Along Came the Spider

The cabin in the woods had been abandoned for years, but one night, a candle burned in the window, the first line said. Scoffing, not bothering to read further, Sean returned the bruised and battered keep case to the shelf. He dusted his hand free of the cobweb as he browsed the other shelves before settling on his purchases. What felt like hours later, exhausted, Sean collapsed on his threadbare lumpy couch and promptly fell asleep.

Sean slammed upright after what sounded like a gunshot in the otherwise dead one-bedroom apartment. On the floor shrouded in the shadows left behind by the setting sun, an object stood slowly spinning on its axis. Tripping and falling over the many items strewn about the living room floor, he reached out to flick the light switch.

Rapidly blinking away black spots, he zeroed in on what he saw as the keep case, laying still and flat. A keep case he was sure was spinning like a top a moment ago and one he didn’t remember purchasing. Scouring his receipts, praying he hadn’t inadvertently stolen the thing. Sean ran his fingers through his curly hair, tugging at the strands. How the hell am I going to convince the store it was an accident?

Dodging items while biting his nails, “Shit!” Pausing, he said, “Tomorrow…tomorrow, I’ll take it back.”

Decision made, Sean unpacked the other items and left the keep case on the central table. He’d grab it on his way out the door in the morning.

—

Already late for work, Sean remembered, at the last second, to snatch the case on his mad dash out of the apartment. After completing a shift at the local diner, he pulled into an empty parking space at the store. Straining his back to look in the backseat, under the seats, the impossibly tight space between the seats and middle console, but no keep case. Exhaling heavily with no choice, he headed home.

As water droplets decorated his bare chest and a towel hung low on his hips, Sean turned on the game console. After a long week, he can finally check out his latest purchases. He had just placed his snacks when he froze mid-reach, eyes wide, for the VR headset. Chest pumping, a cold sweat on his brow, and uncoordinated, Sean knew he had turned his car inside out and confirmed the keep case wasn’t where he’d left it this morning.

Positive he had thrown the thing on his passenger seat, but there it was, sitting prim and proper on his desk. He wanted nothing to do with the keep case. He swiped then launched it like a frisbee as far out the window as possible. Only to be taken aback a moment later when he sees it resting there.

Maybe if I play the dang thing, I’ll be able to get rid of it, he convinced himself. Like a claxon, the voice blaring continuously in the back of his mind urged him not to indulge his whim. Instinctively, Sean knew it was a bad idea, but what other option did he have? Ignoring his internal warning, vibrating horribly, he loaded the game. The screen proceeded to flash in bold red lettering.

SEANSEANSEANSEANSEANSEANSEANSEANSEANSEANSEANSEANSEANSEANSEANSEANSEANSEANSEANSEANSEANSEANSE

With bloodless and trembling lips, “No way…no way. No way this shit is real. It's impossible to know that. Fuck!” Wiping slick hands on his towel, he pushed through the panic to jam on the headset.

---

Instantaneously and seamlessly, he melded into the game; however, it didn’t appear Sean had left his room. Uneasy, all the items were in their places, but cleaner, neater, and hardly his room at the same time. Through the window, again, the same but not. Too clean, too quiet, too…perfect.

Through numb lips, “What the-?”

He ambled towards the front door; like a deer caught in headlights, his muscles locked suddenly like a statue frozen in time.

Scritch Scritch Scritch

Daring to move again, he made it only a few steps before it came again.

Scritch Scritch Scritch

Sean felt a frog was lodged in his throat, swallowing the scream, locking it behind his ribcage lest he attracted the attention of whatever it was. Finally, in a white-knuckled grip, he stepped into a darkened landscape. No moon to provide adequate illumination, an oppressive stillness hung like a boulder around his shoulders, no crickets sang, and no animals scurried in the underbrush. The only light found was a candle burning in the window of what he realized was a cabin.

On an exhale of air, “To hell with this,” he said.

While facing the dead woods, he blindly grasped for the door frame.

Scritch Scritch Scritch

Sean whirled around, slowly eyes traveled upward, perched on the roof was a spider. It dwarfed the cabin in size, obscured in shadow, emitting its warning again.

Scritch Scritch Scritch

In his room, Sean felt his loss of control, a warm fluid trickling down his legs. Ineffectually he tried prying the headset off his head.

The Arachnida shifted a fraction of an inch closer. That was all the incentive Sean needed. Chest pumping like bellows, stomach-churning, and bile pooling in his mouth, Sean sprinted into the woods. After running at neck-breaking speeds and skidding around corners left and right, the cabin came into view, but from a different angle. The spider faced him yet again. Again and again, the same outcome. And that ever-persistent, scritch, scritch, scritch.

When it seemed he would be trapped forever in the maze-like woods, Sean sees stairs in the distance. Hope flared brightly, and adrenaline flooded his system. As he ascended the stairs like paint melting, his home materialized. The bedroom door was in reach; a smile turned into a grimace. Like a puppet manipulated by a puppeteer, Sean inevitably came face to face with the cabin once more. In the glow of the candle, he saw the glimmer of silk spider strands.

Round and round, he felt the bristle-like hairs scrape his skin like sandpaper, lovingly encased in webbing until only his face remained. Helpless, he watched as black 12-inch long fangs tipped with pearlescent teardrops shredded the silk coffin administering its deadly dose.

A blood-curdling scream, only the dying can manage, issued from overtaxed lungs.

---

Red and blue lights strobed, sirens wailed in the distance, and yellow tape cordoned off the entrance. The police slowly crept towards the bedroom door; an eerie chill permeated the air, their every breath like puffs of smoke. Lying on the bed nude, face-up, a young man partially covered. On closer inspection, the body was ice-cold, his face distorted by a gaping maw, a network of veins pitch-black branching from milk-white eyes traversing the entirety of the body. Later, they discovered that the organs were liquified. No evidence, but for a few strands of spider webbing.

The cabin in the woods had been abandoned for years, but a candle burned in the window one night. A beacon set out by the owner to lure unsuspecting souls to the creature at the center of the woods. You can never be rid of it; always there no matter where you turn, lurking in the shadows. If you can manage to evade the tangled web throughout to gain your freedom, then all will be well, traveler or be ensnared fated to be another casualty by venom flowing through your veins.