David Wong - This Book is Full of Spiders

Gunshots. Rapid shots, dozens of them. Gasps from the audience. I could barely see down there but I could make out people running out of the building, frantic. One lady fell down and got accidentally kicked hard in the face. Then, a man came out supported on the shoulders of two hospital staff, his right leg missing from the knee down. Or at least that’s what it looked like, keep in mind we were still far enough away that the door looked about the size of a postage stamp, and I was trying to look through a growing crowd in front of me. That’s why I can’t be totally sure about what happened next.

First, a man in a black SWAT outfit came running out of the building, screaming something. I couldn’t hear him from where we were standing but to this day John insists the man was screaming, “Run away!”

Then, shots. Loud, sharp, close. Next came the screams. Screams from every single human being close enough to the lobby to see what was going on. Three cops near the entrance ducked behind the parked patrol cars and trained guns on the sliding doors.

A man lumbered out.

Every gun barrel followed him.

It was Officer Franky Burgess.

He was wearing his cop uniform pants and a red shirt… no, that’s not right. It was a white undershirt, stained with blood over 80 percent of its area.

People crowded around, blocking my view. John craned his neck and said, “It’s Franky. Everybody’s got their guns on him, like he’s dangerous. Did he shoot all those people? Hey, move, buddy. I can’t see.”

Frustrated, John went to the nurse statue and, to my horror, climbed it. He got up to where both hands were on her shoulders, his shoes planted on her forearms. Florence’s face was planted in John’s crotch.

I waved at him. “John! Get down from there!”

“I can see him. It looks like they’re talking to him. I don’t see a gun. Oh, shit. Look at his arm. Dave, his right arm is broken. And I mean it’s almost broken at a right angle, and Franky doesn’t even act like he cares—oh, wait. Something’s going on…”

A cop voice from nearby said, “Get down from there! You! Get down!” John ignored him.

A burst of gunfire. Everybody ducked.

“They’re shooting him!” shouted John. “They’re shooting a lot! You can see bits of him flying off! He’s still up! Holy shit he’s—HOLY SHIT! He just grabbed one of the SWAT guys. He grabbed him by the ankles and is swinging him around like a baseball bat! He’s knocking the other guys down!”

“Bullshit! John, get down from there!”

“He’s biting a guy now! He’s eating him! A cop! He’s got him by the neck!”

“WHAT?!?”

More shots. Screams. Suddenly I was awash in a panicked current of swinging elbows and shoulders. John jumped down from the statue, and ran with the crowd, as fast as he could. Over his shoulder he yelled, “DAVE! HE’S COMING!”

I took two steps, and somebody slammed into me. My face bounced off wet grass. I climbed to my knees in the stampede. A woman nearby screamed at the top of her lungs. I spun and between running figures saw a shirt stained red with blood.

Franky.

Standing right there, left arm jutting grotesquely just under the elbow, blood dripping to the grass from a protruding shard of bone.

Police were shouting in the distance, commanding us to get down.

How did he beat them here? He cleared half a football field in five seconds.

Franky’s torso was riddled with puckered bullet wounds, leaking red. His chest heaved with excited breaths, his punctured lungs whistling with each inhale. The broken arm was moving, twitching, the bones tearing free of skin and curling like tentacles.

What the shit?

Cops ran into position. I saw one SWAT guy fumbling to cram a new magazine into the little submachine gun he had. They shouted orders at each other, and at the crowd. Franky opened his mouth, opening wide like a yawn. And just for a second, I thought I saw the face of the spider, nesting there behind his teeth, filling the cavity with its black body.

Then, the Franky monster let out a noise like I had never heard before. It was a shriek, like microphone feedback. But more organic and pained, like the sound a whale would make if it were on fire.

The ground shook from it. My bowels quivered. I think I shat a little. I saw people hitting the ground all around me, saw guns fall from the hands of cops. I clapped my palms over my ears as the pained shriek of Franky the Monster filled my bones. Franky’s back arched, his mouth opened to the sky, howling. Blood was spurting from a dozen bullet holes. It was the last thing I saw before the world swam away and went black.

I came to and sat up. People were standing around, nobody running. No sign of Franky. Some time had passed. The horizon was shitting a sun, casting a glow on a layer of fog that was settling in the low areas like puddles of ghost piss.

I saw John about ten feet away, on his feet but bent over at the waist, gripping his pants at the knees. He was blinking, as if trying to focus his eyes.

“John? You all right?”

He nodded, still looking at the ground.

“Yeah. I’m thinkin’ that sound he made melted our brains. Did they get him?”

“Don’t know. I just came to.”

A white truck pulled up with a dish apparatus on the back. It had a TV station logo on the side. We were about to be on live TV. I tried to fix my hair with my hands.

Hospital staff in aqua scrubs were walking people back into the building. It looked like every policeman in the state was here, taking statements from people. I realized John and I should probably get going, before we got asked a bunch of questions that, once again, we didn’t have any non-crazy answers for. Not just about tonight, but everything. I turned toward John but John wasn’t there anymore. I went looking for him, giving one pair of cops a wide berth along the way. I thought about just going home without him, but then I saw him standing out by the street and talking to a goddamned reporter.

I stomped over there, walked right in front of the camera and was about to grab him by the collar and drag him away when John said, “Oh, shit!”

I followed John’s gaze and said, “Oh, shit .”

The reporter lowered her microphone and said, “Ooooh, shit.”

Army guys, a lot of them. National Guard, I guessed. They were wearing that grayish urban camo they wear these days. They had parked a green truck across the intersection where the hospital driveway met the road. Cars were lined up trying to get out, and soldiers were going down the line and issuing instructions to angry drivers.

Up by the truck a soldier raised a bullhorn and said:

“ATTENTION. DO NOT LEAVE THE AREA. THERE IS A SIGNIFICANT CHANCE YOU HAVE BEEN EXPOSED TO A CONTAGEOUS PATHOGEN. LEAVING THE AREA COULD LEAD TO SPREADING THE INFECTION TO YOUR FAMILY AND FRIENDS. BY ORDER OF THE CENTERS FOR DISEASE CONTROL YOU ARE NOT TO LEAVE THE AREA. PLEASE GO BACK TO THE LOBBY OF THE HOSPITAL WHERE YOU WILL BE GIVEN FURTHER INSTRUCTIONS. THIS IS FOR YOUR OWN SAFETY. WE APOLOGIZE FOR THE INCONVENIENCE AND YOU WILL BE RELEASED AS SOON AS IT IS DETERMINED THAT YOU DO NOT POSE AN INFECTION RISK TO THOSE AROUND YOU. THANK YOU FOR YOUR COOPERATION. IF YOU ATTEMPT TO LEAVE THE AREA YOU WILL BE PROSECUTED. DO NOT ATTEMPT TO LEAVE THE AREA .”

John tossed down his cigarette, stamped it out and said, “Let’s leave the area.”

“Yeah.”

We left the reporter behind and circled around, looking for a way out. We found the AMBULANCE ONLY entrance around the block had a Humvee across it. The soldiers were forming a perimeter, camouflage dots looping around the grounds. We looked around behind the building, where there was a little strip of woods separating the hospital grounds from town. Same scene, with the addition of some guys unloading spools of razor wire from the back of a truck.