“Run!” Tomas screamed.
Tomas and Lynn each took one of Old Bertha’s arms over their shoulders and bolted for the embankment of the ravine. They were struggling to carry her weight, continuously tripping over themselves in the snow.
The monster atop the roof gave chase, scaling down from the rooftop, its pincers and teeth snapping and chattering constantly and uncontrollably, like it was anticipating its meal to come. Its ridged carapace scraped against the wooden wall.
“Hurry!” Lynn shouted, turning back to see the creature closing in on them.
They were only a few metres ahead, but the spider-like monster was fast. It leapt into the air, its segmented legs flailing about.
The trio had come to the edge of the embankment as the monster pounced for them. Seeing it as his only option to save the women, Tomas pushed Lynn and Old Bertha down into the ravine. They screamed as they slid down the muddy, snowy steep embankment, roughly being flung about and eventually coming to a stop onto the frozen river.
The fall was dangerous, Tomas knew. But he believed they stood more of a chance of surviving than by facing the incoming attack.
In one swift move after pushing the two women, Tomas spun around with his cleaver drawn to face the beast. He roared as he swung the cleaver through the air to where he thought the spider was coming from.
He had guessed correctly. The cleaver sliced through the air as he blindly spun before striking into the side of the leaping creature’s head.
It was not enough to stop it in its tracks, however. The cleaver stabbed into the spider’s solid carapace but did nothing against the inertia. The spider, having already vaulted at Tomas, crashed into him head-on.
Tomas was thrown backwards into the ravine at great speed with the spider’s entire body on top of his. He clutched onto the hard exoskeleton with his free hand while continuing to smash the cleaver into the monster’s face.
Tomas’s world turned upside down as he was thrown into open air.
The spider screeched as black blood sprayed from its wounds, the cleaver puncturing its many eyes and splattering the shell into pieces.
Within a second, Tomas was hurled through the air and slammed into the frozen river at the bottom of the ravine while clutching on to the giant spider. The impact hurt more than the initial strike from the spider; the ice was frozen solid, and his bones rattled with a dull, aching pain from the jolt of coming to a sudden, violent stop.
His chest tightened; it hurt to take a breath. He felt warm blood soaking into his hair on the back of his head where he had smacked into the ice.
The spider to his side spasmed as it lay bleeding and dying. The upper portion of its body had been completely eviscerated.
“Tomas!” Lynn screamed from somewhere close by.
Everything spun for a moment as he sat up, coughing.
The far-off screams from town were blood-curdling and harrowing.
A motionless body lay half-buried in the snow at the side of frozen ravine by the embankment. An elderly woman, eyes wide and staring blankly into nothingness.
It was Old Bertha, her neck hideously twisted from the fall.
Oh, no.
Tomas grabbed his bruised forehead, retching in pain as Lynn limped over to him.
“Is… is she…” Tomas began, strangled with dismay. His stomach spasmed and bloodied vomit gushed up his throat and out his quivering mouth.
Lynn shielded his face from the horrific view. “We have to keep going.”
“What… what have I done?”
“Look at me, Tomas” Lynn demanded, grabbing his cheeks with both hands.
Tomas rubbed his swelling eyes, trying to wipe away the blurriness. He focused on Lynn’s soft features and bright, determined eyes as she peered through his façade.
“You did nothing wrong, Tomas. You tried to save us. It was the fall that killed her. I’m sorry, but we need to leave, right now. We cannot stay any longer.”
Before Tomas could even respond, more of the chilling shrieks and wretches came from up the ravine. Tomas and Lynn got to their feet in a panic, turning to see three more of the huge, spider-like creatures up the frozen ravine barrelling across the ice towards them.
Tomas collapsed back down, hurling up more blood, the cleaver falling from his shaking hand.
“I can’t go on any longer,” he cried.
Lynn, wide-eyed, tried pulling him by the hand. “Tomas, get up!”
He shook his head, broken and exhausted, watching the spiders scuttering closer and closer.
“Leave… go,” he said, trying to push her away. His mind felt as though it was fading. “You have the leave, go, now.”
Tomas tried pushing Lynn with what little strength he had left, but she refused to move.
“Get up, you fool!”
“I can’t. You have to leave me.” He wiped the blood from his lips, staggering down into the snow.
“I won’t leave you!”
Tomas spat up another mouthful of chunky blood, falling into the snow, giving in to complete exhaustion. Lynn screamed for him to get up as the trio of ravenous spiders closed the distance.
“Tomas!” she cried, but he was barely hanging on to her own consciousness.
Lynn paused, her eyes darting between her crippled companion and the incoming monsters. There was no way they could fight off all three at once, even if Tomas weren’t so badly injured. They would have been torn apart within moments of engaging.
They were going to fall prey to the hideous creatures.
Lynn took a single moment to make her decision.
Run, or die.
Run… or die.
Lynn tore the vial of Blight from the chain around her neck as the three monstrous spiders scurried closer, screeching, and snapping their mandibles, anticipating for their imminent feast.
Lynn took the vial to her lips, shutting her
