This Book is Full of Spiders (52 page)

Amy opened her door and yelled to them, “We’re the good guys! Don’t shoot!”

John said, “Look! What the hell?”

Something was going on with the face of the dead spaceman on the hood of the truck. One of his eyes was twitching. Then the eye started pushing forward out of his skull, oozing out like a snake. The other eye did the same.

Amy said, “What? What is it?”

Out from the spaceman’s dead skull crawled two spiders, each as thick as a bratwurst, each covered in tiny legs, each ending in a single, lidless, human eye.

From outside the truck, I heard glass breaking. Faceplates on dead spacemen were cracking and bursting open. Out from each crawled a pair of the eye spiders.

John yelled, “OH FUCK! TENNET TELL THEM TO BOMB THIS! RIGHT HERE! NOW! SHIT!”

The spiders raced through the grass, toward us. And there was Amy looking right at them, out of her
open
door, because she couldn’t see them.

I lunged across her and pulled her door closed right as one of the spiders leaped, wedging itself into the gap at the last second before I could get it all the way closed. Amy screamed, because
now
she could see it, now that the thing was writhing in the gap of the partially closed door a foot away from her face. Its legs were thrashing as it frantically tried to press its way inside, the single, human eye twitching, looking all around the cabin of the truck.

The hood man’s eye spiders had crawled onto the windshield. Others had joined them, the skittering parasites hopping onto the truck, running across the hood and windows. Soon a dozen disembodied human eyes were staring in at us, hungrily looking for new skulls to occupy.

They skittered over to Amy’s door, toward that few inches of gap the first spider was holding open with its body. They crowded around and started forcing their way in, a mass of disembodied eyeballs on black parasite bodies. I pulled with all my strength, trying to crush the little bastards. But they were too well armored and I wasn’t strong enough.

One finally pushed its way in, flipping onto Amy’s lap. She shrieked. Another followed it. Then it was a torrent of the squirming creatures, pouring into the cab of the truck.

One leapt at John’s face. He caught it, cursing.

Falconer, who couldn’t see the invaders but who could easily guess what was happening, yelled, “OPEN THE MIC! OPEN THE MIC AGAIN!”

John, fighting with the parasite trying to burrow into his face with one hand, found the loudspeaker button with the other. Falconer pressed the button on his gadget. The hum filled the air. The spiders shrieked.

One by one, they exploded, splattering the interior in a spray of yellow goo.

Finally, the pained shrieks died, and all that was left was the soft drumming of the rain.

I wiped eyeball spider guts off my face.

John said, “Seriously, just, right here. All the bombs. Right here in this spot. We’ll wait.”

I said, “I agree.” Amy was too traumatized to say anything at all.

But to John, Falconer said, “
We’re running out of tim
e. Drive.”

He did.

12 Minutes Until the Aerial Bombing of Undisclosed

John rolled over bodies of spacemen—going out of his way to do it, it seemed—and rolled past the carnage of the pitched battle that had been raging just minutes ago. He knocked aside REPER vehicles and pushed through the damaged barricades on the highway. The mob in front of us fell silent, parting as we rolled slowly into town, into the blast zone of the bombs that even now were riding in the bellies of planes just over the horizon.

“That’s far enough.”

John stopped, and Falconer yanked Tennet out of the truck. He reached back into the cab and grabbed the mic for its radio and pulled it as far as the little coiled wire would let it. Falconer put his gun to Tennet’s head and said, “All right, shitbird. This is ground zero. They drop those bombs, you get flash fried just like the rest of us. Now get on this radio and tell them to
abort
.”

Tennet looked at him with genuine disdain. “What you are threatening me with is the
best-case scenario
if I fail in my task. How are you failing to understand this?”

A huge, blue, extended-cab pickup truck emerged from the crowd in front of us. It had a wood chipper in the bed, and out from the driver’s seat stepped a guy in a cowboy hat and absurdly tight pants. From the passenger seat emerged Owen, still in his quarantine-issued red jumpsuit. The cowboy had a shotgun, Owen had his pistol. They looked like the stars of an eighties’ era show about loose cannon undercover cops. Called something like
O-Funk and the Cowboy.
From the backseat of the pickup stepped Dr. Marconi. I tried to imagine the conversation the three of them had on the way over and my brain just spat out error messages.

