I always thought I was Clever. I figured out how to get things free and how to get in when I wasn’t supposed to. I did things I shouldn’t, but wasn’t the one who got caught. I was smarter than they were. I was clever.

When the spiders started crawling down the shelves, Tony and Sam freaked out. Marcus stayed with me and we finished loading our bags. A little hairspray and a lighter sent the skittering away. A few of them were even burning as they ran.

Tony was lying on the stairs two floors down. He was swollen and kinda purple.

He was also covered with em.

I told Marcus to check his pulse and one of the hairy little beasts dropped down on the back of his neck. He was spinning and smacking at it when he tripped on Tony’s leg.

I heard the snap when Marcus his the stairs. He was crying, his leg bent in three places, when I jumped over him. He grabbed for me, but missed. I glanced back and saw him throw me the bird but I didn’t go to help him.

The spiders were coming down the wall.

Two more floors and I started to hear screaming.

The big freight entryway was covered in creeping black dots. Some moved slow and steady, while others darted and zig-zagged around. The only thing they had in common was that they were all headed towards Sam. He was standing in the middle of the room, spinning in circles, smacking his bag down on the floor.

I headed the other way. Security system or not, I was headed out the front glass even if I had to smash through it.

I grabbed a chair from the receptionists waiting area and slammed it against the window, but it wouldn’t break. I tried another window and a door before the chair broke. I turned to grab another and stopped because it was covered in bugs. The freaking things were all over the room. They were crawling through the door, using the floor, walls and ceiling so that more of them could get in faster. There were so many of them that I could hear a hum from the noise of them walking towards me.

We weren’t supposed to have guns, it changed what we could be charged with if the cops showed up. Of course, I still had one in case one of the others thought he might be the clever one. I drew and aimed at the window. five shots into the glass and if it was bulletproof, I was going to put the other in me. I took a deep breath and fired.

Bulletproof, and the ricochet hit me in the hand. The gun went sliding over o the wave of legs and eyes that started slowing down. I looked around, thinking that they must have known I was trapped. I lunged after the gun, but fumbled it and had to back away when a monstrous brown one crawled on top of it.

I thought I was clever, but they were going to prove me wrong.