The Void (5 page)

The Robins’ family screamed, trying to find a way out. Mr. Robins opened the front door and saw the black chasm reaching up to him. He closed it shut, eyes widening in disbelief, as he rubbed his mouth with a bloody hand. Helping Candy was out of the question. How could the paramedics or ambulances access their front driveway, when there was no driveway?

Upstairs, the door banged open, and Mrs. Robin’s children spilled inward, almost simultaneously. They saw their mother dangling in the air like a magician’s trick. Then she fell, six feet. She tumbled on top of them, Victor and Madeline all crashing on the hardwood. Candy’s desk and bookshelves and computer slid across the floor and smashed themselves on the other side of the wall. All the furniture began to move, hurtling through the room, scraping across the panels.

Partridge Robins came through the door, screaming. “We have to find a way out of here!”

“It’s not an earthquake?” Madeline asked. She teetered and tottered, maintaining her balance.

“We’re going under. No, it’s not a fucking earthquake! We’re being swallowed up by the sinkhole!”

“We should’ve left while we had the chance… we should’ve left while we had the chance,” Nancy wailed. Victor mentioned something about the attic window. They sprinted toward it. Partridge pulled down the stairwell from the ceiling and mounted it. Dust floated down like spices. All of them were in the attic now. Partridge kicked out a window. The glass tinkled, glittering the painted white walls of the house.

They were up on the roof, right below the edge line. One by one, they surveyed their surroundings, or the lack of it. The house was going down the void. The backyard bordering their neighbor’s fence was free of any fault line or breakdown of the soil that seemed to cave in. They had to jump.

Madeline held Victor in her arms. Partridge and Nancy glanced at each other. Nancy’s face was flushed, hair in disarray. She had a crazed expression on her face, and underneath that, a simmering ire. Partridge knew what was on her mind, and he felt a sudden leaden guilt fill his gut. But no matter how despondent he was, it could not compare with the brass bullets which were inside his first daughter. He had killed his own flesh and blood.

He had left their daughter on the living room floor without any help—he had left her to die. Partridge puked over the side of the house, raining last night’s dinner in a green stream. After he was finished voiding his stomach matter, he picked himself up, swiping a hand over his mouth. He spat the rest of the vinegary taste out and wiped his clammy face with his shirt.

“We have to jump,” Partridge shouted into the wind as he felt the house shudder once again.

“No, no, no—I can’t do this,” Nancy gibbered.

The jump appeared to be around twelve feet high from their spot. The landing looked rough. They had to drop down on the back porch or the soft grass of their backyard. Hopefully, it
was
soft.

“It’s not a matter of what you can or can’t do. Take Victor in your arms. Aim for the shrubs. Maybe catch the hedge as you’re falling.”

“No, please don’t make me do this.”

“It’s not the end of the world,” Partridge said, knowing full well what his wife was thinking.

“God is judging us,” she answered.

“No, he’s not. You can do this.”

“I’m tired. I’m just, oh so, tired.”

“We have to. For the sake of our kids,” Mr. Robins snapped. “Do you want our kids to see us fail?”

“No… but how could you?”

“What?”

Nancy was resolute. “How could you not know it was her?”

“This isn’t the time dammit!” he raged. He grabbed a hold of his son, hoisted him up, cradling him on his back.

“You killed our daughter—” she began.

“You don’t think I know that?” he groaned, blinking away tears.

“—she’s still in there!”

“I’ll get her, okay? I’ll get her.

“And Eddie, I—I saw him.”

“Ok, kiddo, hold still and don’t let go,” Partridge said, ignoring her. His son tightened his grip, afraid of the coming fall. “This is gonna be fun. At the count of three close your eyes, okay?”

“Dad, will we make it?”

“Of course we will, son.”

“What if we don’t?”

“We have to, or we’ll die. You want to die, Victor?” Partridge said, hating how cruel he had to be to make his son understand the gravity of the situation.

“No,” he said, mouth trembling.

“Okay, just be brave,” Partridge said as he crab-walked to the edge of the roof and got ready to leap.

