Wes Parker: Monster Hunter (Volume Three) Read online

I never should have walked into that forest. I knew what I was walking into, so I should have turned tail and run. I couldn't though. It was written in my blood to walk head first into danger no matter what would happen to me. But this was just so gross. I'm getting ahead of myself.

  After the run in with the Regina, the world's oldest ghost, we headed back to the states to a small town in Maine. We had seen a report of something that I can't really repeat right now without throwing up, so let's just say it is really disgusting and vile.

  We were eating lunch right outside of the town because I wasn't quite ready to go in yet, because I knew the horror that waited for us. I wanted to enjoy one last meal before I was killed or eaten alive.

  "Are you going to finish those fries?" Roy asked me, snapping me out of my train of thought.

  "No," I replied. I guess I wasn't really going to eat anything.

  He grabbed the fries and started eating them like there was absolutely no problem whatsoever.

  "How can you eat right now?" I blurted louder than I should have. Roy looked back and forth because some of the people in the burger place looked over at us.

  "Because I'm hungry," he answered the obvious.

  "How can you be hungry, knowing what we are about to walk into?"

  "It's no different than what we do every other time."

  "This is different."

  "How?"

  "You know how."

  He smiled at me. "You're such a baby."

  "You're a baby. Just eat and let's get this over with."

  He ate the rest of my meal and we both headed for my car. I was really starting to miss my motorcycle.

  "What are we going to do about Regina?" Roy asked me.

  "I don't know," I admitted.

  "We can't let her stay there. She'll keep killing people."

  "People are smart enough to stay away from there. It will be safe for now until we can figured out how to get to get rid of the statue."

  "It just makes me uneasy."

  "Me too. Let's worry about the issue at hand for now."

  Within ten minutes we had crossed the line to the next town and headed to the house barn that was all over the news. There was a large crowd with a lot of news crews, which meant that I was going to have to keep a low profile. I was already on the news back in Vegas and I certainly didn't need to end up on live television again.

  We both got out of the car and stood on the outskirts of the crowd standing around the object we came to investigate.

  "What are we supposed to do?" I asked.

  "Go look at it," Roy said plainly.

  "I'd rather not go stand in front of the cameras again."

  "Good point. We'll just hang back, look at it from afar I guess."

  "That is the only way I would have it."

  There was a space between all of the people so I could actually see what we went there to look at. I have seen many of them in my day and this one looked no different than any other one. That was with one exception of course: this one stretched across the opening of the barn that was 20 feet from side to side. It was a giant spider web.

  I've given you my thoughts on spiders in the past. I'm not the biggest fan. And that's when they are little, no bigger than the end of my finger. I just imagined what could have created something this big and it makes me shiver.

  "You ever hear of spiders this big before?" Roy asked me.

  "No," I replied.

  "Me neither."

  "I'd never heard of dragons before either."

  "Good point."

  I stared at it like it was the omen of my death, a symbol that my end was near. There were sounds of birds chirping but it didn't lighten the feeling I had.

  "You want to wait until everyone leaves and then come back tonight?" he suggested.

  "You mean wait until dark when the thing will probably come back and eat us?" I responded. He nodded his head. "Sure."

  We did just that. We found a hotel in the middle of the town and got ourselves settled in. I hoped that we wouldn't have to be there for that long but my life sucks so we probably would.

  Julie texted me as we were waited, in the hotel, to go back to the barn. We texted each other every now and then but I hadn't talked to her in a couple weeks. She was the one that I met in Vegas. She was so beautiful and brave. I wished I could quit this life and go live there. That way I could spend all of the time in the world with her. We all know that's impossible, though.

  Back at the barn the spider web was still there, taunting me. At a close glance it really wasn't any different than a normal web, other than the size of it. Each strand was half an inch thick. Of course, it was stronger, too.

  "This had to be a spider," Roy pointed out.

  "What was your first clue?" I asked.

  "Other things can make webs you know?"

  "Not like this."

  "Yeah, but as far as we knew there no such thing as large spiders. Nothing bigger than the ones in the jungle anyway."

  "Fair enough."

  "What do you want to do?"

  I looked back and forth a few times, trying to look for some sort of trail or anything, but there was there nothing. There wasn't really much that we could do other than wander around and hope for the best.

  "I don't see any trails," I said.

  "Just a bunch of footprints from people wandering around," Roy pointed out.

  "You know what's weird? There are no disappearances yet and this is from yesterday."

  "I know. You think this is just a fluke?"

  "I don't know, maybe. I would have figured there'd be a few people missing, maybe some family pets, but there are none."

  "Well, I don't think we have anything. Let's get out of here and search the woods tomorrow."

  "Yeah."

  There was a shuffling sound that came from the side of the barn. It sounded like quick footsteps, kind of like a spider. It turned out we were going to get to see the creature as we expected.

  I wasn't very eager to run around and chop the thing in half, and neither was Roy. Sure he acted tough, but he was just as frightened at the idea of a giant spider. Have you have ever seen how fast those things are? They move like lightning, even faster than I can see. Now picture one that is the size of a Saint Bernard. Can you imagine how quick that thing would be? Nope. Eight types of nope right there. I was going to take my sweet time walking around that barn.

