Dread Wood (1) by Jennifer Killick

Author:Jennifer Killick [Killick, Jennifer]
Language: eng
Format: epub
Publisher: Farshore

CHAPTER FOURTEEN

WHAT HAPPENED THAT DAY …

The pigsty roof is low, and we climb on to it easily. I’d prefer we had somewhere higher so that we could see more, but this is the best we’re going to get without running back across the field, and I don’t think any of us have the energy for that. The pigsty is built on a huge concrete slab, so there’s no chance of anything burrowing up underneath us. We should be safe here.

‘First of all,’ Naira says. Apparently she’s taking control of this conversation. ‘What the hell were you thinking, Hallie? You could have been killed, and Angelo too.’

‘I couldn’t stand by and watch any more,’ she says. ‘And I flipping love those pigs.’

‘More than you value your own life?’ Gus asks.

Hallie shrugs.

‘Would it have been worth it?’ he says. ‘Sacrificing your own life for a pig?’

‘I guess we can only ask ourselves what kind of people we’d be if we left them to die,’ I say.

‘The same kind of people who watched a whole flock of chickens die without doing anything about it,’ Gus says. ‘I mean, there are lines drawn here that I’m not quite grasping. What makes a pig worth more than a chicken?’ ‘They’re our friends,’ Hallie says. ‘We didn’t know the chickens.’

‘The chickens could have been brilliant people,’ Gus says. ‘And now they’ll never get the chance to show you.’

‘I didn’t see you racing to save them,’ says Hallie.

‘Yeah, but I didn’t race to save the pigs, either. Naira and I only came when we saw you two were getting in trouble.’

‘Could’ve handled it myself,’ Hallie huffs. ‘But thank you from me,’ I add quickly. ‘Because I wasn’t handling it as well as I would have liked. That spider – it isn’t normal.’

They all roll their eyes. ‘No shiz, man,’ Gus says. ‘It’s the size of a hippo.’

‘It is not the size of a hippo,’ Naira says. ‘Exaggerating isn’t going to help us.’

‘I meant a pygmy hippo, actually,’ Gus sniffs. ‘It’s not just the size,’ I say. ‘Although the size should be impossible too. There were other differences that didn’t make sense.’

‘Such as?’ Hallie asks, using her sleeve to wipe the rain from her face.

‘It’s supposed to be a trapdoor spider, right? Everything we’ve seen so far has added up to that. But it has the eyes of a jumping spider.’

‘Does it matter what kind of eyes it has?’ Gus says.

‘I think it might,’ I say. ‘Jumping spiders have big eyes because they use them to stalk and hunt. Trapdoor spiders sense vibrations from underground, so they don’t need good eyesight. I think this spider can do both.’

‘You think it can hunt above ground?’ Naira says, turning pale like she was in the bug room.

‘I mean, I don’t know, but yeah, maybe. It’s growing in confidence, venturing further out of its burrow. It stayed underground when it took Mr C, but we saw clear legs when it went for the chickens …’

‘And just now it was almost fully out in the open.

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