SNAFU: Unnatural Selection

THE WEAVERS IN DARKNESS James A. Moore & Charles R. Rutledge

Officer Mike Calvin settled into his seat and made sure his seatbelt was secure. There were six jump-seats in the back of the van, three on each side, and five were occupied. Calvin was closest to the back doors by choice. He liked to be the first man out the door and on the scene. He’d gotten into the habit during two tours in Iraq.

Captain Lovell, head of the Bergen PD SWAT team, turned around from the seat closest to the driver’s and said, “Some of you know more about what’s going on than others, so let me give all of you the current situation.”

Tessa Malloy, who had the seat across from Calvin, rolled her eyes. Lovell liked to hear himself talk. Calvin figured Lovell was taking advantage of some piddling occurrence to trot out his shiny new SWAT team. What the hell did a small town like Bergen need with a SWAT team anyway? Still, Calvin reflected, the extra pay was good and they got to train with the newest weapons and tech.

“Two hours ago,” Lovell went on as the van got moving, “dispatch got a 911 call from Maro-tek. It’s an electronics manufacturing plant out by the old quarry. Isolated place.”

“I know someone who works there,” Arturo Perez said from Calvin’s right. “It’s in the middle of nowhere.”

Lovell looked annoyed at being interrupted. He said, “Right. The call came in at 2:15 this afternoon. Caller was frantic. Said something was attacking the workers. Then she was cut off. Repeated calls to the plant didn’t get any answers, so dispatch sent a black and white to have a look. Our last contact with them was right when they arrived. According to Officer Pace, the place looked deserted. They went to check it out and we haven’t heard back from them.”

“That doesn’t sound good,” Kevin Jenkins said. Jenkins was so big that he looked almost comical jammed into the jump-seat next to Tessa. He was a former college football player and he spent so much time in the police gym the other cops called it his office.

Perez said, “Captain, did you say the caller said some thing was attacking? Not someone?”

“That’s what they said. I’m assuming an animal of some sort. Maybe a bear or a mountain lion.”

Calvin knew big cats were extremely rare in Georgia, but he kept that to himself. Contradicting Lovell wasn’t usually worth the grief.

Jeff West, who was driving the van, called over his shoulder, “Maybe we should have sent animal control instead of us.”

West considered himself a wit. He was the only one.

Lovell said, “Stay focused, West.”

“Sorry, Captain.”

They made the rest of the drive in comparative silence. That suited Calvin. He had never been much for small talk. He craned his head to look out the front window as West announced they had arrived at their destination.

Long, deep shadows were falling as the van passed through the front gates of Maro-tek. It was early September and the days had grown shorter. The plant was a big, white, concrete bunker of a building surrounded by pines. The gray bulk of the Blue Ridge Mountains loomed behind it.

“There’s the patrol car,” West said.

Lovell said, “Stop the van here. We want to go in slow.”

When the van stopped, Calvin popped the latch on the back door and dropped to the ground. He brought up the M-4 and moved to the side of the van, making a visual scan of the area as he went. Nothing moved.

Perez and Tessa, both fellow vets, piled out of the van and took up similar defensive positions. The captain and the other two guys did what they’d been taught in SWAT school.

For his own part, Calvin wasn’t putting a lot of faith in the ‘some thing’ comment on the 911 call. That could have just been a slip of the tongue from a desperate caller. Calvin figured a mass shooting or domestic terrorism attack was more likely than a berserk bear on the loose. The captain had said Maro-tek made electrical components. Maybe they made some for the military.

Captain Lovell said, “Calvin, have a look at the patrol car. Everyone else, keep an eye on the building for any movement.”

Calvin gave a short nod and moved carefully up to the black & white. He didn’t mind taking point. Hell, he preferred it. He made a slow circle of the patrol car. Nothing looked amiss.

“Looks clear, Captain,” he called.

“All right. Guess we’ll have a look at the building. Calvin and Tessa, you’re with me. We’ll take the front door. Perez, lead the second team around the side and look for another entrance. Place like this has to have loading bays.”

Calvin started toward the front door without being told. He knew Lovell would want him to stay on point. He felt a slight trickle of sweat on his back. It wasn’t nervousness. Between his body armor and utility vest and the unseasonably warm weather, he was feeling the heat. That’s what he told himself anyway.

The front door yawned open. It was dark inside and Calvin wondered if the power had been cut. He gave a quick look over his shoulder to check Lovell and Tessa’s positions. Lovell was a pain sometimes but he knew how to use his people’s strengths. He had taken the center position, leaving Tessa as rear guard.

Calvin switched on the flashlight on his M-4 and stepped inside quickly so as not to be silhouetted in the doorway. The flashlight beam pierced the gloom, showing him a front office full of toppled furniture and scattered debris. The light fell on two human legs poking out from behind an overturned desk.

“Got a body over here,” Calvin said, moving to the side of the desk to get a look behind it without getting too close. The beam rested on the corpse's face and Calvin recoiled from the sight. In Iraq he had seen more bodies than he ever wanted to think about, but nothing like this.

He only knew the body was male because of the clothes. The face was blue tinged and shrunken like some wizened mummy. The eyes were just sockets. What he could see of the arms that extended from the corpse's shirt were similarly shrunken.

Calvin said, “Gas masks. We could have some sort of infection here.” He pulled on his own mask as he spoke. Lovell and Tessa did the same.

“Shit!” Tessa said.

