Dark Doses Read online

  He didn’t need it.

  Timmy flicked the screen to black as his computer snoozed. He sagged back in the chair and waited for results from his creation’s debut.

  ***

  Joshua’s small, nimble fingers adjusted the Immersion Station eyepieces, floating the thin optical lenses on each cornea. The earpieces followed, inserted by touch and delicately shifted, enabling the sonic element to engage each eardrum. He clipped the tiny nosepiece into place, its dispensing tubes extending into both nostrils. In a practiced motion, all the connections snapped into the controller headset as it descended for a snug fit atop his cranium. With a slight tremble, his index finger tripped the actuator switch, sending a violet, arcade–neon glow pulsing through each cable as the Station booted and located its data source. A rippling Sony logo teased him while the immersion elements engaged, inserting scene components and story lines, establishing the setting and background. The logo dissolved into a short sequence of white noise.

  Playback commenced.

  ***

  “Joshua, help meeeee!”

  That sounds like Michael, your best friend from next door. Where is he?

  You stand at the top of the stairs and try to remember what you were about to do. It’s important. Vital.

  Michael? No. Something else.

  You study your house again. All of it is wrong—a big mass of confusing wrongness.

  Stuff lies everywhere. You trashed the place.

  No. It wasn’t you.

  Something else did.

  Broken, twisted pieces of your life heap together on the shredded rug, leftovers of some madman’s rage. Or a giant, some beast who had hoisted the house and shaken it, like a baby rattle, before setting it back level on the ground.

  It stinks here. The still air reeks of burning things: wood, plastic, rubber, metals, and flesh. Meat on fire. Not cooking, like for dinner. Just burning.

  Inside is quiet. Outside is… odd. You strain to hear. Distant thumps, dry pops, muted screeches, rumbling buzzes; the sounds of an arcade surround you. But this is no game. No reset button offers escape. This wreck is your life.

  “Mom? Dad?”

  Nothing.

  They’re long gone. You know this for some reason.

  What were you going to do? It was one of two things, wasn’t it? Try to remember!

  “Joshua, pleeease!” Michael, again.

  The sound comes from your room down the hall. You creep toward the closed door, certain you shouldn’t go near it.

  At the end of the hall you stop. Through the door, you hear snapping and crackling and under it, gloomy daylight flickers. You reach for the knob.

  More daylight seeps in through the widening crack. Your room is gone, only a hole in the house now, bitten off just beyond the door. Looking up, a smoke–filled sky darkens from fires raging across your neighborhood. Looking down, a driveway sits next door.

  Michael crouches behind his family’s ruined car. Opposite him on the other side of the car, a thing lumbers. Tall as a man, armless, it waddles on two, thick legs; stubby extensions of a pear–shaped body that seems all wrinkles of scarred, red flesh. The folds of skin jiggle as it circles the car, stalking Michael. He whimpers. A wet spot stains the crotch of his tattered jeans.

  The thing shifts to the front of the car. Michael slides around the rear. Shuffling backward toward the street, a pucker of folds atop the thing starts to glow, crimson at first, shifting to golden white.

  “No. God, no.” Michael steps away from the car.

  Out of the pucker, a triangle of yellow light sprays. A blast of heat envelops you a second later. The car sizzles and pops as glass and metal fuse together. Michael dances in its shadow. You want to scream at him, urge him to run, but dare not open your mouth.

  Michael takes off across the lawn, head down, twisting, dodging. The beam swings, shifting from yellow back to crimson and narrowing to a tight line that drills Michael’s back.

  “Nooooo!” His scream gurgles away as he arches his shoulder blades and staggers to a halt.

  The crimson light fans out, washing over Michael’s whole body. He jerks and spasms in the glow like someone being electrocuted. You watch, unable to look away.

  Smoke erupts from Michael’s clothes and hair, swirling around him. When it clears, he’s changed, mutated into a red blob of wrinkled flesh. The light winks out.

  Now there are two of the things.

  You remember: hide!

  You pull on the doorknob, easing it back. One of the hinges squeals a protest. A flash of yellow erupts under the door just as it shuts. You retreat from the blackening wood.

