Arachnoextinction Chapter 16: Chapter Sixteen - There’s Always a Karen

Read chapter 16 of Arachnoextinction by ShowerKrogan on NovelPedia.

"Get down!" a voice came from in front of us. I didn't even look up to see who it was; I just hit the floor and started rolling. Two more gunshots roared. This time, they came from only a few feet in front of me. The sound of the shots echoed around the room and inside me. I would never forget that sound and this moment for as long as my heart beats. Which, judging from this situation, would not be too much longer. I was rubbing my ears, trying to get the ringing to stop, as I looked up and saw Justin, black handgun raised, standing over us. I glanced back to see the spider curled up on the floor. No movement. It was lying on its back with all eight of its legs tucked in against its large underside. There was green goo oozing out of the bullet wounds, and a horrid smell that brought me awfully close to losing my stomach all over the floor. I wasn’t as weak as Dr. Kale, so I was able to resist. But it was a close call. "I can't tell you how happy I am to see you," I said, looking up at Justin. The corner of his mouth twitched as if he almost smiled. "Just keep it in your pants," he said and helped me to my feet. "We'll see how the rest of the day goes," I said and dusted myself off as he helped Dr. Kale up. "Where's Darren?" Dr. Kale asked him. "Out in the hallway. These big-ass spiders have sure made a mess of everything. We have a few survivors with us in the hallway," Justin said as he kicked the dead spider. "How many is a few? And is it a few of THE survivors, or the few survivors?" I asked. "We have a group of six, not counting me or Darren," Justin said. "As far as we could tell, everyone else is dead, eaten, or worse." I didn't want to imagine what the 'worse' would have been. "Darren or me," Dr. Kale muttered under his breath. "What?" Justin asked. Dr. Kale's eyes flashed to the smoking gun in his hand, then back up to Justin. "Nothing, just talking to myself." “I don’t think you were even correct on that one,” I whispered to Dr. Kale so that Justin could not hear. "Get used to talking to yourself; I have half a mind to lock you alone in here," Justin growled at him. "Lucky for you, I think the government's punishment for bringing these creatures back and having this many people dying under your watch is going to be a little worse than that. I want to watch what they do to you. I may even touch myself during." Dr. Kale swallowed hard and looked at me. "I probably won’t touch myself, but I'm with the action hero over here. You're going to get the full shaft. They won't be gentle," I said. Justin walked toward the door. "We need to get the power back on," I said and followed him, Dr. Kale slouched behind us. "No, we need to leave this place; we're not all going to die here," Justin said and stopped in front of the door. "The entire building is locked down with no power," Dr. Kale said in a defeated tone. "No one gets in or out until it's back on." "Is there no backup generator or anything we can use? I do not want to go into that room," I said. Dr. Kale shook his head. "Besides, even if we got the door open, the fence is still on. The fence is powered by a generator that is kept somewhere outside the facility. The generator is hidden well, so it didn't get messed with by accident. With the fence still powered, even if we did leave the building; without any power to open the gate, we're still stuck." "Fine!" Justin said. "We'll get to the power room; can you fix whatever those bastards did?" "I, and only I, can get it working again, yes," Dr. Kale said. I narrowed my eyes at him. He's not an electrician. I think he's using this as a ploy to stay alive. If he's our only way out, we're forced to protect him. But I couldn't fix it, and he had been here a while, so I guessed it's possible he knew how. As long as the coward in him didn’t get the rest of us killed, then doing whatever he could do to survive was fine with me. I didn’t blame him for looking after himself. "So, do you guys have a secure room where we can plan this