Object x, p.21
Object X, page 21
Finally, after inhaling as deeply as possible in one last desperate attempt to breathe, air made its way into Wendy's lungs. It flooded her body and expanded her tight chest to bring her back to life. Each passing moment resurrected her paralyzed limbs, while the seconds ticking by represented her mind gradually returning to full capacity. She started to feel like herself again.
Wendy watched all of the spider's long legs move. Its little feet tapped rapidly on the floor as it turned its body, like expert fingers across piano keys. She felt fear bubble in the depths of her stomach once more, but it wasn't fear for Tommy or the world that awaited them. It was personal fear. Selfish fear. Deep down, and for as abbreviated as it was, Wendy thought solely of herself.
The spider completed its quarter-turn to face her. Those eyes. God, she hated those eyes. She despised how they seemed to glow red in the dim light, adding to its already intimidating appeal. Its fangs throbbed. Its body moved up and down with its breathing. It wouldn't allow her to escape without taking everything from her, and she'd never felt more vulnerable than she did on her stomach in front of it.
“GET AWAY FROM MY DAUGHTER!” Victoria screamed at the spider over the commotion. The stunned disbelief from watching the creatures enter the gym was briskly replaced by loud panic.
Wendy parted her lips to speak. She pushed her fear away in favor of doing the right thing. She was the sacrifice that everyone needed. Here she was, exposed and helpless to the massive spider who'd clearly turned its attention to her from only a few feet away, but Victoria didn't recognize the situation for what it was. Victoria should've collected Annabelle and attempted to make her escape. Instead, she allowed her emotions to get the best of her, and decided to yell at the top of her lungs rather than react swiftly and silently.
And that's exactly why Wendy watched the spider look away from her, and instead quickly turn to face Victoria.
Wendy rolled onto her side to find Darnell holding her gun. It didn't take long for her to figure out that he'd hit her in the back and knocked the wind out of her in order to regain the firearm, and the motherly-side of her would be smiling proudly under normal circumstances when she saw Tommy punch Darnell as hard as he could in the thigh to try to defend her. She was also thankful that Darnell seemed too preoccupied by everything playing out around him to bother striking back at Tommy. The world was different now. People were less compassionate, and she wouldn't put it past a grown man to harm a child anymore.
She looked at Victoria to see the mother of two jump back just in time to avoid one of the spider's long outer-fangs that swiped at her while she held Noah in her arms. Jax had climbed to his feet and headed in their direction to presumably help, while Demetri ran for the doors leading out to the hallway that she planned to try herself. Richard was the only one who didn't react at all. He merely stood still, either crippled with fear, or perhaps accepting of his fate that the rest of them naively rejected.
The spider lunged at Victoria. Unable to use her hands, Victoria kicked at it out of instinct, trying to defend both herself and her baby by any possible means. Suddenly, the beast fired its black mist at her from its inner-fangs. It came out at a sixty-degree angle with unprecedented force and accuracy. It resembled something more of a strong hose blasting water as opposed to a low-pressure shower head, and Victoria's dramatic response foreshadowed the dire results of taking such a substantial amount of fluid directly to her face.
She dropped Noah and immediately reached for her face with her hands.
It wasn't how a mother reacted. Absolutely nothing on the planet took priority over a woman's four-month-old baby, but Victoria didn't seem to care about her child based on her reaction. Noah more screamed than cried after being dropped to the hardwood floor. The impulse to focus solely on herself took over for a woman who'd never put anything ahead of the safety of her children.
But when Wendy managed to make it to her feet and step closer to Victoria with the intention of helping tend to Noah, she immediately realized just how catastrophic the situation really was.
Victoria's face melted. The palms of her hands sank into her disintegrating skull as the spider's acidic-like mist ate away at her face. Wendy had never heard anything like Victoria's screams. Deep, raw, guttural cries of agony, unmatched even by the pain of childbirth, and incomparable to the level of suffering that most souls relate to death. No one should experience anything like what Victoria went through. It was a death far too cruel for anyone in this world.
