The Last of Her Kind Ch. 07

"Do it," Darren said through his stick, and Dwayne hooked his arms around Darren's torso and pulled. The world turned into fire, and Darren growled around the stick as he twisted his body, pressure building into the joint until he felt it pop back into place. Biting the stick in half, he fell off his rock, the world spinning around him. Dwayne caught him, then guided him gently to the ground.

"Easy, man, breathe." Dwayne patted his brother's cheeks. "Stay with me, don't pass out."

Darren's eyes narrowed on the canopy up above. The rays of dawn illuminated cotton clouds up above, and he felt the entire world come into focus. He stood up with Dwayne's help, and hacked down a nearby branch with his knife. He used his weak arm to aim the branch and swept with the right, doing his best to cover the tracks closest to the cave. Dragging the branch back into the woods, he swept away any trace of their trail, checking over his shoulder every couple of minutes, listening for any sounds that were out of place.

"Little Mike's on it, don't worry. Just keep going."

"Hold up." Darren tossed his branch aside, his eyes on the trail. They were easily over fifty yards from the cave now. "We shouldn't sweep it all away. They're going to come looking, and when they do..."

"We can control where they're going. What are you thinking?"

Darren used his knife to loosen up the soil, grabbing handfuls of it and throwing it over his shoulder. "We're not going to be able to build anything lethal, but we will, however—"

"Create a liability." Dwayne finished with a smirk. He got down on his knees and helped Darren dig. "What are you thinking? Maybe sharpen some sticks?"

"i guess."

"You're not gonna shit in there, are you?"

"I was hoping you would do it." Darren smirked. "We just need to slow them down. If they're too busy following this trail, we might catch one of them in it."

They both kept digging with their hands, often exchanging the knife to further loosen the soil. The sun had risen, and the hole was now about two feet across and a foot deep. Drenched in sweat, Darren ran back toward the cave and stripped some of the lower branches off of the tree, then came back and started sharpening them. The knife sliced through the wood cleanly, and he only hoped that his simple pit trap would give them the edge he needed.

Above him, the forest woke up. Though the birds sang their song of morning, all Darren could hear was gunfire from a distant memory.

Ana opened her eyes.

She was on the roof of the cave, looking down on the small nest of webbing she had made. Most of her armor had fallen off, now lying in a pile below. Dropping down from above, she picked her eggs up and held them close to her chest. They were warm to the touch, the life inside swiftly developing. It would be months before they hatched, but they required no care once lain. If she could find somewhere to hide them, they would be fine as long as a hungry bear didn't find them first.

Holding the eggs close to her skin, her instincts told her everything she needed to know. Every single one of her offspring was perfect. They would hatch with ten fingers and eight feet, ready to devour their first kill. Ana looked down at the eggs, her mind swirling out of control.

Was this really what she wanted? Her instincts screamed YES, but her heart told her no. The cold logic of the Arachne took over, reminding her that the survival of her species depended on any decision she made regarding the eggs. They were all healthy, and capable of thriving, it was best to let them be.

Setting them back into the nest, she moved outside to see what Darren was up to. Though she couldn't see him, she could smell his presence. Moving into the woods, she heard him talking to somebody, but couldn't detect anybody else.

He was huddled over the forest floor, carefully laying leaves across the ground.

"Pit trap?"

Darren looked over his shoulder at her. "Yeah."

"You really think they won't see it?" Ana frowned. "It looks out of place, kind of obvious."

Darren picked up the nearby knife and slammed it point down into a gap in the leaves. It stood on end, the handle casting a long shadow on the forest floor.

"I want them to see this one." He pointed at a spot a couple feet away. "Cause I'm hoping they will step over there. Or over there. Or back there."

"Spikes?" She was impressed with how quickly he had dug them, even with a messed up shoulder. Her venom still ran through his veins, and she imagined he would be in agony once it wore off. Scanning the forest floor, she could sort of make out the tumbled soil where the traps actually were. Obviously Darren had put a lot of time into making the ground look natural.

"Best we could do on short notice, but that one over there has a heavy rock propped up with a stick." Darren scowled. "I'm hoping for a broken or stuck foot, but will settle for a rolled ankle."

"Can I help?"

