'Nids Part 18

Forty-Six.

Rodney pulled the door open a little more.

"Sheriff?" he called. He looked over his shoulder at Heidi and said, "Stay here."

"You're not going out there," she whispered. Her voice was tremulous, but very firm and decisive.

"I'll be right back."

Heidi made a small, inarticulate sound of protest in her throat as her brow furrowed deeply above her tense eyes.

Rodney stepped out of the storage room. He heard a sound that filled him with dread a wet slurping and smacking. He walked slowly and cautiously to the counter, placed his hands on the cold, flat surface.

The spider was on Sheriff Harker.

Rodney saw something on the floor peripherally and turned toward it. On the floor in front of the counter lay Harker's shotgun. He'd thrown it there for Rodney to get.

He looked at the spider again. It was eating the sheriff. The sounds it made were wet and thick.

Heart pounding, Rodney vaulted over the counter. He landed softly, not wanting to make any noise. The shotgun lay two feet away. He bent down, picked it up and turned to face the spider.

At the same time, the crippled spider turned to face him.

Rodney raised the gun and it made a loud, satisfying sound as he racked it.

The spider, which was just inside the door, started toward him. It was wounded and did not move as fast as it had before, but it moved fast enough.

Rodney aimed at the hairy face, at those three black fangs. He squeezed the trigger, and the shotgun delivered a solid click.

It was empty.

Forty-Seven.

Deputy Kevin Lomander walked away from the group of sobbing, traumatized parents who were finding their small children in pieces in the playground. He had to get away, if only for a moment. He was a parent, too. He and his wife had a two-year-old, little Tammy, and he felt for those parents. Maybe he felt a little too much a he'd been at this for only a year, and he had not yet hardened himself to all the pain he encountered in his job.

His mouth was dry as a bone a he could hardly swallow. Kevin headed for the snack bar to get something to drink. He saw the two feet in the doorway and ran the rest of the way.

"Sheriff?" he said when he recognized the sheriff lying on top of another guy. Kevin made a strangled sound in his throat when he saw the big hole in the center of Sheriff Harker. He saw the spider just a few feet away. Its back was to Kevin and it was just starting to move forward. Kevin saw the young man holding the shotgun a he looked shocked and terrified.

Kevin racked his shotgun and put it to his shoulder.

Forty-Eight.

Rodney was paralyzed. The shotgun was empty, he had no weapon. And even though it was wounded, the spider was still fast enough to keep him from getting over the counter.

It was getting closer and Rodney was so scared that when he tried to cry out, his dry throat only made a cracked, broken sound. He held the gun out before him, and the spider got close enough to close its fangs on the barrel.

Rodney shoved the shotgun farther into the spider's mouth, and it backed up a little. He pushed harder, and the spider moved back farther.

Before he could push again, the spider's left front leg swung up and easily knocked the gun from his hands. It clattered over the floor as it slid away from Rodney. Somehow, he felt even worse without it, even though the shotgun was empty and useless. At least it had allowed him to hold off the spider for a few seconds. Now he had nothing.

The spider started forward again and there was an explosion in the small snack bar. The rear part of the spider's abdomen exploded and splattered a white gooey substance in all directions. It was warm on Rodney's face as it dribbled down his cheeks.

The spider lay flat on the floor, dead.

Rodney found he could not move, except for the rise and fall of his chest as he gasped for breath. He stared down at the spider, at the b.l.o.o.d.y fangs now with tiny bits of flesh caught on the serrations. The two small eyes remained perched atop the head, black and as dead in death as they had been in life. One of them had been broken open and leaked a white viscera.

Hands closed on his arm and he turned with a gasp to find Heidi at his side. She pulled him away from the spider and embraced him. She had a napkin in her hand and she used it to wipe his face. She was speaking, but Rodney could not understand her. His ears rang loudly from the gunshot, which had been like a bomb going off in the snack bar.

The deputy who'd fired the shotgun stood just inside the door, his mouth open as he breathed hard, staring with wide eyes at the dead spider.

Rodney looked down at the spider. Heidi put her arm around his shoulders and he put his around her waist.

The spider began to melt.

Rodney frowned and tilted his head forward as he watched it melt into a puddle that spread over the floor.

"Rodney, what's happening?" Heidi said.

As the puddle grew and neared their shoes, Rodney realized the spider had not melted a it was now a clearer, brighter yellow and still perfectly solid.

Rodney and Heidi stumbled backward together as Heidi screamed and Rodney said, "s.h.i.+t, they're babies!" He started stomping his feet on the small spiders.

They spread out on the snack bar floor in a cloud of tiny pumping legs and little black fangs.

"Son of a b.i.t.c.h!" the deputy shouted as he turned and stepped back over the two bodies on the floor and went out the door.

Heidi climbed up on the counter.

Rodney kept stepping on them, but he was not fast enough. Two of the spiders, each a couple inches long, crawled up his sock to his s.h.i.+n. He cried out when one of them bit him. But he didn't have time to tend to it because they kept coming.

"This way!" s.h.a.ggy shouted. He came out from behind the counter and ran across the room to the doorway on the other side.

Rodney and Heidi followed as he opened the door and went through. The baby spiders crunched faintly beneath their feet. Once they'd pa.s.sed through the door, s.h.a.ggy slammed it.

"This goes to the projection shack," he said. "We can get out through there."

They went down a short hall to another door, and into the projection shack. It was empty and dark.

"Looks like Chuck took off already," s.h.a.ggy said.

Rodney stopped, rolled up the leg of his jeans and slapped the spiders off his leg, then stepped on them. There were two bites, and they were very painful and bleeding. Rodney clenched his teeth as he stood upright again.

s.h.a.ggy went out the door on the other side of the small room.

Rodney took Heidi's hand and said, "Come on, let's get the h.e.l.l out of here."

Forty-Nine.

They said nothing for a while as Rodney drove away from the drive-in theater.

Before leaving, Rodney had told one of the deputies about all the baby spiders in the snack bar, but the deputy had just stared back at him as if he weren't sure where he was. Rodney didn't wait around for a response.

He drove home and parked in the driveway. He and Heidi went inside and down the hall to Harry's room. Rodney opened the door and they went in.

Harry was feeding his tarantula and scorpion. He turned around when they entered.

"It had babies," Rodney said.

"Was it carrying them on its back?" Harry said.

Rodney nodded.

"A female," Harry said. "What happened?"

"They just poured off of her," Rodney said. "Hundreds of them."

"Oh, G.o.d," Harry whispered as he thought about that. "Did you stop them?"

"Stop them?" Rodney said. "There were so many of them, we were lucky to get out of there alive."

"Are they all going to grow that big?" Heidi said.

"Oh, G.o.d," Harry whispered again.

"What?" Heidi said.

Rodney said, "What are you thinking, Harry?"

Harry said, "I'm thinking we're gonna have to move."

end.