Chapter 7: When Worlds Collide

Leaving the wheelchair behind in that roadside diner had felt a lot like losing a friend, leaving an empty feeling in Ana’s gut as she scurried across the roof of the restaurant. The human Ana had pretended to be was encapsulated by the battered conveyance now sitting empty in the bathroom, waiting quietly to be discovered and eventually discarded.

Tears formed in her eyes as she snuck down and through the parking lot, her heart pounding in her chest. She was truly alone, and officially scared, her stomach churning while her eggs formed.

When she had heard Darren’s voice, she had been so startled that she almost didn’t answer. She didn’t deserve such a stroke of luck, didn’t deserve his help. Yet he had insisted, tucking her away in the back of a stolen station wagon and taking to the open road. They had ridden in silence while she slept in the back, her hands across her slightly swollen belly. She wished she could ask her mother or a sister what to expect, knowing only that the time to lay them was coming fast.

Occasionally a bump in the road would wake her, and she would open her eyes and look out the rear window, her gaze on the night sky. It had been awhile since she had seen so many stars all at once, and she watched them, the vibrations of the road helping her to relax. Ana spun a few small webs to make herself comfortable, using them like a makeshift hammock.

The bag of books was the only thing she had brought with her, except for the roll of money in her pocket. While awake, she looked at the covers of the books, barely able to make out the shapes in the dark of the car. These stories typically had a happily ever after, and she wondered if maybe Darren’s arrival was a sign that she could have one, too. He had come for her, despite being told not to. Why? What was so special about her that he would risk his life? Why not go the other way, forget he had ever met her, move on?

Was it her? Did he really like her? Darren was damaged, there was no doubt about it, but did that damage mean he couldn’t see her for who she really was? Or did it mean he could see past her monstrous nature? It was hard to tell.

Or could it be the eggs? Did he feel responsible for the life growing inside of her? He would probably be the first man to see his own children hatch, save for maybe the scientists that had experimented on the Arachne during World War Two to make super soldiers. Her mother had rarely talked about it, but Ana knew that there had been a breeding program. Jews had been forced to breed, and the resulting children had refused to take orders. Thinking it was a deficiency of race, the Germans themselves had transitioned to Aryan blood, hoping that the brood would take orders.

They didn’t. The Germans had disguised the resulting bloodbath as an Allied bombing, and that’s usually where the story from her mother ended.

“There’s no way it could be them.” Darren whispered from the front seat. It was like he was speaking with someone, and Ana lifted her head, wondering if she had tuned out something else he had been saying.

“What?” Her glasses had gone crooked, and were now smudged with fingerprints. Pulling them away from her face, the world came to life around her, and she looked out the back window of the wagon at an approaching light. Over the lamp of the motorcycle behind them, she could make out the intense faces of her pursuers. “Oh shit!”

When the Order drew near, she watched them pull alongside the car, but something wasn’t right. Though her eyes saw them pull ahead of the car, the sound coming from outside the wagon told another story. As the figures in front of the car exploded into motes of light, she watched them appear out of the darkness, the wand in Cyrus’ hand glowing brightly when he lifted his arm to fire it.

“On your left!” Her words weren’t quick enough for him to dodge the blast, but he was fast enough to slam the wagon into the bike just as the spell went off. Darren lost control of the car and was soon driving down the rocks, the car flipping. Ana got tossed around, but her instincts took over, her legs splaying out to support her weight. Her heightened senses seemed to slow time, and she watched her books fluttering around inside the car along with Darren. The pores on her body opened, coating her upper torso and hardening into an inky black shell.

Seeing an opening, she grabbed Darren by the shoulders and yanked him into the backseat. Smashing a window with one of her legs, she timed her jump so that the two of them were launched skyward, falling through the darkness. The car stopped its descent, smashing into sharp rocks and flooding the air with the cancerous smell of gasoline.

Wrapping Darren with her arms and front legs, her other six splayed out and they rolled across the ground together like a giant tumbleweed. Pain shot up from one of her legs when it broke, and then more pain when the tip of another leg got wrenched free in between a pair of rocks.

They came to a halt, and Ana let out a shriek of rage, dropping Darren to inspect the damage. She had lost the leg at the joint, so it wouldn’t slow her much, but her broken leg had cracked higher up. Putting any weight on it would be a bad idea.

