by Jeff Strand
She broke free of her century-long confinement, smashing through rock as if it was something much more fragile than rock. Dozens of stone tunnels collapsed as she crawled to the surface.
Finally, she emerged.
The ground shook with each massive step.
The Mother of Spiders was ravenous.
CHAPTER NINETEEN
"I can't lie," said Jaunty. "I feel better now that we're fleeing instead of trying to find people to rescue, and I don't care who knows it."
"You should care a little," said Reginald. "It's a very self-centered attitude."
"I guess I mean that I don't care who knows it in this jeep. You all feel the same way, right? I mean, nobody can argue that we absolutely suck at saving people."
"With practice, we might improve," said Reginald.
"Yeah, and with practice we might leave a trail of accidental corpses in our wake. We're clowns, and we have to accept that we're also buffoons."
"He's right," said Bluehead. "We haven't saved a single person. Our greatest claim to heroism is that we didn't accidentally kill Rose."
"As far as we know," said Jaunty.
"Hey, you guys kept me around even though I fired Jaunty and I used a lot of bad words," said Depravo. "Most people would've fed me to the spiders as a distraction. By the way, I can't feel my leg and I've hallucinated a couple of times."
"We'll get you to a hospital soon," said Jaunty. "Bluehead and I can get stitches while they siphon the poison out of you."
The jeep bounced as if Jaunty struck a speed bump, but he hadn't seen anything in the road.
"Was that another body?" asked Reginald.
"Not as far as I know."
The jeep bounced again.
"There was definitely nothing in the road," said Jaunty. "It's like the road itself is bouncing. That seems odd. Roads don't generally bounce."
He stopped the jeep. They waited quietly.
There was a loud thump that reverberated throughout the area as the jeep bounced with the impact. "Do you think they're dropping bombs?" Bluehead asked. "Because I don't know if that's awesome or if we should be scared for our lives."
"It doesn't sound like bombs," said Jaunty, who had only heard bombs go off in movies. "It sounds more like, I don't know, they're dropping tanks."
"Surely they're not dropping tanks," said Reginald.
"Oh, they're definitely not dropping tanks," said Jaunty. "That's just what it sounds like."
"So what do you think it actually..." Reginald trailed off.
"Why'd you trail off?" Jaunty asked.
Reginald pointed ahead, toward a two-story building on the left that was a couple of blocks away. Jaunty's mouth dropped open wider than he'd ever imagined was physically possible. He'd seen many things recently to make him question the way he thought the world operated, but gazing upon what appeared to be a really, really, really big spider leg was more than his mind could handle right now. He completely shut down for three seconds. At the conclusion of the three seconds, he spoke: "Ah. Okay."
The leg took another step forward, confirming that this was indeed what was causing the jeep to jostle. More of the creature came into view. By this point they all knew that "gigantic spider" was what they were staring at, but they waited for the monster to crawl into the middle of the road.
It was the size of a three-bedroom, two-bathroom house.
Its back was moving in a strange way. As Jaunty looked more closely, he saw that its back was completely covered with a writhing mass of smaller spiders—it was carrying its babies.
"Can we go now?" Bluehead asked.
"Yes," said Jaunty. "Yes, we certainly can."
He put the jeep into reverse and floored the gas pedal. The vehicle rocketed backwards. Jaunty was focusing ninety percent of his attention on the behemoth and only ten percent on the road behind him, so when he noticed the teenaged boy running out into the street, waving his arms for attention, Jaunty didn't have time to slam on the brakes before the jeep smashed into him.
Everybody screamed.
Jaunty hoped the kid was all right, although the big splash of blood on the rear windshield wasn't a promising sign.
He got out of the jeep, whispering near-profanities under his breath. When he got to the back, he couldn't see the kid. Either the impact had sent him sailing into the air, landing out of sight, or he was underneath the vehicle.
Jaunty crouched down. He was underneath the vehicle.
The teenager was all the way under there, wedged in tight. He was on his side—that is, most of his body was on its side. It was clear from the placement of his head and the abundance of red liquid that the kid was no longer alive.
If you wanted to look at the bright side, it was good that the kid had died instantly, or at least only suffered for a few seconds. If he was still alive and trapped under the vehicle, he'd die a much worse death from the spiders that were already crawling on him. If their roles were reversed, Jaunty would definitely prefer a super quick death to a slow, claustrophobic one.
He stood up, stared at the heavens, and screamed.
Though the situation was worthy of quite a bit more angst, they did have a house-sized spider to worry about. Jaunty got back into the driver's seat, figuring there was a pretty good chance the jeep wouldn't drive because the teenager's corpse was tightly wedged underneath it, but deciding to hope for the best.
He floored the accelerator. The tires squealed but the jeep didn't move.
"I think it's because his body is stuck under there," said Reginald, helpfully.
Jaunty turned the steering wheel to the left then to the right, as if trying to grind the teenager's body further down into the pavement. It didn't work.
"It wasn't your fault," said Bluehead. "He shouldn't have stepped behind the car when you were shooting backwards to avoid the giant spider."
"I'm not worried about my conscience right now," said Jaunty.