"I don't think... wait." He looked at her, a fierce intensity in his eyes. "How strong is your webbing?"

"Very."

"When I was... over there, Charlie had a couple of fun surprises for us. Here." He pulled the knife out of the ground and moved to an open area and started drawing in the dirt. "There are some heavier rocks by the cave. If we can get some of them into the trees, we can rig this area with some tripwires."

"Darren. You know we could run, right?"

He scowled at her. "Until when? Right now, we know the enemy is coming, and we have time to prepare. Once those fuckers tried to off me, I promised that I would end them if given a chance. You're injured, so am I, and my best weapon right now is a knife. They know that we fucked, know that you're pregnant, and will burn the world down around us when given half the chance. When you know the enemy is gunning for you, you can't always run away. We have an edge here, you know that right? That Jeffrey guy, he beat the shit out of me in a bar. And his buddy Cyrus? He used a magic watch to reverse time right in front of me. We're going to turn their strengths into weaknesses."

"How so?"

"They're both cocky mother fuckers who expect us to run and hide. They won't see this coming. So... will you help me?"

"Darren, I... are you trying to kill them?"

His eyes went hard. "Yes."

"They're part of something bigger, Darren. Even if we kill them, the Order will send more."

"What about Oregon? Is something waiting for us there?"

"Yes. I don't know what, but my friend promised we would be safe."

"These assholes don't have anyone helping them now. By the time their buddies show, we'll be long gone. Head back to the road, follow it to some small town, steal another car." Darren tilted his head as if listening to someone. "Yeah, that would be a repeat of our last date, wouldn't it?"

Ana smiled. "I didn't like how the last one ended."

"I'm usually a pretty good driver." He tilted his head again. "Yeah, you're right. We need to focus."

Ana looked around the clearing. They were still alone. Did Darren hit his head in the crash? Other than listening to someone who wasn't there, he seemed perfectly fine, and even more so when he scrawled out more designs for her to follow. The traps were simple enough, and she was quickly able to improve them. If Darren really was so eager to fight, then she would help.

They spent the next two hours going back over their trail and setting additional traps. Darren wasn't able to lift anything heavy with his bad arm, so Ana carried the rocks for him. She scaled numerous trees, wincing when her bad leg struck the branches.

"Is that going to heal?" Darren asked her from below. "It looks like it's cracked open."

"When I molt, it'll grow back."

"You molt? Like a snake?"

"Just my lower half." Ana secured a twenty pound rock in place, then used a much thinner web to hold it in place. He had shown her the mechanism for a trip wire, but she could spin a fine web with steel-like strength and string it up almost anywhere. Instead of a tripwire on the ground, she was stringing her webs at various heights. As long as it remained overcast, the probability that they would be spotted was small. "Still hurts though."

"Should we.. I mean, do you need to cut it off?"

Ana thought about it, but kept her mouth shut. If she did cut it off, it would hurt like a bitch, and she wanted to keep her head clear, especially since she was already distracted. Her stomach growled when she climbed down. She had been hungry after laying her eggs, but now she was ravenous. Darren smelled absolutely delicious, and she could easily overpower him, then suck him dry.

Strangely, the compulsion felt muted. After so many weeks of fighting her desires, they felt weaker somehow. Was it because she had laid her clutch? Or was it something else? She dropped out of the tree and stumbled, crying out in pain. Darren was suddenly in front of her, his arms around her waist steadying her.

"You okay?" His eyes were soft now, concern written across his face. He was so close, his scent so delicious, but there was something there that she hadn't felt before. Her heart pounded, and she lifted her hands to his face, stroked his cheeks with her fingers. It was impossible to see him as a regular human, he was now suddenly something more to her. She longed to touch him, to feel him inside her once more. These were no longer her instincts speaking.

It was her heart.

"Darren." She whispered his name and then kissed him. He held tightly to her, his hand moving through her hair while his bad arm hung around her waist. As their kiss broke, she lightly nipped at his lip, giving his system just a bit of her venom in the hopes it would help his shoulder relax and diminish his pain. She gazed into his dark eyes, very aware of the tiny trickle of blood on his lip.

"Ana, I..." Darren whipped around, looking into the forest.

"Darren?" she asked, but he held up a hand to silence her.

