part0042

Ana was on her back, fleshy digits clawing at her face, reaching for her throat. The Upside-down Man was trying to kill her. The body of the spider loomed over her, eclipsing the inferno that raged overhead. She fought back, punching and kicking.

The Upside-down Man’s drooping head slapped off her face so she dug her nails in, tearing the soft tissue to shreds. It had little effect. The body buckled and the tip of the bony proboscis protruded outwards, aimed at her chest. She wrapped both hands around the monstrous appendage, wrestling it away from her, gelatinous sap oozing from the tip. The spider lowered its body, the Upside-down Man pressing against her, his exposed muscle wet to the touch. The proboscis lifted slightly, then drove towards her. Ana rolled left, the piercing implement stabbing into the hard rock. She drew back a foot and aimed a hard kick at it. The spider roared in pain.

She had found a weakness.

Lashing out again with her heel, the spider tried to rear up, but the proboscis was firmly entrenched in the ground. Another blow brought a snapping sound, and a fourth broke it in two. Hot liquid bubbled from the splintered bone as the spider scurried backwards, the hands of the Upside-down Man taking her firmly by the shoulders, dragging her body along the ground.

Rachel and Chakrit watched helplessly from the water as the spider ran, Ana bouncing and smashing off the rocks below, unable to escape the grip of the strange mutant that lived within the spider.

It was heading for the wall.

As Ana’s feet lifted into the air, she looked down and saw the rocky ground receding into the distance.

One thought ran through her mind.

Fear had left her. Once you’ve been dragged up a wall by a skinless man in the belly of a spider, not much remains to be afraid of. It was replaced by a desperate need to survive.

‘Put me down! Let me go!’ she shouted, lashing out at the grotesque skinless man.

The broken proboscis stabbed into her belly. She barely noticed, raking her hands down the man’s body, scratching and tearing. Her fingers slipped in-between chunks of flesh and she tore them out, handfuls of putrid muscle and sinew, her hands burrowing further. The Upside-down Man crumbled, his torso falling apart as Ana yanked out hunks of meat, his hands still gripping her as if they were working independently. The spider slowed, its movements becoming jerky, the muscles spasming. As it started back down the wall to safety, Ana plunged her hands into the Upside-down Man’s throat, reaching in and finding long ropes of intestines. The spider leapt from the wall, twirling in midair, its double-jointed legs popping back so that it landed upside down. It should have thrown Ana clear, but she was elbow deep in spider guts.

The spider scuttled around the cavern, trying to shake her loose. She pulled a coil of intestine out. When it stuck, she put it in her mouth and bit down on the rubbery tissue, grinding her teeth until it severed, coppery liquid spilling down her throat. The body of the man now almost empty, Ana did the only thing left to do. She forced her way into the belly of the spider through the gaping hole.

Using her hands as shovels, she ripped and tore and dug, spooning out fistfuls of lumpy black flesh, burrowing her own head inside, feeling the blood washing over her as she plunged into darkness.

In a frenzy, it came for them, its movements erratic and uncertain. He hauled himself and Rachel out of the pool, grabbing the remnants of the flaming torch, trying to hold the giant insect at bay.

‘Get up,’ he shouted at Rachel. She was curled into a foetal position, clutching her stomach.

The spider came for them, staggering like a drunkard. Ana was somewhere inside, only her frantically kicking legs visible, the rest of her buried deep in the belly of the beast. Rachel didn’t move, either unable or unwilling to. If Chakrit left her, he might be able to escape through the underwater tunnel. Then again, he had no idea if it even led outside. He could be getting them all killed.

Run or go on the offensive? He only had a split-second to decide, the spider bearing down on him like an eighteen-wheeler with the brakes cut. He jumped over Rachel and threw himself at the spider, ramming the torch into its beady, doll-like eyes. They popped, expelling gouts of an acrid, foul mucus over Chakrit. The spider whipped a leg at him, catching him with a serrated talon, slicing across his chest. He fell back, landing heavily and letting go of the makeshift lantern. It bounced from his hand and hit the water with a splash and a fizz as the light was permanently extinguished.

Chakrit shuffled backwards. He saw Rachel, unmoving. Was she dead?

The spider approached.

It was warm inside. The image of Luke Skywalker inside a Tauntaun popped into her head and she laughed, a high-pitched psychotic gurgle.

A crazy thought; was there any other kind in this situation? Her grip on reality was tenuous at best. A few more minutes and it would be game over. But before that happened, she had one simple goal.

To kill this motherfucking spider. To rip its goddam heart out of its chest and drive a fucking stake through it. Her screams were muffled inside the lacuna of the spider but she kept them up anyway, blood and matter sloshing into her mouth and choking her as her hands rooted around the internal organs. There were no bones, the exterior exposed muscle acting as an exoskeleton. Veins tangled around her as the loud timpani of its heart echoed through the cramped space.

She was drawn to the sound.