“What is it?” Lovell said.

“Thought I saw something move in the corner.”

Lovell turned his M-4 that way. The barrel mounted Mag-Light sent a bright beam into that part of the room. The light bounced back from what Calvin realized were eyes and a moment later, something big and fast came hurtling out of the corner.

For a second Calvin thought it really was a mountain lion. Then he realized it had too many legs. It was about the size of a large German shepherd and it landed on Lovell, bearing him to the ground. Even as he trained his weapon on the hairy form, Calvin's brain was trying to tell him what it was and at the same time trying to reject the reality. It was a spider. A goddamn spider the size of a dog.

Lovell started screaming and Calvin realized the thing was biting him. Lovell jerked and twisted, trying to pull away but the thing was locked on to him with its pincers or whatever they were called. Calvin shook himself, realizing he needed to do something other than just stand there with his mouth hanging open.

A second later he heard two loud reports and glanced to his side. Tessa, realizing the M-4 was too dangerous to use with Lovell so close to the thing, had drawn her Glock 9mm and put two rounds into the spider's head. The thing toppled off Lovell, legs twitching as it rolled.

“Christ,” Tessa said. “Jesus Christ. Captain Lovell, are you injured? Can you hear me?”

Despite the fact the spider had relinquished its hold, Lovell was still flailing like he was having a seizure. Calvin and Tessa hurried over to him. His helmet and gas mask had been knocked loose and they could see that his teeth were clinched and his eyes were open wide.

“Do you think it was poisonous?” Tessa said.

“How the hell would I know?” said Calvin. “What the hell was it? Spiders don't get that big.”

“Well this one did. The captain's convulsing. We have to get him out of here.”

Calvin stepped over to help Tessa with Lovell. Then he heard a scrabbling sound, and turning, he saw two more spiders coming toward him. One of them was almost twice as large as the one that had bitten the captain. Calvin came very close to screaming as he scrambled backwards, swinging the M-4 up and depressing the trigger. The gun sounded incredibly loud in the confined space, but Calvin kept firing, cutting the creatures to pieces, until the magazine clicked on empty. His reflexes kicked in and he snatched one of two remaining magazines off his utility vest and slammed it into the rifle.

He realized then that Tessa had been firing too. She was looking, mouth agape, at the two fallen spiders.

“This is not happening,” Tessa said. “This is not fucking happening. We have to get out of here.”

Calvin looked over at Lovell. He had stopped convulsing and was lying motionless. Probably dead. But Calvin had to be sure. He crouched and felt Lovell's throat for a pulse. Nothing.

“Okay, we'll send someone back for him. Hell, we'll get the national guard in here with flame throwers and—”

A hurtling form slammed into Tessa. She screamed as she fell, trying to ward off the spider's fangs as it sought to bite her. Calvin fumbled for his Glock, but even as he did so, yet another spider came rushing from the shadows. How many of these damn things were there?

Calvin put three rounds into the one that was attacking Tessa, moving forward as he did so. He kicked the dead creature off of her, feeling the soft, yielding weight of the body, which made his stomach lurch. He caught Tessa by the arm and pulled her upright. Half dragging her, he tried to get around the second spider to reach the door, but the thing was too fast and it moved to intercept them. Calvin fired at the spider, then turned and headed toward a door on the far side of the room. Maybe they could get away from the things long enough to wait for backup.

He saw his mistake too late. There was something hanging in the shadows of the high ceiling and it began to drop as they approached the door. A different kind of spider. This one had apparently built a web in the corner and waited. Its body was a gleaming black and Calvin caught sight of the red hourglass on the spider's abdomen as it got closer.

Calvin raised the Glock and fired until the gun was empty. The Black Widow was wounded, but still in motion. It landed on its long, narrow legs and came right at him. Tessa was still out of it, a dead weight on his left arm. He tried to get the M-4 into position but it had swung around behind him during his flight.

The door he had been trying to reach slammed open and Calvin half expected to see another spider emerge. Instead, a tall, slender man stepped out and fired a big handgun at the Black Widow, blowing huge chunks out of the creature.

“This way,” the man said. “There are more coming.”

Supporting Tessa, Calvin hurried to the door. As soon as he was through it, the tall man closed the door and turned a latch.

“Was she bitten?” the man said, nodding toward Tessa.

“I don’t think so,” Calvin said. “That fucking thing was biting her body armor.”

“Let me have a look.”

“It didn’t bite me,” Tessa said, in a quiet voice. “But it was sure as hell trying. What’s happening here? What are those things?”

“Spiders,” the man said.

Tessa said, “I know they’re fucking spiders. How did they get so big?”

“We’d better save explanations until we reach a more defensible position,” the man said.

Calvin noted that the guy spoke very precisely. “We’re not safe in here?”

Here looked to be a conference room, sadly with no windows to the outside. Still, the walls and doors looked solid enough. It was lit by the yellow glow of emergency lighting.

The man shook his head. “The ceiling is the problem. This building is really one big room, partitioned off, and with false ceilings added. There’s a crawl space above the entire office and there are definitely things crawling in it.”

Tessa said, “Do you work here?”

The man shook his head. “No, like you two I’m here in response to the threat.”

“You’re a cop?”

“I’m an English professor. Retired. My name is Decamp.”

Calvin said, “Do you have any idea what’s going on?”

“I do, but we don’t have time to talk about it. The wolf spiders are hunting us. Listen.”