"Perimeter has been breached. They're coming." He lifted his knife, then turned back to her. "You ready?"

Stunned, she nodded, letting her senses expand. Sure enough, she could feel them now, moving toward her through the forest, but they were easily ten minutes out at their current pace. How had he known? Had her venom heightened his senses? It occurred to her that there probably wasn't a human in existence who had suffered the long term effects of an Arachne bite, and wondered if it was acting like some kind of performance enhancer.

"Head for the cave." Darren threw himself on the ground and rolled in the dirt, coating his face with dust. He had been sweating, so it stuck to him easily, and he held the knife in his good hand. "This is war now, got it? Protect the eggs."

She nodded, scurrying back as fast as she could. Standing outside the cave, she looked around, trying to figure out the best place to hide in case the Order made it this far. The slope was rocky, and offered limited places for her to hide.

Ana released pheremones into the air, and watched as dozens of spiders moved from their hiding places out into the open. Originally planning to ask where a good hiding spot was, she thought back to Darren. He was risking everything, just to be with her, and wouldn't stop until he was dead or the Order had been stopped.

Looking at the opening to the cave where her eggs were, she felt a cold pit open up in her stomach. Inside that cave were five perfect little killers, just waiting to enter the world. If something happened to her, they would go feral, hunting indiscriminately. Her own mother hadn't seen fit to view humans as anything but food, but she had been cultured enough to teach Ana how to read and write, unknowingly planting the seeds of humanity in her daughter. It hadn't been her fault that Ana lacked the disregard for human life that her sisters had.

Had her mother known? When holding Ana's egg, could her mother sense that Ana was less than perfect? How many times had she watched her mother or one of her sisters smash an egg, declaring it an anomaly incapable of thriving?

Ana pumped more pheromones into the air, sending out a call for anything with eight legs that was nearby. The hill became mottled and spotty as black widows crawled out from under their rocks and crevasses, complaining about the daylight. The litter of the forest churned, a small army of jumping spiders and hobo spiders racing to her aid, eager to hunt. Minutes passed as they gathered, and when there were enough of them, she told them her plan.

Cyrus walked in silence, following close behind Jeffrey's lean form. The knight had drawn his blade, moving cautiously through the forest. All around them, the forest teemed with life despite their presence. It was eerie to experience such a cheerful morning while they were about such dreadful business.

It had been nearly dawn before it had been bright enough to spot the Arachne's blood trail. The cool, blue blood of her lower half had continued for a couple of miles before disappearing into the trees, and tracking her from below had been a bitch without his magic flashlight. It had been crumpled in half during the crash, and Cyrus was convinced it had bruised his ribs.

"Do you think she's going to eat him?" Jeffrey scrambled up a nearby tree, and Cyrus let out a sigh. This was the step that took the longest, the part where Jeffrey tried to spot her passage through the trees. She had alternated passing through the trees and along the ground, and Cyrus was grateful she hadn't crossed anything resembling a river.

"Maybe. I don't even know what's going on with those two." It was unheard of for a human to assist an Arachne, or for Arachne to skip a willing meal. "I wish we had stopped to call for reinforcements."

"Hey, I'm sure there's a phone twenty miles up or down the road, take your pick. If she's injured, soldier boy is probably dead. No way he survived, and I bet she's sucking his brain out through his dick right now, that dumb, bug-fucking weirdo." Jeffrey swung his sword, and a large branch tumbled out of the tree. He looked at the surrounding branches, and then pointed off to the north east. "They passed through here, broken branches everywhere."

"Great." Cyrus kept his eyes on the arboreal path while Jeffrey climbed down. Now that he knew where the path was, it was easy to see where she had passed. Jeffrey kept his eyes on the ground while Cyrus tracked the trees, a wand in one hand and another tucked up his sleeve. His headache had finally subsided, but Jeffrey had informed him that his left eye looked all fucked up with several broken blood vessels.

They moved in silence, for half an hour, and the treeline stopped. Cyrus looked at Jeffrey. "She went to ground here."

Jeffrey nodded, then started beneath the tree, moving in ever widening circles, his eyes on the ground while Cyrus watched. It was another ten minutes before Jeffrey spotted some blood on the ground, then traced it back to where the Arachne had landed.

