The red mist settled at an even pace, like a cloud being pressed down over the entire planet. Zavier felt a white hot slash of pain across the back of his hand before he even heard the hiss.
"Chingada, Maisy!" he yelped as she sprinted around the back of the house and into the woods behind, low to the ground and hackles raised. He was wiping the blood off the back of his hand, wondering what spooked her, when he noticed the early sunset. Looking up he realized that it wasn't like a sunset at all, it more closely resembled the yellowish glow given off by storm clouds that are pregnant with an oncoming deluge. Zavier had a thought that he'd have preferred the yellow haze to this dangerous, foreboding red that was working steadily towards the ground.
As he watched he realized he could see a thin demarcation line at the forefront of the haze, like surface tension holding back whatever storm was riding behind it. As the surface got closer he watched it pass over the tops of trees, then houses. An odd fuzziness happened everywhere the film touched before snapping back into focus. Stepping backwards into the garage he couldn't help but hunch his shoulders as the redness worked relentlessly downward to noiselessly touch the earth.
Zavier looked down at his hands and realized that standing inside the garage did nothing to hinder the red mist, its ubiquitous glow could be seen even in the shadowed back areas of the garage. Everything fuzzed for a second and Zavier rubbed his eyes. A deep part of his lizard brain warned him that the problem was much, much worse than poor eyesight. There was an intensification of the glow that seemed to come from everywhere at once and was utterly uninhibited by scrunched eyelids. Indeterminate pressure mounted and a silent sound of cerebral static almost overloaded his senses until, with a final gasp of desperation, Zavier realized he could breathe again. He took a deep, steadying breath just as the red mist was pulled in all directions to be absorbed by everything around him.
No, not everything, Zavier noted. The not-mist was being pulled into everything living. The house wasn't absorbing any of it, neither were the vehicles in the driveway. He saw thousands of small streams flowing into the ground and he presumed they were going into the bugs, worms, and other miscellaneous creatures living under their home. He watched in fascination as his body pulled red mist in like an aura in reverse, then watched in concern as he saw multiple streams disappear into the corner of his garage behind the project car that had been a project a lot longer than it had been a car. As quickly as it began the last of the mist was gone and there was a dull, deep thud that could only be heard in the soul, signaling some unknown finality that could not be questioned. Zavier couldn't help but imagine a vault door coming shut over the entire world, his evolutionary danger sense wondering if something had just been locked inside with them.
He stepped outside again as the yellow glow of early summer returned, absent the peaceful feelings of a few minutes earlier. A loud silence blanketed the neighborhood. Not a single animal sound was present. Wind rustled leaves, distant cars were moving again, but there were no birds, no buzzing of pests, no barking of neighborhood dogs. Nothing.
And then there was a scream.
Zavier jumped in place and instinctively ran towards the backyard before realizing that the scream he heard wasn't human. It had the sibilant, high pitched scream of a mountain cat mixed with the chittering of an angry squirrel protecting its stash. He skidded to a halt as he heard frantic rustling in the woods behind his house. A new type of yowling joined the fray. In a split second the two sounds combined and the unmistakable fracas of a fight to the death came from just inside the woods - deep enough to not be visible, close enough that Zavier didn't want to be near it. He turned and sprinted for the front of the house, slipping and sliding on gravel around a curve taken too tightly. His palm and knees dug into the gravel as he lunged forward, hitting the button to close the garage door. He turned to watch as it came shut, making sure nothing followed him in.
A weight lifted off his chest as the door came shut. Family, safe, he thought, just before he heard the scrabbling sound behind him.
On instinct Zavier lunged to the side, right over the trunk of the non-working sedan. A ball of black spikes covered in what appeared to be coarse fur slammed into the garage door right where his torso had been moments before. The dent it left simultaneously shocked him into disbelief and triggered his survival instinct to keep his feet away from the floor. Jumping backwards, he rolled back onto the trunk of the car just as a skittering black shape shot from underneath the sedan, appearing in a flash then disappearing under the SUV parked right next to it. Zavier crouch-walked onto the car roof, ducking his head low enough to avoid hitting his head on the ceiling.
Sounds of carapace on concrete ticked around the garage, coming from multiple directions at once. A long, multi-jointed spider's leg reached up from underneath the car, probing tentatively at the trunk where Zavier had first jumped. He swiveled to look in all directions, not wanting to be taken by surprise. Adrenaline flushed through him in a wave and his skin started tingling as he saw two more sets of legs probing the hood of the car.
If I stay here I'm fucked, he thought, looking around for options. As gently as he could he stretched one leg to the roof of the SUV. With the grace of an early-40's man who has never performed gymnastics, he pulled himself onto the roof of the tall vehicle. Laying on his stomach to fit under the ceiling he pulled back into the shadows just as the creatures surged upwards on a silent signal. Three black spiders with bodies the size of basketballs moved in unison, their chitin-tipped legs leaving scratches in the paint of the car. They met on the roof where Zavier had been moments before, then instantly turned back-to-back. Horror struck him as one's multi-faceted eyes seemed to focus on him. With a twitch of its back legs the other two instantly turned and all 3 faced him.
They jumped in unison.
Zavier rolled backwards off the SUV into the gap between the vehicle and the wall, slamming into the extension ladder that was hung there. In a desperate bid he reached over his head and grabbed the ladder, hurling it into the gap above the SUV. Legs came bursting through the rungs just as it flew into them, the ladder and spiders sliding off the other side of the SUV's roof. The metal screeching of spiked legs scrabbling down the metal of the vehicle grated against his nerves as he sprinted around the front of the vehicle. Rounding the front he grabbed a hammer off the workbench and slid around the car bumper to the ladder that was now laying on the ground between the cars. He could see it bucking even before he turned the corner. He leapt, landing on the middle of the ladder, the crunch of a carapace under his boots echoing loudly in the small space.
His eyes went wide in horror when he saw the three spiders wedged underneath it, fighting to get out from underneath. Zavier wasted no time and slammed the hammer down on the closest arachnid over and over, smashing the body while avoiding the dripping mandibles. The other two grew more frantic and Zavier felt like he was standing on a bucking bronco, knowing full well that if he fell off this would definitely be his last rodeo. Suddenly both spiders stopped and, with two rapid quivers of their legs, communicated a plan. Zavier lunged forward just as both of them jumped in unison. The ladder flew upwards, carrying Zavier with it.
Zavier heard the pop of a shattered light bulb, felt the sharp pain of broken glass in his back, and had just enough time to watch the spiders scatter in opposite directions before the garage went dark.
Jumping onto the hood of the car again he reached to the wall and pulled a push broom off a hook. He winced as he reached, fiery pain and hot blood spreading across his shoulders. He turned in a slow circle, push broom held out in one hand, hammer raised high in the other. With how quick they were and their ability to leap he wanted to lock them down with the broom and use the hammer to attack their bodies. If both attacked at once the broom should, hopefully, hold one down while he swung at the other.
Quick skittering sounds moved towards the car then froze as the door leading into the house swung open. A fit woman in pajama pants, fuzzy house shoes, and a white tank top stood in the doorway holding a pistol in a two-handed grip, finger off the trigger. Her black skin was covered in nervous sweat and her hazel eyes rapidly swept the room, pausing on Zavier for only a second before sweeping the rest of the garage.