A sound pierced his anxious dreams and woke him. He was confused and tried to stand but his limbs were heavy and did not move. He scanned the room with bleary eyes, unable to focus, and saw nothing but quiet shadows.
The sound came again. It was pained and urgent and brief. Panic struck him and shredded the sleep paralysis from his muscles. He ripped his sheets aside and sprinted to his daughter's bedroom. “Caroline!” His voice boomed in the dark hallway. His daughter was sitting up in bed when he pushed open her bedroom door. Before either could speak the unnerving voices returned.
It isn't Caroline?
Tom Baird scrubbed at his face, desperate to gather his wits. If Caroline was safe, then who was crying? He looked out from the hall into the living room and the noise started again. In a rush, Tom realized that no one was crying. His dogs were howling.
They weren’t just howling. They were terrified.
Tom raised and trained black-mouth curs. They were hardy dogs, bred for ranch work and hunting. On weekends those dogs bayed hogs in eager, excited voices. Hungry for the kill. This was a sound they never made. It was high-pitched and oddly hoarse. There was a desperation to this howling. His dogs were in danger and they were telling the rest of their pack to flee.
Well, he was the rest of their pack and he wasn't going to run. Besides, whatever was out there might try to get into the house. He could protect Caroline better by going outside and facing the danger with his dogs. If he waited for them to be killed, he would be alone against ...
What? What the hell can make my dogs cry like that?
“Caroline, stay here,” he said. Tom rushed back to his room and threw open his closet. He stamped his bare feet into a pair of hunting boots and tore the twelve gauge shotgun from it's stand. Tom slept in boxer-briefs so he had no pockets for extra ammo. He shoved his arms into an old denim jacket and pushed a handful of shells into the left pocket.
Then he was out in the hallway again, rushing to the living room, reaching for the handle on the sliding glass door ... and the dogs stopped howling. The cessation of sound was sudden, complete, and ominous.
You can count on Bear having the last word. Why can't I hear him?
Something moved on his back porch and Tom slammed the shotgun to his shoulder. His mouth went dry and he squinted past the curtain into the dawn gloom. A shadow dropped from the kitchen window ledge and he heard a thump and soft whimper through the glass.
Relief flooded through him. Lowering the shotgun he unlocked the sliding glass door and drew it open. Rabbit was clinging to his side before he could step out. The dog's fur was dirty and abrasive, scratching at his bare leg.
“Rabbit! Back!” he hissed. The dog backed away, pawing at it's nose, giving Tom room to step onto the porch.
Rabbit was the least dominant dog he had ever owned. Fast as heck, even as a puppy, but he never stood for a fight. Oh, he would chase a hog and bark up a storm, but if that hog turned, Rabbit was gone.
Tom sunk in a squat and cast an appraising eye over the dog. He noticed no puncture wounds, no bite marks, no obvious bruising. Tom ran a hand over Rabbit's foreleg and pulled back sharply as his hand caught on several stinging burrs, “Sonova bitch!”
He stood and pivoted to look out onto his property. A thinning fog drifted high, ready to burn away with the slightest sun.
Thirty feet straight back leaned the swing set that Caroline had recently begun to scorn. Beyond that, along the left side of the property line, was his work barn. It was a large structure built of sheet metal and two-by-fours. Tom had never felt a need to hang a door on it and the dark opening was suddenly ominous. The rest of the two-acre property was mostly bare, just a pair of live oaks for shade and the odd pile of rusting sheet metal.
He was stalling. Tom snorted, stepped to the edge of the porch, and peered into the back yard. He could just make out the shapes of his dogs out at the fog line, they were focused on something at the far wooded boundary of his property. He could hear frenzied barking but it was very hoarse and oddly muted. One dog stopped to paw at it's face and shake it's head in a terrific sneeze that Tom barely heard.
“Come on, Rabbit.”
