ARACHNOEXTINCTION

“So what’s everyone doing after this? Anyone want to grab a beer and make way-too-soon jokes?” I said, hoping to get some dialogue going. I wished the elevator had some turbo boosters on it. It wasn’t possible for this elevator to be running any slower while still moving up.

“I could use a drink,” Dr. Kale offered, there was an uncertainty in his voice.

“I’m going to break every bottle you ever touch on your skull for the rest of your life,” Justin said.

“So I take that as a yes for you as well?” I said to Justin.

He shrugged. “I’ll be drinking. You can sit quietly in the same room if you want.”

“I knew we would be great friends,” I said. “You have such nice eyes; and according to your sister, a beautiful soul.”

“I’m going to shove my tooth into your pupils,” Justin said.

“Karen, are you going to come along?” I asked. Her glared stayed on Darren, who was now aware of her hateful stare and was doing his best to not make eye contact with her.

The elevator dinged, and we arrived at the floor of our escape.

“Oh thank God,” I said as we all ran out of the elevator.

I wouldn’t have known we were on the first floor if I hadn’t had an elevator to tell me. I wouldn’t even think we were still in a building. Before, everything was made of tinted glass, creating a really beautiful experience. Now, it was a cave of webs. I couldn’t see an inch of the floor, the walls, or the ceiling. There was a feint glow of light through the web, casting a small glow that allowed us to see. I could hear hissing echoing, impossible to pinpoint its origin.

“This is the creepiest thing I’ve ever seen, and that includes the Internet,” Dr. Kale said.

“You are the creepy things on the Internet, but I agree with you.” Karen said, speaking for the first time in a while. She removed her glare from Darren to look around.

“I think I prefer the flaming stairs,” I said under my breath.

“You prefer anything flaming I’m sure,” Justin said.

“If we can get rid of the spiders, how awesome would this be on Halloween?” Dr. Kale said. “Best. Haunted house. Ever.”

Another hiss, much closer this time.

“Enough idiot talk, let’s move,” Darren said.

We pushed forward as a group, our shoes peeling off the webbed floor with each step, and our eyes and guns covering every direction.

“I think they know the way out. They knew we would come for it. That’s why they didn’t bother coming after us since we left the kitchen,” Dr. Kale said.

“Just the thousands of babies Karen set on fire,” I said and peeked into a room as we passed by. All the doors were open and the entrances were clear of webs, but each room was covered from top to bottom, like everything else.

“They didn’t know any better. Poor little guys,” Dr. Kale said.

“It is astonishing the amount of sympathy I have for them. Seriously. It would blow your mind,” I said and resisted the temptation to choke Dr. Kale.

We turned a corner to the main hallway that would lead us out of the building, to our freedom. The first half of the hallway was drenched in webs, as for the second half of the hallway...the good news was that we couldn’t see any webs. The bad news was that we couldn’t see the webs because the rest of the hallway was blocked by the spiders. There were several of various sizes, but none of us could tear our eyes away the biggest one. It was truly a creature of the most nightmarish of nightmares.

This spider was now as big as a school bus; a black, eight-legged, flesh-eating, web spinning, venom shooting, hissing school bus. I couldn’t believe my eyes. I blinked hard several times. I rubbed my eyes, I slapped myself, anything to wake me up and make this monster disappear.

Dr. Kale screamed, a high-pitched, make-your-ears-bleed scream. I slapped my hand over his mouth to make him stopped, but it was enough to set off the spiders. They launched into a frenzy.

The spiders moved at the same time, hissing as the ran down the hall at us. The big spider moved last; each of its many red eyes, the size of my head, staring holes into us. It tore down the hallway, crushing many smaller spiders along the way, not caring what was in its path.

We didn’t need to communicate; we all turned and sprinted away the spiders. The webbed floors slowed us down some, but we kept pushing forward.

“This is why scientists shouldn’t play God!” I said as we turned a corner and kept running. “It never works out as planned and is always violent and deadly! We’re being punished for this!”

No one spoke as we continued to push forward as a group. I could feel the ground shaking beneath my feet as the stampede of oversized spiders grew close. I just prayed that the almost T-Rex sized spider was too big to move with the same speed as the others. I hope the size of that one was just a fluke; the world would fall to the sheer might of hundreds of those.

We approached the end of the hallway, which split off in two different directions.

