Object x, p.8
Object X, page 8
He lowered his arm that shielded his eyes in front of the back deck, watching the white light withdraw and turn Object X into a pool of fire, dancing with majestic flames. The black object had been turned completely white. It glowed in the dusk, rocking slightly from side to side as his eyes adjusted to the shine. He looked at something alive. It lived and breathed, different from how he understood, but animated nonetheless.
Sam stepped back before his brain registered what his eyes claimed to see. His heel hit the wood, causing his butt to thud down against the deck while his legs formed a ramp over the pair of steps. It was a trick. It had to be. He'd been promised something special. This, contrary to what he'd imagined, didn't answer anything.
He wiggled backward on his butt across the deck, careful to keep his eyes focused ahead on what defied reality. It moved. Thirty yards separated them—consisting mostly of grass and a few feet of wood—but still, it moved. He couldn't say what Object X did at the moment with complete certainty because he simply couldn't look away from what had come out of it.
A black spider—the size of a large German shepherd—stood in the exact place where he'd spent so many hours observing Object X. Its body was round and bulky, centered low to the ground, with its many long legs positioned further on the sides of its frame than any spider he was familiar with. It lacked the long and slender shape of arachnids native to the area. Truthfully, it didn't remind him of anything that he'd ever seen.
It moved again before he managed to identify more of its features. It headed toward him, its numerous legs creating a blur, the top of its round hump never more than two feet off the ground. It operated in absolute silence, but it was its speed that startled him the most. It didn't stride. Instead, it took short steps, its unknown number of legs allowing it to cut the distance between its original place in front of Object X and the deck significantly faster than he realized.
He scrambled to his feet and hurried inside the house. He locked the sliding glass door behind him, unsure if the six-foot-wide glass could sustain a strong blow from something moving with such speed. Suddenly, it leapt, seemingly gliding through the air before landing on the deck connected to the house, not so much as leaving a scratch on the stained wood. He'd never witnessed anything move with such grace and agility.
A sliding glass patio door was the only divider between himself and whatever this thing was. It stared at him, motionless, twelve red eyes laid out in two rows of six, each large and round in the shape of a tennis ball. Black hair covered the majority of its body—featured more prominently on its back and legs. Its face appeared older than the rest of what he looked at—an aged gray compared to the darksome shade found everywhere else—with four intensely black fangs: the inner pair being much shorter than the imposing length of the two located on the outside. All four were equally as sharp, however. The tips resembled razors.
He counted eight legs on each side of its body, totally sixteen of varying length. The ones found closest to its head and rear appeared longer than those in the middle. He understood that he stared at a nightmare. Something like this served as fuel for why most people couldn't sleep at night, but he didn't experience fear. Object X wouldn't betray him like that. What he saw was beautiful. Different, but still beautiful.
“I put Tommy to bed. He's exhausted. I don't know if I've ever seen him so—”
Wendy came to an abrupt stop in the kitchen—next to the table where they ate breakfast almost every morning. She stood just a few feet behind Sam, but enough to his side to give her a perfect view outside the sliding glass door. She also had no idea how she'd planned to end her sentence, because her mind completely unraveled in a single moment of incomprehensible fright. She lacked the ability to utter a single word. She was crippled with fear.
“Don't move,” Sam told her, unsure of how the creature would react to Wendy's arrival. He lacked his desired control over his environment with his wife now in the picture.
Everything shook. Her jeans and t-shirt look did a poor job of properly reflecting her extreme hysteria, because she retained no control over her trembling body. Her angst traveled through her limbs, stifling her ability to think coherently as she struggled to keep herself upright. Her desire to curl up in a ball and hide was unparalleled. What stood on her deck was the equivalent of a nightmare turned reality, but the situation didn't fully set in for her until she watched it step backward. This wasn't some kind of prank. It was real.
“It came from Object X,” Sam revealed, saving her the trouble of needing to ask herself.
Somehow, she managed to shift her eyes away from the enormous spider to observe the thing that Sam had apparently labeled Object X. It glowed white as if a constant supply of electricity buzzed along the surface. There was no sign of why it'd come alive or what caused its reaction, but her uneasiness intensified by the second. This monster had come from that mysterious object in their backyard. She was done waiting around for Sam to act appropriately! She had to do something about that thing!
But her priorities shifted when she turned her attention back to the spider on the deck. Its many eyes looked around, its head—relatively small compared to the size of its large body—remaining still. Something about it puzzled her. It didn't appear to just observe its environment. Instead, it seemed to be thinking.
White light abruptly spewed from Object X, cutting the power in the house as everything both inside and outside the walls turned black.
An audibly distraught Wendy reached for her husband in the darkness. “Sam?”
“Hold on.”
The sound of his footsteps passing by her brought as much fear to her world as the creature outside. “No, don't go!”
