The Ongoing Adventures of Stupendous Girl!

Attack of the Spiders From Mars! 30 Dec 2008

Don couldn’t help himself. He hadn’t heard the clatter of metallic feet against the outside of the building for some minutes now. He had heard nothing at all, in fact, except for the thumping of his own heart, making such a racket as to suggest its imminent and explosive departure from his chest. Curiosity got the better of him, and at great length he allowed himself a cautious peek at the window, a slight shifting of his head to allow a better line of sight.

The only response to this motion is the violent stabbing of a spindly metal limb, the sharp barb on the end of it passing within mere millimetres of Don’s face. In haste he pulls himself back behind his desk, hopefully well out of range of the creature (if it was even a creature, that much was as yet unknown) hovering outside his window, fortunately for him a window slightly too small to allow entry even after the panes have been smashed out.

Don had been lucky. The spiders had appeared without warning, giant dull grey iron arachnids suddenly in a controlled descent, blotting out the sun, and anyone caught outside who drew their attention had little time left to wish they hadn’t. The city had one piece of luck – since it was an abnormally cold day, even for December, and since it was the middle of the working day, few people had been outside and there have as yet been relatively few casualties. But now these metal predators had all picked out buildings, biding their time, swiping at any opening they could find and doing their best to prevent anyone from exiting by viciously attacking anyone who tried. Though it was far from clear what level of intelligence animated the spiders, clearly they had at the very least the refined instincts of a patient hunter.

Having just learned a hard lesson in patience, or at the very least which types of movement were safe in the current situation and which weren’t, Don finds himself very relieved to have had the time (after the commotion had started, but before a pair of spiders had chosen the Henderson building as their particular burrow to stake out) to check that every employee was safely in the building and, for the time being at least, out of danger. All had wisely, as he had, decided to stick it out where they were and not risk making a run for it to get home – with one exception, that is. When he’d found Irene, she’d clearly been thinking about going outside, but he’d been very clear as to how dangerous it would be outside (he felt a responsibility for all the employees here, to be sure, and besides everything they heard from outside the building, official announcements from the authorities, confused news updates, all suggested staying indoors was the safest option) and he was confident she wouldn’t needlessly risk leaving the building and drawing the spiders’ wrath. The question now was how long they’d have to wait until somebody was able to do something about them – the police were working on that at the moment, and of course nobody in Port Manteau would have the thought of a speedy intervention from Stupendous Girl! far from their thoughts and hopes.

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