ARACHNOEXTINCTION

“Oh my God, please turn off the lights,” I whispered. My voice cracked when I spoke.

“Why would you say that?” Karen said as she walked up next to me, wearing only a black tank top now that she was using the wipe the sweat from her face. She looked up and froze like Dr. Kale and me. “Oh.”

“I picked the wrong day to not wear any underwear...” Dr. Kale whimpered.

“I picked the wrong day to only wear one pair,” I said followed by an audible gulp.

“Can I go back into my web home? It was kind of cozy,” Dr. Kale said, suppressing tears.

“Do I--do I shoot?” I asked and raised the gun as a question.

Karen brought hers up and braced it against her shoulder, I mimicked her form.

“Shoot and run!” she said.

Dr. Kale let out a high-pitched squeeling scream and ducked behind us as we started firing and rushing forward. My bullets were a sporadic spray as I first started firing. The gun was hard to control and many of my bullets ended up hitting the ground around the spiders. I was able to gain a little more control of the rifle and directed the spastic fire into a more specific area, bullets ripped the freshly hatched spiders to shreds in seconds.

With a better understanding of how to control the weapon, I was able to kill multiple spiders as we ran from the room. The spiders seemed as stunned by us as we were of their sudden appearance. It wasn’t long before they began to chase after us. The spiders tried to follow us, but our heavy rain of bullets forced them to keep their distance. When I needed to insert a new clip into the rifle, I took a second and slapped my handgun into the hands of a cowering Dr. Kale. He fired a few shots wildly, one almost hitting me while I was standing behind him. Karen ripped the gun from his hands.

“You with a gun are more of a danger to us than sitting naked in a room with a hundred hungry spiders,” she said and slipped the gun between her waist and pants.

“We need a place to go!” I yelled between volleys of bullets.

“The kitchen is on this floor. We can bunker down there and get a new plan!” Dr. Kale said.

I motioned for him to take us there, and then returned to filling the young spiders with lead. Every time I killed a spider, it seemed four or five more would push into the hallway. The eggs must all be hatching at the same time; I couldn’t even see the walls of the hallway beyond the ridiculous amount of black spiders pouring out of the electrical room. No aiming was required at this point. Anywhere we shot a spider was there. It was like a dark wave flowing down the hallway, bullets only causing ripples in the black ocean but doing no real damage. My estimate of a few hundred eggs seemed far off now; there was an easy thousand pouring into the hallway.

I lost track of the location of Karen and Dr. Kale; I kept moving back, doing my best to take out as many of these ugly bastards I could before I died. I did my best impression of a battle cry as I spent my last clip, killing more spiders than I could count but even more came flowing out toward me.

“In here!” I heard Karen shout, there was a tug on the back of my collar, and I was pulled into a room and fell backward onto the floor. Dr. Kale slammed the door shut and locked it once Karen had my safe inside.

I started to stand up then dropped to the ground and lay there, not bothering to do anything besides breathe. The kitchen was gigantic. It looked more like a restaurant for a few hundred people. There were several ovens, microwaves, toasters, really any cooking tool you can think of, spread across one of the side walls. Large metal doors that I assume were the fridge and freezer, counters in the middle of the room, and the door to the pantry stood by itself on the back wall.

“It is so damn hot,” I said and tried to dry my face and neck.

“With the power back on the A/C should kick back on and cool everything down,” Dr. Kale said.

“Hey! The power is back,” I said more to myself than anyone else. “I can use my phone again!”

I slapped around my pockets only to feel nothing besides my flash drive.

“Okay the spiders stole my phone,” I said.

“There must have been a couple thousand of them out there,” Karen said to Dr. Kale. “It went from around twenty or thirty to us being completely overrun in a matter of seconds.”

“The eggs hatch under tremendous stress. When we started shooting, the eggs that weren’t aware of our presence were alerted and knew to hatch and defend the nest. There may have been some hiding inside the walls or other areas that came rushing to the fight when we stated firing,” he said. “How much longer until night falls?”

“We’re long past that my friend,” I said and got back on my feet. “We’re playing with house money at this point. Already dead and just seeing how long we can go.”