“Just hold on,” he huffed, heading further into the kitchen. “I'm grabbing a flashlight.”
She looked back outside. Moments ago, dusk provided enough light to see past Object X and to the end of their property. Now, it was as if nightfall had swooped in without warning, blocking the moon and the stars in the process. Even Object X was dark. A black sheet had been thrown over her eyes as her heart thumped over and over deep in her chest. Her breaths turned short and rapid. An intense warmth swept across her face. Wendy was on the verge of a panic attack.
Sam returned, muttering under his breath as he slapped at the dead flashlight in his hand. “This thing probably needs new batteries. It's been sitting under the sink forever. I gotta see if we—”
The flashlight powered on.
The light pointed down at the gray vinyl flooring, illuminating their naked feet in the darkness. Ever so slowly, like Wendy was the one in control in spite of the flashlight being secured safely in Sam's hand, the light traveled along the floor, highlighting tile after tile until it reached the bottom of the glass door. It ascended an inch at a time as both of them awaited the sight of the spider on their deck. It was out there. It was just a matter of when they would see it.
The light traveled through the door, journeyed the length of the deck, and eventually reached the railing without ever stumbling across anything.
“Where is it?” Wendy whispered, her mouth dry and her voice rattled.
“Maybe it ran off?” Sam suggested as he shined the light into the backyard.
Wendy gasped.
Dozens of black spiders stood still in the yard. Some were slightly bigger while others were a tad smaller than the first one to emerge from Object X, but they all resembled one another to such an extent that they couldn't be told apart if not for their difference in stature. They were everywhere the light moved—frozen in place like a photograph. The way that each and every one of them looked at the house may have been the most puzzling detail, though. In a way, they didn't just seem like mindless arachnids.
They ascended toward the house like a swarm of bees. Hundreds of legs—long and hairy—moved in unison without making a sound. A human being couldn't outrun them. Most animals likely couldn't as well.
“Turn the light off!” Wendy screamed.
“We don't even know if light attracts them,” Sam debated, not raising his voice.
She couldn't believe how calm he was given the situation. “Oh my God, just turn the fuckin' light off!”
“Wendy, we—”
She snatched the flashlight from his hand and turned it off after catching a glimpse of the spider leading the pack only ten yards from the deck. They waited in both the silence and darkness of their kitchen. They had no knowledge of what these things were capable of. They didn't even know if they were dangerous. Wendy, unlike Sam, wasn't ready to take any chances, though.
The lack of electricity reinforced exactly how quiet it was. There were no buzzing lights or steady fans. They'd been teleported back to a simpler time before technology, yet one that contained monsters typically found in horror films. Unlike Hollywood, however, these things didn't appear to be the result of a radioactive chemical spill or a technological experiment gone wrong. Contrary to most nightmares, they seemed otherworldly.
“Turn the light back on.”
She looked toward Sam's voice, unable to see him. “What?”
“Turn the light back on,” he repeated without even a quiver in his voice.
“But the light might attract them. We don't know if—”
“The power will come back on eventually,” he interrupted her. “What then?”
Wendy refused to take that chance. They didn't know anything about these creatures. Yes, they didn't run toward the light initially, but it still appeared to draw them closer. And why take a chance even if they weren't attracted to the flashlight? Or any light for that matter? There were dozens of spiders the size of dogs in their backyard! She didn't want them any closer than they already were!
Her shaky thumb labored to locate the little power button in the center of the flashlight, sliding past the small bump on the smooth surface courtesy of the perspiration coating her skin. Everything felt damp. Her pajamas stuck to her skin from her sweat as her budding nerves refused to dissipate. She grew up terrified of spiders. She hated bugs in general. Now, a pack of terrifying creatures straight from a horror movie charged at her house, and the one man who'd always promised to protect her didn't even seem to care.
Sam ripped the flashlight out of her hand and shined it outside.
The backyard was empty with the exception of one spider standing on the deck. She couldn't tell if it was the same one from before, but it stared at them through the glass in a similar fashion to their first encounter. Its eyes frightened her more than anything. They were undetectable in the night as evident by them being invisible without the aid of a flashlight, and they were without question disproportionately large for its small head. All twelve of them seemed to look everywhere while its head remained completely still.
Wendy started with the most obvious question. “How could they all just disappear? They were running right at us!”
Sam pointed the light at Object X, confirming its return to normalcy. It didn't move or give off any light whatsoever. It once again appeared as black as the spider in front of them.
“I don't know where they went,” he said.
“How could any of these things have come out of that?” Wendy asked, referring to Object X. “It's just a piece of steel or something! And what the hell are these things!?”
Sam lowered the flashlight to illuminate what stood only feet in front of him. He could immediately tell that it was different from the last one to venture onto his deck. It was hairier and its middle fangs were longer than their previous visitor. However, it was its face that captivated him the most. It was a darker gray. A younger gray.
