"I didn't think it was possible to become sexually excited by guns, but I now know that it is quite possible," I said, unable to close my jaw.
"Oh, I've known that for a while," said Karen as she started pulling weapons off the wall and passing them out. "Justin has never let me anywhere near guns most of our lives. Despite his best efforts, I know how to clean them, load them, and get them ready. But I've never shot one. Older protective big brother is a role he loves to play."
"How sweet," I said with a dramatic sigh. "Well, since we're all locked in here, time for me to poke around in the hole?" I asked.
"Sure," said Karen with a smirk and stopped passing out the weapons.
"...the hole the spiders made… to clarify," I said.
"Oh… yeah, whatever," said Karen and went back to passing out weapons.
Darren and Justin pushed up behind me to get a look at the screen. My nose filled with the smell of their musk, old food and angry man body odor. I tried to take short breaths to limit my intake of the tainted air. The drone dropped into the hole, which continued down to the next floor. I did a quick scan with the camera; lots of their webs were on the floor, but no sign of any spiders.
"Should I look around or go straight down to the next floor?" I asked.
"Go through. It's the bottom floor, and should be the electrical room," Darren said. "This will give us an idea of what we're going to be dealing with to get the electricity back on."
I took Justin's lack of argument as a sign he agreed, and lowered the drone through the hole once more. I almost dropped the controller when we got a visual on what was in the electrical room.
A ridiculous number of eggs were scattered all over the room. It must have been several hundred. The eggs were covered in webs and stuck to the ceiling, the walls, and all over the floor. There were more spider eggs than visible floor, wall, or ceiling.
Several spiders were scurrying about, tending to the eggs and leading the newborns out of the room, to food, I presumed. Dr. Kale was probably being used as food for the newborn spiders. I couldn't push that dark thought from my mind.
"So… we're going to need more guns," I whispered. "That is a whole lot of nope."
"We're going to need a lot more men, some big-ass guns, and a distraction," Justin said.
"You do not need more guys. You have me," Karen said and cocked her shotgun.
Justin said nothing; he took the controller from my hand and showed Karen what we were seeing.
"Y'all need a helluva lot more men," she said.
"You said distraction. You have something in mind?" I asked Justin.
"We load up," he pointed to everyone except Karen and me, "and make a lot of noise. Meanwhile, you two sneak in from that hole in the ground and get our power back."
Justin handed the drone back to me.
"Why us?" I asked.
"Karen needs to get down there to fix the power, and you need to watch her back. You are a good enough shot to defend her if a spider or two comes back, but not good enough to take the place of Justin or me for the distraction," Darren said.
"So that's the plan? Make a lot of noise and hope to live long enough for Karen to turn the power back on?" I said.
"Yes. That is what we are going to do," Darren said in a commanding voice.
"We do not have the convenience of time to come up with something better. We need to act now," Justin said.
"So we do that and hope for the rescue to come. Sounds brilliant," I said and shook my head.
"If you have a better idea, please speak up. I'm very willing to try something that will get us out of here," Darren said.
"Dr. Kale?" I said with a gasp.
"He's long dead at this point. No need to waste lives trying to find him," Darren said, leaning against the wall with his eyes shut just like he had been outside the mammoth room.
"No, I can see him," I said, tapping on the screen.
Darren's eyes sprang open and a darkness flashed across his face. It was gone in an instant, and he hurried over to look at the screen.
Maybe I had imagined the dark look. I still wasn't sure if I could trust myself.
"Where is he?" he demanded.
I pointed at the screen so everyone could see. Up in the corner of the electrical room ceiling was Dr. Kale. He was wrapped up in so much spider web, that we could only see his head. There was blood dripping from the bottom of the web ball he was in, but I could see slight movement in the web that gave me the indication that he was breathing.
"He's not dead yet," Justin said, surprised.
"Why wouldn't they kill him?" Karen asked.
"Trap for us? To lure us after him? Maybe feed their young? There are a ton of eggs in that room," I said.
"They took him so fast, with no sign of where they were headed. I don't think he's alive for us," Darren said. "They must have something planned for him."
"Could they possibly know that he was the reason they hatched?" Karen asked.
"I don't see how that is possible," Darren said. "They won't see him as their daddy. These monsters aren't the compassionate kind anyways."
"Whatever he is alive for, I think it's safe to say it's nothing pleasant," I said.
Without a single word spoken, it was clear everyone agreed. A few people looked like they were going to be sick.
"So should we try and save him when we're in the room?" I asked.
"Read the situation. If it's too risky, don't bother. Get in and out," Darren said. "No risking injury or death on his behalf. It is his fault and his alone that he is in this mess. Without him experimenting with the eggs, then more than one hundred lives wouldn't have been lost today, and he would be fine. This is his punishment for his actions."
"Assess his injury," Justin said. "We don't have much for first aid around here, so if there's any substantial injury just put him out of his misery instead of letting him bleed out."
"I… don't know if I can do that," I said. "Shooting spiders in the heat of the moment is one thing, but killing Dr. Kale? While he's webbed up and unconscious? I just don't know, man. I can't imagine being able to make myself pull the trigger."
"Think of it this way; if you don't kill him, then you're the reason he is going to suffer through hours of agonizing pain just to die anyways. You're doing him a favor, and he would thank you. Any of us would do the same for you," Justin said.
"I'm so thrilled any of you would be willing to kill me," I said in a not-so-ecstatic tone. I said it before and I'll say it again, I hate this place.