ARACHNOEXTINCTION

It was slight and not anything I would have normally noticed if we weren’t staring with such intensity at the eggs, waiting for something to happen to one of them. It rocked to the side once and stopped.

“Did you see that?” I said in a hushed voice, like if I spoke too loud, the egg would hear me.

“See what?” Dr. Kale said and put his face so close to the monitor that the tip of his nose was touching.

“Rewind it again. Hurry,” I said, resisting the immature teenager within me that urged to push his face into the screen. Now was not the time. He started backing the tape up so he could see the egg move.

“Right there. Play that, slowly,” I said, and he played the video feed at normal speed. “That egg to the right, on the edge there.”

We both leaned in. I was almost lying on top of him, trying to get a clear view of the screen. Neither of us dared to take a breath. The egg rocked to the side.

“It moved,” Dr. Kale said in disbelief. “But...how? They’re n---they can’t.”

“Can you zoom out of the screen a bit?” I asked him and returned to my full height.

“Um, yeah. Just gimme one...second,” he said, flustered. His fingers were flying across the keyboard, slapping the keys faster than my eyes could keep up. The camera zoomed out so we could see the full room and the medical monitor in the corner.

“Alright, play it,” I said, my eyes locked on the monitor.

It started the camera up again, and I could see the monitor displaying registering something.

“Please don’t tell me th--”

“That’s a heartbeat,” Dr. Kale said, cutting me off and slamming his hands onto the desk. His face was twisted into a mixture of surprised excitement and shocked horror. “It’s alive. That’s a heartbeat. That is a heartbeat!”

“Sweet Christmas in Hell,” I said, wide-eyed.

“They shouldn’t be alive. It’s been tens of thousands of years. There no possible way it’s alive,” he said, shaking his head. “This is truly amazing! It’s a disaster! This is the best and worst thing to ever happen to me!”

“You said you tried minor experiments with them, didn’t you?” I said, fear and anger rising in my chest.

“Yes, but nothing we did shou--”

“Something YOU did brought it back! You shouldn’t have done anything to them! You had one job. The mammoth. That’s it!” I said.

Dr. Kale said nothing, just continued to shake his head at the screen.

“So what, this thing hatched and is running around free?”

“There wasn’t any evidence of egg shells in the container...,” Dr. Kale said. “So maybe we’re overreacting to this. Let’s just see what happened.”

He started advancing through the video.

I grabbed his shoulder.

“Stop,” I said, and he obliged. There were deep cracks in the eggshell now. “It’s about to hatch.”

Dr. Kale’s face was white as a ghost, and it’s a safe assumption that I was quite a bit whiter. I felt dizzy, and a boulder was sinking in my gut.

The eggshell burst open, and a black spider emerged from behind the eggs protective walls. It looked spot--on like the robot spider Dr. Kale used to scare me a little while ago. Down to each of its eight, dark, blood red eyes. They shined as each eye focused on the camera.

Using its pincers, the spider crushed up what was left intact of the eggshell. It sucked the pieces into its mouth like a vacuum, then pushed open the glass box, and scurried around the table and down to the floor, eating even the smallest remains of the broken egg.

“That’s why there’s no eggshell. It ate it all,” I said, I didn’t even recognize my own voice.

Once the spider finished eating the eggshell, it climbed up the leg of the table and crawled along the bottom of the table, hidden from view.

Dr. Kale pulled out his walkie-talkie and said, “One of the spiders hatched. You need to get everyone out of here now.”

He waited for a reply, but nothing ever came.

“Hello? Can you hear me? I repeat, spider hatched. Evacuate the building!”

Static was the only reply.

“Where the hell is he?” Dr. Kale said staring at the walkie-talkie in his hand.

“How did he know the egg was missing?” I asked him.

“He went to...check on them,” Dr. Kale said, his eyes widening as realization struck him.

He sent the video speeding forward. Hours of video flew by in just minutes. I took careful note that the spider never left from under the table.

A man entered the room on our monitor, and Dr. Kale slowed the video down. The man was wrapped in a lab coat and bald. He peered into the case and then turned to leave. Right before he left the room, he froze.

I held my breath as he backed up to the table again and started counting the eggs.

“Okay so here’s where he notices the missing egg, so he’s about to report to you,” I said and right on cue the man pulled out an identical walkie-talkie to Dr. Kale’s.

“Dr. Kale...,” I said as the monitor caught my eye again.