“Left!” I called out and turned down the left hallway. I looked back to see everyone had turned right. “Ugh, my lord. Are you freaking kidding me?!”

Spiders filled the space between us. I couldn’t turn back to go with them. I was on my own.

“Left. I said left! It’s not hard! How did they all get it wrong?!” I said and kept forcing my legs to push me forward. There was a strong burn in the muscles now; I wasn’t much of a runner.

The hallway took me down several twists and turns. I had no idea the first floor was so big. All these glass offices had turned into a maze. It didn’t help that webs covered everything, and I couldn’t see through any office. But if I couldn’t see through it, neither could the spiders.

I ran faster than I’ve ever run in my life, faster than I thought I ever possibly could. My rifle was smacking me on the back with each step, but I didn’t care. The spiders were getting closer, but all the turns in the hallway were delaying their approach on me. I rounded one turn and dove into an office. I crawled across the floor and squeezed under a desk. I held my breath as I heard the spiders run by; a few slowed down, but most went right by.

I took small, quick breaths. I was too scared about making noise to take a full breath, but my body was screaming for more air. Once I could no longer hear the footsteps of the spider I laid my head against the back of the desk and took several big breaths. I sat there for a while, just focusing on my breathing and letting my heart rate slow down.

I opened my eyes and looked around the room.

I had to cover my mouth with my own hands to keep from screaming; next to me was a mostly devoured skeleton. I released silent screams as I rushed out from under the desk. I backed away from the desk and pushed myself against the glass wall, trying to get as far away from the former bones of a person as possible. I gave a frustred sigh as I felt my back still to the webs on the glass.

“Ah, gross. I hate these damn spiders,” I said and peeled myself off the web covered wall.

A small hiss came from the top of the desk. A black spider about the size of my head was on the desk, scuttling around to get a position to jump at me.

“You don’t scare me,” I said and stuck my tongue at the spider. It hissed in response and I jumped.

I brought my rifle up and aimed it at the little spider. I hesitated to pull the trigger if I was to shoot the sound of the gun would draw all the attention to me. So far this little spider was the only one that knew where I was. I would have to kill it without firing a shot.

I flipped the rifle in my hand, so the butt of the gun was now out of my hand. I held the rifle like a baseball bat, ready to crush the spider with it.

“Make your move,” I said to the spider as I ducked around. I kept moving and shuffling around to give the spider a harder target to jump on.

The spider grew frustrated with my rapid movement; it hissed and jumped in the air at me. The speed of its jump caught me off guard, and I barely brought the rifle in between the spider and me. The spider latched onto the butt of the gun. I tried shaking the rifle to get the spider to fall off.

“Let go!” I said to it as I took a wild swing with the rifle. The spider hissed a respond and refused to let go.

I smashed the spider into the wall. The impact shook the spider up, but it didn’t let go. I started hitting the rifle onto the floor, then the desk, then back to the wall. I continued this process many times over. On one powerful swing, the spider was launched off the rifle and into the wall across the room. It recovered fast and jumped at me. This time, I was ready, I swung the rifle and caught the spider in midair. I sent it flying into the ceiling and then the wall; it slid to the floor and lay motionless.

“Would you just kill it and stop swinging the rifle like someone who has never seen a game of baseball?” Karen said.

I jumped at the sound of her voice. She entered the room with a handgun drawn a long muzzle attached to the end.

“I was trying to remain inconspicuous, I figured firing a gun would draw attention to my location,” I said.

She flashed me an annoyed look, then fired two shots into the spider. The shots were audible, but nowhere near as loud as the shots we fired before.

“Problem solved,” she said.

“Where did you get that?”

She ignored me and kicked the smaller spider a few times to make sure it was dead.

“Okay. Where’s everyone else?” I asked.

“Don’t know, we got separated by the spiders. I snuck this gun off Darren while we were running. I figured a silencer could come in handy. It’s probably how he was able to move around without drawing attention when we thought he was dead,” she said.

“Alright, so what now?” I said. “Do we try to find them?”

“I’m not leaving without Justin, so finding them would be a positive step toward getting us out of here,” she said.

“Oh, hey guys,” Dr. Kale said as he rounded the corner and entered the office.

Karen and I both jumped at the sudden noise and aimed our weapons at his face. He raised both his hands and inched back out of the office.

“You know, we could kill him now, and no one would ever know,” Karen said.

