Kobe (23 page)

              She dives to get out of the way, and loses her flashlight in the process. The rock formation smashes on the ground into hundreds of pieces, blocking her in.

              "Underwood!" She covers her face with her forearms and rolls to avoid splitting stones. "Underwood fucking help me! There are huge goddamn spiders in here with fangs like fucking mastodons!"

              The earthquake stops.

              Bright light splashes the walls as she rolls onto her back. Shadows of several fierce spiders momentarily haunt her. She breathes in rapidly, choking on the musky air.

              The first set of legs taps gingerly on her ankle.

              '
Get up!'
Denise tells herself,
'how the fuck are you gonna make detective acting like a little bitch.
'

              She holds the air in her lungs and clenches her body tightly. The monster crawls up her leg, pressing down the corner of her pants.

             
'Slap it off!'

              Her fears materialize as one spider multiplies into many. Denise is paralyzed by terror once again.

* * * * *

              "Struttsworth!" Underwood runs toward his partner's voice to Detectives Marley and Daniels several feet away. The cops dig furiously at the stone, but before they can make much headway, spiders arrive from all directions. Circling them. Moving close in, and then backing away.

              Underwood and Marley attempt to stomp the miniature monsters, but the spiders are too quick.

              Daniel's ignores the arachnids and continues digging through the rubble hoping to save the young, female officer.

* * * * *

              Zed walks into Travis’ hospital room. “Hey, buddy, back as promised.”

              Travis floats in and out of consciousness, “hey Zed,” he says.

              Zed pulls a foil package from a plastic BBQ Pitt bag.

              “That looks real good,” Travis says in a choppy drug induced voice.

              Zed adjusts Travis' bed and pulls a table on wheels across the detective’s lap.

              “Sure is hoss, sure is,” Zed unwraps the meat-grinder. A little bit of shredded punk rocker, a dash of homemade barbecue sauce, and a few drizzles of deadly azalea honey. 

              Zed sits on the edge of the bed. He hands Detective Travis a cola first, to let him wet his whistle, then he pushes the hoagie filled to the brim with hard work and human flesh closer to the hospital ridden hero.

              The restaurant owner stays until his victim finishes the whole sandwich.

              “Now get yerself some rest,” Zed says, “you’ll be right as rain in no time.

              He walks out of the room and mutters to himself, “sweet dreams you fat fuck.”

Chapter XXIX

Excavation

              Alone on the cold ground, Denise holds her breath. The spiders push their pointy, segmented, legs into the folds of her uniform.

              A voice sings a haunting song from the ceiling, "hey pretty girl, I'm really glad to meetcha, I smell your sweet perfume and I'm afraid I gotta eatcha!"

              Every nerve ending shoots a tiny prayer to Denise's brain to wake her up from this vicious nightmare. Begging to protect the young officer, give her strength against whatever the hell is singing that song.

              The spiders continue to tickle. To press against her riot gear.

              To toy with her.

              Not a single bite pierces her flesh.

* * * * *

              Austin and Krystal abandon the shooting gallery for a nice stroll through the forest.

              Her hand is soft, delicate. Somehow, despite her athletic ability and hard work waitressing at the Pitt, she never develops a callus.

              Austin brandishes his flask of Zed's homemade whiskey, and swigs. "Want some?"

              "Are you serious?" Krystal stops walking. "How can you drink after last night? I've probably had three gallons of water and I still feel dehydrated."

              She presses on Austin's chest and pushes him back against the weeping willow tree. Her palms stick to the sweat of his plain white t-shirt.

              "I'm just not a sissy," Austin smiles.

              Her eyes are beautiful, everything about her is perfect. The main concern on his pickled brain is that she'll wrap those plump pillow-lips around his cock. He takes another long pull from the flask and makes a bitter face.

              "How's it taste?" Krystal moves her hands to his stomach, casually, keeping the rest of her body a foot away.

              "Like manhood!" Austin puffs out his chest.

              She rolls her eyes. "I think I'll pass," she leans in and kisses him on the forehead, "I'll be right here when you puke like a little bitch, though," Krystal takes his hand and leads him up a trail.

