Eyes Always Watching

Willa, a prized sow, is the apple of her owner's eye. Tomorrow she hopes to win another first-place ribbon after displaying her showstopping splendor at the county fair. A loud thud awakens her from her beauty sleep. An object dropped through the barn's rooftop and landed next to her. Its fluorescent appearance and slimy texture captivate her attention. Its fragrant mixture of truffles, apples, sweet cream, and tasty spent vegetables intoxicate her soft rosy snout. The aroma is both delicious and otherworldly. She waffles before ravishing it relentlessly, only to find the tastiness grows larger and larger. She chokes, and her body falls. She trembles and writhes with pain dying within minutes of making an impulsive decision.

Willa's body sits motionless. Thirty minutes later, her belly undulates. Within seconds, her mouth spews ten thousand tiny radioactive spiders. They devour the rundown old barn tearing away the wood and the hay, the sand, and the dirt. Their eight legs bore little holes into its interior. Once free, they hide in the mountainside preying upon human subjects.

"What in the God-Dammn hell? Elaine, listen to this!"

A 78-year-old Farmer Ted sits on his porch, drinks hooch, and stargazes. He stands to confirm an unfamiliar sound before looking in both directions. He scratches his head, questioning his reality.

A spaceship hovers along the rough mountainous outlines of a Tennessee nightscape. It targets a dilapidated barn some twenty miles deep within the Appalachian Trail. The ship lingers overhead after it dropped a foreign object through the old barn's roof. After completing its mission, it vanishes into the night, leaving only a streak of color smeared across a starry sky.

"There it is, Elaine. Look, see THAT? What in the Sam hell is THAT?"

***

A lean 35-year-old Farmer Ben sits at his table, scarfing a bowl of steel-cut oats with almond milk. A PETA poster displays a sweet piglet smiling inside his owner's arms. "I'm not bacon. I'm a living being just like you," it captions tacked above his breakfast table. He looks at a flyer advertising the $60,000 jackpot today at the Unicoi County Fair. He won the money pot in 2048, and his lofty hopes two years later remain inflated.

At 5 am, the sun peeks above the horizon line. Farmer Ben grabs his hat and heads towards the barn. He notices several large holes on its exterior while carrying buckets full of oats, sweet cream, and apples for his animals.

"Damn rats!"

Inside, wooden planks lay awry, several pens appear broken, and a white sticky filament covers most visible surfaces. Ben dumps Willa's bucket inside her enclosure.

"Willa!"

Nothing.

"Willa, time to eat."

Nothing.

"Come here, sweetheart."

Silence.

"Willa?" he approaches the shadowy side of her pen.

No signs of life.

Kneeling beside his beloved pet, she sits motionless. His face whitens, and his pulse quickens. He feels for a heartbeat, her breath, anything. Breathing air into her body amounts to nothing. She sits lifeless.

"Whyyyyyyyyyyyyyyyyyyyyyyyy?" looking upwards, crying angrily at the universe.

He will miss her piggy kisses, remembering her wet snout touching his calf. He checks her mouth to see if she choked on a foreign object. Nothing. A trace of fluorescent green goo near her snout silences his cries. Upon closer inspection, he takes a bit of slime on his finger, examines and smells it, then tastes it. A spider crawls from her mouth, jumps onto the hay mound, and slinks up onto his neck. It bites.

"F@ck! What the hell?" smacking his neck.

Not sure of the bite, he moves the hay around, looking for the mangled spider. He considers calling his vet – only he grows dizzy, everything begins to spin. The other pigs watch from the sidelines. He tumbles onto the dirt floor, passing out for hours.

***

Spiders raid the townspeople of Erwin. Bites, bites everywhere – people slap their arms, legs, and necks. Within hours, the infestation overtakes the entire town. Growing drowsy, they slumber for fifteen hours. Upon awakening, a milky white covering glazes their eyes. They stand hypnotized and chant.

"Master," their chanting turns into a low-grade hum.

***

Farmer Ben rouses and stands to find himself renewed. His body feels transformed: fully formed muscles filling out his shirt, adrenaline soaring through his body, testosterone pumping through his angry veins. He grabs haybale after haybale and tosses them onto the floor. He's expecting company soon.

***

Men, women, and children head to Farmer Ben's old barn. They follow, leaving their homes, stores, and churches. One by one, later two by two, they all assemble. Upon arriving, they fill every space, even the second-floor landings. Their glazed eyes transfix on their brawny leader. Ben's conceit grows as he witnesses the numbers rise.

"Men and women, boys and girls, I am Farmer Ben, your leader. You are mine, and this is your church. We are the Temple of Nebula or NEB for short. Moving forward, everyone will report to me. Do you understand? To me – I am your leader, your father, your prophet. I am the Chosen One," announcing to his followers.

"Yes," in unison.

Farmer Ben watches his worker bees flutter around his property. Men hike to the nearby forest to chop wood to begin building a new, more enormous barn. Women work in the garden, planting seeds for an autumn harvest. Children collect firewood for later in the night. Inside his house, he rips his poster down and begins making an altar. He pens the Word According to NEB, a handwritten rule book listing all of the tenets of the Temple of Nebula.