“Meh. We gave too much effort to try and save him. Might as well keep him alive if it’s not a hassle,” I said.

“If you do anything detrimental to our escape and survival, I will end you so fast that-that you--it will--just...so fast you will die. So fast!” Karen said.

“Sweet. So where’s Justin and Darren?” he asked, unfazed by Karen’s stuttering threats.

“I assumed they were with you?” Karen said.

“Are you telling me that Justin and Darren might be together? With no one else around?” I asked and rubbed my face. This wasn’t good.

“You son of a bitch, why would you leave them alone?!” Karen said to Dr. Kale.

“You weren’t the only one that wanted to find Dr. Gale!” Dr. Kale said. “I left right after you, Darren and Justin seemed fine?”

“Wait, you came looking for me?” I asked Karen. “You weren’t separated from the group unintentionally?”

“You’re weak and would die out here. You need someone to take care of you,” Karen said and scoffed at me. “Don’t think you’re that important to us. I would leave you to die if it meant the rest of us could survive.”

“What? I’m confused by your words,” I said.

“Karen threatened to shoot us if we left without you,” Dr. Kale said.

“I’m going to shoot you now!” she said to him.

“Guys guys guys. I can take care of myself,” I said with a smug smile and propped the butt of the rifle on my shoulder. It went off and shot into the ground next to my foot.

“You. Dammed. Idiot,” Karen said with closed eyes.

“Ha! Classic Kale move,” Dr. Kale said.

I set the gun on the desk. It was safer out of my hands after all.

“So what would you say the chances are that they didn’t hear that?” I asked.

Hissing filled the halls as soon as I finished speaking.

“Do you want me to give you the percentage or do you think we’re on the same page?” Dr. Kale asked.

I had a throbbing headache, my legs could barely hold me up, and the thought of running again made me sick to my stomach.

“I’m starting to think that a bullet to the head is the easiest option out of here. Better than being devoured by those monsters,” I said.

Karen slapped me again. I stumbled into the glass wall, and she raised her hand to hit me again.

“If you die I will freaking kill you!” she said and pulled back to hit me again.

“Okay okay! I’ll live!” I said as I cowered.

“It’s nice seeing someone else on the receiving end of that,” Dr. Kale said with a smile.

“Let’s move,” Karen commanded. When we faced the door, there was no longer a way out. A spider, a little bigger than I was, was standing in the doorway. I think standing was the word? Spiders can’t really sit, I suppose. Its eight legs were on the ground, and it was facing us.

“Do you want to shoot it or would you rather take a few swings with your rifle?” Karen said to me before firing shots into the beast.

I said nothing, instead I grabbed my rifle off the desk and unleashed several rounds into the would be skull of the spider. Between the two of us, the spider was dead in seconds.

“Does anyone else notice these spiders spend a lot of time standing around staring at us when they could have killed one of us?” Dr. Kale asked as he examined the fresh spider corpse.

“Don’t question it,” I said. “Chalk it up to their indecisiveness on which of us would taste better.”

“That’s silly, I taste wonderful,” Karen said as she slapped a new clip into her handgun.

“I--,” Dr. Kale started. Karen shoved the end of the pistol into his mouth.

“Make a comment about you tasting any part of me. I dare you. Please,” Karen said in a low and dangerous voice.

“I feel like you don’t really want me too, though,” Dr. Kale said with a mouthful of pistol.

Karen pulled the gun out of his mouth and looked to me.

“We need to move. Staying in one location will get us killed,” she said.

“Whatever you say,” I said eyeing the pistol in her hand.

We climbed over the dead spider and back into the hallway.

“Which way to Justin and Darren?” I asked.

“To the right,” she said as several human-sized spiders turned the corner and saw us. Their red eyes lit up in excitement, and they increased their speed tearing down the hallway.

“All I want is just five minutes without something going to crap. PLEASE!” I said, and we sped off down the other side of the hallway. It’s amazing how despite how dead I felt; the threat of being eaten by giant spiders was motivation enough to start running again.

I led the three of us as I rounded a corner and was jumped on by a spider a little smaller than Karen.

“Ahh!” I pinned my knees between the spider and me as its pincers tried to tear out my throat. Its eight legs were pulling at my arms and legs, trying to flatten me out as I fought against its strength. Its mouth was closing the distance from my face. I could see rows of its jagged teeth. The pincers now seemed like a more promising and much less gruesome way to die. The spider’s teeth seemed perfect for shredding me to pieces, very slow and painful.