“Don’t hurt us.”

“I won’t.”

“What about us?” Madeline cut in, regarding them with enormous eyes. “What about us? Don’t leave us here.”

“I’m not, Maddy,” he reassured her. “I’ll be back.”

“You promise?”

“I promise.”

Partridge Robins jumped off the peak of the building. He landed, two feet planted squarely in the lawn. The overgrowth and brambles had broken his fall, slowing him down. As he came to a rest, he set Victor on the ground. He viewed his house at the bottom and realized how different the perspective was to watch in horror the feeling of helplessness, of hopelessness, of all their life-belongings at the verge of being eaten away by the sinkhole, until there was nothing left.

All the memories gone in a single moment.

He needed to work fast or his wife and daughter would be gone too.

V

Overhead, a drone picked up signs of life on the rooftop and sent the feed to a hub center in West Virginia. In the main headquarters of the control room, men in uniforms watched the events transpire on the black and white screens, several hundred miles away.

Many had frozen looks of consternation. Others leered with excitement. Even more personnel prattled above hushed whispers, speculating as to what they were seeing. They observed in amazement as the figure in their thermal imaging camera showed him scaling back onto the house—the house which was ready to fall inward.

The man behind the controls, Ray Winsted, couldn’t believe what he was witnessing. He backtracked, toggling the joystick, so the drone flew by over the house on Maple St. again. Inside the window of the leaning house, a shadow drifted across the rectangular glass pane. Humans showed up as a fuzzy, grayish color. This figure was pitch black, blacker than even its environment.

There was intelligent life inside the home.

And the man, whom the agents had worked together to determine his name to be Partridge Robins, was clambering back into the shattered attic window.

VI

A ladder.

Partridge had found a ladder in the garage and retrieved it, placing it against the side of the craning house. He climbed up, almost stumbling and tripping on his shoelaces. He was the only one with shoes on, since he had fetched his loafers at the front entrance before running up to his wife. He was doing the same now, one rung at a time, praying to God the foundation would hold, that it wasn’t too old.

He made it to the top with a desperate sigh of relief. He had to get them off the house—that was the most important thing.

“Nancy!” he screamed up. “Nancy!”

The wife looked at him with an aloof expression. Her pupils expanded, muddy as a riverbed.

“Maddy, get down the ladder!”

She didn’t have to be told twice. She was up and over, scrambling down with celerity. Nancy was left now—only Nancy. She was staring into the hole, ever yawning and growing larger, spreading its fiendish mouth.

“Nancy!” he screamed again. “We have to go!”

They were still there, watching her. Those spidery looking beings with lean torsos and wiry arms that flexed along bobbing heads. They were clustered around the hole, three or four
(oh so many more)
manifesting. You could see right through them, an inky mass of—

Partridge shook his wife by the shoulders. “Snap out of it!”

She had a droopy look as she turned toward him; lips curled up to one side, she screamed all of a sudden, howling like a wounded creature. Spit slobbered down her chin.

“What the fuck is wrong with you?” Partridge bellowed, fancying a blow to her face. “We have to get down or we’re fucking dead. The house is almost gone!” And it was. Mr. Robins could feel the entire frame quivering, wanting to give up like a drug addict and collapse into the hole—the hole that stretched on for infinity to nowhere. “Nancy, we’ll die! It’s collapsing, it’s going under!”

“Then let it.”

Partridge felt like someone had slapped him.

“What?!”
”

“You killed her.”

“I’m sorry. I told you I was sorry.”

“You didn’t say shit,” she snarled. Lunacy was in her dilated pupils; a stark, raving mad woman who had slipped over the edge.

“I can never live with myself knowing what I’d done. But please, honey, we must get off. You have to live for me.”

A squealing groan echoed throughout the house, as the roots holding up the base of the foundation gave free.

“Why do I get to live?”

“What do you want me to do?” Partridge hollered, wobbling on his feet. Strangely, his wife stood erect. She appeared glued to the house frame. “Tell me what you want me to do.”

