Tabitha (4 page)

Crawling towards
the door, she grabbed nervously at a trapped metal limb in the doorframe. Pulling
it, the spidery leg snapped off redundantly. The metal was dull and smooth like
silver rubber. Angular grains like engravings ran up its spindly length. The
small clawed hand at the tip rolled back when she pulled it, like a cat’s paw
or a foreskin, to reveal a toothpick-thin spike. The leg was a thing of
exquisite, murderous beauty. But it was no use to her as a weapon; bendy as a
plastic snake. The spider felt her presence there and thrust another leg
beneath the door, plunging a spike into her thigh. Spurting venom into her
flesh. Tabitha screamed. A hot rush of shock filled her veins, and something
alien too. Her adrenaline surged. She yelled as the metal limb wriggled out
from her leg. Blood dribbled and streamed from her wound, soaking through her
jeans onto the cream carpet. Before the spider leg could strike again she
grasped it, wrenched it into a boomerang shape and rammed its needled bloody
tip into the mains socket. Plugged it in. Nothing happened. The socket switch
wasn’t on. The leg writhed and tried to free itself, but Tabitha held it in
place. More legs scrambled for her under the door, flailing and slamming.
Panicking, Tabitha let go of the limb and pushed the socket switch beside the
jammed-in claws. There was a sudden loud crack and a spark, and the thing’s
body slumped to the floor outside with a thud. Tabitha’s blood coated the metal
claw that had stabbed her, and boiled from the wall socket in bright red
bubbles. The lights went out. Tabitha took a few deep breaths, sitting by the wall.
She gave up searching for sense. She grunted at the pain in her leg and hobbled
to the door, unlocked it. She stood there and listened for it outside, just to
be sure. When she opened the door an inch and peered terrified through the gap,
she saw a dead alien spider crumpled on the floor.

A little later
the dead creature sat propped up by the wall on the landing, wiry legs poking
skywards, and could easily have passed for a discarded art project. Downstairs
Mog squatted in his litter tray in the kitchen, and wondered how to cope with
recent events.

Tabitha had
flipped the power back on. The phone was still dead; she had to get out and be
with her mum. She’d disinfected and bandaged her leg. Already her thigh was
patterned with steel-grey veins where the thing injected her; a web of
right-angles blushing beneath her skin. She should have asked someone on the
street to call an ambulance, but she was paranoid. It’d be just like a sci-fi
film, she told herself. She’d be quarantined, experimented on. Maybe even
dissected in some secret government lab. No, she had to get to her mum. She had
to tell her friends. At least then people would know if she disappeared. She
knew all about armies and governments, and their fondness for testing strange
new things. She’d seen enough movies to know a thing or two about that.

‘Are you ok?’
she asked Mog. He was sitting despondently on the living room carpet. ‘I’m
going out for a while, ok?’ she said, hobbling over to stroke him. She had to
see her mum. The shock hadn’t sunk in yet. It was too strange to sink in. Mog
purred at her strokes, and nuzzled her cold hands. ‘See you later,’ she said
gently, and limped back to the hallway to wrestle her trainers on. Suddenly
Tabitha stopped and gasped. She felt the angular veins spread from her thigh;
pins and needles under her jeans. The grey veins coursed up her sides and down
her arms. There was a crushing pain in her chest then, like someone was
stamping a breezeblock into it. She was having a change of heart. She fell to
her hands and knees, gasping and screaming. The hallway twisted into darkness,
and even the retching feeling running through her body couldn’t keep her awake.
Her brain shut everything down. Sick, terrified, soaked in a cold sweat,
Tabitha fell unconscious on the carpet.

3

Lindsey watched the
bustle of New York rush past outside the cafe. Yellow taxis crowded the road.
Offices and department stores towered above the street, half-blocking the blue summer
sky. A man passing by glanced in at her through the window; a pretty girl
sulking at the world. She had her arms crossed, sat facing her boyfriend Alex
at their usual table. Staring at him with smoky eyes, wishing she was somewhere
else. Like back in Mike’s apartment, wearing nothing but his bed sheets. It was
hot today. Too hot for this.

