Crawlies
Part 2
Callie,
Natasha, the Trio, and Ben stared into the building where Jacob had just run
screaming. Each of them felt their skin
rise in gooseflesh at the thought of going in after him. The blackness was like an open mouth just
waiting to swallow them whole. They
knew, without a doubt, that it was no coincidence that there appeared to be
only one way into the building that would not involve tampering with the web
that covered the structure. They had
suspected it before, but the crawlie’s ambush had turned that suspicion into a
certainty. The crawlies wanted them to
enter.
“No fucking
way,” Natasha said, her breath coming fast and threatening to quickly go out of
control. “There is no fucking way I am
going in there now.” She backed up as
she spoke, but quickly jumped when she felt the bushes at the back of her
legs. She took a single step forward and
wrapped her arms across her chest, embracing herself in a tight hug.
“We can’t
just leave him,” Ben insisted. Callie
knew he was right, but she also knew that he was likely lying about his
reasoning for wanting to continue in despite the drastic turn of events. Ben looked at each of them in turn. “He would have done it for any of you!”
“He had a
death wish,” Callie mumbled. She was
shocked at her own willingness to speak up against the will of one of the
group, but she was becoming more and more convinced that Ben did not have their
best interests at heart.
“What did
you say?” Ben stared at her with a
mixture of anger and incredulity.
Callie dug
deep within herself and forced her voice louder. “I said, there was a part of him that wanted
to die. Especially considering that the
only thing keeping him alive got drug into that building.” She pointed as though there were a question
of which building they were talking about.
“All the
more reason to go in there!” Ben shouted at her now. “We have two people in that building all
alone.” His eyes shone with hatred for
her at that moment and Callie was taken aback at the ferocity of his
glare.
Bob stepped
forward and spoke up. “We were going in
there anyway.” He would not quite meet
Callie’s eyes at this remark. “We could
go in now and set a smaller fire then we had originally planned. That way it won’t get out of control.”
“He’s
right,” Ben said, his eyes showing a feeling of vindication at a member of the
group agreeing with him. “Besides, at this
point, who cares if the entire city burns?
We’ve been here for two months and not seen a single sign of another
survivor. Let’s torch the place and move
on!”
Callie
turned and stared down the high-rise lined street. She could think of no reason why they needed
to save it. True, there might be other
survivors out there, but they were not likely to outnumber the crawlies that
they could kill by doing this. They had
planned on moving on anyway. What was
stopping her? She turned back and
watched Ben fidget. She quickly realized
that what was holding her back was her intense distrust for the man who was
demanding they risk their lives for a plan she had never believed in. She tried to take an objective measure of the
situation and put her feelings about Ben aside, but found herself unable to do
so. Her mind was made up for her as both
Will and Sammy stepped forward and agreed to back Ben.
Sammy looked
to her with sympathy in his eyes. “It’s
for the best,” he tried to assure her, but she knew he was simply unwilling to
pass up the chance to do some damage.
Just as Jacob had lived for Elizabeth; Sammy, Will, and Bob lived for
the rush of the hunt and the kill.
Callie envied them in a way. That
same quality that would likely one day lead to their deaths was providing them
with reason to really try to live. She
felt for a long time like her only goal was survival. It was becoming harder and harder each day to
accept that as a sole reason for going on.
She thought she had sensed the same feeling in Natasha as well.
Callie
looked to Natasha. The teenager’s eyes
begged her not to agree to go with them.
Callie knew that, in a way, she was not only making the decision for
herself, but for Natasha as well. The
young girl did not want to enter the building, but she was too scared to remain
the only one left outside alone. Callie
surveyed the scene around her and thought of the crawlie leaping out of the
bushes to grab Elizabeth. She had a
false sense that they were no safer outside the building then they were inside
of it. Reluctantly, she shook her head
in agreement and prepared to follow the rest of the group into the building. She could hear Natasha’s sigh of surrender as
she followed the rest of them into the nest.
