Dan ran to the Bearcat. Taking the medic bag inside, he ran to Casey. Riley had stripped him by the time he arrived. Casey bled profusely but was still alive. It had been a relief to find his impalement failed to rupture his abdominal artery which would have killed him within seconds, a major stroke of luck.
Dan opened the bag and went on the process of stabilizing Casey while Riley assisted him. Hank couldn't do anything else but let Dan do his work on saving the man, so he left them to their work and went inside the Bearcat and pulled out an ammo can tucked under the seats.
He fished out a spent magazine along with a handful of rounds. “Doug. Take your rifle and make sure that thing is dead. Let it burn for a while to make sure it was double dead, then put out the fire. We can't have that fire suffocate us.”
“Where are the others?” He asked. “I just had my comms cut off which had me worried.”
“No time. Do it now. I’ll tell you the details later.” Hank replied. He filled a magazine and slapped it twice before reloading his rifle. He fished out more empty magazines and started packing.
Stone rolled their SUV to their location and pulled out their own spare ammunition, doing the same as Hank and started packing magazines.
"Hold this here," Dan muttered, and Riley followed. Hank took a second to check up on them and saw Casey had been hooked up with some blood and fluids.
“Firing!” Doug yelled and sent a full magazine to the spider’s face. Mulching its head to unrecognition. He reloaded his rifle and went to the nearby emergency fire cabinet. He pulled the hose, jamming the brass nozzle on the Bearcat's front grill, and turned on the water. The torrent doused the fire with gallons’ nasty years-old stagnant water, causing the smell to mingle with burnt flesh, rust, and burnt gunpowder.
"We got him stable. But he’ll need to get to a hospital if he's going to live past tomorrow." Dan declared after a while, taking off his gloves and throwing them to the side. He then looked down at his patient only to find him looking at him. "Shit. He’s awake.”
"You took a big hit there. Don't worry, we'll get you fixed up." Riley said as he kneeled next to him and patted his shoulder.
“Don’t worry about me. I’ve had worse." Casey groaned, raising his head to look at his wounds. "You guys need to clear this area. We can't risk more of those popping up.”
“What are you talking about? Were going to get you out!" Riley protested.
“No.” Casey rasped. “Duty comes first. Make sure this place is safe."
"Fuck that. We got the VIP out. Our duty ends there."
"No. I'm not putting the people left alive in here in danger just for myself. Do it. I hadn’t died already. I can wait.”
“Is that you really want boss?" Stone asked. "I mean, I agree with both the both of you, but is that what you really want?"
Casey nodded.
"Shit," Riley muttered, shaking his head.
Hank could only watch. He was an outsider in their group. Whatever he would add to their discussion will only be disregarded. Casey turned his head to look at Hank. He nodded, and Hank nodded back.
"I'm going to put you out. Goodnight." Dan said as he gave Casey a shot of morphine. Casey went to sleep and laid him in the back of the bearcat. The armored shell of the car would protect the wounded man while Hank led the rest to check up on any stragglers.
They decided to leave the Minigun. It was fixed. A bad link was what caused the malfunction on the gun. It broke, disconnecting the belt to the delinker. Extremely unlikely, but it happened.
Riley made sure that it would never happen again. He checked each link to make sure they were good and replaced the battery with a couple of 12-volt car batteries connected in series to provide the needed 24 volts for the motors to run.
The bearcat was also busted up from the fight. The majority of the damage was made by a stream of rounds catching the armored car. Doug had parked it on an unlucky spot behind the massive spider when Dan shot at it with the minigun. The stream of rounds cracked the bulletproof glass and destroyed the front lights. The rest was only superficial damage as the bullets failed to penetrate the armor, splattering against the surface and only scuffed the paint.
As for Dean, he had been sitting in the car when he saw the massive creature come out of thin air. He tried calling out for assistance on the radio but was only met with static. Knowing he couldn't do anything else other than leave, he decided to wait and not attract attention to himself. In the end, it turned out to be the right idea.
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Stone parked their SUV beside the bearcat. It had been upgraded for protection, with bullet-resistant windows and armored panels installed inside the doors. All for the sole purpose of protecting the VIP riding inside.
Hank pulled out his map and they planned a systematic approach to clearing the multistory basement. They would first clear the first level and make their way further down. It would give them a clear line of retreat in case they find more trouble that would need further planning.
They made the way back, past the burnt remains of the spider and scattered spent brass, when the lights suddenly turned back on, preceded by a faint rumble above them.
Hank tested the radio, signals still fail to reach distances and pass through walls, and the phones were still dead. It only left one thing. Someone turned on the generators.
Hank pulled out the building map once more, looking for the generator room. He traced his finger between the drawings found the location. It was on the level above them, past the security room and the laundry.
They poured into the staircase, checking the upper and lower landings. It was clear. The bright lights made clearing rooms much easier and faster.
They made their way up. The door only opened into the stairs, which was the reason they had bypassed it on the first way down. Hank slammed his palm on the door, knocking loudly. They waited, none came. He then reached on his back, pulling out a prybar, jammed it on the gap by the latch, and pulled.
Grunting, his muscles trembled and bulged from the effort but failed to force the door open. Hank looked at Stone, who is the biggest and likely strongest in the group.
Stone nodded and took over. He braced himself against the door and with a grunt, broke the latch.
"It only took a black man to break through the locked door." Riley quipped.
Stone sent him a finger and opened the door. A blank sterile hallway laid ahead of them. Fluorescent lights buzzed overhead, and a loud mechanical growl sounded ahead. They entered.