To me, Marconi said, “I managed to convince them that, despite their differences, they also have a great deal in common.”

The Cowboy hurried over to Falconer and said, “Holy shit. You got the son of a bitch. I owe you a twelve-pack, detective.”

“It’s not over yet. The bombs are coming and this asshole won’t call them off.”

Owen spoke up and said, “Why don’t we start feeding his feet into the fuckin’ wood chipper, see if that changes his mind.”

Tennet said, “All right, all right. Give me the mic.”

Falconer handed it to him. Tennet yanked, ripping the wire out of the console, and tossed the mic onto the ground.

Falconer growled, smashed the butt of his gun into Tennet’s face and threw the man to the ground. Falconer followed him down, straddling his chest, punching him over and over.

I said, “Should we, uh, stop him?”

John said, “Nope.”

9 Minutes Until the Aerial Bombing of Undisclosed

Marconi walked up and said, “Why do I have the feeling I am not going to receive my consultant’s fee for this project?”

I said, “Everybody is so freaking
droll
today. Jesus.”

John said, “Well, what the hell do we do now?”

To Amy, Marconi said, “You have one of those fancy cell phones, correct? One that can capture video?”

She said, “Yep,” and pulled it out.

“You have a signal, correct? And access to the Internet?”

“Sure, sure.”

Somebody in the crowd said, “Look! There’s a plane! To the north! They’re coming!”

I turned. There was a speck in the sky, that even from this far away I could tell was not our friendly Predator drone coming back to rescue us somehow. Not sure what it would have done anyway. This was a big bastard, with propellers on the wings, one of the big cargo planes you always saw on the news hauling troops back and forth to the Middle East.

Marconi asked, “And you can stream video? Meaning you can capture video and upload it live?”

“Yeah. What am I recording?”

Marconi sighed and said, “Our deaths.”

8 Minutes Until the Aerial Bombing of Undisclosed

I said, “What?
That’s
your plan?”

He stuffed his hands in his pockets and gave me a sad look through the rain.

“What’s that around your lady friend’s neck?”

I didn’t have to look at her to answer. It was always there.

“What, her necklace? The crucifix?”

“Think about it. What I said before, back at quarantine. The—”

“
The Babylonian Bureau
. Yes. Goddamnit we don’t have time—”

“The sacrifice, David. That is how mankind overcomes the Babel Threshold. Our little tribal circles, bound by social contracts and selfish mutual need. Everyone working in their own greedy self-interests and huddling together with their tribe, at war with all those outside who they regard as barely human. What breaks a human mind out of that iron cage of mistrust, is a sacrifice. The martyr who gives up everything, who abandons all personal gain, who lays down his very life for the good of those
outside
his group. He becomes a symbol all can rally around. So instead of trying to make a selfish, violent primate somehow empathize with the whole world, which is impossible, you only need to get him to remember and love the martyr. As one is forgotten, another must replace it. Unfortunately, as I feared, today that is to be us.”

The plane grew on the horizon. Two more appeared in the distance behind it. I could hear the ever-so-faint buzz of its engines. Appropriately enough, they sounded like bees. Just like Tennet had said. A swarm of bees, attacking a … hamburger I guess.

Amy was staring at me, eyes wide. Owen and Cowboy looked befuddled. Falconer was standing over an unconscious Tennet, his fists bloody, eyes defiant.

7 Minutes Until the Aerial Bombing of Undisclosed

John said, “
Fuck
that bullshit. Everybody in the truck, we’re heading out.”

Marconi said, “So we ride to safety, while the tens of thousands who remain in the city behind us burn? And then what? We drive out across the buffer zone outside those barricades, and a few miles later you will meet another, larger barricade, manned by the U.S. military. Martyrdom isn’t something you choose. It is thrust upon you.”

Amy said, “Oh! Wait! Ohmygod it’s so simple. We just—okay, we just have to get to an open area. Between us and the plane, so he sees it—the cornfield! Everybody go to the cornfield!”

To John, she said, “Get on the, uh, the speaker thing in the truck! Tell everybody to go to the cornfield!”

We didn’t need to tell anybody anything. Hundreds of people were flowing past us, through the ruined barricades, the city draining out through the highway like water.

