Tabitha (24 page)

‘Sorry,’ Tabitha
replied weakly, smiling through the embarrassment. The others were hurriedly
filling the wheelbarrow with assault rifles from the car.

‘Drink up,’ Liv
told her, helping her with the cap on the bottle. ‘I should give them a hand
with the
st
-stuff. Will you be ok here for a minute?’

‘Mm, m-
hm
,’ Tabitha replied, with a mouth full of water. It went
down cool and smooth. Nothing had ever tasted sweeter. Liv smiled and walked
off to the car, and stopped. There was a rustling in the bushes. Her smile
faded to a look of dread.

‘Spider!’ she
yelled. She and Will snatched a rifle each out of the wheelbarrow. A silver
spider burst from the shaking bushes. Liv and Will were cursing, fumbling with
the guns. Tabitha sprinted past them and leapt on the spider, burying her knife
in its head. The spider shrieked and struggled; the others watched in shock.
Tabitha screamed as the spider stabbed its claws into her leg, and she knifed
it over and over until it dropped dead on the gravel.

‘Jesus,’ said
Will, running over. Tabitha tugged at the spindly silver leg attached to hers,
and yelled as she plucked the spider’s claws out of her calf.

‘We need some
bandages!’ Will yelled to the others.

‘It’s fine.
It’ll heal soon,’ said Tabitha, sitting down with a gasp to press her hand
against the gushing silver blood. The others stared at her in a shocked
silence. ‘There might be more,’ she said, looking up at them. ‘We should get
going.’ Wincing, she moved her hands to check the wound. It was closing,
shrinking. She staggered and hobbled as the others helped her up.

‘We’ll carry you
in,’ said Will, still in shock.

‘No, thanks,’
Tabitha replied. ‘I’m fine. Really.’ She let go of their shoulders and limped
towards the car. At least the bleeding had stopped. She felt the flesh beneath her
skin moving and knitting.

‘Is it healing?’
said Liv, worried about her.

‘It’s getting
there,’ Tabitha replied, trying to smile. ‘It’ll be fine in a couple of
minutes.’

‘So why don’t
they heal fast then, like you? The spiders?’ said Chris. ‘I mean, you’ve both
got the same blood.’ He’d been staring at the trail of silver that Tabitha had
left along the gravel.

‘
Dunno
,’ said Tabitha, refusing their help any further. She
tried putting a little more weight on her leg, and hobbled to the boot of the
car. ‘We should get all this stuff inside,’ she said, putting a couple of guns
in the wheelbarrow. ‘There’ll be more spiders coming. There’s always more.’ She
started filling up the wheelbarrow with clattering rifles and ammunition.

‘Hold on, you’re
in no fit state for that,’ Jim told her.

‘I’m fine,
honestly,’ she replied. ‘Let’s just get all this into the castle.’

‘Alright,’ Will
agreed. ‘Liv, grab a gun and keep watch please. Chris, take the helmets up to
the keep mate. Jim and Tabitha, you’re on the wheelbarrow. I’ll get the rest of
the stuff.’

‘We should take
the spider up too,’ Tabitha suggested, rubbing at her headache with a rough
hand. ‘I’ll show everyone how to kill them.’

‘Good idea,’
said Will. ‘I’ll take it up.’

‘No. If you
catch its claws they’ll poison you,’ she replied. ‘I’ll take it up.’ Will
looked from her to the spider, and nodded. She looked so tired and deathly pale
that he didn’t want her to exert herself; but she also looked so pissed off
after her fight that he didn’t want to disagree with her either.

‘Alright,’ he
said. ‘You saved our lives,’ he added, giving her a hug. Tabitha smiled, taken
by surprise. Liv glanced at the two of them together. ‘Right everyone, let’s
get a move on,’ Will told the others. ‘I believe that’s mission accomplished,
by the way.’ The others joined him in a mini applause, and set to work getting
the guns and vests inside the castle.

‘The Ghosts are
rising,’ Will told them proudly, watching his dream come true. Urban legends in
the making.

‘Shut up Will,’
said Chris.