Tom stepped down off the porch onto the grass. He kicked up his speed to a trot, left hand on the barrel of the shotgun and right index finger rubbing at the trigger guard. He gave a wide berth to his work barn, eying the entrance warily. The barn had to be empty; his dogs were facing a different direction. But Tom was feeling too paranoid not to look. He got far enough away to feel ridiculous before he turned his eyes away from the barn door.
Two shapes hurtled toward him.
Tom pulled his shotgun to his shoulder, finger already on the trigger, before he recognized Bull and Cricket. The dogs were litter-mates, two years younger than Rabbit. Cricket tore a sharp circle around him and bounded back toward the other dogs. Bull stopped and woofed two short, soft, painful sounding barks then flanked him opposite of Rabbit. Bull's face was puffy and his breathing was hoarse.
Ahead, Cricket, Bear, and Hawk were running patterns across the yard, donuts, figure eights, and new patterns they invented on the spot. They threw a continuous fusillade of labored barks into the fog. Tom got within fifteen feet of them when the dogs decided the hunt was on. They took off toward the kennels at the back property line. Bull was only a second behind the others, but he was having trouble keeping up.
Tom picked up his pace to keep his dogs in sight and only then realized that he had not seen Weasel. He scanned the yard quickly, but the dog was nowhere in sight.
The wood kennel in and around which the dogs piled to sleep was torn apart. Bear and Hawk were baying at a large, odd-shaped lump that lay a few feet beyond the broken structure within the wood line. Cricket and Bull stood on the opposite side of the kennel and barked into the woods.
The lump shifted. The movement revealed a glimpse of a dog's body twisted beneath what was resolving into a shaggy figure. The dog had to be Weasel. He was definitely dead.
There was something disconcerting about the contours of the shaggy lump. Tom shuffled to his left, trying for a different point of view. The figure twitched and hissed. Bear barked in outrage and rushed in to attack.
A limb flickered from the dark and a loud thump resonated in the humid air. Bear yipped as he caught six feet of air, legs scrabbling for purchase. Tom heard a crack as Bear came down and all of his detached curiosity evaporated. This thing had to die. He shouldered his shotgun and barked out an angry warning, “Hawk, heel!”
Hawk broke away. Tom's shotgun roared. Immediately limbs began to flail in the dark. Too many limbs. His gasp of incomprehension was strangled as the air suddenly filled with stinging thread. His rifle fell as he simultaneously gagged and drew his hands up to cover his face. It felt like a hundred deer flies stung his bare legs and hands all at once. Tom's dogs echoed his hoarse, pain-filled scream. He could hear them running in frightened circles and rolling desperately on the grass.
The deer flies stopped stinging. Tom's face, hands, and legs itched. He felt as if he were covered in fiberglass fibers. What the hell is going on? He dropped his hands and looked around. Bull was down. His chest was working hard but by the pitiable sounds he made Tom knew the dog was suffocating. Tears filled his eyes and he stepped toward his fallen shotgun.
Violent rustling came from the bushes. A long leg and another and then a third lift out from the fog. Tom suddenly understood.
He shouted then. It was a wheezy shout, equal parts denial and terror. He called his dogs and turned to run.
“Daddy!” he heard from the back porch. “Daddy I heard the shotgun! What's wrong?”
No! No, no, no, no!
“Get inside,” he yelled. But the yell carried less distance than he could have jumped. His throat was scratched and swollen. He drew breath to try again, but his lungs burned and stung with dozens of tiny points of fire. He doubled over coughing uncontrollably. Tom found himself fighting to draw breath and his vision began to brown at the edges.
Rabbit leaned against him and whimpered anxiously. Behind him, Hawk and Cricket were barking at this new terror, harassing it, preventing from advancing. He could hear Bear howling somewhere in the dark. He's alive?
Tom clamped his jaws and forced the coughing fit to pass. Then he cleared his throat, spit, and tried again, “Honey, go BACK!” But a harsh whisper was all he could manage and the words would not carry.
She was going to come right to them. The damned things were going to eat them both.