"Let's go." He led the way, with Cyrus looking over his shoulder.

The morning dragged on, and they alternated accordingly. The pills started to wear off, so Cyrus popped a few more, wishing he could eat something. His stomach was a mess because of the painkillers, and he felt a cramp building up in his gut. He drank most of his water, hoping it would help him keep his head clear.

They picked their way down a large rocky slope and Jeffrey held up his hand, then pointed to the ground. Even Cyrus could see the trail now, a large furrow surrounded by bootprints.

"What am I looking at?" Cyrus asked.

"Looks like soldier boy's turn to walk. This right here is her bug ass, and you can see where her legs dragged alongside. She's either tired or unconscious."

"She's about to lay her eggs." Cyrus knelt down, his fingers hovering over the trail. "I've seen it in the notes. They lay their eggs early and bolt. Back in the twenties, there was a big hunt for them in Greece, they were close to annihilation then, but the nest scattered when we attacked, and we found eggs fucking everywhere. They would sometimes lay them while running, on rooftops, stick them under a car, wherever they could be stashed in a hurry. The Order needed more men on the ground, so we false-flagged an assassination attempt on Venizolos, figured we would blend in with the investigations, but didn't expect the riots that followed to be so messy. We couldn't track them all down, so a couple years later, we burn down Smyrna, but the fire gets out of control, kills a ton of people, and then the Order is pulled from Greece. Colossal fuck up. Next year, a ton of refugees flood in and become spider food, and the Arachne spread."

"Why the history lesson?"

Cyrus sighed. "Because fifty years from now, I don't want someone else to be telling our story as a cautionary tale. A tale about two fuck-ups who couldn't even kill one monster and bust up her eggs."

Jeffrey's shoulders tensed. "That isn't going to happen."

"Good." Cyrus stood, then drew his spare wand. The bone-white material in his hand heated up, glowing from within, and the metal wand in his other hand emitted sparks that still shocked him through his glove. "Move slow, keep your eyes out for her clutch. Let's roast this bitch."

Darren was on the ground, his body crammed between a bush and a tree. The bark scraped against his skin through his shirt, and he could feel a slight throbbing in his bad shoulder. He took shallow breaths, confident that the shadows hid any part of him that stood out.

"Thirty seconds," Little Mike hissed to Darren across the clearing. Hayden was up in a tree, his gaze just over the hill, and he made a hand signal.

"You got this, brother." Dwayne's voice was behind him, but he could feel his brother's reassuring hand on the small of his back. "You just gotta be smart."

"For Ana." His lips tightened at the soft foot falls that preceded Jeffrey and Cyrus. He could see them through the brush, moving so slow, their eyes constantly scanning. Ana's drag trail would take them right past his position, and into the traps. If the traps failed, then Darren would try to lead them away from the cave.

He was going to be a father. Was that something he was ready to do? He just couldn't imagine what it would be like trying to raise five children at once, especially children that were able to climb wherever they wanted. Would they even listen to him, or would Ana be considered the true parent?

"Focus," Dwayne hissed.

Little Mike had vanished into the underbrush, and was now making noises that sounded identical to a bird. Hayden repeated the noises, and then Jeffrey stepped around a large tree, a sword in his hands.

"His knife is bigger than yours," Dwayne pointed out. "Looks super sharp, too. Oh, and here's magic man. Is he holding a magic wand? Shit, he's got two of them. They may as well be guns, right? If you do run, he's the one you gotta watch, keep the trees between you. Got me?"

Darren nodded.

Jeffrey held his sword up sideways, and Cyrus took notice.

"The fuck?" Jeffrey knelt down, examining one of the false traps. "We must be getting close. They've been setting traps."

"For us?" asked Cyrus. Darren noticed that one of his eyes was bloodshot.

"No, for fucking bears. Of course for us." Jeffrey stared at the trap for several seconds. "If soldier boy was carrying the bitch, and he came back to set traps, it might mean she's out of commission."

"But what if they're working together?" Cyrus looked up into the trees. "Do you think they could have built something more sinister?"

"Don't know." Jeffrey took the end of his sword and rammed it into the trap. Much like Darren's knife, it pierced an inch or so of soil, and then stuck. "That's not what I expected."