Once upon a haunted time: a Halloween fic
Chapter 8. No way out
Exhaustion was overcoming Jubal. And his arm hurt. It was clear to him he would be next.
Jubal provoked the spider's next attack with a feint. He managed to make it miss, but only avoided the bite by sheer miracle, and the move left him completely exposed.
Behind Persephone, Tiffany saw the serious predicament Jubal was in, and made an alarmed gesture to Scola. The two took careful aim and opened fire on the joints of the spider. It lost two legs; finally screaming in pain.
Giving one last slash to the web, Isobel finally released Maggie completely. But she was unable to stand.
Ignoring the pain of their wounds, Isobel and Jubal lifted and carried her, her feet barely touching the floor, avoiding Persephone by sticking to the wall to join the others. The spider tried to catch them. As he passed, Jubal struck a third leg with what was left of the coat rack. The monster staggered, forced to lower the other legs to regain its balance.
It gave them the narrow margin they needed to regroup.
Maggie walked unsteadily the last few feet to reach the table where OA lay. She grabbed his face, calling his name. She kissed him on the lips, not caring if the others were watching or not. Her heart shuddered as she felt the same coldness of a tomb slab on them.
"OA..." she whispered in his ear. "Come back..." she begged, "Come back to me..."
He shook in a slight spasm.
But neither her words, nor the sound of her voice, the touch of her hands, the scent of her hair or the wetness of her tears could reach him.
It was the warmth radiating from her soul that did it.
OA blinked and looked at Maggie. She embraced him sobbing. Somewhat awkwardly, but he wrapped her in his arms as well.
Holding back tears, moved, Isobel watched the shadow retreat, lose density. To her despair, OA turned his face and saw the giant spider; his expression filled with fear. The shadow held its prey over him; the hatred it gave off became suffocating.
Tiffany and Stuart had long since run out of ammo and had to keep the four remaining pup-spiders at bay with what they found on hand. He with a high stool, she with a heavy brass umbrella stand. Jubal helped them with the coat rack.
Between Maggie and Isobel they assisted OA to get up. None of the three could walk properly, but they helped each other reach the stairs. Jubal, Stuart and Tiffany covered the retreat.
They exited the attic, while the spiders jumped at them. They closed the door at the last second. They heard them crash against it. While Jubal and Tiffany held it shut, Stuart barricaded it with the stool. Everyone hurried down the stairs. That wasn't going to hold the monsters back for long.
Isobel could sense the shadow thickening and preparing to chase them.
As they stepped out into the hallway, Isobel stopped them.
"Stop! No, not that way!"
She was seeing in front of them, in the middle of the corridor, a black, but invisible, bottomless abyss had manifested itself.
"What?" Maggie asked blankly.
"It's trying to confuse us. This way," Isobel said confidently, and had them follow her across the hallway to the front room.
The creak of the wooden door of the attic as it cracked echoed throughout the hallway. They had to find a way out, before the creatures found them.
From an anteroom, they were able to pass into the adjacent room. There, Isobel found another door the others couldn't see. They walked through it, OA and Maggie in complete amazement. On the other side, they got to high and very narrow staircase leading down.
"Let's go, let's go, let's go!" Isobel urged them.
She sensed the shadow was following them, guided by the tether it still held over OA. It was about to catch up with them. She Isobel didn't know what would happen if it did, but it couldn't be anything good.
As he started to descend, Jubal skipped a step and leaned forward. With a startled exclamation, Isobel tried to grab him, but didn't even manage to touch him. Fortunately, Stuart also reached out; he caught Jubal just in time, stopping him before he rolled down the stairs and broke his skull. As everyone sighed in relief, Jubal gave Stuart a grateful look. Isobel's was no less so.
They were more careful after that.
As they went down trying not to trip any of them, the pup-spiders burst up the stairs. Tumbling over each other to get past first, the creatures descended in a confused jumble of legs and fangs. They were forced to go down the steps two at a time.
But it was not enough.
Just as they were about to reach the bottom, the spiders caught up with them.
OA pushed Jubal, Isobel and Maggie off the stairs while, with a grimace, Tiffany turned around to face them. Stuart stayed to back her up, though he was unarmed. Taking advantage of the narrow space, she took them on one by one. She smashed them with the heavy umbrella stand, letting out fearsome grunts with each blow. Stuart helped her by kicking back with stomps of the sole of his boot at the ones coming at Tiff.