  Inch by inch we stalked around the side of the barn, terrified of what we were going to see. I might have been physically shaking. It's called arachnophobia people. I'm not the only one that has it.

  We finally made it around to the side, my heart pounding against my chest, but there was nothing there. It didn't mean the spider wasn't around. It could be on the roof or it could be twenty miles into the woods by now. Who knows?

  "Where is it?" Roy asked.

  "Shhh!" I hushed him quietly. "Do you want it to hear you?"

  "Well, we do have to kill it."

  "Maybe it will just run away and die on its own."

  "Some spiders can live for years without even eating."

  "I didn't need to know that."

  "Did you know that some spiders change colors to blend into their environment?"

  "Yes. I saw Spiderman, too."

  "Just thought you might want to know."

  I shivered at the thought. I hoped if there was definitely a giant spider that it couldn't do that.

  We split up and circled around the barn to look for the spider. I didn't really want to but you know I wasn't going to be a complete chicken about it. I have a reputation to uphold, one that no one really knows about, except you guys. I really hope you aren't telling anyone about this. This is all strictly confidential. I really don't care who you tell.

  There was no spider, none that we saw anyway by the time we met back up on the side.

  "I guess we should leave," I suggested casually.

  There was a hush that came from the outskirts of the woods. It was a hum
an voice so I wasn't afraid. I leapt to where it came from and grabbed someone, pulling them into view. It was girl in her teens, maybe a couple years younger than me.

  "What are you doing here?" I asked her. Three more kids came from behind the trees, two boys and another girl.

  "We, uh," she stammered. One of the guys charged at us.

  "Let go of my girlfriend!" he shouted.

  I let go of her and stepped back. The moron tackled nothing but air and ran straight into the ground.

  "Sorry," I said to the girl.

  The guy got back up and walked towards me with his hands up, ready to fight.

  "Please don't," I begged him.

  "Shut up," he said as he took a swing at me. I leaned to the left, letting his hand pass right by me and then chopped him in the neck. It wasn't hard enough to damage but hard enough to stop his breathing for a second.

  "Just breathe," I suggested. "Now what are you guys doing here?"

  "We came to get some of the web you jerk," the other guy told me.

  "You came to steel some of the web? Is this some form of redneck cow tipping? Kids these days."

  Roy chuckled.

  "How old are you?" one of the girls asked.

  "Old enough," I said.

  I flashed my beam of light and wiped their memory of us.

  "Let's go," I said to Roy.

  "To the barn?" he asked. He was looking around confused. "We were just at the motel."

  Oops. Maybe I should have warned him before I flashed my memory erasing light.

  "I'll explain when we get back to the motel," I promised him. And then we left, empty-handed.

  I had to explain to Roy what happened. He wasn't too happy that I erased his memory but I told him to get over it and we moved passed it. The next morning we woke up pretty disappointed. Who am I kidding? I was so happy that we didn't run into any giant spiders. This is one job I would be happy to leave.

  We were getting breakfast at a diner down the street when the kids from the night before came walking in. One of them stared at me and I stared right back. I started to think that he recognized me.

  "What?" he asked me, trying to be intimidating.

  "What?" I asked like I didn't know what he was implying.

  "What are you looking at?"

  "I was looking at you."

  "Do you have a staring problem?"

  "I do actually, sorry."

  "You better be." He walked away.

  Roy looked at me and I remembered that he had no idea who that kid was.

  "He was one of the kids from last night," I explained to him. "I wanted to make sure that he didn't recognize me."

  "Has anyone ever gotten their memories back?" he asked.

  "Not that I know of."

  "Then why would you assume that this time someone would?"

  "It's called being thorough."

  "Okay then."

  He took a bite of his pancakes.

  "I could have punched that guy in the face," I said.

  "I know," Roy replied. "Did they fake the web?"

  "I told you that they just wanted to take some of it."

  "Who does that?"

  "Idiots."

  "Maybe someone did fake it, though."

  "Maybe, but we're never that lucky."

  "I guess not."

  We finished our food and headed back to the owner of the barn to talk about the spider web but he was as useful as a bucket of nails. He had a few loose screws, if you know what I mean. So, with nothing else to do we headed back to the motel room. Neither of us really wanted to explore the town otherwise.

  Roy went over to his computer while I watched TV. After a few minutes of browsing on his laptop he turned around and looked up at me.

  "I think we can assume that it isn't a hoax," he said to me.

  "Why?" I asked.

  "There's another news story here."

  "And?"

  "There is another web. And this one looks bigger."

  I got up to look and he was right. It was hard to tell for sure on the computer screen but it did appear much larger. All hope went right out the window.

  We left the motel so we could go see the larger, even more terrifying, spider web. Outside the motel there were a lot of squirrels running around, more than I was used to seeing together. Obviously this place was a very quiet, peaceful place to be. Makes me wish I lived here. Except for the fact that there may be a giant, man-eating spider.

  This time the web was right on the outskirts of the woods behind someone's house, and it was so much larger than the last one. I tried not to think about what the size of the thing that created this might be. It made my skin crawl, pun intended.