They needed to move. Looking over her shoulder, she saw some distant hills just north of there. The treeline was distant, but if she could make it, they would have a chance. She had no idea how the Order had fared, but knew for a fact that Darren made solid contact with the bike before the spell had gone off. If, by chance, the two of them had survived, they would still be busy scraping each other off the pavement right now.

Darren groaned, but Ana didn’t have time to check him. Setting him down long enough to strip off her shirt, she slung him over her naked shoulder and ran. The black armor on her body made her slower, but it would also make her harder to see under the stars. It would be harder to track her at night, but until she made it to the trees, she didn’t need her pale skin acting as a giant bullseye.

Gasping for air, a fearsome cramp spread across her belly. Crouching down, she placed her free hand on her gut and tried not to cry out. With her fingers, she could already feel the outline of one of her eggs. She set Darren down and stared at him. If she left him behind, he would probably slow the Order down enough that she could make a clean getaway, find somewhere to hunker down and lay her eggs. Instead, he was slowing her down right now, impeding her ability to survive.

She almost left him, the urge to flee so strong that her heart was racing. He had come for her, saved her when she needed it the most, put himself in harm’s way just to be with her. Leaving him behind would be advantageous for survival, but living with her actions after would be difficult. Growling, she slung him over her shoulder again and continued forward, her busted leg folding up against her belly, resulting in a staccato cadence.

“Semper fi, Darren.” She didn’t think he was even in the marines, but it was the only motto from the military that she knew. Carrying him up the sloping hills, she saw the light of her own shadow just as a wave of heat and sound rolled over her. Crouching down against the grass, she looked back to see that the station wagon had become a funeral pyre. Horrified at the destruction they had left behind, she realized that she could make out the shape of two men standing up by the road.

“Shit.” Clutching her gut with one hand and Darren with the other, she ran.

“Fuck.” Jeffrey gazed down at the burning wreckage of the station wagon, blood trickling down his face. “I really hope they were still in there.”

“We haven’t been that lucky in weeks.” Cyrus sat down on a rock and watched the inferno below. He had smacked his head when the bike had gone off the road, his magic saving both of them at the last second. He probably had a minor concussion, but there was little that could be done about it now. They were miles from anywhere, and couldn’t take any chances letting the Arachne get away. “Can you see anything from here?”

“No. Fire’s too bright.” Jeffrey scanned the countryside. “If they made it, I’m not going to be able to see them from here. We have to get past the wreck, let our eyes adjust.”

“Might as well check it out.” Cyrus stood on wobbly legs and walked down the steep hill. He felt like he was going to barf. “Keep your eyes out.”

“You know I will.” Jeffrey flicked his wrist, his sword unfolding. “I really want to carve this bitch up and call it a day. Maybe take a small vacation somewhere with a beach.”

“Florida?” Cyrus fought a grin. Every time Jeffrey went on vacation, it was to a cozy little villa in Florida. He would pound beers all day long, starting shortly after breakfast and going until just after a big steak dinner.

“Bet your ass.” Jeffrey picked his way down the rocky slope, pausing occasionally to offer Cyrus a hand. The heat from the burning car was intense, and they stayed well away from it in case it blew. Scouring the perimeter, it didn’t seem like anybody was in the car or nearby it.

“Find anything?” Cyrus called out.

“No.” Jeffrey was circling to the other side, clutching his sword.

Cyrus used his wand as a flashlight, looking along the ground for footprints, blood, anything he could use to find them. He kicked something soft with his foot, and knelt down to find a small paperback novel.

“You got something?” Jeffrey asked.

“No.” Cyrus flipped through the romance novel real quick, uncertain why it was even there. It must have belonged to the owners of the station wagon. Once the two of them had realized that Ana had fled, they had run outside to find an upset couple searching the parking lot for their car. Jeffrey had used his fake badge to get their car keys, knowing Cyrus could use them to cast a spell.

It had been Jeffrey’s suggestion to take the Harley, and once they were away from the diner, it just took a little magic to find the station wagon’s trail. The words on the pages of the book in his hand swirled in his vision, and he threw it back down on the rocks, fighting the urge to puke again.

