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would do under the circumstances: I turned and ran like hell. But I had no idea where to go. I was caught in a maze of wooden crates. My only thought was to weave my way through and find the door out of that musty old tomb of a warehouse. The crates were stacked up all over the place, some towering almost tothe forty-foot-high ceiling. Whatever they were storing in there, there was a lot of it. I didn’t turn around to see if the spiders were following. I didn’t need to. I could hear them. Thousands of little spider claws clattered against the cement floor as they scrambled to get me. They all gave off this odd high-pitched squeak that sounded like a juiced-up war cry. A single one of these would sound creepy. Multiplied by many thousands made the hair go up on the back of my neck. They were fast, too. It was hard to outrun them. Worse, I couldn’t break into a full-on sprint because the aisles were so narrow and windy. Every so often I’d hit an intersection and make a quick decision which way to go. Left, right, left, left. I had no idea where I was going, but it didn’t matter so long as it was away from that attacking army of bugs.
    I didn’t know how long I could stay ahead of them. My fear was that I’d hit a dead end and be trapped. Quigs took different forms on each territory, but the vicious killing machines that Saint Dane created to guard the flumes all had one thing in common: They were bloodthirsty. Remember the quig-bears on Denduron? The smell of blood made them eat their own. The quig-sharks on Cloral nearly tore themselves apart to get under the rock overhang where Uncle Press and I were hiding in fear. At least I was hiding in fear. Uncle Press was pretty cool about the whole thing, if I remember. But whatever. Bottom line was, here on Quillan I didn’t want to get trapped in a dead end with these yellow-eyed fiends.
    I hoped that if I got far enough away from the gate, the quigs would lose interest. A quick look over my shoulder told me I was wrong. If anything, there were more of them rolling toward me like a dark, demonic wave. I looked around to get my bearings and realized I was in the middle of a sea of crates, with no exit to be seen. Anywhere. I was getting tired, fast,and I was no closer to escape than when I started. But stopping wasn’t an option.
    I made one turn and pulled up short when I saw that up ahead of me a swarm of spiders had rounded the corner and were charging right for me. These weren’t mindless bugs; the little creeps were using tactics! I saw more proof of that when I realized that they were being led by a single spider. At least I thought it was in the lead. It’s not like it was carrying a big flag and shouting “Charge!” or anything. But it was obviously bigger than the rest. It had more red in it, and its yellow eyes were bigger too. The multitude fanned out behind it as if this big fatty were the point of an arrow. This was no cute group of insects from some animated Pixar movie where the boss bug shouted out clever wisecracks. No, when this bad boy opened its mouth, it would be to rip into flesh. My flesh.
    I wheeled to run the other way, but froze when I saw that the rest of the sea of spiders was behind me. They had split up and circled me. Smart bugs. Good for them. Bad for me. I was trapped. The only way I could go was up. I was next to a stack of wooden crates that towered a few feet over my head. I leaped straight up, grabbed the top of the crate, and pulled myself up. It’s amazing what adrenaline will do. In seconds I was throwing my leg up over the top and looking back down to see the two groups of spiders converge. I was safely out of harm’s way . . .
    For about ten seconds. The two groups of bugs joined together and, without missing a beat, began climbing up the side of the wooden crate toward me, with the not-so-itsy-bitsy spider in the lead. I quickly rolled onto my feet and ran. I was on a