Direwolf: Silken Threads - part 3 "I really think we need backup...."
by Direwolf
From atop the brick wall, the Ant examined the street as the two huge tarantulas blundered along, knocking over lampposts and smashing cars. Direwolf and Miss Mantis were on the street as well. While John Miller watched, Direwolf picked up on of the fallen lampposts and began using it to herd the truck-sized arachnids away from the buildings and into the center of the street where they would do less damage. The green clad young woman immediately got the idea and her gray staff suddenly expanded into a ten-foot long pole. She joined Direwolf. The spiders reared back, waving their hairy legs and extending their fangs but allowed themselves to be herded.
"I really think we need backup," the Ant muttered to himself as he tried to remember whatever he could about orange and black tarantulas.
"They shouldn't be too dangerous," the Ant shouted. "They aren't vicious or venomous to humans. They are bird eaters from South America and are rather clumsy as far as spiders go. They ambush their prey, rather then spinning webs or running it down."
"Thanks." Direwolf waved the broken pole at one of the spiders and it backed away. "Anything we can do besides killing them? They are causing a lot of damage, even if it's accidental."
The Ant considered the question. It said a lot about Direwolf that he was willing to look for a non-lethal solution to the problem at hand.
"You know, I'll bet the Patriot City Zoo wouldn't mind an impressive new display. They were so disappointed all the dinosaurs went back to their own time when the portals closed." The Ant hopped down from the wall and circled in carefully. The insect side of his nature was screaming at him to stay away from the massive predators. "Let me see what I can set up."
"Mentor, are you there?" the Ant asked mentally. He sure hoped the mental link was up. Mentor had indicated that keeping it active all the time was exhausting so the team was working on some other means of long distance communication.
"Yes, I am here at the Freedom Fortress, Ant. What do you require?"
As always, The Ant couldn't tell if Mentor just had a very dry sense of humor or lacked one entirely.
"We have giant spiders down at the University and are trying to find a home for a pair of hyper thyroid tarantulas. We thought the zoo might be able to accommodate them. Can you have Minute Man contact the zoo managers? Say, are you getting any sort of energy X readings from these things?"
There was a brief pause in the mental communication.
"I have passed your request to MinuteMan and he asks if you need any assistance with the current crises."
The Ant looked over to where Miss Mantis and Direwolf had the two tarantulas under control for the moment. The giant spiders seemed to be frightened enough they were crouching on the pavement, their legs folded in defensively.
"I think we are ok for now, but if you are seeing Energy X readings, we might be able to track the rest."
"Black Bird has been on Monitor duty for some hours and reports no Energy X surges that might indicate a new manifestation. However both she and El Diablo, who had the duty last night, reported odd readings like a background field that sprang up shortly after sun down in the vicinity of the University. The readings were very faint and did not trigger any alarms. I will investigate that matter from here to see if it might assist. Minute Man insists that if you require help, contact us at once."
The Ant watched Direwolf cut off one of the spiders that tried to make a run for it. He knew that if Minute Man got involved, Direwolf would end up alienated further. He decided to see if the three of them could deal with the spiders for now, but resolved to call for help the moment he thought they needed it. He wasn't willing to risk lives for the sake of Direwolf's ego.
"If we can somehow restrain them, the zoo should be able to transport them to a place they can't do any harm," The Ant said, finding another broken pole to use in the herding efforts.
"Easier said than done!" Miss Mantis sprinted in a circle to stop the other spider from escaping. Between the three of them, they were keeping the spiders from roaming, but the Ant was very aware that the longer they took to deal with these two, the greater the chance one of the other spiders would claim a human victim. He was about ready to kill them out of necessity when he saw the two young men who had been with Direwolf race out of the gate in the University fence. One of them pointed to an empty lot near by.
"Over there," Devon shouted. "They have plenty of fencing!"
John Miller saw at once what they meant. The lot was a construction site and several roles of chin link fence were stacked on the sidewalk out side.
"Direwolf, if you can anchor the fence, I think Miss Mantis and me can wrap the spiders in a bit of galvanized web of our own!"