Calvin listened. He could hear scratching sounds from above. “Shit.”

“Precisely,” said Decamp. “Our best bet is to get out of the building. The wolf spiders don’t like the daylight.”

Tessa said, “That’s what they are? Wolf spiders?

“For the most part. Arachnida Lycosidae. There are some others as well.”

“Like the Black Widow.”

“Yes.”

“Okay, Decamp,” Calvin said. “You got any idea how we can get out of here?”

“That other door leads to a hallway that connects to the manufacturing plant. One of the loading dock doors is open. That’s how we got inside.”

“Who’s we?”

“I came with an associate.”

Tessa said, “Speaking of associates, I hope Perez and the others didn’t walk into this hellhole like we did.”

Particles of dust began to fall as the ceiling panels began to shake. Calvin said, “We need to go. Now.”

“We do,” said Decamp, “Though there is one problem.”

“What?” said Tessa.

“The plant is full of spiders too. That’s why I ran in here.”

Perez moved in first, not because he had command of the situation, but because he’d been there before and thought he knew the best entry point. There was a large bay door that was already open, so that point became moot.

West came up on his left and then Jenkins was on the right. Perez was five feet, eight inches tall. He worked out every day and he knew that, pound for pound, he could hold his own against damned near anyone. That didn’t stop him from feeling better knowing Jenkins was on his side. In high school they’d called Douglas Jenkins the Ogre, because he was a full foot taller than Perez, and he had him by easily a hundred pounds of hard muscle.

West was taller too, and he was good enough at his job despite his bad jokes, but the thought that West had his back was somehow less comforting.

The lights were out. Emergency lights illuminated just exactly enough of the vast interior to let him know they were fucked. There were exit signs over every possible way out. There were powerful yellow lights in the corners of the vast room. There were also eighteen foot tall warehouse shelves, carefully labeled and approximately ten feet apart from each other in both directions. There was exactly enough room, according to his cousin Guillermo, to let a slow moving fork lift get through. Not one of the gigantic forklifts like they always showed on TV, but a small one, roughly a third the size of a squad car. Unbelievably the lifts still carried a thousand pounds with ease, and Guillermo had once explained that the weight at the back of the lift was literally a one thousand pound counterbalance. All told the lifts weighed in at close to a ton.

Which is why when Perez looked at the forklift, where it rested, smashed through two full lines of anchored, metal shelving, he was nervous.

“Bad day to forget how to drive,” West was talking mostly to himself, but Perez skewered him with a hard look. Guillermo was supposed to be working today. He normally drove the forklift.

It took everything he had not to run in screaming his cousin’s name.

Jenkins looked hard at West and let out a small noise of disgust.

West ducked his head in a move that was fully unconscious. As a rule no one ever wanted to piss Jenkins off, strictly because they had all seen him in action on a few occasions and never wanted to risk getting hit that way.

They worked methodically, scanning a different section each, Mag-lights cutting through the darkness in spears that revealed less than what Perez wanted to see.

He worked his way through the twilight to the forklift. There was something dark and hairy at the end of one of the massive tines at the front of the machine. Whatever it was had been pasted into so much goo when the forklift hit the shelves. Bits and pieces of the thing were painted across several surfaces. Enough to let him know that whatever it had been, it most certainly wasn’t human.

“Arturo.” His name was hiss-whispered from his right and when he turned that way a wave of relief poured through him at the sight of Guillermo.

Before Perez could open his mouth, his cousin was pointing up and making a gesture to tell him to go softly.

Looking up was maybe the biggest mistake of his life. Once he saw them he couldn’t unsee them. Across the ceiling of the warehouse there were hundreds, possibly thousands of spiders. There were so many that they literally crawled over each other and they varied in size from just a little over the length of a hand to something that looked closer to a prize-winning pumpkin. They came in different colors, different patterns, and enough varieties to make his mind dizzy. He barely noticed that last part because he was trying to suppress a scream.

Perez had always had an issue with spiders. Maybe not a full on phobia, but he didn’t like them. They gave him the creeps. This? Every hair on his body was standing on end. There was a part of him that wanted to run away, wanted to get the fuck out of the building and head for the hills.

That wasn’t going to happen.

He swallowed hard and then nodded. His pistol was aimed for the roof. He intended to keep it that way.

He waved to Guillermo to come to him and his cousin nodded.

Jenkins loomed behind him and spoke softly. “The fuck man? Ain’t no way those are real.” Hearing the tremor in his friend’s voice was oddly reassuring.

West spoke up too, his voice loud and snarky. He had not looked up apparently. “Number of times I’ve said that to a stripper is scary, man.”

Jenkins looked blue murder at the other cop. Another voice spoke softly, coming from the left. “You’re not very smart are you?”

Perez looked at the source of that voice. He was dressed in a nice suit, dark blue. The man was a cop’s nightmare when it came to descriptions. Average. Average height, average haircut, Caucasian male. His hair was brown. His eyes were brown. He was nondescript in the worst possible way. The only thing remarkable about him was the expression of exasperation on his face.

The man was staring hard at West, who looked right back, irritated at being talked to that way by a civilian. West sucked in a hard breath and was maybe thinking about making a nasty retort, but he stopped when the man pointed to the ceiling.

“Oh. Fuck.” The words were whispered. West actively grew paler as he stared at the shapes above him, his mouth dropping open in surprise.