They slowly
stepped into the darkness and felt like they were entering another world. In this world, darkness reigned and the
creatures who could see in that darkness were far superior to any other. Crawlies could see in the dark. It was unknown exactly how they did it. Scientists had not made it far enough with
their research before the plague of arachnid like creatures had reached
epidemic proportions. It was possible
that they drew in on what little light was available like a cat, that they
utilized radar like bats, or even that they possessed some completely
never-before-seen sixth sense. The only
certainty was that they moved as efficiently in the darkness as they did in the
light. Natasha removed a lighter from
her pocket and a home-made torch from her backpack. She lit the torch and the blaze illuminated
the hallway in front of them, causing the shadows to retreat to the recesses
far in front of and behind them.
Callie
nodded at Natasha and stepped up next to her with the trio right behind them
and Ben taking up the rear. Natasha had
made it clear from the start that any macho chauvinism masquerading as chivalry
would not be tolerated and she often took the lead in the groups despite her
age. Her eye sight was keen and she
often caught things that the others missed.
Callie knew that, in this instance, she could use the extra support at
her side, but that she would never request it from any of the men. Natasha nodded back at Callie and they
started forward.
The hall way
quickly t-boned and the group paused for just a moment before Natasha caught
sight of the blood trail towards the bottom of the wall. Apparently, the crawlie was moving along the
wall and dragging Elizabeth with it.
When it came down this hall with its prize, she was still bleeding, but
the uniformity and neatness of the blood stains made it clear that she was not
struggling. Callie put a hand on
Natasha’s shoulder and after a brief second, Natasha took a deep breath and
moved on.
As they moved down the hall, they
were standing two-by-two. Natasha and
Callie continued in the lead. The trio
had been split by the formation and the need to allow for some ease of movement
were they to be attacked. Will and Bob
were in the middle, armed with a thin club with nails protruding from it and a
machete, respectively. Sammy and Ben
took up the rear. Ben carried a small 9mm
pistol that Callie highly doubted would do much damage. Sammy was a little better prepared, in
Callie’s opinion, with an M-4 Carbine he had taken off a dead soldier somewhere
along his path. They continued to follow
the blood trail through the hallway.
They passed closed doors to their left and right and quickly noted that
the handles were standard twist-knobs, meaning they did not have to worry about
a crawlie suddenly opening a door. The
creatures would be physically unable to manipulate these type of knobs.
As they progressed, Natasha suddenly
slung an arm across Callie’s chest and stopped in place. She said nothing, but turned her canted head
slightly to the left and right as if trying to pick up a sound. Callie threw up her arm with her hand in a
fist to signal the rest of the group to stop and they immediately did so. Callie tried to listen intently. She thought she might have heard the sound of
scratching from above them, but it could have been her nerves playing tricks on
her. However, she had not survived this
long by ignoring her instincts. She
tapped Natasha’s arm and pointed up towards the ceiling. They both looked up at the crisscrossing beams
that held up the tiles above them.
Callie was certain she saw several seem to shift slightly right behind
Sammy and Ben. She pointed to Sammy and
then to the ceiling.
Sammy nodded his understanding and
raised his rifle to aim at the tiles. He
looked back to Callie with his weapon still aimed at the ceiling. He mouthed the words “what should I do?” Before she could reply, the tile directly
above Ben burst and a crawlie dropped onto the unsuspecting man. He screamed a shrill, high pitched shriek and
managed to grab the cocker-spaniel sized creature by its body and throw it onto
Sammy. The boy didn’t have time to
properly react or defend himself. The crawlie
flexed its legs around Sammy’s back and dug all eight claw-ended appendages
into on either side of his spine, piercing the flesh and muscle beneath.
Will rushed back to try to help
Sammy. In his panic, Sammy squeezed the
trigger on his rifle and the shots went wild, spraying the hallway. Two of the bullets caught Will in the leg and
he went down yelling in pain. Everyone
else hit the ground until the weapon’s clip was empty. By the time they felt safe to get up, Sammy
was on the ground with the crawlie on top of him. Bob and Callie rushed to help Sammy while
Natasha went to Will’s aid. Ben simply
tried to make himself as small as possible, pressing himself back against the
wall behind him as if he could merge through the wall and into the room it
protected. No one took any notice of him
at that point as he shook uncontrollably and began to whimper.
Bob slashed and hacked at the back of
the crawlie with reckless abandon, but little effect. Each hit almost sounded like the clink of
metal on metal as his blade hit the exoskeleton. Callie could see small dents and chips in the
back of the crawlie, but knew that if Sammy was still alive, he would be dead
by the time Bob made any impact with his methods. She pushed Bob back and snatched the machete
out of his hand. She was aware that the
fact that the crawlie had yet to change position or try to maneuver itself away
from the attack could only mean one thing.
