For his own part, Calvin wasn’t putting a lot of faith in the ‘some thing’ comment on the 911 call. That could have just been a slip of the tongue from a desperate caller. Calvin figured a mass shooting or domestic terrorism attack was more likely than a berserk bear on the loose. The captain had said Maro-tek made electrical components. Maybe they made some for the military.
Captain Lovell said, “Calvin, have a look at the patrol car. Everyone else, keep an eye on the building for any movement.”
Calvin gave a short nod and moved carefully up to the black & white. He didn’t mind taking point. Hell, he preferred it. He made a slow circle of the patrol car. Nothing looked amiss.
“Looks clear, Captain,” he called.
“All right. Guess we’ll have a look at the building. Calvin and Tessa, you’re with me. We’ll take the front door. Perez, lead the second team around the side and look for another entrance. Place like this has to have loading bays.”
Calvin started toward the front door without being told. He knew Lovell would want him to stay on point. He felt a slight trickle of sweat on his back. It wasn’t nervousness. Between his body armor and utility vest and the unseasonably warm weather, he was feeling the heat. That’s what he told himself anyway.
The front door yawned open. It was dark inside and Calvin wondered if the power had been cut. He gave a quick look over his shoulder to check Lovell and Tessa’s positions. Lovell was a pain sometimes but he knew how to use his people’s strengths. He had taken the center position, leaving Tessa as rear guard.
Calvin switched on the flashlight on his M-4 and stepped inside quickly so as not to be silhouetted in the doorway. The flashlight beam pierced the gloom, showing him a front office full of toppled furniture and scattered debris. The light fell on two human legs poking out from behind an overturned desk.
“Got a body over here,” Calvin said, moving to the side of the desk to get a look behind it without getting too close. The beam rested on the corpse's face and Calvin recoiled from the sight. In Iraq he had seen more bodies than he ever wanted to think about, but nothing like this.
He only knew the body was male because of the clothes. The face was blue tinged and shrunken like some wizened mummy. The eyes were just sockets. What he could see of the arms that extended from the corpse's shirt were similarly shrunken.
Calvin said, “Gas masks. We could have some sort of infection here.” He pulled on his own mask as he spoke. Lovell and Tessa did the same.
“Shit!” Tessa said.
“What is it?” Lovell said.
“Thought I saw something move in the corner.”
Lovell turned his M-4 that way. The barrel mounted Mag-Light sent a bright beam into that part of the room. The light bounced back from what Calvin realized were eyes and a moment later, something big and fast came hurtling out of the corner.
For a second Calvin thought it really was a mountain lion. Then he realized it had too many legs. It was about the size of a large German shepherd and it landed on Lovell, bearing him to the ground. Even as he trained his weapon on the hairy form, Calvin's brain was trying to tell him what it was and at the same time trying to reject the reality. It was a spider. A goddamn spider the size of a dog.
Lovell started screaming and Calvin realized the thing was biting him. Lovell jerked and twisted, trying to pull away but the thing was locked on to him with its pincers or whatever they were called. Calvin shook himself, realizing he needed to do something other than just stand there with his mouth hanging open.
A second later he heard two loud reports and glanced to his side. Tessa, realizing the M-4 was too dangerous to use with Lovell so close to the thing, had drawn her Glock 9mm and put two rounds into the spider's head. The thing toppled off Lovell, legs twitching as it rolled.
“Christ,” Tessa said. “Jesus Christ. Captain Lovell, are you injured? Can you hear me?”
Despite the fact the spider had relinquished its hold, Lovell was still flailing like he was having a seizure. Calvin and Tessa hurried over to him. His helmet and gas mask had been knocked loose and they could see that his teeth were clinched and his eyes were open wide.
“Do you think it was poisonous?” Tessa said.
“How the hell would I know?” said Calvin. “What the hell was it? Spiders don't get that big.”
“Well this one did. The captain's convulsing. We have to get him out of here.”
Calvin stepped over to help Tessa with Lovell. Then he heard a scrabbling sound, and turning, he saw two more spiders coming toward him. One of them was almost twice as large as the one that had bitten the captain. Calvin came very close to screaming as he scrambled backwards, swinging the M-4 up and depressing the trigger. The gun sounded incredibly loud in the confined space, but Calvin kept firing, cutting the creatures to pieces, until the magazine clicked on empty. His reflexes kicked in and he snatched one of two remaining magazines off his utility vest and slammed it into the rifle.
He realized then that Tessa had been firing too. She was looking, mouth agape, at the two fallen spiders.
“This is not happening,” Tessa said. “This is not fucking happening. We have to get out of here.”
Calvin looked over at Lovell. He had stopped convulsing and was lying motionless. Probably dead. But Calvin had to be sure. He crouched and felt Lovell's throat for a pulse. Nothing.
“Okay, we'll send someone back for him. Hell, we'll get the national guard in here with flame throwers and—”
A hurtling form slammed into Tessa. She screamed as she fell, trying to ward off the spider's fangs as it sought to bite her. Calvin fumbled for his Glock, but even as he did so, yet another spider came rushing from the shadows. How many of these damn things were there?
Calvin put three rounds into the one that was attacking Tessa, moving forward as he did so. He kicked the dead creature off of her, feeling the soft, yielding weight of the body, which made his stomach lurch. He caught Tessa by the arm and pulled her upright. Half dragging her, he tried to get around the second spider to reach the door, but the thing was too fast and it moved to intercept them. Calvin fired at the spider, then turned and headed toward a door on the far side of the room. Maybe they could get away from the things long enough to wait for backup.
He saw his mistake too late. There was something hanging in the shadows of the high ceiling and it began to drop as they approached the door. A different kind of spider. This one had apparently built a web in the corner and waited. Its body was a gleaming black and Calvin caught sight of the red hourglass on the spider's abdomen as it got closer.
Calvin raised the Glock and fired until the gun was empty. The Black Widow was wounded, but still in motion. It landed on its long, narrow legs and came right at him. Tessa was still out of it, a dead weight on his left arm. He tried to get the M-4 into position but it had swung around behind him during his flight.
The door he had been trying to reach slammed open and Calvin half expected to see another spider emerge. Instead, a tall, slender man stepped out and fired a big handgun at the Black Widow, blowing huge chunks out of the creature.
“This way,” the man said. “There are more coming.”
Supporting Tessa, Calvin hurried to the door. As soon as he was through it, the tall man closed the door and turned a latch.
“Was she bitten?” the man said, nodding toward Tessa.
“I don’t think so,” Calvin said. “That fucking thing was biting her body armor.”
“Let me have a look.”
“It didn’t bite me,” Tessa said, in a quiet voice. “But it was sure as hell trying. What’s happening here? What are those things?”