~ The tunnel that Team 6 crawled down seem to go on forever. About 50 feet from where they had entered it through the trapdoor, it narrowed slightly and the ceiling moved down a little.
"Good call on the not wearing our packs, Jay," said Andrew. Jaden very nearly smacked his head right into the wall when he turned it to answer, but halted the motion in time.
"Thanks, I'm just hoping that it doesn't close up any more. I'd like to think that we could turn around if we wanted to."
"Yes, escapism is a beautiful thing," grunted Andrew as he lowered himself to his stomach to creep under a low beam. "Da, geez, that doesn't feel very good."
"Maybe now would be a good time for a couple of those pain killers?" suggested Takyle from the back.
"I think I agree with you," said Andrew and Jaden heard him stop and rummage through pockets until he came up with the little, white packets that the medic had given him. He read the directions on one of them carefully, and then counted them. He tore open one and shook it over his hand. Two blue and green capsules fell into his palm. He put one in his mouth and returned the other to its plastic wrapper, rolling it closed and placing it along with the others in his pack.
"You only took one?" Takyle asked. "Is that a full dose?"
"No, but I've only got ten packets, I need to make them last. Half a dose is probably plenty anyway." With that he tapped Jaden's shoe to indicate that he was ready to go again. They crawled on and Jaden's knees began to get sore. The tunnel narrowed one more time so that now the top brushed their heads, and the sides were just barely shoulder width. Jaden also noticed that it was getting quite a lot dustier, with cobwebs draped from corners like macabre Christmas decorations.
Jaden had never been claustrophobic per se, but he wasn't exactly enjoying this set up. A moment later he heard a small sound from Takyle. He would have described it as half shriek, half gasp. He heard something thump against the wall.
"What is it?" he demanded.
"Ugh, there was a spider right on my hand." A moment later there was another thump, and a near silent curse from Andrew.
"And I got one too."
"Gross. Where are they coming from?" asked Takyle. And then it started. Jaden felt something on his neck and slapped at it. A black spider, writhing and broken, but not dead, fell down in front of him, next to his hand. He caught another in the act of climbing up his arm and quickly swatted it away. He heard Takyle gasp again as he felt something on his scalp. He was positive that it had to be his imagination but he put his hands in his hair and scrubbed them back and forth. Two spiders fell from his head, one dangling by a silken thread in front of his eyes. Jaden frantically knocked it off and his eyes followed it to the floor.
"Shit!" The tunnel was teaming with the things, all kinds, all scurrying towards him. For a moment he panicked, but Andrew put a stop to that fast by pushing him hard from behind.
"Move, Jaden, we've got to get out of here!" Jaden began to crawl forward, forcing himself to breathe. Forcing himself to not try to scurry backwards.
"Think about something else," he commanded himself, just as his hand landed directly on a largish gray spider. He felt it move under his palm, and then its abdomen squish and flatten. "Think about something else, dammit!" He could hear Takyle muttering behind him.
"Shit, shit, shit shit, gross, gross, gross..." The two words had become her chant. Andrew was stonily silent. Jaden knew that he very much disliked spiders.
"Really? That's the best Something Else you can come up with?" his mind demanded. He could feel them all over him now, their prickly little legs on his arms and neck, crawling down his back, wriggling into his pant legs. He could feel them under his hands, and dropping onto his head. Then he felt a burning prick on his upper arm.
"Ah, one bit me!"
"I know, keep going!" yelled Andrew.
"They're just going to get worse!" said Takyle, and Jaden heard a choking sob in her voice.
"It's ok baby, just keep going!" Andrew coached.
Five times Jaden heard Takyle squeak as the spiders bit her, and just as many times he hoped to God that these weren't venomous. How could you possibly tell? Each one he got a decent look at seemed to be a different kind. Pushing his pack along in front of himself temporarily cleared a spot for him to set his hand, but the spiders were jumping on his pack and then just scampering up his arm. He cried out as a spider bit him just below his left eye and couldn't stop himself from pausing to slap it away. Andrew pushed him again.
"Keep moving, Jay! If we stop we're going to die here!" Jaden heard Takyle choke back another cry, and the thought entered his mind that they were probably going to die here regardless. ~
No comments:
Post a Comment