Tabitha by Hall Andrew

Author:Hall, Andrew [Hall, Andrew]
Language: eng
Format: epub
Published: 2014-08-21T07:00:00+00:00

29

‘There’s so many,’ Will mumbled, looking out over the curtain wall at the spiders massing in the distance. The others stood beside him and watched the swarm with grim fascination. A wind whipped at them suddenly, cold and fierce, and died away.

‘I thought there was a hundred or so before,’ said Jim, squinting at them beyond the town walls.

‘Well, not any m-more,’ Liv replied. The nearest hill had since turned completely silver with gathering spiders. The sky was overcast above them; a steel-grey backdrop hanging heavy over the town.

‘What do you propose we do?’ said Sylvia, pulling up her coat collar against the wind.

‘What can we do?’ Chris laughed. ‘All we can do is go back into the keep and barricade the door.’ Will looked at him, uncertain. It sounded like a plan.

‘No,’ said Tabitha. ‘That’s our last resort.’ She noticed Jim moving closer to stand beside her. He didn’t need to say anything to show them whose side he was on.

‘Yeah, get upstairs in the castle,’ said Tony, completely ignoring her and siding with Chris. ‘We’ll break up the wooden stairs so they can’t get up.’

‘That’s what we did in the attic,’ Jackie added.

‘We’re not giving up that easy,’ Jim said gruffly. ‘You lot might not have any fight in you, but we do.’

‘Like I said, that’s a last resort,’ Tabitha told the others stubbornly. ‘Before it comes to that, we’re going to fight them.’ She was met with silent stares.

‘With what though?’ Will laughed desperately. ‘A few guns and a couple of spears? Have you seen how many there are out there?’ he looked around at their frightened faces. Their eyes kept flicking back to the hills, to see if the spiders were moving yet. ‘We’ve already lost Paul,’ he said sadly. ‘None of us were fast enough to save him, and that was just one spider. What chance have we got against all them? We’re just not going to win this time!’ Tabitha looked at him now and saw a different person. Since when had Will been beaten so easily?

‘And we can’t get away either, now she’s given the car away,’ Chris added, nodding at Tabitha. ‘We’re dead.’

‘Fuck you!’ Tabitha said defiantly. ‘I’m not going down without a fight!’

‘But Will’s right,’ said Liv. ‘There’s j-just no way we can win this.’

‘We won last time,’ Jim replied.

‘Yeah but there were f-fifty last time, not five hundred,’ said Liv.

‘More than five hundred there,’ said Tony, watching the silver horde on the hills. Jackie stared at the spiders and took hold of his arm.

‘Yeah, there’s more of them,’ Tabitha conceded. ‘But that’s the only thing that’s changed.’ She looked at the hopeless faces lined up along the wall. Paul’s death really had gotten to Will. She could see it in his eyes. He looked haunted. Not the kind of ghost they needed right now.

‘This is the same fight as last time. Just longer,’ said Tabitha. ‘That’s all. We can win this.’

‘They’re going to flood us!’ Chris protested.

‘They’re going to do exactly what they did last time!’ Tabitha shot back.

Download

Copyright Disclaimer:
This site does not store any files on its server. We only index and link to content provided by other sites. Please contact the content providers to delete copyright contents if any and email us, we'll remove relevant links or contents immediately.