22

‘I can’t believe
it,’ Jim mumbled, walking around the dead spider sprawled on the kitchen table.
‘I’ve never seen one this close.’ Leaning in, he studied it like art in a
gallery. Cautiously the group felt at its curled-up legs. They studied the cuts
and dents where Tabitha had stabbed it. Jagged slits and punctures scarred its
hard bright skin, gleaming like chrome in the daylight.

‘So how’s the,
er
, project going?’ Will said quietly, turning to Jim as he
studied the alien’s stab wounds.

‘
Hm
, about halfway there,’ Jim replied, tapping his nose.

‘What project?’
said Liv, overhearing them. She studied Jim’s face as his sneaky creased-up
smile faded away.

‘It’s amazing,
really,’ Will cut in, studying the alien to change the subject. He crouched
down to peer at it over the edge of the table, staring in wonder like a
six-foot boy. Liv looked at him suspiciously, trying to think what he could
mean by
project.
Tabitha sat down by the empty fireplace with Laika,
stroking her side and checking her dog’s healed-up wounds. Laika had whined
like a puppy when Tabitha appeared at the castle gate.

‘Well, there’s
definitely some armour there,’ said Liv, pushing a bullet against the spider’s
silver skin. ‘But Tabitha
did
get a knife through it.’

‘We should try
the rifles out,’ said Chris, eyes lighting up.

‘Hell yeah,’
said Will, standing up. He lifted the spider off the table with a clatter,
every bit as heavy as it looked.

‘Don’t,’ Tabitha
warned him, reaching out to take it off him. ‘If a claw catches you –

‘It’s fine,’
Will replied. ‘Look, not poisoned,’ he said, shrugging with a grin. ‘But thanks
for your concern.’ Tabitha smiled and left him to it. Liv watched the look
between them.

‘Is it heavy?’
said Jim.

‘It is,’ Will replied,
wrestling it carefully for a better hold. ‘Maybe the armour’s not much good
against bullets though, if we hit the right spot. There’s only one way to find
out.’ He carted the dead spider across the room, and stepped carefully through
the door onto the courtyard. ‘So, in the name of science, I demand that we mess
around with guns!’

‘Go closer,’
said Jim, peering over Chris’s shoulder in the garden.

‘Shut up, I’m
trying to aim,’ said Chris.

‘You’ll miss it.
We can’t be wasting bullets,’ Jim replied, between coughs.

‘Shut
up!
’
Chris snapped, aiming down the rifle sight.

‘How come you’re
the one shooting the rifle?’ said Jim. ‘You didn’t even come out to find the
bloody things!’

‘Gents,’ Will
said calmly, motioning for Jim to step away. Birds sang loud and high in the
afternoon air. Chris took aim at the dead spider on the lawn. The group stood
around behind him, fingers in ears, ready for the shot. Laika scratched on the
door inside the keep, whining to come out.

‘
Shh
.’ Tabitha said softly, standing close by the door
outside. Her metal fingers felt freezing in her ears. Better than going deaf,
though. Chris took aim, held his breath, and closed his finger round the
trigger. The rifle cracked, echoing from the castle through the silent town.
Panicked birds fluttered up out of the trees.

‘Missed it,’
said Jim, over Chris’s shoulder.

‘I hit it!’
Chris replied.

‘You didn’t!’
said Jim, squinting at it.

‘I hit it! Look,
you blind old git!’ Chris growled. Jim pushed Chris to the grass, ready to hit
him.

‘Who’s got the
gun?’ Chris threatened.

‘Just try it,
you little shit,’ said Jim, looking ready for a fight.

‘Gents!’ Will
cut in.

‘Jesus Christ,’
Liv muttered at them, walking over to the spider to see what the bullet had
done. Tabitha stroked the bottom of the keep door where Laika was still
scratching inside, trying to shush her.

‘Went through,’
said Liv, studying the bullet hole in the spider’s skin.

‘I told you,’
said Chris. Jim made a point of not looking at him, in case he was wearing that
gloating smile. ‘Can I shoot it again?’ he said,
sighting
down the rifle.

‘What the bloody
hell for?’ said Jim. He was fretting about their pile of ammunition, which was
already one bullet lighter.

