We got prompts on Halloween to write stories based off of. Mine was zombie apocalypse, I had to include two siblings and a treasure hunter, and spooky spiders.

Enjoy.

TW: spiders being more unsettling than normal, gore

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The cold, dusty air awoke me from my slumber, a slim beam of sunlight bathing me in its weak cover. A guttural groan escaped my throat, and the weakened, deteriorating wood making up the floor sang with me as I pushed myself upright. After allowing the stuffiness to leave my sinuses, I stood up, keeping my blanket wrapped around myself as I shivered.

I became aware of soft, tired snores that gave me a start, as they resembled a... similar, less pleasant sound, let's say. My eyes swept over the peaceful faces of two others, a girl and a boy, both with similar bright red hair. One head of hair was curly, the other more wavy. I smiled softly, relaxing as I saw them getting their rest. I'd found Micheal and Regan alone about a month back, beaten up and starved, having shown up after their house was broken into by one of the creatures and set on fire. They claimed to have been staying with their father, who managed to have survived the Red Release and provided for them until he was killed.

Deciding to let them rest, I quietly shuffled across the room and opened the large suitcase I'd found a while back and pulled out my ripped-up, tattered coat. A bit ragged, and sloppily sown in many places, but enough to keep me warm on cold days like this. I slipped it on and left the room without a sound.

Closing the door behind me quietly, I made my way down the disheveled hall. It was less messy than we'd found it - we found the remains of what we had thought to be a human corpse, though there was no telling what it could've been judging by its mangled state. The wallpaper was faded and peeling, faded bloodstains still splattering that specific section of wall I clearly remembered finding the aforementioned corpse at. The carpet probably was some shade of white or grey at some point, however it was caked in so much grime and crimson that there was no telling for sure. I wasn't risking anything - I'd put on my boots before leaving the room.

Walking around the corner of the living room, I met blonde hair turned away from me, staring into an open cityscape that lay in ruin outside. She seemed to be holding a tin can, the label well beaten and gone by now. I thought it looked like peaches. Slowly I decided to walk forth, through the broken glass door and out onto the balcony.

Despite the apartment room being somewhat bright, I still had to shield my eyes as the sun struck my pupils. Glimmering on the apartment complex were the windows, most broken like the one I'd just walked through, the sun reflecting off of them and creating an almost mesmerizing effect. The wind shifted my hair slightly, a steady breeze that disturbed the deathly silence. Some fever dream ago this place would be busy and brimming with activity this time of day, cars coming and going as people left to go to and returned from their jobs. Now it was nothing but a desolate wasteland.

My hands found the metal railing as I stood a foot or so away from the blonde girl. We didn't look at each other, we didn't speak. After a moment of silence the girl glanced over at me, holding the can in her hand towards me. I had guessed correctly - golden slices of fruit taunted me from the bottom.

"Peaches?" The girl inquired. "I've eaten my portion already, feel free to eat the rest."

"Thanks," I nodded gratefully. My stomach rumbled and my throat crawled with dryness as I took the can, downing the last bit to satisfy my insides. She smiled at me, dark blue eyes like deep oceans settled in white scleras.

Pamela was the only person alive to my knowledge that I actually knew, a girl previously in some of my classes at school. I'd known her for years, and because of that I was grateful she managed to live this long and find me near the start of the apocalypse. We'd been the stereotypical girl besties, and still kind of were, just instead of slumber parties and mall trips we participated in taking turns keeping watch for creatures and raiding long-unstocked stores for food.

"Sleep well?" Pamela asked.

I shrugged. "S'well as I can these days. I miss melatonin being a reliable resource."

Pamela laughed. "Tell me about it. Every little creak of the house sets me on edge, sleep is not something that comes easy these days."

I smiled, looking back out at the cityscape. I breathed a breath of crisp, cold air. "See anything of interest?"

"Not yet," Pamela shrugged. "It's quiet this morning. No creatures, but that's not new. Thankfully they don't wander around here much."

"Good," I sighed, any worries I'd had of that lifted.

I wasn't sure what exactly the creatures were. Not many did. No one had really even seen one. Sure, Regan and Micheal had experienced an attack, but every time we'd asked what they saw they refused to answer. I didn't blame them, really, but I do think it to be frustrating at times.

I remembered the day they took over. Every screen in the country had been overrun by the emergency news cast, broadcasting the escape of the horrific mutations discovered maybe ten years ago and kept under wraps by the government. As far as we know, they're unnaturally violent and see humans as prey. Multiple dead bodies Pamela and I had uncovered during our time in this apocalypse only boosted that theory.

Pamela brought me from my thoughts, nudging my shoulder and bringing me to kneel next to her. She looked at me, a finger over her closed lips as she turned my attention to a dot on the ground below. I had to squint to realize it was none other than another person. A person, a living person. In a place where we hadn't found life since Regan and Micheal came to us.