“So if I was a pregnant spider bitch who just got tossed out of a vehicle, where would I go?” Jeffrey stood next to Cyrus now, the flames from the car reflected in the blade of his sword.

“Somewhere else?” Cyrus scanned the horizon, then looked down the road. “I don’t see anywhere obvious.”

“I might. C’mon.” Jeffrey pulled Cyrus to his feet, half dragging him away from the road. Cyrus was impressed that nobody had come to check on the fire yet; it was just another testament to how far in the middle of nowhere they were. The night air felt wonderfully cool away from the fire, and they gazed at the distant hills.

“That’s a lot of ground to cover,” Cyrus said, finding a rock to sit on.

“Maybe. You wait here, fix yourself up. I’m going to look for tracks.”

Cyrus nodded, happy for a chance to just sit with his broken thoughts. He dug through his pockets, eventually finding a small metal tube. Twisting it open, he frowned at the yellow pills that spilled out. They were a special blend formulated by the Order, and would knock down the pain banging around in his head. However, his ability to control his magic would diminish accordingly.

“Fuck it,” he muttered, tossing back a pair of pills. As it was, his head hurt so bad he would probably blow his own face off. Magic required concentration, and if the station wagon hadn’t struck him at the tail end of his last spell, they would already be digging a pair of graves for Darren and Ana.

Jeffrey was gone for almost an hour before he came back, his features pinched. He said nothing to Cyrus and kept going to look in the other direction. Time was precious, and they needed to catch another break, and soon.

Darren floated through a fog of pain, the world around him just a collection of shadows that reached for him, occasionally scratching at his flesh. One particularly long appendage grabbed hold of his wrist and then broke apart in his fingers when he tried to yank it off with his other hand. The shadow’s flesh felt cold and stiff, and it wasn’t until he squeezed it that he realized he was holding a leaf.

The shadows rustled, and his stomach flip-flopped inside of him, and then impact. He tumbled to the ground unharmed, and finally got a good look at his surroundings. The trees around him obscured most of the night sky, and the air was filled with gasps of pain. He held his breath, trying to hear what might be nearby, and realized the gasps weren’t from him.

“Ana?” He stuck his hand into the inky black in front of him, his fingers closing on something cool and hard. When she lifted her face, the stark white of her flesh made her seem a ghost, and he almost yelled in fright.

Her face twisted up in agony, and she crumpled to the ground, her legs splaying out.

“Exhausted,” she told him. “Need ... shelter...”

“Where are we?” He asked.

“Forest.” She raised an arm cloaked in darkness and pointed. “That way. Go that way.”

He stood up, and realized that his left arm no longer worked correctly.

“Dislocated,” Ana explained. “When I pulled you out.

“It should hurt.” He struggled to lift it, then gave up. “It doesn’t hurt.”

“I bit you. You were moaning while you were unconscious, and I needed you to be quiet.”

“How long ago was the crash?”

She shrugged. “Been a while. Dawn in a couple of hours, maybe.” Ana tried to stand, but she collapsed again.

“Here.” Darren turned around and used his good arm to help her stand long enough to wrap her arms around his shoulders. Her front legs clung to his waist, squeezing him tight. He had no doubt she could probably crush his pelvis if she wanted to. His bad arm hung limp while he dragged her through the woods, her abdomen crunching against the forest floor.

She directed him up a small hill behind the brush and was surprised to see the mouth of a cave.

“How did you know this was here?” he asked.

“Spiders told me. Quick, get inside.”

“Are they right behind us?”

“Darren, go!” She smacked him on his good shoulder, and he obeyed, moving into the eerie darkness. The cave itself was only thirty feet deep, and he set her down on the ground. He could barely see her silhouette in the darkness.

“What now?”

“I need ... time.” She was catching her breath now. “It’s happening.”

“What is?”

“The eggs are coming.” She grabbed her stomach again and hissed. “I was injured in the wreck, so the eggs are coming sooner as a result. It’s a survival mechanism, a way for the mother to reproduce before she dies.”

“Who takes care of the eggs?”

“Mother nature. When they hatch, they’ll hunt on their own.” Ana winced again. “Darren ... I’m scared.”