  There was a large crowd around the web again, with news vans and everything.

  "Do we wait and come back?" Roy suggested again.

  "No," I said. "If there are spiders I'd rather be able to see it better in the daylight."

  "Good point."

  "Let's go in from the woods over there and get behind this thing. I want to search for tracks and not be seen."

  "Lead the way."

  I entered the forest about a hundred yards away from the house with Roy in tow. Luckily there was no one in there and there was enough cover to hide us. We had to keep quiet though so no one would hear us.

  I looked around the web in search of tracks but there was nothing there, again.

  "It's odd," I pointed out.

  "Well," Roy began, clearing his throat, "you don't see spider webs this big everyday."

  "Not that. There are no tracks. Even if this was a hoax there would be tracks from the people that put this stuff up." It couldn't be a hoax because I could feel the presence of a monster anyway. One of the perks of being a paladin.

  "Maybe they are just good at covering their tracks?"

  "I'd still see it."

  Then I looked up and it occurred to me that whatever is creating the webs could be traveling by using the trees. I looked around in the sky and tried to find something in the trees.

  "What are you doing?" Roy asked.

  "There could be no tracks because the spider is using the trees," I pointed out to him, still looking up.

  "Or spiders."

  I looked down at him. "Let's pretend it's just one."

  "Baby."

  I looked up again and noticed a piece of web on a tree further into the woods.

  "There," I said, pointing straight at it.

  "Hmm," Roy hummed. "Look at that."

  We walked in that direction and found that there were more pieces of webs stuck in the trees all heading in one direction. I was pretty sure that we were going to find the monster that we were looking for any second.

  "Look," said Roy. He nodded his head for me to look in front of us.

  There was another web the same size as the one we had just left.

  "It's around here somewhere," I said. "I know it."

  We both circled around waiting to be attacked but we never were. There were also no more webs in the trees. We looked around for them for almost two hours and came up with nothing. What the heck was going on?

  Four days. That's how long we had been in that town and each day a new web would appear but there were no spiders anywhere. I knew it had to be real or I wouldn't feel the monster nearby but I was starting to doubt my ability, my instinct. It was very frustrating.

  Roy and I were both getting pretty antsy and to be honest I was starting to get sick of him. Neither of us had anything to hunt and kill so we were getting on each other's nerves. Even the way he just sat there on the bed made me want to punch him in the face. Maybe we shouldn't be hunting with each other anymore.

  We woke up on the fifth morning expecting to see another story about another web, and we did.

  "I'm starting to think this is all bullshit," said Roy with bitterness present in his voice.

  "I don't know," I admitted.

  "Maybe it could be some other monster just trying to mess with us? Are
there any that use trickery?"

  "Maybe an elf, but we would know."

  "An elf?"

  "Right. You would never know about them."

  "Why?" He looked at me like I was making it up.

  "They use magic and dupe the town they invade," I explained to him. "No one would ever remember them. So, if you have ever run into them before then you would never remember anyway."

  He looked at me thoughtfully.

  "They sound awful," he said.

  "You have no idea," I replied with a sarcastic smile.

  "Let's go look at the web."

  "We've got nothing else to do."

  When I stepped outside our room something seemed wrong but I couldn't put my finger on it. The area seemed eerie for whatever reason but it wasn't obvious to me yet. So, I ignored it for now and got into the car with my idiot companion. Sorry. Thinking back is reminding me how much he annoyed me.

  The web was by the woods again but this time it wasn't near anyone's yard. Instead it was down the only main road in the town just near the border. The usual crowd hung around outside of it. Roy and I entered the woods further down to avoid detection.

  We reached the other side of the web and this time we found another trail of webs in the trees. We started to follow.

  As we trudged through the thick forest it really started to bother me again that something felt off.

  "Anything feel wrong to you?" I asked Roy.

  "Other than giant webs and nothing that made them?" he replied sarcastically.

  "Yeah."

  "No. Why?"

  "I don't know. Something just feels off."

  We followed the webs until we reached another web set up to catch something. This one actually had something caught in it. I couldn't tell what it was because it was wrapped up in webs, ready to be eaten. That's when it hit me. There were no bird sounds, no squirrels running around. The forest was dead quiet.

  "Do you hear any animals?" I asked.

  "No," Roy responded back to me.

  "Neither do I."

  "Your point?"

  "Since we've gotten hear there have always been singing birds or a bunch of squirrels running around. Now there's nothing."

  Roy looked around. "Oh yeah."

  "There were no missing animals reported, right?"

  "I don't think so, but I haven't really seen any dogs or cats since we've gotten here. Maybe no one has pets here."

  "People always have pets." I used to have a dog.

  There was a rustling in the tree above me, right by the web. I was too afraid to look up, knowing what I was going to see. Maybe I'm a glutton for punishment. Maybe I'm just a moron, but I looked up, and I wished I had never walked into that town.

  The thing was the size of a Saint Bernard, just like I thought it would be, with legs as long as my body. It was moving slowly towards me, probably thinking that it still had the jump on me. I couldn't move, like my feet were frozen to the ground. I could even feel the icy chill running through my entire body.