“Sam!”
“What?” he answered Wendy, his eyes transfixed on his latest fascination.
“What the hell are these things!?” she asked again.
He never had a chance to respond to her question. The spider stepped forward, the tips of its two outer-fangs pressing against the glass, its inner-fangs failing to possess the necessary length to reach the door. A strange black substance drizzled down the glass, directly below its outer-fangs while its many eyes observed both of them.
“Do you see that?” Sam asked. He moved closer to the door and knelt to get a better look.
Wendy had no interest in stepping forward. “Do I see what?”
“Its middle fangs,” he said, shining the light on what he referred to in order to emphasize his observation. “There's a black fluid coming off of them too, but it's like a barely-visible mist.”
“I'm calling the police.”
Sam immediately looked back at her. “What?”
“I'm calling the police,” she said once more as she turned to retrieve her phone from her purse on the kitchen table blindly. She shook her head in disbelief at how long she went before taking the most sensible route. “I should've called the cops the moment that weird thing first showed up in our yard, but I didn't for some reason. I'm not waiting another second.”
“You can't.”
She stopped, turning back to Sam. “And why's that?”
“The police won't understand anything that's going on,” he explained. “They won't understand Object X, just like they won't understand these creatures. They'll try to kill them.”
“They need to kill them!” she nearly screamed. “What the hell is wrong with you, Sam!? Spiders aren't supposed to be that big!”
“Why do you think they're here to hurt us?” he inquired.
She took a quick peek at the spider on their deck that Sam continued to point the flashlight at. “What else would it be here to do? Look at that thing! It's a monster!”
He looked out the door once more with an almost peaceful smile. “Object X never tried to harm us. I don't see why these creatures would be any different.”
“Stop calling it that! It doesn't have a name! It's just some...thing! You—”
Sam didn't interrupt her this time. Rather than cutting herself off prematurely due to her husband butting in, it was something else entirely that derailed her train of thought. It was enough to cause each and every hair on her body to stand up straight.
The monstrous spider dragged its outer-fangs along the glass door, descending an extremely deliberate inch at a time. Its fangs followed the paths of the thin black rivers created by the dark fluids disseminating from the razor-sharp edges. The sound was more responsible for Wendy's inability to breathe than anything else, however. The piercing noise brought back childhood memories of nails scraping on a chalkboard, but what she saw on the other side of the door didn't remind her anything of her friends of yesteryear.
She turned and stepped toward the kitchen table to find her phone.
And that's when she heard it.
She froze, her eyes peering sharply as she tried her best to block everything else out. Logic hinted at her only hearing the chilling sound of sharp fangs scraping against glass. Her ears, on the other hand, told a different story.
Again! She heard it again! Faint but rapid, like dozens of wind chimes in the distance on a breezy night. It wasn't just her imagination! It was real!
Wendy finally put the pieces together and looked up. “They're on the roof!”
She hurried to retrieve a flashlight for herself from the cabinet under the sink. She clicked it on, aiming the light at the ceiling to no avail. She still needed her ears. She had to block out the piercing grinding coming from the door and focus more intently on what took place above her. Wendy just needed to listen.
She heard it again.
Little steps. Dozens of them in quick succession, scurrying across the roof from left to right. She had no way of knowing how many spiders were up there. One? Two? Maybe more? A single one of these abominations came along with sixteen legs, so she struggled to identify exactly how many were responsible for what she heard.
The grinding sound stopped.
She shined her light on the spider on the deck. It was completely still, its fangs pressed against the door while the familiar black substance continued to leak ever so slowly down the clear glass. Its dark red eyes studied her. All twelve worked together, hypnotizing her with their intense stare. She felt watched by something from another planet. Whatever this thing was, it didn't belong here.
Suddenly, her eyes bulged as reality hit her like a freight train. “It's distracting us.”
“What?” Sam asked, confused.
She turned her light to Sam. “It's not trying to get in. It's distracting us from what's on the roof, so whatever is up there can get in.”
“That's ridiculous.”
“Why would it just scrap its fangs against the door then?” she questioned his incessant desire to underplay the gravity of their situation. “Huh? Why would it?”
“We don't know anything about these creatures,” he reminded her, his tone always steady. “Yet, now you've not only somehow come to the conclusion that they want to hurt us, but that they're working together to get inside. I don't see why we would vilify them until they give us a reason to do so.”
She didn't recognize her husband. Physically, he looked the same, but nothing else reminded her of the man she loved. He defended both that black object and these bizarre critters with an unwarranted amount of passion. What if these spiders were deadlier than the ones they were used to? And what if they were more intelligent? For all they knew, these things could be distracting them in order to get inside through the—
Wendy gasped. “The chimney!”
She ran out of the kitchen and down the hallway.
Sam was hot on her trail. “What in the world are you talking about? They can't get in through the chimney!”
