David Wong - This Book is Full of Spiders

“Turn around!”

Halfface bashed out the rest of the glass with his remaining fist. Then he reached through the window and pulled.

A burning section of wall fell at his feet. Behind it was the charred, melting springs and frame that had been my bed. The flames roared, fueled by the new rush of oxygen.

John took the bolt cutters from Munch and went to work on my handcuffs. To Munch he screamed, “RUN! TAKE DAVE’S BRONCO! THE KEYS ARE IN IT. DRIVE UNTIL YOU’RE SOMEPLACE NOBODY SPEAKS ENGLISH!”

My hands were free. Explosions erupted a few feet away—a cop going to work on Halfface with a riot gun. The monster was down on his knees. I saw a shot blow a hole in his neck and his head flopped over, dangling by a tendon.

There was victory, for about three seconds. Then…

The cop started screaming.

The cop next to him started screaming.

The nearest firefighter started screaming.

They were clawing and swatting and scraping at themselves, trying to knock away tiny biting monsters that they could not see. Then I looked back at my house, and understood.

I just killed the world.

Black wiggling shapes fanned out from the hole in the wall, spilling in waves over the broken boards and plaster on the lawn, disappearing into the grass.

A firefighter ran up with a bullhorn, raised it and shouted, “WARNING! WE HAVE TOXIC FUMES! EVERYONE—AND I MEAN EVERYONE—LEAVE THE AREA IF YOU DO NOT HAVE BREATHING APPARAAAAAAHHHH!!!”

A spider was eating his eyeball.

A bystander, shooting the scene on his phone, had a baby spider on his hand and another in his hair.

I couldn’t breathe. This was not happening. This was not possibly happening.

A hand on my elbow, pulling me away. John saying something I couldn’t hear. Everything was silent. My brain had frozen up. People were running.

It all seemed very familiar.

John was pulling me along. I caught the eyes of Detective Falconer, who was back up, now trying ineffectually to help a heavy teenage girl get the spider off of her neck. His look spoke clearly:

Take it all in, white trash. You did this.

He was right. Before the fire, we had the parasites imprisoned inside the house. The feds could have roped it off, sealed it up, kept all the bystanders safely away. They could have taken their time figuring out how to neutralize the threat. We could have told them what we knew, told them not to get within a hundred yards without mouth protection and to bury the house under a mountain of concrete. Instead, the fire had drawn a crowd. First the firefighters with no protection, and then the gawkers who crowded around like a goddamned all-you-can-eat parasite buffet. They would all die. Maybe everyone would die. Maybe the parasites would own the planet. And it would all be my fault. It was the DVD sticker situation all over again.

We ran. We bumped into CDC crews with holes chewed through their space suits. We shouldered past confused National Guardsmen. We dodged the Action 5 News camera guy and a lady reporter demanding an interview from someone, anyone.

We piled into the Caddie. It stank of turkeys, possibly because there were two turkeys in the backseat. Live ones, pecking at the seat cushions. John cranked the ignition and Creedence Clearwater Revival blared from the dash. He stepped on the gas and we ripped through a band of yellow police tape somebody was trying to string up.

Probably a little late for that, buddy.

Amydecided she was fighting mankind’s most ancient battle: physical impulse versus human dignity. Her bladder felt like it was filled with knives, but the bus toilet was not something a human should be allowed to touch without wearing a wet suit. Would she give in to animal impulse and surrender her human dignity? She would not. Actually, she tried to go back there about fifteen minutes ago but it was occupied and there was a guy in there making weird noises. So, she was back in her seat, counting the miles to the nearest bathroom. Not far, now. They were right outside of town, already past the tractor dealership.

On the seat next to her was a white cardboard box from a bakery not far from the university, containing what was probably the finest food ever produced by the human species. They were red velvet cupcakes with a cheesecake filling and a cream cheese icing. There were only half a dozen in the box but you could barely finish one of them before you had to go sit down somewhere and stare at the ceiling. It’d sit in your belly like a bag of concrete but you’d have no regrets. The fat and sugar hit your system so hard that with every bite you just wanted to give the world a hug—

Oh, no…

The bus was stopping.

Amy stood up and saw cars. Cars and cars and cars, stopped dead on the highway leading into town.

Her heart sank.

This was… surely just a car accident or something. Not every bad thing that happened revolved around David. Surely.

Surely.

She was already dialing. But this time, no voice mail—a recorded message from the cell phone carrier saying all circuits were busy.

A helicopter swept overhead. Low.

Ohhhhh… crap.

Across the aisle of the bus, a couple of college-looking guys in vintage clothes and thick-rimmed glasses were whispering frantically to each other, huddled over the screen of a cell phone.

“Excuse me. Are you guys getting a signal?”

“Internet still works. Look.”

The guy held out the phone and Twitter was up. If you’re reading this in a future where the Twitter fad has passed, Twitter was a Web site where people posted short little messages, usually from their phones, for the world to see. So, at any moment you could go on their site and see what the world at large was talking about, in real time. The main page of Twitter would always list what subjects were hot or “trending” at the moment. So when news broke, it broke on Twitter first—if a plane crashed near New York, people on the scene would start Tweeting about it within seconds, long before the first news camera showed up. Within minutes you’d see “#NYPlaneCrash” pop up on the trending topics.

The number one topic on Twitter at this moment was:

#ZOMBIEOUTBREAK

John’s old Caddie had a huge engine that would qualify as a human rights violation if built today. It roared down the road, chugging gas and farting a blue cloud of dinosaur souls.

“They’re sealing off the town!” John screamed over John Fogerty. “Munch told me! They’ve got the highway and Route 44 both blocked.”

We weren’t heading to the highway, however. We would never have made it even without the roadblock—John’s Caddie wasn’t exactly hard to spot and we were being pursued. Fortunately, we knew a shortcut.

John tossed his phone into my lap and said, “Call Shiva! Tell her to meet us at the water tower!”

“Who?”

“Shiva! My girlfriend!”

“That’s actually her name?”

“I think so!”

“There are absolutely no bars on this phone.” I pulled out mine and said, “Shit! Mine, too!”

“Goddamn we get shitty coverage here!”

Burrito stand. The tires screeched us to a stop. We spilled out and I yelled, “TRUNK! TRUNK!”

John stopped in his tracks and said, “Molly!”

I spun and there she was. She was by the trash can, her paws pinning down a scrap of aluminum foil while she hurriedly ate the remaining half of a chorizo burrito.

John fumbled with his keys and got the trunk open just as we heard in the distance, “DON’T FUCKING MOVE!”

Goddamned Lance Falconer, sprinting down the street, gun in hand. Holy shit that man could run.