Along, She Came...

I wrote this to celebrate the first hundred likes of my facebook page. You all enjoy. I wrote this on the morning 1/21/2015, from 2am to 8am. Might be a little rough, but the idea is there...and is a little creepy. Enjoy! -CM 

 

  The spider stood motionless on the old and worn ground of the cave she had called home for most of her life. It was peaceful and safe until the giants found her and her eggs in the corner of the darkest, best concealed place she could find. The fear the spider felt at the moment of first contact and the anguish that she felt from what came after seemed to vibrate through the rough hairs of her legs like an invisible reminder.

  Green, yellow, and red dots of light blinked or hummed steadily in the darkness, giving the spider little illumination for it's eight orb-like eyes to use. A dim light, by far the brightest in the cave and the most plentiful, sat atop a large, soft-looking plateau. She had watched the giants for months. The plateau, the spider knew, was where they rested.

 

  She crawled.

 

  Slowly, the spider felt her way along the floor. She stopped as her two front legs came into contact with something dangling from some unseen point above. She paused for a long moment, taking time to sense the object. She reached out and allowed her pedipalps to drag along the surface, smelling it, tasting it. It was alive. One of the giants and one of it's four long limbs.

 

  She hesitated, but soon pulled her entire body onto the flesh of the giant's hand. She could smell the remains of her home and could even feel small strands of her own web and a trace of her eggs on the creature's skin. It wasn't fear that made the spider extend her fangs and it wasn't self-preservation that made her sink them into the giant's flesh. There is no word in it's language for vengeance, but vengeance is what she felt as far as spiders can feel.

 

  Her fangs had been in the flesh for no longer than a second – not enough time to inject her poison – when the giant's hand lifted suddenly, bringing the spider with it. The air roared as something large and slow cut through the darkness. Her body hair shook in warning and, in a flash, the spider moved as the sleeping giant's other hand came crashing down on the spot where she had just stood. The spider ran as fast as her eight legs could and stopped on a bony nub where the giant's arm joined it's main body, a foot or so away.

  The giants had destroyed her home and unborn children and now had tried to kill her twice. The spider crawled slowly across the bony flesh of the giant and stopped when it's forelegs touched hair. Huge and long, the giant's hair was twisted and knotted, nest-like and inviting. The spider traipsed across the jumble until it stopped at an obstacle, a bowl-like protuberance that jutted out from the mess of hair. The spider placed one leg on the rim and pulled itself up. The inside was smooth with soft ridges that led down to a dark hole in it's center. She descended and wiggled herself into her tight, warm, new home and rested.

 

* * * * *

 

  Greg woke to the sounds of brewing coffee and the sizzling of eggs in the kitchen of the loft apartment. He sat up and immediately his head began to pound. He leaned against the headboard and scratched his hand. It itched like crazy.

 

“Sam?”, Greg called.

 

“Morning, babe!”, Sam called from the kitchen. “Want some coffee?”

 

“Yes, please, and some ibuprofen.”

 

  Sam walked out from behind the dividing wall a moment later, a cup of coffee in one hand and a bottle of medicine in the other. When Greg reached for them, Sam gasped. “Babe, your hand.”

 

  Greg looked down at the large, reddish-pink lump on his right hand. “Holy shit.”, he said as he held his throbbing and swollen hand up to get a clearer look. His vision was blurry and he attempted to blink the sleep from his eyes. When he raised his other hand to aid the process, a sharp pain tore though the side of his face.

  Sam jumped and dropped the coffee and pills as Greg yelled in pain. She said, “What's wrong, honey? You okay?” Greg tried to shake his head but another jolt of pain shocked him into immobility. He tried to say “No. No, I need help” but it came again and again; a continuous, digging pain.

  Sam screamed as blood began to flow freely from inside of Greg's ear. If he could've, he might have clawed his ear from his head in the desperate attempt to stop whatever it was that was causing the pain. But, he couldn't move. The spider's venom saw to that. Sam blacked out from the lack of breathing and crashed on to the old and worn carpet.

 

  Greg was left in silence except for two things: The first was the smoke detector sounding as the eggs in the kitchen began to burn; the second was the loud, muffled movement of the spider as she began to chew her way through Greg's ear drum.