  Hiding won’t help. You remember what else you were going to do.

  Run!

  Just as your feet hit the top of the stairs, the door explodes behind you. The house rocks. Halfway down the stairs, you tumble, bouncing all the way to the bottom where your head smacks tile. Blackness steals your thoughts.

  Someone whistles.

  No, not someone. Something. A horrible, high shrill stabs your eardrums.

  You blink into billowing clouds of smoke. The whole upstairs burns. Curls of angry fire wind through gaping holes in the roof. One of the smoke detectors shrieks its steady alert. Head throbbing, ears ringing, you crawl backward into the kitchen.

  A yellow beam slices across the ceiling, sending a light fixture hurtling to the floor. A thought strikes you. If the things still flame the house from Michael’s side, the other way might be clear. You scramble through the kitchen and out onto the driveway.

  What time is it?

  Hard to tell from the blackened sky but maybe middle of the afternoon.

  Which way?

  A flash and dull thump of an explosion echoes from the direction of the city.

  Not that way.

  The street looks empty, but the things next door might spot you if you try it. If they see you, one of their crimson beams might find you. If that happens….

  A huge crash from inside the house makes up your mind. You dive through the side gate into the back yard and flip over the slatted fence.

  No sign of Bobby, your rear–neighbor pal. What’s left of his house smolders, and you don’t look in it as you sneak by. Better not to know.

  Out on Bobby’s street the coast is clear. You take off, heading for the park. The silent houses you dart by are all damaged; most are wrecked, charred shells. There’s nobody around—not a living soul. No people, dogs, birds, insects. Nothing.

  At the intersection with the next street, you duck behind an overturned pickup, careful not to squat in the gasoline pooled beneath it. The neighborhood runs deeper to your right, where more of your friend’s houses are. No doubt those houses share the same fate as the ones beside you. You wonder if your other friends share Michael’s fate.

  To the left, the neighborhood spills out to the park road. Across the road, oleanders bloom, a profusion of violet dotting the hillside. You squint hard. Something moves among the flowered shrubs. A second dark shape trails the first, followed by another. The front wall of oleanders parts.

  Three monster spiders skitter onto the road. Their bodies look twice as tall as you and have a pitch–black sheen, as if polished to a mirrored finish. Eight spindly legs angle above each spider’s bulbous abdomen. The last spider bears a clutch of gray lumpy bundles underneath it.

  “Psssst.”

  You freeze. What was that?

  “Joshua, over here.”

  Off to the side, a face ducks back from shattered glass in one of the less damaged homes.

  A reedy, chittering noise focuses your attention back on the spiders. All three rear up and flail their front legs at something unseen up the park road. In response, a tangle of yellow beams lances across each spider. Many of the beams reflect, veering off to the sides, igniting small fires in the vegetation. Some beams don’t though and portions of the spiders explode in puffs of vapor and debris. The chittering becomes a maddening squeal.

  “Hurry! Befo
re you’re spotted.”

  Through an open front door, a hand waves. You dash up the lawn and inside. The door shuts with a click.

  “It’s good to see you, Joshua.” A skinny girl stands there covered in soot and filth, wearing a ripped tee shirt and bicycle shorts. Wavy, curled brown hair frames a pale face.

  “I know you, don’t I?”

  “Allison. We had Mrs. Timberly’s switch class together in second grade.”

  “Oh, yeah. Hi.”

  “Hi.”

  Another squeal comes from outside, closer, more frantic.

  Allison grimaces. “Let’s go in back.” She taps you on the shoulder and you follow her into the kitchen.

  “This your place?”

  “Huh–uh. I live that way.” Her head tilts toward the backyard. “Two neighborhoods over. Some old woman owns this place.”

  “How do you know?”

  “Because she’s out in the garage. Dead.”

  “Dead? Not turned into one of those… those things?”

  “You mean the spiders and mutants?” She frowns at you. “They kill just as often as they change people. I’ve seen it.”

  “Yeah. One of the mutants tried to kill me earlier.”