  There was hair all over the creature's body and the front of it was covered with eyes that were staring into my soul. I wanted to poke out every single one of them. I was going to poke them all. That was if I could thaw the fake ice that encased me.

  Slowly and carefully I reached for my axes, trying desperately not to spook the thing. I never took my eyes off of it while I stretched my arms out a little bit so I was ready when the thing jumped at me. And it was definitely going to attack me at any second.

  "You're one ugly mother," I breathed. You Arnold fans should get that one. I left one word out, though.

  The spider dropped from the tree and plummeted towards me as fast as gravity would allow, which is way too fast. I jumped backward into a flip and kicked the thing on the way. I hit it right in the face and it fell to the ground but it was quick to recover. Before I could even prepare myself it jumped at me with lightning fast speed. It hit me and pinned me to ground.

  I don't like to admit what happened next but I squealed. I squealed like a twelve year-old girl and had to do everything I could to not throw up. I gained my dignity back, though.

  With all my strength I kicked the spider off of me. It went straight up into the air and as it came back down I swung my axe in my right hand upward and cut the thing in half. Blood splattered everywhere, including all over me. That was it. That was enough to make me spill my lunch all over the ground. I wasn't proud of it but spiders are just incredibly awful.

  I looked up at Roy, with puke hanging off my bottom lip. "That was surprisingly easy," I said.

  "Really?" he said with a disgusted look on his face. "That was pathetic."

  "I didn't see you doing anything."

  "Did you see how fast that thing moved?"

  "Now who's pathetic?"

  "I'm not a paladin."

  "No you're not."

  I looked over the spider with a little bit of relief knowing that it was dead. I thought they looked horrible on the outside but the inside was way worse.

  "Is that it then?" Roy asked hopefully.

  "Maybe," I said.

  "We should bury or burn this thing. We don't want someone stumbling onto it."

  "You act like this is my first time doing this."

  "If the shoe fits."

  "Just grab that half." I point at the side closer to him.

  "I'm not touching that thing."

  "Are you serious? Grab it."

  "Hey you're the paladin. I'm just a simple human."

  "Ass."

  I walked toward the spider, despite my instincts screaming at me, but stopped when I was halfway there. There was a sound in the distance but I couldn't see what was making it.

  "You hear that?" I asked Roy.

  "Yeah," he replied.

  There they were. They were hundreds of yards away but they were moving fast. There was dozens of them.

  There were so many of them-giant spiders coming to eat Roy and I. I have never been more terrified in my entire life. I thought it was bad when it was just one of them but this was horrible.

  "Run?" Roy asked me, stating the obvious.

  "Not that it will do any good, but yeah," I replied.

  We took off. Roy was a lot slower than I was and I didn't feel comfortable just taking off without him, so I ran beside him so he wouldn't get eaten. Well, he could still get eaten and so could I but at least I wouldn't be a coward.

  I chanced a look back and saw that the majority of the spiders had stopped running and were surrounding the dead one that I had just chopped in half. They were eating it. It was so disgusting. The one comforting thing was that if they were eating the other one then they might be less hungry and wouldn't come after us. That was a false hope, however, because they still came running after us.

  I took out my guns and started firing behind me. I managed to hit them but it didn't really seem to stop the monsters, save for a couple of them. It did slow them down, which allowed us to stay alive longer.

  "We need to get back to the car," I said.

  "I know," Roy said back. "I don't remember where we are, though."

  "Just follow me."

  I did remember where we needed to go. I have an amazing sense of direction-not to toot my own horn. We were no more than a couple hundred yards away from the edge of the woods and the spiders were right on our heels.

  "Close your eyes!" I yelled to Roy.

  "What?" He was confused.

  "Just do it."

  He did as I suggested and I flashed my white light, blinding the spiders. It worked. Most of them stopped running while the others ran around in circles.

  We reached the car and I didn't wait to see if they were following us before heading back to town. All of the people that were by the web were gone but their cars weren't. That made me nervous.

  "This is so much worse than I thought," Roy pointed out.

  "There were just so many spiders," I agreed.

  "What are we supposed to do?"

/>   "The last time a town was overrun by monsters I had Kelly blow up that town."

  "This town actually has innocent people."

  "I know, but we may need her help. I can only do so much. We don't even know if that was all of them."

  "I really hope that was it."

  We made it back to the center of the town and things were even worse than we thought. Lining the woods on the way back was a lot more spider webs, and the closer we got the more frequent it got. I was really afraid of what we were going to see when we got back.

  We finally reached the center of the town and believe it or not it was in perfect shape. It was a little quiet but nothing out of the ordinary. We pulled into the parking lot next to the police station. It was going to be difficult explaining to them what was going on and convincing them that it wasn't a joke but we didn't have a choice. I was also very hesitant to willingly walk into a building full of cops.

  I jumped out of the car as quickly as I could and pulled out my phone. I found Kelly in my contacts and called her.

  "Wes," she said plainly.

  "No time for chit chat," I explained. I let her know what was going on.

  "I've never heard of giant spiders."

  "Neither have I. But I had also never heard of dragons either."

  "Can't handle this one yourself?"

  "If I could I wouldn't call you guys, believe me."

