Human Town Part 3

"How far are they" one of the men in Squad 3 said.

"From their last transmission they should be several minutes away from us" the Leader of Group Four said as he moved a branch that was about to touch his face.

As the move deeper into the forest they begin to notice several strange things.

The first is that there we no living beings around them. One may think that this is a good sign since this means that they will no longer be attacked. But minutes before their departure they were attack by swarms of Tree Huggers again and this time they were much more viscous than the ones they faced before.

The second was that the plants nearby seemed to have wilted. It was as if the life was sucked out of the plants.

The final strange thing were the scratch marks on the barks of the tree. They at first thought to have been the tree huggers since they were the only Holos they have seen in the area. But when they walked further they began to notice corpses of Tree huggers littered across the ground.

"What could have done this" a soldier of squad three said as he was about to lose his stomach to the decaying stench that was being made via the corpses.

As they continued moving forward they began to find more corpses of the Tree huggers as well as other creatures they have never seen before. There was a corpse that resembled a spider the size of dogs that had several long spikes on their legs and pointed part on these spikes. There was another corpse that resembled a blue tiger with four fore legs and two hind legs.

The two squads stopped walking when one of them noticed something in the corner of their eye, "Hey isn't this a human body!?" They all stopped instantly and turned around to see a soldier pointing at a tree in front of them.

When they looked at the corpse they noticed that the corpse had many dark spots around their body and several ice chunks around their body. When they looked closer at it they noticed several holes in the persons body.

The holes weren't big enough to be noticed at a first glance, but were noticed when someone pointed out black vein like movements in the persons body heading towards the hole. "What did this" someone said as they touched the small hole that could be made by a needles that are used in hospitals.

"I don't know, but whatever did this is most likely alive" said the leader of squad three as he closed the open eye of the human. The sad part was that this wasn't a member of squad two and was just a regular person. "Keep moving and stay vigilant" the leader of squad three said as they all began to continue walking with a tight grip on their guns, ready to be used in any instant.

They continued moving forward finding more and more bodies that had the same wound as the person on them. They be Holos or humans, who were most likely unaware of what occurred at the drill site and were killed by what ever was making the holes.

"Sir I think we found a member of group two" a man shouted out as he moved a body of a person onto the ground. "Check his body to see if he has a hole in him" Squad 4 leader said. The soldier moved the squad 2 clothing and saw a small hole in the person neck.

"What is doing this" Squad 3 leader said as he saw the hole in the man neck. The squad 3 leader tried to lift up the group 2 soldier, but when he put his hand in his back, he felt something wrong.

It felt spongy.

The squad leader instantly put the man onto his stomach and took off the mans' shirt and vest.

"!"

On the mans' back was not one, not two, nor three, but hundreds of holes coming out of the person back. "What in the" the squad leader said as he looked at the countless holes that were on the mans' back.

As the squad leaders and the rest of the squad watched the holes on the mans back, they didn't notice that there was a creature lurking nearby in the dark.

***

"So they found the Corpse Spiders" Luke said as he wandered away from the group of men that were looking at a corpse of their comrade.

"Poor man, hope he was dead when they did that to him" he said as he went invisible and went back to his sleeping spot.

***

What Luke was referring to were a species of insects that are found in the west part of Luke old cave, the place where he swore never to head to unless he was desperate. The Corpse Spider, as their name implies, are some sort of spider that hang around corpses. They resemble the tripods in the movie War of worlds, but instead of three legs these guys have six on each side and their head are the same as the Tripods. They are the same size as tarantulas and have blue and black stripes around their bodies. For a mouth they have a long tube that resemble a mosquito and will drink the blood of corpses as a source of food.

One might think that these creatures aren't that scary, but in reality they are. Their mosquito like mouth has a second purpose and that is reproduction. The way the Corpse Spider reproduce is by injecting live or dead creatures with their eggs and leaving them in them for hours. Once two to three hours have passed the baby corpse spiders will begin to burrow their way out of the victims body until they have made it out of the body.

If you are still thinking that they aren't that bad, you are wrong. The Corpse Spider is able to shoot about one thousand to ten thousand eggs, they are also the size of worms and so burrowing out will take a long time. Once they are out of the body one of two things will occur.

If they were born in a corpse the baby Corpse Spiders will kill one another for food until there are about a hundred to five hundred remaining. Once they are done killing one another they will drink the blood of their dead siblings before leaving the corpse and heading off into the nature.

IF they were born in a live creature the baby Corpse Spider will go into several areas that are giving a lot of blood movement and will spit out a blue substance in that spot. This substance is able to slow down the movement of blood and allow these babies to get blood much quicker. Sadly though they will continue spitting in the same spot which causes the stop of blood flow in that area. Once they have drank enough blood from the body they will then attack one another for food and leave once they are done killing.

They will only return when the temperature in the area has dropped to the -10F or -23C they will reenter the body and cover themselves in the blue substance to keep themselves alive in the cold temperature. But before they do this they will hunt down any living creature in the area and shoot eggs in the creatures body so their species can survive.

The only creatures capable of detecting when the Corpse Spiders will do this are the Tree Huggers, Wind Watchers, and Kros. To survive this they will hunt other creatures in groups and kill them so the corpse spiders can leave them alone. If any of these three species find a big group they will cry out loud allowing the others of their species to head to their direction.

When a corpse spider stings a creature they will also inject a hormone into the victims body that will act as a beacon for other Corpse Spiders. They will follow the hormone until they are either dead or can no longer smell it anymore. And the smell part is far from impossible for they can detect the hormone for miles and the only way to get rid of it is either by cutting the limb or washing it off, if it was sprayed don the skin and not the inside.

The only reason why this species hasn't over taken the world Luke lived in is due to their short lifespan, for they can only live up to one week before dying of natural causes.

Of course Luke was never in danger of these insects for his own skin was strong enough to withstand their stings. The only reason he fears these creatures was because of one incident where he went to far West and was in the center of the Corpse spider den.

He was swarmed by the Corpse Spider and they all began to crawl over his body. He could feel every single one of their little legs touching him either on his face, butt, or legs he could feel them.

He wasn't able to eat one of them due to him instantly bolting out of the area and causing nearby creatures to be swarmed by them and become food/nest for their species. After the incident Luke swore to never enter that area after experiencing what it felt like to be covered in bugs.

***

Back at Group 3 and 4 they found several more of these holes on dead bodies of creatures and humans.

"Ok lets head back and report this discovery" Group 4 Leader said as he looked at a corpse of Squad 2 Leader having holes in his face, stomach, and back as well as having several ice chunks around his body.

As they began to walk off, one of the soldiers felt something sting his right leg. When he looked down has saw a small spider biting his leg. The soldier lifted his right leg up and smushed the spider.

"Dumb insect" The soldier said before walking towards his group members. Little did he know that he had sealed his and his group mates fate.