‘I
just don’t understand you sometimes,’ said Alex, leaning back from the table
between them.
After three years together,
Lindsey said to herself
, he’s
finally hit the nail on the head.

‘You
know, I think you enjoy it when we do this,’ Alex concluded, giving up on his
interrogation. He leaned forward and sipped his coffee. ‘You
like
getting into these fights,’ he said. ‘That’s the only way I can see it.’ He
sighed, frustrated. Lindsey said nothing. God, she hated the smell of his
coffee breath. He slurped it too. Every single time. Just one of her pet hates
about him, on a list that had grown and grown. She didn’t like that t-shirt on
him either. Lindsey checked her phone then crossed her arms again with an angry
sigh, looking out of the window at the world. Wishing she was out there in it
somewhere, minus Alex. She used to love his impulsiveness; his ups and downs
and his surfer-blonde hair. He was still hot, but somehow she couldn’t stand
anything about him
any more
. His brother couldn’t
come fast enough to meet up with him as far as she was concerned. Then she
might even be able to leave them to it, and go talk to Mike in peace. She
checked her hair in her phone camera. Outside the cafe window, people on the
street stopped and stared into the sky, raising their phones to take pictures.
The bright summer sky had filled with shooting stars, strangely slow and
graceful. Heavenly
papercuts
in the blue. Lindsey and
Alex didn’t notice.

‘Look,
I’m sick of wondering about this,’ said Alex. Pausing, thinking. Chewing over
the words in his head. Running through the consequences if he was wrong. Best
to just come out and say it. He sighed. ‘…Is there someone else?’ Lindsey felt
a hot heavy rush at the question, like her blood had turned to molten lead. Her
stomach twisted. She couldn’t find the words. Just what was her thing with
Mike, anyway? Was he going to be ok with her moving in? Or was she just a toy
to him? She lost track of time in her silence. Trying to work out an answer.
Why not just tell him?

‘Lindsey.
Answer me,’ Alex demanded, fixing her with a stare.

‘Yeah,’
she blurted out. She hadn’t even thought this through.

‘Yeah
what?’ said Alex.

‘I’ve
met someone,’ she replied, looking down at the table. Alex laughed,
incredulous.

‘You’ve
been cheating on me?’ he said, smiling in disbelief. She’d never seen him
stare like this before. Intense. She couldn’t look him in the eye. She moved
her finger through spilled sugar on the table top; coarse grains that tumbled
under her touch.

‘Yes,’
she said quietly. Alex said nothing; he just stared. ‘I met him at the party,’
Lindsey added.

‘I
don’t want to know where you met him,’ Alex scoffed, sipping his coffee. ‘I
don’t care.’ Lindsey had expected a shouting match. Alex was good at those. But
this new indifference… she didn’t know how to react. By reflex she looked down
at her phone. Alex grabbed it out of her hands and smashed the screen against
the table corner. Lindsey jumped, watched him cautiously. People were staring.

‘How
about a real conversation?’ he suggested, smiling at her. ‘You know, where
you’re not looking at this fucking thing?’ Alex dropped the shattered phone
into Lindsey’s drink and sat back, savouring the look on her face. She stared
at the corpse of her phone.

‘Look
at me,’ he said quietly. Lindsey hesitated, opened her mouth to speak. This was
a new side to him.

‘I
think…’ Lindsey began. ‘I think –

‘No,
you don’t,’ Alex cut in, grinning. ‘You just spread your legs.’ He sipped his
coffee. The lights went out, and the music stopped. Alex didn’t even get to see
the look on her face, it was so dark in here suddenly. There was a car crash
outside the window, a shrill sudden bang. Screeching brakes. More cars smashed
together behind it, all the way up the street.

‘What
the hell?’ Alex mumbled. Lindsey’s mind strayed from what she was about to yell
at him; there was suddenly a lot of shouting and screaming outside. People got
up from their tables and wandered outside. Lindsey and Alex watched by the
window. A couple of women on the street were helping an old man from his car;
blood ran from his forehead. Pale with shock, he stared wide-eyed as they sat
him down on the kerb. The cups and cafe windows rattled at a distant explosion,
and suddenly the street erupted into screams and shouts.

