They Came After Me

by C S Allen

  I was starting to worry more since we were getting closer to the trees. The trees could hide the spider anywhere in the shadows or in the trees themselves.

  “I swear, if I ever see another damn spider after all of this, I’m going to kill it,” Emma whispered to me.

  “Um, Olivia, did you put more bullets in the rifle back at the cabin?” I asked Olivia.

  “Yeah, and I have the rest of the box in my back pockets. You were too busy pissing in a glass jar when I did it,” Olivia replied.

  I didn’t bother to reply to that statement because I was embarrassed. I could hear the tree leaves rustling because a breeze started to pick up as we got to the tree line.

  “This is the area I’m worried the most about, you guys, stay alert,” Olivia commented.

  “Let’s run for it, Olivia,” Emma stated.

  “Not yet, but I’m thinking the same thing, Emma,” Olivia replied.

  We were about thirty feet away from the tree that had fallen when we saw our worst nightmare. A dark object was moving under the trees, stalking us, as we got closer to our objective.

  Hisss!

  “Oh shit,” Emma stated, as we all looked in the direction of the spider.

  “Let’s hurry past this damn tree and get to the car, you guys,” Olivia said loudly.

  We moved quickly under and over the fallen tree at the same time, but as we did, I lost sight of the spider.

  “Do you guys see it? I lost sight of it,” I said.

  “We’re close enough to the car now to run for it. On a count of three, one . . . two . . . three!” Olivia yelled.

  We ran about twenty feet to the car as fast as we could and made it. Olivia grabbed the driver’s side car handle, and it didn’t open. The same went for me and Emma trying to get in the car on the other side.

  “The damn door is locked!” Olivia yelled with fear.

  I quickly swung the post in my hand like a baseball bat toward the front passenger window. I kept hitting it, but the damn thing wouldn’t break. Pow! I jumped from fright, not knowing Olivia was going to shoot the driver’s side window. The glass shattered, and then Olivia started knocking out the glass with the butt of her rifle. Olivia reached in, found the door’s automatic door lock, and unlocked all four of the doors.

  Hisss!

  Emma couldn’t pull the door handle fast enough, and she turned and screamed at the spider now face-to-face with her. I just froze, standing at the car door, looking at death with its black mouth opening to devour Emma. Emma shoved her post at the face of the spider as best she could, but it was useless. The spider pinned Emma against the car with its front legs and bit her face off.

  Pow! Olivia got a shot off into the spider, waking me out of my shock. The spider quickly bit into Emma again and retreated, dragging Emma’s body with it. Pow! Olivia shot again as I opened the car door and got inside.

  “Call for help on the radio, I’ll watch for that bitch to come back!” Olivia shouted.

  I reached over to the radio and grabbed the microphone and pressed its button. “Hello, can anyone hear me?” I yelled, as I heard the microphone click off through the car’s speakers.

  “This is a police channel, sir, please refrain from using it,” a woman’s voice said.

  “We need help out here. There’s a spider killing us, and it killed one of your police officers,” I said, not thinking.

  “Sir, I say again, this is a police channel, get off of it,” the woman’s voice stated.

  “Ma’am, you’re not fucking listening to me, the policeman is dead, and we’re sitting in his car talking to you. We need help!” I urgently said this time.

  “What is the patrol number on the back side of the vehicle?” the voice asked.

  “Olivia, can you see out your window any numbers on the back of the car?” I asked.

  Olivia stretched her head out of the car as far as she could and then sat back down and looked at me. “The number is one-one-four.”

  I pushed on the microphone button and stated, “The number is one-one-four!”

  There was a long pause from the other side of the radio. “Hello? The number is one-one-four!” I stated again.

  Finally, the radio came alive again, this time with a male voice. “Dispatch to one-one-four.”

  “Does he want us to respond?” Olivia asked me.

  “I don’t know,” I replied.

  “Dispatch to one-one-four, over,” the male voice stated louder this time.