Above them the teeming nightmares continued to crawl and, oh Madre Dios, they were growing. Perez stared hard at one of them – a black, glossy nightmare that almost looked like it was made of polished glass it was so shiny. It was impossible, but the thing was growing bigger.

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.

Guillermo was screaming. Jenkins turned and fired.

Perez looked back just in time to see the door explode outward, vomiting a cascade of squat bodies and long, multi-jointed legs. He shivered as if he had a fever.

The spiders came on.

The stranger physically yanked him around for the second time. “Stop fading out on me! RUN!”

Perez bit into his lower lip and felt a sharp pain as his teeth broke flesh. It was a trick he hadn’t used since Iraq, but one that worked to help him focus and get past the threat of shock.

None of this could be happening. None of it made sense. It was happening just the same and he had to accept that.

Training took over when the thing came at him from the rocks nearby. He opened fire and blew the carapace of the spider apart.

Behind him something screamed loud enough to shake his body, but it didn’t matter. The front of the building was coming up quickly and Perez hoped that this Decamp guy the stranger kept babbling about might have some answers. And that they lived long enough to find him.

The loading bay was an ocean of skittering, flailing, hairy bodies, dropping from the ceiling and carpeting the floor. There was no way they could get out by that route. Calvin cursed and slammed the door shut as Tessa shot a dog-sized spider that rushed at him.

“No dice, Decamp,” Calvin said. “I don’t know what it was like when you came in, but it’s impassable now.”

Decamp said, “Then we’ll have to try the front. The spiders are growing in size and numbers and we have to get out of the building while we still can.”

“What the fuck is going on here, Decamp?” Tessa said. “You said you knew part of it.”

Decamp walked over to the door through which Tessa and Calvin had entered and put his ear to the panel. He looked back over at Tessa and said, “It’s magic, officer Malloy. Dark magic.”

Tessa said, “Bullshit. I don’t believe in that crap.”

“That will scarcely keep it from killing you, my dear. By the way, I assume you two have flash-bang grenades? Standard SWAT issue.”

“Yeah,” Calvin said. “I got four.”

“Excellent. Be so kind as to have two of them ready. When I open the door, throw them through. Officer Malloy, if you’ll shoot anything that attempts to come through the door, that should allow Officer Calvin to lob his grenades. I’m going to close the door before they go off, then after the explosion we’ll go through and try and reach the front entrance.”

Calvin said, “You must have been some teacher. You’re the calmest son of a bitch I’ve ever seen.”

“Years of experience, Officer.”

“Just call me Calvin.”

“And I’m Tessa. If we’re all going to be eaten by AoUSes together we might as well be friends.”

“AoUSes?” said Decamp

“A bad movie joke. Arachnids of Unusual Size.”

“Ah, of course. The Princess Bride. My movie trivia knowledge tends to lapse in times of stress. Now, if everyone is ready, we’ll put this poor excuse for a plan into action.”

Calvin took two M8-4 flash-bang grenades and pulled the primary pins. “Ready.”

Tessa checked the magazine of her M-4 and aimed the rifle toward the door. “Ready.”

Decamp stuck the .45 into a holster on his hip. He reached over his shoulder to a weird carbon black tube strapped on his back and slid a gleaming metal blade from inside.

“Seriously?” Calvin said. “A sword?”

“Call it an affectation. Here we go.”

Decamp grabbed the door handle and swung the door inward. A huge wolf spider pushed through and Tessa blew it to pieces. Calvin noticed that Decamp didn’t flinch even though he was in the line of fire. Had the man seen combat? Calvin popped the secondary pins of the grenades and pitched them through the door. Decamp slammed the door as the flash-bangs went off. As soon as they heard the explosions, Decamp swung the door open and drew his .45. With gun in one hand and sword in the other, he charged through the doorway.

Calvin went next, and Tessa took her usual position as rear guard. For once, Calvin didn’t mind giving up point. Decamp was the man with the most intel. Let him lead the way.

To Calvin’s surprise, they weren’t attacked the second they stepped through the door. The flash-bang wasn’t designed to do much damage, but at close quarters it had still killed a couple of the creatures. The others however seemed to be milling about in confusion. That’s what Calvin would have expected from humans exposed to the flash-bang, but could spiders even hear?

“Their disorientation won’t last long,” Decamp said. “Head for the entrance.”

Decamp began swerving around the confused spiders and Calvin and Tessa hurried after him. A large wolf spider, which had apparently been far enough from the blasts to be less affected, lunged at Decamp and he decapitated it with a deft flick of the thin sword. Calvin was impressed. The blade was stronger than it looked and had to be razor keen. A second spider lost two front legs and Decamp shot it with the .45 for good measure.

Several more spiders seemed to be shaking off the effects of the flash-bangs and they came swarming toward the fleeing trio. Calvin fired in controlled bursts, saving ammunition. He only had one magazine left for the rifle and he did not want to run out of ammo in this place.

Decamp reached the door and stepped out, looking all around. It was well that he did, as a large spider that looked different from any they’d seen so far dropped from above. Decamp stepped nimbly to one side and hacked the spider’s head off. Calvin made a mental note not to make fun of the guy’s sword again.

Calvin shot another spider then stepped through the door and turned to make sure Tessa was with him. She vaulted a bloated spider corpse and leaped through the door. She spun and slammed the door shut behind her.

A chorus of shouts from his left made Calvin turn toward the sounds. Perez, Jenkins, West, and two guys Calvin didn’t know came running around the side of the building, followed by a wave of spiders.