‘What’s
going on?’ said the man at the table beside them. Alex could only shrug and
shake his head. It was gloomy inside the cafe, with only the sunlight through
the windows to see by. Everyone was asking the same things; no one knew the
answers.

‘Hey,
this lady needs an ambulance!’ said a big man at the door. He was pointing
outside, where a woman sat bleeding in the ruin of her car.

‘What
happened?’ said the waitress behind the counter, shrill-voiced, reaching for
the phone.

‘She
doesn’t know,’ the big man replied. ‘Says her car just cut out and she couldn’t
control it. Everyone’s saying the same thing.’

‘The
phone’s not working,’ the waitress replied, looking lost. The man at the door
cursed.

‘Well,
can everyone stop just sitting there and come help?’ he said, looking around at
the diners. ‘There’s crashes all the way up the street!’ there was a sudden
tremor and another distant explosion, and the echoing sound of screams down the
road. Alex and Lindsey heard a man shout for everyone to stay indoors.

‘There’s
no sirens,’ said Lindsey as they got up. Suddenly the dark cafe was getting
more and more crowded as people rushed inside for shelter.

‘What’s
going on?’ Alex asked a woman who’d come inside, pressed beside their table
with the sudden crowd.

‘I
don’t know,’ she replied simply, shaking her head in shock. ‘There’s a big
dustcloud, like a bomb. Heard this guy say a plane had come down.’

‘A
plane
?’ said the man at the table beside them, standing up from his
seat.

‘I
heard that too,’ another lady chipped in, budging over towards them. The
chattering crowd from the street swelled behind her into the cafe. Another
explosion shook the walls; this time much closer. Some of the windows cracked
in sharp icy splits. The noise outside was unmistakeable; panic.

‘We
need to get out and help!’ said Alex, trying to push at the mass of people.
After a brief confused silence outside the streets filled with running crowds.

‘We
need to get out there!’ Alex insisted, stuck against the chattering mob inside.

‘When
there’s
planes coming down
?’ said Lindsey, grabbing his arm. There was a
deep whirring noise then, louder and louder. The whole street erupted into
yells and terrified screams. A helicopter ploughed down into crashed cars
outside and burst into flames, a deafening glimpse of hell. The cafe windows
blew and rained glass down inside. The terrified crowd was ducking and
shouting. Alex tried to get out from behind the table. He felt Lindsey’s hand
holding onto his arm. He looked into her frightened eyes, gripped her hand, and
pulled it away.

‘What
the hell’s going on!?’ the waitress screeched, stuck behind the counter in the
yelling press of people. There was a man praying somewhere in the crowd.
Everyone screamed and yelled again as the cafe floor shook beneath their feet.
Dust tumbled down from the ceiling, peppering their heads. Suddenly the place
filled with more screaming people, a panicked crush of pedestrians fleeing the
carnage outside. All chattering about the same thing – that the power was out.
That their phones didn’t work, and the city had ground to a halt. That there
were planes falling from the sky.

‘Alex?
Alex!’ a man yelled from the door. The cafe was rammed; there was no way for
him to push through. Alex looked over the mass of people to see his brother
David, stuck in the crowd at the door.

‘We
have to get out of here, come on!’ David yelled over the screams and shouts.

‘I’m
climbing out of the window, get back outside!’ Alex called back, pointing at
the shattered frame. David fought his way back out through the crowd to meet
his brother on the street, as Alex climbed carefully over the shards in the
broken window. The smell of smoke filled the air.

‘Lindsey,
give me your hand!’ said David, reaching into the cafe window over the
shattered glass. Lindsey reached over and took David’s hands, and stepped
cautiously over the broken glass in the window frame.

‘Where
do we go now?’ said Lindsey, terrified.

‘Go
wherever you want to,’ Alex replied with a shrug.

‘You’re
just going to leave me here?’ she said.

‘Yeah,
I am!’ he yelled.

‘Guys,
can we not do this
right now
?’ David chipped in.

‘She’s
been cheating on me,’ Alex told him. David looked at Lindsey. She looked away
down the street. He thought better of saying what he was about to say.