She carefully lined up the machete and plunged the blade deep into the
creature’s head all the way through the bottom of its mouth, almost impaling
Sammy at the same time. The creature
shuddered and loosened its grip on Sammy.
Bob grabbed it around its middle and flung it off of his friend. What they saw the moment it was on the ground
confirmed Callie’s fears.
- - -
It was
generally agreed upon by all of the experts that in order to be able to stop
the spread of the crawlies, it was vital to understand how they
reproduced. Each major country in the
world that was contributing to the solution to the “crawlie menace” had a
division assigned to this task alone. In
an unprecedented show of cooperation, each countries head scientists in these
divisions held weekly video conferences in order to share any information that
had recently discovered and see if their pieces could be put together to form a
useful whole. It was the British
scientists that showed the greatest breakthrough.
While
studying several dead specimens and one live one that a Special Forces unit had
managed to bring back with them on a recent mission, one of the scientists was
able to determine that the crawlies were actually hermaphrodites. They asexually reproduced and then located a place
in which to lay their eggs. It was
unknown what conditions the crawlies needed in which to lay their eggs or how
long the incubation period lasted. This
is where the British’s information ended, but the Russians were able to provide
an important piece of the puzzle.
The Russians had been sending out
their own military units to escort teams of scientists across their country in
order to answer any reports of crawlie outbreaks. On one of their recent missions, an Outbreak
Assessment Team arrived at the home of a man who claimed to have been bitten by
a crawlie. The team was skeptical at
first, as there had not been any reports of people being bitten a single time
and then left alive prior to this. The
man was insistent and showed them the bite mark on his chest. The scientists studied the injury and noted
that it appeared as if something had stung the man in the chest. The wound had healed but was red and
agitated. The man seemed to be suffering
from nervous ticks and shakes as they examined him. When questioned about these, he claimed that
they had started after he had been bitten.
The commander remained unsure of the situation.
As the team commander was conversing
with his lead scientist, the victim began to go into violent convulsions. Before the team could react, the victim
collapsed and almost seemed to burst apart in sprays of blood and skin. Four crawlies, each the size of a small cat,
rushed from the corpse and immediately scurried out of the house before a
single shot could be fired. All of this
had been recorded by one of the scientists and the video was shared during the
video conference. The British scientists
took a single look at this video and became convinced that they had the answer as
to where the crawlies laid their eggs.
The British shared this theory with
the rest of the group and then set about a series of experiments. Teams were sent out to collect mature
crawlies and bring them back. Forty-seven
lives were lost in the missions that resulted in the capture of seven mature
crawlies. The crawlies were each put in
a separate containment unit with twenty-four hour video monitoring. Different mammals were placed in each
containment unit varying in size. Within
one week the first crawlie was observed to implant their eggs into a host. The crawlie injected its fertilized eggs into
the host, a small beagle in this case, by means of a stinger that came out of
an opening in their abdomen just above the anus. It then left the host alone and the team of
scientists removed the host from the crawlie containment unit and set it into
its own. Within the next week, the other
six crawlies had also injected their provided hosts.
It turned out that the incubation
period varied by animal. The larger the
animal, the longer the incubation period.
The periods seemed to range from two weeks for a small rat to six weeks
for a large dog. In each case, the end
was the same for the hosts and mirrored what the Russian team had
observed. The animals seemed to explode
and five to six crawlies would come out of the host’s corpse. Perhaps the most disturbing fact ascertained
from these experiments were that the size of the crawlies varied with the size
of the host. The larger the host, the
larger the crawlies that were born from the death of the host. The experiments were repeated and the results
confirmed with the crawlies that had been born of the first set of
experiments. The results were shared via
the next several video conferences. The
British were getting ready to incinerate the majority of the crawlies that had
been generated from the experiments, the quickly growing population was making
some of the higher-ups nervous, when someone got careless and several crawlies
were able to escape their containment.
Since the crawlies were not yet mature and had no need for hosts, the
result was the death of every person working in the facility.
PART 3 COMING IN ONE WEEK!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!
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