West drew his pistol and aimed as best he could with shaking hands.
Guillermo moved as quickly and as quietly as he could, muttering prayers under his breath.
The stranger was looking at the roof and scowling, his longish face drawn down in a look of utter disgust. There was no fear. No terror. He was the only person in the immediate area who didn’t look ready to shit himself.
Guillermo was too busy looking at the roof. He tripped over the webbing at his feet and fell hard.
That web was thin, but it sang as Guillermo let out a squeal of shock and caught himself on his hands, narrowly missing breaking his face on the hard concrete.
Perez watched the thread vibrate and his eyes tracked it upward into the shadows. An instant later something big was dropping from above and heading for Guillermo.
“Oh God! Help me!” Guillermo’s words were screamed.
Just that fast Mister Average was on the move. At least a hundred feet of space separated him from Perez’s cousin but he covered that distance at a speed that was unsettling and grabbed Guillermo by the scruff of his work shirt.
Fabric tore with a loud, ripping purr, but the sound was nearly lost under Guillermo’s scream as he sailed toward the open bay door.
Guillermo came straight at Perez and instinct made him duck away. Jenkins let out a grunt that told Perez all he needed to know. Either he’d caught Guillermo or he’d broken his fall.
The man in the suit was holding what was left of his cousin’s shirt in one hand and looking up as the first of the giant spiders dropped from above. He caught the tattered fabric in his fingers and spun his hand, wrapping his fist in the cloth before he stepped forward and punched the first spider in its head. The creature let out a hiss as it rocketed back on the web it used to descend, swinging high into the air, a massive tether ball that chattered and worked to control the swing with eight impossible legs.
The stranger looked at him and smiled – smiled! – and said, “You should run.”
Perez answered in the only way that made sense to him. He fired on the second spider as it dropped toward the man who had just saved his cousin. The bullet punched through the abdomen of the spider and the thing fell away and landed, twitching, trying to right itself.
That gunfire may as well have been the signal to start the race. Bloated shapes dropped from the ceiling, some descending on webs and others skittering down the walls of the structure. Adrenaline soared through Perez and he forced himself to breathe and focus. It didn’t matter what they were. It only mattered that they were the enemy. It mattered that a civilian was in trouble.
The civilian didn’t seem to agree with that assessment. He moved, grabbed the leg of the closest monstrosity and threw it as easily as he had Guillermo. It smashed into two more of its kind and the man charged right at Perez.
“I said move! Now!”
Perez slid to the side, prepared to let him get past, but the man planted a hand on his chest as he came through, and hurled him backward. Perez had been braced, his feet properly spread and his weight well distributed but that didn’t matter. He was lifted and thrown back, not with intent to hurt him, but to get him out of the way.
His head spun a bit and he reached to get the man off of him but it was too late. He had already stepped past and turned around and was heading back for the bay door.
West was firing into the building. He didn’t really aim, but instead cut loose, firing again and again. The only thing working to his benefit was that the collection of nightmarish shapes was packed closely together and every bullet hit something anyway. Jenkins, down on one knee and protecting Guillermo, aimed and fired, aimed and fired.
The stranger jumped high, caught the bay door’s edge and hauled the entire affair down with brute force that should not have been possible. Somewhere inside the structure a loud clang sounded and Perez could see the motor and chain assembly that should have been holding the door open falling from above and taking a few spiders with it.
The door smashed into the ground and jumped back up a few inches. From inside the building all he could see were the spiders. Oversized, scrambling toward the entrance, and moving in ways that would haunt him for as long as he lived.
Several of the damned things got through the narrow opening and immediately went for the stranger and for West, both of whom were too close to the doorway for their own good.
West pointed and fired and hit what looked like a wolf spider dead in its face. The entire shape pumped backward and collapsed against the narrow opening. Something inside the building roared and West flinched. Perez was pretty sure he flinched too, but it was hard to say when he was trying to look everywhere at once.
West fired again and got no satisfaction. The weapon was empty. He dropped the spent clip and pulled another from his belt, his eyes locked on the thing coming his way.
He wasn't going to make it.
Perez fired three rounds into the thing coming at his partner before it dropped. The first round had it turning to look in his direction, six bulging black orbs focused on him, and it lunged hard in his direction. The second bullet carved a trench across the back of the thing. The third went through the face and exited near the back end and the thing dropped.
While he was shooting, the stranger had forced the door closed.
“Let’s go!” He moved past the shattered remains of the giant spider and grabbed West’s shoulder, spinning him toward Perez. “Move! The door won’t stop them!”
“We can’t let them just get away!” Jenkins roared. His pistol was in his hand and pointed down. Guillermo stood next to him on shaking legs.
“I’ll be slowing them down, slick, but there’s no way in hell we’re stopping them from here. That warehouse is already overflowing.” As if to make his point the rolling steel door shuddered and buckled slightly.
The stranger reached out a hand and slapped the metal as if to warn off what might be on the other side. Perez gritted his teeth. “You’re only pissing them off!”
That grin again. That mad, sickening grin, and the stranger said, “Run. They’re going to take a few minutes to follow us. They won’t be using that door at any rate.” He started running to prove his point, heading back toward the front of the building.
As he ran the place where the man had touched the door started to glow. The light had a yellowish tint at first and then as it grew brighter the color was bleached away. Perez squinted and continued to look as whatever was behind the door started screeching and thumping the metal.
From fifteen feet away he could feel the heat coming off the door and he could smell the stench of burning metal and worse things. “It’s not here! I have to find Decamp and let him know.”
“What’s not here?” West was running hard, while Jenkins covered their backs, with Guillermo at his side.
“Whatever the hell summoned or created these things. Can’t just be a spell. There has to be a focus.”
“Say what?” The stranger stooped down in mid run and grabbed up a rock the size of a small apple. The projectile whipped through the air and pulped the head of another spider, this one coming from above them off the edge of the roof. It shrieked and sputtered and dripped vile fluids across the ground as it crashed into the dirt and gravel.
“Something is causing these creatures to mutate and grow, and it’s getting worse. We thought it was in the plant, but it’s not.”
“What the fuck are you talking about?” West’s voice was cracking and his eyes were too wide, his face shocky.
“Just get to the front of this place. We’re going to have to regroup with Decamp.”
Behind them the heat was fading and the glow that had become overwhelming faded down as well.
Behind them the untouched metal doors were bulging now as the giant spiders tried to pound their way through.