I pushed back with my knees, trying to garner any separation possible between me and death by spider mouth. Gunfire was echoing in the hallway. I kept waiting for the spiders head to explode on me, but it never happened. Karen and Dr. Kale were trying to keep us from being overrun by the herd of spiders that had been chasing us. They couldn’t sacrifice any bullets or seconds to get this spider off me without us being overrun anyways.

I tried to move my rifle with my shoulder, to swing it around off my back so I could grab it. The spider was too strong. I couldn’t move away from me or enough to get my body off my gun.

“Justin, a little help!” Karen called out.

Justin appeared standing over the spider and me; he set his shotgun against the head of the spider.

“Close your eyes and mouth,” he said. I barely had time to comply when the shotgun roared in his hand, and bits of spider splattered over me and the floor. With his help, I was able to roll the now headless spider off me and get to my feet. A piercing ringing was all I could hear for several seconds. I shook my head to try and snap out of my shocked state. A little hearing returned to me but the ringing persisted.

“Like I said before when in doubt shotie out!” he said holding his shotgun in the air like a victorious flag. “Now let’s move!”

Darren emerged from behind Justin and helped me wipe the remnants of the spider off me. Justin fired a few more shots around the corner to give Karen and Dr. Kale time to start running back.

Darren yanked me to my feet. I was surprised he didn’t pull my arm out of its socket.

“We’re not done yet!” he yelled and pushed me forward forcing me to start running. Justin’s gun clicked empty so he turned and followed us as we sprinted down the hallway. Every turn we took, I half-expected to be tackled by another spider, but it didn’t happen. After running for a few minutes, the scenery started to look familiar.

“Thank God you guys came looking for us,” Karen said to Justin.

“Well, you and Dr. Kale just left us standing there, after a while we would have been discovered. Plus I didn’t want you to die while trying to find Dr. Gale. Because then I would have to kill Dr. Gale. I was kind of starting to content Dr. Gale, and I didn’t want to have to kill him,” Justin said.

“And me?” asked Dr. Kale.

“You could have died. I don’t care,” Justin said.

“Oh,” Dr. Kale said with a deflated expression.

“I’m starting to think I know where we are...” I said as the webbed scenery flew by.

We turned one more corner and were right back at where we started, with the bus-sized spider waiting for us.

“There are nightmares, and then there’s this shit,” Justin said.

“I would pay anything to be in a normal nightmare at this point, anything that’s not right here,” I said. “I’m starting to think maybe snakes aren’t so bad.”

“Ha! Right?!” Dr. Kale exclaimed.

The spider unleashed a ground--shaking growl, shaking me to my core. We scrambled away, a desperate attempt to get out of sight. Dr. Kale pulled away from the group, and we were unable to keep up with his speed.

“To the mammoth room!” Dr. Kale called from the front of the group. I wasn’t sure if I should be surprised or not that he was the fastest of us, running away seemed to be what he was best at. The spider version of Godzilla roared from behind us, not a hiss...it freaking roared. It sounded as if every lion in Africa banded together to create the most fearsome roar imaginable. I would scream if I wasn’t literally scared speechless. I was stunned my legs were working. They were churning away faster than I’ve ever managed in my life to this point. My hair was blown back from the speed of my movement.

We rushed into the mammoth room, Justin slamming the door behind us and locking it.

“Thank goodness they don’t have a key,” I said and collapsed onto the ground, my legs had given up after their stellar performance of getting me into the room.

“No time to insult you and call you an idiot, take care of it yourself will ya?” Justin said and walked away.

“Rodger,” I said with a tired salute but my arm collapsed onto my face.

Dr. Kale never slowed down. He ran to the wall under his command room. He held his hand against the wall and then a ladder dropped down from the building. He jumped on the ladder and climbed it with surprising speed. I pictured him with big fuzzy ears and a furry tail; he was like a squirrel climbing a tree.

I couldn’t shake the image of him being half a squirrel.

“Halluncinating. Fantastic,” I said.

The sound of spiders in the hallway reached me and convinced me it was time to stand up.

“What are you doing?” I called to Dr. Kale and got back into my shaky legs to wobble across the room.

“Get everyone on the floor of the room,” he yelled down to me.