"I'm on it!" Direwolf shouted. He tossed his lamppost aside and covered the distance to the fencing with one massive leap. He grabbed two of the bundles and jumped back.
"Right," Miss Mantis said as her staff collapsed back to only a few inches long. "How are we going to make this work?"
"Direwolf will hold the end of the fence, I'll unroll it and you will make sure the spider's legs are all caught within the fence. Make sense?"
"Yes, "Miss Mantis replied. "Let's do it!"
Direwolf held onto one end of the first role of fencing and tossed the other end to the Ant who deftly caught it. As quickly as he could, he circled the first of the huge spiders unrolling the chain link as he went. Miss Mantis darted back and forth; adjusting the mesh as she went to assure the spider was firmly caught. The giant arachnid tried to avoid the trap but the Ant was too quick. In a few minutes, it was secure in the middle of the street, its legs pinned in fence wrappings.
"Great, one down, but the other one's making a break for it," Direwolf shouted. He grabbed the second roll of fencing and raced after the fleeing spider that was leaving more destruction in its wake.
Direwolf landed a few yards in front of the second tarantula. The spider drew back in surprise, then lunged at him. The Ant was sure Direwolf was going to be bitten, but instead, the masked man leapt up. The huge spider missed completely, Direwolf landed alongside another lamppost and quickly wrapped a loop of fencing around the pole to use it as an anchor. The Ant and Miss Mantis rushed over to help.
Between the three of them, they began to wrap the second spider. This one was far more agitated then the first and kept trying to escape the improvised net. Miss Mantis lunged for a renegade leg and suddenly fell back, shouting in pain and surprise. A number of thick hairs, like quills had sprouted from the front of her costume.
"Watch out for the legs, it can fire its hairs like spines!" Miss Mantis crawled back.
The Ant kicked himself mentally. He should have remembered that was part of tarantulas' defenses. The spiders didn't defend themselves by biting. They launched their coarse hairs like darts. A moment latter, a swarm of the hairs flew at Direwolf. Many of them lodged in his clothing but none made it past his stone hard skin.
By then, the spider was nearly immobilized and Ant was happy to let Direwolf finish the job. More hairs peppered him but none drew blood. The Ant swung wide to see if he could help Miss Mantis. Skip was already beside her, drawing the long hairs out with a pair of forceps.
As Skip drew one out, the Ant realized it had to have been imbedded more than an inch into Miss Mantis' thigh. The hair was wet with her blood.
"Man that stings!" she hissed through clenched teeth.
"She going to be all right?" Direwolf asked as he walked up, plucking hairs from his own clothing.
"I think so, so long as she treats these with a proper disinfectant." Skip gripped another hair and pulled it out. Miss Mantis winced.
"Later, right now we need to find more of these spiders," she insisted.
"That makes three out of twelve, now what?" the Ant asked.
"Well, the scent trail left the Physical Sciences building so I suppose we should start there, "Direwolf suggested.
The sounds of more panicked screams and the squeal of tires on pavement from the north distracted them all. The Ant was sure it had to be more of the spiders.
"Finish pulling the spines!" Direwolf snapped at Skip, "The Ant and me will check it out. Miss Mantis, wait until Mr. Carson has all the hairs out. You don't want to risk driving them in deeper. Come on, Ant."
It never occurred to John to argue. Direwolf seemed to possess a natural flair for situational command, rather like Minute Man did.
"I'll bet that's part of the reason they don't like each other," he realized. "They are too much alike."
The Ant followed Direwolf northwest. Within a few blocks, high-rise buildings had taken over from the lower, three and four story brownstones near the University. And they found the source of the latest round of panic. The two garden spiders had found places to spin their webs. Each of them had woven an eight story tall structure between a pair of office buildings on the same block. The huge yellow and black spiders, each with a leg span over twenty feet long, occupied the center of their webs. John noticed a number of silk wrapped bundles in each web and deduced the spiders had been catching pigeons. While they posed no immediate threat the sight of the giant spiders was sowing panic.
"What are we going to do about these?" Direwolf exclaimed, looking at the huge webs. The lowest strands were fifteen feet above the ground. "If we try to climb the webs, we'll get stuck and be wide open to their attack."