“What is it?” his voice was still lacking any real emotion.

“The monitor was getting a reading on the eggs only, correct?”

“Yes, that is right. Only what was inside the case.”

“The monitor is still getting a reading, even with the other spider out of the case...there’s more than one spider alive.”

“Sweet shit,” he said in a breath.

We both watched in silence as the man was speaking into his walkie-talkie, the stress was beginning to become crippling. I leaned all my weight against the desk to keep from falling. I had begun to sweat from the gravity of the situation, so my hand slid right off the desk and I collapsed on the floor.

“We’re talking and talking...,” Dr. Kale said too focused on the camera to notice me falling and rushing to get back on my feet. I noticed neither of us had taken a breath in a while. I sucked in a small one. My heart was pounding any air I took in right out of my chest. “We still need to figure out that grammar question. It’s bothering me.”

“Jesus, dude. We can Google it later. I think we have bigger issues to deal with at the moment,” I said.

The man slipped the walkie-talkie back in his pocket and stood there for a minute, scanning the room with his eyes. They locked onto the monitor. He rushed over to it, shaking it and hitting the side of the screen to make sure it was working and accurate. Shaking are hitting are the proper way to ensure all technology is working properly. The bald man raced back toward the eggs; he peered into the case, leaned against the table for support.

I felt back because I wanted him to fall like I did. He did not, so I still felt as stupid as before.

“He’s almost touching the spider right now,” I said, my chest in physical pain.

A crack rippled across one of the eggshells, causing the man to jump back and almost fall over. He pulled out his radio and brought it to his mouth. Right before he spoke into it, a web shot from under the table and onto the radio.

Dr. Kale and I both screamed when it happened. I could see the man processing what was happening. I saw when the fear touched his eyes.

“They can shoot webs?!” I half-screamed.

“Apparently!”

A black blur bolted from under the table and onto his face. I could see him waving his arms, struggling against the spider, but it was overpowering. It had its eight legs wrapped tight around his head. I could see the pincers clawing into his face as the man’s blood began to spray down his neck. In a panic, he ran from the room, desperately trying to pry the spider from his face. I could only imagine screams for help that came from this man, but there was no one to answer them.

“Change cameras! Find out where he ran to!” I said. I felt numbness set in. I didn’t feel as I was in control of my body, more of an observer stuck watching a horror movie through someone else’s eyes.

Dr. Kale found the man on the camera in an office not far from where the eggs were kept. He was slumped against the far wall, most of his body hidden from view behind a desk. I was not sure what had been on the desk before he ran into the room, but broken class covered the floor of the office now.

The man’s arms had stopped struggling, and his body was still. His body was halfway propped up against the glass wall. The spider, now satisfied that he wouldn’t be running away, crawled off his face and dragged the body by the foot under the desk and out of sight. But not before I saw what was left of his face, it was peeled to the bone; the spider ate everything.

“We walked right past him,” I said. Despite my best efforts and screaming at myself internally, I found that I was unable to look away from the gory kill. “The desk hid his body from our view, but we were right there.”

Dr. Kale turned toward me and ejected his lunch at my feet. My brain was still too stuck trying to process what has happened in the facility to pay attention to the vomiting Dr. Kale. I was too numb and terrified to react. Once I could feel anything besides this imprisoning fear, I bet I would be a little relieved that Dr. Kale was so disturbed by what we just witnessed. I couldn’t even talk as a second egg opened, and another spider crawled out. It ate its eggshell, then found a way off the table and forced itself through the glass doors in the hallway. I watched in part horror, part disgust, as it entered the other office, and then crept under the desk to start and eat what was left of the man I had heard on the walkie-talkie. I heard him speak just minutes before his death. Then watched it happen.

“What did you do,” I said shaking my head. “Look at what you did!”

“I didn’t--I don’t believe it. I can’t. This isn’t real. This can’t be real,” he said.

“Did you see how big that first spider was when it attacked?” I asked Dr. Kale.

He shook his head, still hunched over and trying to breathe.

“It has already grown twice its size since it hatched...twice its freaking size,” I said as I watched a pool of blood start to slide across the floor from under the desk. “It was bigger than his head!”

Dr. Kale spewed more of his stomach onto the floor.

“Okay, get it together. We have to warn everyone else and get out of here,” I said, and Dr. Kale nodded in agreement.

“At least, they’re both still in--” he started to say they were still in the same room. But as he spoke, the larger spider sped out from under the desk and pushed itself out the doors and was out of sight.