Wendy realized that a quick death wasn't in the cards for Victoria when she watched her drop to her knees. The little of her hands that remained resembled talons. Her exposed fingerbones grasped at her face like claws, but there wasn't anything for her to latch onto her. The acid ate through her eyes. It eroded her lips. Her flesh collapsed like a wet paper towel, stripping her of one final chance to say her goodbyes to her family.
In one swift and brutal motion, the spider punched downward with its outer-fangs, and pierced one of them directly through Noah's tiny torso. His high-pitched wailing came to an abrupt end. Unlike his mother, the four-month-old baby was granted a quick and painless death in an environment where so many others wouldn't have the same luck, and Wendy was extremely thankful for that particular detail when she watched the spider jerk itself to the left. It tossed Noah up in the air like a football—spurts of blood gushing in all directions as his little frame slid the entirety of the spider's long fang before finally reaching the sharp tip—and thudded down against the hardwood floor on the opposing side of the gym. He'd sailed close to thirty feet in the air before crashing down on the firm floor.
A pack of rat-sized spiders swarmed Noah's small body and began ripping at his clothes.
Wendy looked back at Victoria. She didn't cry because she didn't have eyes. She didn't scream because she lacked a mouth. She couldn't smell because her nose was gone. Her hands appeared fused to her face, a warped mixture of broken bone and rotten flesh. On the outside, Victoria didn't show any signs of suffering, but Wendy knew better. This poor woman was dying a thousand deaths.
Darnell stepped backward with the gun pointed in front of him and prepared to shoot. He didn't pull the trigger, though. He wouldn't until he was directly threatened either. He only had one concern, and it involved him getting out of this gym alive.
The massive spider turned to Wendy once again. Shadows of other arachnids danced all around her, but she couldn't look away from the one closest to her. Noah's blood dripped from its fang. It fell to the floor and collected like a puddle, mere feet from her trembling legs. She knew what awaited her. Her luck had run out, but she wouldn't make the same mistake that Victoria had. She knew exactly how to spend her final moment.
Wendy turned her head to locate Tommy in order to catch one last glimpse of the love of her life, but a deafening gunshot sent a debilitating boom through her brain. She closed her eyes momentarily in an attempt to clear her head and alleviate her ringing ears, but nothing helped. Was this it? Was this the end? Had she been shot but didn't even know it yet?
Wendy finally opened her eyes to see Jax screaming at her. She saw the passion in his eyes. His words were laced with fire, except she couldn't hear anything that he said. The intense ringing in her ears consumed her. It was all she heard.
She looked past Jax to see Tommy standing all by himself, trembling, and unable to find any relief when he looked around at the madness surrounding him. She begged her ears to work. Time. Her chances ticked away while she stood still, helpless without the ability to hear anyone or anything around her. She didn't have sixty seconds to wait to regain her senses. By then, it would be far too late.
“Wendy!”
Jax sounded a million miles away despite standing directly in front of her. Still, she heard him. The overwhelming ringing in her ears gradually faded as she listened to Jax yell her name again, but louder this time. Her head cleared. Her ears opened. It took what felt like an eternity, but Wendy finally felt like herself again.
“Wendy!” Jax shouted, clutching her shoulder with his left hand and shaking her roughly. “Wendy, you need to get Annabelle!”
Wendy looked around her. Tommy remained where she last saw him, Richard may as well have been a statue, Victoria was still somehow on her knees and presumably alive, and Annabelle stood frozen with a diaper bag back in her hands. The spider between the little girl and her dying mother was dead. Wendy located Darnell next to Tommy, struggling to pick himself up off the basketball court as he checked his nose and lip for blood with his fingers. Without any knowledge of what actually took place, she was able to assume that Darnell hit her in order to gain control of the pistol, Jax punched Darnell to claim the gun for himself, and shot the spider in the head before it was able to inflict any more damage. Jax also must've pulled the trigger right next to her head, because she still suffered from a ringing in her ears. Luckily, it didn't cripple her now. She could function. She could hold her own.