‘It’s fun,’ said
Chris. ‘And it’s good practise.’

‘Yeah, and if
you keep
practising
there won’t be any bullets left when we need them!’
said Jim.

‘It’s
two
bullets
,’ Chris replied. ‘What’s your problem?’

‘You’re my
problem!’ said Jim. ‘Give me the gun.’

‘Come on Chris,
that’s enough for n-now,’ Liv added. Chris ignored her and took aim at the
spider. ‘Will, Chris wants to
sh
-shoot it again,’
said Liv. Jim tried to take the rifle off him; Chris was ready to hit him with
it.

‘In a minute,’
Will replied absently, his back turned. He was studying a bullet he’d popped
out from one of the rifle magazines. ‘Actually… I say we let Tabitha show us
how she kills them. For when we run out of bullets anyway.’ Tabitha looked up
from the door, still stroking the wood where Laika scratched unhappily.

‘Can I let Laika
out now, or are you still shooting?’ she said, looking up at the faces that had
turned to her expectantly.

‘No of course,
let her out,’ Will said with a smile. Chris cursed, and handed the rifle to
Jim. After Laika’s happy reunion, and a good bit of canine attention, Tabitha went
over to the alien corpse and turned it on its back. They gathered around her in
the garden, watching Tabitha wrestle the spider’s dead curled legs away from
its chest.

‘All this armour
underneath is twice as thick as the topside,’ Tabitha told the group, pointing
a grey finger at the skin on the spider’s flat belly. It was a star-shaped
bunch of sockets where the legs joined the body. ‘It’s better to go for the top
side, especially the head,’ she said. ‘I can punch a dent in the skin or get a
knife through it, but only because of my hands. You guys might need something
heavier, like an axe or something.’ Chris opened his mouth to say something.

‘Shut up Chris,’
Liv said pre-emptively, before he could say something sarcastic. He didn’t look
happy about Tabitha’s lecture.

‘The brain’s
your best bet,’ Tabitha continued, flipping the spider back over on the grass.
Its legs clattered to rest like the limbs on a dead crab. ‘The brain’s around
here, above and behind the mouth. It’s probably easier to show you, actually.’
Tabitha wiggled her fingers down into the stab wound in its skin, and with an
effort she peeled back its hide and tore it off. Silver blood welled inside its
body, and trickled down on the grass in shining streams.

‘Jesus,’ Liv
mumbled, staring in horror at the stringy white muscles inside.

‘So that’s the
brain,’ said Tabitha. She was poking at a slick grey swelling, no bigger than a
golf ball.

‘What’s that,
the heart?’ said Will, stepping around the spider. He examined a black sphere,
nestled away behind the sinewy sac that housed the creature’s tongue.

‘Yep,’ Tabitha
replied, tucking her hair back behind her ear. Liv looked between them for a
moment, and noted the body language. Will motioned to the others to come
closer. ‘Don’t touch its claws, anyone. Or its mouth,’ said Tabitha. ‘It’s got
venom that’ll liquidise you.’

‘Yeah, we know,’
Chris said sarcastically, looking round at the others. ‘Thanks for the lecture
though.’ Tabitha looked up at him, said nothing.

‘Chris, will you
please
stop being such an obnoxious arse?’ Liv asked him sincerely.

‘I’ve seen them
jump a good seven or eight feet,’ Tabitha continued, waggling one of the
spider’s rattling legs. ‘But what you really have to look out for,’ she said,
reaching down in between the spider’s mouth parts, ‘is this.’ She took firm
hold of the bony spike inside, and stretched the tongue out like a five-foot
spring.

‘That’s what
they drink your insides out with?’ said Jim, horrified at the pale gristly
trunk.

‘That’s right,’ Tabitha
replied, letting go of the tongue and watching it shrink back down inside the
thing’s mouth. ‘What it drinks goes back here,’ she said, walking around the
back of the body. She tore away a fleshy membrane under the armour, revealing a
translucent pouch.

‘That’s the
stomach,’ said Liv, poking it.

‘Yep,’ Tabitha
replied, stretching the sac out a little. ‘You can tell which ones won’t go for
you, because they’re already fat and sluggish when this is full.’

