Chapter 23

Peter

The stories were true. Mere minutes after I re-entered the hospital the streets started filling up with the sound of screaming, as well as the heavy thuds of massive bodies moving around outside. I’d stayed on the ground floor of the hospital listening to the noise while the adults started shouting and scrambling out the door to return to their families. Most of them didn’t come back, and the few who did looked haggard and refused to talk about what they had seen to the people who remained. They just shuffled as fast as their legs would carry them up the stairs and onto the higher floors of the hospital.

I watched them all, unsure what to make of the situation. In the end I decided that I only needed to worry about my mom, so I went to get on the elevator…

Right before the power went out. The elevator had just arrived and was already partially open when the lights flickered and died and the door stopped. In the lobby I heard a man shout “NO!” and race up the stairs. I was about to follow him when suddenly there was a loud crash from the lobby, followed by the sound of screaming and the sight of people running in all directions.

I turned around to see what had happened and was met with a sight that I would never forget. There in the lobby was a massive spider. It’s brown body was covered in hairs and each of its eight thick legs created a crater in the linoleum every time it took a step. It’s eight eyes were scanning wildly around the room and every time one of them locked on to a person the spider would use it’s mandibles, it’s legs, it’s massive body, or even shoot it’s hairs like spikes to kill them.

For a moment I wanted to bolt for the stairway, just like everyone else was doing, but my instincts were screaming at me that that was a bad idea. I looked around for somewhere to hide for a moment until I remembered-the elevator!

The doors were only partially opened, but it was just enough that I could squeeze myself through them. I looked at the tarantula, making sure its attention was off of me, and saw him staring in the direction of the stairway. People were crowded there, climbing all over each other to get through the door and into the stairwell. The hairs on the Tarantulas back were standing on end as it turned its body around so that they were pointing at the crowd of people.

Not wasting a moment of time, I forced my way into the elevator and squished my body against the side so that the partially open doors would hide me. A few moments later I heard a sound like dozens of arrows being shot from crossbows, followed by the agonized screams of dozens of people.

The Tarantula then scuttled its massive body over to where the few survivors were. It looked disdainfully down at the still screaming people, desperately trying to crawl away from their assailant. Then, in a series of swift, fluid motions, the giant spider raised a massive foreleg and stamped down on each of their heads. It stopped for a moment to admire it’s handy work before moving away from the mass of mangled corpses to search the rest of the lobby for any survivors.

Though I was feeling nauseous after hearing the sound of heads being crushed, I was squeezing my body as hard as I could against the side of the elevator, hoping against hope that the spider didn’t take notice of it’s open doors.

Unfortunately, after doing a sweep of the lobby, the spider's eight eyes slid past the receptionists desk and right over to the elevator where they stopped, gazing at the crack in the doors that was just big enough for a person to slip through.

Slowly, the monster crept closer and closer to the elevator, its steps thudding in almost perfect sync with my heartbeat. I wanted to run. I wanted to scream. I wanted to go home. But more than anything, I wanted to live.

I had already suffered so much. My mom was dying, I was going to be put into the foster care system and now I’m going to be eaten by a giant spider. It wasn’t fair! Just once…just for once I wanted things to work out my way!

As I thought that the spider suddenly stiffened as it sensed movement behind it. Before it could get any closer to where I was hiding one of the ladies who had been working at the receptionists desk suddenly vaulted over the table she had been hiding under and ran as fast as she could out the destroyed entrance. The spider snapped its attention to her and quickly spun around to chase her out the door.

A few moments later I heard the sound of a woman screaming, and then silence.

I waited with baited breath, expecting the monster to come back in and continue its search of the lobby. I waited five…ten…twenty…thirty minutes, but there was still no sign of it. In all of that time I stayed squeezed against the elevator wall, unwilling to even move a centimeter. Finally, after an hour of waiting I finally chanced to peek out of the elevator.

The lobby was empty. Corpses littered the floor and blood was everywhere. Though I hadn’t noticed it in my fear, the stench of the place was vomit inducing and I had to cover my nose just to keep myself from retching.

I needed to get out of there, pronto, and onto the second floor. Quietly, I squeezed out into the lobby and made my way toward the stairway. I peeked out the front doors first, making sure that there wasn’t anything keeping an eye out, and then pressed myself against the wall and made my escape.

Then, when I was about fifty percent of the way there, I heard a loud droning noise coming from outside. Fearful, I turned around to look through the doors, not knowing what to expect and there I saw another nightmare waiting for me.

It was a hornet, and a giant one at that. Easily six feet long from antennae to stinger, and it was looking right at me. Panicking, I tried to gun it for the stairway but as soon as I turned around I heard a snick followed by an almost instantaneous pain searing through my leg.

I stumbled and fell over, clutching my calf, as I gazed in shock at the foot long needle that had managed to penetrate all the way through.

I screamed. I screamed and cried and shouted harder than I ever had before because this was the worst pain I had ever felt in my life. It was as if liquid fire was searing its way through my veins and into my skull. While I screamed, the hornet made no attempt to attack me, rather the thing just hovered there, staring at me. I didn’t know it at the time, but it was alerting its director that it had secured a candidate.

After a while my screaming did die down. Though not because the pain lessened any. The venom forced its victim into a comatose state. I sunk into darkness, but before I passed out I thought I heard a voice say.

“…haaa, he’s so young! But fret not, my Master! I will love you all the same, so please don’t die on me! Sleep…and when you awaken we shall be together, always. For I am your caretaker, and I will never leave you.”

Though I was lying there, in a pool of blood- most of which wasn’t even my own-…though I was trapped, surrounded by fog filled with giant insects, and though the only person I had left in my life was fated to die soon…for some reason, I was able to find some comfort in those words.

Now calm, I slipped into the abyss.

****
The Caretaker

“This place looks like it will make a fair spot for my candidates to develop in. The abundance of humans shouldn’t pose a problem, seeing as how they’re all infirm and too scared to come down here. As long as I don’t nest on any of the higher floors…still, I should keep a few Scouters on guard duty. Both to keep the humans in and the Cleaners out. That damned Bruticus, smashing the only room in this place that had suitable candidates!…Although, I suppose if they were all too dumb to hide, it was their own faults. Which makes you all the more special…” The Little spider said, turning to look at his precious candidate.

The boy was lying on the ground, unconscious. Despite his age, the child had had the presence of mind to hide rather than run away, unlike the pile of bodies next to the staircase.

“Though he is young, I believe his chances of survival are high, heehee. I hope he makes it, I’d love to teach one so young and without preconceptions about the ways of the world. ”

The little spider, heart full of anticipation for what was to come, nuzzled the child for a moment before wrapping him up in his special web and carrying him off to a place where he could transform in safety.

And one month later, that boy finally awoke to find his new best friend waiting for him.