Salticidae (30 page)

The fangs drove deeper under his ribs, piercing his right lung. He dropped his gun and grabbed the
mandibles with both hands, curled his knees up as the spider’s mouth came down to suck him in, and pushed backwards with all his might. The fangs began to slide out, letting out a river of blood and venom.

The spider’s eyes showed no trace of emotion. Not fear or anger or even hunger. He could not even tell if the damn thing saw h
im, or merely saw through him.

“You cannot beat me. You are nothing but a stupid animal.” Phlegm wadded around his mouth as he spoke. With a grunt he kicked off
of the spider’s face and felt himself break free of its legs, the fangs slipping all the way out to leave two gaping holes large enough to put his fists in. The legs curled in to embrace him again but he rolled out of the way, felt his gun on the ground beneath him. His fist snatched it up and he pointed it at the spider’s dripping mouth as he stood up defiantly.

“My land! Not yours!” he yelled.

“Not yours either.”

Someone was next to him. Annoyed, The Skeleton Man turned and saw the gun at his temple. He heard the shot and then felt nothing.

***

Jack flinched but wasn’t sure what he was flinching at. The sight of the
crazy gunman’s brains exploding out of his head like confetti, the sight of Banga holding the gun—cocked back to reveal an empty barrel—or the sight of the spider redirecting its gaze at the guide.

“Banga! No!”

Banga’s eyes were locked on to the dead rebel leader. He seemed to notice nothing else around him. Jack felt hopeless, knew there was no way to save the man. Banga’s last act would be killing a reprehensible man who stole children and murdered impoverished Congolese villagers.

“Banga!”

And then something whirred by Jack’s head and lodged into the spider’s face.

A machete.

The spider staggered once, shuddered, then fell to the ground on top of its own legs.

When Jack turned around, he saw two people standing across the grass, near the treeline
, flanked by a handful of dead spiders. The unmistakable familial features of a father and son, both ragged from a battle, covered in blood and yellow spider innards, both true warriors. Jack waved. Both the man and boy waved back in acknowledgement. He could not tell who had thrown the machete. Nor did it matter.

The man and boy surveyed the carnage around them, helped up one of their fallen comrades, and shuffled into the trees where the jungles swallowed them up instantly.

“Janet! What the flying fuck is going on here!”

The helicopter pilot was
out of his seat, arms outstretched in a pose of utter confusion and awe.

“What the hell are these things? Who was that guy? Somebody want to tell me something because I can assure you I am officially sober now.”

Jack put out a hand. “Hi. Jack Reynolds.
International Traveler
. That’s a magazine, not my job. Come to think of it, I guess it is my job too.”

The pilot ignored him, pushed past him and gawked at the dead body of the rebel leader on the ground, glanced at Banga—still wielding the pistol—and finally inched his way toward the dead spider. With the helicopter’s rotors now still, the jungle’s own symphony began to play again, and over it, Jack could hear the pilot’s fearful breaths. “
Jesus H. Christ. Look at the size of this thing! Is it dead?”

Jack tried to smile, but his heart wasn’t in it
. “I’m no vet, but I’d say yeah. That one at least.”

The pilot b
acked away from the spider. “There more?”

Derek was up now, holding his broken nose.
He lowered the gun in Banga’s hand. The guide dropped it next to the body of the scumbag wearing the bone necklace. Jack surveyed the field, saw spiders lying motionless everywhere. Saw the overturned truck, the fire from the twisted Jeep, the bodies of Lost Boys and militia men severed and pumped full of venom. The grass was red with blood, white webbing crisscrossing the top of it like a snowy net. An overturned spider floated slowly downriver in the current, legs curled up in death.

“There could be. Can this thing get all of us out of here?” Jack palmed the side of the Helicopter.

The pilot nodded. “I think so. How many do we have?”

“Six, including you,” Derek said.

“No. Five. Only five.” Janet’s voice shivered. She was on her knees, holding Gellis’ head in her hands. She looked up at everyone, tears in her eyes. “He saved me.”

“He saved me too,” Jack said.

“He saved me in the caves. And in the water. And I said things to him…I said awful things that…”

No one spoke. Jack could see she was hurting in many different ways.
What exactly had been her relationship with the man, he wondered. Was it his place to even ask? He still had no idea who she even was or why she was out here. Yet it made no difference now. They’d fought together against a common enemy, and that made them allies somehow.