We piled into the truck, managed to get it turned around without running over a dozen people, and rumbled off toward the cornfield.

On the way, Amy said, “The plane! Oh God I can’t believe I didn’t think of this! It’s flying low, under the clouds! We can see it! So it can see us!”

“I don’t understand how that—”

“The pilot thinks we’re zombies. We just have to show him we’re not.”

5 Minutes Until the Aerial Bombing of Undisclosed

We rumbled to a stop in the field, refugees of Undisclosed scattering past us, on foot and in trucks and on bicycles, heading off toward the second military cordon that I was pretty sure most of them didn’t realize was there. What did they think they would find out there? Their out-of-town loved ones, waiting for them with a six-pack? The president, with an apology bouquet?

John took to the loudspeaker and said, “WE GOT ABOUT FIVE MINUTES TO PULL THIS SHIT OFF, SO LISTEN UP. GATHER AROUND. WE ARE GOING TO SPELL OUT A MESSAGE FOR THE PILOT OF THAT PLANE UP THERE. HE DOESN’T KNOW WHAT HE’S ABOUT TO BOMB. WE ARE GONNA SHOW HIS DUMB ASS.”

We all bailed out of the truck. The pickup carrying Owen, the Cowboy and Marconi, which upon further reflection is totally a cop show I would watch, pulled up alongside.

I glanced nervously up at the plane and said, “Son of a bitch. We don’t have time, we don’t have time—”

John said, “It has to be something simple! Like ‘HELP’ or something!”

“WE DON’T HAVE TIME TO FORM FOUR FUCKING LETTERS, JOHN!”

Marconi said, “You don’t need letters, David. You need a symbol. One that man up there is sure to recognize.” Marconi nodded toward Amy.

John said, “Right! He’s right!” John ran off, stopped a group of women and said, “Stand in a line! Right here! Hurry! You! Over there! Stand here! COME ON, GODDAMNIT, WE NEED AT LEAST A HUNDRED PEOPLE! MOVE!”

* TRANSCRIPT OF AN EXCHANGE BETWEEN CAPTAIN PABLO VASQUEZ (SPEARHEAD), PILOT OF AN MC-130 H TALON II, LEAD AIRCRAFT IN OPERATION LEPPARD, AND COPILOT CAPTAIN LAWRENCE MCDONNEL (STALLION) AT 11:59, NOVEMBER 15TH *

Spearhead:
Loadmaster, we are six-zero seconds from primary payload release. Prepare to open bay doors, on my mark—

Stallion:
Hey, uh, take a look at the barricade area. On the road, the uh, highway—

Spearhead:
I see it.

Stallion:
We have a, uh, crowd forming, are those REPER?

Spearhead:
Negative.

Stallion:
Friendlies Evac should have been completed by—

Spearhead:
Negative, those are not REPER.

Stallion:
Jesus, are we looking at Zulus here?

Spearhead:
Affirmative, I’m seeing overturned vehicles and debris, it looks like the barricade has been overrun.

Spearhead:
Will the blast get them out there?

Spearhead:
Affirmative. Loadmaster, we are now three-zero seconds from primary payload release. Opening bay doors now.

Stallion:
Look. Down at the uh, that area to the east of the highway. In that field.

Spearhead:
Copy that, there is a crowd forming in the field—

Stallion:
Look. Look how they’re standing.

Spearhead:
Is that—

Stallion:
Look at the rows, they’re perfect rows—

Spearhead:
They’re almost forming the shape of—

Stallion:
It’s not almost. It’s perfect, it’s too perfect a shape—

Spearhead:
All right. This is—Uh, Command, this is Spearhead, do you read me? We, uh, I don’t believe what I’m seeing here, but we are observing a crowd of Zulus less than a kilometer outside of the target area and they are standing, uh, they are standing in the shape of a human penis. I repeat, the Zulus have organized themselves into a perfect shape of a human penis in an open field below us. We are looking at this with our own eyes.

Stallion:
They are not Zulus.

30 Seconds Until the Aerial Bombing of Undisclosed

We stood there, in the field, shivering in the rain, in the shape of the dick John had formed us into. Dr. Marconi was to one side of me, looking disapproving. Amy was in my arms, her eyes turned upward, rain bouncing off her glasses. She was praying.