The lower half was like a grizzly bear; the person's head attached to their human torso bent backward, wobbled and scraped against the rough cement ceiling.
They were both oblivious to it, as if it wasn't there.
I stuck around for too long—shouldn't have come here in the first place!
"Mr. Robert," the girl said, turning around with him.
They really could not see it.
Staring wide-eyed at the tragedy unfolding in front of me, I opened my mouth but no words could come out of it.
Invisible hands were gripping my throat, strangling me.
I looked at the monster. It lowered its head to look at me, smiling hideously, baring its teeth.
Good, that's good.
Take me. Take me. I tried to say the words but nothing came out, just my lips forming the shapes of the syllables.
The monster continued to stare.
"What's going on?" Josh said. The girl clung to his arm.
My mind suddenly flashed to those news stories about stabbed and mutilated bodies found in dark alleyways but no DNA was recovered. I wondered if tonight was going to be like that. If I picked up a rock and throw at it, what were the chances it would leave them and come to me?
How could I know for sure?
Some rocks would not be enough.
What else was there to do but scream?
Hearing my voice, the beast crawled in my direction, its head leaving a trail of red on the ceiling faintly illuminated by the white glow of the laptop screen. Colossal shadows flashed across the walls as it moved. I could feel my hands shaking. My whole body was screaming for me to run. After all this time I still hadn't got used to the sizes of these monsters. They towered above us like a silhouette of an elephant with spikes coming out from below in all possible directions.
"Is something wrong?" the girl said as she and Josh slowly stood up.
The spider straightened its legs to elevate itself so that the couple could go through without touching it as they came in my direction.
The couple were standing over me. The spider over them.
My eyes could not stray from the beast.
Take me. Take me. Take me!
Using my arms as leverage, I dragged my body across the pile of rocks on my back.
"Stay here." He stopped the girl from coming toward me.
Only the spider was now following me, its figure hovering right above me.
Good.
Shk—
A pierced stomach. It quickly pulled out its leg after the puncture. I held my breath and kept crawling.
The face scraped against the ceiling, trailing blood in my direction. The spider raised another leg.
Shkk—
Another one.
"Mister Robert?" the girl called out to me.
"Run—" I said to them. The sharp taste and scent of iron assaulted my senses as blood filled my mouth.
If only they could see what I was seeing.
The spider tried to pull back its leg again—only this time my whole body was coming along with it.
How strange. I always thought that you were supposed to hold onto your prey to catch it. This prey was begging to be caught.
The leg jerked back with great force, like a steep drop on a waterfall ride—the kind where you straddled and sat on a piece of log with no safety belt on and had nothing to hold onto except the rails far off on the sides. The force of the drop was so immense, you couldn't help but get pulled along. Any resistance was meaningless. My teeth ground against each other, letting some blood slip out of my lips.
I was still hanging on to the thing somehow.
The air was only getting hotter around me. My arms were blanketed in a thick and heavy layer of moisture. My nostrils were inhaling the sauna air. Just where was it coming from?
For a fraction of a second, I thought I was hallucinating, because a red neon line just beamed across the entire room over my head, phasing right through the spider, before it disappeared.
I was right on the edge of the building. There was no half-wall or safety net behind me. One good push and the spider and I would drop six stories—21 meters—to the ground. No, the pavement. 20.85 meters, give or take, depending on which part we landed on.
You will not touch them. It's just you and me.
Using my feet as leverage, I pushed against the ground to pull the spider toward me.
It didn't budge.
The perforations in my stomach were tearing. This tug of war wasn't going anywhere since I weighed next to nothing compared to this monstrosity.
Like a spring, I flexed my calves and jumped back with maximal effort. The spider was leaning in my direction, losing its balance and toppling over. The impetus would be enough to bring both of us down.
I held my breath and braced for the fall.
But it never came.
The spider never lost balance.
It raised me toward the ceiling, slowly lifting me until its deformed human head and mine were the same level, so my feet were a good distance from the floor.
Its arm extended outward.
Now there was nothing under my feet. I was hovering outside the building, the empty pavement far below me. The sound of the city traffic suddenly became much more alive as the whole world started to spin.
The human on top of the spider was now eyeing its prey. Blood trickling down its badly grazed head. It bore its red-sunken teeth and smiled hideously.
I tossed my feet back and forth, trying to reach the ledge for another push.
The spider raised another leg and placed it right in front of my forehead. The tip was so sharp my eyes couldn't even focus to see it clearly.
This was how it would end.
It pulled its leg back, like an Olympic athlete getting in position to throw his javelin.
I refused to close my eyes. What was death compared to everything I had been through? There was nothing to fear.
But I was worried about them. What will happen to them if I die now?
No matter how many times I swallowed, blood continued to quickly fill up inside my mouth. The taste of iron only got thicker.
I thought the other two were calling out to me, yelling my name.
Looking into its bloodshot eyes, I waited for what was coming.
A thought was going through my mind over and over, like a sacred prayer.
Promise me you will leave them alone.
For a second I thought I saw a very small head movement, as if it was nodding at me.
Thkkk—
A dull thud, like digging a machete into a coconut.
I couldn't move.
The spider stood still, its hollow eyes staring—no longer at me but the city view beyond.
It was no longer moving.
Suddenly I was pulled back inside the building. The spider dropped on all its leg and fell to the side. Blood started to drip from its dangling head onto the rocks. As the human head limply turned, there was a cavity on the back of it—a very rough hole, with all the surrounding hair drenched in deep red.
A girl stood behind the spider. There was also blood on her hand—only the index of her hand. Crimson dyed the ridges on her finger joints.
I never would have thought she would come here all by herself.