Once again, John tried to remember what he could about a specific type of spider.
"Orb spinners can be dangerous. They have tough webbing, are very quick and have a nasty bite. I don't think we want to tangle with them hand to hand. " The Ant snapped his gloved fingers in sudden realization. "But we can use their behavior against them. As long as we don't threaten the webs, they won't leave them, just try to hide in a corner and they won't defend themselves."
"Right, I got the picture. I've got a friend in the police department. He should be able to supply sharp shooters to take them out from a safe distance. Can you coordinate with the local police on crowd control? We don't need people trampling each other."
"What are you going to do?" the Ant asked.
Direwolf smiled. "Find a pay phone."
"Should have seen that one coming," the Ant muttered inside his red and brown mask. It was easy to find a local cop trying to deal with the panicked citizens and a bit harder to convince him that there wasn't any immediate danger. Fortunately, his reputation as a member of Freedom Force gave him enough credibility that the police officer took him seriously. The Ant suggested a number of ideas, the simplest being to barricade off the block and keeping people away from the huge spiders. The Ant knew garden spiders were web hunters, but he didn't want to take the chance that one of these two would decide a change of tactics was called for.
The police officer took his advice and began ordering the other police and fire units on the scene. Direwolf came over soon after and the Ant spotted Miss Mantis trotting in as well.
"Captain Joe will have riflemen here in a few minutes," Direwolf said once Miss Mantis joined them.
The Ant gave them a quick rundown on how the police would secure the area around the two giant garden spiders as the three of them hurried back to Physical Sciences Building. They found Skip and Devon there as well. Devon had used the time to convince the campus police to bring them some equipment that might help with spider hunting. Along with a couple coils of rope, flashlights and fire axes, Devon had a backpack style spray system that Skip was helping him don. Professor Snyder stood at the top of the flight of stairs to the back of the science building, his face unreadable. The body of the dead trap door spider lay on the grass nearby. And ambulance was parked on the sidewalk and a pair of attendants was loading the still rigid Professor Waverly inside.
Direwolf quickly told them all about the tarantulas and the garden spiders.
"One of the guards radioed that he spotted what looks like the other trap door spider lair by the library," Snyder said. "I have requested that the area be secured. Do you wish to deal with that one next?"
"May as well," Direwolf concurred, "Then it's back here to follow the trail. Let's go spider hunting people."
All five of them headed out. Once they were gone, Professor Snyder turned to the still somewhat shell-shocked looking security guard. "Inform all the rest of the staff that any carcasses recovered are to be brought here for examination. They may have residual radiation, you know. Then return to your duties, my good man. I shall attend to matters here."
The campus guard knew better than to argue with the dean of the Physical Sciences department. Once he was gone, Snyder walked purposefully into the building. His access card opened the basement door, then the door to the accelerator control room. He entered the target room and knelt to examine the body.
"Interesting," he murmured as he studied the bite marks and damaged tissues. One in particular seemed to hold his interest. There was a bite on the right temple. Around the bite, the flesh was inflamed red, the mark of a venomous bite. The tissue was chewed inward as well. Snyder took a pen from his pocket and tapped the dead man's head. There was a hollow sound near the bite. The conclusion was obvious; whichever spider bit Mike on the side of the head had managed to consume a large part of the young man's forebrain. "Very interesting."
Professor Snyder looked around the target area. He spotted the web wrapped sensor array and went to investigate it as well. Once again, the conclusion was obvious, the webbing had been used to foul the sensor to increase the chance that someone would come to investigate.
Many scientists faced with this sort of fantastic situation would attempt to rationalize it away. Professor Zachary Snyder did no such thing. He considered the data and came to a conclusion. Along with the giant size, the radiation had increased the intelligence of at least one of the spiders as well. And Snyder suspected he knew which of the spiders it was. The bite on Mike's head had come from a Black Widow.
Professor Snyder left the target area and returned to the control room. He wanted very much to check the experiment logbook. He found it on the worktable where Mike had left it, along with the note explaining the odd filament he used and how it seemed to affect the beam targeting. Snyder quickly scanned the columns of readings Mike had recorded through the experiment, confirming the odd behavior of the beam.