Walking in the middle, they checked the rooms and passed by server bays and machine tool rooms. Skittering sounded ahead of them, explaining the lack of human traces, and they saw a group of five smaller spiders go around the corner.
Hank was on the lead. He took aim and shot at the approaching creatures. The rest followed, and they dropped them with ease.
"OVER HERE!" A voice echoed down the hall ahead of them. Hank and the rest moved forward down the hall to find a man looking at them through a glass window.
"Oh my god! Thank god you came!" He said as he opened the door. Behind him lay rows of monitors showing views of hallways.
“You turned on the lights?” Hank asked.
"No. The automatic systems should have turned them on, but it didn't, so our building engineers went to do it manually. It was my job to turn the building security back on when the lights come up. I waited and was afraid that they were dead when the power didn't turn on sometime after they left, but it seems that they managed it in the end."
"Are there others here?" Hank asked.
“I don't know, security left when everything went to shit. Other than that, I got nothing."
“Make an announcement. Tell everyone to stay in their rooms.” Hank ordered. “Then get look for security footage in the basement. We need to clear out the rest of the spiders."
"The sooner, the better," Stone added.
"Stay here. Keep him company." Hank ordered. "We'll go to the generator room."
"Wait. Take this. This will let you through the doors. It won’t get you past the door to the machine room, but I can make it work from here." The IT guy said.
Hank took the card. It bore the man's face along with his position as the IT. It read Sam Johnson under the mugshot and he raised it to confirm that it is indeed the man.
"That's me," Sam muttered, deadpan.
"I can see that." Hank muttered, "Just reflexes. We'll be going."
"Stay safe," Stone nodded.
Hank led the way. Just like Sam claimed, it opened the door to the end of the hall. It opened up to the laundry room filled with bins filled with soiled sheets under bays of chutes.
Strands of silks shone strung about. The team panned out and cleared the area. They found a dead spider bashed to death in one of the corners. Next to it was a pool of blood but found no body. Blood trailed to the generator which sounded louder for each step they came closer. The magnetic locks disengaged just as they arrived.
They opened the door, spreading out left and right, looking for the engineers. They found one slumped on the floor right by a medical cabinet.
Dan ran up and checked. He found a pulse, albeit weak. A sloppily applied bandage covered his arm and his leg. He was soundly asleep. They found the other engineer sprawled on the floor as if drunk with a dirty bandage on his arm. He looked up at them with sleepy unfocused eyes and smiled. "When seconds count..." he slurred.
'The cops are minutes away.' Hank continued.
They carried the two out of the generator room and back into the security station. Stone and the IT guy poured through the screens where it showed scenes of blood with bodies wrapped in silk where they lay.
One of the screens showed a view covered with silk. Resembling the scene at the lobby. A massive pulsating cocoon the size of a car was in the center, scattered about were human-sized bundles.
"Where is this?" Hank asked.
"Fourth basement level," Sam replied.
"Fuck me," Riley muttered. "Looks like we're going to have to break out the minigun."
"Other than that egg sac looking thing, there isn't any movement on camera," Hank muttered. "As much as I don't want to go down there. We have to take those eggs. We can’t let it hatch.”
"Anyone got a flamethrower?" Riley asked.
Sam continued to flick between the feeds.
"Hold there," Hank ordered. The view showed the scattered remains of spiders laid about.
"More corpses," Stone muttered.
"Yeah. But we didn't put them down," Hank replied.
"They don't look shot," Hank continued. "Where is this?" The corpses in the video showed lopped off legs and punctures on their carapace. There was a group of them scattered around an area.
"Third level," Sam replied.
“We were just there," Riley said, "but Someone else looks to be clearing up the area.”
“Yeah, but who?”
“We have to find it out later. For all we know, they could have left." Hank replied. "Alright. Here's the plan. Our primary objective would be to take out that egg sac. There could be what, a thousand of those just cooking up in there. Next would be to clear out this building and make sure that there is nothing else that can make them. If we find more survivors on the way, then good, but we cannot just go hunting for them."
"Or they could be those bundles over there." Stone replied.
"That too, but it doesn't change our priorities. Dan, stay here and tend to the wounded. Whoever we might come across will be sent to you.”
"Alright," Dan replied.
With the plan settled, they went through the motions and cleared the basement areas. The fluorescent lights buzzing above them left no shadow to hide behind. It made looking for threats much easier compared to their weak weapon lights. They made easy work as they cleared their way to the lower levels, taking out any stragglers that no longer held the advantage.
They reached the fourth basement. A full part of the basement was converted into a den. Silks were everywhere, rows and rows of cocoons on the floor and suspended on the walls. They cleared the area and checked them individually. All were dead. It hurt Hank so much to have to leave the bodies where they lay but he couldn't do much.
They walked over to the pulsing cocoon. Riely wanted to douse it in fuel and just let it burn, but something told Hank not to. Curious, he approached the cocoon, the rest of the men covering him as he pulled out a knife and ripped the cocoon open.
Fluids flooded out as the cocoon deflated, juices spilled to the floor, and leaving a body inside. Hank opened it further and found a woman. Her brown hair matted and stuck to her porcelain skin as she looked to be peacefully asleep. She wore a tightly woven garment that hugged her figure and further covered with patches of leather that could be generously called an armor.
A cosplayer? Hank thought as he pressed his fingers on her neck, trying to feel a pulse. It was weak, but it was there.
“She’s alive.”