Chapter 124.
"Well, that couldn't have gone any worse."
"Au contraire," Gordon countered, "I calculate five different areas where it could have indeed gone much worse."
"Bite me," Scott snapped, booting open the door to the hideously overpriced penthouse suite he'd just been forced to pre-pay for.
"With pleasure," Gordon teased, snapping his teeth playfully at the exposed skin of his brother's neck and quacking with laughter when he recoiled in disgust.
It wasn't just Scott who was tiring of Gordon's tomfoolery. Virgil and John were suitably exhausted from an evening of mingling with people they scarcely knew, and Alan was suffering from a delayed sugar crash after munching his way through one too many pieces of wedding cake. While there was unanimous relief over their escape from Bluebell's wedding, a dubious spotlight had been cast on their attendance during the latter half of the evening.
It had been the mother of the bride who'd sniffed them out. More specifically, she'd sniffed out their slightly tipsy grandmother. After examining their invitation and quizzing Sally on which schools the boys had attended, she'd confirmed that, yes, their attendance at her daughter's wedding was indeed a big fat fart of a mistake. An errant envelope originally bound for Auckland had somehow fallen into Tracy Island's mail bag at Tonga airport, while Grandma, in her infinite wisdom, had gotten Bluebell confused with a distant relative on Lucy's side of the family named Bethany, again who the boys had never met.
Scott had been quick to blame their grandmother's failing memory for their predicament. Virgil had jumped to her defence, perhaps a little too strongly, given the three beers he'd consumed mere moments before. Never one to back away from a confrontation, Scott had met him head-on, and had only conceded to a truce when security had escorted both of them out of the building. Unwilling to subject the faces of International Rescue to more negative publicity than they'd already received, John had swiftly booked them all into a different hotel on the other side of town for the night. Their original one was too close to the venue for comfort.
"I hope you're comfortable on the floor," John hissed, flopping on the bed and splaying his limbs to claim possession, "Because I'm not buggering up my back up for any of you idiots."
Alan let out a mournful groan, "Come on, bro. We've all had a lousy day. Gordon, do you have to do that right in plain sight?''
Intrigued by the nebulous nature of Alan's statement, Scott, Virgil, and John twisted to peer at Gordon. Their brother's backside was the only visible part of his body as he dangled his head out the window, groaning in a manner that signalled stomach discomfort.
"Shouldn't have had that plate of cheese and jalapeno stuffed peppers," he whined, "God has let me live another day and I'm about to make it everyone else's problem."
The hiss of a zipper sounded as Virgil began to fossick through his travel bag, "I have some cyclizine tablets if you're going to toss your cookies."
Gordon shook his head, slapping a hand across his mouth when a belch escaped, "I'll be fine. Just keep me away from anything that's white."
Scott sighed and began to unpack his pyjamas, "We'd better hurry up and give him free rein of the bathroom. Does anyone have some toothpaste I can borrow?"
"There should be a complimentary bag of toiletries," Alan informed, loosening his tie and padding towards the adjoining ensuite, "I saw it on the amenities list in the lobby. There's also a cocktail station in the restaurant and a rooftop infinity pool."
Through the nausea overtaking him, Gordon managed a small mewl of longing.
"Uh, guys?" Alan froze, one hand braced on the doorframe, "We can't use the bathroom."
"Why not?" John queried, shampoo and dental floss in hand.
"We just can't. Okay?" Alan clipped, closing the door with a little more force than was necessary. With all the discretion of a bull in a china shop, he moved to stand so that his body shielded the handle from the hands of his interfering brothers.
Gordon promptly folded in half, moaning in a way that made everyone question whether he'd been on a course of Shakespearean pain acting. Aware that the clock was ticking on the time bomb that was their brother's stomach, Scott wordlessly elbowed Alan aside and stuck his head into the bathroom. Instinctively, he scanned the walls and floors for safety hazards. Loose tiles, broken glass, and unidentifiable spillages to name a few.
He was not prepared for the sight that befell him instead.
Virgil and John flinched as Scott parroted Alan's earlier action and promptly slammed the door shut. Gordon, who was rapidly turning the same colour as Thunderbird Two, whined and returned to sticking his head out the window.
"He's right," Scott affirmed, his chest rising and falling slightly more rapidly than usual, "We can't go in there. It's too dangerous."
That got Virgil's attention. They were facing an entirely new breed of threat if Scott felt compelled to go out of his way to avoid whatever it was. It had to be something either wildly outlandish or impossibly exotic for him to declare the bathroom off limits so abruptly. A squirrel in the air vent, perhaps? Or towels left by the previous guest that had obviously been used?
