Андреа Кремер - Nightshade

“So are we doing this or not?” Shay asked.

“We’re doing this,” I said, pushing away my doubts.

He shrugged off his pack and pulled out a headlamp. We moved slowly into the cave, the light from his lamp dimly illuminating the blackness. The tunnel seemed to lead straight back, but there was no indication that it ended.

When the light from the entrance was little more than a glimmer behind us, I froze. A strange scent hit me. I shifted into wolf form, testing the air again. It was there, distinct but unfamiliar, like a mixture of rotting wood and gasoline. I lowered my head and crept forward. Shay took a tentative step alongside me, sweeping the headlamp along the cavern floor. We both saw the bones at the same time. My hackles rose as I hunched closer to the ground.

Scattered across the cavern were the whitened remains of animals, mostly deer. I looked more closely at the piles of bones and shuddered. The immense skull of a bear grinned at me from one side of the tunnel.

“Calla.” I heard Shay’s fearful murmur just behind me at the same time that the scrabbling noise reached my ears.

My eyes darted around the space, but I couldn’t see anything moving in the blackness. The scratch of something hard on stone was getting closer. I whimpered and bristled. My eyes followed the light of Shay’s lamp as it moved back and forth along the tunnel floor.

I’d just taken another step forward when Shay’s cry of alarm pierced the tunnel. “Calla! Above you, move!”

I launched forward into the darkness, hearing something massive hit the floor of the tunnel behind me in the very space I’d stood just a moment before.

“Oh my God.” I heard Shay’s choked exclamation and I whirled around, snarling.

The brown recluse stared at me with three pairs of eyes that shone like pools of oil. Its long, thin legs were covered in silky, fine hairs and they quivered as the spider focused on its prey. I backed away, teeth bared, attempting to appear menacing despite my terror. The spider was enormous, almost the size of a horse.

Its abdomen pulsed as it watched me. I stalked from side to side, wanting to hold its attention. The spider skittered forward with startling speed. I felt the brush of one of its eight legs against my back as I barely darted out of its way. I circled, knowing that the arachnid was just behind me. I could hear the scraping of its limbs along the stone surface of the cavern. Heart pounding, I racked my brain for an attack plan. Wolves had no natural instincts about killing mutant insects. This creature bore no resemblance to the opponents I’d faced in the past.

I whirled to face the spider, having settled on an attempt to maim it until I found some way to strike a fatal blow. My abrupt about-face startled my attacker. Its first two legs reared up and I leapt, catching one of the limbs between my teeth and jerking hard. The spindly leg snapped in my jaws and I tore it away. When I hit the ground and faced it again, the six dark eyes glittered with agony. I stared at the immense beast, which twitched and quivered as it prepared to attack. Its silence was more terrifying than if it had been screaming at me.

The spider reared again, launching itself at me. I jumped to the side, but not quickly enough. I thrashed against the cold stone floor as the recluse pinned me down with two of its legs. I wrenched my neck, trying to fight back, snapping at its limbs and shuddering when the spider’s head descended toward my shoulder. The sound of my desperate struggle became a whimper when I saw its fangs. My jaws locked around one of its legs at the same moment the spider’s bite pierced my side.

A horrible thud was followed by a tearing sound and the squelch of gore. The spider bucked, releasing me, and I scrambled away. Pale, bluish liquid poured from large punctures Shay had made with his ice axes. With furious, determined strokes he brought the sharp spikes down on the spider’s unprotected back again and again. Maddened by pain, the recluse tried to turn on its attacker. I rushed forward and tore off another of its legs. The spider faltered. Its blue blood gushed along the cavern floor. The creature’s legs splayed and it collapsed. Shay ran to the front of its convulsing body, his jaw clenched as he brought the ice axes down between the spider’s center pair of eyes. The spider jerked one last time and then became still.

Shay drew a long, shuddering gasp and backed away from the corpse. His fingers wrapped tightly around the ax handles, veins bulging along his arms.

I sniffed the air again and listened, but the signals of imminent danger had dissipated. I shifted forms and turned toward Shay.

His eyes widened as I abandoned my defensive stance. “Are you sure there isn’t another one?” he asked.

“No, it was alone.” I rubbed my back where the spider’s fangs had punctured my skin. I could feel a trickle of blood, but Shay’s attack had disrupted the bite. It wasn’t deep, but it ached.

“What is it?” He shuddered, gazing at the immense spider.

“A brown recluse,” I murmured. “You can tell because it only has six eyes.”

His eyebrows went up.

I shrugged. “We just finished a unit on arachnids in AP Biology.”

“Calla. That is not a spider,” he moaned. “Spiders do not get that big. What is that thing?”

“It is a spider. But it’s been changed by the Keepers. They have the ability to do something like this. Alter the natural world. The recluse must be the last line of defense for Haldis should something get past the Guardians.” But which Keeper had created this beast I didn’t know—or when they might come to check on it.

“Killing it might have been a mistake,” I said. “It’s another sign that we’ve been here.”

“Are you insane? What did you want to do with it—grab that bear skull and try to teach it to play fetch?” Shay asked.

“Good point,” I said. “But that doesn’t solve the problem.”

He didn’t reply, staring at the lifeless arachnid, face ghost white.

“Are you all right?” I took a step toward him.

“I really, really hate spiders.” He glanced at his shoulders, as if expecting the offending creatures to be crawling there.

A wry smile tugged at one corner of my mouth. “For someone who claims arachnophobia, you dispatched that thing quite nicely.”

I glanced at the axes that hung from his hands; blood dripped from the sharp steel picks. “Where did you learn to do that? You moved like a warrior.”

Shay’s pale face brightened a bit and he flipped the ice picks in the air, catching their handles easily when they dropped back down.

A sudden throb took my breath away. I put my hand on my side, surprised to find blood still flowing steadily from the wound.

“Let me guess,” I said, trying to ignore the pain. “You went through a phase where you wanted to be a ninja or something?”

He shook his head, blushing. “Indiana Jones. I liked how he could use whatever was around when he got into trouble. You know, versatile.”

“There’s an Indiana Jones comic?” I raised my eyebrows at him.

“Yep.” He kicked the corpse of the spider.

“Ah.” I fixed a teasing smile on him. “So you’re also handy with a bullwhip.”

He gave a noncommittal shrug.

I turned back toward the dark tunnel ahead of us. “Well, I guess that’s good to know for the future.”

With wary steps we moved forward; I kept my eyes off the bones that lay scattered along the floor. My hand massaged the spider bite at my waist. The blood had finally stopped, but the ache at the puncture sharpened and seemed to be spreading. I stumbled on loose stones and Shay caught my arm.

“You okay?”

“Yeah. It’s nothing, just hard to see.” I rolled back my shoulders, trying to focus on our progression into the darkness. The air in the cave seemed colder; it wormed beneath my skin. Even with the aid of Shay’s headlamp I was finding it difficult to see, my vision blurring more with each step. The ground beneath my feet lurched and I stumbled again.