His words were cut short by a wet cracking sound as Dwayne drove the baton down onto the man’s head, followed by a faint hiss as his fractured skull began to separate. From behind me came another wet chorus of noises and I glanced back to see Richie vomiting.

“Oh, shit…” Dwayne muttered and I turned forward just in time to watch as the man snapped the chain on the handcuffs. He suddenly sat up and wrapped his arms around Dwayne, forcing him to the ground and pinning him there by kneeling on Dwayne’s shoulders.

At first, the weirdest part was that the man’s eyes were closed during all of this but a strange noise (like a newborn chicken trying to peck its way out of an egg) was also underscoring everything now. Finally, I spotted the source of the noise and by comparison, the whole “closed eyes” thing seemed downright charming.

Something was struggling to push its way out through the side of the man’s skull. I wanted nothing less than to find out what this something was and yet I couldn’t tear my eyes away from the man’s now-pulsating head wound, even as Dwayne began to scream. So did someone else and I thought it was Richie, but he was still throwing up.

That’s when I realized it was me. There was one last wet crack from the man’s protesting skull and then what vaguely resembled the leg of a giant tarantula suddenly protruded from the side of his head.

Once it had extended out to about three feet, the front of the leg’s carapace folded back to reveal a long vaguely translucent needlelike appendage that was then jabbed into Dwayne’s ear and his horrified screams turned to moans of agony.

Thank god he turned out to be a racist and possible murderer because that was the point where I finally ditched Dwayne. Now, I’ve never been the most graceful guy, but there are certain physical activities that I’ve always been naturally good at, especially when I was still young and nimble. For example, climbing…

I snatched up the milk-crate I had been sitting on and quickly propped it against the retention wall, using the additional eight inches of support to increase my vertical range just enough that I was able to jump up and grab onto the lower edge of the bridge.