“How did no one else see this?” I asked Dr. Kale. “Everything is glass, there were people everywhere!”

“Working hours were already mostly over,” he said then spit on the floor. He wiped his mouth before continuing. “Like I said before, most employees are probably in their room or down on the lower floors. Besides, everyone said that room made them uncomfortable. They avoided looking into it if possible.”

“Yeah, I wonder why it made them uncomfortable!” I said to him and yanked my phone from my pocket. I had to redial a few times. My hand was shaking too much, either from fear or anger, to get it right.

“This better be important,” a gruff voice answered on the first ring.

“We have a dangerous situation on the island, sir. Already one confirmed dead,” I spoke fast so he could hear me out before hanging up on me.

“What? How the hell did someone die on your watch?”

“A specimen that was not supposed to be active has hatched and is now loose in the building,” I said as the lights flickered again. I flashed Dr. Kale a concerned look, which he returned. He turned back to his computer and started jumping through camera views.

“What specimen? What the shit is going on?”

“It’s...it’s a big-ass spider, sir,” I said and closed my eyes, praying he would take me seriously.

“Oh. One of those eggs hatched?” he asked.

“Two actu--you knew about the eggs?” I said.

“You think anything gets in that building without me authorizing it? Of course I knew! Dumbass there wouldn’t dare touch them if he knew that I knew about them. I was curious what he would do if he had free reign.”

“Well, apparently bring this violent and deadly species to life is what he would do! I mean, shit, they’ve already killed a man. What the hell are we supposed to do?!” I said. Good lord did I need a new job...or a massive raise. I should have kept my job at the hospital; at least practicing medicine minimizes the chance of being eaten by an extinct spider species.

“That place has guns. Use them. Get everyone the hell out of that building. Save some of the eggs if you can, but if they hatch, kill the specimen before they grow to the point they can’t be contained. I’ll have evac on the way. I hope you’re a praying man,” the line went dead.

“I wish I took your advice on the underwear situation,” I said as I dropped my phone back in my pocket.

“Always take my advice when it comes to underwear. What did he say?” Dr. Kale asked.

I took a deep breath.

“Where are the weapons?” I asked.

He clicked away on the computer and brought up a room that was filled with assault rifles, shotguns, handguns, and what looked like grenades.

“Two floors above the bottom floor. They’re kept in good condition and cleaned consistently, but we’ve never had to use them.”

“Okay, I don’t know why this place is so heavily armed, but this can work. We need to get ahold of these weapons to defend ourselves from the spiders and get the hell out of the building so we can get off this island when evac comes. Have you ever shot a gun before?” I asked him.

“Like in my life?”

“That would fall under the ‘ever’ category,” I said growing impatient. Shit has hit the fan, and this guy is trying my last nerve.

“Not really, no. Have you?”

“I haven’t fired a gun since I went hunting with my dad when I was six or seven. So it’s been like twenty--five years. I was so bad he gave up on teaching me anything with guns after that weekend,” I said. “Okay, I assume Darren and Justin have been?”

“Extensive training and experience from my understanding,” Dr. Kale said and leaned over his desk to grab a phone I hadn’t noticed before.

At least he wasn’t waiting for me to spell it all out anymore.

“Justin, grab Darren and every gun you can. Then meet us in the mammoth room. We have a situation; keep your eyes peeled and weapons out. Avoid darker places. If you see anyone on the way, tell them to leave the building,” Dr. Kale said and hung up. Then he turned to me and said, “Shouldn’t we just focus on getting out of the building? We risk going throughout the facility when we could just leave?”

“Because we’re trapped on an island and we’ll be sitting around waiting to get eaten if we cannot defend ourselves with those guns,” I said.

“If we can get most people out of here, I may be able to shut down the building to ensure the spiders can never escape. Then we wouldn’t need the guns, we could just leave,” he said.

“What does that involve?” I asked.

“A little bit of this here,” he said and hopped on another computer and fiddled with that for a minute. “Okay that’s ready, but I need to get to my room to initiate the first part of lockdown, and then we have to come back up here to actually get it started. It is a bit of a process, but can save us time and maybe lives. We could lock the spiders in the building and wait safely from the shore.”

“Alright, see if you can locate the spiders. And is there a way to mass communicate with everyone here?” I asked him.

He brought the camera’s back to present time and started flying through different room cameras on the computer, only hesitating long enough to see if the room was clear.

