Ignite, p.7
Ignite, page 7
Mack nodded, relaxing. “The drawers are in alphabetical order.”
The man nodded his thanks and started searching for whatever he needed. Just before he walked out, Mack turned around. “Sir,” he said. “You’d better take a lot. It might be a while before they can restock.”
That was as good as he could do for the man. He had a shopping list to fill. He hurried over to the sports section, where he found a better backpack, a water purifier, an all fuel burner, and a few more items that would come in handy.
More people were coming into the store, some of them aiming straight for the electronics section. He watched as they grabbed DVDs and video games and mentally shook his head. They had no idea what they were in for.
He worked down his list as quickly as he could, happy that he found every single item he’d wanted. Thank goodness for Walmart. He had just stuffed everything in his backpack and was on his way to reconnect with Austin, who should be in the food section, when screams erupted near the front door. His heart rate spiked as he froze to listen to what was going on. There was more screaming, the sound of people running, but from what?
Instinctively, he walked backward into the store, keeping an eye on what was happening near the front door, where all the commotion was, so he assumed that was where the danger, whatever it was, was coming from.
“Oh my god,” a woman screamed. “What are these things?”
Things. She had said “things.” Mack could only think of one thing that could cause this amount of panic right now that would be labeled as a thing. A spider bot. Or rather, more than one, since she accused the plural. Things.
They had to get away as fast as possible. But where the hell was Austin? The food section was right near the entrance where all the screaming was. This was so not good.
He halted. He couldn’t leave Austin there by himself. Mack tightened the backpack he was carrying, clicking the chest and waistband straps, making sure the whole thing was snug against his body. That way, if necessary, he could move fast, even though his legs were tired from all the hiking they’d done.
“It’s stabbing me!”
That was the same woman who had just screamed, and she yelled again and then suddenly went quiet.
“It killed her!” a man called out.
Mack’s heart sank in his chest. Not friendly, then, as they had expected. How had it killed her? She’d called out something about being stabbed. Stabbed with what? He needed to get closer to see what was going on without being detected himself, but how?
He looked around, realizing that he was in the section with all the toilet paper and paper towels. Not exactly an effective defensive weapon. But the large packaging did offer one benefit. It could conceal him if he managed to get behind it.
He didn’t waste any more time and pulled out a few of the largest packages with sixty rolls. That created an opening, and much to his satisfaction, there was an empty space between that shelf and the shelf in the next aisle. He crawled inside, managing to pull two of the toilet paper packages back to conceal his little hideout. As quietly as he could, he crawled forward until he’d reached the end of the aisle. The screaming hadn’t stopped, though it was decreasing in volume. His impression was that a lot of people had run away and left those who couldn’t get away to fend for themselves. Fight or flight at its finest.
He pushed away a few rolls of paper towels to create an opening wide enough to see what was happening. From his position, he could spot the produce section, where a man was frantically climbing on top of the large display that held all the apples, sending dozens of them cascading to the floor.
“Get away from me,” he snapped at presumably the spiders. Or spider, because Mack couldn’t see what was attacking him. “Shoot it!” the man yelled at someone outside of Mack’s periphery.
Seconds later, a shot rang out. Then another one and another one, until the telltale sign of an empty chamber revealed the man had emptied his gun. Had it worked?
“They’re bulletproof!” another man, presumably the shooter, shouted, frustration and anger lacing his voice.
“It’s climbing up here,” the first man called out in desperation. He bent over and grabbed a few of the apples at his feet, throwing them with jerky moves at the enemy Mack still couldn’t see.
Somewhere else, another scream rose, and Mack realized there were definitely more than a few spiders in the store. Had they walked straight into a trap? Had these alien spider thingies simply been waiting for the humans stupid enough to come to the nearest store? It didn’t really matter how they had found them. Way more important was how to escape them. Clearly, bullets weren’t effective, so how could these things be killed?
Think, he told himself. He’d only seen the one spider from the distance once it had crawled outside of that rock. It had looked like a robot spider, as Austin had called it, with a similar gait as a normal spider. They were small in comparison to humans, and apparently, they could climb, which made sense because real spiders could as well.
Mack closed his eyes, trying to imagine what a robot spider created by an advanced technology could look like. It would have sensors on every side, probably, to guide it. Motion sensors, maybe. Auditory sensors, probably. It could stab, the woman had said. Some spiders could throw poison at their enemies, so was it a similar thing? Or did they have some kind of knife or needle that could protrude from their legs or body?
There were so many options, so many things he could only guess at. But despite everything the spider could do, there had to be a way it could be killed. It didn’t look like an organism, but rather a man-made object. Or in this case, an alien-made one. Objects could be disabled. Presumably, they had some kind of remote-control sensor, but Mack had no hope of finding that anytime soon. But if it was similar to a robot, that meant it was at its core an electronic gadget. All gadgets had in common that they were sensitive to the same things: water, fire, and electricity.
