Fran rained blows in a frenzy of unbridled revulsion. “I hate you! I’ve always hated you! You ruined my life!” She punctuated every word with a blow, crushing the corpselike face under her fists, pausing only when a gleaming object caught her eye.
The pistol lay nearby, almost begging to be noticed. She snatched it up and pointed it at the creature that used to be her mother.
"Get away from me!”
She squeezed the trigger. Light flashed, and the echo deafened her.
“You’re going to let them die, aren’t you, Guy?”
The Drake puppet turned its head at an impossible angle.
Guy shook his head. “Shut up.”
“Sacrifice for the greater good, right? If you go after them, you might save them… but you know you could die yourself. ‘Never look back’, isn’t that what your kind say?”
The long blade was in Guy’s hand. It flashed dully as he swung it, severing the thick silken threads that Drake dangled from. A shriek of anguish and fury sliced through his mind as the body splattered against the floor. The ghostly strands quickly retreated upward until they were lost in the gloom above.
“Enough.”
Guy raced down the stairs. As he drew close to the fifth floor, he could hear the screams of the Others increase in volume. He stopped at the door and reached into his duffel bag. Withdrawing a slim hand lantern, he opened the door slowly and slipped inside.
The screams of the Others rang in his ears. They stood crowded together, stirring up a haze of powder from their downy bodies and fluttering wings. Their eyes glittered as they shrieked and swayed back and forth.
Guy pulled a filtered mask from his bag and slipped it on. He could barely see through the mass of velvety bodies, but he spotted Fran and Michael in the middle of the mass, staggering about as though blind.
Fran shrieked and flailed at Michael, who tried to protect himself from the blows. The hammer was in his hand. He raised it defensively.
“Cynthia… don’t make me do it!”
Fran stooped and picked up the pistol from the floor. She pointed it at Michael, still screaming.
“Get away from me!”
Guy clicked the hand lantern on.
The Others flung their arms protectively at the intrusion of ultraviolet rays, shrieking in agony. Fran reeled, clutching her head. The pistol fired, striking Michael at close range. Blood spattered the wall behind him as he slumped to the floor with a groan.
The Others screamed and blindly charged. Guy flung the lantern at them. As they shrieked and staggered, he flew toward them. With bullets and his blade he cut them down, shredding wings and decapitating heads. The few who manage to elude him leaped to the walls and slithered down past the guardrails to escape to lower ground.
Pale powder hung in the air, drifting like fresh snow.
Arachnophobic Velitation
Fran stood with a dazed expression as she stood over Michael. “Michael? Michael… I didn’t mean to… I didn’t know…”
Guy quickly knelt and rolled Michael over. He bled heavily from a shoulder wound. Guy motioned to Fran. “Help me get him out of here. The air is still infected.”
She trembled as she looked at him blankly. He stood and placed his hands on her shoulders.
“Fran… you have to pull yourself together. Michael needs help.”
Tears sprang from her eyes. “I didn’t mean to do it. I swear I was seeing something else… “
“I know. But right now we have to move. It’s not over yet.”
Michael groaned, wincing as he sat up. “I think… I think I can walk.”
They help him stand and walked him over to the stairwell where they set him down against the wall. Guy held the lantern up, searching the darkness. Satisfied, he knelt and dug in his bag.
Michael struggled to keep his eyes open. “You came back for us…”
“It’s my fault you’re caught up in this. I couldn’t leave you to die.” Guy sliced away Michael’s sleeve and examined the wound. Michael gritted his teeth.
“Bullet went straight through.”
Fran knelt on the other side. “Michael, I’m so sorry…”
Michael tried to smile, but only managed to gasp as Guy probed the wound. “Not… your fault, Fran. If what you were seeing was… half as bad as what I… saw, then… I understand.”
Guy opened a small kit and unfolded a compression bandage. Ignoring Michael’s discomfort, he wrapped it around the wound. “Best I can do. Try to keep pressure on it. Can you walk?”
Fran assisted Michael in staggering to his feet. “If it’s a choice between going with you or being left, then I can run.”
Guy nodded. “We have to move. The Aberration is getting stronger. If I don’t get to the convergence, it will be too strong to stop.”
Michael and Fran exchanged glances. “We’re right behind you.”
Guy handed the light to Michael. “I have a plan. Sort of. Follow me, and whatever you do, don’t turn that on until I tell you. Fran…” He handed her a few clips of ammo. “Make sure to put the bullets in the right people this time.”
Michael grinned painfully, and Fran managed a weak laugh.
Guy looked up into the gloom. It instantly swallowed the levity, reminding them of what waited above. “Let’s go.”
They ascended the darkened stairwell again, past the sixth floor where they tried not to notice the dismembered corpses of Greg and Drake. As their eyes adjusted, they could barely see the outline of the stairs from the dim red glow that effused through the cracks in the doorways.
Phantom fingers swung between the stairwells. The fluid webbing searched for them, sought to snatch them up like they had done to Drake. Guy slashed, parting the strands like mist. They quickly retreated further into the darkness.
Guy and the others followed.
It wasn't until they reached the eighth floor that they heard the sounds, the clicking scrabble of legs as the creature positioned itself. They paused and peered upward. It was almost impossible to see anything past the obstructing stairwell, but some gargantuan shape loomed in the shadows above.
Guy started forward. “Get ready…”
They reached the ninth floor before the webbing entangled Guy. His feet dangled helplessly as he was snatched off the stairs.
Fran tried to catch his hand. “Guy!”
He grasped frantically and managed to grab hold of the railing. The strands pulled insistently, latching to his arms and shoulders as they yanked with irresistible force. He gritted his teeth as the tendons bulged in his forearms. “Not yet!”
The pull was too strong. As his hands slipped, he looked up. It was still almost pitch black, but there was just enough light from the cracks in the doors to see.
The spider was a grotesque flesh-colored creature of melded human parts. The segmented arms and legs were disgustingly twisted human limbs, narrow and elongated. Red eyes glittered in the bristly head that seemed to be all fangs, extracted and gleaming with paralyzing poison.
The abdomen was abnormally huge and near transparent. Bodies floated inside like oversized fetuses; faces of past victims pressed against the membrane, mouths open in silent screams. Guy recognized Xenia’s face. Her dead eyes stared sightlessly as she drifted in the pale fluid.
Guy yelled and raised the shotgun but the creature was faster. Thick webbing encircled the weapon and snatched it from his grasp. More strands latched to his clothes yanking him effortlessly toward dripping fangs.
Guy screamed. “Now!”
Michael clicked on the UV lantern at the last possible moment. The creature flinched visibly, averting its oversized head with a terrible and very human shriek. The threads slackened for an instant. Guy used the momentum to swing toward the wall, where he compressed his legs like a spring. Pulling the dagger from his back, he launched himself the opposite way.