WebWorld (4.9)

Daybreak came harsh and in too much of a hurry. A white-gold sunrise dug at my shuttered eyes, until they couldn’t resist its prodding.

Consciousness came with fresh waves of pain. It got in everywhere, every tiny space. I felt too stiff to move, but remembered that that wasn’t an option.

“Hey,” Tristan hauled me by one arm to a sitting position. “How are you holding up?”

“I’ve never been hit by a truck, so I don’t have a basis for comparison.”

“I forget how hilarious you are.”

I gestured reluctantly at Greg, “Him?”

“Still with us.” He tried to make light of it, but the tension was palpable. He’d been afraid all night that Greg would die. He was exhausted, but he couldn’t let himself sleep.

Greg didn’t look good though. Pale and cold, his blisters all the uglier with morning, signs of breaking and bruising painted across him like a mural. He was beyond unresponsive, and I noticed uneasily the clear liquid beginning to seep out of one ear.

“He’s better off sleeping through this really. God only knows what we’re going to…” He shook the thought off. But of course, we had no idea how to treat whatever this was.

…. gentle vibrations…. evenly spaced….

Where had that come from? I remembered that I’d had a racing montage of dreams overnight, all of them now just beneath the lid of my sub-conscious. But spiders… spider people… darkness and light, then fire… There was something there, just out of my reach.

…. vibrations…

…. pressure…

We loaded Greg up into the back seat and strapped him in.

“If anything…”

“Yeah, I know.”

“And don’t be a tough guy. If you start getting bad again, tell me.”

And you’ll do what? But I just said, “Sure.”

#

It was sunny out there. As if nothing dire or life-threatening was happening. Greg might or might not be dying, but the world went on living in full, vibrant colour. I’d wondered, under cover of night, how far the phenomena might have spread, I’d wondered if this had been part of a second eruption, that it was repeated all over the world. That the same nightmare had swallowed Camp Foggerty. Swallowed Zara. It was a thought printed on the background of so many that it was hard to feel through the mess and ugliness to experience the full horror. Perhaps mercifully so. And now it seemed like that wasn’t what had happened. The scenery was scenic, the landscape seemed at peace. What had hit us had been localised, and just our extremely bad luck.

What if we’d gone a day earlier? Or later?

But we hadn’t. I rested my head against Greg’s shoulder and slid my hand into his. He was probably beyond feeling any comfort from human closeness, but it seemed only right to do my best. Keep him steady. Follow his breathing with my eyes and ears. Try to withstand the jolts of the road with a stoic silence that wouldn’t give Tristan any more to have to worry about.

And it did seem as if sleep had done something for me. Not healed, by any stretch of the imagination, but no longer hovering a little too close to death. No longer feeling this cold, dark gravity reaching up from beneath me, constantly trying to wrap its fingers around me and drag me down. A sizeable part of me hadn’t been expecting the outcome, and as Tristan would admit to me sometime later, he’d have lost a bet too.

We considered going to the commune to seek help. Maybe they would know something we didn’t about how to help Greg.

Tristan opposed it – and Tristan was driving. “We don’t know what they might do. We don’t know if they’ll help him or just want to study him, or paint him with glow-in-the-dark symbols and stake him out in the vege garden to worship him.”

I laughed – unwisely - sending waves of pain through my back and cascading off my shoulders. Darkness welled up from somewhere within me. And something else too. A shape, too faded, too edgeless, just scraping at the edges of my mind.

“Nate?”

“I’m good,” I managed.

“You’re lucky I’m not funnier.”

“Don’t do that. That was almost amusing.”

“Sorry.”

He was right though. The commune was an unknown entity. And there was something there, something greasy and uncertain, something troubling. We couldn’t risk Greg to them; and we were only about an hour away from home.

#

We got there before midmorning. Before the dew had even fully burnt off the grass. Tristan drove the car all the way up to the camp buildings, and wound his window down, yelling loudly for help. The others emerged quickly. They must have been worried. We’d been gone all night, when we’d intended to return before nightfall. We’d returned almost empty-handed as well, but for now that seemed of little importance.

Tristan scrambled out of the front seat and explained quickly, “Greg’s hurt. Critical. The spiders did something to him. Nate too, but not as bad.” He was already opening the back door, and beckoning them over for help.

Zara reached me first. Her face told of a sleepless night; and her eyes registered shock as she took me in. She reached under my arm and helped me out of the car. She stood, half holding me, half staring at me. Her bottom lip trembled a little. I hadn’t had a chance to see myself in the mirror at that stage, so I didn’t fully understand what she was discovering.

“Nate…” she whispered.

“I’m sorry. We… it just came out of nowhere.”

“What did they do to you?”

“I don’t know, maybe feed on me. I’m going to be okay.”

“You might not have been.” And I could see that she wanted to say, you might still not be. You might be still dying. You can hardly stand up on your own. She didn’t want to scare me, but I felt more concerned for her right now. She was trying to be strong and that just made me want to put my arms around her and stroke her until she felt safe again.

I said, “it’s not as bad as it looks.”

“That’s good, because it looks really bad.”

I almost said, ‘you should have seen the other guy’ but it felt as if I’d be talking about Greg. And things could have been the other way round easy enough, if Tristan had found Greg before he found me, saved him while I was still being eaten or digested or something. “He saved us both,” I murmured, not meaning to, but then glancing at Tristan “He slashed the damn thing in half while it was chewing on me.”

Zara said, “I should have come.”

“I’m glad you didn’t.”

She looked over at Greg. George and Tristan, between them, were carrying him over the short distance to the main hall. “How bad is it?”

“Bad.”

“Is he dying? Is he dead?”

“He’s alive,” that was as much as I could say with any confidence. “We can’t work it out. We don’t understand. All we could think to do was bring him back here.” We didn’t bring you anything we said we would. All we’re bringing back are shadows of death.

Zara leant me her full strength, helping me into the hall. I had some vague idea about wanting to walk on my own, but my body felt otherwise. “We need to get you resting, we need to look after you. Let us do that. Promise.”

“And Tristan,” I said, “somebody please check on him. He’s hurt too, he’s just better at keeping it to himself.

#

They dragged mattresses in from the dorms to make a bed for us on the common room floor. Penny figured it would be easier to monitor us here, more room to tend to our various injuries. It felt weirdly good just to lie there with my eyes closed, feeling the heat of the room, the soft touch of women’s hands. I could feel someone applying some sort of salve to my blistered face, while other hands cleaned up hardly-noticed cuts and felt around bruises for any sign of broken bones. I could hear a gasp, and a murmur that passed between two mouths. Someone was saying something, and it was either about me or to me, but I couldn’t find the energy to open my eyes and pay attention. My body had turned to lead. A strange, floating powerlessness that I welcomed and happily dived into.

I could feel Zara stroking my hair. “I don’t know what I would have done if you hadn’t come out of this. I don’t know how I could have stood it to lose you. I don’t know how anything could have kept going.”

“I’m all right,” I murmured.

“You’re not. But you’re alive. I’m just so thankful you’re alive.”

“Greg…” The memory came and went.

“We’re doing all we can for him,” she promised.

“There’s something… there’s something I feel… like I know… or I think, I know… I’m not sure.”

She ran a finger along my cheek. “Just rest, just sleep for a while. I don’t know much else to do for you right now, so just get some sleep for me, okay?”

Don’t die in your sleep, Tristan had said.

I’d done my duty. I’d kept breathing. My eyes didn’t want to open, but I could picture Zara kneeling over me as vividly as if I was actually seeing her. “I love you,” I told her, but I don’t know if I said it in words or only in thoughts.

 

Picture credit/discredit: author's own work