Total pages in book: 50
Estimated words: 46314 (not accurate)
Estimated Reading Time in minutes: 232(@200wpm)___ 185(@250wpm)___ 154(@300wpm)
Estimated words: 46314 (not accurate)
Estimated Reading Time in minutes: 232(@200wpm)___ 185(@250wpm)___ 154(@300wpm)
Connor slams his door to avoid listening to it, and I get to leave without answering any inconvenient questions. People think yappy little dogs are useless. But that’s because people lack imagination, and maybe because they can’t think while yappy dogs are yapping.
“You and me forever, Obigor,” I tell him. He does not react, because this is not news. It has always been me and him. Except before I got him. Back then it was just me. It’s better with him.
I used to be braver, before my body was scarred with by bullets. Now I know that death lurks closer than you think, and not just intellectually, but physically. That knowledge has been branded into every cell of my body. It’s why I ride a desk now, or did until my partner dragged me into this particular, I’m just going to say it, supernatural, mess.
My car is parked out front. It’s like the one perk of having been left wounded. I get to park wherever I want, basically. It’s a shitty superpower, but I’ll take it at this point. I set Obigor down in his little car seat and attach his seat belt. You literally cannot be too careful.
Driving to what feels like might be my fate, I am nervous. I am not carrying a weapon, though I wish I was. I don’t like guns anymore. I’m around them all the time, but I spend my day avoiding looking directly at them. I tell nobody this. It is one of many shameful secrets I keep to myself. It’s best that others aren’t aware of the contents or processes of my mind. As long as I can mimic normality, that’s all that matters.
My GPS issues instructions at periodic intervals, but I don’t really need them. The way to this place is burned into my memory.
In an hour or so, maybe more, maybe less, who really cares, it’s New York and distance of destinations is immaterial because traffic flow is what matters, we arrive at an old storage bay near one of the many ports. It’s also a maze of shipping containers. A random person venturing here looking to find what I am looking for would have next to no chance of discovering it, but I can’t help but know it all already.
Obigor is fast asleep when we arrive at the shipping container yard, but I scoop him up anyway. I don’t go anywhere without him, and he doesn’t go anywhere without me. We have each other’s backs, always. As I pick him up out of the car, he opens his eyes and looks around, immediately alert. He can’t actually see that well anymore, especially at night, but that won’t stop him from trying his best to defend me. I’d die for this dog, and he’d die for me.
We walk into the maze of shipping containers until the tell-tale signs of occupation become clear. We’re talking massive spiderwebs, big, thick wall hangings of spider silk. I bet they’re worth some real money or would be if they were sold for industrial applications.
“Hello?” I whisper the word softly, almost hoping not to be heard. The last time I came here I was not alone. I had my partner to look after me, or to at least be witness to me. This time I am entirely at a very strange predator’s mercy, and I have no guarantee he will show any of that quality at all.
“Hello?” I am forced to call again, louder this time. What if he’s not here? What if he’s gone? What if none of this is actually real and I’ve had some kind of break? What…
“What are you doing here?” A cold voice rattles down my spine.
I freeze, knowing I am going to have to turn around, but putting off the horror and anticipation of that moment for as long as possible. I truly never thought I would see him again, but that voice sends me spinning back through time, giving me all the old feelings of vulnerability, fear, and excitement.
I’ve seen him before, so seeing him again should not come as a shock to me, even in the gathering dusk of winter beginning to give way to a more hopeful spring climate.
I turn, slowly, to find Order looming over me, his eight eyes uncovered, every single one of them narrowed at me. Two sets of his three sets of arms are folded over his chest. The lowest pair reaches out for me, taking me by the hips. Does he know how intimate this kind of greeting is? It feels as though he just has to hold me.
I clear my throat in the attempt to gather my wits about me. Get it together, Tessie, I lecture myself silently. He’s just a guy.
But he’s not just a guy. He is a mutant, a mostly or perhaps only partially human creature who otherwise is made of spider. The hands gripping me are capable of emitting a thick and sticky silk which is almost impossible to escape.