Pink Spiders

“Shut that alarm down!” ordered Section Leader Barnes as a klaxon blared and a red light swirled around the chamber. “What is the status?” he had obviously been disturbed in his sleep as he finished getting dressed.

A young bit of cannon fodder, named Harrold, responded “Sir! It’s the bomb, Sir! It opened a crack, Sir! There’s creatures, Sir!” his voice croaked.

“Whaddaya mean creatures?” Barnes bellowed.

“Sir! They’re coming from the crack, Sir!” the private’s voice cracked, his face turning as red as the section leader’s.

“What kind of creatures?” the bellowing continued.

“Sir,” the private’s voice wavered. “Alien creatures, Sir.” he cowered as he said as much. Others in the command center made sure to be involved in something else, oblivious to the exchange going on, hoping not to be brought into this discussion.

“ALIEN CREATURES!?” Barnes looked like any minute he could have steam coming from his ears. “Show me!”

The private turned knobs on his display and brought in a transmission from the area around the bomb site, panning, looking for signs of the creatures. There was a massive crater, and the robotic cameras were challenged with covering much territory with any speed.

“Where are your ALIENS, private?” Barnes growled.

The young man continued to search, focusing on the display panel. “Sir… they are like… four-legged… pink… spiders, that stand two and a half meters, ...without… any head.”

“SPI-ders!?”

The private looked up. “Yes, Sir. Pink Spiders, Sir. Four-legged, hairless, headless, pink, two-and-a-half-meter high spiders. Sir.” While he faced the apoplectic Section Leader, no one saw as a four-legged, pink creature scurried across the display and the screen went to all electronic snow.

The hissing sound of the snow on the display brought his attention back. “Sir, it will take me a moment, Sir, but I will have to locate another camera signal, Sir. The cameras only last a little while in the region of the bomb site before they become corrupted…”

The Section Leader turned to the chamber at large. “Which one of you mollycoddlers has these alien spiders on your display?”

No one volunteered to have any knowledge of the private’s aliens.

“Do any of the rest of you have an explanation for that alarm?” Barnes fumed. Get me a satellite on that bombsite!” He spoke to himself largely. “That bomb was detonated 4 hours ago. If something was going to happen it should have happened before now. We would have radiation readings… Private, WHERE are your pink spiders?”

“Sir, perhaps we should check on reports from the local constabulary. We could see where there have been any sightings, Sir.”

“And why haven’t you done it?” Barnes barked? “but don’t allow what you are looking for.”

“You.” He turned his attention to a young woman with a tight lavender bob, which uniform code called for, "Dispatch another unit to the Faverhill bomb site. Tell them to be on watch for unusual activity. There have been reports of strange goings-on so they should keep the hoodlums at bay.”

“Yes? Constable Javerts here…” The telephone in the village office crackled softly. “Yes, just a kilometer from the center of that bomb you sent. Could of warned a body… Shook the doors and cracked the windows it did…”

Private Harrold, back in the command center wanted to get on with his important questions. “Here now, we had no idea it would rattle the doors so bad, but have you had any other crises?”

“Any other crises?” Javerts asked incredulously. “You bloody well knock down the village with your bomb, and you want to know if there’s any more crises? What do you people need? Dead bodies?”

“Do you have any?” Harrold asked innocently.

“Do I have any what?”

“Bodies? Or perhaps unexplainable wounds?”

Javerts' look of concern at the phone was slightly cross-eyed. “Look here! We run a respectable village, and there’s absolutely nothing funny going on, except when you wankers blow up bombs in our back gardens!”

Harrold had to jerk the headset away from his ear as there was a sudden ungodly screech and scream, chilling, animal, metallic… as suddenly, the receiver was filled with electronic noise much like the display had been filled with snow. “Sir!” he called and snapped to attention. “I think we have something, Sir!”

The Section Leader swung around and returned to his shoulder. “Have what? Explain!”

“Si-ir, I think I was just talking with someone who encountered an alien. Sir.”

“Nonsense.” Barnes chuffed. “Ring him back.”

Harrold tried the call repeatedly with no response. He was met with a high-pitched, single-toned whine. “Sir, I think the line is out, Sir.”

“Dispatch a unit to that location and keep them on the viewer this time.” The Section Leader ordered.

The private tapped away, issuing orders for another squad to be dispatched, this time giving the address and coordinates of the village constable's office, wondering what he would be sending them into.

The squad was dropped by truck at the outskirts of the village, leaving them to reconnoiter and make their way to the constabulary. It was mid-day, but the streets were strangely deserted. They found the office they sought and the doorway was covered with a sort of smear of sand and dirt particles. The point man took a sample of the smeared soil that was embedded, he discovered, in a viscous slime. It would have to go back to the boys in the labs. The squad leader made the decision to go ahead and push onward, in through the door.

Inside the office, it took a minute for eyes to adjust to the relative dimness, but the smell was immediately offensive.

“Augh, wha’s that?”

