Salticidae (18 page)

Fetal, Jack looked up,
saw the beast backing away, stopping and crouching low like it was preparing for a jump. Saw Derek with a look of horror on his face near the hill. The photographer was waving at him. No, waving for him to get up and run.

“RUN!”

Don’t need to tell me twice
. Jack was up in a flash, gunning for Derek when something appeared at his side, cutting off the route. He slid to a complete stop, chest heaving.

You gotta be fucking kidding me, he thought. Another spider
, this one larger than the first, dark brown with orange stripes ringing its legs. It sped forward and stopped right beside him, its eyes locked on the first spider.

Jack stood still, waiting to be ripped apart by these two monstrosities,
his mind clear of everything except the anticipation of horrendous pain, but neither spider moved toward him. It was like some sort of arachnid standoff, each beast sizing the other up. Jack saw the rifle near his feet but hesitated to move for it. Maybe if he just stayed still these two things would kill each other. Unless of course this standoff was predicated on winning the spoils of war.

Him.

The new spider reared up, then brought its front legs down,
Thump thump thump thump,
on the ground. Left leg, right leg, left leg, right leg. Like it was drumming. The first spider didn’t move at all. The new spider beat the ground again,
thumpa thumpa thumpa
. This time it completed an entire drum solo that would make Keith Moon jealous were he alive.
Thumpa thumpathumpa thump thump.

What in the holy hell is it doing, Jack wondered.

The spider’s front legs started beating faster and faster, becoming a blur, making the ground tremble under Jack’s legs. The sound of the tattoo echoed off the tress and drifted through the jungle.

Now the first spider
was answering with its own drumming, forelegs hammering the ground in a rapid crush roll.

They’re communicating, Jack realized, but about what he had no idea. Not that it mattered in the current scheme of things. As long as they kept it up he might
sneak away unnoticed.

He slowly took a step back, eyes watching the twitching spiders, moving
as slow as he could.. Drifting backwards, shifting position, like a gas, trying to become invisible. The spiders continued their frantic drum communiqué without any other care.

Now Derek came up around the trees, his hand
waving his friends forward. Jack knew it didn’t make any difference, but at least he didn’t feel alone.

“I’ve got my eye on them,” Derek said
quietly. “Just turn and walk toward me. If they move you’ll know.”

“How so?”

“Because I’ll scream and run like a little girl. C’mon.”

Jack turned and strode nonchalantly into the tree line
until he felt the jungle shadows engulf him, and leaned against the cold moss-covered bark of a towering emergent, his heart beating wildly, breath coming too fast.

“
Be quiet,” Derek whispered, playing doctor as best he could, checking Jack’s face and limbs for wounds. “I don’t see any cuts. It didn’t bite you, did it?”

“Not that I know of.”

“You okay then?”

“Define okay. I’m alive, yes, but my brain is a little upset
because stuff like that right there—” he pointed at the two beasts— “doesn’t exist. I might need therapy. Actually, yes I’ll need therapy. Does that make me okay?”

“You’re okay.”

Jack looked back at the scene near the small hill, the two giant spiders whacking the ground with their front legs, palps twitching in excitement. “What the hell are they doing?”

“Well, if I know w
omen, and I think I do—”

“Objection, your honor. Speculation.”

“—I’d say they’re flirting.”

Jack put a hand to his chest in an attempt to slow down his heartbeat, which was measuring in somewhere around a million pumps per second. “What, like a mating dance?”

“I think this is what passes for a night club pick up line out here. God, I wish I had my camera. Actually…yeah…I’m gonna go get it. Keep an eye on these things. Make sure they don’t go anywhere.”

“What? Fuck no!
Let’s get the hell outta here! I’m not staying around to watch giant spider porn. That thing was going to eat me! Which begs the question…where the hell is Banga?”

“Haven’t seen him.” Derek scanned the jungle around them to be sure. “Where was his gun?”

“It was just lying near the tree. You think these things ate him? Shit, I don’t even know where we are.”

“I dunno, Banga seems pretty smart. Maybe he saw
them coming.”

“So then he left us.”

“I’d leave us too if I was outside and saw giant spiders approaching.”

Jack nodded. He couldn’t argue that point. “Fair enough. Okay, here’s my new plan. Get around the hill, get into the cave, find a way down the mountain and get out of here.”

“Sounds good. But not without my camera. When we run by the tent give me two seconds to grab it.”

“Derek, I like you, but if those things come after us and you hold us up
—”

“Jack, you wanted a story, right? This is a fucking story. This is
retirement and fame for both of us. If we don’t get the camera all you’ve got is mushrooms.”

Derek was right. This was a story that would stop the world, and the only way he could publish it was w
ith photographic proof. “I hate you. Okay. On the count of three, we slink back to the tent, you grab the camera and we get into that cave.”

“Sounds good.”

Together, they eased around the trees, stepping over whatever branches and twigs looked like they might snap underfoot, not bothering to brush the bugs away from their face for fear of drawing attention. The spiders thumped the ground, fiercely attacking it with such force leaves began to shake free of the nearby trees. Jack’s vision wobbled with the vibrations of the jungle floor. They cut wide around the hill, inside the trees, finally seeing the tent draw close.

Jack breathed a small sigh of relief. They were going to make it after all.

And then there was the sound of something smashing through tree branches behind them. Jack and Derek turned, and Jack wasn’t sure who screamed first. Nor did it matter.