When the last of them fell for good, however, irresistible nausea assaulted her. They were both splattered with the thick yellow blood. Tiffany was on the verge of vomiting.
"I hate spiders," she growled, drawing an empathetic smile from OA.
"Let's go!" insisted Isobel.
Her bruised ribs barely let her breathe anymore. Maggie looked at her anxiously from time to time. She had noticed how she nursed her ribs, how she flinched every time she took a breath.
Isobel couldn't worry about that at the moment. She had to get them out of there.
Tiffany and Stuart's injuries were taking their toll, Maggie hardly was able to walk without help from OA, who still looked dangerously close to panic, and Jubal... The sting on his arm had gotten worse and worse until it turned a dark purple color. His eyes were glassy and his face, covered in sweat, was growing paler by the minute.
Down the stairs, they found themselves in a maze of corridors. Isobel, looking for a way out, led them through several walls.
Turning one of the corners, Isobel reached out and held Tiffany back at the last second. There was another pit there. The halt caused Tiff to lose her grip on the umbrella stand and it fell out of her hands. Everyone watched with wild eyes as the thing flew across the floor and disappeared without leaving any trace. Only Isobel could see it fall and fall into the darkness. She swallowed as Tiffany did, and looked around her.
"This way!" she exclaimed and led them through a wall into a pantry and from there into the kitchen.
Everyone but Tiffany and Scola lost a second watching at the bloody scene, even though the woman's body had disappeared. They immediately rushed out into the lobby anyway.
The storm could again be heard echoing over the house, as if they had been somewhere else until then. Some clock in the house struck twelve. Again.
They were about to run for the door, but Isobel stopped them again. No. That's not the way out, she thought with an impending sense of doom. She couldn't see outside beyond. Only stark darkness.
Isobel's eyes roamed the hallway without finding it. They went into the living room, but there was nothing there either. A rumbling noise was approaching from the upper floors.
Anxious, Jubal approached her, wondering how he could help her, but then he staggered. His hand lost strength. He watched in a daze as the coat rack fell to the floor in slow motion, his legs stopped supporting him, and he collapsed.
Exclaiming his name, Isobel dropped to her knees beside him. Jubal was trying to get up, without success. She wanted to help him, but he simply seemed to have lost his strength. A paralyzing fear for Jubal welled up inside her and erupted like a geyser, overflowing her.
The shadow was already there, resonating with a cruel echo. Isobel watched in terror as it hurled one of its appendages toward her heart. It rushed toward her at full speed. Without really knowing how, Isobel grabbed it in mid-air with her hand, stopping it just as she began to feel it inside her. The fact her own reflexive act succeeded stunned her. She was even more surprised by the startle coming to her from the shadow.
Isobel clenched her fist, strangling the appendage, trying to rip it off. The shadow stirred it over, causing her piercing agony.
Meanwhile, Scola and OA were managing to get Jubal on his feet.
"Isobel..." he let out an alarmed mutter as he watched her double over.
"Isobel, what's wrong?" asked Maggie, kneeling worriedly next to her.
With a choked grunt, Isobel pulled with all her might. It was like pulling out a harpoon. The harder she tried the more painful it was. The shadow savored her suffering with delight.
She heard Jubal calling out to her, trying to get her to react.
Gritting her teeth, Isobel armed herself with the strength she gained from the sound of his voice and gave one last desperate tug.
It came out causing excruciating pain.
Isobel almost fainted from shock. Meanwhile, the tentacle withered in her hand and crumbled away like ashes. The shadow retreated. She actually felt it lose power.
Gasping, Isobel pushed Maggie's dismayed hands away, and looked around, searching frantically. Perhaps this bought them enough time to get out of that cursed place.
She looked back into the hall. And there she discovered the front door, under the stairs, as if the house had been turned inside one hundred and eighty degrees.
Isobel pointed it to them. "That way!"
Too late.
The shadow counterattacked with a raw feeling full of anger, a roar only she could hear and that left her shaking like a leaf.
The violent emotional reverberation gripped their hearts with inexplicable, visceral fear. Everyone froze, disjointed images of gruesome deaths of their loved ones ravaging through their minds. OA fell to his knees, terrified.
Amid a deafening crash of shattering wood, the monstrous spider burst through the ceiling of the room.
~.~.~.~