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Giant Killer Spiders!

Dystopian World Challenge Entry

By dPublished 3 years ago 5 min read
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Giant Killer Spiders!
Photo by Nathan Dumlao on Unsplash

"Tap, tap".

"Come on, son, time to move," said Julian, tugging on his son's arm.

"Ughh, what time is it?" his groggy eleven-year-old asked, as he tried to roll over and continue his slumber.

"Nearly five, come on Ben, UP!" his dad urged him in a fierce, yet quiet hiss. They were well accustomed to being as quiet as possible. Out here, being loud meant being dead.

"Tap, tap".

It had all started with the new fuel, advertised as a wonder of modern science, the "sticky oil" as everyone had jokingly coined it, was one hundred times more efficient than traditional oil. Cars could drive thousands of miles on a single tank; global warming was going to be reversed; wars would be a thing of the past because this new energy source was so plentiful and so efficient that there would be no need to fight for it. All this was true, for a while, until the new pipelines that transported the miracle liquid from underneath the Black Sea to the world beyond had caught fire. Some said it was an industrial accident, some declared it was the work of a terrorist organisation. Whatever the cause, as the fires spread outwards, north through Russia, east through Europe and west through Asia, the world learned just how efficient and slow-burning this new wonder oil really was. It stuck to the earth and burned and burned, the heat produced causing spontaneous combustion destroying forests and ripping across fields in rolling waves of flames. Houses, people, animals - they were all scorched and blackened by its relentless and unstoppable advance

Next came the flies, trillions of them feasting on the burnt corpses littering the ground. The flies were bad, huge swarms of them endlessly buzzing and swishing with irrepressible energy. Something had to deal with the flies, there were too many, nature was imbalanced and, inevitably, nature provided an answer. Along came the spiders. Small, at first, they started spinning their webs everywhere, devouring flies constantly. They grew bigger. They fought for territory and the biggest won, eliminating their smaller rivals. These alpha spiders then mated and gave birth to even bigger spiders, growing ever larger and stronger.

"Tap, tap"

Julian and Ben were in the front seat of the car, already moving. They'd slept for two hours, perhaps three at most but that wasn't too bad these days. They had to keep on the move. The spiders were huge these days. They'd seen one a few days ago, its body must have been ten feet across, with eyes the size of tennis balls. Its legs stretched thirty feet or more. The worst part? He'd seen it jump...

The tapping gave them some time, at least. The spiders tapped the ground to communicate and to claim their territories but to the humans who had managed to remain alive, it served as an early warning system. You heard the tapping, it meant one was close and you'd better move. As Julian drove, doing his best to avoid the strands of translucent silky webs which draped off of buildings and telegraph poles, his son fiddled with the heart-shaped locket he wore around his neck. It had been the boy's mother's locket and it broke Julian's heart to even look at it but he knew the boy needed it. It gave him hope when really there was none. She had been at work in the city centre when the fires had swept in. Julian and his son had been at home in the suburbs and they had managed to escape but he knew that anyone caught in the city wouldn't have been able to travel quickly enough to outrun the flames. He knew she was gone but he couldn't bring himself to tell his son that truth, not yet.

"Dad, watch out!" his son cried out, as a giant black hairy leg the size of a tree trunk came into view to his left. He didn't stop to look but instead gunned the accelerator. They were reasonably safe inside the car as long as they kept moving but he had seen cars being rolled over and over by giant spiders, their powerful limbs flipping the vehicles and slamming down on roofs, denting and crushing until they managed to prise their prey from within. Watching a spider the size of a bus hold a helpless human by the neck before shovelling it into its waiting mouth, all eight eyes focused and drool dribbling from its fangs was not recommended, not if you valued your sanity, that is. Then again, they'd come across plenty of insane people on these roads too. Julian wondered if he might have been the same if it wasn't for his son. Ben kept him going and gave him a reason to hold himself together.

We need to get to the port, he told himself. They'll be boats there. We can get off the continent, find an island that hasn't been destroyed. It wasn't far now, he knew because they'd had glimpses of the sea occasionally over the last hour they had been driving. The road came to the top of a rise and started to dip and that was when he saw them, thousands and thousands of cars lined up haphazardly in front of him, blocking the road for miles ahead. Spiders were crawling across them, there must have been hundreds of the hideous creatures, their spindly legs delicately propelling them from one car to another, sometimes reaching in and nimbly plucking out a passenger. It was a feast and human flesh was on the menu. Cars were frantically trying to reverse to get away from the slaughter but it was complete chaos, in the panic they were crashing into each other and blocking the escape route for those trapped behind.

Julian turned to his son in despair. He spun the car around and came face to face with an eight-eyed monstrosity. It was the biggest he had ever seen. Ben screamed and the spider appeared to grin at them.

Time stood still for Julian, there was only one thing left to do. He slammed his foot down hard on the accelerator. The spider jumped into the air and there was a brief moment where Julian thought they had made it, his heart filling with hope until the shadow above grew darker and darker and he realised it was over, as the huge arachnid landed, its weight crushing the roof instantly as its limbs reached inside for the juicy morsels within.

Sci Fi
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