“It reeks!”

“Smells of blood.”

“Never smelled anything like that…”

“Close your cake-holes, all of you.” the squad leader ordered. By that time they had all had the opportunity to see the body of a woman behind a desk, seated with a lovely heart-shaped locket, but without its head.

Private Harrold struggled desperately to get the squad investigating the constable’s office on the display panel. The Section Leader stood over his shoulder demanding he get them on the scope “NOW.” Slowly he pulled part of the squad into view, as they spilled out of the door of the village office. The last two suddenly whirled from trying to get inside to facing out warily.

“Well, well?” the Section Leader asked. “What’s going on?”

“Sir, I haven’t been able to get a look inside yet, Sir.”

“Make it happen!” came the order. “Raise them on the horn.”

“Sir, yes, Sir.” Harrold attempted to ring up the Faverhill squad, but there was no answer.

Pressing beyond the headless body, the squad leader ordered no one, in particular, to “Find that head.” and continued on to the office door in the wall behind her. There was more of the earthen slime evident on the door frame. On the floor was the body of a man with his chest and torso caved in, covered by a roughly star-shaped outline of slime. His face was sunken and collapsed in, almost skeletal in appearance. The squad leader decided something significant had happened to this man. It wasn’t the same foul thing that had happened to the woman out front.

“Sir!” Harrold called. “I have them. I have the inside of the station.” He adjusted the knobs on the viewer and the screen focused with a fascination on the headless body. The private was glad the monitor wasn’t exactly full color or he might have been ill. The squad members seemed to be handling it though.

Section Leader Barnes snorted and said “What else? Where is the rest of the squad?”

The private commenced to frantically adjusting the knobs again and the view melted through the wall into the inner office. He swung the angle around so that it wasn’t blocked by the backs of the squad leader and his men. The body on the floor could plainly be seen with its imprint.

Suddenly, there came a shrill, metallic scream from the back of the office and a crashing, lumbering noise came rushing forward. The squad members dropped into a defensive stance, watching apprehensively and shaking their heads because of the shrill noise. Appearing all at once for its size, was a four-legged, pink creature, two and a half meters tall and squarish, with knees of sorts bent into a center body mass with no apparent head. The legs ended in broad, star-shaped feet that were crusted with the gravelly slime. It opened its maw and the shriek sounded again, Private Benjamin nearly swore he could see the sound waves rippling forth from that hideous mouth.

Private Harrold ripped the imaging from the enclosed room where they had been studying the body and frantically adjusted the knobs to move the view to the outside corridor. The pink spider stood there for a moment when the mouth opened again and the squad all braced for another shriek, but a long, razor-sharp tongue lashed out a good four meters and wrapped around the neck and shoulder of a squad member, slicing them straight through.

“Section Leader!?”

Barnes responded, “Get me a company down to that bomb site. Call Torchwood and get UNIT out there. They’re supposed to know about these things. I want action!”

The squad leader was nearly overwhelmed with the shrill shrieks of the creature. He did not see what had just occurred so he did not know what caused his men to start bugging out or the stray burst of rifle fire.

“Here now,” he barked, stepping from the office and into the corridor after his men. “What…” he shouted as he saw the creature, just as it grasped him with its foot and flung him about before pinning him to the floor. His last gasp as he flew about, was “FIRE!”

Four of the remaining squad of eight were able to fit in the space and raised their rifles, taking aim at the monster. A barrage of bullets hit the pinkish flesh, ricocheting for all that any of them could tell. “Retreat!” A voice called out. “Retreat!”

The creature shrieked again. This time there came a response from somewhere outside. As the squad reached the door to the office, the last one out elbowed his compatriot, “Grenade!” he yelled, holding the missile, long enough for the fellow to respond and they both tossed the bombs into the building at the same time. The soldiers dove back out of the doorway, having given their squad seconds to respond.

There was a wail from inside as the grenades went off. Outside, from all over the village and from up in the hills, a cacophony of shrills took up. The squad members looked at each other, doing a grenade check. One squad member spoke into the radio. “Check, check...to all companies within the sound of my voice, Faverhill overrun by monsters. Bullets useless. Try grenades.”

Section Leader Barnes told Harrold to make the connection. There was a spark of static on the radio and the Section Leader’s voice rang out. “There have been two companies dispatched to the bomb site, and your squad has been dispatched to the village. There won’t be any more coming at you. They’ll be stopped at the site. Just clean up the village, there you are. Have a go at it.” He did his best nonchalant voice.

Grenades at the ready, the brave eight went hunting through the village, taking out the pink spiders. UNIT was at work at the bombsite, bringing in an endless stream of earthmovers and cement trucks filled with a secret formulation. The bomb site was plugged back up, solid. The bodies of the creatures were all piled on the center and incinerated while Private Harrold and Section Leader Barnes watched from their distance.

"Sir, it will never hold, Sir."

“All in a day’s work, private. All in a day’s work.”