Horror Story 2955 - Beneath the Ashes

So I misread the requirements for this contest and thought it was 4000 words and not 4000 characters limit. That being said, this excerpt is 3635 characters, while the full story is a whopping 13986 characters... I spent hours on this so I feel like I should at least submit SOMETHING that adheres to the rules, right? Anyway, I've never written horror before, so I hope you like it!

If you'd like to view the full story, you can read it on this google doc: docs.google.com/document/d/1keMccdtJQPZPZ55UMVQN4XBx9muLLdn8_IhDPnAMIJA/edit?usp=sharing

“God, you guys..” It takes a moment for the captain to speak as she clears her throat. “You two okay, you scared the hell out of me. What happened?”

Marlene is quick to her words, “This thing. This spider thing.. It has a lot of eyes, it’s in the ship, in the game room…” She sputters. Captain Heptane, concerned, looks at me for assurance in which I nod carefully, explaining that the spider was almost as large as the pool table, that it was fast, and it seemed interested in sound.

“..we barely made it in here.” I finish as Heptane paces the cabin with a concerned look on her face, contemplating what to do next.”

“Well.” The captain sits down.

“We’re stuck. The ash plains we’d landed on are unstable and we’d been sinking since this storm hit us,” She gestures at the glass, nothing visible outside, “these damn winds have been blowing ash on us for hours, and that eruption earlier put who-knows how much ash on our foreheads. There’s gotta be several meters of it on top of us at least.”

Captain Heptane picks at one of her nails feverishly, the nervous expression only amplified by the recent unfurling of events. “I’ve been able to contact the UEE and we have a transponder up. We have enough rations to survive until they get here, but I’m not sure about the ship.” She walks over to the glass and taps it, hoping for some visibility, but the scene stays blank, coated with flakes of ash.

Marlene and I exchange looks, the wrench on both of our faces tainting the room with a sense of dread.

“Shouldn’t we.. let the rest of the crew know?” Marlene asks with a somber attitude, laying her gaze to rest on the floor. We exchange glances with each other and nod, knowing that we’d better get everyone up since we were in presence of a much greater threat that must be taken care of before it gets out of hand.

…

The door hisses open and nothing moves from within. The red lights of the corridor shine over where the spider used to remain, but has now disappeared. We almost reach the open threshold of the lounge before the captain raises her arm and motions for us to halt.

We watch silently at one of the crew members thrashing on the ground, arms flailing about at the mass that has taken root on his head. His cries barely tear through the flesh of the creature, legs stabbing into his arms and torso, smearing his blood and fillings across the floor. Someone else appears into the doorway to the bedroom and screams, running back inside as the spider rises from the mangled mess it has left.

The captain pulls the trigger.

The shots tear through the massive abdomen of the spider at the base of the crew’s doorframe. Sluggishly it turns for a moment before it slumps to the ground as the gaping holes in its abdomen flap open. A sigh of relief escapes from the three of us. Captain Hectane, with a blow of her pistol, dawns a slight smile looking back at us for a moment with a smug attitude before going to inspect the damage. We watch from the door as she gets onto her knees and addresses the strange creature. She runs her hands along the leathery patterned abdomen for a moment before recoiling back as if she’d touched something sharp. She looks her hands back and over twice before frantically looking around her legs as they are covered in something black. Something moving.

Spiders. Thousands of them. I only understand fully by the time Captain Hectane lets out a shriek of pain as they dig into her undersuit, crawling up her face. She writhes in pain and cries as she tries to pull her hapless mess away but doesn’t make it far before succumbing to the agony and lies motionless on the floor.