“Get her,” Nancy growled, saliva dripping from the corner of her mouth. “Get her body.”

“Okay,” he said. “Just get down off the house.”

She obeyed his order. He watched her till her feet settled on the soil. He waved.

“I love you,” he said. She didn’t respond back; she was taking care of Maddy and Victor.

Partridge took a deep breath and disappeared inside the house.

VII

The drone picked up the latest activity. After the father figure crept back, the house gave way. A loud, shrill scream could be heard from inside. The house finally gave way and tumbled into the hole.

Partridge let out one last bloodcurdling scream as he fell into the darkness with his daughter a few meters from his reach. He was screaming because he saw his daughter coming back from the dead, rising to her feet, but it was all just a dream, a slight hallucination in his broken, strained mind.

They were both falling now—and the end never came. It was interminable.

Overhead, the drone monitored the house disappearing into the hole and out of sight forever. What the drone could not see was the sliver of a smile spreading on Nancy Robins’ lips.

.

There were wide suspicions that perhaps the hole was created by an incendiary device, detonated with a blast as an attack on their home front. That belief was debunked when they saw it was natural and the sewage pipes running underground were intact and left out in the open, twenty feet below.

James Clifton knew terrorists had no part in creating the sinkhole, so when he heard orders from the top to investigate Tina Singh’s father, he was hesitant. He came out of his mobile unit command center and down the street of where the sinkhole was forming.

The first thing he noticed was that there was no transportation. All the automobiles were gone. The people on Maple Street woke up to their driveway empty and the parking garage door crumpled outward and their cars vanished in thin air. The first call to the 911 dispatchers came in around 5:43 am.

His name was Sheppard Singh, and he had a thick Middle Eastern accent.

“My daughter says she saw our car run by itself,” he said into his cell phone. The signal was being hacked by TSP, otherwise known as Terrorist Surveillance Program authorized by the NSA to intercept all calls without warning in the Maryland headquarters.

The dispatcher sighed and typed the info on the keyboard. “Your daughter said what?”

“Our car is missing. Do you understand? Someone might’ve stolen the car.”

“The car you say…”

“Every neighbor’s car. They’re not here.”

“Sir, what is the reason you’re calling? Are you in trouble? Do you need help?”

“The sinkhole, you know the sinkhole? Why are you so stupid?”

“Sir, please don’t curse at me or I’ll be forced to terminate this call,” the dispatcher said soothingly with an undertone of intimidation.

“You people make me sick. If I said there was a bomb I bet you’d be here in no time.”

The line chattered back to Maryland as the agents ears perked up.

“Sir, we’re doing our best here. Threats won’t help the situation.”

“I’ll say what I want,” Sheppard said, mockingly, into the phone. “You Americans come after all the warnings are too late, but never before to prevent it.” He hung up.

Messages were relayed to the nerve center in Washington D.C. as orders were given to investigate. .

II

In the morning light Embry’s wife, Hanna, stood in what remained of her garden. She saw the sparkling dew drops on the lawn and inhaled the fresh, crisp air. A wind picked up the scent of disheartening moldy stench from the sinkhole, which ruined the serenity of the morning. She looked across the yard to the outer edge of the hole to where the partridge house had once stood. Now there was nothing left other than a few loose timbers and bricks, the earth jagged and broken where the house had fallen into the void. She wondered why they still hadn’t been evacuated yet when it was clear the hole was unstable. Already the men in suits – agents who were plainly working for the government-were milling around, speaking in groups or whispering into radios as they swarmed around the hole and the place where their neighbor’s house once stood.

She glanced upward and noticed something strange. The azure sky (with tinges of yellow) was filled with black dots that were moving. She shielded her eyes and tried to get a better look at what they were. The last time she’d seen anything like that was in the basement of her home. Her eldest son had yelled up at her, screaming
spider spider spider!

She had gone down to see what the fuss was about and, in the corner of the ceiling, she noticed a mother spider had laid eggs and the sac had broken open, revealing millions of little squirmy arachnids scurrying and climbing up and over each other.