"I'm going to nip down to the front desk," Scott announced, refusing to meet Virgil's gaze, "No one is to go in there until I get back. Capiche?"
"Please tell me a nip is fast," Gordon begged, lurching forward when his stomach spasmed, "I've never wanted to see the inside of a toilet so badly."
"Ask nicely and I'll give you a swirlie when I get back."
-x-
"Sorry, but I'm afraid we're fully booked tonight."
Scott's right eye twitched ever so slightly as he processed what the rather nice lady at the front desk had said.
"Seriously?" he griped, "Can't you move us to the room of someone who hasn't checked in yet?"
The woman tapped and clicked for a minute, before glancing up and shaking her head, "All guests are now in house, so a move is unfortunately impossible. May I ask why you want to switch? Is something wrong with the room?"
"Not the room per se," Scott replied hesitantly, "But there's a spider the size of Spain holed up in the bathroom and none of us are manly enough to go in and challenge it."
"Oh, that'll be a Joro spider," the woman informed brightly, "They're quite common in these parts, especially at this time of year. Don't worry, they're harmless."
"Harmless?" Scott squeaked, holding his hands out as if demonstrating the size of a fish he'd caught, "That thing is probably big enough to carry my brother's dog off!"
"Leave a window open," the woman advised, clearly amused by the atypical tourist behaviour Scott was exhibiting, "It'll find its way outside eventually."
"Yes, but I want to know how the little bastard got inside to begin with," Scott argued, "Through an air vent? Up the drain? On the back of an unsuspecting housekeeper?"
"Hold that thought," the woman instructed, picking up her phone and dialling a number. Motioning for Scott to come behind the desk, she turned the speaker volume up and began doodling absently on a notepad while the ring tone drilled.
"Hello?"
"Mr Tracy?" she asked, sketching the rough outline of a palm tree.
"Which one? There are four of us up here."
"It doesn't matter," the woman retorted, "Tell me, what's the status of the spider in your bathroom?"
"Oh, we've managed to contain it in the bathtub," came Virgil's proud reply, "John was monitoring it and it slipped and fell off the wall. We've thrown a couple of towels on top of it for good measure, so I don't think it's going anywhere."
"Kill it," Scott commanded, "Have Alan cannonball off the side of the bath and squish it."
"Don't do that!" Gordon whined in the background, "It's probably just as scared of us as we are of it."
"Don't bet on it," Virgil muttered, "Any killing is going to have to be done by you I'm afraid, Scott. None of us are even brave enough to look through the keyhole, let alone get within murdering distance of it. We'll drag your dead body out if it tries to eat you, but that's our best offer."
Spitting out a curse that featured Virgil and a six by two hole in the ground, Scott strode back towards the stairs, opting to forgo the lift. A bit of cardio would do him good, plus it would go some way towards extinguishing the anger he felt over his brother's cowardliness.
"Remember, they're harmless," the woman called after him, "If you stop to admire them, they're actually quite beautiful. From the description you gave it sounds like it might be a juvenile, so consider yourself fortunate."
Scott waved a hand vaguely to signal that he'd heard and continued up the stairs. Regardless of the little demon's age and size, he knew from experience that fortune, no matter how shitty, favoured a prepared mind.
-x-
"Thank goodness you're back."
Scott hissed a warning and steamrolled towards the bathroom door, ignoring the defensive formation his brothers had taken up by the fire exit.
John shifted his weight from foot to foot, "We've not heard anything, so it should still be under the towels."
"You've not heard anything?" Scott echoed, twisting his head in disbelief, "It's a spider! Not a damn elephant."
Gordon shook his head, all previous traces of nausea on hold as he battled the urge to flee, "He's right, bro. The bugs in these parts are huge. I think I saw a wasp cruise by on a motorbike earlier."
Scott's eyes did an impressive somersault as he leant on the door to open it, only to be met with resistance.
'Wait, they've locked it?'
Across the other side of the room, Virgil watched forlornly as Scott opened the door to his inevitable death. He'd gone a step further and also tossed the bath mat on top of the spider before making his retreat, but knew in his gut that it probably wasn't enough. Falling off the wall had pissed it off enough, and having four pounds of Egyptian cotton then dumped on top of it had probably only agitated it further.
"It's gone."
Like a herd of sheep, Virgil, John, Gordon, and Alan moved en masse towards the bathroom, stacking their heads on top of each other as they peered cautiously around the doorframe.
"What do you mean it's gone?" John demanded, his voice much higher than usual.
"I mean the little bastard's gone walkabouts!" Scott barked, tossing a towel over his shoulder and ignoring Gordon's shrieks about contamination.
