The Brown Tarantula

To those of my followers who are looking forward to my more philosophical ramblings, there are more to come I assure you. This however may not be for you, though, I do try to squeeze some of that into the thoughts of police detective Tom Slovino who turns up in the next part of the story.

To Those of you who love comic books. This is for you. I hope you like it. This Story has 15 chapters. I will provide links after the story as I publish them so if you like it and want to follow the story. Check back from time to time.

Thanks

FIS

The Brown Tarantula

Copyright Robert F. Sacco

Part 1: A Dark and Stormy Night

The six gang members were in their element. The rain was pouring down on their flushed skin cooling down the excessive heat caused by their excitement and the crystal meth pumping through their bodies with their blood. Their gang, “The Vampire Bats” had affected a look that involved wearing only jeans and black leather vests with their red bat “logo” spray painted on the back which left their chests, arms and torso’s naked to the rain but they loved the water’s coolness and they loved the frantic pace of thought as it raced through their drugged brains.

Their chief, Tusk, had told them earlier in the evening that Charon, the Boss who ruled the streets, had given this four block “turf” to the Bats. This of course wasn’t about fun and games, it was about money. The same old song sung a million times, extortion, prostitution, drugs, but tonight, tonight was about celebrating. The rain beat down, punctuated by flashes and lightning and explosive blasts of thunder as if the gods themselves, or perhaps nature had decided to warn the populace of the human monsters amongst them. But, the populace already knew. The feds had recently rounded up the “Hellspawn” who had ruled these streets as they had been ruled before by “The Slashers”. Nothing ever changed here. But The Vampire Bats thought the thunder and lightning belonged to them, and thought the streets belonged to them and thought the young blond girl they were dragging into the ally belonged to them.

The girl probably thought so too. The Hellspawn had owned her. When she was thirteen she thought they were cool. When she was sixteen she knew that she was nothing but property and that she only continued to live because The Hellspawn allowed it. She barely realized that between the heroin and turning tricks, she was already only living a shadow life, biding her time, clinging to life, waiting for death. She was about to be raped and she knew it. The Vampire Bats would claim all of the streetwalkers that way in the next few days, when they were cranking. They might be more playful with girls they came across when they were in a more rational state of mind. She hoped she would survive. She was terrified. These guys were so high, the idea of killing her might turn them on. In her terror she screamed and sobbed, not for help, but, because that was her emotional release.

The biggest one pushed her hard against the stone wall at the end of the ally, forcing the air from her lungs and nearly the consciousness from her brain. He began to rip at her shirt while his brothers hooted and hollered when suddenly all of their ears were assailed by the shriek of metal scarping against metal that caused all of their spines to try and crawl up out of their bodies through the back of their heads. The girl fell to the ground too stunned to move as the “gangstas” spun around to face the mouth of the ally, just as a car that had somehow silently moved into that mouth snapped on its headlights, fully illuminating, the ally, the gang and the hooker. The pouring rain gave the light an eerie strobe like effect that was barely noticed thanks to the presence, in silhouette, between the gang and the car, of what looked to be a six foot five inch man in armor with six arms, each with a spike protruding from its fist.

Two of the Bats were too stunned too move. The other four pulled their guns and fired at the aberration in their world view without hesitation. Almost simultaneously the six armed figured leapt into the air, high enough that the bullets would sail past harmlessly beneath him and forward so that he landed in the dead center of the gang bangers. Or rather, center of the dead, for as he landed all six arms thrust out, striking at the predators that had become prey. Two fist spikes plunged through faces and skulls to find their rest in soft brain. Two more pierced directly into the hearts of the armored mans victims. A fifth punctured a vulnerable neck. The sixth and last did not die instantly with his brothers, the spike lodged in his stomach. He might have survived had his wound not had poisonous venom pumped into it. It took him five painful minutes to die. I was over fifteen before EMTs would arrive.

The six armed terror said to the hooker in a deep, throaty voice “Tell Charon he no longer rules these streets.” With that, the headlights of the car switched off, plunging the ally into darkness, leaving the hooker blinded, sensing only the rain pounding on her and a repeat of the painful noise of metal sliding over metal. She never heard the car as it rolled silently back out into the street.