At sundown, all of NEB's devotees pile inside the overpacked barn. Ben lays in bed while his eyes soften and his body tires. He hums a delicate tone while he falls deep asleep. Several remaining spiders – alert to his song – crawl back to his house. One enters his mouth, and green goo oozes from his clenched teeth, trickling down his throat. He swallows once he repositions his body, unaware of his intruder. The other spiders hide in a nearby vase. The green goo forms a fluorescent light that shines from Ben's mouth and the top of his head. It alerts the Others and the Mothership.

***

"Excellent, our attack is surely working," an alien communicates to his Commander by telepathy.

The Commander nods in agreement and forms a tight smile.

***

Ben wakens his crew by banging a large metal pot with a wooden spoon. It's 4:30 am, and the sun hasn't risen.

"Good morning all, there's lots of work to do. Fill the buckets located in the shed with apples from my orchard. Once you have each picked 100 apples, you can eat apple #101. There are only fifty trees. You'll need to prove who is worthy of your Leader's food.

Afterward, you will feed the animals, clean their pens, wash them, and refill their water troughs. The cows and horses also need to graze in their pastures. If I see any work below my standards, you will all repeat the chores from the beginning. My eyes are always on you."

At 11 am, Ben begins his scripture outdoors on a grassy pasture. While he eyes the ladies sitting in the sunshine, he finds himself scowling at the men. Some continue to grow uncomfortable.

"You will need to relinquish all money, personal documents, and property to your Leader. The only way the Temple of NEB can grow is with constant continued commitment. Anything less is unacceptable,” he commands.

So, with complete submission, they sign over their former lives to the Almighty Ben.

Victor, a nearby farmer, is another spider bite victim. He brushed off the arachnid and sustained a minor bite. His eyes are browner and less milky. His wife Bess, however, was bitten in several places. Her eyes are entirely glazed, so Victor decided that day to follow her to the barn.

"Bess, this is not right! We don't know this man. He wants to take all of our money, our lifetime possessions, and our hard-earned property. He wants to make us eternal followers of the Temple. I don't agree with any of this news," whispers Victor.

"Baby, listen to him. I know he's onto something. He's got such magnetism, and we need a spiritual community. I need this, and I like him. Now, pray with me, will you?" Bess gazes back at her husband before smiling at Ben.

Ben overhears two people bicker in the crowd. He summons everyone's attention.

"Who dares speak? I am the Chosen One. You! You there, the lady in the third row, come here now. Let me pray for you. I want to show mercy on you and that one next to you – where are my guards?" He murmurs instructions to three men then looks over at the third row. He motions to Bess to join him upfront. Grabbing her hands, he looks into her eyes with his penetrating gaze. He smiles, then embraces her curves inside his suffocating grip.

Upon locating Victor, three men remove him. They drag him outback past Master Ben's house deep inside the forest. Taking turns, they throw punches. Forty minutes later, he has two swollen eyes, a bloody nose, busted teeth, and three cracked ribs. "This is a warning from Master Ben. Next time, you won't live your last days here on Earth. Understand? We are watching you," the big one threatens.

At bedtime, men and women pile inside the barn. Bess lays on the cold dirt, spooning Victor. Master Ben opens the door, trying not to make noise. Finding Bess, he motions to her. Victor clenches his body upon witnessing his wife follow Ben. Now that Bess is his girl, Ben smiles victoriously at Victor. Each night Master Ben's sweet love fills Bess with godly delight. She becomes His right-hand Mary and sometimes shares His bed with other devotees.

Master Ben intimidates males. Eyes fixed on them. He steals their livelihoods: the mothers of their children, their teenage daughters, their sisters, their wives, and girlfriends. They grit their teeth, choosing not to confront Him, else suffer the consequences. His controlling behavior deliberately emasculates them of their dignity. If challenged, Master Ben assures to have them erased.

Fifteen months pass, three men eventually oppose Master Ben's overbearing control. His idea to infiltrate Erwin and convert the remaining townspeople is moot. Unaware the spiders had already succeeded months ago, the three join together in secrecy. They hatch a plan and decide to follow it the next day.

All alone, Master Ben exits his house and walks towards the pasture for His 11 am sermon. The three take him out with shovels. They maim him, smash his head, and beat him to a bloody pulp. They place him in a wheelbarrow and toss him in a nearby lake behind his house. The congregation grows concerned, unaware that Master Ben is dead. Ten hours later, their attempts to locate him remain futile.

That night, the three men sleep inside the comfy house. Three spiders crawl into their mouths, squishing between their teeth, releasing a glowing green goo. A fluorescent light shines from their mouths and the top of their heads, signaling the Mothership.

***

The Commander observes Erwin from his ship. Detecting three lights below, his powerful reach of control is widening. His long-term estimate for the congregation to grow city by city is on schedule. By this time next year, he expects world domination in every location known to (hu)man. His evil brows furrow, and his widening mouth smiles – moments later, all forms of life detect his wickedly loud laughter across the Milky Way and beyond.

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