“Well I was taken by the spiders and tied in a web in their nest, so really every minute I get is much more than I should have had,” Dr. Kale said.

“No more ‘we’re all doomed so why even bother’ attitude?” I asked him.

“Like you said, playing with house money. No point in lying down and dying without a fight. Let’s take as many of these bastards out as we can,” he said.

“That’s the attitude I like,” Karen said. “Let’s find something in here to get us out of here.”

A loud thud against the door made us all jump; a huge indentation appeared in the center.

“This door won’t hold for long,” Dr. Kale said and rushed into a door on the opposite wall.

“How were so many? We started off with fourteen, but there was easily thousands chasing us just then!” I said.

“The increased growth and aging are to blame. They’re reaching breeding age quickly, like within an hour of hatching. I didn’t get a chance to study this theory yet, but I would bet a lot of money that the number of eggs they lay at a time is much higher than I suggested earlier. The parent spiders are passing down the rapid aging to the offspring. I would say it’s a fair assumption that the eggs are developing at an equally increased speed as their laid,” Dr. Kale said from the closet. “You said peppermint oil could ward them off?”

“I mean it works on small spiders around the house, I have some doubts it works for us here,” I said. Now that we were out of immediate danger, I checked my pockets for my cell phone even though I knew it was gone. I didn’t know what I was excepting, but besides the small flash drive, my pockets were still empty. With a sad sigh, I figured during all the running around, it fell from my pockets. It was lost to the spiders now.

“I found bug spray!” Karen said from the pantry.

“Again, I have my doubts that small amounts of chemicals will help us here,” I said.

“I can spray it down your throat to get you to shut the hell up!” she said in a terrifying cheery voice.

“So bug spray huh! I believe that will help, ” I said. “I would still prefer peppermint oil. Smells better. Probably healthier than bug spray if its shoved down my throat.”

“Found some!” Dr. Kale called out.

“Why do you even have that here?” I asked.

“We have a lot of weird stuff here, someone probably brought it. Why question it? It’s here to help!” he said. There was a sound of glass breaking on the floor, followed by a “whoops”.

The evilest, spine-tingling, murderous cackle I’ve ever heard in my life came from Karen in the pantry.

“What on earth did you find?” I said, scared for the answer.

“A gift from God, or maybe the devil based on what it is. Either way, this just got a lot more fun,” she said. Dr. Kale inches his way out of the pantry, a see-through bottle with a clear liquid in his hand and a look of uncertainty crossed his face as he watched Karen.

“I have so many questions regarding what you just said. I don’t know where to start...more fun?” I said.

Karen walked out of the pantry with Dr. Kale following a safe distance behind her. A crooked smile spread across her face. She held up her hands; she had a can of aerosol in one, and a huge lighter in her other. “Who wants to watch some spiders burn?!”

“Whelp. I’m hard,” Dr. Kale said taking a drink from a large bottle in his hands.

“Who wants to watch Dr. Kale burn?!” Karen said.

I half-raised my hand, and Dr. Kale flashed me an offended look.

“What? I’ve never seen someone flamethrower someone else before, sounds awesome,” I said.

“Alright, you have a point,” he acknowledged.

“Do you have the peppermint oil?” I asked him and pointed to the bottle in his hand.

“Oh yeah, that,” he said and slid the bottle behind his back.

“Yes...that,” I said.

“That dropped. It’s gone,” he said.

“Perfect. Because why not, right?” I said.

“Right,” Dr. Kale said.

“That was rhetorical. You should assume everything is rhetorical from now on,” I said and rubbed my temples. I pictured him trapped again in the web back in the electrical room. It made me grin. Then the memory of the spider flood chasing us into the kitchen smacked that smile from my face. They’re probably finding a new way in now. It won’t be long until we were overrun.

“At least, the closet smells lovely?” Dr. Kale said.

