The match may have burned just a little bit brighter in the sewer, or it may have been their imagination, but other than that nothing happened besides a few cobwebs quickly burning away and the match hitting the damp bottom and going out.
After Red then climbed down, he would discover the tunnels to be damn dark. Presumably he then used his flashlight, since that was the whole reason to get it out in the first place. Looking down the direction that ran towards the edge of the city, he saw nothing but more cobwebs and empty tunnel; the other direction, he saw a lot more cobwebs, and a part where it looked like the sewer tunnel opened up into a larger chamber of sorts.
And peeking around from where it opened up, was something that definitely didn't have a Human profile; it was far too low to the floor and had multiple spindly limbs visible on that side of its body. On the front was pitch black eyes. More than one set of them.
The giant spider, as that was clearly what it was, scurried out of sight and started making this chittering noise. Red would hear another set of chittering start, and another, then a third a bit more distant, followed by more and more, echoing through the tunnels.
Up the ladder, the others would just barely start to hear it too, save for Molly, who had already heard it as soon as Red had. Thor started getting anxious, and not just because of the two dire wolves nearby; and even Grey was starting to fidget.
Dusk remained more calm, though did take a step back from the manhole and growl. "Predator pack run/fast/legs, hunt/attack/kill prey" was the basic idea Molly got.
edited 21st Jan '14 8:42:46 PM by FirockFinion
You are reading this.Molly was right. The space Red was standing in at the bottom of the ladder between the two pipes was barely enough room for two people to stand shoulder to shoulder; even alone, Red couldn't really swing his axe horizontally, and vertical swings still ran the risk of hitting sewer wall rather than his intended target.
But thankfully it wasn't actually that deep, being only about six feet, so Recon could actually reach Red, but only from about his armpits up.
But whilst this was becoming apparent and everyone was yelling about what to do, the noise stopped. Thor wasn't sure what to think, but Dusk and Grey knew better; the smaller of the two whined something about fleeing, while Dusk just stared at Molly intently, waiting for commands.
A moment into the silence, those with active walkie talkies/radios would hear Lisa piping up. "Red, you idiot! This thing's working perfectly, it's just pointing down! There's something underground. Make that multiple somethings, like six or ten feet below-" a sudden pause, but the ever so slight hum told that she was still holding the transmission button. "... They're moving, and fast" Lisa added after a pause.
It was about then that a new sound started coming from the sewer tunnel. Whereas the chittering before kind of sounded like taking two pieces of bone and rattling them against each other, this sounded like... Almost like hail hitting concrete; and going with that metaphorical example, there was a storm approaching.
Red would see, down the tunnel, another giant spider, about three feet long in body length maybe, and standing about two feet off the floor; it was coming racing down the tunnel towards him, like a running dog. Considering the size, it may not have been too intimidating, if not for the almost identical spider running along the upper left third of the tunnel, its own head no more than a foot behind the first one, and another similarly sized (though much different in color) spider taking the upper right third of the tunnel nearly neck and neck with the second. And then behind them was a currently uncountable number of flurrying legs and pitch black eyes that were more spiders coming behind those front three. With the smaller ones taking up just the walls of the tunnel, Red also got a good view of one big enough to merit taking up almost the entirety of the tunnel on its own, its face right in the middle, staring forward at Red as it charged behind the smaller ones.
The ones in front started to let out very high pitched (though thankfully not terribly loud) screeches as they approached.
For everyone besides Red, though particularly Molly, their attention might get caught by a metal on metal clanging noise coming from farther down the road. It came from another manhole cover, which then rattled a second time.
edited 22nd Jan '14 3:31:40 AM by FirockFinion
You are reading this.Red took Recon's advice and slipped on his pack and tucked the axe into his belt for now while he began sprinting for Recon's hand, trying to get the fellow bounty hunter to help him back up.
"Max! Cover me!" Red screamed, not wanting any spider to pull him down from behind as Recon was pulling him up.
Molly grabbed the Hunter's wrist, gripping it tightly and pulling, unknowingly digging her nails into Red's forearm, growling without thinking, she was honestly not too big a fan of Spiders, and giant man eating ones were surrounding them, under the ground at least, she screamed at Grey and Dusk to weigh down the manhole covers,
edited 22nd Jan '14 6:06:49 PM by TroyandHawk
Good to be backWith all three of them helping, pulling Red up from the sewer was easy, and in fact they managed to do it before any of the spiders had reached the ladder area. The group could hear them approaching rapidly though.
Dusk and Grey charged down the street towards the other manhole cover, but it rattled again before finally getting lifted up and slid off by one of the larger spiders emerging from it. It almost immediately caught sight of the group and started lumbering their way at about the pace of a Human run. From the open manhole behind it, more of the small spiders started pouring out and rushing around, though most caught on to where the larger one was going and likewise charged after the group, actually speeding around and under the larger spider being faster than it.