“Ana, I...” Darren stared into the darkness where Ana’s voice was coming from. He was out of his depth, lost somewhere in a forest, and he could only see starlight outside of his cave. Distant shouting and gunfire washed over him, and he could suddenly smell the stinking mud beneath his feet, his skin peeling from the hot summer sun. He took a deep breath, his lungs filling with the heat of the jungle and the cold air of the cave.

A sturdy hand grabbed his shoulder, pulling him back into the waking world. He fell against the cave wall, his eyes adjusting to the darkness. Hayden was smoking another cigar, the burning embers illuminating the others and nothing else.

“She needs you,” Dwayne said from his left. “Tell her it’s going to be okay.”

“It’s going to be okay.”

The darkness didn’t answer. Moments later, he heard a loud grunt. The cave suddenly smelled of cloves and wet leaves.

“Ana? What’s going on?”

There were more grunts, and the odor was suddenly unbearable. He wanted to leave the cave, but Dwayne grabbed onto Darren’s wrist, holding him in place. Ana let out a few more cries, then finally went silent.

“Ana?” he whispered. She finally appeared in the darkness, the breaking light of dawn touching the cave. She held something in her hands that was roughly the size of a cantaloupe.

“Is that ... an egg?” His eyes were wide, and he suddenly couldn’t look away from the mottled object in her hand.

“One of five,” Ana whispered, her face lost in the darkness. “I’m ... I’m so tired, Darren.”

“Lie down for a minute, I’ll keep watch.” His eyes were locked on the egg she still held. Was that really his child inside of that chitinous shell? It had happened so fast, he hadn’t had time to process it. Was he really going to be a father to spider people like Ana? Could he even protect them from harm, or would he just be a walking talking steak to them?

“Don’t let them ... find us.” She vanished into the back of the cave, and he heard her shallow breaths deepen. There was just enough daylight for him to make out the pale features of her face, hovering in the distant dark.

Little Mike, lost in the shadows, let out a hearty laugh. “Congratulations, Darren! It’s an omelette!”

“Shut the fuck up, Mikey.” Hayden threw his cigar at Little Mike, who ducked. “This whole situation is FUBAR, and you want to crack jokes?”

At the word crack, Little Mike lost it, laughing hysterically. Hayden sighed, looking to Dwayne for support. Dwayne leaned forward and grabbed Little Mike by the collar, giving him a shake.

“Calm your shit, he needs us right now.” Dwayne looked at Darren. “You know they’re going to come, right?”

“I ... yeah.”

“What do we have?”

“Um ... a knife.”

“Good.” Dwayne looked around the cave. “That’s all we need to get started. Mikey? Perimeter.”

“On it.” Little Mike stepped out of the cave, vanishing into the trees.

“Hayden? Keep an eye on things here.”

“Roger.”

“Where are we going?”

“Out.” Dwayne pulled on Darren’s good arm to make him stand. He led his brother outside, and Darren took in the hillside where they were hiding. It was a loose collection of large boulders that had fallen down the hill, some of them resting against the trees.

“What do you see?” Dwayne asked him.

“Um ... shit.” Darren spotted it right away. When he had dragged Ana into the cave, they had left a painfully obvious trail in the loose gravel.

“Get your head on, soldier. We need to get this cleaned up.” Dwayne pointed at some trees behind Darren. “Cut down a branch and use it to hide the trail. I think it goes back a hundred yards or so, when you got out of the tree.”

“I can’t.” Darren pointed at his bad arm.

“For fuck’s sake, I forgot.” He led Darren over to sit down on a smaller rock, then picked up a small stick. “Bite down on this.”

Darren nodded, sweat rolling own his forehead. “Okay.”

“It’s gonna hurt,” his brother warned him, then grabbed Darren’s arm and pulled. Darren bit into the wood, trying his best not to cry out. Dwayne twisted Darren’s arm around, trying to give it a yank, but it was no good. His shoulder wouldn’t go back in.

“Here, try this.” Dwayne moved Darren’s hand into a gap in the rocks. “You lean away and I’ll pull on you, use the rock like a vise.”