Electricity. Was that why the aliens had used the EMP, to disable all electronics that could defeat their spiders? Mack rolled the thought around in his head and liked that line of thinking. So it had to be vulnerable to electricity. But what was left that could create an electrical shock or short-circuit strong enough to disable a gadget like this? That was something he would need to think about.
He turned his attention back to the man, who was still valiantly throwing apples at his attacker, his desperation growing. Finally, Mack had a visual of the spider attacking him. There were two now, coming at him from both sides. Nausea bubbled in his stomach as he watched the man fight for his life.
Suddenly, a loud yell disrupted the desperate cries of the man and his companion who had tried to shoot the spider earlier. After that, it was like everything transitioned to slow motion. Both spiders stopped in their tracks, and the man looked to the side, to something or someone Mack couldn’t see.
A football slammed into one of the spiders, knocking it straight off the apple stand, followed by another ball, equally fast and with perfect aim, causing the other spider to tumble down.
“Run!” a voice called out, and Mack immediately recognized it as Austin’s.
The man on top of the stand didn’t hesitate, but jumped down to the other side of where the spiders had fallen off and made a run for it. There was a sound of metallic scrambling on the floor, probably the spiders trying to pursue him, but they were too slow and encumbered by all the apples on the floor. Within seconds, the man was gone, followed by more footsteps from his friend, leaving an eerie silence in their wake.
Mack held his breath, scared to even make noise breathing right now. It was an incredibly brave thing Austin had done, but where was he now? Had he run out with the others, leaving Mack by himself? He couldn’t hear or see anyone else in the store.
Slow clicking noises indicated the spiders were walking around. Mack tried to determine if there were more than two, but he couldn’t distill individual walking patterns from the sounds. At least it sounded like they were moving away from him, and he breathed a little easier. All he had to do was wait them out. If they suspected no one was left, they would leave, right?
Then he could make his way back to the tree where Tan was hidden and reconnect with Austin there. It still stung that the guy had left him, but could Mack really blame him if his life had been on the line? They were strangers, after all, barely acquaintances.
Just when he had resigned himself to spending more time in his toilet paper hideout, he heard someone curse.
“Mack, if you’re still in here, I have two spiders circling the display I’m standing on. Any help you can give me would be appreciated.”
7
Austin had been damn lucky he’d heard the screams before the spiders had spotted him. They’d walked right through the front door, brazenly, as if they owned the place already. People had scurried off in every direction, most of them fleeing outside. But then screams drifted in from outside as well, and Austin had concluded there had to be more spiders outside. It made sense, sending a few in to drive people outside and then wait for them there with larger numbers. These spider bots were smart, or at least, the creatures who had made them and operated them were.
In hindsight, those few precious seconds he’d taken to assess the situation had probably saved his life. The screams outside died down after a minute or so, and Austin had found a hiding spot somewhere in the sports aisle. He hadn’t been able to see everything, but it had been clear there were at least two spiders inside the store, cornering people and then stabbing them. With what, he had no idea, but the woman who had screamed out had been specific that the spider was stabbing her. Austin didn’t care what the robot thing was stabbing with, it didn’t sound good.
He’d kept hiding, hoping that the spiders would conclude everyone was gone and leave. But then he’d heard the man climb on the apple display, his desperate friend trying to help him by attempting to shoot the spiders. He’d crawled forward, quietly, until he’d been able to see what was going down.
The guy had been frantic, trying to keep the spiders at bay. His idea of throwing apples was a smart one, Austin thought, and it had worked for a while, probably as much because he’d kept sliding them off the display as because they had a hard time gaining traction on the ground with all the scattered apples around their legs. But there were only so many apples left on the display, and Austin could see he was losing the battle.
His eyes had fallen on a large rack of footballs. They were kids’ size, but that didn’t mean he couldn’t use them to create a distraction. And fuck knew he could throw, having played football all his life. He’d silently crawled forward until he could see the spiders, and then he’d thrown the balls, knocking the spiders straight off the display, sending them flying and sliding over the floor amid the apples.
Thank fuck the guy had been quick to react, jumping down and making a run for it. Too bad he’d run straight outside, his friend on his heels. He was out the door before Austin could warn him that he probably should’ve taken the back exit.
He’d immediately climbed on the top shelf of an aisle display of canned food, hoping that the spiders wouldn’t be able to see him from their position on the floor. He wasn’t sure how far up their sensory cameras or whatever the hell they used to see went, but he was hoping they couldn’t make that angle.
He’d been wrong.
So now he found himself balancing on top of the display, with two spiders circling him, probably assessing the best way to get to him. He called out to Mack, hoping against his better judgment he’d still be around. He probably wouldn’t be, not after everything that had gone down in the store. Austin couldn’t even blame him for hightailing it out of there at the first sign of those spiders. All he could hope for was that Mack had managed to escape whatever had happened outside near the front door, so he could make it safely back to Tan.
Keeping his eyes on the two spiders, it sank in. He was on his own now. He still had his gun, but a fat lot of good that would do him when those spiders couldn’t be stopped with bullets. They probably had some kind of bulletproof outside or maybe a shield of some kind, like he’d seen in the many sci-fi and alien movies he’d watched as a teen. Plus, he’d never even fired a gun, so the chances of him actually hitting them were low anyway.