One by one, the brothers left the safety of their huddle and began to fan out around the bathroom, their eyes avidly seeking out any unauthorised movements. Buoyed by the possibility that their eight-legged nemesis had indeed hit the road, they bravely shone their phone lights down the drain and peered behind every moveable object, their collective confidence increasing each time one of them gave the 'all clear' signal.
Down on his hands and knees, Alan straightened up from inspecting behind the towel rail, only to freeze when his gaze skimmed the ceiling.
"Does this mean I can shower now?" John asked, suddenly acting as if the entire situation was beneath him, "And don't forget, I call dibs on the bed."
"Dibs, ha! Tell you what; give me the bed, and I won't upchuck all over your luggage," Gordon haggled, filling a glass from the sink and taking several long, slow sips, "Those stuffed peppers still aren't finished with me."
"Guys?" Alan stammered.
"How about we sleep in shifts?" Virgil suggested, "That way we'll all get a couple of hours, which is better than nothing. It'll be just like when we do overnight rescues."
"Guys?" Alan repeated, his voice rising to a squeak.
"There are spare blankets and pillows in the wardrobe. Those of us that can't be arsed with arguing can just curl up on the floor," Scott sighed, "Not like we haven't had worse sleeping arrangements. Alan, what's the matter?"
Alan didn't answer. Instead, he wordlessly raised a finger and pointed at the ceiling, his face whitening by the second. In unison, his brothers angled their heads to follow his gaze, and were met with the very unwelcome sight of the spider splayed across one of the overhead lights.
"Holy crap," John wheezed, immobilised by fear and intrigue, "It's huge."
"Juvenile my ass," Scott muttered, creeping towards the door like a parent around a sleeping child, "No sudden movements. Spiders are highly sensitive to vibrations, and-"
With no warning whatsoever, the spider fell victim to its earlier mistake and promptly lost its grip, toppling off the ceiling to land in a sinisterly graceful heap at Virgil's feet.
"Oh my GOD!" Gordon screamed, falling over himself in his haste to evacuate the danger zone as quickly as possible.
"Every man for himself!" Virgil yelled, grabbing John's shoulder and shoving him backwards in an effort to prioritise his own escape. Aware that the spider needed a target to keep it occupied, he used his bulk to slam and anchor the door shut as soon as Scott had scrambled over the threshold, leaving Alan pounding his fists on it from the other side.
"Hey, what gives?" Alan cried, "Oh my god, Virg! Open this door right now!"
"No way!" Gordon cried, bracing his own weight against the door when Virgil faltered, "What if it escapes?"
"Scott?" Alan tried, hoping desperately than an appeal to his more mature brothers would secure his release, "John? Help, please! I'm too young to- HOLY HELL ON A THUNDERBIRD! IT'S COMING RIGHT AT ME!"
Guilt momentarily overriding his will to survive, Scott shoved Gordon and Virgil aside and opened the door. With impossibly fast reflexes, he seized his panicking baby brother by the arm and yanked him to safety, reclosing the door with a well-aimed and slightly dramatic kick.
For several seconds, no one dared to move. Alan's chest was rising and falling as rapidly as if he'd just run a marathon, while Gordon was frantically inspecting the carpet to make sure their resident jailbird hadn't escaped along with him.
"Okay, we're going to need a plan," Virgil declared, wiping the sweat from his brow, "Because no way am I going to be able to sleep with that thing in there."
"Weapons," Gordon gabbled, seizing a can of deodorant and hitting it experimentally against his forearm, "We need weapons."
For once, no one argued against Gordon's logic. With an air of terrified acceptance, the brothers began ransacking the room in pursuit of items they could use to subdue their target. Scott grabbed a half full glass of water from the side of the bed, Virgil armed himself with the shoe from his left foot, John threw caution to the wind and began boiling the kettle, and Alan seized a coat hanger from the wardrobe.
"We should enter in order of importance," Gordon whispered, taking up position at the back of the line he and his brothers were forming, "Send Alan in first as a sacrifice. Maybe it'll treat him as a peace offering and go quietly."
John held a finger against his lips as Scott inched the bathroom door open, glass held high above his head. For a second, nothing happened. Then, everything happened.
Five Tracys began dancing like cats on a hot tin roof as something black and freakishly large zipped out the open door and zoomed into the middle of the room. Ever the brave one, Scott dumped the contents of his glass in the general direction the spider had taken and began jumping up and down on the spot where he'd last seen it, making exaggerated stomps with each landing. After what could only be described as a very thorough job, he ground his heel into the carpet for good measure and stepped back to review his handiwork.
Only to find the carpet pristine and spider alarmingly absent.
"It LIVES!" Gordon screamed, stabbing a finger underneath the dressing table where eight eyes glimmered menacingly, it's owner silently sizing up the five quaking humans before it.