“Do it,” Darren said through his stick, and Dwayne hooked his arms around Darren’s torso and pulled. The world turned into fire, and Darren growled around the stick as he twisted his body, pressure building into the joint until he felt it pop back into place. Biting the stick in half, he fell off his rock, the world spinning around him. Dwayne caught him, then guided him gently to the ground.

“Easy, man, breathe.” Dwayne patted his brother’s cheeks. “Stay with me, don’t pass out.”

Darren’s eyes narrowed on the canopy up above. The rays of dawn illuminated cotton clouds up above, and he felt the entire world come into focus. He stood up with Dwayne’s help, and hacked down a nearby branch with his knife. He used his weak arm to aim the branch and swept with the right, doing his best to cover the tracks closest to the cave. Dragging the branch back into the woods, he swept away any trace of their trail, checking over his shoulder every couple of minutes, listening for any sounds that were out of place.

“Little Mike’s on it, don’t worry. Just keep going.”

“Hold up.” Darren tossed his branch aside, his eyes on the trail. They were easily over fifty yards from the cave now. “We shouldn’t sweep it all away. They’re going to come looking, and when they do...”

“We can control where they’re going. What are you thinking?”

Darren used his knife to loosen up the soil, grabbing handfuls of it and throwing it over his shoulder. “We’re not going to be able to build anything lethal, but we will, however—”

“Create a liability.” Dwayne finished with a smirk. He got down on his knees and helped Darren dig. “What are you thinking? Maybe sharpen some sticks?”

“i guess.”

“You’re not gonna shit in there, are you?”

“I was hoping you would do it.” Darren smirked. “We just need to slow them down. If they’re too busy following this trail, we might catch one of them in it.”

They both kept digging with their hands, often exchanging the knife to further loosen the soil. The sun had risen, and the hole was now about two feet across and a foot deep. Drenched in sweat, Darren ran back toward the cave and stripped some of the lower branches off of the tree, then came back and started sharpening them. The knife sliced through the wood cleanly, and he only hoped that his simple pit trap would give them the edge he needed.

Above him, the forest woke up. Though the birds sang their song of morning, all Darren could hear was gunfire from a distant memory.

Ana opened her eyes.

She was on the roof of the cave, looking down on the small nest of webbing she had made. Most of her armor had fallen off, now lying in a pile below. Dropping down from above, she picked her eggs up and held them close to her chest. They were warm to the touch, the life inside swiftly developing. It would be months before they hatched, but they required no care once lain. If she could find somewhere to hide them, they would be fine as long as a hungry bear didn’t find them first.

Holding the eggs close to her skin, her instincts told her everything she needed to know. Every single one of her offspring was perfect. They would hatch with ten fingers and eight feet, ready to devour their first kill. Ana looked down at the eggs, her mind swirling out of control.

Was this really what she wanted? Her instincts screamed YES, but her heart told her no. The cold logic of the Arachne took over, reminding her that the survival of her species depended on any decision she made regarding the eggs. They were all healthy, and capable of thriving, it was best to let them be.

Setting them back into the nest, she moved outside to see what Darren was up to. Though she couldn’t see him, she could smell his presence. Moving into the woods, she heard him talking to somebody, but couldn’t detect anybody else.

He was huddled over the forest floor, carefully laying leaves across the ground.

“Pit trap?”

Darren looked over his shoulder at her. “Yeah.”

“You really think they won’t see it?” Ana frowned. “It looks out of place, kind of obvious.”

Darren picked up the nearby knife and slammed it point down into a gap in the leaves. It stood on end, the handle casting a long shadow on the forest floor.

“I want them to see this one.” He pointed at a spot a couple feet away. “Cause I’m hoping they will step over there. Or over there. Or back there.”

“Spikes?” She was impressed with how quickly he had dug them, even with a messed up shoulder. Her venom still ran through his veins, and she imagined he would be in agony once it wore off. Scanning the forest floor, she could sort of make out the tumbled soil where the traps actually were. Obviously Darren had put a lot of time into making the ground look natural.

“Best we could do on short notice, but that one over there has a heavy rock propped up with a stick.” Darren scowled. “I’m hoping for a broken or stuck foot, but will settle for a rolled ankle.”

“Can I help?”

“I don’t think ... wait.” He looked at her, a fierce intensity in his eyes. “How strong is your webbing?”

“Very.”

