Clear Water, Hidden Danger

Chapter 55 – The Spider Moves

The MCU coasted into the neighborhood with the engine going quiet as Neal shut it down. We did not need the idle. Nothing could breach my resonance field as long as the team stayed clipped into the harness. Ten lines connected us, each one stretched from the plates on my chest and back to the operators forming a perfect circle around me. Ten bodies moving as one.

House One was empty. Clothes scattered. A broken picture frame on the floor. No bodies. No survivors. Neal raised her can of red spray paint and marked a bold 1 beside the front door. Clean.

House Two had been ransacked, but there were no signs of life or death. Just another shell long since abandoned. Neal marked a large red 2 on the siding. Clean.

House Three held one body in the hallway. Three months sunken into the floor. No movement. No pulse. No story left to tell. Neal stepped outside and sprayed a large red X across the doorframe.

House Four had barricaded windows and a barricaded living room. But no bodies. No one left. Neal marked a red 3 next to the garage door.

House Five carried the smell of decay before we even crossed the threshold. Two bodies in the master bedroom, collapsed together, long past recognition. Neal stepped out and sprayed another large red X across the siding.

We stepped away from the last house and began moving toward House Six, the spider formation gliding forward in silent coordination. Every operator kept tension on their line, spacing perfect, the radius stable. The street ahead was still.

Neal’s radio crackled.

“IBF to CWP Search Unit. We’ve got a cluster moving up 25th from Fairview. Approximately twenty-two Phase III. Slow drift.”

We all stopped. Eyes shifted inward. I nodded once.

“Back to the MCU,” Neal said.

The formation pivoted cleanly, ten operators and one core turning in perfect sequence. We moved down the street as one organism, galvanized lines dragging softly over pavement. The MCU came into view, doors opening as the formation flowed inside without breaking the circle.

Neal restarted the engine only long enough to reposition down 36th Street toward Blackhawk Drive. As soon as she made the right onto Blackhawk, she pushed the MCU up to almost sixty miles an hour, fast enough to chew the distance but controlled enough to handle the curves. Within minutes, the silhouettes came into view ahead of us, and she killed the engine the second she saw them.

The Zerkers were already moving toward us when we spotted them. Even from inside the MCU you could see the twitching jerk of their bodies fixing on the resonance distortion coming off the cabin. Neal killed the engine, and the sudden silence made their movement feel even louder.

The doors swung open and the spider stepped out. Ten operators snapped into the circle, lines pulled tight, spacing locked in. My resonance field expanded to full radius, an invisible pressure dome across the pavement.

The cluster didn’t hesitate. All twenty-two surged at once, sprinting toward the disturbance without coordination or thought. They crashed together as they ran, tripping and stumbling, but the momentum never broke. They were coming straight for us.

We held the line.

The first bodies hit the resonance edge and froze mid-stride, limbs locking as their instincts jammed. The ones behind slammed into their backs. More piled in. Soon the entire cluster compressed into a single seething mass at the boundary, twitching, staggering, locked inside the radius.

Only when all twenty-two were fully contained did Neal lift her pole.

“Wave One.”

Five operators stepped in as one. Five strikes. Five bodies collapsing in synchronized motion. The operators withdrew instantly, spacing re-forming without a single crossed line.

“Wave Two.”

Another five stepped in. Five controlled impacts. Five more Zerkers dropped, limbs folding under them as they hit the pavement. The formation sealed behind them as they stepped back.

“Wave Three.”

Five more kills. Clean. Quiet. Fast. The remaining bodies spasmed against the resonance field, disoriented and unable to coordinate long enough to break inward.

“Wave Four.”

The last full group of five entered the kill lane. Five poles drove forward. Five bodies hit the ground. Only two remained.

“Wave Five.”

Two operators stepped in, ended them quickly, and returned to position. The field held steady for several seconds, waiting for any late movement.

Wolf scanned the circle. “Clear.”

Neal keyed her radio the moment the formation disengaged. “IBF, CWP strike unit. Cluster is down. Area is clear. You’re good on 25th for now.”

“Copy, CWP,” their captain replied. “We’ll hold position.”

The formation withdrew in reverse, maintaining spacing as the lines guided each operator back toward the MCU. No disorder. No drift. The harness kept everyone honest.

Inside the MCU, Neal keyed the radio again.

“IBF, cluster neutralized. Resuming sweep.”

We turned back toward House Six. The harness stayed clipped.

And the spider moved again.

It took the rest of the afternoon to finish Tammy Street. House after house. Entry after entry. Silence after silence. The tally grew across the pavement and siding in bold, deliberate red.

By the time we reached the last home on the block, it was sundown and Tammy Street was finished. Thirty-three houses fully cleared. Twenty-five marked for occupancy. Eight condemned under red X’s. The spider formation returned to the MCU one last time, lines loose but clipped, each operator steady in the fading light.

