The Birth of Bane (33 page)

Behind me,
Rosalyn squealed.
“Jerry, don’t
leave me! Don’t let them have me!”

I didn’t bother
with a retort. I glanced upward instead, to where the unlikely wall
atop the buildings lining either side of the alley met the roof. It
felt like I’d been punched in the stomach when I saw more of the
gem-hued arachnids gazing down upon us. There were scores. Some of
them were larger than the one chasing after us.

I looked to
either side of the alleyway, searching over the angled double
doorways, looking for one that was open, even partially. We
couldn’t make it through one that was closed. The spider was too
close. If it was locked, we’d be toast.

Another blast of
crystal ruptured the asphalt a yard to my right. I dodged left.
Another blast, this one behind me, it was right upon my heels. I
urged my legs to move faster, willing every ounce of speed I could
squeeze out of them. I steadied my breathing, immediately falling
into the rhythmic pattern I used when I raced cross-country. Two
quick inhalations, followed by a long exhale, in pace with the
pounding of my feet. I could keep this up for at least a mile. And
then…

It came down
from directly above, crossing my forehead, touching the place
between my eyebrows. All at once, an icy shockwave assaulted my
senses. It was a brain-freeze on a monstrous scale, painful,
seething. I stumbled as the remaining ray of minerals thundered
into the ground. I lost my balance, careened to the side, my
shoulder smacking into yet another trash bin. I screeched through
clenched teeth, feeling the throb throughout my upper arm and the
paralyzing cold clawing about my head. I put a blind hand before
me, just in case I fell to the ground. I didn’t want to thwack my
skull against the pavement. I’d pass out for sure.

Her hands were
under my armpits, tiny, spasmodic, but it was enough. I got a foot
underneath my weight, centered. The other followed, muscle memory
saving me. I lurched upright, still moving as fast I could through
the rubble clogging the way.

I could hear
them now. It was the loudest chittering I would ever hear in my
lifetime. A constant cacophony of clicks and clacks, ticks and
tats, incessant, building in volume as they came nearer.

They were coming
down the walls now. They had to be. They were behind us as well.
They were getting closer. They were coming faster. I could hear the
urgency grow within them, the noise grew. I could smell it. They
were excreting it from between the forest of spindly hairs growing
from their bulbous bodies.

Chittering,
nattering - chattering, clattering - they were gaining!

I shook my head
violently, hoping to clear the fog muddling my thoughts, trying
desperately to keep my body and brain from misfiring.

I saw it, out of
the corner of my eye. A doorway, it was open! From within shone a
sickly green light, the color of avocado left in the air too long.
I didn’t care. I shifted my body toward it at once. My left hand
grabbing ahold of Rosalyn’s still underneath my arm.

“
Come on! Run!
For the door, run!”

She didn’t
reply. Her hand gripped mine fiercely. I was plain she wasn’t about
to let go.

I held her just
as tight. Though she’d been the harbinger of my family destruction,
though she’d coerced my father into grotesque sexual scenarios, in
that instant when my life, her life, was on the line, I was glad
for that tiny bit of human contact. I didn’t care, in that fraction
of an eye-blink who, or what, she was. She was there. She was with
me, and that was enough.

Then, she
wasn’t.

Another
unearthly bolt from yet another rainbow spider had hit her. Where,
I did not know. At once, her hand ripped from mine. I heard her
scream as she went down.

I skidded to a
halt, spun as quickly as I could, feeling the tension in my legs.
One iota of pressure in addition to what I was applying and I’d
tear muscle.

My eyes found
hers almost immediately. There were tears streaking down her face.
Her hand was reaching out to me, her fingers more like talons,
physical expressions of the pain in her body, of the sheer terror
in her mind.

I leapt for her,
an amazing jump really. I can’t tell you how far, there was no
distance in that place, in my mind. I was away, and then, I was
near. It is the only way I can explain it.

Our hands
clasped one another.

I yanked
viciously.

She yelped in
pain, but came to her feet as I hauled her upon them. She was
scraped and bruised about her arms, her skin-tight leggings torn,
blood dripping through.

“
Move your
fucking ass!” I yelled, though there was no need.

Her visage was
ghastly. She was frightened beyond her innermost fears. I was
seeing her very soul wail in despair.

We darted for
the portal, dashing over the remaining ground faster than we
could’ve dreamed.

Another web
blasted into one of the partially opened doors, throwing it wide as
it ricocheted into the chamber beyond.

Piercing shards
cut our arms and cheeks, but we didn’t stop. We rushed through the
doorway, slamming the doors shut with every ounce of strength we
possessed. They closed with a resounding clamor.

The giant
spiders slammed into it a second later.

Rosalyn and I
were tossed onto the ground, landing on our rear ends, bouncing,
our arms stretched behind us, palms searching for
purchase.

To this day, I
thank god the doors were like the ones leading into the Boy’s
Gymnasium back at my old high school. They had long, traversing
rails that operated when one pushed in a downward fashion.
Otherwise, they would lock, the moment the flange clicked into
place.

Before the
onslaught of the multi-colored arachnids, they held.

*****

She got to her
feet before I did. Standing shakily upon her heeled boots, now
scuffed and swathed with the grime of the alley we’d vacated in a
panic.

I remained
seated, staring up at the large metal doors, seeing them vibrate in
their hinges every time one of the morbidly beautiful spiders
smashed into it. Tiny tendrils of dust drifted sedately to the
floor with each impact, the cross-rails rattling in their sockets,
but the barrier held. The doors were too strong for the likes of
the arachnids.

“
Oh god, Jerry, what is this place?”
asked Rosalyn, strangled as if she couldn’t
breathe.

I glanced her
way.

