Tabitha by Andrew Hall

her life.

 
    6

 
    Tabitha sprinted round the corner onto
the ruined high street. Every other footstep was a fresh agony, slamming her
weight down on raw tender tissue in her leg. But she had to keep running. The
pack of spiders had grown to a swarm. Far too many to fight. She ran past more
strangled trees coated in black tentacles; more spiders dropped down from the
walls around her. The chittering silver mass behind must have been fifty strong
at least. She felt small metal claws gripping at her boot heels, shaking them
off as she ran. Her muscles burned and her mind raced, looking all around her
as the buildings rushed past. The metal chatter of the horde was deafening; a
tinny racket in a clattering tide. One stumble, one unsteady step, and they’d
be on her. She saw movement then, on the road up ahead. Silvery legs in the
distance. More spiders rushing towards her, cutting off her escape. Nowhere to
run. Tabitha kept limping on, though she knew it was hopeless now. They’d have
her surrounded in seconds, with no side streets to escape. Breathless, Tabitha
looked around desperately for somewhere to climb up high.
    ‘In here!’ came
a voice off to her left. Tabitha looked over as she ran, searching for it. A
woman ushered to her from an open cellar window, right on street level. Tabitha
gave it everything she had and broke away from the swarm at her heels. She
reached the far kerb and threw herself down on her side, sliding in through the
open window. It slammed shut behind her as she hit the cellar floor; a thick
metal shutter that closed the spiders out. They crashed against it outside.
    ‘Are you
alright?’ came a voice in the dusty gloom. Gasping for breath, Tabitha looked
up at a middle-aged woman, wiry and athletic, helping her up off the floor. She
was tanned and stern, with short salt-and-pepper hair. The daylight crept in
through a bank of glass bricks in the street above. A pale milky light,
painting their faces.
    ‘You saved my
life,’ Tabitha gasped. She staggered over to a pile of flattened cardboard
boxes in the corner, and collapsed down on them to catch her breath. An old
pool table filled the middle of the cellar.
    ‘Well,
technically you saved yourself. I just left the window open for you.’ The woman
smiled, and tossed her a plastic bottle of water. She was deep-voiced and
well-spoken. ‘I’ve left that shutter open for everyone I’ve seen, but you’re
the first person to make it inside. Did you see all the empty skins of the
not-so-lucky out there on the road?’
    ‘I wasn’t
looking,’ said Tabitha, gulping the water. She tried to smile about it. It
didn’t really come off as the grim pleasantry she’d hoped for.
    ‘Sorry, catch
your breath,’ said the woman, rummaging in a box in the far corner. ‘It’s been
a while since I’ve had anyone else to talk to.’ Tabitha just nodded, draining
the bottle.
    ‘Have you seen
anyone else?’ said the woman.
    ‘There was a
man. They killed him,’ Tabitha replied, suddenly shocked at the thought of Dev.
Now that she had a minute to take stock, his death hit her like a sledgehammer.
‘One minute he was there, then he was just gone… just like everyone else,’ she
mumbled. She stared at the far wall, numb. The tears came quickly at the
thought of her mum, her friends.
    ‘I’m sorry,’
said the woman, lifting a canister out of a box in the corner.
    ‘I didn’t know
him,’ Tabitha replied. ‘I – I don’t mean that I don’t care what happened to
him. I mean I’d only met him today.’
    ‘No need to
explain,’ the woman said gently. ‘Life is very fleeting these days. I’m
sorry for what happened to him, all the same. For what happened to everyone.’
    ‘Thanks,’
Tabitha replied, staring back at the wall. What was it he’d said, that this was
all some punishment from god? It seemed that way, and she didn’t even believe
in god. It was like a new plague. Tabitha pulled her numb legs closer, and
tried to rub some