“Jesus!” Tessa said. “What the fuck do we do now?”

Decamp said, “Head for that van. Everyone.”

“That won’t keep them out,” Calvin said. “They can break through the glass.”

Decamp said, “Just do it. Trust me.”

Calvin nodded and sprinted for the SWAT van. He had no idea what Decamp had in mind, but they were probably all dead anyway, and he had no other plan.

As Decamp passed close to one of the two new guys he said, “This isn’t going well, Jonathan.”

The other man smiled. “Noticed that, did you?”

When the group reached the van, Decamp said. “Stand as close to the van as possible. I need everyone to hold the spiders off for just a few moments. Concentrate your fire on keeping them back and try not to shoot me.”

With that, Decamp took his sword and jammed the tip into the ground. He ran around the van in a tight circle, never letting the sword lift from the earth so that he cut a narrow line in the dirt all the way around. When the circle was completed he said, “You can stop firing. They won’t cross that line.”

“You’re out of your mind,” the big man said, still firing at the spiders.

Decamp shrugged. The wave of creatures rolled up like some mad tide of horror. Calvin gritted his teeth.

The spiders stopped.

Decamp said, “Everyone get in the van, and whatever you do, do not step outside the line.”

Tessa said, “What did you do? How the hell did you do that?”

“More of that magic you don’t believe in. Now into the van, please. We don’t have much time.”

The group crowded into the van. It was hot inside, but no one wanted to open any windows or doors. Calvin didn’t like the way West looked. His face was pale and waxy and Calvin figured he might be in shock. And who the hell could blame him?

Decamp said, “As I just told Officer Malloy, this situation is going to get worse very quickly. There are thousands of arachnids in this area and all of them are being mutated and will soon be out, searching for food. This facility is fairly isolated, but the spiders will soon begin looking for food closer to Bergen.”

“Jesus,” Calvin said. “We need to call in and let headquarters know what’s happening.”

“I don’t believe you’ll be able to do that, Calvin,” Decamp said.

Ignoring Decamp, Calvin pulled out his radio. He couldn’t believe he hadn’t thought to call in for back-up earlier or for the fucking National Guard. Blame it on giant fucking spiders.

“Dispatch, this is SWAT Team One. Come in please,” Calvin said. There was no answer. Just a hiss of static. “Come in, dispatch.”

Again static, but this time Calvin thought he could hear a sort of whispering sound. He tried to talk again but the whisper seemed to grow louder, echoing from the radio. Calvin couldn't make out any distinct words, but he seemed to hear a series of sounds.

“Something's wrong. All I hear is what sounds like someone repeating gibberish. Like atlachna something.”

“Atlach-Nacha,” said Decamp. “The spinner in darkness.”

“What?”

Decamp said, “One of the Great Old Ones. An ancient god associated with spiders.”

“You're not making any sense, Decamp,” Calvin said.

“I'm making perfect sense. You just lack a point of reference for understanding.”

“I'm a smart guy. Explain it to me.”

“All right. All of you, listen please. My name is Carter Decamp and this is my associate, Mr Crowley. We are both experts in what you would call the occult. The supernatural.”

“Bullshit,” said Jenkins.

Crowley said, “Since you're only alive right now because you're sitting inside of Decamp's magic circle, you might want to listen to him.”

“If it makes you feel better, imagine there's a scientific cause for what's happening. Radiation or some such. In any case, you are surrounded by giant mutated spiders and there will be worse things later.”

“But what's causing it?” Perez said.

“In simple terms, an incursion from another dimension. Call it the Outer Dark. The void. I refer to it as the other side. But it's a dimension, the very nature of which is inimical to our own. Something from that dimension has crossed over into this one. A being or an artifact, and it is causing these spiders to mutate. The fact that your radio is manifesting voices from beyond and that they mention Atlach- Nacha perhaps explains why spiders are the first things affected. But there will be more.”

“This is fucking crazy talk,” said Jenkins. “What we need to worry about is how the hell we're going to get out of here and warn the town.”

“Very true, Officer Jenkins,” said Decamp. “How would you suggest we do that?”

“We're in a van, sir. How about we drive away?”

“Would you just leave whatever is causing this to continue its baleful influence?”

“We can come back with flamethrowers or whatever it takes.”

Crowley said, “If it gets a foothold it will take more than that to stop it. Decamp and I came here because we both were made aware of a flare-up of Eldritch power entering our reality. Don't interrupt, Jenkins. Just trust me on this. We thought whatever was causing the incursion was inside this facility. We were wrong. But it's close and we have to find it and deal with it.”

“How will you do that?” said Tessa.

Crowley smiled, and Tessa leaned away from him, resisting the urge to flinch. “Won't know that until we find it.”

“What brought you here, specifically?” Calvin said. “You got some sort of spook energy detector?”

“In a way. Jonathan is sensitive to such things and I have a grimoire that gives me warnings of this sort of occurrence.”

“But you say you missed your mark.”

“Only by a narrow margin,” said Crowley. “Now that I know this is related to Atlach-Nacha, I can pinpoint the source. It should be somewhere on the slope behind this plant.”

Decamp said, “What we need to know is can we count on you to help us reach it. The situation has grown out of hand faster than we anticipated.”

West, who had been sitting quietly said, “You want us to go back out there and fight our way past those things? You are out of your minds.”