The spiders in the sky weren’t little or small or childlike. They were all the size of golf balls, some even larger. They were thousands of these critters, hanging in the air, the thin thread of cobwebs arching across the canopies of the elm and the lamp post and the electric poles. These large marker-shaped spiders roved the sky, crawling back and forth, as if they were onyx oil paints with long draping legs.

A sparrow flew across the horizon and became trapped in the netting. It fluttered its wings trying to pry itself off the sticky, gossamer web, entangling itself even further. Twenty large spiders banded together, covering the entire bird with their hairy, black bodies. The sparrow trilled once, a sharp penetrating shrill that seemed to beg for help, then was silenced.

Instead, what was left of the sparrow was its mangled body, de-fleshed and without its feathers, its bone gleaming in the sunshine like bath salt. The body dangled in the sky. Shuddering, Hanna rubbed her eyes in sheer disbelief at what she had seen. The spiders as one started to fall, jettisoning from webs in perfect synchronicity.

It was raining spiders.

III

Chaos.

That was the word which entered Clifton’s head as he pulled up on the edge of Maple Street. He thought he had seen it all, but spiders falling out of the sky were something else. Although he didn’t have arachnophobia by any means, he still felt his flesh crawl at the sight of them. Despite reports to the contrary, he still suspected it was some kind of terrorist attack; some new biological threat which had somehow been hidden from them. Clifton fastened his black jacket, slipped his handgun into the holster under it, then climbed out of the car and jogged to the makeshift command post that had been set up midway down the street. He was grateful as he approached that someone had decided to put up an awning over the myriad of computers.

“Who is in charge here?” Clifton said as he strode into the tent.

“I am. I’m special agent Grimshaw,” replied a thin waif of a man sporting horn-rimmed glasses.

“Not anymore. You answer to me now,” Clifton shot back, giving the thousand yard stare.

Grimshaw nodded and turned his attention back to the piece of machinery that he was configuring on the table.

“What the hell is that?” Clifton said, watching the man as he worked with precision at the machines innards.

“Drone. I was about to send it down into the hole, but I guess now that’s up to you to decide…sir.”

Clifton noted the tone of Grimshaw's voice, but let it slide. He had bigger fish to fry.

“Go ahead and send it down, I was briefed on the way here. Anything else to report in the last twenty minutes?”

Grimshaw shook his head. “No. We have men evacuating the houses this morning after the one that was swallowed by the hole overnight, and a spider wrangler on the way in to have a look at these damn things that are falling from the sky. We emailed him over a photograph of one and he almost blew his load right there and then. Completely new species he says. He should be here soon.”

“Good work. What about that thing?” Clifton said, pointing to the semi-assembled drone on the table. “What will it be able to tell us?”

“More than any man could,” Grimshaw shot back. “We need it down there to gather data; there have been reports of… noises down there.”

“What kind of noises?”

“I’m not sure, sir, that’s what we intend to find out.”

Clifton rubbed his temples, trying to stave off a headache which he knew was on its way.

“How many men do you have here with you, Grimshaw?”

“Just eight, sir, including me.”

“Understood. I’m going to make a few calls. Within the hour, we will have a full military presence. I don’t want the public panicking and throwing themselves down that damn hole in the ground.”

“Most of them are scared enough to leave without resistance, sir.”

“Good work. I want regular updates as you get them.”

“Excuse me, sir, but I was under the impression that you were staying here to oversee the operation?”

“I am,” Clifton said. “But first, I’m going to go and stop that kid that’s standing on the edge of the hole from falling in.”

Grimshaw looked up from his work and saw Morgan standing on the edge of the hole, holding an empty jar in his hands. Clifton felt a tugging in his guts as he looked at the kid. For all the chaos, all the shouting and screaming, he looked at ease and serene, and Clifton wanted to know why.

“How long until that drone is ready to go?” Clifton said, not taking his eyes off Morgan.

“Twenty minutes, tops, sir.”

“Be ready. I want that thing down in the hole as soon as it’s operational.”