All he had to defend himself with were cans of soup. He could start throwing them, much like the guy had thrown the apples, and it would keep them at bay for a while, but at some point, he’d run out of cans and they would get to him.
He surveyed his surroundings. Was there anything else he could use as a weapon? Was there any way to get out of there? He was standing on the top shelf of a high display that ran the entire aisle, so he had some freedom to move, but there was no way he could jump off to a different aisle or display. The distance between the displays was too large for him to manage. He had nowhere to go.
Adrenaline fired up his fight response. He could feel it rushing through his veins, the cold determination that he wasn’t going to go down without a fight. He’d throw every last can at them and then he still wouldn’t surrender. He hadn’t survived six months of hell in camp only to be killed by a bunch of spider robots. Hell no.
The two spiders stopped walking around the display he was on. He couldn’t hear a sound, but he was sure they were communicating with each other somehow. Probably devising a strategy to kill him. Seconds later, one of the spiders scurried around to the other side of the display, leaving one robot in aisle twelve and one in aisle thirteen with him on the display between the two. That was smart, because it meant he had to constantly divide his attention between both sides. Dammit.
He’d call them Twelve and Thirteen, he decided, because his brain needed something shorter than “robot spider in aisle twelve”. Thirteen crawled close to the foot of the display, then put its metallic legs on the lowest shelf with boxes of pasta and started its ascent. Yeah, that would not work for Austin. He grabbed a can of Campbell’s tomato soup, and with one well-aimed throw, knocked it right back off.
As soon as he’d concluded he’d been successful, he switched his attention to Twelve and wouldn’t you know it, that fucker was already on the first shelf. Another can of tomato soup knocked him down as well. Both spiders tried again, then again, and Austin kept grabbing cans and throwing them at them.
When he ran out of tomato soup, he moved down to chicken noodle, then cream of mushroom. The spiders slightly changed their tactics every time, moving simultaneously, or one at a time, moving slower or slightly farther down where it was harder to hit them. His right arm was starting to throb a little, which was no wonder with him being out of practice for six months.
He was so focused on knocking off the spiders that he almost missed what happened in aisle fourteen, where someone climbed up the display without making a sound. The sense of relief when he spotted Mack was so profound he missed a throw for the first time and had to throw another can to knock Thirteen off the second shelf.
Mack hadn’t left him. He was still there and though Austin didn’t have the time to watch what he was doing, there had to be a reason the guy was climbing up on the display as well. Mack had to have some kind of plan or at least an idea to get him out of there. Both of them.
The spiders hadn’t spotted Mack, and Austin wanted to keep it that way. So he didn’t call out to him and barely looked at him, just glanced in his direction between throws to make sure he was still there and that he wasn’t missing any kind of signal. Mack was doing something, bending over and moving around, but Austin couldn’t see what it was. All he could do was hope that whatever Mack was doing would work, because the number of cans was swiftly dwindling.
He’d just knocked Twelve off the third shelf—those fuckers were managing to get closer and closer to him before he could deal with them off—when Mack called out. “Hey spider thingies! Come and get me!”
Both Twelve and Thirteen stopped their ascent immediately, and after a second or two’s pause, they climbed back down and scurried off in the direction of Mack’s voice. He called out again. “I’m right over here, so why don’t you come and find me?”
What the hell was he doing? Austin lowered his arm holding the can of soup and took two seconds to roll his shoulders and work out a muscle cramp before he looked at Mack. The guy stood planted on top of his display, his feet slightly widened, holding a fire hose in his hands. Oh, that was brilliant. Austin’s heart sped up in anticipation.
Both spiders came at Mack from the same side, as if they had to investigate the situation first before deciding to use a strategy like the divide and conquer one they’d used with Austin. It was probably exactly what Mack had counted on or hoped for, and Austin watched him wait till the spiders had entered his aisle. Then he turned open the hose and a massive stream of water erupted.
Austin couldn’t see the spiders, but Mack’s enthusiastic whoop informed him the plan was working.
“Aisle twenty-three,” Mack yelled to him over the sound of the water that was still rushing from the fire hose.
Austin wasn’t sure why Mack wanted him to go there, but he wouldn’t question his order right now. He hoisted up his backpack and made his way down the shelves as quickly as he could, still trying to be quiet in case there were more spiders lurking around. He kept looking around him as he ran to aisle twenty-three.
He didn’t spot any spiders, but there were more than a few bodies spread around the store. Judging by their stillness and open eyes, he assumed they were all dead. He pushed down the nausea that rose inside him. There was no time for that now. They had to get the hell away.
As soon as he turned the corner into aisle twenty-three, he smiled. Mack had prepared this well. There were two mountain bikes ready for them.
The sound of the water stopped, and seconds later, he heard Mack running through the store. Apparently, he wasn’t even bothering to be quiet. Austin took the biggest bike and got ready to ride, holding out the other bike for Mack, who came sprinting around the corner, his backpack on his back.