Wendy took a deep breath and dashed for Annabelle. She didn't look up or around. She ignored the rest of her surroundings just like she dismissed the pile of dead legs and fangs to her side as she moved, eager to prevent Annabelle from suffering the same fate as the little boy in the street from earlier. She could still do good in this world full of evil and betrayal. She could still treat a newly-orphaned child as one of her own.
She grabbed Annabelle by the hand and pulled her with her as she ran for her son. Tears poured down the young girl's face as Wendy peeked out into the rest of the gym by mistake. Human curiosity was a cruel trait which often resulted in more harm than good, and she couldn't help but feel that this was one of those times. Spiders were everywhere. They crawled on the walls. They flooded in from the open door that Amber had tried to escape out of, and scurried across the gym in their direction. One moment, she wouldn't see anything in the darkness, only to be greeted by a sea of long legs when she caught a different angle in the dim light. One wasted second would spell the end of everyone in this gym. It was now or never to make their escape.
Jax fired several shots at an enormous black spider that lunged out of the shadows.
“Mom!” Annabelle screamed as Wendy led her past Victoria and toward Tommy. Wendy grabbed her son with her other hand and started their dash for the hallway doors. “No, we have to go back for my mom!”
She wouldn't have the heart to explain to this poor girl that her mother was dead even if she had time to spare. Truthfully, Wendy didn't know if Victoria was actually dead. She was certain that death stood on the doorstep of the woman who didn't even remotely resemble the one who first sought refuge in this very gymnasium, though. It wasn't that long ago when Wendy found herself admiring Victoria's unique combination of beautiful red hair and stunning green eyes, but now the same face that inarguably left men smitten and tongue-tied everywhere she went, ceased to exist. There wasn't anything they could do to help her. Trying to bring her with them would slow them down and turn them into sitting ducks for the creatures crawling all around them, but she was sadly past the point of saving even if they somehow managed to accomplish the impossible.
Wendy took a quick peek back over her shoulder. She watched Jax point the gun at the back of Victoria's head and pull the trigger in order to mercifully put an end to her unimaginable agony, before turning to follow her path. She heard him yell at Richard to run, but the district superintendent still couldn't move. He simply stood and stared ahead like a deer in the headlights.
Darnell extended his leg out and tripped Jax as he ran by. He was sent sprawling to the floor, sliding on the freshly-waxed hardwood basketball court as the gun slipped from his grasp and settled out of his reach. He quickly rolled onto his back. It was a response fueled by instinct rather than reason, because logic proved how useless fists were against the dozens of spiders swarming inside the gym.
This time, Jax was the one who kicked out his leg when Darnell ran toward him with the intention of taking the gun for himself. Jax's foot connected directly with the school principal's midsection and sent him stumbling sideways. Societal structure no longer existed. Humanity was reduced to what equated to animals fighting over the slim chance to survive. It was kill or be killed, and only the most ruthless and cold-hearted would live to see tomorrow.
A spider pounced on Darnell and dragged him off into the shadows.
It happened again. Wendy found herself in another nightmare, eerily similar to memories that she expected to haunt her for the rest of her life. She felt it just as she arrived at the doors. Annabelle's fingers slipped away from her own. Five little fingers—each with a story to tell—slid out of her hand while Tommy's grasp remained locked securely in her own. It was the little boy from the street all over again. It was another innocent soul that she couldn't save. For the second time in what felt like minutes, Wendy allowed a child to die under her watch.
Annabelle dropped the diaper bag in her hand and ran off, calling for her mother over the sounds of Darnell's chilling screams. Wendy watched a spider plunge off the wall and land on Richard's back just beyond the path that Annabelle blazed. A second monster jumped in and impaled Richard with its fangs as the two spiders scrapped over their latest prize. Annabelle wouldn't find her mom. She would never have the chance to make it to Victoria. She would suffer the same fate as Darnell and Richard, and all because Wendy couldn't hold her hand when it mattered the most.