I had a sick feeling before, but something worse was emerging. Dr. Kale didn’t seem worried, but I didn’t see a single person in any rooms the cameras pulled up. He hadn’t gone to any personal rooms yet, but there had to be someone who wasn’t bunkered down already.

“There is a way, but we should locate the spider first, so we don’t send everyone into frenzy and become easy pickens for the spiders,” he said, his voice returning to normal.

“How long until Darren and Justin get here?” I asked.

“Only two or three minutes, I’m sure,” he said then stopped on a screen. “Oh, shit.”

I peered at the screen and repeated his words. There were three spiders in a darkened room. One of the beasts was nearing the size of a small car, and the other two weren’t far behind.

“How are they growing that fast?” Dr. Kale said to himself. He was deep in thought and was unaware he was talking about loud. “Something I gave them must have accelerated their growth or aging.”

“They have to be nearing their maximum size, right? Please tell me they are. I am terrified of spiders that are the size of my fingernail. This can’t be real, this isn’t okay!” I said.

“I’m sure they are,” he said confidently. Then under his breath, he added, “unless…no, they should be. Or I hope they are.”

“There are three. Another one of the Satan spider eggs have hatched,” I pointed out. “Flip back and let’s see how many eggs are left, maybe we can destroy them before anymore hatch. If we stop their numbers from growing, we can deal with the live ones.”

“Right,” Dr. Kale said and jumped back to the conference room screen. There were no eggs left. “Fourteen. Fourteen of them loose in here.”

“And hungry,” I added.

“And hungry,” he agreed.

This was getting out of control faster than my nightmares would suggest. This just was not fair.

“What room were those three in?” I asked him.

“The--” the power went out, and all the lights went dead. Darkness surrounded us and eerie silence fell upon us. “--electrical room.”

The only light in the room came from the blinking lights from the monitors. The large tube in the mammoth room was giving off a glow strong enough to make the room bright enough to see wall to wall.

“The spiders cut the power?” I asked him. There’s no possible way they knew how to do that.

“They did something to it. Whatever it was, we are now powerless; with that information, I think we can all assume they somehow have stopped the flow of energy,” Dr. Kale said.

“But…they’re spiders! They can’t know to do that!” I said in disbelief. This was already in the realm of the impossible; it has now taken a step past that point.

“They must have felt the electricity flowing from the room. That kind of power must have been strong enough to draw the spiders to the energy it was producing.... Their intelligence is unrivaled among any animal species we’ve discovered. That may even include the species alive today,” he said and buried his face in his hands. “What have I done?”

“This building is full of people with doctorate degrees. Let’s hope we can, at least, out smart them,” I said. “Wait. How is the tube in the room creating light? The monitors here, there’s blinking. They’re still getting power?”

“The computers are different. They’re getting enough energy to maintain all crucial information stored and the mammoth alive, but they are unusable for us. The most important parts of this facility are hooked up to an outside generator, in case of a power failure,” sounded his voice from the darkness next to me.

“If the computers are getting power, is this room also getting power?” I asked.

“No. This room is wired to the building,” he said.

A horrible thought hit me.

“How are we going to get out of this room with no electricity? Or how will Darren and Justin reach us with no elevator?” I said.

“This room has an emergency latch we can pull, but it’s a hell of a drop and it will hurt,” Dr. Kale said. “As for the elevator, there are stairs the lead to every floor, but if the spiders are as smart as I know they are, they’ll be there waiting.”

“The stairs will be funneling their meals to them,” I said and rubbed my eyes trying to think. “So what you’re saying is that we are just S.O.L.?”

“Let’s just see if Darren and Justin can get here. Then we’ll deal with getting to the weapons,” Dr. Kale said.

“Okay, so a freshly-hatched spider killed a grown man with ease. I’ll chalk some of that up to the element of surprise. But, honestly, how much trouble are we in, here? Are spiders as aggressive and dangerous of an insect as I fear that they are?” I said.

“As I stated before, you might as well forget all that you think you know about spiders. Besides their appearance, there’s not much in common. In fact, their appearance is pretty much where the similarities end. Besides my friend who found the egg, who is smoking freaking hot by the way, I know more about these creatures than anyone on earth,” Dr. Kale said.

“Not the appropriate time to be discussing the physical appearance of your friend. Who I highly doubt is really your friend,” I said.

Dr. Kale shrugged. “A lonely scientist can have friends.”