  I couldn’t take the pressure of the person on the other end of the radio calling anymore, so I responded. “I’m in car one-one-four calling you. The police officer is dead; you need to help us!” I pleaded.

  “What’s your name, sir, and what is your current address?” the dispatcher asked.

  “I’m William Reed, and I’m at Senago Lake. I don’t know the exact address because we were brought out here,” I stated.

  “Is there a house or a cabin number posted, William?” the dispatcher asked.

  “No, there isn’t, but we are on a private dirt path to the cabin if that helps anyone.”

  About thirty seconds passed, and the silence was killing me. The radio finally squelched alive when I was about to yell on the radio. “William, are you still there?” the dispatcher asked.

  “Yeah, I’m still here, along with my friend Olivia,” I replied.

  “Are the keys to the vehicle in the ignition?” the dispatcher asked.

  “No,” I replied.

  “Where is the officer who you say is dead?” the dispatcher asked.

  “He was dragged away by a spider and our three friends are dead also.”

  Again, there was another long pause on the radio.

  “What the hell are they waiting for?” Olivia blurted out.

  “I don’t know, but I’m tired of just sitting in this friggin’ car and waiting for that spider to come back and kill us. Hey, is anyone coming to help us?” I yelled into the microphone.

  “William, did you pass by a convenience store or did you see one?” the dispatcher finally asked.

  “Yeah, it’s about twenty minutes away from here,” I replied.

  “Okay, we have an idea of where you are. What we need for you to do is to start a fire and throw in anything that is made of rubber. That rubber will burn, putting out black smoke into the air, and we should be able to find you. Have your friend Olivia stay in close range of the radio when you start the fire,” the dispatcher said.

  I told the dispatcher that he needed to send everyone who had a gun to our campsite to kill the giant spider before we finished speaking to each other. For some reason, I had a suspicion that he didn’t believe anything I had stated. “Olivia, are you doing okay over there?” I asked.

  “I can’t take any more of this shit, Will, I’m freaking out. That bitch is killing us one by one, and it doesn’t die. I shot it at least two damn times, and it ran off. It killed Emma right in front of me. My God, it’s going to kill us all,” Olivia said, while still holding the rifle out the window and watching for the spider.

  I didn’t know what to say back to her since I believed the same thing.

  “Will, burn the cabin down,” Olivia stated, still looking out the window.

  “We need the cabin, Olivia; we can’t stay here with that window broken over there,” I stated.

  “We have to make a stand either here or at the cabin. The dispatcher already knows that we have people killed and that his officer is dead. You’re right, we need to get out of this car and get to the cabin, Will.”

  I looked down the dirt road at the cabin and realized we were going to be out in the open again. I didn’t want to leave the car, but we didn’t have a choice because that spider could get us through the broken window.

  “Will, we need to burn Steve’s car,” Olivia said, surprising me.

  “But he loved that car, Olivia; we can’t burn his car like that.”

  Olivia turned to look at me with red, swollen eyes from crying and said
, “I’m not going to die in this fucking shithole! I will burn everything down to get the cops out here. Steve’s car and that cabin don’t mean shit anymore. I’m going to make this place a giant smoke signal so that everyone in Maine will see it. I’m getting out of here,” Olivia stated, while opening the car door to get out.

  I wasn’t ready, but Olivia made up my mind for me. I got out of the car with my wooden post as quietly as I could, not closing the door. I looked over at Olivia, who was pointing the rifle up at the trees as she walked around the car door. Just as she looked like she might use her hip to close the door, I said in a loud whisper, “Don’t slam the door; it will hear us!”

  Olivia nodded her head and started backing up toward the front of the car. As we cleared the front of the car, we didn’t hear anything, and everything seemed quiet. No birds chirped, no leaves rustled in the trees, just the sound of our feet slowly walking on the dirt road, step by step. I could hear my heart beating in my ears for the first time, and my mouth was dry from my nervousness. Olivia was a sight to see. She looked like she belonged in the Marine Corps with that rifle held up to her face. I, on the other hand, looked like an idiot, holding up a damn bedpost like a cave man in the dinosaur days. How was I going to protect us when Olivia had shot the spider and Emma had stabbed its face and it still didn’t die?