‘Everyone,
get out of there!’ said Alex, beckoning the cafe crowd onto the street.
Frightened faces turned to him from inside, watching through broken windows.
‘This building’s going to collapse if a plane comes down! Get outside!’

‘We
need to stay in here!’ a man called out over the chatter. ‘It’s safer in here!’
Alex didn’t have time for a debate. They’d be safer if they were all moving.

‘What
the hell are you doing? We have to get out of here!’ he yelled back at the
crowd. There was a sound then like nothing they’d ever heard before. A feeling
pounded in their chests; an uneasy vibration like bass in an over-loud
nightclub. The sound seemed to come from miles away and overhead at the same
time; a deep static hiss that echoed through the city. Louder than fireworks;
bigger than thunder. There was a tearing noise then, a rabid digital rush,
filling the city and the sky above them. The ground shook violently in a sudden
earthquake.

‘David!’
said Alex, pointing off down the road. They couldn’t see what was making the
noise, but they could see the fallout in the far distance. There was a dust
cloud the size of mountains, a boiling grey mass, crawling up into the sky on
the far side of the bridge. There was rain too; a hail of bricks and stone.
Lindsey ran for the cafe door and pushed her way inside again. Alex and David
ran for their lives as a car-sized chunk of concrete tumbled out of the sky. It
tore through an office block across the street, sending a landslide of stone
and brick dust crashing down onto the sidewalk. The streets were filled with
screams against a chorus of rumbles and bangs. Stonework crashed down in the
eerie silence. The air was filling with dust and smoke, and more chunks of road
and building came hurtling from the sky into the street. The press of people
inside the cafe watched through the shattered windows. Staring at stores and
restaurants across the road, all filled with panicked faces watching the sky.
Outside on the street, stray survivors limped towards doorways or lay in pools
of their own blood, reaching out to no one. The rocks and concrete rained down
all around them from the looming fallout in the sky, smashing car windscreens
or clattering on the asphalt. A woman ran out from the Italian restaurant
across the street to help an old man bleeding on the road. She sat the old man
up and cried out for help. Faces watched from every window. A moment later,
they both disappeared beneath a giant piece of asphalt that crashed down on the
road. The ground shook at the impact, rippling the road and cracking paving
slabs.

Lindsey
and the crowd in the cafe stared in horror at the scene outside. A screaming
boutique across the road was suddenly demolished by a falling piece of tower
block, in a deafening burst of glass and stone.

‘Where’s
the basement!?’ one man yelled at the cafe waitress. ‘Show me where the
basement is, now!’ suddenly everyone was fixated on getting into the basement,
shouting and screaming for safety. Lindsey watched people limping out from the
dust cloud outside, dazed and pale. Bright red blood, garnet-stark in the
daylight. Bricks still rained from the gloomy sky in a constant pounding
chorus. The noisy crowd in the cafe had found the trapdoor to the basement.
They quickly filled it, but more people were trying to push their way down
inside to safety. There were screams of protest from below, as people crushed
against each other in the pitch black cellar. Claustrophobic yells. A
thundering rush drowned out their shouting then; a rumbling tide above their
heads. The floors above crashed down on top of them in a dusty crush. The cafe
collapsed into screaming rubble.

Alex and David were
running. They had to get to their family, and get away from the city. The
colossal dust cloud crept down every street, drying their mouths and lungs,
blinding and choking them as they ran. Behind them other people edged outdoors
too; calling after them in the dust and silence, unsure whether to stay or go.
It was like running through fog, and all the while the hail of rocks and grit
pummelled everything around them. The fallout cloud above them only grew
bigger, rolling over the sky to block out the sun. Abandoned cars and dust-pale
bodies appeared through the choking mist. A grimy film of dirt coated
everything. It powdered the sidewalk thickly under their feet, like fake snow
on a hot dead Christmas. Buildings toppled around them and people screamed for
help, but the brothers didn’t stop running. When entire walls were sailing
through the sky from across the river and crashing down in the streets, all
they could think was
run
. They’d always managed to keep perfect pace
when they were younger, but David had let himself go. He was starting to lag
behind.