Malcolm didn't wait to see where the spider was headed; he was certainly its target. He wrenched open the nearest door and dodged into one of the rooms lining the passageway. It was Albert Gaunt's office; he recognised the sparse furnishings. And he recognised Albert's lifeless body, its limbs sprawling wide from the chair behind the desk, its head lolling back at an angle to face him.

The desk's surface held the man's usual clutter of file folders and court dockets. There also sat an opened FedEx box amidst a scuffle of papers and an overturned pencil holder. A handful of spiders darted out of the opening and skittered randomly across the desk, occasionally disappearing under the paperwork. One of them made it to the edge nearest the chair and dropped onto the body's unmoving leg. The spider clambered up the dead man's chest, detoured sideways along the neck, and crawled up and over into the mouth.

Malcolm turned away to keep from throwing up right there on the spot. That's when he saw, through the narrow gap below the door, the bulky shadow of the tarantula-like bug in the hallway. The dark form moved back and forth, scratching and scrabbling at the obstacle.

'No! Get away!'

He scooped a stapler from the desk and threw it at the door. It caromed off the wood with a loud thud, and the shadow on the other side held still. Only for a moment, then the scrabbling began again as two green hairy appendages flicked and twisted past the doorsill, searching, seeking.

'I said... GET AWAY!' bellowed Malcolm.

Without stopping to think, he grabbed a heavy wooden file organiser, turned round, and flung open the door with one hand. He slammed the organiser down again and again, trying to smash the spider. It scuttled to one side and avoided the first few blows, but then jinked in the wrong direction. Three legs buckled under the force of the improvised broad hammer. As the spider tried to drag itself to safety, Malcolm brought the edge of the tray down across its body. His reward was a loud crunch of chitinous exoskeleton and the splatter of ichorous fluid. The beast twitched once, twice, then lay still.

Malcolm's chest heaved from the frenzied exertion, and the splintered wooden tray hung from his throbbing hands. He let it clatter to the floor, then wiped sweat from his eyes. The hallway was silent, save for his uneven breathing. He glanced up and saw the bugs clinging to the ceiling were creeping down the walls in ragged phalanxes. The top of the entrance doorway was already covered in a writhing mass of arachnids.

'No way... I've got to... Where...? Damn!'

He spun on his heel and dashed for the conference room at the back of the building, which opened out onto the corridor. It was only steps away and he hoped to grab something substantial to defend himself, to cut a swath through the swarm of bugs, to find a way out of the office.

He was moving too quickly, and wound up colliding with the large conference table. A sharp pang exploded from just below his hip and slowed him to a spasmodic hobble. Malcolm turned to head for a janitor's closet, past the tiny kitchenette, at the far end of the room.

He stopped in his tracks. In front of him, mid-way up the wall at its junction, hung Gerald Angste. His body was encased in ropey silver threads and only his head protruded. His chin rested against the filaments spun around his chest, and Malcolm would have taken him for dead if Gerald hadn’t opened his eyes just then.

'Gerry?'

'... Run ...'

It was a labored wheezing sound, rather than a word. Gerald flicked his gaze in the direction Malcolm had come, trying to mouth something more.

'Can't... They’re all over out there...'

Gerald gave a weak nod. He licked dry lips and started:

'This time... We really f—'

Air left his lungs like the last hiss of a deflating tyre.

'What happened? Where did all th—'

'GenCom... Sent usss... A gifff...'

'I'm going to get you down.'

'Don’t...' Gerald strained to force it through his lips.

'Right... sticky... hang on a sec.'

Malcolm turned and bounded to the janitor's closet. He flung it open, fumbled for the light switch, then reached in for the nearest object that might provide some reach or leverage. As he pulled a broom from the near corner, an animal the size of a large cat leapt out and brushed past him.

'Aaaahh!'