  “Shit, I forgot the ammo in the car,” Olivia stated.

  “I thought you had them in your back pocket, Olivia.” I said, whispering.

  “I did, but I took them out of my pockets because they were killing my ass,” Olivia replied back.

  “Let’s keep going; we don’t need any more ammo if you can’t kill it with the shots that you’ve made already,” I said.

  “That’s exactly why I need more, Will. If I need to shoot that bitch ten more times to kill it, then I need to get those bullets,” Olivia said, looking mad.

  “Just go get them,” I said, staying in place.

  Olivia slowly walked back to the car while still watching for the spider. I turned toward the cabin. Looking at it from that distance, it looked so peaceful and calm. I just kind of phased out into a trance when I heard a thud from behind me. I quickly turned back around, and there stood the spider, about chest high to me. I could see its fangs moving, and its many eyes staring at me. I couldn’t move, I couldn’t think what to do. There it was, with its horrible face, ready to kill me. I could hear a low sounding hiss coming from the spider as its fangs separated.

  POW! POW! Olivia blasted the spider from the other side, and I responded by running toward the cabin. As I ran, I looked back and saw the spider run into the tree line. I ran as fast as I could, looking back every four to five steps, praying that I wasn’t being followed. I could hear Olivia firing shots as I got closer to the cabin’s front door. Once I made it back inside, I quickly shut the door and went over to the living room window to look out. I could just barely see Olivia in the police car, still alive thankfully. I was trying to catch my breath from breathing so hard and felt sick to my stomach. I had to tell myself to think a couple of times on what to do next as I was freaking out. Olivia was in the car by herself with a limited supply of ammo, and I had to somehow start a fire. What do I burn? Do I start a fire in the fireplace? Do I start a fire on the grass? How can I go outside with that spider watching us? I paced the floor, thinking, while keeping an eye out the window. I had to get some water out of the kitchen and saw the lighter on the counter. As I picked it up, it came to me on what to do next. Throw the bedroom mattresses out the door and set them on fire.

  “We’re not staying here one more day. If I have to burn the whole place down to get out of here, I will!” I stated out loud to myself. I grabbed a full water bottle and drank it down quickly and then ran into the bedroom. I picked up the mattress from the floor and brought into the living room, leaning it against the wall beside the door. I looked out the window again and couldn’t see anything moving in the trees or in the woods. I didn’t dare push the mattress out the door without setting it on fire first. I had to think smart and not expose myself to the spider. It might be on the roof for all I knew.

  I set the mattress on its side and then clicked on the lighter to burn its top corner. It smoldered a bit, making a lot of toxic smoke at first, and then it caught fire. I opened the door and pushed the mattress half-way out, looking everywhere for the spider. The mattress started burning faster as fresh air and a little breeze helped ignite the materials inside of it. As the flames got bigger, I pushed the rest of the mattress out of the cabin and onto the grass. I quickly turned and went back inside to grab the other mattress when I heard the spider hissing from someplace. I closed the door and then looked outside and could see the police car front light flashing at me. I couldn’t see Olivia because of the sun’s reflection on the window.

  “Damn it, what is she trying to say to me?!” I said out loud. Tap! Tap! Tap! Tap! Tap! Tap! “Son of a bitch!” I said. I realized Olivia was trying to tell me that the spider was coming, and now it was on the roof. The spider kept walking all around the roof, scaring the hell out of me, while I waited for it to get me somehow. A few minutes of terror went by, and then the spider stopped moving. Maybe it’s left, I wondered.

  Pow! Pow! Pow! I could hear Olivia firing from the car, but I didn’t know at what. I looked from a safe distance out the window, and it looked like she was pointing at the cabin. Pow! Pow! Snap! The cabin sounded like it had gotten hit with one round so it confirmed that she was shooting my way. I quickly laid flat on the floor, hoping that she wouldn’t hit me with a ricochet through the wall.