  "We've locked onto your position. We'll be there as soon as we can."

  "Great, hurry." I ended the call.

  At that point Roy and I were standing at the front desk at the police station.

  "We need to speak to the chief or sheriff," I demanded.

  The guy sitting behind the desk looked like he didn't care if the building was on fire.

  "If you want to file a complaint then you'll have to fill out a form." He shoved a piece of paper towards me.

  "We really don't have time for that," I explained.

  "What's the problem?" another man asked. I was pretty sure he was the chief.

  "We have a big problem heading this way."

  "What's that?"

  I stared at him, not able to say what I needed to. He wasn't going to believe me. Why would he? It didn't matter, though, because they needed to be as ready as they could.

  "This town is about to be raided," I started.

  "Raided by what, terrorists?" he asked me, suddenly worried.

  "No. I wish."

  "Then what?"

  I took a deep breath. "Giant spiders."

  The man behind the desk suddenly seemed to be aware we were there. He and the chief exchanged glances and then broke out into an uncontrollable laughter.

  "Giant spiders?" he asked. "I suppose next you'll tell me there are creatures that multiply when you throw water on them?"

  "I wish I was joking but you have to believe me," I told him.

  "The only thing that I have to do is get you out of my station."

  "He's not lying," Roy tried.

  "Are you his dad? You shouldn't encourage this."

  "I'm not this little snot's dad."

  "Little snot?" I was offended. "What the hell?"

  "You kind of are."

  "I am, aren't I?"

  The chief was staring at us.

  "You two can leave now," he told us.

  There was an ear-piercing scream that came from down the street. Everyone poured out of the station so we could see why. I tried to warn them. I tried to tell them that they were coming but it was too late. There was a large group of spiders heading right down the street.

  There really wasn't a need to try to convince the police any longer because they could see the truth heading right for us.

  "Still don't believe me?" I asked the chief. He didn't say anything. He was too dumbfounded to even move.

  "I think we need to barricade ourselves somewhere," Roy pointed out.

  "What about all the people?" the chief finally spoke.

  "Don't have time right now," I said. "Get in."

  We all ran back inside and closed the door.

  "Do you guys have some sort of bomb shelter or something?" I asked.

  "Not here," the chief informed me. "There is one at the Town Hall."

  "Crap. We'll need to get there. We can get as many people as we can."

  "What are we supposed to do?"

  "Grab a big gun and fire at as many spiders as you can. I need a megaphone."

  One of the officers ran over to a cabinet and grabbed one. He then ran it back over to me.

  "Let me do it," the chief offered with a shaky voice.

  "No," I stopped him. "This is going to attract their attention and I would rather they come after me."

  "What makes you so special?"

  "Trust me."

  We stood at the doors, ready to go out.

  "What are you waiting for?" Roy asked me, annoyed.

  "I'm scared," I admitted.

  "Stop being such a pansy-ass and get out there."

  Not that I was suddenly excited or motivated by his words of encouragement, but I pushed the door open. I had the megaphone in one hand and one of my guns in the other.

  "GET TO THE TOWN HALL!" I shouted through the microphone. "GET TO THE TOWN HALL!"

  Sure enough the spiders started coming after me.

  "What are you doing?" I asked Roy as I took a couple of shots, crippling one of the spiders. He was standing right next to me.

  "I'm going to help you," he told me.

  "Help by getting those people to safety."

  He looked back and forth between the spiders-they were only a hundred yards away at that point-and I. "Good idea." He ran.

  "Who's the pansy?!"

  The first spider reached me and I took a swing at it. It moved so fast that I hit nothing but air. I recovered quickly, however, and chopped right through its head.

  One after another they came and I did a combination of shooting and chopping while flashing my beam of light every now and then. I was winning.

  "This isn't so bad," I said out loud to the monsters I was slaying.

  There was a loud thumping noise, louder than the spiders were making.

  "What the hell is that?" I asked myself.

  I wish I didn't ask the question and just ran. There was a spider heading towards me whose body was as big as a Hummer.

  I thought I was in bad shape with the "little spiders," but now I had to deal with one that looked like it could it could swallow me whole. Plus it was moving ridiculously fast. I took a couple shots at it but it kept coming. What good was it if even a headshot wouldn't kill this thing? Maybe they have small brains? I didn't plan on sticking around to ask it.

  I took off with spiders on my tail. The large one was still far enough back but it was only a matter of time before it caught up to me. I couldn't go into the Town Hall with that thing following me. It would probably knock the building right over like it wasn't even there.

  One of the spiders got close to me so I cut one side of its legs off and then shot the center-most spot of its head as I could. While I was spinning I tried to hit the big one in the head again but I missed.

  "Help!" I heard someone shout.

  "Crap," I muttered to myself. "Stay quiet."

  "Help!" they yelled again. It sounded like a little kid. I couldn't tell where they were yet.

  I put the megaphone in front of my mouth. "Call for help one more time but then shut up."

  "Help! Please!"

  They were right behind one of the buildings. I ran around it and found a little girl being wrapped up by one of the spiders. I almost puked again. With speed and precision I chopped the webbing between the spider and the girl mid-stream and then sliced through the spiders head.