“Can you please just stop breathing?” I said

“No. I mean yes. Well, sort of I suppose?” Dr. Kale said and took several large and audible gulps from the bottle in his hand. “Isn’t it amazing how breathing is completely an involuntary act, but can switch to voluntary? All you have to do is realize you’re breathing. Then you’re suddenly in control! Same with blinking. Just think about blinking for a minute. We blink all day and don’t even notice, but when you think about it, you have to make yourself blink. It’s quite annoying! Or how you can always see your nose, but your brain chooses to ignore it? But, then you think about how you can see it and now it’s all you can focus on. Between being aware of your breathing, blinking, and being able to see your nose, it’s enough to drive a man crazy! Am I right?”

“I’m going to kill you!” Karen said, and walked toward him with her hands outstretched for his throat.

Dr. Kale ducked away from her. “Also, like an itchy nose. Someone mentions how itchy their nose is, and suddenly your nose itches!”

“That doesn’t work on me,” I said and scratched my nose. I realized I was doing it and quickly dropped my hand.

“All of this to say, no I cannot stop breathing,” Dr. Kale said and took another drink. “Even if I did long enough to pass out, the breathing would resume on its own and I would be just fine.”

“What the hell are you drinking?” I demanded.

“What, this?” he said and held up the bottle in question. I said nothing, letting my silence answer his idiotic question. He took another drink and said, “Oh, this is vodka.”

“I hate you with an epic passion,” Karen growled.

“Agreed. Let’s tie him to the wall again,” I said.

“Whenever I get drunk, I tend to quote Airplane,” he said with a soft sigh.

“What the hell does that mean?” Karen asked.

“Airplane is a movie. A good one, at that,” I said.

He took a big swig from the bottle and then peered inside to see how much was left.

“I like movies. Have you guys ever seen a grown man naked?” he asked in slurred words.

“Yes, Dr. Kale. We all got your emails every morning,” Karen said with disgust. Then she mumbled under her breath so that only I could hear, “and ‘grown’ is a bit of an exaggeration.”

“I’m pretty sure that is from Airplane,” I said.

“You obviously were not on his email list,” Karen mumbled.

“Well I hope he’s quoting Airplane. You can’t possible get drunk that fast,” I said as I checked out the bottle he was taking large swigs out of. “I’m pretty sure that isn’t even physically possible.”

There was another thud against the door and it bent in even more.

“There is no way that the little spiders are doing that,” I said.

Gunfire sounded from the outside, the hissing from spiders sounded back. For several minutes, we all stood by, listening to the sounds of gunfire, spider hissing, human hissing (which I thought was odd), screaming, and bullet casings clattering to the ground. The sounds grew closer then further, and then closer again, followed by silence.

We stood there, looking at each other, all waiting to hear a sound that would tell us who was outside the door. I pressed my ear against the cool metal door, ignoring the chills that rocketed through my body. No sound came from the hallway.

“Should I check?” I whispered to Karen.

Dr. Kale gave me a vigorous head shake.

I heard a cracking sound and pressed harder against the door. I heard the sound again, but it didn’t sound like it was coming from the hall...

“That’s coming from in here,” Karen said under her breath, loud enough for only me and Dr. Kale to hear.

I held my breath as I waited for the sound again, it was faint, but I was able to follow it. It led me into the pantry where Dr. Kale and Karen were only moments ago.

The pantry was pitched black, the only light coming from the kitchen. It was deep. The pantry was bigger than my bedroom back home. I walked around checking all the shelves. It was hard to see but I could make out all the products and could see the shelves were clear. No spider eggs here.

The noise came again from directly above me.

“Is there a light in here?” I asked.

“I’m not sure, I didn’t bother looking when I was in there,” Karen said.

“There’s a string somewhere in the middle of the room, pull that for the light,” Dr. Kale said.

“This is a big-ass room and the only light is attached to a string in the middle of the room? What genius designed this?” I grumbled to myself.

I wandered blindly into the middle of the room, waving my hands to try and find the light string. I looked like someone trying to flag down a taxi. The tip of my finger brushed against the thin string, I grabbed onto it and pulled down. Light flooded the room, and I turned it off as fast as I turned it on. I didn’t dare make a sound, breathe, or even blink, as I slid out of the room backward. I closed the door and sat down leaning against it.