‘When they’ve
already eaten, yeah,’ Jim said gravely. He thought about the one that took Mary
from him. He offered Liv and Tabitha a rough old hand each, helping them up
from the grass. ‘Well, I’ve seen enough of that fella,’ he said, looking away.
He turned his back on the spider and the group, and looked up at the clouds. He
ran his hand over the white stubble on his chin, and thought about Mary. He
felt his eyes watering a little, and wiped away the tears quickly before anyone
could see. ‘Let’s get back inside,’ he said, studying the sky.
‘There’s rain
coming. And I’ve not had my cup of tea.’

‘Are the two
things connected?’ Chris chipped in sarcastically. Liv glared at him and shook
her head.

‘Shut up,
Chris.’

‘So we’re armed
and dangerous now,’ Will said happily. ‘The Ghosts are in business!’ there was
a small round of applause around the table in the keep. Will even passed a
handful of biscuits out to celebrate, crumbly and packet-fresh.

‘So what’s next
for the m-mighty Ghosts?’ said Liv, dipping her biscuit into her tea. Jim
watched her, and wished he’d done the same with his biscuit before he’d eaten
it. Tabitha watched them all munching and felt her stomach rumble.

‘Well, I’ve got
a couple of things in mind,’ Will replied. ‘But leave it with me for now. In
the meantime, we’ve still got a castle to run.’ Liv and Jim nodded. ‘And I’m
proud of us, you know?’ Will added. ‘We went right out there and did the job.
And now we’re in a better position to help other survivors if they turn up. So,
cheers,’ he said, raising his cup of tea. Tabitha raised her mug of water to
clink against the other cups, though Chris didn’t join in. She glanced at him
and saw only a dark look in his eyes; nothing short of hate. He looked away.

The skies brightened up in the
afternoon. Jim, Liv and Chris were working in the garden. In the keep Will was
busy with their new equipment, counting out rounds and grenades on the kitchen
table.

‘Let me help,’
said Tabitha, sitting on a pile of cushions with Laika. She opened up a tin of
steak stew, a treat from Jim, and let it
slop
down
into
Laika’s
bowl.

‘I already told
you, you need to rest today,’ Will replied, sharing out the ammunition with his
back to her. ‘You’re not well enough to work.’

‘I’m fine,’ she
protested. Laika dug into her food bowl hungrily with quiet lapping bites.

‘You collapsed
out on the moors this morning,’ Will said over his shoulder, counting the
remaining bullets. ‘What if it had just been you out there, on your own?’

‘I know,’ she
conceded. ‘But I want to work, though.’ There was a hanging silence while Will counted
out the last bullets, and busied himself with organising the army helmets and
bulletproof vests in order of damage.

‘You don’t want
everyone to think you’re lazy, is that it?’ he said.

‘Well, yeah,’
Tabitha replied hesitantly, ‘but mostly because I’m really bored.’ Will snorted
a laugh. ‘There must be something I can do to help, while I’m just sat here,’
she said. Another hanging silence. Will banged his hand down on the table. At
first she thought he was angry, but he turned around with a grin. That was the
bang he made when inspiration struck.

‘I’ve got an
idea, while everyone’s out,’ he said, smiling. ‘If you’re up for it?’

‘What is it?’
said Tabitha, sitting up on the pillows.

‘Come upstairs,’
he said. ‘We’ll need a bed sheet.’

The rain that Jim predicted never came.
It turned out to be a good afternoon for them to get the allotment weeded,
which ran semi-circular around the foot of the keep. Liv and Jim were down on
their hands and knees, pulling weeds from the soil in silent companionship; Chris
was putting in a half-effort over to one side. Jim had never seen the need to
talk while he was working. Liv had always felt a little anxious about holding
conversations anyway, so it was nice when she didn’t have to. Chris, on the
other hand, had been muttering every complaint that crossed his mind. That
there must be easier ways to grow food than this. That they could shoot birds
and eat those instead. That they could even set up a fish pond in the garden,
maybe. And that planting carrots and potatoes and cabbages was a lot of hard
work for very few calories in return. Eventually Jim had heard enough, and
threw down his weeding knife with a loud sigh.