They all returned their attention to being terrified of the spider. It was moving almost in slow motion, but it had a long stride. The pavement cracked under its feet with each step, so it must've had a very dense body and been even heavier than it looked.
"I know we keep having to abandon vehicles," said Jaunty. "But we need to do it one more time."
Everybody got out of the jeep, taking their weapons with them.
The monster spider continued to move toward them, the ground shaking with each step. Jaunty couldn't be sure that it was specifically after them, or if it just happened to be going in their direction anyway, but this was the most frightened he'd been in an experience where he'd been pretty much constantly frightened.
"Run!" he shouted.
Everybody turned to flee. Depravo's foot made an unpleasant sound and he fell. Reginald immediately helped him back up.
"C'mon, let's go!" said Reginald.
"I'll slow you down."
"Yes, you will. A lot. So let's not waste time."
Depravo shook his head. "I haven't done anything truly evil in my life, but I've been a dick sometimes. I don't feel like I need to sacrifice myself for the crime of being a dick. But I'm not going to let you guys help me out of here. And if you don't help me out of here, I'm dead. And if I'm dead, I might as well sacrifice myself. Is this making sense?"
"Sort of," said Jaunty.
"What I'm saying is that I'm going to take my new machine gun and empty all of the ammunition into this giant spider, which may or may not kill it. I hope it does. If not, well, I died trying."
"You don't have to do this," said Reginald.
"Oh, believe me, I know. Make sure everybody knows I did this willingly. Don't tell the story like I just got killed by a giant spider while we were trying to escape. This is some noble shit."
"What if the machine gun bullets just bounce right off it?" Bluehead asked.
Depravo shrugged. "They might. Better than not shooting it at all." He turned toward Jaunty. "I know this is kind of an empty symbolic gesture, but I'd l
ike to rehire you for the Scary Clown Room in the Mountain of Terror."
Jaunty still had a major problem with the whole idea of posing as scary clowns, but he couldn't reject a doomed man's symbolic gesture. "Thank you," he said. "I accept."
They hugged.
The monster spider was now only a block away. Depravo limped toward it, sort of using the machine gun as a crutch. The clowns watched him go.
"Are we being irresponsible?" asked Bluehead. "Should we bring him with us against his will?"
"I hate to agree with Depravo," said Jaunty, "but I think he's right about getting us all killed. And we don't know that the bullets will harmlessly bounce off the spider. He might shoot it a few times in the head and finish it off once and for all. True irresponsibility would be not letting him try."
Bluehead nodded. "I guess you're—oh my God!"
"What?"
"Can you see? That spider has ten legs!"
"I can't see," said Jaunty.
"It has ten of them! It's some sort of mutant! I know that eight legs versus ten isn't all that important when you're talking about a spider that big, but it just feels way freakier to me now. Why does it have ten legs? Is it even still a spider? What is it?"
It also had a body that was only one segment instead of two. And its head stuck out in front, almost humorously small for the creature's overall size but still a very large spider head, and it was attached near the bottom of its body instead of the top. That said, Jaunty felt comfortable calling it a giant spider.
"We should go," said Reginald. "Depravo is giving us an opportunity to escape and we need to take it."
"I completely understand what you're saying," said Jaunty. "But I need to see how this plays out."
"Me too," said Bluehead.
Depravo had almost reached the monster spider. Truthfully, he was making pretty good time, and might not have slowed them down enough to get them all killed. Then the machine gun slipped out from under him, his foot twisted, and he fell.
"Die, you son of a bitch!" he shouted at the spider.
Then he opened fire.
The monster spider raised up a bit as the bullets tore across its front legs. Some baby spiders spilled off its back. Jaunty was pleased to see what appeared to be small pieces of spider meat coming off.
The spider smashed one of its front legs down upon Depravo.
Jaunty screamed.
The spider lifted its leg. It had landed right behind Depravo instead of crushing him.
Jaunty stopped screaming.
Depravo stood back up as he continued to fire the machine gun. Chunks fell off the spider's gigantic underside. It was difficult to gauge emotions in a spider, but it seemed to be angry about this.
The spider leaned down. Jaunty thought with horror that it was going to slam its immense fangs into Depravo's body, but instead it opened its mouth—it had an actual mouth!—revealing even more fangs.
Jaunty resumed screaming.
It chomped down upon Depravo.
The blood-spurting stumps of his legs, severed below the knee, flopped over.
"Fuck fuck fuck fuck fuck!" shouted Reginald.
The monster spider raised its fearsome head. It swung its front legs to the side, smashing into a building and causing most of the front wall to collapse. The spider turned and gave the building its full destructive attention. Two women, who'd presumably thought they had a pretty decent place to hide, fell out of the second floor.
One woman was lucky and landed on her head. The other woman landed feet-first. The spider bent down and took a great big bite out of her, removing most of her torso. Then it finished her off with two more bites.
Jaunty stood paralyzed as it ate the other woman. Then it turned back toward the remaining clowns.
He desperately wanted to run, but his legs weren't working.
He suddenly remembered that the monster spider was not his only arachnid problem, and used the spiked bat to clear out the many spiders that had gathered around him while he was watching people get eaten.