  “Really?” Allison looks as if she doesn’t quite believe you.

  “Really. I’ll bet my house is still burning.”

  You and Allison duck as brilliant flashes strobe through the kitchen window. A home in back erupts in a spray of fragments and flames.

  She snatches your hand and pulls you down below the counters. Pots, pans, silverware and broken glass litter the floor.

  “Joshua, can you get us out?”

  “Huh? I don’t even know what’s going on.”

  “Seriously?”

  You shake your head at her in confusion.

  Her mouth drops open. She fumbles at her feet.

  “Take this!” she screams, handing you a cookie sheet. She shoves past you brandishing a cast iron skillet.

  Wham! Iron smacks tile.

  You whirl and see Allison swing. Clang! A bar stool soars against the wall and splinters.

  Up onto the counter, a spider jumps, a fist–sized version of the ones on the road.

  “Don’t let it spray you,” Allison yells, aiming for another blow.

  You raise the cookie sheet in time to deflect a stream of fluid the spider spits at your head. The stream ceases as iron slams on laminate.

  “Kill it. Quick!”

  The wounded spider plops at your feet. As you raise a sneaker, a chittering squeal erupts, piercing your ears. The sound ceases as its body flattens under your heel.

  Allison flings aside the skillet. “Let’s go!”

  You race behind her through the laundry room into the garage. The body of an old woman lies on oil–stained cement, what’s left of her. She has no torso, only bubbled chunks of residue where it should have been. Your nose burns from acid fumes.

  “Come on, before more spiders show up.” Allison ducks out the side door.

  You follow her out and across the street that connects to the park road. Both of you slip through a yard to the back fence, where you boost Allison over first before dropping beside her. Thick weeds and tall trees surround you.

  “What now?” you ask.

  “I hoped you knew. Since you obviously don’t, I guess I’ll have to decide.”

  She studies the fence line in both directions then tries to peer into the thicket. You don’t want to ask what she’s looking for.

  “There’s a creek in there,” she says. “It runs under the road and along the edge of the park until it meets the river. Do you know it?”

  “Uh–huh. In summer me and Michael use the rope swing over the river.” You bite your lip. Did use. No more.

  “Yeah. That river flows into the city one way and from the country the other. We’ll follow it.”

  “Into the city?”

  “Only if you want to die. We’ll go to the country.”

  She pushes into the weeds. At one time, having a girl lead would have bothered you like nothing else. Now you feel lucky Allison is in front.

  You catch up to her by the creek. Under the dense canopy, only thin straggly grasses grow, clumping in the carpet of leaves and sticks. At least you have clear view of what’s coming.

  “The spiders I saw earlier were this way.” You nod toward the park road.

  “They’re everywhere, especially the woods and fields. Mutants like the roads and buildings. Stay low. Try to move quietly. If you see something, freeze and hiss at me. I’ll do the same.”

  You follow the bubbling creek. After a short debate about going over, you pass under the park road bridge and reach a downed chain link fence.

  “The park.” Allison points ahead. “This way gets too soggy.” She turns and gazes toward the mowed areas. “That way.”

  “Wait.” You snatch her hand. “Are we doing the right thing?”

  “No. Yes. I mean—” She squats and looks in your eyes. Deep pity fills that look. “What we’re doing is not getting caught. Escape, Joshua. That’s the right thing, the only thing now.”

  You shake your head at her.

  “It’s a war, don’t you see? On one side is the mutant king and the other, the spider queen.” She leans close. “We’re stuck in the middle. We didn’t want this, but it happened.”

  “A king and queen? Who are they?”

  “You honestly don’t know?”

  “Huh–uh.”

  “I’m not going to be the one to tell you. All I’ll say is they’re the most foul, evil creatures you might meet. The spider queen is everywhere with her warriors, hundreds of thousands of them. The mutant king commands from our school, his main base. He has a wicked she–mutant general leading his shock troops throughout the city. This war means death for people, or worse, being sucked into one side or the other.”

  “Then let’s kill them both.”

  “It’s hopeless. They’re too strong to fight.”

