Free Tabitha by Andrew Hall Page B

shrill crack. Adrenaline pumped;
time slowed down. The spider hit the road in slow motion; imploded on the
tarmac and lost a leg. Tabitha’s swing turned her body through the air in an
arcing dance. She landed on her feet, raised her knife. A third spider rushed
her, flicking its legs out like a net. She dodged its jabbing spike. Looked for
a gap. Stuck the knife in deep with a burst of silver blood. She wrenched a
grey leg off her kill with a crustacean crack. Swinging the dead limb she
fended off the rattling horde around her, whipping them back.
    ‘Get away!’ she
yelled nervously, as the horde closed in around her. Tabitha felt a very human
terror returning to her, creeping down her spine like a cold hand. When a claw
stabbed her calf she gasped and jumped away. The old Tabitha would have tried
to run then. The new her clenched her fists, gritted her teeth. She laid into
the spiders and filled the street with ringing thuds, the song of striking
metal. The man kicked one to the road as it scaled up the side of the bus stop.
    ‘Hey!’ he
shouted. Tabitha didn’t hear him. ‘Behind you!’ but she didn’t catch his
distant voice over the clattering metal. She glanced up and saw him pointing.
Before she could turn around a jagged spike stabbed her in the back. Tabitha
screamed and saw it jut through her stomach, black against her pale t-shirt.
She felt the venom coursing through her. She could almost taste it in her
blood, cold as ice. But harmless to her. All she felt was the stabbing spike,
an overpowering agony, squelching and wrenching itself out from her back. She
spun and stamped her attacker in the head, staggering it back. She screamed as
blood slapped down on the road from her wound. Clutching her stomach she leapt
forward and smashed her fist into the spider’s head. Shoved it to the ground
and pummelled the life out of it. Her pain was secondary. Survival came first.
She spun and booted another away, and ran after it to stick the knife in deep.
She tore the limbs off another, and tossed it aside to scream and bleed. The
surviving horde was hesitating. A sudden silent peace. The only sounds were
Tabitha’s gasping breaths and the distant roll of the tide, and the slow
tapping of spider legs on the road. The creatures stepped back when she came
closer. Exhausted, Tabitha grabbed at another and pushed the knife in. Watched
it flinch and scuttle away across the street in a trail of silver blood. The
last few gave up and backed away, and tucked themselves back into gaps in the
toppled buildings. Silver legs bunched up into shadowed arachnid fists,
watching her from cramped dark corners in the ruins.
    ‘What the hell’s
going on?’ she asked the man, as he climbed down from the bus stop. His jacket
and jeans were torn and filthy. Tabitha clutched the stab wound in her stomach
as the silver blood streamed out, slumping down against a crashed car. The man
came over to stare in dumb panic at her. His stubbled face was a scruffy patchwork of pale dust and bright red blood.
    ‘They got you,’
he said hoarsely.
    ‘Yeah’, she
mumbled, doubled over in agony. She lifted the side of her t-shirt, and gritted
her teeth as she pressed her grey hands against the wound. At least it was
closing up now.
    ‘Tell me what
happened. To everything,’ she said, glancing around at the dead world.
    ‘What, you don’t
know?’ he replied, baffled. He stared at the silver blood covering her grey
fingers. ‘Let me help,’ he said. Tabitha shook her head.
    ‘It’s fine. It’s
healed,’ she replied. The man watched in shock as her pale skin knitted
together. Tabitha took a few deep breaths. At least the ripping pain had faded
from her insides. She felt weak though, like she was ready to pass out. She
could tell she’d lost a lot of blood; she was sitting in a puddle of it. The man
crouched down beside her. He was younger than she’d first thought, under the
blood and grime. He couldn’t have been much older than