The shout rang out of its own accord. Malcolm felt he'd been startled the same as if he'd been watching a horror movie. In a movie, it would have been a cat, appearing at a tense moment in the film, to frighten the audience. What scuttled past him was another one of the spiders, bigger than the rest. Malcolm, in his astonishment, almost let go of the broom handle. Instead, he regrouped and gripped it tighter, brandishing it like a club. The spider had scurried along the wall and was making its way up to Gerald’s cocooned form.

'Leave... Him... Alone!'

Malcolm punctuated each word with a slash of the broom. The first two swipes missed, landing with muted wet smacks upon the cocoon, but the last connected and sent the large arachnid tumbling onto the floor. It righted itself immediately and scrambled under the conference table.

'No you don't! Get back out here,' commanded Malcolm.

He snatched a chair and sent it rolling toward the hall passage, then hunkered down to look for the spider. He thrust the handle of the broom under the table, holding the bristle end. He poked at the wooden supports, but didn't see anything. As he crouched onto his hands and knees, he caught a shimmer of reflected light a few inches to the right and above his head.

Too late, he realised the arachnid hung lurking in the shadow of the table's top. He jerked backward, banging his pate on the lip of the conference table, even as the spider flung itself at his face. Malcolm turned to avert its flicking appendages clawing his eyes, but the creature clung to his shoulder. It flailed and pawed at him, then clamped its mandibles into the flesh at his collarbone.

Malcolm screamed in pain, and the first pangs of terror rushed through his body. It was as if a brilliant light exploded before his eyes and left him disoriented, blinded to reality, and trying to reconnect his motor skills to his will. He doubled over and rolled, trying to dislodge the creature. He was successful. As he fell, he pinned the arachnid. Its grip gave way as Malcolm kept rolling, and the two bodies had distance between each other.

The spider righted itself in the blink of an eye and spun to face Malcolm. He scooped the broom from the floor and swung at the creature in such a frenzy the thought passed through his mind he might be experiencing a kind of berserker rage. The arachnid had to retreat from a flurry of blows, as it rushed around the room in a weaving path that led over furnishings and along walls. Chairs toppled and skid across the floor, law books fluttered from shelves, a standing lamp crashed against the table. One powerful swipe brought all the coffee appliances and condiments smashing down. Malcolm had to hop over the shattered carafe and the jumbled mess of coffee grounds, sugar, and creamer.

Finally, he had it backed into a corner between the cabinets and the sink, as he stabbed at it with the blunt broom handle. The big green-and-ochre arachnid clung to the wall, dodging every thrust, using its segmented front legs to bat away the attacks. Malcolm was in the midst of a particularly vicious stab when the spider launched itself at him. Its limbs spread wide in mid-flight, its jaws clicked a wicked rhythm, and its black pearl eyes filled with the reflected image of Malcolm's face contorted in disbelief. It wrapped itself around his upper arm and started to climb toward his shoulder, as if it thought to try its strategy again.

Malcolm reacted on instinct. He jammed his shoulder hard against the corner of the cabinet, with the spider in-between. There was a sickening crunch, and Malcolm felt warm fluid soaking into his shirt. The body of the arachnid hung limp upon him; only a single leg spasmed in reflex as the creature's motive force ebbed away.

Malcolm couldn't abide its presence any longer. He pulled it from his arm, turned, and pitched the chitinous body across the table, into the hallway. It landed with a dull thud, atop a host of smaller spiders making their way along the floor toward the conference room. A handful lay motionless from the impact, while many others scrambled out to reconverge on the dead bug. More and more of them gathered around it, as Malcolm witnessed an eerie sight, almost as if the spiders were performing a ritual. They lifted the dead arachnid off the ground and began to move toward the entry door.

'That's right,' taunted Malcolm, '...go take care... of your dead... and wounded.'

He leaned upon the table for a moment, catching his breath, then gathered his wits and picked a path back to Gerald, over the littered floor.

The man wrapped in webbing had been an exuberant individual in the years Malcolm had known him. Now he managed only a glazed stare, looking through Malcolm rather than at him. As if sensing his partner's presence, he shook his head in weariness.