  The girl was covered head to toe in webs at that point and looked like she was struggling to breath. I freed her as quickly as I could.

  "Thank you," she choked as she hugged me.

  "No time for that," I said. She screamed as more spiders appr
oached us. I started running again with the girl still screaming.

  I wasn't sure how long I could run away from the spiders before they would catch the both of us. And with the girl in my arms I couldn't do what I needed to. There was one thing I could do.

  I pulled the girl down so I could look at her.

  "You're going to hate me for a second," I told her. "But you'll thank me later."

  Without waiting for her to say anything I threw her up into the air, spun around and started shooting like a madman. I took out the first couple of spiders that were closest but then I concentrated all of my fire on the big one, hitting it right in the head. At first it was unaffected and kept coming but then it dropped. I stopped shooting, stuck my arms out and caught the girl. She looked even more terrified.

  "See?" I said, showing her what I just did. "We're safe for a second. We need to get to the Town Hall, though."

  I started back toward the building Roy had brought all of the police and anyone else they could. None of the spiders attacked us.

  "Where are they?" I asked myself.

  The girl tried to whimper something but she was still too shocked to say anything coherent.

  "I'm not going to look a gift horse in the mouth," I said. "Let's go."

  We reached the Town Hall and just as I opened the door I turned and saw what the girl was whimpering about. All of the spiders were heading into the woods, and they were dragging people wrapped in webs behind them.

  I was going to chase after them but there were too many and I needed to get the girl safely inside. We walked through the front door which was busted open. I expected to be attacked by a spider or two but we weren't. I realized that I didn't know where the shelter was, and it wasn't like it was written on the wall or anything.

  "I don't suppose you know where the bomb shelter is?" I asked the little girl.

  She nodded her head.

  "No," she said with a mousy voice.

  "That's okay," I assured her. "We'll find it."

  "What's happening?"

  "I'm not really sure."

  "Are you going to save us?"

  I'm not sure what it was; maybe it was the look on her face or the innocence of her voice, but I was going to save them. I didn't care what it took or what I had to do, I was going to make sure that I saved them all.

  "Yes," I said.

  She shook her head but I could still see some doubt in her eyes.

  I walked around the entire first floor of the building until I finally found a way to the basement. There were file cabinets and boxes everywhere. It looked like it was all organized but there were so many.

  After taking a minute to scan the room I could see that there was a section of boxes that looked like they had been moved. When I got over to them I could see they used to be blocking a door. I knocked. I could hear some muffled screams.

  "It's me!" I shouted.

  "Who?!" a muffled voice asked. It sounded like the chief.

  "The kid who tried to warn you about the spiders."

  There was a three second wait and then the door opened up in front of me.

  "Kylee!" a woman shouted when she saw me with the girl.

  "Mommy!" the girl yelled back. She jumped out of my arms and ran to her mom. The two of them hugged while the mother wept. I felt a sudden longing feeling.

  The mother walked up to me and gave me a big hug.

  "Thank you," she cried.

  "No problem," I said, without anything better to say.

  I looked around the crowd of people, which was bigger than I expected, but I couldn't find Roy.

  "Where's Roy?" I asked the chief.

  "Who?" I would have figured he would be smart enough to think I would be looking for the guy I had showed up with.

  "The other guy that I was with."

  All of the color drained from the chief's face and it didn't take much for me to figure out why.

  "Did that dumbass get captured?" I was actually annoyed.

  The chief nodded his head. "Right before we got in the building one of the spiders grabbed him."

  "How did this guy do any hunting before he was with me."

  "What?"

  "Never mind."

  I headed back out of the shelter.

  "Where are you going?" someone asked me.

  I turned around. "I'm going to save them."

  I left the building and headed for the woods.

  I was walking through the woods, taking more time than I should have been, heading toward my impending doom. That might seem a bit dramatic to you, especially since I'm telling you about this now so you know I will make it through alive, but I want you to do something for me: think of your worst fear. Now I want you to imagine that fear being thrown right into your face. How would you feel?

  There was a large trail of webs left behind from all of the people being dragged so it wasn't that hard to figure out where they were. I wasn't really sure what I was going to run into when I got there. Maybe a giant web with people and animals decorating it like a terrifying Christmas tree. That's exactly what I did find.

  It was horrifying. Everyone was wriggling and moaning, screaming even. It was a hard thing to look at considering how many of them there were. Not to mention all of the spiders crawling around the webs. It was like my worst my nightmare lived next to a nuclear power plant. Oh, also, there were three more of those large ones, which really confused me because I thought the huge one I saw earlier was the mother or queen or whatever you call it. Guess not.

  I looked through the crowd of soon-to-be-dead people and there was no way of telling which one was Roy. It was going to be tough to find him.

  There was a rustle in the bushes off to the right. I knew that my cover was blown and any second the spiders were going to converge on me. I had to act quickly. I jumped to the bushes in a single bound-no I can't jump over buildings-which was somewhere around fifteen feet. I didn't even know I could do that. It's amazing what you can learn about yourself when fear is driving you.