"Oh, most interesting."
Snyder snapped the book shut and tucked it into his coat pocket. Then he found a set of allen wrenches on the worktable and headed for the filament housing.
As he walked, his face remanded impassive except for a half smile. Whatever he was thinking, only a few murmured words emerged.
"After all, isn't survival the purist of all goals?
"Now that is just disgusting," Direwolf growled. The yellowish white spider viscera matted his hair and the goo wasn't coming off with the handfuls of wet grass. More thick fluid spattered his clothing and his arm still ached from the impact of the second trapdoor spider hitting it at full charge.
"This from the guy who eats sand," Miss Mantis replied.
"He eats sand?" the Ant asked. "You are kidding, right?"
The three heroes were heading back to the Physical Sciences building with Skip and Devon right behind.
They found the second trap door spider's web right beside the library, once again dug down into the laurel bushes. The simple plan was for Direwolf to lure the thing out since he was the most heavily armored, then the Ant armed with a fire ax and Miss Mantis with her staff would finish the thing off.
They hadn't counted on how fast and strong the monster was.
The huge spider came out of its web faster the Direwolf could get out of the way. He did manage to get his arm up in time but the impact knocked him down. Jason had a very good look at the spider's mouth. He caught the thing's pedipalps over his forearm and managed to hold them back as the long fangs extended towards his face. Behind the fangs, he got a very close view of the spider's chelicerae, the inner area of its jaws where it crushed its prey. He had spent a nightmarish few minutes evading the monster's bite while the Ant and Miss Mantis beat and hacked the thing to death. Of course, he had been under it as it died.
"This isn't a joke, you two," Direwolf insisted. "Unless I can get this stuff off, I'll never be able to track the scent of other ones."
"Ok,' Devon reasoned. "Easy answer right here."
He pointed to a garden hose hanging by one of the school buildings.
"This day just keeps getting better and better," Direwolf groused as the rest hosed him off. Cold and wet, but no longer smelling only trapdoor spider ichors, Direwolf stalked the rest of the way to the Physical Sciences Building with his gloved hands jammed into the soggy pockets of his jeans.
There was no one by the science buildings back door. Jason crouched down and pressed his nose to the concrete steps, inhaling deeply. Dozens of scents washed over him. That was always the problem. His nose was sensitive enough to detect countless faint odors that people would never notice, but he didn't know what they all meant our how to isolate just one. It was like trying to spot a single thread on an ever-moving carpet. He had to concentrate, pull out the smells of people, cement, grass and even books, to isolate that odd, sharp smell he knew marked the mutated spiders. Then he had to further break it down to find individual creatures. It took concentration, an analytical mind and more than a little luck.
"Ok, I think I got them." Direwolf stood up and absent-mindedly rubbed his itching nose. "All twelve of them came out in mass and sort of spread out. I can tell where the tarantulas, garden spiders and trap doors ended up. The rest seem to have broken into two groups. One headed north and the other looks like it headed south west."
"Can you tell numbers? We have six spiders unaccounted for." Miss Mantis asked.
"I think so, the trail north seems to have four distinctive scents that are sort of in pairs. The other two headed southwest. I think they sort of split up along species, though why four of them together?"
Skip snapped his fingers. "No that sort of makes sense if you look at what's still out there. The Black Windows are web spinners and will look for a place to hole up like a basement, woodpile or attic. The wolf spiders are hunters and will go in search of prey. The Brown Recluse is an ambush predator and will look for a place to lay in wait for prey."
"So, which two spiders teamed up and why?" Devon asked.
"The Brown Recluse and Wolf Spiders have complementary hunting techniques. I'll bet they are the ones that headed north."
Direwolf felt a cold knot settle in his stomach. "But that would mean they are cooperating, not only didn't they all kill and eat each other, but four of them have formed a pack with specialists within the pack structure! They are acting with intelligence."
The Ant whistled in surprise. "It's not just the bug in me that thinks this is a bad turn of events, right?"
"No, I agree with you," Miss Mantis said. "I'd say this qualifies for a bad turn of events. But where are they going to head?"
"They will look for prey to feed on as well as places to lair," Skip offered. "And it should be north of us."