We rolled back toward the staging point by the LifeCircle Church, the first location we cleared this morning. The sky was growing darker around us as night pressed in. The MCU stopped beside the south service doors which were opened, and everyone stepped inside still in the harness, quiet and exhausted.

Neal didn’t waste time.

“Briefing inside,” she said.

We gathered in the old youth room, still bare, chairs dragged into a circle around a plastic folding table. The red spray paint can sat in the center like a record of the day. Everyone took their places.

Neal opened her notebook, flipping to a fresh page.

“Tammy Street is complete,” she said. “Now we adjust our strategy moving forward.”

Wolf leaned in. Hawk folded his arms. Brown and Blyth traded a look, already anticipating the shift.

I stood near the doorway, still clipped into the harness plates.

“Starting tomorrow,” Neal continued, “RJ will not accompany full sweeps on foot. We’re changing how we clear neighborhoods.”

Everyone straightened.

I stepped forward.

“I’ll conduct a resonance-field drive-through before any boots touch a house,” I said. “Full perimeter pass. If there are no Zerkers within range, I pull out immediately.”

Neal nodded. “Once the field confirms the zone is safe, Team One, nine IBF members, will conduct the interior sweeps. They’ll do the close-quarters checks, mark clean houses with numbers, and X out anything contaminated.”

Stacks tapped his boot lightly. “Nine houses at a time?”

“More if the blocks run short,” Neal said. “But yes. Controlled, disciplined. No breakaways.”

“Team Two,” I added, “the other nine IBF members, expands the grid. They’ll follow my resonance sweep into the next neighborhood and start marking houses there. Day by day, block by block.”

The room absorbed it.

Morales nodded slowly. “It’s faster.”

Blyth added, “And keeps RJ from sitting in the middle of every sweep for ten hours straight.”

Neal closed her notebook.

“And while the IBF clears the suburbs,” she said, “RJ and the strike team will move to the NLC zone on 25th.”

Silence fell.

Everyone knew what that meant.

Wolf exhaled. “The bottleneck.”

Brown’s jaw tightened. “Three thousand of them.”

I didn’t sugarcoat it.

“They’re starting to break loose from the choke point,” I said. “Small clusters now. Bigger ones soon. We’re going to thin them out before they hit the east neighborhoods or circle toward NLC.”

No one flinched. They’d known this was coming.

Neal stood.

“Get some sleep,” she said. “Tomorrow we start the grid. And the clearing.”

Before lights-out, Neal keyed the radio one last time.

“IBF, CWP will meet you at Station 4 in the morning. We’ve got a new operational plan to go over before grid expansion begins.”

“Copy that,” their captain answered. “We’ll be ready.”

The briefing dissolved into quiet footsteps and equipment checks. Hawk and Hike stored poles by the wall. Burns secured the paint supply. Blyth shut the blinds. One by one, people drifted to assigned rooms inside the church.

The harness stayed on until the last light was out.

And for the first time that day, the spider slept.

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ANONYMOUS FIELD LOG — ENTRY A
CLASSIFIED — PROJECT ECHO CLEARANCE REQUIRED:

CWP cleared Western Grocery interior in full block progression. No Phase III contact detected during aisle sweep; resonance field stable across all sectors. Civilian integration sustained without breach during controlled shopping operations. Alliance outpost agreement executed; IBF returned to Station 4 with ten-pallet supply allocation. Subsequent grid action on Tammy Street completed: thirty-three structures assessed, twenty-five cleared for occupancy, eight condemned. Spider-formation harness proved fully effective in both residential sweep and clustered contact engagement along 25th Street. Total of twenty-two Phase III neutralized with zero operator compromise. Transition plan initiated for future clears: Anchor to conduct resonance-only perimeter passes; IBF Teams One and Two assume interior operations. CWP preparing for shift of strike element toward 36th Street zone.

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ANONYMOUS FIELD LOG — ENTRY B
CLASSIFIED — PROJECT ECHO CLEARANCE REQUIRED:

NLC monitored open-band traffic during Western Grocery operations. Confirmed safe civilian ingress for resource acquisition and maintained perimeter stabilization through coordinated dispatch of two transport units. Receipt of fifteen-pallet allocation completed without incident; supply integration underway. Detected slow-drift Phase III cluster advancing up 25th Street; relayed position and movement to CWP Strike Unit, resulting in immediate redeployment and successful neutralization. Continuous tracking shows intermittent dispersal from main bottleneck mass inevitable; risk level elevated for eastern approach corridors. NLC preparing for joint-zone operations as CWP strike team shifts toward 36th Street interception. Facility remains locked, supplied, and within safe resonance parameters pending further field updates.