A moment later the sounds of his friends faded. He barely noticed. He was too entranced by the new world in which he had found himself.
It was sunset. The pinkest light he had ever seen picked its way through broad leaves, piercing air so thick and wet it felt like he was swimming all the time. He watched it set, not realizing he was walking toward it, not realizing he was following the setting sun like it was some sort of will-o’-the-wisp.
And then the spider dropped into view.
Not a big one. Just a small thing, the size of Ken’s thumbnail, dark brown and curling around a filament that extended up into nothing. But it was followed by another.
And another.
And another.
Ken looked around. He saw more of the spiders. Hundreds. Thousands. Millions.
He had somehow wandered into a web of a size greater than anything he had ever heard of. It had to be thirty feet long, thirty feet high, thirty feet deep. And every inch or two was another spider.
They seemed to be swarming toward him.
Ken screamed. He dropped to his belly and did his best army crawl back the way he had come. Shrieking back into the area where his friends were taking a Coke break and talking about quitting for the night.
They laughed at his story. Until they saw the web. Then they stopped laughing.
Their local guide shrugged. He mumbled something in the local dialect, then told them in halting English that Ken was in no danger, the spiders made “happy tents” but left people alone.
Ken did not believe him. He dreamed of spiders for weeks.
But he never thought he would see a web like it again. Certainly not in the middle of a high-rise in downtown Boise.
He stepped into the room. Silken strands brushed against his arm.
“Good hell,” said Christopher. Ken didn’t look, but he was fairly sure the kid was referring to what was in front of them.
“Oh, shit,” said Dorcas. Ken didn’t look at her, either, but he was fairly sure she was talking about what was behind them.
The zombies in the hall stopped trilling. They started growling.
13
“RUN!” Aaron shouted.
Ken turned in time to see Dorcas and Aaron racing the last few yards to the attorney’s office. Screaming in terror. The three dozen monsters behind. Aaron was pushing Dorcas, propelling her forward, faster, faster.
They ran into the room with Ken and Christopher.
And everything stopped.
Ken and Christopher were already motionless, held in a kind of mental stasis by what they had found in the room. Aaron and Dorcas seemed to be affected equally, halting only inches into the new area.
And the zombies….
They stopped just outside the doorway. Still snarling, still growling that awful growl.
One of them – the very same gray-suited thing that Ken and the others had first run into – reached out. Ken felt like his skin was covered in ants, like it was trying to separate from his muscles and bones and leap to one side. But he still couldn’t move.
Not with what was behind him.
And his son… Derek was silent.
The zombie reached out.
Reached out… and grabbed the door. Swung it shut. The lettering “Law Firm of Stacy Gomberg, Attorney At Law” – now backwards – could be seen once more. So could dozens of shapes, dark forms leaning close.
One of the things – probably Gray-Suit – leaned in. Even through the door, the sound of the gagging cough was enough to make Ken wish he was deaf. The thing vomited, and something splashed against Stacy Gomberg, Esq.’s, office door.
More of the things clustered around the door. All of them gagging, coughing. Excreting.
“They’re sealing us in,” said Dorcas.
“Good times,” said Christopher.
Ken turned away from them both. Because he heard Derek again.
Somewhere in the office.
Somewhere in the web.
Crying.
14
It was like looking for a dark ghost. Not only because the sound was so weak and faraway, but because it came from the depths of the gray-white-black masses of webbing that coated everything in the office.
The office itself was fairly large; apparently Stacy Gomberg ran a successful firm. There was a receptionist desk, a waiting area with chairs, an open central space with several doors leading to other offices.
At least, Ken thought that was the layout. The silken threads that covered everything made the most basic observations little more than blind guesses.
Even the air was spun thick with threads, with strands that stretched from ceiling to floor, from wall to wall. Ken saw the overhead fluorescent lights straining to illuminate the area, but the webbing seemed to be bouncing the photons back, rejecting the light itself. The office was dingy, dark. It felt like a prison. A dungeon. An oubliette on the ninth floor of a skyscraper.