Page 70 of The Whispering Night
Like every other hunter here, Winnie obeys without question. She clears the rest of the steps in four leaps. She no longer has a weapon, but she’ll figure that out once she sees what she’s up against.
Which happens moments later: the nightmare gallery is almost completely cleared of people, save for three bodies wrapped in sticky white web…
Whilesixspidrin scuttle and spin across the room.
“Spidrin!”Winnie shouts to anyone who might hear in the rotunda:“SPIDRIN WITH PREY!”That’s all she has time for before the nearest spidrin darts her way and launches a web.
Winnie drops sideways, barely getting low enough before sticky silk flies where her body just was.
Spidrin: A catchall term for any nightmares resembling spiders. They will always possess eight legs and produce webs; some feature human body parts as well.
These ones definitely have the human body parts. Their thoraxes are shaped like a human’s—some female, some male, one that is even a child’s. Then they all have eight hairy brown legs, and heads with eight eyes and mandibles clacking.
These truly are the stuff of nightmares, and Winnie can’t help but think,This should be my entry for the Compendium contest.Then her thoughts are silenced by more web pitching her way.
Winnie levers herself at the nearest spidrin, one with a well-muscled thorax and chest hair.Actualchest hair. She sees each curl as she dives closer.In close quarters, the spidrin will resort to physical combat instead of web deployment. Beware of possible venom.
Mandibles zoom in, but Winnie bypasses the creature and aims for a table filled with booze. Up she springs. Smash goes the nearest bottle. Then she rounds and stabs the bottle into the spidrin’s back.
It is entirely too human.
And Winniehatesherself for thinking of Professor Samuel in that moment. This is not a place for ghosts to rise.
“Duck!” a voice calls, and Winnie obeys, rolling under the booze table.Then she watches as a flaming bottle arcs through the air, lighting up the dark gallery that used to display illustrated nightmares instead of real ones.
The bottle smashes onto a spidrin. The monster hisses and writhes and burns alive, while legs spasm inward, just like a real spider.
Winnie thinks again of Samuel.
Until Trevor gallops by and barks, “Help the victims, Winnie! Get them free!”
Right. Priorities. Winnie grabs for another bottle.Smash. This time, she turns her blade onto the web-bound prey. Just like a real spider, these nightmares save their food for later. She stabs the broken glass into thick silk.
But at that moment, a charged, feral sensation swipes over her spine. It’s like a live wire dragging down a chalkboard.No,she thinks.It can’t be. Not here, not now.
She finishes carving the web; Casey stares up at her with vacant eyes. He’s alive, he’s breathing… but he’s definitely not moving.
Winnie wracks her internal Compendium for an antidote. Isn’t there something in the addendum about dissolving the web in water that—
“I’ve got this!” a new voice shouts. Winnie glances up, startled.
“Bretta?”
“I got this,” she repeats, pushing Winnie aside and grabbing at the webbing around Casey.
“Is Emma here too? Is she okay?”
“She’s fine.” Bretta spares Winnie a brief glance. Her eyes are huge in the dark room; her skin shines with sweat. “She’s outside and calling the Tuesdays for help right now.”
“Why are you here?”
“Why areyou? And with Erica, I saw.” There’s a harshness to Bretta’s voice that Winnie has never heard before—at least not directed at herself. And she can’t help but acknowledge,This is fair.After all, she said she wasn’t coming tonight. She said she and Erica weren’t friends. Now here she is, unable to explain anything.
Wind sucks against Winnie like a miniature wormhole; like a nuclear warhead detonating. She knows exactly what it is. She just prays it isn’t inside the museum.
“I’m sorry,” Winnie tells Bretta. That’s all she can offer, all she has time for. The Whisperer is coming, the Whisperer ishere,and only Winnie knows about it. No, she can’t stop it, but maybe if she can find it, she can distract it. Keep it away from the rest of the museum.
Away from Bretta, Emma, and everyone else she cares about.