"Scatter!" Scott shouted as the spider broke cover and cartwheeled across the room, the synchronised screams of Virgil and Gordon doing nothing to calm it down. With something akin to a battle cry, John forwent his plan of subduing the arachnid with hot water and threw the entire kettle at it, surprising absolutely no one when his poor aim sent the appliance careening into the opposing wall.
Quivering with rage and a healthy dose of fear, the spider ceased its pursuit and reassessed its options from underneath the safety of TV cabinet. It could smell fresh air out the open window next to the bed, but knew that many threats lay between it and the freedom of the great outdoors. Like the five cumbersome humans who were now huddled together on said bed, their legs drawn up underneath their chins.
"New strategy," Scott gasped, tucking his feet under the protection of his thighs, "Gordon, on the count of three, you jump up and distract it. John, you then run and open the door. Virgil and I will try and herd it out into the hallway."
"Won't work," Virgil replied forlornly.
"And why not?" Scott spat, his gaze fixed on the carpet.
Virgil lifted his unshod foot, "No way am I doing anything with exposed toes."
Scott let out a bleat of irritation, but yielded nonetheless to his brother's logic, "Gords, looks like you're up then."
Poor Gordon barely had time to anchor himself to the nearest heavy object before Scott seized him by the scruff of the neck and dragged him forcibly off the bed. Unwilling to partake in something that basically amounted to organised suicide, he took aim and lobbed his can of deodorant at the base of the TV cabinet before retreating back to the safety of the bed.
The spider, which Alan had secretly nicknamed Tim, unfortunately had other plans.
Bolting out from the safety of his hiding place, Tim made a beeline for the bed, intent on hauling his hairy little butt up the wall and out the open window before the humans could recover from the shock of his surprise emergence. Of course, his trajectory towards their safe haven was met with a shocking, but expected, amount of hysteria.
"OH MY CRAP!" Gordon howled, his screams mingling with those of Scott and Alan as he launched himself at the nearest safe surface, which happened to be Virgil. A coat hanger boomeranged across the room as Alan tried to vanquish Tim before he could pollute the bedsheets, but ricocheted off the headboard instead. Unperturbed and undeterred, Tim galloped across the duvet, his black body a stark silhouette against the white of the sheets. Unbeknownst to him, he'd just subjected all his tormentors to a night on the floor, lest they come into contact with any part of the bed his hairy toes had contaminated.
Virgil, who'd been in the process of getting off the bed when Tim had appeared and was thus the closest to it, let loose a strangled sound of panic as he struggled to compensate for the extra weight of Gordon, who was trying to climb onto his shoulders.
"Get off!" Virgil snarled, concerned only with his own survival as he contorted his back into a weak bucking motion in a futile attempt to dislodge Gordon's iron grip.
"Save me!" Gordon begged, scrabbling to maintain his grip as one foot caught Virgil in the ribs and sent them both crashing to the ground in a heap.
"Don't worry, I've got this!" Alan made a wild grab for one of the bedside lamps and raised it above his head. The shade came crashing onto mattress, the glass shattering on impact as Tim catapulted himself at the wall, the motion sending Scott into a fresh frenzy.
"You don't, but I do!" he corrected, lunging for the only weapon in their arsenal that they had yet to use; Virgil's shoe. Taking aim at Tim's retreating backside, Scott reeled his arm back in preparation for an almighty throw. In front of him, John hooked his hands underneath Alan's arms and hauled him out of the firing line.
"Thanks, bro," Alan exhaled, flinching when Virgil's shoe made positive contact with the wall.
"You're a minor," John replied, "We'd be subjected to a formal investigation if you died."
Unconcerned with the natterings of his brothers, Scott watched in anticipation as Virgil's shoe slowly detached from the wall and slid to the floor, it's descent similar to that of a bird that had just flown into a window. Before he could get a good look at the impact zone, Gordon gave a cry of surprise and pointed at the window. Tim, unscathed and unsquished, was on the other side of the glass, his legs twitching in fatigue as he dragged himself off in search of some peace and quiet.
"Holy hell on a Thunderbird," Virgil panted, disentangling himself from Gordon and standing up, "I certainly won't be leaving this place a five-star review."
Scott swallowed and nodded, acutely aware of the racket they'd made and their proximity to the other rooms. No doubt the neighbours would be less than impressed with them at breakfast.
"Still don't believe me about the wasp and the motorbike?" Gordon asked, flopping back onto the carpet in relief, "I think my whole life just flashed before my eyes. And I didn't like what I saw."
John had the decency to look falsely apologetic as he stooped to retrieve a large chunk of glass before any of them could step on it.
"That's funny. Neither do we."