  When my feet touched ground I swung at the bushes with my axe but I twisted my hand at the last second and missed the target. That's because it was the police chief.

  "What are you doing here?" I asked him.

  "These are my people," he explained. "I took an oath to protect them and that is exactly what I intend to do."

  I respected him for that. It was stupid and he was probably going to end up dead but he was brave. He was going to try to save everyone even if it meant his death.

  "What do you intend to do?" I asked him.

  "I'm going to shoot them with this shotgun," he said, holding up his weapon.

  "Do you really expect to take them out with just a shotgun?"

  "Do you really expect to take them out with a couple of axes?"

  He made a fair point. The only difference was that I had super strength and speed to go with it. Plus I had two really powerful pistols.

  "Touch?," I said.

  We looked at each other for a second. It was clear there was nothing I could say to him to convince him to go away so I didn't bother trying. I could knock him out but that would leave him helpless.

  "Okay," I said. "Just stay out of the way and stay sharp. What about the rest of your group?"

  "I couldn't ask them to help me," he said.

  I nodded my head.

  "Are we going to just charge in?" the chief asked me.

  "That wouldn't be smart," I informed him.

  "What then?"

  "I really don't know."

  I stopped talking. Every time I think things have gotten worse it only gets worse from there. I found out the other spiders definitely weren't the mothers. A spider slowly came out of the woods. It was even bigger than a tank.

  I was shocked to put it lightly. Every time I turned around these things kept getting bigger and bigger. I wasn't really sure how I was supposed to kill that thing and all of the small ones around it, keep the chief safe, and save everyone else. I have been in some
pretty crappy situations before but this one takes the cake. Except for when my parents were killed.

  "How are we supposed to kill that?" the chief asked me.

  "Cut through its head," I informed him. "I'm more worried about what to do with the rest of them after we kill it. There are quite a bit more than I am used to handling."

  "You've dealt with these things before?"

  "No. Other monsters, but not these ones."

  "You don't think we'll make it out of this alive do you?"

  "Probably not. Doesn't mean we're not going to try." I gave him a light slap on the back.

  I was thinking about how I wanted to approach the situation and time was running short. The spiders were going to start eating the people any second.

  "You don't have any grenades on you do you?" I asked the chief. I never did learn his name. I won't bother giving him a fake one either because it isn't really that important. So, don't worry about it.

  "No, I don't," he replied. He looked at me like I was crazy. Maybe I am.

  "I didn't think so. Listen. I'm going to need you to close your eyes for me in a second and I'm going to flash a very bright light. Then I want you to start shooting as many of them as you can. If you don't close your eyes you are going to get very confused and forget where you are. Do you understand me?"

  "No."

  "Okay, perfect."

  I stood up and built up as much courage as I could muster.

  "Ready?" I asked.

  "Not really," he admitted.

  "Me either." I took in a deep breath. "Now!"

  I let out my beam of light, confusing all of the spiders and charged right for the big one. For the longest time none of the spiders moved a muscle, but, before I could reach the big one, they started running around like a bunch of crazy, blind spiders. The large spider I was intent on killing still didn't move and I don't think it could see me coming. When I was ten yards away from it I leapt into the air with my axes held above my head, ready to chop down. Before I could reach the monster one of the small spiders hit me and tackled me to the ground.

  My insides turned over and over, threatening to spit out whatever was in my stomach. It was hairy and so disgusting. As we rolled on the ground I kicked the thing off of me and sent it straight into a tree. Without hesitation I fired at the thing so it wouldn't get back up.

  I could hear the chief in the background firing his gun. I looked over and saw for the moment that he was okay, but who knew how long that was going to last? The big spider was wide open again.

  I charged at it, chopping spiders that came at me on the way, and this time it saw me coming. It backed up a little bit like it was getting ready to attack me. I took out my guns again and shot at it like my life depended on it, which it did. I hit it but it still stood there, jerking with each shot. When I got close enough I tried to reach up and chop its head off but it jumped to the side. It tried to shoot web at me but I moved out of the way just in time. I think I wasn't going to appreciate Spider-man after this.

  The spider jabbed at me with its leg but I dove to the right. As I came back up I tried to cut its leg off but it pulled it back quickly, so I missed. It tried to stab at me again with another leg but I moved again and this time I was able to cut off its leg. It let out this hideous squeal-I didn't know spiders could make sounds like that-and started to go crazy. It got stupid. The spider frantically tried to step on me until I cut all of its legs off. I then ended it with not two, but three chops to the head.

  I turned around to check on the chief but felt a push and I was then pinned to the web. One of the spiders hit me with some webbing and I couldn't move, at all. I looked through my peripheral vision and saw a bunch of them coming at me. I was dead. That's what I thought but then someone showed up. Can you guess who it was?

  If you haven't figured it out yet it was the man in the trench coat. Whenever I've come real close to death he has always shown up to save me, and I don't know why. I had a feeling I wouldn't like the reason.

  The spiders were still crawling towards me but the man was a lot quicker than they were, which disturbed me a lot, and was able to cut them off. I couldn't see what he had for a weapon but he started killing the spiders like they were nothing, one after another. I hoped the chief was okay.