“I can’t take
them back,” she continued. “He took a bullet for me.”

She slid her knees out from under the big man’s head, laid his head gently in the grass. The pilot took her hands and helped her up and Jack could see recognition in their eyes. They knew each other. But then, yes, of course, the logo on the side o
f the helicopter said Beaudette Mining. And now certain pieces fell in place for Jack, whose journalistic brain still worked despite being numbed from filler stories about mushrooms.

“He worked for you?” Jack asked.

She nodded, remained mute and walked to the helicopter. She climbed in and rested her head back on the seat.

“Okay, everybody in,” the pilot said.

“What about all these people,” Derek asked.

The pilot was rounding the nose. “Oh don’t worry. I’m callin
g this shit in immediately. Might take a day or two but the government will be out here to deal with this soon enough. Problem is we can’t be here when they do, so we have to move.”

“Daddy doesn’t leave a trail,” Janet said. Then she closed her eyes and went back to resting.

“You know, Jack,” Derek said, “I’m never gonna get images like these ever again. Sure wish I had my camera. But I’ll tell you this, too, I am ready to get the fuck outta this place. Whatdya say?”

What a story, thought Jack.
It’s going to make a great one. “You got a camera in the copter?” he yelled to the pilot. “Even a cellphone with one?”

The pilot laughed. “Buddy,
I’m flying over the Congo. It’s hundreds of miles of wet, hot jungle. There’re no cell towers in here, no service of any kind, and therefore no need for me to bring one. And before you ask, yes I have a SATphone, but all it does is something most cellphones seem not to do anymore. You know, just makes actual phone calls. Now get in and let’s get moving.”

“Damn,” Jack whispered, and got in the helicopter.
Someone else would get the pictures when the government showed up. But that was okay, he could still write the story. It was enough to motivate him right now. “Damn,” he repeated.

EPILOGUE

THREE DAYS LATER

Stephen Beaudette moved the magnifying glass away from the blurry photo of the jungle. This particular photo had been retrieved from a camera located near the mining site. His cleaning team had flown in only hours after Dillan’s distressing call about monsters and men with guns, none of which was corroborated in the accompanying report. But then Stephen knew that certain areas of the jungle were all but invisible through the trees, depending on what direction one took. The camera, unfortunately had been cracked open and waterlogged, the circuitry inside mashed into bits of processing nonsense. A laptop had also been found but was equally destroyed. His IT team had been able to salvage only the one picture, and only half of it at that.

It showed a hippo tied up in a tree. How the damned thing had gotten up there he had no idea. He moved the magnifying glass over it again. He’d tried to zoom in on the
digital copy on his computer but the pixilation revealed only blurs. He hoped this old school method would help him wrap his brain around what else was in the photo.

Sticking out just behind the hippo was what looked like a long, hair
y leg. He tilted the magnifying glass to elongate the picture. Hard to tell, he thought. It could just as easily be a mossy branch. But something about the way it bent, as if segmented, made him wonder.

Janet’s mad rambling
about giant spiders had concerned him. When she’d returned, she’d looked like she’d come home from a war. Bloody, bruised, holding herself and moaning. He’d called an ambulance and ordered the hospital to make her rest. He’d sat by her and listed to her wild story about giant arachnids. It made no sense, and he feared she’d suffered some kind of brain trauma. God only knew what those raping, murdering dogs had done to her. Those lowlife miners he hired for scrap wages. Less than human, all of them. He vowed retribution if it was the last thing he ever did. He still hadn’t had any contact from Winston or the security team, but he would send more men in with guns to shoot anything that moved in those jungle villages. Someone would pay for hurting his daughter.

But this…this picture. Could it be true?
Giant spiders. And if so, then how?

He put the magnifying glass down and l
ooked up at the lion head above his door. The magnificent trophy was trapped in its eternal silent roar, a symbol of fallen power. Could there be a mightier animal out there in the jungle? And if so, could he kill it? Hunt it down and show it who was boss? He had not been on a hunt in a while, and he felt the need to kill something powerful.

The door opened under the lion’s head and Janet entered. Her arm was in a sling and
a bandage was taped over her left eye, but she walked with a brisk pace. Stephen slid the photo off the desktop and into one of the drawers.