“Yes, sir,” Grimshaw said, but Clifton wasn’t listening. He was already striding towards the edge of the hole, shoulders hunched and collar tight against his neck as the spiders continued to fall.

IV

“Something’s wrong,” Morgan whispered, staring into the dark.

He had already sent six spiders down into the hole, but whatever was down there was still moving. He frowned and looked into its black depths. All around the street, people were panicking as the men in suits ushered them out of their houses. He thought he heard his mother calling to him, but he couldn't answer. Not yet. He had to concentrate. He took the jar, the big one that he had been saving for a day like this and held it up, the murky glass diffusing the mid-morning sun. Inside, the enormous goliath bird-eating spider waited, watching Morgan as he readied to send it into the hole.

Morgan closed his eyes and whispered the words – the words that he knew but didn’t know why— and then leaned over the hole and was about to drop the jar when a voice startled him from behind.

“What are you doing there, son?”

Morgan turned, frowning as he sensed whatever was in the hole growing restless.

“Nothing,” Morgan said, lowering his eyes and clutching the jar to his chest.

“What you got there?”

“I’m not supposed to talk to strangers, mister.”

“I’m not a stranger. My name is Clifton. I’m here to help you.”

“You can’t help,” Morgan said as he flicked his eyes towards the hole.

“Oh, I don’t know about that,” Clifton replied, smiling warmly at Morgan. “You see, I work for the president of the United States. It’s my job to fix problems like this.”

“It doesn’t matter,” Morgan said, and Clifton saw the first flickers of fear in the boy’s eyes. “They’ll get everyone, eventually.”

Clifton felt his heart rate increase, and it wasn’t because of the screaming people or the spiders which still fell from the sky, it was because of this enigmatic child. “What do you mean, son? Who are they?”

Morgan didn’t answer, and he didn’t have to. He shifted his eyes towards the hole, then back to Clifton.

“Someone down there? In the hole? Is that what you mean?”

“They’ll get us all eventually. You know that, don’t you?” Morgan said.

Clifton wasn’t sure if it was the resigned way in which Morgan said it or the haunted look in the boy’s eyes, but Clifton felt a ripple of fear surge through him which he hadn’t experienced since his last tour of Iraq. The ground shifted slightly as the hole widened even further. Clifton saw that the heel of the boy’s shoe was now hanging over the sinkhole.

“Why don’t you come away from the edge of the hole there, son?” Clifton said, trying to ignore the wet, slithering sounds coming from inside.

“I’m fine,” Morgan said irritably. “They can’t hurt me.”

“Who can’t? Come on kid, talk to me.”

Morgan looked Clifton in the eye then, and he wasn’t a child. His eyes were deep and serious, and the five words that he uttered, Clifton believed entirely.

“You’re all going to die.”

Clifton stammered, caught without words for the first time in as long as he could remember, and was struggling with how to respond when the man jogged across the lawn from the house bordering the hole.

“What’s going on here?” Embry said as he nodded at Morgan, and then shifted his gaze to Clifton.

“I’m just trying to get this child to safety,” Clifton shot back, glaring at the man who had interrupted them.

“Looked more like an interrogation to me,” Embry said, flinching as a spider floated past his face.

“I was asking him some questions. I’m with the government.”

“And that gives you the right to harass kids?”

“Are you the child’s father?”

Embry glanced at Morgan, who pleaded with his eyes.

“Yeah,” Embry said. “He’s my kid. Who the hell are you?”

“I’m in charge of this situation,” Clifton said, feeling his cheeks flush with anger.

Embry looked at the chaos around them, then coolly back to Clifton.

“Looks to me like you ain’t in charge of shit, buddy. You might want to concentrate on finding out why the earth is swallowing the street and why it’s raining spiders before you start harassing little kids.”

A deep rumble emitted from the hole, and a deep pungent smell billowed out. Clifton retched, and almost vomited, but when he looked up, neither Morgan or Embry had reacted.

“You don’t smell that?”

Embry and Morgan shared a quick glance, and then both wrinkled their noses, too.

“Yeah, who couldn’t?” Embry said, waving a hand in front of his face.