Decamp said, “In some ways it's a moot point. The circle of protection that surrounds this van only works as long as I'm inside of it. It can only last a few minutes once I leave it.”

“So it's go with us or stay here with the spiders,” said Crowley. That smile of his flashed again. Either he was enjoying their discomfort, or he was a madman.

“Maybe we won't let you go,” Jenkins said.

Crowley said, “That would be an error in judgment.”

“We're going,” said Calvin. “Like the man said, we don't have much choice. Serve and protect, people. That's what we do. We can't let these fuckers overrun Bergen. What's the plan?”

Crowley, said “What sort of suspension does this van have?”

Calvin said, “Top of the line. Four wheel drive. Heavy duty shocks. Why?”

“Maybe we can drive to the source of this situation.”

Decamp said, “Would you take the wheel, Jonathan?”

“Since you asked so nicely, sure.”

There was something seriously unsettling about Crowley. He looked average enough, but Calvin just got a weird vibe off the guy. Of course, given the way things were going that might be good.

Decamp said, “As soon as we leave the circle the spiders will be on us. We don't want them turning the van over so we're going to have to take some action. What weapons do you have available?”

Perez said, “Couple more M-4s and a pump-action shotgun in the locker behind you. Beyond that it's what you’re looking at.”

“All right,” said Decamp. “Let's use two more of the flash-bangs to send the spiders around us running. It's dark out now so they won't like the light and the noise.”

Calvin voiced the question he had thought of earlier, “Can spiders hear?”

“Strictly speaking, no,” said Decamp. “They don't have ears. But they have sensory nerves on their legs that look like hairs. They can pick up vibration. They don't see well either, despite their multiple eyes. Mostly light and motion. It makes them quite susceptible to the flash-bangs.”

Jenkins said, “We're really going to do this? All right. I'll use my M8-4s. Just tell me when.”

The big man got up and opened the van's side door. Calvin felt his stomach lurch as he looked out at a sea of gleaming eyes and waving legs. He had never really been afraid of spiders before. That had sure as hell changed.

Crowley got into the front of the van and started the engine. He turned on the headlights and that sent a lot of the spiders scurrying for cover. He said, “They don't like the high beams. That will help.”

Decamp said. “Everyone shield your eyes. Use the grenades, Jenkins.”

Jenkins flipped the grenades out of the door and Calvin put his forearm over his eyes. He heard the blast and felt the concussive force and then the van was in motion. The spiders didn't indeed like the headlights. They scrambled away as the van plowed around the side of the building, heading for the slope behind the structure. A few fell in behind the vehicle and Perez shot any that came to close through the rear window.

They hit the slope and the van found traction and started up. Calvin could feel the bottom of the van scrape on rocks and limbs and he had a moment of panic as he realized the vehicle could get stuck at any second, leaving them in the dark woods with the spiders. He glanced around the van at the faces of his companions and realized he wasn't the only one having such thoughts.

Crowley drove the van with surprising skill. The trees on the slope weren't too thick and he was managing to find wide enough open areas to get through. As the van bounced and lurched, the headlights flashed on scenes out of hell. There were large areas of white webbing stretched between trees and in them he could see forms that were without doubt human. For a moment he thought he saw a pair of pleading eyes that were swiftly covered by a weaving spider.

“Something ahead,” Crowley said. “Looks like a light of some kind.”

Decamp moved up to Crowley. Calvin looked over his shoulder. Beyond the trees ahead of the van was a weird, coruscating purplish radiance.

Decamp said, “It looks like it’s inside the mouth of a cave.”

Calvin was about to ask a question when something smashed through the rear window. The front part of a wolf spider pushed through the opening. Something else hit the side of the van and the vehicle fishtailed and slammed into a large shape that shrieked and thrashed for a moment before quieting.

Everyone was thrown to the floor of the van. Calvin got his 9mm out and shot the spider stuck in the window. The sound was incredibly loud in the close confines of the van. One of the side doors had popped open and Jenkins started screaming as a spider lurched through the door and sank its fangs into him. A moment later Jenkins was jerked through the door into the dark.

Shit!” Tessa said. She drew her Glock and lurched over to the door. She shone her flashlight out and fired several round. “Jesus! They’re tearing him apart!” She continued firing until the Glock hit empty.

Calvin hurried to Tessa’s side and gently pulled her away from the door. “There’s nothing we can do.” He slid the door shut.

Crowley said, “We need to move before they swarm all over us.”

“Agreed,” said Decamp. “We’ll have to make for the cave.”

Perez said, “The cave? Are you fucking nuts? It’s probably full of these things.”

“It’s the only defensible position and our only chance of finding the source of these creatures.”

Calvin said, “Same drill as before? Flash-bangs, then run like hell?”

“Why mess with success?” said Crowley.

Calvin got two grenades ready. Perez opened the door, firing a short burst with his M-4 in case anything wanted to come in, then leaned away as Calvin threw the flash-bangs. With Mag-lights on full, the group climbed out of the van and started running toward the cave.

From the corner of his eye Calvin saw what Crowley had smashed with the van. He wished he had not. Scorpions were creepy enough without being the size of a horse. The thing was still alive and still twitching. They were lucky. The tail had been broken away from the base of the vile thing.

Calvin swept his rifle left and right, firing at anything that came close. Perez's cousin Guillermo stayed in the center of the group, obviously terrified of getting left behind. Tessa had the rear guard as always, and West was staying a little further to one side of the group than he probably should have. Calvin yelled for him to tighten up the formation but he didn't seem to hear.