“Dad.”

“Janet, dear. Good to see you up and moving.”

“I didn’t like being held against my will in that damn hospital.”

“I just wanted to make sure you were okay. You needed rest. The stories you told—”

“
Are true. I wasn’t in some crazy fugue then and I’m not crazy now. But I don’t care anymore. There never was much in changing your mind. That’s why your employees fear you, you know.”

“Of course. And that’s why we have lived such a grand life here.
Profits are made from driving your work force to its full potential. How do you think the Roman Empire became so formidable.”

Janet sat in the chair in front of his desk.
“The Roman Empire eventually died out.”

“A moot point. What can I do for you? Are you feeling okay? Tell me what you need and I’ll get it for you.”

She sighed. “I’m taking a vacation.”

“To where?”

“I don’t know. Maybe London, Paris. Somewhere away from wildlife for a bit.”

“Absolutely. It would do you good. And I’ll fund the trip, on the company. Just go and send me the bills. And make sure you call me to let me know you’re safe.”

“I don’t need the money. I’m fine. I just wanted to tell you that you were wrong.”

“About what?”

“About the people. The tribes you hire. The Congolese workers. They’re good people.”

“Please, Janet. I don’t see the
point of this.”

“They’re not animals.”

“Janet, do you know what the statistics are for rape there? Or how many people have AIDS? Do you know how many people are murdered every day for nothing more than a piece of bread. Those people have no morals.”

“You’re wrong.
And you taught me wrong for so long. Yes, there are a lot of bad people there, and I saw them firsthand. But there are a lot of good ones too. And they have stronger morals than we do.”

“What’s this really about
? Are you sure you don’t need anything right now? I can have Lauren get you some iced tea.”

“I don’t need tea.”

“Well then I’m glad you’re up and about. Go and take a nice vacation someplace...safe”

“
You mean white?”

“Your words, not mine.”
Stephen forced a smile in hopes of changing her mood.

She stood up, looked back at the lion head, then back at him. “I took ten thousand dollars out of the company account.”

What’s this? Stephen thought. Janet rarely touched the account. She trusted the accounting team to handle all transactions. “Can I ask for what purpose?”

“Yeah. I made a promise. And I’m keeping it.” With that, she walked out.

***

New York City was humid, smelled of urine and cab exhaust, filled with a cacophony of sirens and yelling pedestrians.  Jack sat back in the diner booth,
his right hand bandaged with two fingers in splints, watched the hustle and bustle unfold around him through the window, and relished it.

He ordered a R
euben sandwich from the waitress and checked his watch. He had an hour before he had to catch a cab out to JFK.

“This seat taken?” Derek sat down opposite him, a light meter hanging around his neck.
His nose was swollen and his eyes still black but he appeared not to be in any pain. He placed his bag with the new digital Canon in the seat before him. “You order yet?”

“Just did. Best Reuben in town.”

“I prefer Katz’s deli.”

“G
ood, but often overrated.”

“Says you. But at least this place is empty so the service must be fast.”

Jack took a sip of his water. “So you got my message.”

“Yeah. When does she arrive?”

“Janet said the plane gets in at three o’clock.”

“And what about Janet?”

“She’s in Paris, relaxing.”

“Must be nice having a rich daddy like that.”

“I guess,” Jack said. “They walk a real grey line. I did a little research about her daddy’s company. They’ve been under fire from humanitarian groups for years. Cited a half dozen times for illegal practices. The list goes on. My guess is they pay off the Congolese government.”

“So then
…what? We’re helping the bad guys?”

“
I’m not sure how to rank it.”

The waitress returned and took Derek’s order, which copied Jack’s own. When she left again Derek said,
“I spoke to Bill at the magazine. He thinks you’re nuts.”

“Did you
corroborate the story?”

“Of course, dude. He thinks I’m nuts now too.”

“You heard what they found?”

Derek nodded. “Yup. Bupkis. Nada. El Zilcho.”

Jack had gotten the same report from his editor, Bill, just yesterday. Despite numerous phone calls to the government of the Democratic Republic of the Congo, no one had found any remnants of giant spiders. “How can that be?”

“I dunno. It’s the jungle, Jack. It’s a living thing tha
t can swallow you whole. Know how many animals and bugs and rodents and whatnot come out at night to feed?”

