Arachnoextinction Chapter 12: Chapter Twelve - Shake It, Hit It, Hope It Works

Read chapter 12 of Arachnoextinction by ShowerKrogan on NovelPedia.

It was slight and not anything I would have normally noticed if we weren't staring with such intensity at the eggs, waiting for something to happen to one of them. It rocked to the side once and stopped. "Did you see that?" I said in a hushed voice, like if I spoke too loud, the egg would hear me. "See what?" Dr. Kale said and put his face so close to the monitor that the tip of his nose was touching it. "Rewind it again. Hurry," I said, resisting the immature teenager within me that urged me to push his face into the screen. Now was not the time. He started backing the tape up so he could see the egg move. "Right there. Play that. Slowly," I said, and he played the video feed at normal speed. "I said slow! Ugh. Just look at that egg to the right, on the edge there." We both leaned in. I was almost lying on top of him, trying to get a clear view of the screen. Neither of us dared to take a breath. The egg rocked to the side. "It moved," Dr. Kale said in disbelief. "But...how? They're n- they can't." "Can you zoom out a bit?" I asked him and returned to my full height. "Um, yeah. Just gimme one...second," he said, flustered sweat drops formed on his forehead. His fingers were flying across the keyboard, slapping the keys faster than my eyes could keep up. The camera zoomed out so we could see the full room and the medical monitor in the corner. "Alright, play it," I said, my eyes locked on the monitor. He started the video up again, and I could see the monitor registering something. "Please don't tell me th--" "That's a heartbeat," Dr. Kale said, cutting me off and slamming his hands onto the desk. His face was twisted into a mixture of surprised excitement and shocked horror. "It's alive. That's a heartbeat. That is a heartbeat!" "Sweet Christmas in Hell," I said, wide-eyed. "They shouldn't be alive. It's been tens of thousands of years. There’s no possible way it's alive," he said, shaking his head. "This is truly amazing! It's a disaster! This is the best and worst thing to ever happen to me!" "You said you tried minor experiments with them, didn't you?" I said, fear and anger rising in my chest, it made it difficult to take normal breaths. "Yes, but nothing we did shou--" "Something YOU did brought it back! You shouldn't have done anything to them! You had one job. The mammoth. That's it!" I said. Dr. Kale said nothing, just continued to shake his head at the screen. "So what, this thing hatched and is running around free?" "There wasn't any evidence of eggshells in the container...," Dr. Kale said. "So maybe we're overreacting to this. Let's just see what happened." He started advancing through the video. I grabbed his shoulder. "Stop," I said, and he obliged. There were deep cracks in the eggshell now. "It's about to hatch." Dr. Kale’s face was white as a ghost, and it's a safe assumption that I was quite a bit whiter. I felt dizzy, and a boulder was sinking in my gut. The eggshell burst open, and a black spider emerged from behind the eggs' protective walls. It looked spot-on like the robot spider Dr. Kale used to scare me a little while ago. Down to each of its eight dark blood red eyes. They shined as each eye focused on the camera. Using its pincers, the spider crushed up what was left intact of the eggshell. It sucked the pieces into its mouth like a vacuum, then pushed open the glass box and scurried around the table and down to the floor, eating even the smallest remains of the broken egg. "That's why there's no eggshell. It ate it all," I said. I didn't even recognize my own voice. Once the spider finished eating the eggshell, it climbed up the leg of the table and crawled along the bottom of the table, hidden from view. Dr. Kale pulled out his walkie-talkie and said, "One of the spiders hatched. You need to get everyone out of here now." He waited for a reply, but nothing ever came. "Hello? Can you hear me? I repeat, a spider hatched. Evacuate the building!" Static was the only reply. "Where the hell is he?" Dr.