“When I was ... over there, Charlie had a couple of fun surprises for us. Here.” He pulled the knife out of the ground and moved to an open area and started drawing in the dirt. “There are some heavier rocks by the cave. If we can get some of them into the trees, we can rig this area with some tripwires.”

“Darren. You know we could run, right?”

He scowled at her. “Until when? Right now, we know the enemy is coming, and we have time to prepare. Once those fuckers tried to off me, I promised that I would end them if given a chance. You’re injured, so am I, and my best weapon right now is a knife. They know that we fucked, know that you’re pregnant, and will burn the world down around us when given half the chance. When you know the enemy is gunning for you, you can’t always run away. We have an edge here, you know that right? That Jeffrey guy, he beat the shit out of me in a bar. And his buddy Cyrus? He used a magic watch to reverse time right in front of me. We’re going to turn their strengths into weaknesses.”

“How so?”

“They’re both cocky mother fuckers who expect us to run and hide. They won’t see this coming. So ... will you help me?”

“Darren, I ... are you trying to kill them?”

His eyes went hard. “Yes.”

“They’re part of something bigger, Darren. Even if we kill them, the Order will send more.”

“What about Oregon? Is something waiting for us there?”

“Yes. I don’t know what, but my friend promised we would be safe.”

“These assholes don’t have anyone helping them now. By the time their buddies show, we’ll be long gone. Head back to the road, follow it to some small town, steal another car.” Darren tilted his head as if listening to someone. “Yeah, that would be a repeat of our last date, wouldn’t it?”

Ana smiled. “I didn’t like how the last one ended.”

“I’m usually a pretty good driver.” He tilted his head again. “Yeah, you’re right. We need to focus.”

Ana looked around the clearing. They were still alone. Did Darren hit his head in the crash? Other than listening to someone who wasn’t there, he seemed perfectly fine, and even more so when he scrawled out more designs for her to follow. The traps were simple enough, and she was quickly able to improve them. If Darren really was so eager to fight, then she would help.

They spent the next two hours going back over their trail and setting additional traps. Darren wasn’t able to lift anything heavy with his bad arm, so Ana carried the rocks for him. She scaled numerous trees, wincing when her bad leg struck the branches.

“Is that going to heal?” Darren asked her from below. “It looks like it’s cracked open.”

“When I molt, it’ll grow back.”

“You molt? Like a snake?”

“Just my lower half.” Ana secured a twenty pound rock in place, then used a much thinner web to hold it in place. He had shown her the mechanism for a trip wire, but she could spin a fine web with steel-like strength and string it up almost anywhere. Instead of a tripwire on the ground, she was stringing her webs at various heights. As long as it remained overcast, the probability that they would be spotted was small. “Still hurts though.”

“Should we ... I mean, do you need to cut it off?”

Ana thought about it, but kept her mouth shut. If she did cut it off, it would hurt like a bitch, and she wanted to keep her head clear, especially since she was already distracted. Her stomach growled when she climbed down. She had been hungry after laying her eggs, but now she was ravenous. Darren smelled absolutely delicious, and she could easily overpower him, then suck him dry.

Strangely, the compulsion felt muted. After so many weeks of fighting her desires, they felt weaker somehow. Was it because she had laid her clutch? Or was it something else? She dropped out of the tree and stumbled, crying out in pain. Darren was suddenly in front of her, his arms around her waist steadying her.

“You okay?” His eyes were soft now, concern written across his face. He was so close, his scent so delicious, but there was something there that she hadn’t felt before. Her heart pounded, and she lifted her hands to his face, stroked his cheeks with her fingers. It was impossible to see him as a regular human, he was now suddenly something more to her. She longed to touch him, to feel him inside her once more. These were no longer her instincts speaking.

It was her heart.

“Darren.” She whispered his name and then kissed him. He held tightly to her, his hand moving through her hair while his bad arm hung around her waist. As their kiss broke, she lightly nipped at his lip, giving his system just a bit of her venom in the hopes it would help his shoulder relax and diminish his pain. She gazed into his dark eyes, very aware of the tiny trickle of blood on his lip.

“Ana, I...” Darren whipped around, looking into the forest.

“Darren?” she asked, but he held up a hand to silence her.