He attempted to still his racing heartbeat, taking in a deep breath to calm his nerves. Another deep breath—a glance around the bumper—a glance behind him—another deep breath.

Nothing.

His heart raced. The sound came closer. He spun around and removed his .45 from his holster, laying it down silently on the concrete. Then he grabbed the rifle slung across his back and placed it on the ground, too. Slowly, he dropped to his stomach and crawled under the belly of a pickup truck, pulling his weapons under with him.

Scratch, scrape, scratch, scrape. The sound was almost on top of him now, coming from all directions. But all he could see was the blacktop in front of the vehicle’s tires. He waited, weapons in both hands, trying to slow his breathing.

A pair of spiderlike legs scampered past the front of the pickup, and then another. Seconds later, four more sets of legs had raced by. They appeared to be connected to the same body.

Overton froze. This was no worm—this was something else. He considered crawling out for a better look and hesitated. Images of human-sized spiders popped into his mind, but he shook them away, instead recalling what his drill sergeant had told him.

“In recon you never give away your position when you don’t know what you’re dealing with. You sit, lie, kneel, or hang upside down for as long as it takes to identify the enemy and devise a plan to neutralize it.”

The man had been annoying, and brutally violent with his class in Basic, but Overton had never forgotten what he’d learned from him.

Scratch, scrape, scratch, scrape.

The sound brought his mind back to the blacktop, his eyes darting back and forth. Another set of legs flashed by the truck, and then another. He held his breath as several more zipped past the truck, until finally one stopped. With a blink Overton switched off his night vision and saw them with his own eyes for the first time.

They were a luminous blue, with translucent skin that revealed tiny blue veins crawling up the spiderlike legs. They were oddly jointed, the bend much higher than on any spider he’d seen. Small spikes protruded where a knee should have been. Fuzz lined the bone-thin exterior. There was no foot or paw. Instead there was a black claw the length of his combat knife—the same claw that was making the scratching sounds.

He watched in shock, realizing the high joints on their legs were what allowed them to move so fast. Emotions raced through his mind as he watched them. There was awe and curiosity, but there was also the unfamiliar feeling of fear. There was no way to describe what he was witnessing. Three days ago he would have laughed at anyone who told him they had seen something like this.