“You need a hand with that, Cap?” Hynd said.
“Nearly done. Keep us covered. Don’t wait for an order, shoot the fuckers if they move.”
His gloves were covered in web that felt like heavy-duty glue under his fingers, it stank to high heaven, and the knife was being blunted with the work, less efficient with every cut and slice. He was down to Wilkins’ knees and had to kneel on the ground to get at the last piece holding the youth in place.
He got lucky and was in the right place at the right time to see, dimly through the gauze of the web, more spiders advancing towards them from the far end behind Wilkins’ back. It had gone quieter now; the shooting deeper in the town had stopped and the only sound to break the silence was the rat-a-tat clicking of the spider’s communication. It was getting more rapid, more frenzied. An attack would come at any time.
He was cutting at the web at Wilkins’ knee when the shooting began; he didn’t know whether Brock or Hynd fired first but it hardly mattered. The alleyway filled with the roar of weapons fire and pieces of spider legs, bodies, and a slimy, foul-smelling gore fell in rain around them. Above Banks’ head, Wilkins had enough freedom to train his own gun up toward the roofs and joined the action, adding another thunderous roar of fire to the chaos.
Behind Wilkins, beyond the web, the alley filled with more spiders, a black mass of them scuttling quickly forward. Banks cut the younger man’s knee free of the web as the first of the attackers reached the web and, using its fangs as scissors, began cutting its way through.
“Time to go,” Banks shouted and, knowing they’d follow him, set off at pace along the alley, firing as he moved at spiders which were now coming over the lip above and making their way down the walls in a black wave.
He had to slow long enough to discard his gloves; the web had made them too sticky to be of any use. Hynd overtook him and took point. Banks let the two younger men pass and looked back. The spiders had made short work of their web and now filled the alleyway behind them, coming on fast, even while more dropped to join them from above.
He’d taken too long to get his gloves off and the others had moved some five yards ahead of him. A spider, even larger than the others, dropped from the rooftops and fell into the gap between Banks and the others. It made directly for him, on him before he could get a shot in. He managed to put two in its body but it didn’t slow, barreling onto him and knocking him off his feet. He remembered how Brock’s hands had been taken out of commission and realizing he couldn’t get into position to take another shot, dropped his rifle by his side, reaching for his knife as the twin black fangs lunged for his throat. He threw his weight against the spider and was surprised to find it weighed very little. He easily rolled the thing over and stabbed again and again into the widest part of its belly while dripping wet fangs chattered and clacked right in front of his eyes. If he shifted his weight, even for a second, it would tear his face off. He stabbed and tore with the knife, feeling fluid run over his hand and wrist, a new acrid stench threatening to assault his throat and nose. Finally, the thing fell still.
He rolled away from it, retrieving his rifle in the same movement and rose, breaking into a run when he saw that the pursuing mass of spiders was only yards from catching him.
Farther up the alley the other three men were standing, back to back, sending volleys up to the rooftops. They too were covered in dripping gore and stood amid a growing pile of twitching spider bodies but they had cleared most of the beasts from above by the time Banks caught them.
“Try to keep up, Cap,” Hynd said as they ceased fire. “I thought we’d lost you there.”
Banks took the lead as they headed off at speed down the alley. The attack from above had been nullified but the swarm at their backs was coming on fast.
We need to get out of this alley. We’re sitting ducks in here.
He upped the pace until they were full-out running. The end of the alleyway was in sight twenty yards ahead and he kept his eyes on the gap, trying not to think about the beasts at their back.
Almost clear.
A spider as large as a small car scuttled across the open end of the alleyway, totally blocking their escape route. Its rat-a-tat clacking was answered from behind them and from the rooftops in front of the running men, as a score and more of the black-bodied beasts crept over the parapets.
We’re trapped.
— 10 —
Maggie stood in the hallway, fingers plugging her ears as both Davies in the room across from her and Wiggins at the main doorway along the corridor fired volley after volley out into the street. It felt like an age until the shooting stopped and even when she took her fingers out of her ears, the echo of the gunfire rang in her head. She stepped forward to see Davies load another magazine in his rifle.
“Is it over?”
“Well, they’ve buggered off for now, if that’s what you mean,” the lanky man said. “I can’t see them anymore. Maybe the corporal knows more.”
Davies stayed at his post as Maggie went out along the corridor again to the front of the building and the main doorway. Wiggins was likewise reloading. She looked out to see a dozen or more of the spiders lying in scattered pieces and gore in the courtyard.
“Is it over?” she asked.
“For now, I think so. But I don’t understand it. There were at least fifty of the fuckers and they had us bang to rights,” Wiggins said. “I was getting ready to retreat back to you and the lad for a last stand, when they all buggered off.”
Before Maggie could reply, more gunshots echoed across the old town, coming from somewhere to the north, several weapons firing at once.
“Now, that’s our lads and they’re in trouble,” Wiggins replied.
He tried his radio.
“Cap? Come in?”
All he heard in answer was more gunfire.
“Stay here,” he said.
“Bugger that for a game of soldiers, Corporal,” she replied. “Do you have a handgun?”
Wiggins grinned.
“I knew we were compatible,” he replied and took a pistol from his hip, handing it over to her. “Safety’s off. Point and shoot and keep shooting until the fuckers go away.”
“Sounds like a plan to me,” she said and followed Wiggins as he set off at a run across the square in the direction of the gunfire.
They didn’t have to run far, only across the courtyard and along one alleyway to a smaller yard. It contained the mangled torso of a dead man on the ground and a huge spider, one much larger than the others, facing away from them and blocking the mouth of the route north. Gunfire came from beyond the beast and looking up, Maggie saw a wave of the smaller spiders coming down from the rooftops.
Wiggins took in the situation immediately and didn’t hesitate. He fired three quick rounds into the large beast’s rear.
“Three up the arse. How’d you like that, wanker?”
The spider’s back end crumpled, its rear legs giving way beneath it. But the front was working well enough and it turned at Wiggins’ attack and scuttled forward. Wiggins put three more rounds into its eyes and Maggie fired twice into its body. At the same time, four men came at a run out of the alleyway, all firing into the bulk of the spider which finally collapsed in a heap in the small courtyard, oozing fluids from multiple wounds.
There was no time for warm welcomes. The smaller spiders swarmed in the alleyway from which the four men had emerged. The squad lined up in the alley mouth and send wave after wave of shots into the squirming mass of legs and bodies, blowing limbs, eyes, fangs, and bodies apart in a spray of viscous gore that smelled as bad as it looked.