Decamp moved along, using the sword when he needed. Crowley seemed to be able to evade the spiders, almost as if he knew what they were going to do before they did it. If by some miracle they got out of this alive, Calvin was going to have a lot of questions for the pair of 'occult specialists’.

Oddly enough, the number of spiders seemed to be diminishing as they neared the cave. It was almost as if the creatures didn't care for the sickly radiance which fluoresced from within.

Calvin sensed movement to his right and veered away. It was well that he had because a big area of the ground suddenly seemed to rear up and a bulbous head sporting long mandibles shot forward. West screamed as the mandibles closed on his leg and pulled him toward the dark gaping hole under the raised disc, which Calvin could now see was composed of webbing covered with earth. His memory flashed on a documentary he had seen one night on PBS. He was looking at a giant trap-door spider. It built a layer underground and waited for prey to pass close by. Then it sprang out, grabbed them, and pulled them into its hole to devour at leisure.

Calvin almost gagged at the thought of what would happen to West if they didn't help him. West was flat on the ground on his stomach, clawing at the earth as the spider tried to drag him into the lair. He was screaming and maybe even crying. Calvin tried to line up a shot, but in the darkness, with West flailing around, he couldn't draw a bead on the spider. A moment later it was too late as West vanished from sight.

Calvin started toward the area of ground that hid the hole, but he felt a hand clamp onto his arm. He turned to find Carter Decamp.

“You can't help him now. Keep moving or you're dead too.”

“But he's still alive. Down there in the dark with that thing.”

“I know. Nothing we can do. Go over there and there may be another one waiting. Now move, Calvin!”

Decamp took off and Calvin followed, hating Decamp and hating himself. A moment later they reached the mouth of the cave. It was bigger than Calvin expected, tall enough for them to stand inside, and miraculously, there didn't seem to be any spiders inside or anywhere close to the entrance. Maybe he had been right and the spiders didn't like whatever was in the cave. And Calvin really didn't want to meet anything those monsters feared.

Decamp and Crowley moved deeper into the cave and the others followed. There was something about the purple light Calvin found painful. At first he thought it was hurting his eyes, but then he realized the pain was deeper, as if the light was actually flowing into his brain, probing at his thoughts, and twisting through the maze of his memories.

They rounded a corner in what had become a tunnel and found a gigantic chamber. Calvin had been to the tourist attraction, Ruby Falls, when he was a kid and this was like that. A massive underground room filled with stalactites and strange formations of stone. The purple radiance played across these forms, casting deep, flickering shadows.

The floor of the chamber was cluttered with the white bones of animals and humans. A great mass of webbing hung in the center of the vault with thick strands stretching from floor to ceiling, supporting the mass. Directly below the webbing stood a tall, thick stone, pointed at the top and covered with carvings of some sort. It was the source of the purple light and the sickly glow flowed off it in waves.

“What the hell is that?” Tessa whispered.

“What we've been looking for,” Crowley said. “That stone is the artifact that's causing all of this.”

Tessa said, “There's something inside that sack of webbing.”

Calvin looked back at the mass. At first he thought the light from the stone was just making it look like the web was moving, but now he could see the surface was twisting and undulating. There was definitely something alive in side. “So we need to destroy the stone and all of this ends, right?”

“In theory,” said Decamp. “But there may be more to it than that.”

“Fuck that,” Perez said, raising his M-4.

Crowley said, “No, you idiot.”

But it was too late. Perez unloaded on the stone. Calvin didn't blame Perez. It was just rock after all, right? The shells from the M-4 should be able to shatter it and that would stop these monsters, right?

But that wasn't what happened.

The bullets glanced off the stone and ricocheted around the chamber. The stone began to give off a whining sound like a giant, angry hornet, and the purple glow grew in intensity. Above the stone, the movements in the web sac became more frantic and violent and then the sac ripped open along the bottom and something big fell out and landed with a wet, meaty thud among the bones.

Slowly the thing on the floor rose, gleaming wetly in the purple light. It had the upper torso of a large, well-formed man, but below the waist it had the bloated body of a gigantic spider. The pale human flesh was scored with stretch marks, red striations that showed where the flesh was changing too quickly. At the waist those marks were worse and sometimes devolved into shreds of split skin from which the vast spidery form had erupted, leaving bloody streaks of gore. Eight, segmented legs spread out to a diameter of at least fifteen feet. They were long and thin and a deeply polished black, much like the obsidian cast of the bloated body they supported.

The nightmare turned toward Calvin and the others, and Calvin saw that above the eyes in the oh-so human face were two more sets of shiny black orbs. The thing opened its mouth and half a dozen tiny black spiders dribbled out. From within the creature's mouth, two long, sharp, mandibles extended.

The thing rose on its eight legs and took a step toward the group. It moved with that unsettling scurrying step so many spiders had, seeming almost to jump it moved so fast.

Guillermo screamed and turned to run. With amazing quickness, the creature shot forward and drove one the sharp tips of one its legs through Guillermo's torso, impaling him and then casting him aside.

Perez howled with rage and brought up his M-4 and stared firing. The noise shook Calvin from the daze he had sunk into and he too brought his rifle into play. A split second later, Tessa joined them. The cave was lit up with the muzzle flair from the three machine guns.

The spider thing was unharmed.

Calvin said, “What the hell is that thing, Decamp?”