Rappel
ling to the ground all around them on thick white strands of silk, their legs wide like giant hands ready to snatch up anything in their way, were dozens of the hairy, striped giant nightmares. When they hit the ground they stampeded, rushing for the two men, black eyes fixed on their prey.

Now Jack
felt his throat burn and was sure it was his voice screaming: “RUN!”

***

If a man were asked to define beauty, Kani the Skeleton Man would simply point to the Congo’s morning horizon. It wasn’t just the size and blessed heat of the sun that made his flesh ripple with awe, it was the way the light filtered through the trees, broke into thousands of beams of golden spears and lanced the jungle with energy. The morning sunrise was a trumpet of rebirth. Wherever those beams struck, the rainforest roared to life, rousting the treetop wildlife from darkness in bursts of song and screams of play, unfolding young flora in a violent palette of reds and blues, hooking rainbows over the mists of a thousand waterfalls.

“Good morning, my love.” The Skeleton Man sucked on a cheroot he’d stolen
at gunpoint from a Toleka Trader. Snake Eater’s blood still streaked his face, and he touched it now, letting it flake off. Throughout the night he’d had visions delivered from his fallen aide’s soul. There were pygmies in these mountains trying to work without his consent, dog men trying to support the blasphemous regimes of his enemies. He couldn’t let this stand. He would avenge Snake Eater’s death, the destruction of his truck, and defend his nation’s honor in one deft swoop.

He would wipe them all out for good.

He knew where to find them. Had received reports of a flare from his men. As he’d smoked and stared into the fires last night, he had seen the flare a thousand times over in the fireworks display of embers rising on the heat wave.

He turned to his camp, eyed the collection of young boys smoking. They tapped their Kalashnikovs
on the wet grass and chewed on okapi meat, looking bored, wet from the night’s rain, eager for a fight. Two of them, mere preteens, swigged from a bottle of French wine and spit into the air. Their sunglasses and berets were too big for them, but they were conditioned. He was their father now, and they would do as he told them or they would die.

Elsewhere in the camp, his loyal
captains and lieutenants smoked, sharpened machetes, and waited for instructions as the sun crept up their shoes, onto their laps, and eventually lit up their eyes.

The storm had passed. A new day was
dawning.

The Skeleton Man
strode into the middle of them all, raised his hands. “Into the trucks. We are off to war. Now!”

Not a single man or boy around him
disobeyed. All were smiling.

***

They’d walked for over an hour in the tight crevice of the inner mountain, till their legs blazed and their lungs felt dry. Gellis had suggested they stop and sleep, take turns to avoid any surprise attacks, but Janet had vetoed this vehemently. She’d be damned if she were going to leave herself exposed to this man. Something about him still spooked her.

He’s done nothing but help you
,
she’d thought.
Perhaps your fear is unfounded, girl. You can’t always be right. Even Dad gets things wrong from time to time.

Instead, she’d sat down and leaned her head against the wet rock. She was still sitting now, in the blackness, listening to Gellis breathe beside her. It had been many minutes since they’d spoken.

Gellis finally broke the silence: “Someone will have to tell Moyo’s family that he is gone.”

“Have fun with that.”

“He died in your employ, miss. It should be you. Or your father.”

“News flash:
I don’t care. I just want to get out of here and get back to Cape Town. I’m done with the damn jungle. You people can have it.”

“You people? And that means
—”

“You know what it means. Or, I mean…I didn’t mean it as a black thing. I just mean you…your kind…you live here in the jungle so…”

“I would like to live in New York City. Actually.”

Janet didn’t know what to say to this. It caught her off guard. It was uncommon to hear people like Gellis express interest in living outside of their camps.
Or maybe you’ve just never asked them,
she wondered. “Why New York City?”

“T
o see the Statue of Liberty and all it represents. True freedom. But do not worry, I know I will stay here forever.”

“I told you I’d get you plane tickets.”

“Yes. As a bribe if I remember. To help you survive.”

“I’ll make good on it.
My word means something, you know.”

“I believe you would. But no, m
y wife needs me here, and I love her, and Africa is our home. It is a nice thought, though. Is it not?”

“Sure. I’ve been to New York. It smells like rat piss.”

“So does this cave.” Gellis chuckled.

Janet did not, but hearing his gentle laughter, his lightness in tone and genuine amusement, somehow lessened her
fear.

“Why have you continued to help me?” she asked.
“Just for the plane tickets?”

“You are my employer. You have instructed me to help. I am a good worker. No?”

“I mean, you could have run off or left me at any time. It hasn’t exactly escaped my attention that you’re large enough to palm my head.”

“You think I would hurt you?”

Something inside her was finally pushing for some truth. Not the things her father had taught her about the African people of the DRC, but the things the last twelve hours had taught her. “Wouldn’t you?”

Now Gellis’ laugh was something else. It was something fueled by exhaustion. “Miss, I have heard your comments from the moment I applied for the job with your men. May I be—what is the word—bold
? No matter who your father is, and no matter the men with guns, me and my people are not afraid of you. We have grown up with more war and violence than you can imagine. For those of us who survive it, we either embrace it or we push it out. Either way, we live with it. We do not wait to let it scare us. If we wanted to harm you, your guns and money would not scare us, so it would have happened long ago. So no, I would not hurt you for the same reason that I would not hurt anyone. I have chosen to fight violence with change. I want to see an Africa where children can play in the streets without fear of kidnappings. Where women can walk to the market without fear of rape. I want to see my wife’s eyes shine again. For that, I would give anything. I cannot fix violence with violence. So I work and I care for my family with honor, that someday others may follow my lead. Do you see?”