'Too late to h-h-help me-eee...' He wheezed.

'Damn it, Gerry! I'm getting you down and out of here! Just have to figure h—'

'Get out-t-t... We los-sst...'

'How did we...? Did Gordian set this up?'

'All or nothin-ng... Al didn't get... Feingold wouldn't budg-g-ge...'

As his final exhalation pushed out the word, a rivulet of bugs seemed to pour from his mouth. Spiders as small as poppy seeds, to spiders the girth of one's thumb, came tumbling out. Most crawled over his lips, scampered down his neck, and negotiated the sticky cocoon with nimble grace. Some jumped from his slack jaw to land upon the floor. Several descended using fresh-spun strands anchored on Gerald's face, conjuring to mind the image of a man rappeling down Mount Rushmore.

'Damn you! You little scavengers! I'll teach you...'

The desecration of his colleague and friend, the knowledge that the bugs had feasted on his bowels for their sustenance, angered Malcolm. He trod on several of them before finding the broom again. Brandishing it with alacrity and precision, he swatted and smashed dozens of them with the flat side, leaving splotches all over the room. He gave chase, herding a dwindling group of them into the hallway.

What he saw when he glanced up from the scattering remnant froze his blood. There at the far end of the passageway, were throngs of them, forming a sickly green, living, writhing carpet. They bunched up near the door of the first office - his office - and several of the larger spiders held the corpse of the large arachnid aloft. It swayed upon the spindly raised appendages and, all the while, there came to Malcolm's ears the insistent sound of their chittering. As he stood dumb-founded, the door of his office moved inward. It swung open with such slowness he thought whoever might be there was too frightened of the spectacle outside to venture forth. Then he noticed the rigid chitinous 'arm' against the door jamb.

The mass of bugs upon the floor shifted, seeming to part in deference, leaving the corpse-bearing spiders as an island upon the sterile floor tiles. They stood their ground, hoisting the big dead bug higher. It suddenly occurred to Malcolm what they were doing. It was universal body language, a simple pantomime, ultimately iconic. See? See what he did? What are you going to do about it?

From the shadow of the empty office, crept a humongous arachnid, rising on stilt-like legs. It was easily as large as Malcolm's desk, and its head and torso where on a level with his chest. It moved forward, swinging its long legs around the doorframe as it squeezed past. The creature paused to look down at the mangled shell of the spider Malcolm had bested, then it looked directly at him. With deliberate strides, it came to within a few feet of him, halted, and leaned back upon its thorax.

Malcolm took it to mind to turn and run, but he could not. The massive arachnid clattered its mandibles, a sharp smacking rasping noise that sent chills down his back. Still, he did not fathom why his legs wouldn't comply. He began to twist, to position himself for a chance to flee, when a muted twinge from his shoulder spoke to his subconscious. The broom fell from his numb right hand. He touched the residual ichor surrounding the wound near his neck with his left hand.

The spider landed on me. It bit me. Oh, God! They paralyze with....

The world shifted and swam before his eyes. It was as if he viewed the scene before him looking through a culvert drain. Then his perspective shifted again; everything became flat. His body felt two-dimensional. With an ethereal slowness, the giant arachnid closed the gap between them, raised its two front legs, and pushed him to the floor. Malcolm fell like a sheet of paper, spiraling down and seesawing back-and-forth, until he lay very flat indeed. His eyes seemed to have oozed to the side of his head, for all he could see were the hallway tiles standing perpendicular, his feet floating above the far wall, with his head scant inches from the ceiling of the other wall. An immense ochre shadow hovered at his left side. It looked like a squat water tower sculpture mounted sideways on incredibly thin supports, as it straddled his numbing body. Silver thread poured from the apex of its form, wound around his legs, glistening. Malcolm's gaze travelled upward and it amazed him to see a dark green wave from a foreign ocean roll forward to wash over him, filling his mouth to drown him.

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Blue-Eyed BiPedal Bookworm from Betelgeuse

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