  Where’s that damn spider now, I wondered, as it was quiet on the roof, and Olivia had stopped shooting. I waited another minute before getting up to look out the window. The mattress was still burning and giving out black smoke like I thought it would, but I couldn’t go outside for fear of where the spider was.

  “I’ll just use the fireplace, you bitch!” I said out loud. I looked around to see what I could use next to burn and saw the couch first. The cushions were the first to be put in the fireplace. I stuffed two of them in and left some room for three wooden posts from the bed. It didn’t take long for the old cushions to start burning with black toxic smoke. As the fire got going, I kept looking outside in the direction of where Olivia was. Was she okay? Had she been talking to the cops on the radio? Where was the spider? So many questions in my mind that it was starting to make me crazy.

  I started kicking the couch armrests off since they were made of wood, and I tossed them both in the fireplace because the cushions were halfway gone. I started getting lightheaded because of the toxic smell coming out of the fireplace, so I took my shirt off and wrapped it around my nose and mouth area. I had to give myself a break from the smell, so I went looking for anything wooden next. I found some books, wooden utensils, cupboards, the TV stand, picture frames, and bed rails, and the doors if needed. I started throwing books in the fireplace first out of the lot, and they really burned really well. The utensils were small so those were thrown in next, and they scattered about.

  Pow!

  “Oh shit!” I said out loud and ran to look out the window. The spider was on top of the police car, but I could barely see from the cabin. Pow! The spider jumped off the back end of the car and disappeared from view. “Damn it!” I said angrily, while kicking the wall. I kept looking out the window, trying to think of a way to help Olivia out of the car. Then I realized that she had the rifle and that she was better off than I was. If she wanted to come to the cabin, she could. I just didn’t like my friend being attacked from that damn spider out there. It felt like forever since I was sitting in the police car, but it was only about forty-five minutes. No police cars had showed up, no helicopters were hovering overhead looking for us, and I felt angry. It’d been forty-five minutes to see the smoke billowing into the air and find a simple dirt road to the cabin. Don’t these idiots know that we said their cop friend was killed and that we were next if they didn’t hurry? What the
hell is taking so long? I thought.

  “Oh my God,” I said out loud as I saw the spider crossing over the tops of the trees from a distance. The spider appeared out of nowhere, somehow gliding across the trees as if on ice. It headed toward the car and stopped on the last tree before it would have fallen to the ground. Olivia couldn’t know what was going on because the spider was above the passenger side of the car. I couldn’t just stay there and do nothing, so I ran outside, pulling off the shirt that was covering my face. I started yelling and pointing at the spider.

  Olivia blew her horn at me, signaling that she could see what I was doing. Just then the spider turned its back toward the car and sprayed webbing at it. The car was covered from the passenger side over to the driver side door and onto the ground. I couldn’t believe what I was seeing; it was something out of a horror movie. This can’t be real! I said.

  Olivia started blowing her horn to either get my attention or to scare away the spider or maybe both, but the spider stayed on top of the trees. As the horn was blaring, I heard what sounded like a helicopter in the distance, so I quickly turned and ran back inside the cabin. I needed to grab the other mattress and getting it burning. Once I got to the mattress, I turned it so that it would fit out the door and then ran outside. A little bit of the mattress that was lying on the ground was still burning, so I put the edge of the mattress that I had just above it. Olivia was still blowing her horn, as I looked in her direction, and that spider wasn’t done spraying the car. My mattress started burning, so I dropped it on top of the other one on the ground. “Burn, damn it!” I yelled.

  I was right about hearing a helicopter because it was now in view, flying toward the cabin. It was flying about two hundred feet in the air and went straight over the cabin. I waved frantically as the helicopter flew over, hoping that they could see that I needed help. I didn’t want to move from the front yard to see where the helicopter went because I would have been an easy target for the spider. The sound of the blades whirling in the distance told me that they had turned around and were heading back my way. The helicopter flew over the cabin, this time going toward the dirt path where the police car was sitting.