Her hand had
come to her mouth, her raven looks were cast in shadow. The
vomitous green light within the room hung from the middle of the
chamber, illuminating her face from left to right, the bridge of
her nose forming a streak of darkness across her face.

I could tell her
eyes were wide open, but what else she was expressing was hidden
from view. I stood, stepping about, gazing in the direction she was
looking. Immediately, I felt my heart lurch, sour bile rising, and
then staying at the cusp of my throat. Rosalyn had it right.
What was this place?

The chamber was
large, though not nearly as large as some of the others I had
already been within. It was roughly fifty yards square, built like
an airplane hangar and not like the vast rooms of before. They had
an overall warehouse appeal about them. This architecture was much
starker, utilitarian even. The roof was peaked at the center line,
large metal beams, forming trusses that spanned its’ width. As I
mention before, in the middle of space, suspended from the
supports, hanging down from a great chain, was the source of light.
It was enclosed in a brazier-like, copper casement and shone its’
diseased luminosity through a myriad of carved holes in the metal
itself. The copper covering depicted a scene of some sort, though I
couldn’t ascertain what it might’ve been, the glare, though
low-leveled, was difficult to peer through. For the most part the
room seemed normal.

I was about to
mention to this to her when a strange gurgling followed by
something that sounded like rubber squeaking caught my attention.
It was then my eyes locked on to what Rosalyn had been
referring.

They were
other-worldly, as if anything in this cursed place had been
“worldly” thus far. They were roughly cylindrical, but in a natural
fashion. They did not seem to be manufactured. They were closed at
either end, possibly fused, because the longer I looked at them,
the ends appeared to be apertures - openings that had been sealed.
They were the color of puke, varying shades of green, yellow and
orange, intermixed as if they’d been liquid once and they colors
had been blended by most huge spatula.

Unwittingly, I
took a stride toward them, my orbs piercing the semi-dark. The skin
at either end was pinched.

“
What’s inside of them?”
asked Rosalyn, still shaken.

I hadn’t noticed
that detail until then, but the moment she spoke, I could tell
there were shadows within each of the pod-like
structures.

Yes, that’s what
they were, pods! Why hadn’t I seen that before?

“
Are they
moving?”

“
What?” came my surly response.
Moving?

She pointed,
coming up to my side, her knees and waist slightly bend so she was
poised upon the balls of her feet. The stance made her appear to be
leaning toward them.
“I saw one
of them move a second ago,”
she
clarified, for my sake, though she didn’t glance my way.

I walked closer,
then stopped on a dime, my heart in my throat when her earlier
observation proved accurate.

From within one
of them pods, something moved.

From my nearer
vantage, I was suddenly able to determine what I was looking at.
Shocked, nauseated, I inadvertently backed into her. Her arms came
about my waist offering and searching for support simultaneously.
We remained unmoving, eyes riveted to the shadow in the…
pickle? Was that what I was looking at?
Was this a giant, pregnant pickle?
My mouth went dry. I heard the awful squeaking once more, saw
as something humanoid clawed at the pickle-pod from within. It was
trying to get out. Lethargically, as if its’ movements were the
last ones it would ever have, it scratched at thick fleshiness
surrounding it.

I
gagged.

Rosalyn buried
her face in my back. I could feel her trembling, her hands gripping
either bicep from behind, holding on for some kind, any kind, of
solace.
“Oh dear god, they’re
trapped. They’re trapped… they’re trapped… they’re
trapped…,”
she kept saying,
again and again.

My eyes roamed.
I tried to figure out how many
people?
were stuck inside
the terrible pods, running the calculations quick in my head. Not
sure why, I counted. When I reached somewhere around the number
fifty and there were still many more giant-sized pickles to
tabulate, I was unable to continue. The ones further away weren’t
like those that were nearer Rosalyn and me. These were different.
There were no distinct figures within. They were cloudy, murky, as
if…

…
They had
dissolved?

“
Oh fuck, we
gotta go,” I mumbled to no one in particular. “This isn’t right.
This is - .”

I was never able
to finish.

My father’s
mistress went rigid without warning, her body pressing against the
entire length of me. She was so close she could easily speak
directly into my ear.
“Jerry,
look!”
she indicated, one of her
delicate digits pointing.

I followed the
tip of her index finger. At once, I caught sight of a door across
the way, light of a much more cheerful sort shining through the
cracks. I didn’t care. I didn’t waste time.

“
Come on!” I
ordered and we ran passed the front row of the enormous pickles and
the helpless people trapped within, across the chamber to an
identical set of doors we’d come through in our desperation to
ditch the spiders. Their rails came down smoothly, they weren’t
locked to us.

We went through
without a word…

…
And strode
right into the middle of my bedroom on the second floor of my
mother’s house at 1052 Lincoln Drive.

We were standing
in the middle of the narrow entryway, the rest of my bedroom
angling off toward our right. The fireplace stood along that same
wall, where the confines of my domain opened up. My bed stood
against the far wall, the doors to my bathroom and the closet I
shared with Elijah on the western facing wall, to our
left.

I paced deeper
into the room, taking note of the nightstands and the matching
lamps. My desk was on the other side of the fireplace from the door
we’d walked through moments prior. The bedspread, the carpeting –
everything was how I left it when I’d got up. My blankets were
still thrown asunder, the rumpled sheets below, visible, tangled
from my hasty exit when I had heard someone battering down the
front door.
How long ago had
that been? How much time had passed since I’d run downstairs intent
on saving my mother? Half an hour? An hour? Two?
I had no real concept of time, so much
had happened since I had walked through the door that should’ve led
me to the root cellar, but had led me somewhere else entirely. It
had happened so fast, so many events piled onto one another,
packed, squished. There was no way I could fathom time. Not here.
Not now.