Tabitha by Andrew Hall Page B

were trying.
There’s no way out though. Those things are everywhere.’
    ‘What about the
sea? Getting on a boat?’ said Tabitha.
    ‘Have you seen those things in the water?’ he replied. ‘They’re eating all the
boats anyway. There’s no way out. There’s spiders in the sewers too. You can
hear them at night when you’re trying to hide. You can’t sleep. You just have
to keep moving and hiding, looking for food.’
    ‘Jesus Christ,’
said Tabitha.
    ‘Yeah.’ Dev
agreed, wiping the cold tears off his dusty cheeks.
    ‘So, where are
these other survivors you saw?’
    ‘Don’t know,’
Dev shrugged. ‘We only saw them once. They could be dead by now.’
    ‘We should try
to find them,’ Tabitha suggested.
    ‘There’s no
point,’ he replied. ‘It’ll get us killed.’ His eyes widened with a sudden
realisation. ‘Hey, we can get out of town now!’ he said. ‘You can handle the
spiders, we’ll be alright! We can get out!’
    ‘Not until we’ve
found those other people,’ Tabitha insisted. Dev scoffed at the idea, stared at
her in disbelief.
    ‘But everyone’s
already dead,’ he said.
    ‘You don’t know
that,’ Tabitha replied. ‘They might have survived, like you.’ Dev was shaking
his head.
    ‘We’re missing
our chance to get out,’ he argued.
    ‘They might
still be alive,’ said Tabitha. ‘We owe it to them to find them.’
    ‘They’re not our
problem,’ said Dev, shaking his head. ‘It’s not like they came to find me and
my brother. I say leave them to it.’ Tabitha looked at him in shock. Was he
really that cold? ‘We don’t have to make this complicated,’ said Dev.
‘Let’s just get out. It’s every man for himself now, anyway.’
    ‘Really?’
Tabitha replied, disbelieving. ‘So, I should have left those spiders to kill
you then? Is that what you mean?’
    ‘Hey, behind
you!’ he said, pointing over her shoulder. A spider was stalking down from the
wall of a dry cleaners behind her, baring its mouth.
    ‘What!?’ she
yelled at it, pulling her carving knife from her belt. The spider hesitated,
and didn’t come any closer. ‘So I should have left you to die?’ she asked Dev.
‘I should have let those things kill you?’ Dev looked from the spider back to
her.
    ‘…Look, you’re
right,’ he sighed, dropping his shoulders. ‘I’m sorry. You saved my life. But…
this is our chance. Look, we could get out of town right now,’ he said,
pointing down the road. ‘Just a couple of streets to the town hall, then we can
take the main road and get out. You could fight us a way out, I could watch
your back. It’s simple.’
    ‘No,’ Tabitha
said stubbornly, walking off towards the market square. She couldn’t protect
the ones she loved any more, and it burned a hole in her heart. But maybe there
were more people out there she could help. She had to try.
    ‘Well, I’m going
to make a run for it,’ said Dev, looking at the shattered tower on the town
hall. ‘Straight to the town hall, then out down the main road,’ he said.
Tabitha stopped and looked back at him.
    ‘They’ll come
after you,’ she replied, looking up at the buildings. There were spiders dotted
around on half-hidden walls, splayed out flat against the bricks. Watching. Dev
looked up at them and hesitated.
    ‘And that one,’
Tabitha added, nodding at the spider outside the dry cleaners behind him. Dev
backed away from it. ‘But, it’s up to you.’ She turned and walked away. Dev
stared at the spider on the street, edging its way towards him.
    ‘Fine, hold up!’
he said, defeated, running from the spider to catch up with her. Tabitha
scratched an itch on her cheek with her strange rough hands. Her fingers felt
like sandpaper. She waited for Dev to catch up, and together they wandered on
into the urban ruins.
    ‘So what’s going
on with you, anyway?’ said Dev. ‘You got stung by one of them, so now you’ve
got some weird superpowers or something?’ Tabitha walked on in