บท 9: Two-Eyed Spider

It hurt. God, it hurt. Lucas wasn't one to be afraid of pain, and he wasn't, so he didn't stray away from it, he often just wanted it all to end.

His head was away from his body. It had been cut off. He didn't know what did it. He didn't want to know. He wanted to rest. It's all he's wanted for a long time. His eyes were heavy. He could sense his consciousness slipping away. Slowly. So slow.

At this rate, he wouldn't need to worry about falling asleep. His head began to flake, starting with the tip of his nose, and going down to the back of his head. He could no longer breathe at all.

He couldn't see much, but he could tell when his eyes flaked away. His brain began to flake. It was a strange thing, really. Flaking was such a weird phenomenon. It didn't hurt. It almost tickled.

As his brain faded, he felt all of his emotions disappear. His frontal lobe disintegrated. He felt all thoughts and feelings cease at once.

Then, there was nothing. No thoughts. No feelings. Peace at last. This wasn't an experience. This wasn't an empty space Lucas could maneuver in. It wasn't just a solid black-screen filling his vision. It was nonexistence. No, it was less than that. It was death.

Then he was back. His eyes opened. He crawled to his feet and sprung back into action. He flaunted his knife to whatever had cut his head off. He couldn't see, but it was somewhere in there.

Lucas breathed heavily. He was in a fighting stance, ready to strike at a moments notice. He could hear something shuffling in the distance. Trash was being pushed out of the way of something.

Lucas briefly wondered where his guardian Angel was. Now would be a great time for it to help him, but of course he couldn't rely on it.

With a faint pant, Lucas realized something. He rapidly patted down his body searching for something.

Too late. The attack came from above. Something fell on Lucas, and he dropped his knife. He could hear it slide away. It's hot stinking breath was near to his face. It was snarling like a small dog, but it was much bigger. It was at least double his size.

It pierced his sides, breaking several ribs and sinking into his innards. Lucas could still move his hands freely though. He reached into his pocket and grabbed a rectangular box. He opened it and grabbed a stick and ran it across the side of the box. With a spark, the match lit with an orange flame.

The green eyes of the creature glowed in the orange light. Two eyes stuck out of the side of its head. Each eye were on the end of a tentacle-like structure. The tentacles moved independently of each other.

The mouth had sharp rigid teeth sticking out of the light-green gums. There was no tongue, but saliva dripped from the top and bottom of the mouth.

The things piercing Lucas' sides were hairy. They looked like spider legs. The body itself looked like that of a spider's abdomen. Little arms were lined along the bottom of the abdomen, and they were grabbing Lucas all over.

It was terrifyingly disgusting. He tried pushing the head away from him, but the apostle bit down on his arm, swallowing everything below his right elbow whole. Blood ran down his arm and soaked his arm.

The legs in his side began to pull up. They pulled and the pulled. It was so painful. Lucas could hardly bare it.

Then there was an explosion from his stomach. It hadn't been cut. It was pulled apart. His ribs had been completely shattered. The legs were pulled up and through his belly, causing his organs to fly up and into the air. Blood poured down onto them.

Lucas' body immediately went into shock. The inside of his torso had become completely exposed. His arm began to rebuild itself. The apostle looked puzzled for a moment, observing the elbow reform. It came in close to see it.

Lucas grabbed its left eye, gripping the tentacle and pulling as hard as he could. The tentacle came off surprisingly easy. The apostle shrieked, and yellow blood poured from the socket of the tentacle, and it backed away into the darkness.

Lucas let his body regenerate and he hopped back up. He grabbed his knife and pointed it into the darkness. He slowly moved around, holding tightly onto his match. He could only see a short distance, but if the apostle were to pounce, he was sure he could react in time.

He searched for any sign of it. Any sign at all. And then he spotted it. He saw the glare of the match in the single eye it had in the distance. He couldn't see its body, but he knew it was there.

The apostle stopped moving, realizing Lucas spotted it. The glare disappeared. Where did it go? Did it close its eye? That bastard! It closed its eye!

This apostle was clever. It could recognize that it had been spotted, and it figured out exactly how. They became smarter and smarter every day.

Lucas bent down and picked up an empty can. He threw it in the direction of the apostle. Clink! It made contact, and the apostle shrieked again. It rushed toward Lucas in rage. He tried to dodge, but it swung its leg so fast, he had no chance. It went all the way through half of his neck, and disappeared into the darkness behind him.

Lucas coughed and stumbled away from where the apostle went. He grabbed ahold of his neck. His head was tilted at an angle due to part of his neck going missing. He had trouble breathing and he struggled to keep his balance.

The apostle approached slowly. It came out of the veil of darkness and showed its face. It had seen that Lucas was vulnerable. It was going to relish the opportunity it had.

Lucas tripped, and began to crawl away from the apostle. It jumped on top of him again, pinning him to a wall and holding his arms to his sides. He struggled in vain to get his arm free to stab the monster.

It raised its leg, brandishing its sharp tip to his face. It slowly extended the leg to his left eye. This was no attempt to kill him. This was revenge.

He kept struggling, pulling his face away from the sharp tip, but the hands on the abdomen reached out and grabbed his face, pulling it forward. He was forced to watch as the leg approached his eye.

At that moment, the match went out. Lucas screamed. The apostle aimed to make this as painful as possible. It was working.

It plunged the tip into Lucas' left eye. It pulled the eye out of the socket, ripping it apart from the optic nerve, and flinging it away. It pulled its leg out of his eye, satisfied with its torture.

There was a sudden thump. Reverberation of a string. The apostle shrieked, and a liquid spilt onto his face. He felt the weight of it come off of him, and it shuffled off into the middle of the store.

Lucas lit a match. He inspected himself. His neck was healed, and his eye was back. The yellow blood of the apostle was spilled all over him.

(Stella: "COME ON!")

She called out for Lucas to run. He could see her standing in the doorway at the entrance. He got up and sprinted towards her. He could see that she still held the baby in her left arm.

Lucas snatched the crossbow away from her, grabbing an arrow from a quiver on her hip and readied the crossbow. They ran out of the town as fast as they could.

They couldn't see if the spider was following them, but they wouldn't slow down to find out. They ran down the road until their legs could carry them no further.

Out of breath, they stopped and finally looked back. They had run uphill, and they could see the town in the distance. The sky hadn't gone completely dark just yet. The setting sun gave the sky a red hue.

As they looked upon the town in the valley. They could see lights in the distance turning on. Streetlights.

(Stella: "Are you okay?")

She searched Lucas' body for injuries. She spotted the holes in his jacket where they spider plunged its legs into. She touched them suspiciously.

(Lucas: "It's alright. I'm alright. It didn't hurt me.")

Stella sighed, resting her hands on her knees, trying to catch her breath.

(Stella: "The thing was on top of you.")

Stella didn't know Lucas was immortal. He didn't know what to make of this. He knew that the truth would eventually come out, but he seemed to prefer it. He enjoyed being human again. He knew he wasn't, but he enjoyed being seen as such at least.

The street lights illuminated the town. They both looked back down the valley. Lucas spotted something. It sent chills down his spine. The spider. He could see it. It was standing right outside the store they had left. He had a good view of it. It had a good view of them too. It stared at them.

Stella saw it as well. She put on her gas mask and walked away, Lucas following soon after. This apostle was sly. Intelligent. It wasn't trying to kill him back there. It was toying with him, and that scared Lucas. He hoped this would be the last time he would see that apostle.