Tom grabbed Rabbit by the scruff. “Rabbit! Get Caroline!” He pointed the dog toward the house and shook him as he gave the command to chase. “Get 'er. Get Caroline. GO!”
Rabbit bared his teeth just as Caroline tore out of the fog and froze. Her form was silhouetted by the light from the porch and Rabbit began to bark furiously. Then Rabbit was gone, barreling toward her for all the world as if he intended to kill.
Faker. But good boy!
Caroline screamed and turned to flee. Tom did not know if it was a reaction to Rabbit or if she had seen what came out of the bushes. She was running back toward the house and that was enough.
A pained yip returned his attention to the confrontation. Hawk was rolling back to his feet, his cry already transformed back to an angry growl. Cricket was hopping in and out of the monster's reach, testing for a place to sink his teeth. Tom turned his attention back to the impossible animal in time to see it squat. The movement sparked a terrified flood of adrenaline through him. He dove in a forward roll toward his shotgun. He got his left hand on it and rolled onto his back but he was too late.
The giant tarantula had already leaped into the air.
The tarsi of it's outstretched legs, a distance of five feet, were twitching eagerly. He could make out the definition of it's obscene under-body. He wasn't going to get the shotgun raised in time. He fired anyway.
The rifle kicked into his solar plexus and his lungs emptied violently. Two of the spider's hairy legs shredded off at the body. The monster tumbled in mid air, leaking goo. It still hit him, but it was upside down. The impact tore the shotgun from his grasp. The tarantula's head mashed against his face as it rolled past and Tom tasted an eye.
Then the spider was scrambling to it's many horrible feet.
Bear returned, hurtling on three legs. The dog slammed into the spider's left side. The impact took both animals off of their feet. Bear recovered first and dove in to grab a leg in his jaws and shake.
Hawk and Cricket hit it just after. Hawk had a leg and Cricket had one of it's palps. Suddenly, the tarantula curled up. The power behind this motion was such that Cricket was torn into the air. Tom had a moment of exultation. The monster was dead.
Then the tarantula's free legs grabbed Cricket and drew the dog in tight. Cricket thrashed and snapped his jaws wildly. It was not enough to break free. Tom heard a nauseating shunk as the spider drove it's fangs into the dog. Cricket screamed.
Shunk. Shunk. Shunk. Shunk. Shunk.
Rage blossomed inside Tom's chest, unlocking his diaphragm and letting him suck air. He rolled through grass covered in gore and spilled shotgun shells, and grabbed his shotgun again. Unable to stand or straighten from the pain in his middle, he rolled to his left side. Tom drew the shotgun to his right shoulder and called, “Boys! Heel!”
He was not loud. His throat was raw and he could not spare much breath. But the dogs heard and they broke away.
Tom fired between them, into the giant tarantula's abdomen. Bits flew and the spider's bulk shuddered. It thrashed it's legs, righting itself and tearing open it's abdomen further as a result. The massive tarantula tried to stand and failed. Bear and Hawk started to circle the spider but Tom called them back. “Heel!” Tom pumped another round into the shogun and fired again. The buckshot tore off the top of the tarantula's head. It's legs fluttered for a moment and then relaxed.
Bear came to lay down at his side. Hawk whined and barked at Cricket's body, then at Bull's, and then trotted off into the dark.
Tom's eyes closed and he leaned into Bear's warm body.
“Daddy?” It was a girl's voice. It sounded like his daughter. He forced his eyes open to find that Caroline was kneeling above him, sobbing. Tom tried to sit up, but failed. He was too shaken, every limb trembled.
“You alright, hon?” he rasped. She nodded. “Call us some help,” he said. She nodded again and flashed her open cell phone at him.
He pushed the shotgun at her with one hand and scrabbled in the grass for shells with the other. Tom held grimly to consciousness until he heard Caroline load the shotgun. The brown that had been stealing the edges of his sight suddenly loomed behind Caroline. Tom could not decide if he saw it reach for her before he plunged into darkness.