“Okay, so let us make this easy. In your barely-professional opinion, are we screwed?” I said.

“Oh, God, yes. We are the epitome of boned. More so than I can express to you,” he said.

I sat down on the floor with a frustrated sigh and pulled my phone back out, but there was no service.

“My service is gone,” I said, and flipped my phone open and closed a few times to try and get it to work.

“Well yeah, it’s not like we are anywhere near phone towers out here in the middle of the Pacific Ocean. The only service you got was because of the system we had set up here. So no electricity means no phone system, which then means no phone service.”

“Yeah, I should have figured that,” I said and shoved my phone back in my pocket.

“We’re alone on this island,” Dr. Kale said in a hushed voice.

We sat in silence for almost an hour; the lack of Justin and Darren rushing in to save the day was starting to weigh on my nerves.

“Is there something spiders hate we can use to our advantage? Some type of chemical or smell?” I asked him. Talking and planning always calmed me down. If we’re forming a plan, no matter how ridiculous it was, I’d feel better while we wait. “Guns might not be enough, especially since we’re probably not the best shots.”

“I’m not sure; I mean, we have bug spray. Maybe that would help?” Dr. Kale said.

“Peppermint oil,” I said.

“What? Are you serious?” Dr. Kale asked and then scoffed.

“Spiders hate the smell. I think. If you add some to water and spray your home, it keeps spiders out. If we have any here, we can use it to cover ourselves. Then we can move freely without getting attacked!” I said. “Tell me you have some!”

“I mean, uh, we might? It would be in the pantry in the kitchen. We keep everything we don’t use on a daily basis in there. But that’s down on the last floor, the same floor as the electrical room,” he said. “Do you think it could work? I have my doubts; remember these aren’t the same spiders we have in today’s world. What works on our spiders means nothing when it comes to this species. I feel like you’re struggling to comprehend that.”

“Do you think we have a chance of surviving if it comes down to our skill with firearms?” I asked him, knowing we would be dead if it did.

“Well, what’s the plan? We’re safe in here. There’s no reason to go gallivanting around the building trying to hunt spiders! We can sit here and wait for the boss to save our asses,” Dr. Kale said and leaned back in his chair.

“Our help won’t even know what they’re walking into! With fourteen of these spiders the size of cars roaming around, our rescue could be torn to shreds before the actual rescuing-part takes place. On top of that, there is one hundred plus people here unaware that gigantic, murderous spiders are wandering free! Thanks to you! The guy who wants to stay locked in his little room!” It took all I had to not beat him with the chair he sat in.

“We’re not heroes! We’re not fighters! We are scientists. We think and create. We. Do. Not. Act. What we are is dead if we leave this room,” he said.

“This is your fault, you coward! You’re not going to let all those innocent people die while you’re hiding like a bitch! This is your facility; you are the leader here. You’re in charge! AND you did this! The spiders would be sitting harmlessly on their eggs if it was not for you, and no one here would be dead. However, that’s not the case. This is real, and someone has died. More will die if we don’t do something. Once Darren and Justin are here, we are going to go out there and help. If you don’t get us out of here and help me do something, so help me, God, I will drag your ass out there and feed you to the spiders piece by piece!” I took a step toward him.

“Holy geez, dude,” he said, standing up and walking to the corner of the room. “That was dark.”

“It’s going to get a lot darker if you don’t do something,” I threatened.

“Yikes, alright,” he pulled a hidden lever on the wall.

The floor dropped out from under us, and I meant that literally. It wasn’t a complete free fall, but it wasn’t a slow drift toward the ground, either. The floor hit the ground hard, hard enough to knock me off my feet and drive all the air from my lungs. I was lucky I bent my knees before the impact, or the landing would have been much more disastrous. For a solid minute, Dr. Kale and I were both crawling around the floor gasping for air.

“You’re a dick,” I was able to cough out.

“You said we had to do something,” he snapped back.

“Right now we’re sitting ducks. Monkeys in a barrel. Pie in the oven. We should have waited for Darren and Justin,” I said and tried to stand up without losing my balance.

“Oh, yeah, that’s a good point,” he said, brushing himself off. He mouthed “pie in the oven” and tried to shake off whatever he was thinking. “You’re kind of crazy.”

“I’m crazy?! You just dropped us from a protected room far above the ground into the open with man-eating spiders running around! You are--” I started, but a sound stopped my from telling him what he was.

A soft tapping echoed within the room. We shot each other a perplexed look and froze.