I kept my voice low (even though he was much too far away to hear us at any level below yelling) and said to Pamela, "Do you recognize that guy?"

Pamela shook her head in the motion of no. We both watched as the person wandered, coming from the north end of the apartment complex and making his way through the cracked, dusty parking lot. They were coming towards our building.

"Should we go stop him before he gets into the building?" I asked.

Pamela thought for a moment before slowly nodding her head. Both of us backed away from the balcony, and I threw away my peach can as Pamela went to check on Regan and Micheal. She made sure they were okay and told them where we were going, then came back. I followed her out the door, making sure my handgun was secure in my belt and that my senses were wary.

We quickly made our way down the three flights of stairs leading to the lobby floor, where we were surprised to see the stranger already waiting. We both tried to hide behind the wall, but the newcomer's senses were sharp enough to pick up on us before we knew it.

The stranger smiled as he turned towards where we were hiding. He had a deep, assuring voice. "No need to hide, my friends, I am not here to hurt anyone."

Pamela and I exchanged glances before we both stepped from our places, standing next to each other and still ready to attack if this stranger were to make a move. It was a tall man, face and clothes streaked with dirt and dried sweat and most probably blood. His hair was a dark strawberry blonde, contrasting from his tanned skin. His eyes were dark, very dark. I questioned whether they were just a really dark brown or jet black. The man had a hiking backpack slung over his shoulders, a beaten machete tied to it in a place he could easily grab it and use it at a moment's notice.
We both stared at him for a bit before I managed to find my voice. "Who are you?"
The man smiled in a friendly manner. "The name's Bill, Bill Kumo. Pleasure to meet you. And you are?"

Bill sort of looked at us with a patient expectancy, awaiting us to introduce ourselves. Pamela and I looked at each other again, and she shook her head. I continued. "We're not answering that yet. Why are you here?"

The newcomer tilted his head, but shrugged. "Ah, that's alright. Can't trust many people anymore. Don't know who's a survivor and who's some husk used as a puppet. I am but a hunter and merchant, I collect items that could be useful and trade them for food. A useful tactic, really."

Both of us paused. This time Pamela spoke up. "What do you mean by... husks?"

Bill looked genuinely surprised. "Pardon?"

"You mentioned something about husks, or puppets. What do you mean?"

He tilted his head. "What, have you never met one of those brain-dead marionettes?"

Both of us shook our heads, now quite concerned that we'd never encountered this.

Bill stared at us for a moment before saying, "Wow. Lucky. Well, to put it simply, the skin crawlers kill you, overrun your innards, and control you like a puppet from the inside. Can barely tell 'em from a normal person, they use the brain of the host to talk normally and act normally.

I was horrified at the description Bill had so casually given us. My insides churned with disgust at the thought of anything taking over my organs. "Skin crawlers. Are... are those the creatures?"

"They are indeed."

Skin crawlers. That doesn't put a pretty sight in my head.

Bill smiled warmly. "Trust me any more now?"

Pamela and I both gave him a small shrug. He did just give us possibly vital information that may save us.

"Mind giving me your names, so that I have them to match your faces?"

I hesitated before I finally said, "I'm Annie."

Pamela followed with, "Pamela."

"Annie and Pamela, huh?" Bill's smile remained. "Well then, nice to meet you. Are there any more of you here?"

"We have two others. Why?"

Bill shrugged. "I only want to know who's here. Four of you, then?"

I nodded.

He smiled again - I was beginning to notice his obvious attempt to be as friendly as possible. Almost too friendly. "Perfect. I was just looking for a strong group of four."

Pamela and I glanced at each other. She questioned, "What?"

Bill nodded. He walked over to a table that happened to be dusty but still standing, set his backpack down and reached inside to pull out a map of some sorts. Pushing the backpack aside, he rolled the map out onto the table and beckoned Pamela and I to come over. We both slowly made our way to him, my hand hovering just over the grip of my gun as we peered over the map. It was a map of a zoo. A zoo, of all places. A big one, too. The Smithsonian logo stood worn at one corner of the paper.

I looked up at Bill. "And... what is this?"

"A map of the Smithsonian National Zoo, my friend," Bill said. "Where all of this started."

My limbs froze as he said the name. The Smithsonian Zoo was, as Bill had said, where this entire thing started. The skin crawlers had been kept there before they broke out, and promptly destroyed life as we know it.

"And... why?" Pamela said. She was as unsettled as I was.

"I want to break in and end this."

Tempting, it was. I remembered the time before these crawlers took over - I had hated school as much as the next person, but now I'd give anything to go back. Better than fighting for your life every second of the day. But this was... shady. "How?"

Bill grabbed a marker - a rare luxury nowadays - from his backpack, unpopping the cap and beginning to make marks on the map. "The crawlers have made the zoo into a sort of nest. The nest is run a bit like an anthill - there's workers, who build and feed, and a queen overseeing them all and repopulating the species. If we can get here-" He circled an area on the map near the center of the zoo. "-and kill the queen, there won't be anything to repopulate. Eventually they'll all die out."