“A lot.”

“A lot. Maybe eighty percent of the species there feed at night. My guess is, the jungle got hungry, ate up all that mess.”

“The camp was gone,” Jack said.

“I heard. My camera and computer—”

“The piece of web you took.”

“Someone has it. Janet’s daddy is my guess. She mention it at all?”

“No. Sounded like she and her father are not talking much right now. I didn’t really ask her about it. There’s another possibility.”

Derek sipped his water. “Which is?”

“The government sent in their cleaners and burned it all away.”

“Could be. Which worries me a bit because—”

“Because we left Antoine there.”

“We’re using first names now?”

Jack removed a photo from his shorts
pocket, put it on the table. It showed a Congolese woman in a ratty sweatshirt and long dress standing outside a shanty. “If we’re going to be meeting his wife at the airport in an hour, I’d prefer we use his first name. Janet said she’s timid and scared. But also said she kept thanking her over and over.”

Derek touched the photo, spun it around to see it better. ”Name?”

“Makena. Makena Gellis. I’ve set her up in the apartment the magazine owns until she can find a place, which shouldn’t be too long. Apparently Janet already got her a job in a laundromat and set her up with a bank account and some funds.”

“
Laundromat? Sounds worse than living in the jungle.”

“To us. To her…it’s a new start.
Supposedly she has a traumatic past. And coming from the Congo I can only assume we’re talking some kind of sexual abuse or other meaningless violence.”

“This Janet chick has quite the heart.”

“Yeah. Something went down with her and Antoine but I don’t know what. I get the vibe she doesn’t want to talk about it.” Jack put the picture away. “Anyway, we’ve got an hour until Makena arrives. So tell me…what do we do about all this? There’s no evidence of what we experienced. Doesn’t that seem odd? How do we not tell the story?”

“We just deal w
ith it, man. What else is there? My guess is, we didn’t get them all. Sooner or later we’ll hear about them, and then we tell our account when the world knows we’re not bullshitting. Then you can get that Pulitzer.”

“I even emailed the guide company that employs Banga…”

“How’s he doing?”

“Apparently he’s fine. I asked them if he’s said anything about what happened, ab
out the spiders and shooting that guy, and they didn’t mention anything. My guess is he’s staying quiet about everything considering who he put a bullet in. If his name got out he killed that man someone would come for him.”

“Crazy man
takes your son. You kill the man. Justice has played out so why discuss it. Yeah.”

“You think that guy
in the beret was the one who took his son?”

“No. But does it matte
r? Those guys are a plague. Maybe someday Bagna finds the right guy, but for now he sleeps better at night knowing he got one of them. I would anyway.”

“I’ve never seen a man kill in cold blood. I thought I’d be messed up over it, but I’m not. That fucker deserved to die.”

“Here here. But this is morbid. Let’s refocus on something so I can eat without an upset stomach. Does Bill have you working on something else?”

“Yeah. I leave for Egypt in a week.”

Derek’s jaw dropped. “The museum piece?”

“Yeah.
It got postponed. Whoever it got assigned to is having a baby, waffled on getting it done in time and now can’t go anymore. I’m gonna need a photographer.” He raised an eyebrow.

The waitress returned with two Reubens and Derek took a
big bite, spoke as he chewed. “Don’t look at me like that. No way, man. Egypt has problems not unlike the Congo, you know. And maybe we don’t get spiders, maybe we get mummies or something crazy like that.”

“
Mummies can’t run. You’ll be fine. Besides, this time we’ll be in a city. With cellphone service. C’mon, you know you want to. For the story.”

“
Not my story, your story. And your story almost got us killed.”

“Yeah, but think of the photos. Creepy tombs and Anubis statues
.”

“
Even if I did want to, which I don’t, I don’t know that my wife will let me.”

“You mean ex wife.”

“I mean wife.”

Jack cocked his head, noted the gleam in Derek’s eye. “You’re kidding?”

“Nope.” Derek raised his left hand and showed off the silver ring. “Realized what mattered in life after that shit in the jungle. I asked her nicely this time, second I got home, and made her a promise to rub her feet every night. Women like that, or so I read somewhere. We went to the justice of the peace yesterday. Had one of her friends be the witness. I’m giving it another shot because, the truth is, I love the woman.”