  It was hard to see but out of the corner of my eye I could see some of the small ones running away and the man wasn't chasing them. Instead he stuck around to kill the ones that stayed behind. Then there was nothing but the sound of frightened moans and crying.

  I felt something tugging at the web around me. Eventually the web gave way and I fell to the ground. The man, who was standing right above me, put his foot on my chest.

  "Why do you keep saving me?" I asked him.

  "I've told you," he said flatly.

  "Why?"

  He didn't say anything but just pushed on my chest with his foot, threatening to break my ribs. It hurt a little bit.

  "Listen," he began. "The time has come. These creatures were ancient, not seen in thousands of years. It is a sign, Wes Parker. You will find out very soon what I have planned for you." He pushed a little bit harder. "Very soon."

  He then stepped back and disappeared.

  Shit. There's no better word for it. I was screwed. I don't know how or why but I was definitely screwed.

  I walked around and started cutting everyone down from the webs. Eventually I found Roy.

  "Took you long enough," he complained.

  I punched him in the face. "Maybe if you stopped getting caught I wouldn't have to keep saving your ass."

  He got up and tried to punch me back but I blocked him and then pulled him into a hold. He struggled for a second.

  "Are you done?" I asked him.

  "Yeah," He replied.

  I let go of him and he rubbed his face.

  "Did that guy show up again?" Roy asked me.

  "Yeah," I told him.

  "What did he want?"

  "To let me know that the end was near."

  "What the hell does that mean?"

  "I don't know." I started cutting more people down. "He didn't kill all of the spiders, so we need to go looking for them."

  "You want to go through that again?"

  "We don't have a choice."

  He shrugged his shoulders, knowing that I was right.

  I looked around for the chief and I did find him, but only part of him. I'll spare you the details.

  Guess who else showed up: Kelly with the rest of her team.

  "You're right on time," I spat.

  "We got here as fast as we could," she explained.

  "How do you move around so quickly?"

  "Good travel agent."

  I flashed the most sarcastic smile that I could.

  "They all dead?" she asked me.

  "No," I told her. "Some of them got away."

  She nodded her head. "We'll find them. We'll clean up your mess too. Get out of here."

  "You're not going to try and take me in?"

  "Is there any point in trying?"

  "Well said. See ya."

  Roy and I left as quickly as we could. I found out later that she didn't find the spiders, which meant that we had a new monster to worry about when we were hunting. It didn't matter anyway. What came next was the worst the world has ever seen.

  Want More?

  Here's the First Part of the Next Story:

  From the Ashes

  Chapter One

  My life was going to change. I had no idea it was coming but there was something big that was about to happen and things would never be the same. I guess I'm getting ahead of myself again. I tend to do that sometimes but I'm sure you've noticed that.

  I don't remember what town we were in. I'm not even sure if it was New Jersey or Delaware. It was probably New Jersey because who ever goes to Delaware? Anyway, I don't remember because soon it would become very insignificant. There was a case of an animal attack, which may seem pretty normal, but the woman was tor
n apart. Not something you run into all the time so it was worth checking out.

  We posed as Fish and Game, which was okay for us because Roy was old and I just acted as an intern. Reluctantly, we walked into the local police station to get some answers. We spoke to one of the deputies.

  "It was horrible," he told us with emptiness in his eyes. We saw the pictures so I could understand why this guy was shaken up about it. It was nothing I haven't seen before so I didn't lose my lunch or anything. I'm not insensitive; I've just been desensitized to that kind of thing, drawback of being a paladin. Sorry.

  "I've never seen anything like it," he continued. "There have been animal attacks before, maybe one or two deaths but nothing like this. It was like something you see in a horror movie, ya know?"

  I did know, because it was probably just like a horror movie.

  "No one saw anything?" I asked.

  "No," the deputy reassured me. "And the tracks looked like a wolf I was told but that's a big wolf."

  It did look like a wolf, but too big. You know what that means boys and girls? You guessed it, a werewolf.

  "Do you guys see this a lot?" the deputy asked Roy. He didn't really look at me much. Probably figured that I didn't know anything. What a jerk. He had no idea what I do and don't know. I know more than Roy does.

  "Very rarely," Roy replied.

  "What do you think it is?"

  "Probably a bear."

  "Really? Didn't look like a bear attack. You're the expert on that, though, so what do I know?"

  "We'll go poke around the area and see what we can find."

  "I hope it's nothing serious."

  "I'm sure it isn't." It is.

  Roy and I stood up, as did the deputy.

  "Did you need me to take you guys there?" the deputy asked us.

  "We can get there," I assured him.

  "Okay then."

  We shook hands and headed for the front door.

  "Lieutenant!" someone shouted.

  "Yeah?" the lieutenant shouted back.

  "There was another animal attack."

  "Last night?"

  "No, right now. Someone could hear it happen."

  Roy and I stopped dead in our tracks.

  "Right now?" the lieutenant asked.

  "Yeah," the guy replied.

  "Let's get down there right now. You two." He pointed at us. "Come with us."

  Roy and I nodded our heads. We looked at each other and he was just as confused as I was. A werewolf attacked a person in broad daylight. That never happened. I told you, this is serious?

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