Grey, barking frantically in panic, turned around and came running back. Dusk stopped midway and stood his ground, growling. The spiders were still over a hundred feet away, but would close that distance quickly unhindered; and it wasn't clear yet how much hindrance Dusk could give them.
The radio frequency also came alive again, this time with Flyer's voice. "Crikes yanks! A bunch of giant spiders just started appearing! Where the bloody hell did they come from?"
"There's gotta be dozens- no, hundreds of them. They're coming out of the sewers all over the place. That ain't good" Dune added. (Also, the helicopter was not currently over the group's position, so they're referring to even more spiders, some in the group might realize.)
"I'm afraid it gets worse" Lisa chimed in, her demon voice now active and standing out like a sore thumb. "A bunch of them just burst out of a sewer in front of me, and I've been trying to order them to stop. For some reason only some of them are listening to me; I can't stop all of them."
edited 22nd Jan '14 6:45:07 PM by FirockFinion
You are reading this."It's been nice knowing all of you" Red said, after they pulled him up. Fortunately Anarchy's wound didn't quite break skin. Regardless, it still didn't stop Red from bolting to the Jeep.
"Get in!" he cried. He wouldn't wait long however and, after a few seconds (assuming he made it to the Jeep), he'd gun it for the nearest building that wasn't burned down.
edited 22nd Jan '14 6:40:32 PM by FantasyLiver
Recon spared one brief look at Max as he ran.
"Get out? And then what? Pied piper this mega-swarm all the way back to Green Fields? Let them clusterfuck the surrounding forty miles until we can't go looking for Fang?" He made sure he was heard over the radio, so everyone could hear his words.
He unholstered his shotgun and shook his head, still running for the jeep.
"We gotta deal with this, or else a demon warlord's gonna be the least of everyone's worries."
Recon then spoke to the people in the helicopter.
"Lisa, try to wrangle the spiders you can speak to into attacking its brethren. Flyer, go back to the town and tell Shevon the situation. Load the copter down with as much ammo, firepower, and warm bodies as you can, then fly back here A.S.A.P."
Recon seemed almost hesitant, like he was on the verge of stumbling but didn't. It was clear he didn't like giving orders.
"Like I said, we gotta find a choke point. A doorway or a gate or alleyway. Somewhere that they can't just surround and swarm us. Pour all our ammo into killing as many of these fuckers as possible and hold out."
edited 22nd Jan '14 8:16:51 PM by gameknight102xx
Thanks to the wolves clearing up the road in this area of town before, it wasn't hard to drive the jeep towards the nearest building; the half-walmart which they were literally adjacent to the parking lot of. And since they'd parked it pretty much right next to the manhole, reaching it was no problem. Along with the group and Thor, Grey had managed to get in the jeep, but Dusk was too far away to reach in time before Red took off; thankfully Dusk was fast though, and was keeping ahead of the spiders as he ran after the jeep.
Behind them, more giant spiders poured out of the manhole they had just pulled Red out of.
"That's what I've been doing. I can only yell at so many of them at a time" Lisa said over the radio in response to Recon.
"Head back to town? That will do exactly what you just said not to do; lead the spiders back there, stupid yank! I'll just radio her from here" Flyer piped in, before muttering, "Which you could just do yourself..."
"If you guys fight them in an alley or something, they'll just climb the buildings and come down on you from above and in front. They have a big advantage in this environment that you simply don't" Lisa added.
edited 22nd Jan '14 8:20:06 PM by FirockFinion
You are reading this.Recon didn't waste ammo firing out of the speeding jeep, instead trying to figure out just how many there were. The final tally was "way too many".
"Well how do you suppose the sheriff gets here then? On foot with two armfuls of ammo?" he shot back at Flyer.
"What about indoors? They can't break through walls and ceilings can they? We'd have to corner ourselves, but its a hell of a lot better than driving around in circles until gas and ammo runs out."
"And then what? Give them time to breed more then swarm Green Fields? It's either we put our lives on the line now or we put our lives plus the lives of everyone else back at town two or three days from now!"
Recon thought for a second, then turned to Molly.
"You have to call the wolves back. Unless we can somehow strap turrets to their backs, all they'll do is run in and die. There's just too many."
edited 22nd Jan '14 8:32:03 PM by gameknight102xx
Red knew that the spiders could easily reach them from inside the Wal-Mart so he kept driving - towards the hair salon that he didn't burn down last time.
"Dune - some sniper support would be great!" Red shouted into the radio. If, on the way, any spiders three feet or smaller came into the Jeep's path, Red would just run right over them. If any bigger - he'd try to swerve out of the way.

"If there's enough gas down there to explode something, I'd be more worried about that than any sort of demon," Max whistled as Red chucked the match.