This Book is Full of Spiders

ethanol, and if there would be a way to crawl into the underground tank.

Three burly guys were wrestling the spider monster. The human head at the center was shattered from the shotgun blast, but the parasite inside was still thrashing for life. A massive pickup truck sporting dual wheels and flared rear fenders backed up in the street. There was some kind of machine in the bed, a big red thing with a motor and chutes and wheels. Somebody started it. It sounded like a lawnmower. Only when they started cramming the giant, squirming daddy longlegs into the chute did John realize it was a wood chipper.

There was that terrible shriek, and red slush went spraying into the neighbor’s yard. When the last of the creature’s eight legs vanished into the jaws of the machine John thought, well, that’s one way to do it.

John tried to get up, but Cowboy pointed the shotgun and said, “Now, just stay seated for a minute, if you don’t mind.”

From behind John, Falconer barked, “I’m a cop, asshole! See that on my belt? That’s a badge.”

Falconer was marched over and forced to sit next to John. Holy shit, did he look pissed.

Cowboy pulled down his earmuffs and said, “Just to be clear, I got nothin’ but respect for law enforcement, officer—”

“Detective.”

“Detective, but at this point in time I’m pretty sure that what you see here is all the law that exists in this town at this here moment. When the feds huddled up behind their barricades on the other side of town, it came down to us to walk these here streets. And now that they left town altogether, well, we’re pretty sure that makes this our town. ’Til we hear different.”

Falconer said, “I understand. Now you tell me specifically what needs to occur before you let me continue what I was doing.”

“You need to convince us that you’re not a zombie.”

John said, “Do we look like zombies?”

“Ain’t you heard? The zombies look just like everybody else.”

Falconer said, “This is all some huge prank, isn’t it? Is somebody filming my reaction, to put it up on the Internet?”

“Now,” Cowboy said, “the infection takes root in the mouth, that much we know. Then it spreads to the brain and then the rest of the body. So there’s a real simple test: we have to take somethin’ out of the mouth. If you’re infected, you won’t feel it, because it’s not really part of your body. If you’re clean, it’ll hurt like hell. So I’ll let you pick.”

From his back pocket, Cowboy pulled out a pair of vise-grip pliers.

“We can take a tooth…”

From his other back pocket, he produced a six-inch-long pair of pruning shears.

“… or a piece of tongue.”

11 Hours, 45 Minutes Until the Aerial Bombing of Undisclosed

I was locked in a supply closet while the reds gathered to discuss execution methods. I didn’t care. It’d all gone wrong, the kind of wrong that not even Owen properly understood. Otherwise he’d realize he was about to give me a cleaner end than most people on earth were going to get over the coming weeks and months and years. Including him.

Amy was my only regret. I just wished I knew that she was safe, and if so, that I could get word to her not to come after me. Even if she had made it out of town, Amy wouldn’t just leave the situation alone. She and I had that in common. Can’t stand to be on the other side of a fence from where we want to be. Not a fence somebody else put there, anyway.

I wished there was a way to tell her all that in person. To hug her, feeling her warmth and smelling the fruity shampoo in her hair. If I had that, and if I could hear her laugh one last time, I could carry that with me into eternity and that would be okay.

I kept trying to think back to everything that had happened since I woke up with that spider thing biting me in bed, trying to figure out what I was supposed to have done differently. It was stupid, I knew. Questioning how my life would have gone if I hadn’t made bad choices was like a fish asking how his life would have turned out if he’d only followed through on his dream to play in the NBA. I don’t beat myself up over my choices. My shame circuits burned out from overuse years ago.

Wait. This started before the spider showed up in your bed.

See, that was the thing, right there. I’d been so busy running around since that night that I’d never really had a chance to stop and put it all together. There was a common thread through all of these events that stretched back even before that night.

Tennet.

Goddamned Dr. Bob Tennet. He shows up in my life as my supposed court-appointed paranoia therapist. Asking me about monsters and trying to get me to work through all of that shit. Then the spider shows up and starts spreading this infection. And who’s there the whole time, showing up at quarantine? Dr. Tennet. Monitoring the situation. Watching it unfold. Tapping away at his laptop and recording his observations.

Anyway. So there’s two things I wish I could take care of before my execution. People have died with longer to-do lists.

I leaned my head against the wall and tried to make myself smell shampooed red hair instead of hospital sadness chemicals. I dozed off.

11 Hours, 40 Minutes Until the Aerial Bombing of Undisclosed

John was actually weighing the “tooth or tongue” options when Falconer said to Cowboy, “Let me say this as a red-blooded, not possessed by any kind of inhuman organism, all-American man. If you get near my mouth with either of those tools I’m going to shove your head into the ground so hard a Chinaman will see it fly out of a volcano.”

Before Cowboy could react, John said, “Hold on. Do you know who this is next to me? This is Detective Lance Falconer.”

Cowboy looked like he sort of recognized the name, but couldn’t place it. John said, “You can’t tell me you haven’t seen him on the news. He caught the Portland Strangler?”

From behind Cowboy, a lady said, “Oh my God, it is him!”

“Show them your ID, detective.”

Falconer did. The lady was duly impressed.

John said, “We were kind of in the middle of getting to the bottom of this whole thing when you showed up.”

Tightpants Cowboy said, “Is that right?”

John said, “Yeah, that is right. It’s looking like the government is behind it all.”

Tightpants cursed and said, “Son of a bitch. I been saying that since day one. Day one.” To the guy next to him: “Haven’t I?”

Falconer said, “I’m standing up now.”

He did. No one objected. A kid in the crowd said, “What’s it like to fight somebody on top of a train?”

“Windy.” To Tightpants, “What do you mean the feds left town? When?”

“Breach at their headquarters. Somethin’ blew up. You didn’t hear it?”

“Oh,” said John. “We, uh, were wondering what that was.”

“Convoy headin’ out of town right now. So now we got to do what they couldn’t. Which is the way it always winds up. Which is why I been sayin’ it since day one. Me and my brother went door to door, within two hours of the feds roping off the town, gatherin’ up everybody with a gun and a set of balls. We’re the ones who got shit back