They needed to run for their lives. There was nothing in the clown code of conduct that said they had to stand around while a house-sized spider devoured them. It was time to flee...which would presumably put them into an even worse predicament, but there was nothing they could do about that right now.
"Are your legs frozen in terror?" he asked Reginald and Bluehead.
"Yes," said Reginald.
"Yep," said Bluehead.
"We need to break free of it," said Jaunty.
"I've been trying ever since it bit Depravo in half," said Reginald. It was unlike Reginald to misstate something to such an extent (the first bite consumed far more than half of Depravo), proof of just how frightened the clown was.
The monster spider turned toward the building on its other side. Its mighty legs smashed through the brick wall, tossing rubble everywhere.
People screamed.
No, children screamed.
They were on the first floor of the building. Six or seven young children, with an older woman (Their mother? Their teacher? Their nanny? Just some nice lady who was out rescuing children?) nearby. She quickly ushered them away from the destroyed wall and out of sight.
The clowns could no longer flee.
If the monster spider kept smashing away, it would bring down the entire building upon those children. Jaunty had failed to save a lot of people since the beginning of the spider invasion, but he was not going to fail to save these children.
"We can't run away," said Reginald. "We have to save those children."
"Right," said Jaunty, mildly annoyed that Reginald had brought up the idea first, making it look like perhaps Jaunty had wanted to run but now been shamed into heroism by his fellow clown. "That's what I was going to say, too."
"I believe you," said Reginald. If there was one thing Reginald the Pleasant Clown didn't do, it was fib. Jaunty was confident that he did indeed believe him. Though of course it was a petty thing to worry about right now and Jaunty was kind of ashamed. He assumed it was his brain trying to distract him from the unspeakable terror.
The spider smashed through more of the building as it went after its young prey.
"Shoot it," said Bluehead. "Make it come after us instead of the kids!"
Reginald pointed his machine gun at it and pulled the trigger.
As the first few shots struck it, the spider turned to face them. But then it returned its attention to the succulent children.
"We need to get closer!" said Jaunty.
He raised his spiked bat into the air. Bluehead raised her machete into the air. Reginald kept his machine gun pointed at the spider.
The three clowns let out a battle cry and rushed forth.
CHAPTER TWENTY
Were they running toward their deaths?
Perhaps.
Jaunty was surprisingly okay with this. Granted, he was working under the assumption that they'd be saving the lives of all of those children. If he, Bluehead, and Reginald got killed by the monster spider and then it turned and gobbled down the children and their guardian, he'd be much less okay with it.
Reginald shouted something that they couldn't hear over his machine gun, which Jaunty assumed was a variation on "Over here!" followed by an unkind comment about the spider's personal appearance. The spider turned away from the delicious and nutritious children once again and took a big step toward the charging clowns.
When Jaunty saw Depravo's pool of blood and what remained of his legs, he was suddenly a bit less okay with the idea of running toward his death. But they couldn't chicken out now. There were children in danger. At the very least, he hoped he'd get a dramatic death where he got to say something profound as trickles of blood ran down the side of his mouth. He didn't want a death where he got splattered without fanfare.
Reginald kept shooting the spider. The flurry of bullets was having an undeniable impact, though not enough for the spider to flop over on its back and fold in its ten legs.
If they had unlimited ammunition, Reginald could just keep pumping steel into the behemoth until it succumbed to its inevitable death, but...
He stopped shooting.
"Are you out of ammo, or taking a break?" Jaunty asked.
"Out of ammo."
"All right. I was hoping you were taking a break. That gun looks heavy."
"It's heavier than you'd think, but not unmanageable." Reginald lowered the gun. "I can start beating it with this thing, but it's not going to be as effective."
"No, I think it's Bluehead's and my turn."
They could, in theory, fling their weapons at the spider. But no way could a machete and a spiked baseball bat dispatch that creature unless they were superhumanly accurate. Though Bluehead had great talent, Jaunty couldn't imagine that she could throw the machete like a javelin, skewering the spider right through its brain. It wasn't completely impossible, but it was an unlikely enough scenario that they were better off holding onto their weapons.
Which meant getting close to the spider.
Really close.
"How long do you think it would take to hack one of its legs off with that thing?" he asked Bluehead.
"Well, its legs are the size of trees, so I guess however long it would take me to chop down a tree with a machete. It wouldn't be quick."
"So that's not a good plan. We either need to get on top of it or underneath it. On top it's covered with baby spiders. Below it could just plop down and flatten us. Those both seem bad."
"Do baby spiders bite?" asked Bluehead.
"I'm sure they do."
"But are they venomous?"
"I'm sure they are."
"Hmmm."
Jaunty agreed with her reaction of "Hmmm." Leaping upon a giant spider that was covered with a thick layer of smaller spiders felt like it might be a suicidal sort of plan. Again, if this was their final stand, Jaunty was okay with that, but he didn't want to jump on the monster spider, go "Argh!" and then be immediately consumed by the babies.
They almost lost their balance as the spider took another ground-shaking step toward them.