“What is he talking about?” Darren asked me.

“Just stand here,” I said and showed them the floor we dropped from the room when we first lost power.

It shuddered for a couple of seconds, and then raised us into the room. Dr. Kale was typing like mad on multiple computers at a time, jumping around the room like a crazed frog.

“What’s the plan?” I asked him.

“Mammoth,” he said like it was obvious.

“Mammoth?” Karen asked. “What the hell do you mean by that?”

The realization hit me, “He’s bringing the mammoth to life...” I said.

“You can do that?!” Karen asked.

“Technically it’s already alive, just in a deep sleep,” Dr. Kale said.

“It’s been alive for months. Dr. Kale been training the mammoth in here,” Darren said.

“Months?!” Karen said.

“Training?!” I asked.

“How did you know?” Dr. Kale asked. He stopped typing to look at Darren.

“I know everything that happened here,” Darren said. “No one here has any secrets.”

Exactly what I was thinking.

“Bullshit,” Justin said.

“You’re favorite song is--”

“Alright alright, fine. Just be cool,” Justin said, and his face turned a bright red. Then again, he still had a large amount of his own blood on him so I could have imagined him turning red.

“I was kidding when I said we should use the mammoth to crush the spiders,” Karen said. “I mean, guys, this is crazy right?”

“Look at our predicament. Crazy doesn’t even begin to explain what is going on. Maybe the only way to survive this crazy, is to get crazier?” I said. “I say do it. Bring on the mammoth!”

“If we’re going to die, it’s a hell of a way to go. I want to see this go down. Mammoth versus spiders. Do it,” Justin said.

“Put this science shit to good use for once. Do it,” Darren said.

We all looked at Karen.

“Why not. Go for it. What do we have to lose,” she said.

“I mean, our lives?” I said. She ignored me.

Dr. Kale couldn’t keep from smiling, but he forced it away and replaced it with a serious stare. He turned back to the computers and continued typing for a few seconds.

“Let there be mam--”

The wall around the door into the mammoth room exploded inwards. The bus-sized spider tore through the walls with ease and spiders flooded in through the hole it created.

“Just do it, Dr. Kale!” I said.

He hit a few buttons, and lights started flashing all over the room. The spiders hesitated as the sudden change in light startled them. After a few seconds they got over the sudden change of light and crawled up the walls to try and enter the room we were in. It didn’t take them long to cover the window and shut out our view to the room. They began biting at the glass to break through. We jumped back away from the window, and I totally did not scream. When their teeth wouldn’t work, a few spat their venom at the window, but it held strong.

I used this as an opportunity to slid over to the computers that the cameras are attached to.

“What is this glass made of?” I asked as I rejoined the group without catching anyones attention.

“Whatever it is, I’m in love,” Dr. Kale said.

The tube in the middle of the room started to open, steam came flowing out and filled the room in a fog. The spiders gave up getting to us and turned their attention to the opening tube.

“Do you think the mammoth could kill all these spiders?” Karen asked.

“I maybe might have made some slight modifications to the mammoth as a whole. First off it’s a male because I’m sick of everything being a ‘her’. People’s cars, boats, the first of a species to be brought back from extinction, its’ always a ‘her’ and it’s all very annoying to me. Also, it can’t breed and will only live for a short time, so the sex didn’t matter too much,” Dr. Kale said.

“Get on with it! What did you do?!” I said.

“I made it a tad bit bigger...okay, like twice its size. The mammoths in the past weren’t much bigger than the size of the African Elephants today. This one is much bigger, more muscular, pure power. Its skin is extra thick, making it nearly impossible to penetrate with knives or smaller caliber bullets. Even some of the bigger bullets will struggle against the mammoth’s tough skin. Think of it as a tank with tusks. And no gun. Or wheels. Also, I don’t recommend climbing inside of it, especially through the rear exit,” he said.

“This is the first time I’m happy you did something sciencey that you weren’t supposed to,” I said and moved back to the window to try and get a better view.

Spiderzilla, as I affectionately named the biggest spider to ever exist, scuttled away from the tube, hissing at the mammoth inside. The fog in the room cleared enough for us to get a good view of the tube and the gargantuan mammoth emerging from it. No wonder Spiderzilla was scared, this mammoth...trying to find the words to describe its ludicrous size...it was big. Like really really big.