Decamp said, “An aspect of Atlach-Nacha. Not quite a god. Far more than human.”

Perez said, “How do we kill that fucking bastard?” His eyes were wide and wild; the man’s cousin was dead. Calvin had heard enough tales of the Perez family to know he was broken up about it. Still, the grief would have to wait.

“You don't,” Crowley said. “We do.” He was smiling again. Calvin shivered.

Decamp said, “We have to get to the stone. See if you can distract the creature.”

Calvin said, “I got one magazine left.” He rammed it home into the M-4 and then started firing rapid bursts from the rifle, aiming at the monster's head. As he did so he scrambled across the uneven cavern floor. Tessa did the same, also on her last clip.

One of the creature's legs shot out and Calvin twisted away. The sharp tip still tore through the fleshy part of his leg, and he bellowed in pain as he toppled. The spider thing rushed toward him. Tessa put herself between the creature and Calvin and emptied her weapon at the scrambling horror. The creature didn't even slow down.

“Decamp!” Calvin yelled.

Decamp looked back over his shoulder. He said, “Jonathan, get the stone.” Then he hopped down and ran to where Calvin had fallen.

Tessa swung her empty rifle and sent it spinning at the creature. So far the thing hadn't made any sound but Calvin saw that it was grinning around its mandibles. The damn thing was enjoying itself. A moment later, it wasn't. The thing threw its head back and emitted a high pitched screech as Decamp's oddly glittering sword cut through one of its legs.

The spider thing whirled and lashed out at Decamp with another leg. Decamp stepped to one side, avoiding the thrust, and sheered the tip off the attacking limb. The creature staggered back, favoring its wounded legs. Then, without warning, it lunged at Decamp and this time managed to strike him with the side of one leg. The impact sent the slender man tumbling.

The spider thing hissed and started toward Decamp. Calvin looked over to where Crowley was standing by the stone. It was almost as tall as he was. Crowley muttered to himself and closed his fingers around something that Calvin could not see. He lifted his closed hand and as Calvin watched, an orange flame ignited around Crowley's clenched fist. Crowley drew back and struck the stone. The surface of the standing stone cracked, and the purplish energies surged and flickered like a candle in a strong wind.

The spider thing stopped stalking toward Decamp. Its head whipped around and its six eyes glared at Crowley. “No,” the thing said in a sibilant, echoing voice that pounded at Calvin’s head like a tidal wave. Not heard so much as felt. It began to lurch toward Crowley, its progress slowed by its injured legs. It wasn't coming fast, but it was coming.

Calvin fumbled for his 9mm. He knew it wouldn't do any good but he couldn't just sit there. He glanced at Crowley again. Crowley struck the stone a second time, making bigger cracks in its surface. Flares of energy rippled and bled along those cracks.

“Not fast enough,” Crowley muttered as he saw the spider thing bearing down on him. He leaned forward, opening his hands. Whatever he’d clenched in his fist was gone. With a strength Calvin would have thought impossible, he tore the standing stone out of the ground, his feet sinking into the arid dirt as he strained. His body turned and he hurled his prize at the creature. The stone struck the spider thing and it stumbled and fell. But the stone, though lined with cracks, was still in one piece.

The spider creature slowly stood. Crowley crouched and then hurled himself over the creature. The monster made an awkward turn, trying to keep Crowley in sight, and in doing so, turned directly into a sword thrust from Carter Decamp that tore through the thing's abdomen. The great, swollen orb split open, disgorging a flood of black ichor, swimming with small spiders.

“Nice one, Decamp,” Crowley said. He lifted his hand again and this time his fist blazed with a white light. Crowley brought his fist down on the fallen stone and it shattered, sending fragments flying around the cave. The sound was as loud as a church bell struck by a hammer, and then everything went black. The purple light was gone.

It was Perez who got his mag-light working. He played the beam around the room, showing the lifeless hulk of the spider thing. The tiny spiders that had been swimming in its blood were dead as well.

“Is it over?” Calvin said.

Decamp said, “It's over. The spiders outside will have returned to normal size and they're probably as dead as the ones in here. That kind of metamorphosis carries a price.”

Tessa said, “Calvin we need to get you some medical attention asap.”

“We'll help you get him back to the van,” Crowley said. “Your radio should work now and you can call an ambulance.”

Perez said, “What the fuck happened here?”

Decamp produced a penlight from a pocket and stepped over to the fallen spider creature. The arachnid parts of its anatomy seemed to be shrinking away, leaving the form of a nude man. Decamp shone the light on the man's hand and something glittered. A wedding ring.

Decamp said, “I can speculate. This man, whoever he was, found this cave. Perhaps a landslide opened it, or maybe he was digging. He found the standing stone, a relic from antiquity, and somehow it came to life.”

“And created those freaks?” Tessa said.

“Yes,” said Crowley. “The stone is incredibly old, from a time before recorded history. There were dark things living in those days.”

“You sound almost as if you were there,” said Calvin.

Crowley flashed that dark grin of his again. His eyes locked with Calvin’s. “Do I?”

Decamp said, “The Eldritch energy from the other side poured into this man, changing him and taking over his body. He was a vessel for one of the entities that flourish in the outer dark. The spiders were just a side effect.”

Crowley said, “And that's all you need to know. Let's get Calvin out of here.”

“You two are going of have a lot of explaining to do,” Calvin said.

Crowley said, “Probably not.”

And he was right.