  “What about the police?”

  She looks at you blankly.

  “The army? Marines? Boy Scouts?”

  Her head shakes. “Can’t help, Joshua. None of them. We must help ourselves. That’s what I’m doing. Let’s go.”

  Across the creek and up the embankment, you reach the edge of the park. It’s late afternoon with darkness coming on. You remember happy times at this place. Picnics, games, birthdays. Now it feels dead.

  You rise to go.

  “Hsssst.” She snatches your shirt and hauls you back. “Look.”

  You follow her pointing finger and spot something in the nearest tree. In the crook of the lowest branches, a dingy gray sack rests. It looks like an old kitchen trash bag blown up there by the wind.

  “What is it?” you whisper.

  “Web sack.”

  “What?”

  “Hatchlings. Get too close and they explode out.”

  “Booby trap.”

  “Uh–huh.” Her eyes shift from side–to–side. “Looks like they’re in all the trees. Spiders have been busy.”

  She leads you back down the embankment and turns toward the bridge.

  “Just up the road is a dirt path. It goes by the soccer field and down to the river where people launch their boats. There are fewer trees.”

  Your throat tightens. “I don’t know. Maybe there’s another way out of here?”

  “Sure. Some real obvious ones, where plenty of monsters will be. Wanna try?”

  You shake your head.

  Up along the park road, shadows deepen the air’s gloom. While you appreciate the extra disguise, you wonder what lurks just out of sight. Again Allison leads. She reaches the dirt path before you and starts down.

  Flashes ahead in the distance catch your eye. More rumbles of far–off explosions shake the ground. The park road continues straight until it reaches a busy highway where places you shop and eat are. Were. The highway leads into the city and in the growing darkness, an orange, red
, and yellow parade flickers across the city skyline. No celebration, this event. Just the dying throes of something you once knew, fading fast.

  “Joshua!”

  You turn onto the dirt path just as a yellow beam slices through where you stood.

  You bolt. She runs ahead of you. More beams stab the air at your back then swing away as a chorus of chittering noises echo from your subdivision. Another skirmish gets underway in the war between monsters.

  “Wait! Allison, slow down!”

  She turns, walks backward a few steps, and halts. You charge toward her.

  Four jet–black legs thrust out of the dirt on each side of her. They collapse over her head as a spider emerges from its lair. She screams. You freeze in your tracks.

  The spider jerks her flailing body to the ground and flips over on top of it. The bulbous abdomen curls underneath and you can just make out the stinger before it plunges into Allison. Her shriek fades to a wail and then a whisper as the spider’s toxin floods her.

  You back away.

  Its duty done, the spider springs off and perches beside her. It preens itself clean of dust and dirt clumps.

  She doesn’t die. For a few moments her body convulses before arching up, bending almost double. Her clothes shred as one shiny black leg after another erupts from her gut, extends, unfolds, and stands erect on the path. When all eight are set, the rest of Allison splits into segments, forming the body and head of a spider.

  Now there are two of the things.

  Both leap at you together. You stumble before turning and running hard as you can back to the road. Reaching it, you head toward the city, away from the creatures you know about.

  Chittering sounds echo off the pavement behind you, closing in.

  You push your legs harder, round a curve, and bounce up into the air. You’re caught, tangled in a wall of webbing that stretches across the road. Arms and legs are glued to the silk trap, but your head is not. You twist your neck around. Two spiders rear up. A blast of fluid washes over you.

  Blackness again.

  This time, a horrible sight greets you as your eyes flick open. A giant spider, tall as a house, towers over you. The queen! She bends forward and scrutinizes you with countless shiny black eye pits. You lie naked under her penetrating gaze, your clothes nowhere in sight.

  One sewer pipe thick leg flips you onto your stomach and then presses on your neck. You’re pinned, unable to escape as the queen’s abdomen hovers above your head. Down the black bulb curls, brushing along your spine from head to butt, leaving a warm tickling sensation behind. The pressure on your neck vanishes. You roll and sit. Reaching over your shoulder, you touch stickiness.