Reaching forwards as if trapped in quicksand, Ana touched the beating muscle and squeezed it with every last ounce of strength she possessed. The heart beat faster, almost as if it was trying to shake her off, but she wouldn’t let go.

Her life, and that of her sister, depended on it. She tightened her grip, reaching both arms around until the tips of her fingers touched, clasping her hands and squashing the giant organ, harder and harder and harder until the pressure became too much and it burst in a vile explosion of blood and tissue.

Its movements became stilted and unpredictable, crawling one direction and then another until the legs gave way and it dropped. It tried to rear up, to crawl away. The body twitched once, twice and then stopped.

Far above, the webs still burned, smoke rippling out through the hole in the ceiling.

The spider lay still.

Chakrit touched the wound on his chest. Not too deep. He’d live. He took Rachel’s arm and she stirred with a soft moan.

‘Is it dead?’ she asked, her eyes firmly shut.

‘Where’s my sister?’ She tried to sit up. ‘Ana?’ she called out, getting to her feet, using Chakrit for leverage. He too stood, ignoring the raw pain that chafed his ankles. Together they stumbled towards the cold, dead body of the spider.

‘Is she in there?’ asked Rachel.

Chakrit felt for his hunting knife, then remembered it was somewhere near the cave entrance. He needed to cut the spider open. If there was a chance that Ana was still alive in there, he had to take it.

The spider shook slightly and they both froze. Something was moving inside. The flesh wobbled, and a fist emerged from the spider’s belly, bursting through the tough meat, followed by another. Chakrit stepped in front of Rachel, shielding her, digging deep for hidden reserves of courage he wasn’t even sure he possessed. Then Ana’s head slipped out from between the folds of flesh. She pushed herself away from the carcass, sat atop it for a moment, then rolled to one side and landed heavily on the dirt, drenched in blood and gasping for air.

She stopped suddenly, looking around, the whites of her eyes contrasting against the dark red blood of the creature that she wore like a death-mask.

Ana took several deep breaths, her heart rate slowing, normal service resuming. ‘What happened?’ she breathed, torment writ large on her face, her eyes darting back and forth in pain and confusion.

‘You did it, Ana. You killed it,’ said Rachel.

Ana looked at her own gore-encrusted hands as Rachel came and sat by her side, holding her sister close, letting Ana weep on her shoulder. After a while Ana looked at Rachel and took her face in both hands.

‘I think I’m losing my mind,’ she said.

‘That’s okay,’ said Rachel sadly. ‘I think we all are. ’

Ana relaxed, her body sinking into Rachel. The burning ashes of the web rained down like winter snow, catching in their hair. Bodies fell from the sky as the web disintegrated, dried-up husks hitting the ground in puffs of smoke and dead skin.

Chakrit settled his weary bones down opposite them. He pulled out a metal tin and started rolling a smoke. Ricky’s disembowelled corpse landed nearby. None of them noticed.

‘Is it over?’ asked Ana.

Chakrit stared at his shaking hands, unsure. He looked like the walking dead. ‘I think so,’ was all he could say.

‘Your grandfather was right,’ said Ana, wiping the blood from her face, revealing her glazed and feverish expression.

Chakrit nodded. He lit the cigarette. It had never tasted so good, the chemicals giving him a head-rush. Ana stroked Rachel’s hair. It was crisp and matted with blood. Rachel’s eyes were closed, her breathing slow but steady.

‘Will the boat still be there?’ sighed Ana.

‘Uncle will wait.’

‘What was that thing?’ asked Chakrit, drawing on his cigarette and exhaling the fumes through his nostrils.

‘I was hoping you’d know.’

Chakrit laughed dryly and mumbled something in Thai. He saw Ana looking at him. He smiled at her through his broken and bruised face. ‘I just apologised to grandfather. My family dishonoured him.’

‘Not you, Chakrit,’ said Ana. ‘Not you.’

He looked down at his feet, unsure of how to take this outpouring of sincerity. ‘Man is not alone in the universe. There’s more out there than we can possibly know. More than we would ever want to know. I guess some secrets are best left buried.’

Suddenly he looked at her, his face a mixture of panic and alarm.

‘You hear that?’

A rumbling, a distant hum that gradually built in intensity until it filled the cavern, bouncing off the walls, surrounding them. Rachel’s eyes snapped open. Chakrit flicked his half-smoked cigarette away and leapt to his feet, wincing at the pain in his ankles.

‘We go now ,’ he said. No one disagreed.

The rumble increased in volume until the whole cavern began shaking, dislodging rocks in the ceiling. The fires were almost out now, the last vestiges of light snuffed out. Soon darkness would reign once more.

Ana coughed up a mouthful of blood and let Chakrit help her up. A boulder crashed down nearby, sharpened stalactites falling like huge, deadly icicles.

‘What the fuck?’

It was a noise they were all intimately familiar with. One they had briefly hoped they would never hear again.

They turned as one towards the chamber with the pit, the red light streaming out through the broken tunnel, black shadows playing across the walls. Ana’s hand tightened over Rachel’s.