Hope. Wendy desperately needed it but questioned if it existed after all she'd seen, but that was when a miracle presented itself in a world of death and destruction. Jax swooped in like Elijah in the chariot of fire. He hurried to his feet, bending over to retrieve the handgun off the floor while simultaneously scooping up Annabelle in his opposing arm. The little girl kicked and pleaded to be let go to search for her mother, but Jax never slowed for a single second on his way to join Wendy and Tommy. The four of them escaped into the hallway together.
Chapter Fifteen
“But my mom! She's still in there! We have to go back!”
The hallway was completely black. The little bit of light in the gym didn't make it all the way to this part of the school, and neither adult had their smartphones with them. Wendy's phone was tucked away in her backpack of supplies, while Jax's phone sat comfortably on a table in the conference room. They couldn't see a thing. It was entirely dark.
“I have to go back for her!” Annabelle continued to plead as she tried to pull away from Jax. He didn't release his hold of her hand. “Hey, let go of me!”
“Listen to me, Annabelle,” Jax said, uncomfortable standing still in the hallway. The doors didn't lock without a key, and he didn't expect wood and glass to hold if any of those beasts in the gym tested them. Yet, he stopped to consult the distressed eight-year-old girl at his side. “We can't go back for your mom. I know that you know that too. If there was any way that we could—and I mean any—we would go back in a heartbeat, but we can't. I also know that she would want you to come with us. We have to get as far away from those things as we can, and we have to do it as quickly as possible.”
The darkness seemed to emphasize Annabelle's emotions. Her sniffles stung. Her cries burned to the core. Her little hand shook uncontrollably inside Jax's significantly larger grasp, and he found himself squeezing instinctively to try to settle her nerves. He wasn't naive. He understood what Annabelle saw. A little girl watched a nightmarish creature maim her mother beyond recognition and impale her baby brother in a flash, and the pain of her incomprehensible loss would hurt even more once her shock wore off.
“How do we get out of here?” Wendy asked, looking Jax's way in the dark, but unable to see him.
“We go all the way down this hallway and take a left,” Jax answered. “That's the lobby that connects to the front of the school. I think going that way is our best chance to make it to my car.”
Wendy knew the answer to her next question but still needed to ask. She also dreaded the response. “You're parked by the playground, aren't you?”
Much like Wendy, Jax didn't like their situation either. “Yep.”
The row of parked cars next to the playground was perhaps thirty yards from the gym door where a countless number of spiders immediately poured through the moment that Amber went outside. No one knew what awaited them outside. Had all the spiders already rushed in? Or was their encounter in the gym only a fraction of what remained on the other side of these school walls? There was no way to know.
Jax reached out to feel for the wall with the gun while Annabelle occupied his other hand. “It's warmer out here.”
Wendy noticed. She couldn't explain the reason for the sudden frigid burst in the gym. She also wasn't sure if she wanted to know. She did know one thing for sure, and that involved her desire to be far away from this school when whatever it was that caused those cold temperatures returned.
“Let's go,” Jax said, leading the way.
They walked in a line. Jax in front with the gun in one hand and Annabelle's hand in the other, a crying Annabelle behind him, Tommy trailing the young girl while holding onto her trembling hand, and Wendy at the back of the pack. Wendy opted to hold onto her son's arm rather than his hand. She'd seen too many families ripped apart tonight. They would make it through this, and she would watch Tommy experience all of the many ups and downs in a young boy's messy journey into adulthood. Did holding onto his arm for dear life make everything better? No, but she lied to herself and pretended that it did. Nothing could harm her baby if she protected him.
Their footsteps echoed in the long and silent hallway more familiar with the energy and excitement of schoolchildren. They walked like lambs to the slaughter, unsure if their next stride would be their last, and bracing themselves just in case it was. The immense darkness didn't help to conceal their terror. Instead, it heightened their fear of the unknown, and flooded their troubled minds with memories best left behind them. The sad truth was that those recollections would never fade. Some scars were too deep to ever heal.