              "How'd you find me?" Austin asks.

              "It wasn't hard. Your Aunt said you were in the woods, so I followed the sound of gunfire. I know target practice is one way you like to relieve stress."

              "You heard that all the way from my house?" Austin stumbles. He looks down to concentrate on walking.

              "I have pretty good hearing," she says, "how do you feel?"

              "Drunk," Austin's focus drifts his glance from the ground to the firm muscles on Krystal's calves.

              "Don't be an ass," she says, "you know what I mean. If you want me to be your girlfriend you have to tell me this shit."

              "Why?"

              "Because I don't want it to get bottled up inside you," Krystal gets to a clearing at the top of a mountain and stops. Her neck is covered in sweat.

              "That's a helluva hike," Austin pants, "why the fuck'd you bring me up here?"

              "It's quiet," she looks around at the city below them. "No one can hear you yell and scream. Say whatever you want to. About your dad, about Katie, about Judd.

              "Whatever you need to get off your chest," she advances towards him, "I have no clue what you're going through right now, but I want you to let me in."

              Austin looks down at her boobs, "can you let me in?"

              She crosses her arms over her chest. "Look, I care about you a lot, but if you want to be my boyfriend, then it's more than just fucking."

              "Maybe we should go back to that," Austin gives her a sly smile.

              "Dude," she throws her hands in the air, "your dad killed Katie, one of our good friends. Up until her disappearance, she was at my house more than you were."

              Austin watches her arms flail up and down.

              "Tell me how you feel about that," she says, "let all that built up aggression out on the table. I don't want you to wake up one day and explode, or drink until your liver's the size of a golf ball."

              Austin pulls the flask back out, "how'm I supposed to feel?" He fidgets with the lid until he gets it open, "I'm pissed! And I'm mad, and I'm, ya know, just fuckin' pissed! He takes a swig and puts the flask in his back pocket. "I mean, what if I end up like that fuckin' psycho?"

              "Curt didn't raise you," she says softly, "Judd did. Didn't you think that Judd was your dad until, like, five years ago?"

              "It's still blood. He's still the man that humped my mom long enough to make a baby, even if he didn't raise me," the whiskey kicks in harder.

              "Nature versus nurture," Krystal tells him.

              "He killed her, Krystal. My own fucking mom, the woman that could've made my life complete, coulda made my whole world complete."

              "What?"

              "Yeah," Austin walks over to a tree with a V style shape. He sits down in the middle of the split. "I guess he caught her cheating, so he murdered her."

              "How'd you find out?"

              "Judd called me last night when my phone was locked up in the safe. He told me everything.

              "After that he said my dad was in the hospital and I needed to go talk to him. Curt confessed, even if he didn't have a tongue to say it.

              "No tongue?"

              "Yeah, I guess he cut it out himself. I asked him if he killed my mom, and the bastard said yes."

              "I'm so sorry, babe." Krystal walks over and stands in front of Austin, she rubs the top of his head slowly, interweaving his thick, golden locks between her fingers.

              "I want to stab him in the fucking heart!" He yells."I know my Mom was cheating, but he coulda just let her go, find a new girl. All these years I thought she was just a selfish bitch that cared about a guy more than me, now... everything's backwards."

              "He did it in the moment," she pets his face, "It was a crime of passion, and it fucked him up." Krystal's sympathetic voice purrs, but does little to comfort her boyfriend.

              "That's it?" Austin gnashes his teeth together and slowly stands up pushing her hand off his head.

              "No, that's not..." Krystal tries to correct herself.

              "You can't say that my mom fucking around enabled him to kill Katie," he leans against the tree, "it was two different ballparks, two different fucking sports! Katie was just a waitress he met at the BBQ Pitt who was trying to pay off her student loans."

              "I know baby," Krystal puts her around him but Austin falls back into the crevice of the tree. "I don't know what to do, but I'm here for you." She guides Austin's face into her cleavage, and Austin quickly puts his focus on her instead of his father.