"Sounds solid. Except that the queen is in the probably most heavily guarded area of the entire zoo," Pamela remarked. "How are we supposed to get in?"

Bill smiled. "You just leave that to me."

-=-=-=-=-

Why did we agree to this?

After a bit of walking, Bill had finally brought us to the front gates of the Smithsonian National Zoo. The entrance was worn, the gates knocked from their hinges and completely missing. The whole place gave me the creeps, overgrown and unkempt and as apocalyptic as the rest of the world. Except worse.

I felt for Pamela's arm next to me, which I found subconsciously. Pamela didn't try to pull away. Micheal and Regan were next to us, both close to each other and staring at the sorry old zoo with uncertainty.

Bill smiled at us. "Alright. Come on, follow me."

He began to walk right through the open gates, footsteps quiet even in the deathly silence. It took him a moment to realize we weren't following, but once he did he turned around and tried to beckon us. "Come on, don't be shy!"

"Just... walk right in where they can see us?" I called after him, disbelieving.

"They're all in another part of the zoo this time of day," Bill reassured us. "You've nothing to worry about, my friends."

"Are you sure?"

"Yes, now hurry up."

With a concerned glance at Pamela, we walked in together, Regan and Micheal following quickly behind. Micheal had a knife in his hand, Regan a nail-embedded baseball bat.

The zoo was quiet. No animals were in the enclosures, no keepers wandered the grounds (though that was no surprise). Not a single crawler traveled around. The only life I managed to catch sight of was a small black spider that scurried over my shoe when I'd stopped to observe our surroundings. The entire place was overgrown with plants and weeds, reaching through the cracked concrete and soaking in the dim sunlight through the clouded heavens above.

"How much longer? I haven't seen anything yet," I asked Bill.

"Keep quiet," He shushed me. "But we will soon. We're getting deeper into the zoo."

Through the twisting labyrinth we went, a shadow of what civilization once was. As we proceeded I began to notice strings of white and red stretched around, draped cloth like thick spider silk over poles and empty enclosures. Still it was quiet. Too quiet.

Much... much too quiet. No birds sang, no bugs buzzed. I saw a few more spiders creeping across the weblike drapes that littered the zoo, still small, harmless ones. I thought them to be garden spiders, but there were just so many I wasn't really sure anymore.

"Bill, I think something's wrong," I said to our guide.

"Nonsense." His voice hardened as he slowed to a stop, just a few feet in front of us. My heart began to thump aggressively in my chest. Yes, yes, something was most definitely very, very wrong. That smile on his face as he turned, that glitter in his deep black eyes. The way his lips parted slowly into a grin of now sharp, needle-like teeth as he finally said,

"You're right where I want you."

There was no warning past those words. A black flood of legs scurried from Bill's mouth, still twisted into an almost psychotic grin, pushing past his eye sockets and out from his pupils. He was laughing, I heard him, even as the mass burst from his chest as well. A crack of bone, and out from his back came a large spider leg. Then another, and another, and five more after that. What was left of his skin turned inside out, revealing a wet, black replacement with eight glowing red eyes that pierced my soul. Pincers clicked, a horrific smile on that disgusting mouth of needles.

The spider tilted its head, what I could only describe as cracking bones sounding from inside of it as it did so. I stared in horror, in terror at the beast, and saw it shake itself off like a wet dog.

Suddenly screams could be heard behind me, my feet moving on their own as Pamela jerked me away from the arachnid and pulled me back through the zoo. The massive swarm of tiny minions followed suit after us, the scurry of millions of tiny legs enough to make a sound. That sound made me want to puke. Or maybe that was just the realization of what had happened three seconds ago.

We didn't have enough luck on our side. Eight giant legs found their place on the ground in front of us, crimson blood dripping from the mass the spider held in its mouth. It tossed the mutilation aside, a lump of meat and a few remaining organs hitting the concrete with a sickening splat. Before I knew it tiny legs tickled my skin, crawled under my clothes, dug into me like needles. I shrieked, hearing Pamela do the same, and found myself on the ground. I tried to keep my mouth and eyes shut, but the feeling of tiny insects crawling into my sinuses pried my jaw slack, and little tiny spiders forced past my eyelids and scurried past my eyeballs. The more I screamed the more they seemed to fill me, the more pain began to overtake my body as they dug with their tiny, tiny limbs into my veins, into me, into me.

My vision faded. My lungs refused to take air, filled to the brim with the arachnids. I coughed as I sucked in more, through the taste of them residing the metallic taste of blood.

GET THEM OUT, GET THEM OUT, GET...
GET THEM...

Get...

G...

...

...

...

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Didn't really go through and fix formatting much because I'm lazy so just kinda imagine.