“This is real life,” Maggie said. “This isn’t a movie.”
“Are you sure? Because it feels exactly like a fucking monster movie to me.”
The conversation ended there as Reynolds went to sit against the wall, staring blankly into space. Kim wasn’t speaking either, fully intent on her work with brush and trowel. Maggie envied her the focus, wishing that she had something to keep her mind off poor Jim White, or the impossible dead spider in the courtyard outside.
To make matters worse, she realized she wanted another cigarette. She busied herself in making another pot of coffee, although it had been only half an hour since the last. She never drank any of it, for as she was about to pour she heard a loud curse out in the corridor, then the building echoed with the roar of gunfire.
She headed for the doorway, only realizing when she exited into the corridor that she didn’t have any idea what she might be able to do to help. The shooting was coming from the room opposite, accompanied by some creative swearing.
“Is that all you’ve got, fuckers?”
She looked in and saw Davies at the window, firing out into the street beyond. He let off three more quick shots, then stopped and shouted.
“Watch your three o’ clock, Corporal. They’re headed your way.”
More shots, slightly muffled, came from the front at the main door. Davies turned to look at Maggie, then his gaze went over her shoulder to the chamber beyond.
“Hey, give that a rest.”
She turned to see Reynolds pushing the chamber door closed from the inside, his neck muscles straining with the effort.
Wiggins stopped shooting at the front doorway long enough to shout out.
“Incoming. Multiple bogeys.”
Davies looked to be in two minds, which gave Reynolds enough time to finish what he’d started. The door swung, closing faster. Davies finally stepped forward but was too late to stop it. The last thing Maggie saw was Reynolds’ grim smile before stone rasped loudly against stone and the door shut firm in her face.
— 9 —
By the time Banks and the three other men reached the heights of the escarpment, they were sweating hard in their suits. Any dampness from their soaking on the river had already dried off in the rising heat of the sun during the thirty minutes it had taken them to reach the old city.
He’d kept them in the river long enough to get well clear of the town and to ensure that none of the spiders were following them along the bank. Once on dry land, he’d run them hard up the hill, both to doubly ensure escape from any pursuit from below and in worry at what might be happening to Wiggins and the rest back inside the walled town above. Despite checking over their shoulders every few steps, they’d seen no sign of any more of the spiders; they’d got free and clear on that front. But as they approached the town walls, they heard the familiar sound of weapons fire from somewhere in the warren of high alleyways of the old city.
Banks tried his headset radio.
“Wiggo? Come in?”
He heard only static in response. If it was Wiggins doing the shooting, he wasn’t going to hear much of anything above the sound of his weapon.
“Double time, lads,” Banks shouted and led the squad forward.
They were stopped in the first alley by a wall of gray web that reached from ground to rooftops some twenty feet above.
Hynd tried hacking at it with his knife but it was inches, perhaps feet, thick; an impenetrable wall. The sarge wiped the knife on his trouser leg, leaving a thick gray smear.
“No way through this way. It stinks like shite too, Cap, so don’t get any on you.”
They retreated away, quickly found a second route in another alley but found it too blocked to any access. The sound of gunfire intensified, a second shooter joining the first.
Something doesn’t want us to see what’s going on inside.
Banks tried to part the web with the barrel of his rifle but succeeded only in embedding the last inch of the barrel in the sticky fibers, needing all his strength to recover the weapon. Hynd had more luck this time with his knife — this web wasn’t as thick or deep as the last one and he successfully cut a long slit vertically that could be widened with two of them carefully using their rifles to hold the lips of the slice apart. Banks slipped through first, taking care not to get tangled, then turned to do his bit holding the cut web open for the others to come through.
Wilkins was the last through but before he made it a shadow fell on them, cast by movement on the rooftop above. Two spiders, each as big as a large dog, fat bodied and with red-eyes fixed on the four men, descended fast over the parapet and scurried down the walls with a scrape of hooked talons on stone.
Banks and Hynd took out the closer of the two with a volley of three shots each. Their target fell, twitching, at their feet and Hynd buried his boot right over its red eyes, grinding it into the sand. They turned their attention upward but they were too late to get the second. It stopped scrambling and dropped, a dead weight, to land on top of Brock. The private tumbled and rolled in an attempt to get out of the way but was immediately caught in a new thread of web from the spider’s rear end that tangled his hands around the rifle. Chattering, clacking black fangs, each as long as an index finger reached for his face.
“Get this fucker off me,” Brock screamed.
Banks stepped forward and put his weapon at the beast’s eye, making sure he wasn’t going to hit Brock before putting three shots into it. The front of the beast blew apart in gore and tissue but the legs kept kicking and it continued to weave web around Brock’s arms before Banks and Hynd kicked it aside and put three more rounds into it to keep it quiet.
Brock rolled and tugged but his arms were completely encased in gray fiber.
“Lie still, lad,” Banks said. “You’re making it worse. Let the sarge get at it.”
Hynd had to use his knife again to try to free Brock, while Banks turned to Wilkins. The lad had tried to get his gun up to help in the fight and in the process had become completely tangled in the web that ran across the alley. His whole left side, from shoulder down to knee, was encased in a thick mass of the webbing. Like Brock, his frantic struggles to free himself were only making matters worse.
“You too. Stand still, lad,” Banks barked. “That’s a bloody order.”
He had to lower his rifle to get out his knife and with Hynd likewise busy untangling Brock, they had nobody covering them. Banks’ back felt too exposed as he worked at the web, having to put all his strength into the cuts and slices. He left large patches of web attached to Wilkins’ clothing and gear and it stank like wet shite but he was more concerned with getting the lad free quickly than with doing an aesthetically pleasing job of it.
He was cutting, having only managed to free Wilkins’ left arm when the lad looked up and all color drained from his face.
“Sir, I think we’re in trouble.”
Banks followed his gaze. Spiders, at least a dozen of them, lined the rooftops on both sides of the alley.
“Sarge,” Banks said, glancing down. “You about done with Brock?”
“Five seconds, Cap, on the last strand.”
He turned back and looked Wilkins in the eye. He spoke as he cut.
“No sudden movements now, son,” he said. “I reckon it’ll take another minute to get you out of there. So calmly does it. No shooting unless they start to come at us. Give me some warning if they make a move.”
He went back to cutting, working faster now.
“Clear,” the sarge said below him. “We’ve got your back, Cap.”
Hynd stood away from Brock to allow the younger man to roll to his feet. The movement stirred the spiders into action and two of them leaned over the edge of the parapet, the clicking of their fangs sending a rat-a-tat echo along the alley.