Bishop sprints toward it, red axe gleaming.
We chase after him, running as hard as we can. My lungs burn, my stomach clutches. Spingate stumbles. She’s already drained. I hold the spear in one hand, slide my free arm under her shoulder to support her. I have to keep her moving. She gets a burst of energy when we hear Farrar call out from behind us.
“It’s coming!”
I don’t look back. The door: it is survival, it is life itself. I run, part of me waiting for the spider-thing to bring me down from behind, for the pointy legs to punch through my back and out my chest.
The gate looms closer.
Bishop is already there. He stands half behind the right-hand door, which is slightly open to whatever lies beyond. The wall stretches off to either side—high, impenetrable. He waves us in, desperate for us to move faster.
Spingate and I reach the doors: sheets of metal, as thick as my forearm is long. We rush through the opening. Coyotl and Farrar are right behind us. They drop their weapons, throw themselves against the door alongside Bishop.
I stand there, trying to breathe, as the three boys attack a metal slab that is four times as tall as they are. Their arms shake, their legs tremble, their feet push against vines that slip and slide away.
Over the boys’ grunts, I hear a faint grinding sound—the door is closing, but too slowly. As it moves, long vines bunch underneath it, thick stalks jamming between the bottom of the door and the street’s flat stone.
I rush back through. I use my spear blade to slice at the vines. Spingate joins me, chopping away with Farrar’s sharp shovel. Blue juice splatters and sprays. The smell of mint is everywhere. We cut, we kick, clearing space.
A new sound—a horrid whine.
Far down the street, I see it coming. My skin shivers and prickles. Dark yellow, with thin strips of green and brown. Three-jointed legs moving so fast they are blurs, little flecks of torn vine tossed high in their wake. The hungry whine echoes through the streets, bounces off the ziggurat walls. The spider runs with a wobble, a halting hitch—one of the legs is lame, maybe.
If it reaches us, it will tear us to shreds.
I grab Spingate, shove her through the slowly closing door, then squeeze through the narrowing gap myself. On the other side, I stand next to Coyotl, hurl all my strength at the door. Spingate does the same.
The massive hinges screech and howl, seem to fight our desperate effort, but my toes find purchase in the plant-juice-slick stones and I feel the slab of metal moving. The door’s grinding grows louder, but so does the spider’s whine.
Bishop’s extended arms tremble with effort. Sweat pours off his skin. His voice is a roar of command.
“Everything you’ve got! Godsdammit, push!”
Coyotl and Farrar groan with effort. Spingate screams, a combination of fear and frustration and rage.
The door picks up speed.
I hear the spider’s hard feet clicking against the stone street lying beneath the vines, a harsh, rapid drumbeat of oncoming death.
The hinges give a final, tortured shriek—the door clangs shut with a reverberating gong that hangs in the air.
Everyone sags, even Bishop. If the spider can get through these doors, we don’t have the strength to run, let alone fight.
The whining sound stops.
I keep my hands pressed against the door. I hear and feel a scraping coming from the other side, hard-shelled legs scratching at thick metal, searching for a way through, a way to get at us.
The scraping stops.
That whine again. Faint…then fading…
Then nothing.
Is the spider gone? Or is it standing there, motionless, waiting for us?
“We’ll rest here for a minute,” I say, as if we could do anything else.
Farrar falls to the ground. Coyotl slumps to his butt, his back against the door. Bishop’s hands are on his knees, his stomach heaving in and out as he tries to get his breathing under control. Spingate seems the least winded; her hands are on her hips, her lips are pursed.
“Spin, what happened back there?”
She laces her fingers over her head.
“At the top…jungle on either side of the river,” she says, forcing words through deep breaths. “Trees…real trees, not the vines. Coyotl went in…for a closer look. I was testing the water. He came sprinting out…shouting at us to jump. I saw what was behind him…it almost got us. But…it wasn’t a spider.”
“What are you talking about? We all saw it.”
She closes her eyes, shudders.
“Five legs…not eight.”
Her correction angers me. Like the number of legs matters?
Bishop stands straight. He gleams with sweat. “So it attacked?”
Coyotl sees that Bishop is standing, struggles to his feet. “It came after us. Maybe I should have fought it…I wasn’t afraid, but there was Spingate, and…well, I wasn’t afraid.”
Still lying on his back, Farrar raises a hand. “I was. Glad we jumped into the pool, because when I saw that thing I think I peed in my pants a little.”
Coyotl glares at him.