"Of course," Direwolf snapped. "Central Park! Plenty of room for them and the zoo is right there."
"And if they don't go after the animals, then there are lots of people in the park, even in the mornings!" the Ant exclaimed.
Direwolf made a quick decision. "Ant, you are right, we need back up. I gather you can reach Freedom Force? Please contact them, tell them what's happening and see if they can get to the park. We'll stay here and see if we can find the black widows"
The Ant concentrated. "Mentor, I need to talk to Minute Man right away!"
"I'm here, lad. I suspected you'd have trouble with Direwolf. Do you need help there? Bullet can be there in a moment..."
"Yes and no, Minute Man. I think we have the situation at the University under control, but we think four of the spiders are heading for the park to stake out their own hunting reserve. If you guys can cover the park, we'll take care of things here."
Minute Man's answer was an instant yes, so the Ant quickly told him what they had figured out so far. Minute Man assured him that he'd lead a strike team to the park immediately and that the Ant should keep an eye on Direwolf. John didn't comment on that final instruction. As far as he could tell, Direwolf was handling the situation just fine. And Miss Mantis was proving to be scarily competent as well. He'd have to ask Mentor if the woman in green had an Energy X signature.
Direwolf had the scent. He led the rest of them across the lawns through the campus to the oldest building at the University. Once, it had been the entire school. Now it was the Administration center. Jason knew it well. The old five story tall brick building was a warren of rooms and narrow corridors that had been renovated, retrofitted and rebuilt so many times, no one really knew where anything was. The building came complete with a basement and attic.
"They went in there? How are we going to find them?" the Ant asked.
"Follow my nose."
The trail took them to a ventilation grid at the back of the building; Devon examined the heavy mesh screen over the opening.
"It's been torn off," he announced. "And the scary thing is, it has been reset and anchored in place with webbing."
"So they went in, and covered their tracks?" Miss Mantis asked.
"Sure looks that way," Direwolf answered, "which means they suspected they would be hunted."
"We going to follow them through the air ducts?" the Ant said.
Direwolf shook his head. "I can't. I doubt I can fit through the opening and even if I could, I don't think the air ducts could support my weight. We'll have to go in and see if I can find the scent in the rooms."
"That's going to make it even tougher," Skip noted.
"You're right," Direwolf said grimly. "But we don't have any other choices right now. There are people inside and they are in danger every moment we waste. Come on."
The hinges to the cellar door were red with rust and the wood was weathered to a dull gray. Direwolf glanced at the padlock securing the bolt and simply snapped it off. They didn't have time to look for a key. He opened the door with a squeal of protesting metal. A flight of worn cement stairs descended into shadows. Devon and Skip switched on flashlights and the beams stabbed down, showing the cracked cement floor at the foot of the stairs. Direwolf took the lead and they all descended into the cellar.
Direwolf tried to catalog the scents on the way down. The air smelled heavily of damp earth, mildewed paper and dust. There was a lingering scent that Jason recognized as coal that must have lingered from the days the furnace was coal burning, as well as dozens of others. Cobwebs cast thin veils of shadows over the room and motes of dust danced in the flashlight beams. They gathered at the foot of the stairs and tried to get a better look at the place.
The cracked floor was seamed with white lines where lime had precipitated from the cement. Stacks of boxes and cast off furniture made irregular lumps on the floor and nearly obstructed some of the thick columns that supported the building. Jason heard the rustle of mice moving through the shadows. Then he caught the spider smell. They were on the right trail.
"This way," he whispered. Somehow soft voices seemed appropriate.
He led the way through the basement to a clear spot back by the furnace. There, they found a black widow spider with a leg span nearly seven feet across. It was obviously dead, parts of the body chewed away. Direwolf moved up to it and flipped the carcass over with his foot. There was a large white hourglass on the abdomen. It was the male spider.
"She mated with him, then killed him," Skip breathed. "We should have seen that coming. One of the overwhelming drives of any species is to reproduce. She'll find a place to hide and lay her eggs."
There was a moment of silence while everyone looked around as if expecting a swarm of spiders to erupt out of the shadows.
To be continued...