* * * * *

              Skaggs paces around the sweet smelling cop. He gets on his knees and crawls out of her sight, taunting his vixen. He moves close to her trembling face and sniffs.

              The heat of her breath sticks to his cheeks, and the smell of mint mouthwash tickles the inside of his nose.

              "Hey little girl, it's really nice to meetcha," he whispers in her light pink ear. His tongue, rippled with white bumps hangs out of his mouth, dripping drool on her tight jaw line.

              Skaggs leans in and licks the sweat from her face.

* * * * *

              Detective Daniels tosses rocks over his shoulder. "Are you lazy jerks gonna help or what?" the thin detective turns around, expecting to see the two bums goofing off, but instead, he stares as Wolf spiders attach themselves to his partner.

              The spiders rapidly wrap Marley's fingers together with silk webbing, disabling his hands. The handsome detective falls on the ground as the beasts continue to tie him up.

              One of the creatures latches on to the iris of Marley's eye, blinding him, while some enter his mouth.

              Marley bites the spiders for survival, crunching their exoskeletons in between his white teeth.

              Two furry beasts pull one lip to his nose, and the other to his chin. His jaw plays tug of war with the Wolf spiders, but he loses and his mouth is open for entry.

              One arachnid wraps Marley's thick, red tongue in silk, constricting the organ until it turns purple.

              The spider locks its fangs deep into its dinner and decompresses Marley's taste-tester.

              Two other spiders crawl down the dark man's throat, choking him while more monsters burrow into his brown hairy flesh with their sharp serrated segments.

              Legs pierce through layers of fat and muscle until the carnivores drain the meat.

              The beasts split and divide his body like Thanksgiving dinner.

* * * * *

              Denise pants faster and faster, starting up like a lawnmower.  She unfreezes and rolls around crushing her four-inch captors.

              With her knife still in hand, she stabs blindly at shadows. The flashlight continues to roll away and the beam becomes less and less visible.

              Swinging wildly in the darkness, she hits spider abdomens, human legs, and a man's chest.

              Almost on her feet she kicks and spins.

              Her tirade is cut short when Skaggs grabs her hand and squeezes. Denise feels each of her fingers pulse rapidly. The loud crack of her bones splitting rings in her eardrums before reality sets in. On her knees, she screams as loud as she can. The knife drops on the ground.

              Skaggs presses the girl awkwardly down, twisting her body sideways. The pressure mounts up until her knee caps shift to her shins. Denise's bones pop out of their joints and break like twigs.

              Through all the pain Denise feels his hands massage her stomach and squeeze her breasts.

              He lightly scratches his manipulated fingernails across her tone abs, but stops at her love handle.

              Pain shoots from her neck as Skaggs pierces his fangs in. The sound of slurping weighs heavy against the chill of rapidly losing blood. Her eyes flicker.

              What feels like a million years of torture ceases as Skaggs thrusts his razor blades into her liver.

* * * * *

              Judd, Bert, and Officer Ellington go down a stone set of stairs.

              "These man-made?" Bert asks.

              "Yeah, they built 'em a long time ago," Judd says, "this used to be a hot spot until a couple kids died here in the seventies. After that, they abandoned it and broke the dam holding back the water. Still in pretty good shape though."

              "How'd they die?"

              "One kid, twenty-somethin' if I remember right, fell down a deep hole and cracked open his melon. The other one, teenager this time, got a stalactite through the chest."

              "Like a spike?"

              "Yup," Judd says, “just like a spike. They closed it down sometime in the late fifties.”

              "How'd you find it when you were younger, Judd?" Officer Ellington, a heavy set female officer asks.

              "The river dried up from time to time. The water would get low, evolution gave way. Only a handful of people know it’s here, well not anymore that’s for sure.

              "All these cops crawling around, place’s gonna be a goddamn zoo. I tell you what, we never went all the way to the bottom, most of us guys only got about a quarter down this staircase."

              "Too deep?" Bert asks.

              "Yeah. These tunnels go halfway to hell, Bert. Maybe even clear down to the devil's door."