To Alice and the other survivors, the rain was a blessing. They’d been inching dangerously close to running out of water, and the food was already on its last legs. They’d done their best to ration it, but that could only stretch things so far. The question over what would happen once they were fully dry haunted their every move.
“We have those weird berries.” Alice glanced at the various colorful spheres that had been gathered from the exploration of the surrounding area.
“Do you figure they’re edible?” Victor scowled, the fellow teacher glancing at the potential food. There were other questions in his mind however, she could see them floating right under the surface. Could their hope of rescue hold out against the inevitable truth that they were already going hungry? How long until they opted to leave the wounded behind?
Alice’s thoughts turned away from the unspoken and towards the question that had been raised. The berries. There were mostly three types, one red and very small. It was rather easy to spot since it had a waxy shine to it. The second type was larger: a light green and looking close to a strawberry that had been plucked a bit too early, with tiny white freckles across its surface. The third was the one that Alice was the most hesitant of, a sky blue berry that felt… weird. The color was too vibrant, too sharp, electric. Almost as if to loudly proclaim no one would dare to eat it. The blue felt warm to her touch, a strange sensation that didn’t seem to go away even when she dipped it into water.
“I hope we don’t need to find out,” Alice muttered under her breath, closing her eyes. The sound of rain as it hit the metal chassis of the wrecked bus was almost soothing. “Do you figure Rick and the others found help?”
“I… maybe.” Victor’s eyes turned distant, glancing into the dull dark forest and the cascading rain. “If we have to go into the woods alone, we won’t make it.”
“Why are you so sure?”
“The werewolves? The spider?” A slight shake of his head. “When we were looking around for berries, we…” With a momentary pause to confirm who might be listening in, he lowered his voice. “We saw more of the… things. A new kind.”
The hairs on the back of Alice’s neck stood on edge. “What did you see? What happened?”
“There were two of them, they were too far to see clearly. I think it’s a different sort than the ones we’ve seen so far,” Victor said. “They’d been on the upper branches of one of the trees, just… watching us.”
“If it’s just watching… that’s definitely an improvement.”
Victor shuddered, eyes becoming distant. “It sure didn’t feel like it.”
A bright flash of light was followed by some whimpers from within the bus. The bright burst of illumination had been sharp and abrupt. The rumble of thunder followed a second later loud, the source clearly not too far off. It echoed around them a second longer before it died out to the rain.
“That was close.” Alice winced, her eyes catching something in the darkness of the forest outside the clearing. She squinted, she could’ve…
Another flash of light pierced the darkness. And all too fast it was as if an icy dagger had pierced through her chest. There, on one of the larger branches and looking down into the clearing. Something large and dark, something dangerous that struck at her primal desire to run for cover. It was the spider, the same one that had snatched one of the students.
“INTO THE BUS!” She shrieked, shoving Victor inside and following only a step behind.
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The scream set everything into motion at the same time. Those outside guarding had not hesitated to turn towards the bus and run, and just as they had moved, so had the monster. Like death and its cloak, the black creature jumped from the branch and soared, arching towards the clearing as if it could fly. The illusion was certainly sustained for a split second before gravity took over and the massive shadow arched through the air and landed on the man that had been closest to her side of the clearing when the alarm sang.
The monster opted to use the man to cushion her fall, two of its legs pushing against the center of his back. The human collapsed under the weight, the spider’s legs punched clean through instantaneously. The sickening crunch was followed by a splatter of blood.
The man barely had a chance to register his own death.
The next flash of lightning came with the monster’s brilliant bloody red eyes focused at the bus as everyone had scrambled inside. Silver locks of pearly white hair framed her sharp face and predatory smirk that had too many sharp teeth. The monster did not move as the humans hurried to block the entrance with the spare usable chairs. A cacophony of shrieks, whimpers, and shouts echoed inside the metal box.
Alice could not pay it any mind, her eyes glued on the monster and the look of smugness on those lips. As if what they were doing was exactly what it wanted them to do. The creature shifted its focus downwards to its most recent prey. The spider pulled its leg out of the corpse and grabbed it with its human-shaped hand. Turning around towards the forest, the monster left a trail of blood in its wake that mixed with the mud and rain.
“It’s leaving…?”
As one, the group of survivors froze and stared, watching the monster climb the tree to the spot it had jumped from.
“No.” The voice came from Ms. Dodson, the woman’s wide eyes holding a cold icy darkness within them. There was an edge of panic and anger within them. “She’s keeping us alive.”
“What do you…?” Alice was about to ask, but stopped as she saw the monster sat its hulking spider body down and yanked up the body of the man with the bright yellow bloodied shirt.
Slowly, the monster turned itself over, so it’d be laying on its back, all eight massive arachnid legs waving into the air. The arachnid torso twisted, and a thread of thick silk emerged from the bottom. The spider creature wasted no time to quickly spin around. She turned the body like a top, weaving more and more silk onto its frame, over and over until it was completely hidden and bound in the white substance. The creature latched the silken cocoon to the branch, leaving it hanging underneath.
“It wants to keep us alive.” Mr. Dodson repeated herself.
“But why?”
“Because we’ll eventually starve.” Victor commented with a growl.
“Why would it do that?”
“She might be cautious, not wanting to take risks.” He turned to the psychology teacher. “Remember how you scared off the werewolves? They ran because they didn’t know we were all bluff. I bet it’s the same situation here, why deal with a strong opponent when you can weaken them?”
“We all scared them off. Together.” Alice’s words came flatly.
“Who cares how they were scared? If that thing stays there we are all DEAD!” Ms. Dodson shrieked. Her wrinkled face was turned into a snarl, yellowed teeth shining bright, eyes shrunken and hidden between the folds of her facial age. “It could attack us too!”
“It might… when it gets hungry,” Victor muttered under his breath, eyeing the branch and the monster that stood on it. “We should start thinking how to get out of here.”
“And leave the wounded behind?” Alice’s words were soft, but her eyes burned bright. There was fire in her eyes as she glared at Victor. That heat turned towards the rest of the bus, daring them to speak up on the matter. Unfortunately, there was one person willing to do so.
“We can’t be dragged down to die like some animal!”
The younger woman stepped closer, looking into those cold uncaring eyes that stared back at her from the shorter woman. “If-”
“We can deliberate and think about our options calmly.” Victor’s hand squeezed Alice’s shoulder, drawing her attention. “The monster’s not attacking, that means we can use the time to reinforce the bus and prepare for the worst.”
“And then what?”
The question cut through those gathered there like a guillotine.
“And then… we try to see what we can do,” the man spoke with a grim nod that felt lacking determination. “We can hold out.”
“Hold out to what?”
The question came from within the crowd, and it was no better than a hammer-blow to them all. The noise of rain hid the sound of their hope cracking a little further.
“To the others.”
Alice straightened her back, staring at them with a look of grim determination. “Rick and the others went out to look for aid. I am certain they will find it if they haven’t already. Help is on the way, I’m sure of it.” She squeezed her hands. “All we have to do is hold out until it gets here.”