was definitely something out in these woods, and it wasn’t a rabbit.
“Quiet, Buckeye.”
Quiet? This was no time to be quiet. How can anyone be quiet at a time like this? There was something…there…right through those trees. He saw it, coming closer.
Closer.
His barking intensified and he tugged on the leash. Whatever it was wasn’t going to get the man who took care of him. Who fed him, and cuddled him, and threw the ball for him. That was his master, and he had to protect the master.
“What is it, huh? What’s out there?”
Buckeye didn’t know what it was, just that it was there. Right there. Creeping and sneaking, bigger than the two of them and all he wanted to do was protect his master and oh God, there it is.
It crashed through the trees, coming into view. Buckeye continued barking at it, and the thing hissed.
“Holy fuck!”
He felt the leash go slack and looked briefly to see his owner running away, then he turned his attention back toward this new creature. A creature he’d never seen before. Or had he? It looked somewhat familiar to him. Just bigger. It had a bulbous body, with four legs extending from either side of it. Legs that were huge and hairy and made dull thuds in his ears the closer they came.
“Jesus Christ, what the fuck was that?” he heard his owner cry out from somewhere far behind him.
It’s a spider. That’s what it is. He’d chased them down before at his master’s request. Sniffing and squishing them from time to time so they wouldn’t hurt the man he loved.
Get the spider, Buckeye. Get it. Good boy.
Get the spider. Yes, that’s what he had to do. He had to get the spider.
Buckeye growled and snarled and barked, the golden hair on his soft body raised and ready. He drew back, and as the spider came closer he jumped forward as hard as he could, ready to sink his teeth into it. He didn’t care that it was bigger than him. All he cared about was protecting his master.
He soared through the air, feeling the soft breeze course along his fur while his eyes fixed themselves firmly on the large spider. The spider that had eight eyes, all of them looking straight at Buckeye.
Then he felt something sharp pierce his torso, and he dropped to the ground. He’d thought for sure that he would be able to bite the spider, maybe even squish it, but no.
The spider had bitten him.
Now he couldn’t move. Something hot coursed through his body. It stung, and Buckeye felt his muscles contract and stiffen. He tried to shake it off. Tried to get back up and run away. It was only in his head, though. His legs wouldn’t respond. They just sat there, firm and unmoving, and a shadow passed over him as he stared through the trees, seeing his master off in the distance watching him.
Then something wet and sticky began to surround him. He looked down, seeing his hindquarters being wrapped up in it. Buckeye had no idea what it was, just that it came from the tail end of the spider, and that it wasn’t good. He looked out over the wide berth separating him and his owner, David. Images of kisses and balls and snow and rabbits passed through his mind, and he whimpered, knowing that he’d never get to see or feel any of those things again.
This was the end of his life, and as the wet, sticky substance moved higher and higher, wrapping his body, then his neck, Buckeye at least knew that
his master was safe.
And for that he was a good boy.
CHAPTER 1
Emily Nite hadn’t gone to college, so it never ceased to amaze her when she was invited to speak at one.
The library of Washington State Community College in Marietta, Ohio, was packed with liberal arts students and their friends, and for the last hour they’d been listening to her lecture on the cryptid history of the United States. For her it was a chance to enlighten the minds of young students and open their eyes to a world many of them didn’t know existed.
For the kids it was a chance to kill time on a Friday night.
“So as you can see, dragons aren’t just native to Asian and European folklore.” She paced back and forth in front of the gathered crowd, trying her best to hold their waning attention. “In fact, in 1890 two cowboys in Tombstone, Arizona, claimed to have chased down a giant flying lizard that measured 92 feet. They shot and killed the beast, bringing a piece of its wing back into town. The battle was chronicled in the April 26th edition of The Tombstone Epitaph.”
She gave a half-cocked grin to the group, seeing in their eyes the same look she’d seen in thousands of eyes before them.
This chick’s crazy.
A few of them snickered, with a voice coming from somewhere in the middle of the group yowling, “Must’ve been some damn good moonshine.”
Laughter peppered the audience.
There was a time when she was first starting out that Emily’s posture would have stiffened, and the confidence she’d been trying so hard to muster would have fizzled like bubbles in a glass of soda, but that was then, and this was now.
Now she chuckled along with them, nodding politely because despite the attitudes of a few, she knew that at least someone was getting something out of this lecture, and that’s what she always looked for when she was presenting. That one person she could zero in on and have a heart-to-heart with.
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