Spider Mother

It was a hike that we would never forget, though we wished we could.

My girlfriend and I were hiking in a familiar spot, just like we had done a thousand times before. This hike was going to be different, though. We would hike three miles in and camp for the night, wake up at five am, hike up to Helens Overlook, about ten minutes from our camping spot, where we would watch the sunrise. While she watched, I would take a knee and pull out a ring I had bought weeks ago, asking her to marry me.

It was all so meticulously planned, but I hadn’t taken something into account, something no one could have planned for.

We parked in the lot at the base of the trail. I had hiked this trail and camped in these woods for years, and it seemed like a great place to bring my girlfriend after we got together. We had been together for the last three years, but it had been about eight months since we’d last been up here. We had meant to go at the start of spring, the changing seasons being our favorite time to be outdoors, but life had made it difficult and we were excited to get back up here after a long hiatus.

We grabbed our packs and headed into the woods, following the trail that would take us to the spot where we meant to camp.

Now, technically, the park service frowns on people camping near the state trails. That being said, the spot where we meant to camp was off the trail and into the woods a bit. A ranger could still wander up and tell us to leave, but I sort of doubted it. I had only been asked to leave once the whole time I had been camping here, and that was on an occasion when my brother and I had built our fire too high. We were smarter now, and we hadn't been discovered since then.

"Sure is pretty," my girlfriend said, adjusting the straps on her pack as she walked.

"Yeah," I agreed, looking at her more than anything. I slid my fingers over the velvety top of the ring box as we walked. I couldn't wait to give it to her, to see her surprise as I hit one knee and see her tearful delight as she accepted. It never crossed my mind that she wouldn't. We would get married in the spring next year and come out here camping for our honeymoon as well so we could visit the spot again.

Sometimes, however, God loves to laugh at our plans.

It started with the spiders.

More specifically, it started with me running face-first into a spider web. It had been hung across the trail, and the little builder fled as I slapped at the remains that clung to my face. I checked myself to make sure it hadn't fallen onto me, and when I was certain it was gone, I shivered and we set off again. From there, my girlfriend and I found ourselves dodging webs pretty often. They were just little spiders for the most part, but as they clustered together, the webs became more annoying. My girlfriend shrieked as one clung to her hair, and as I helped her check for stowaways, I couldn't help but feel crawly. I had seen spiders in the woods before, they lived here too, but never like this. I had expected that some of the late-season snows would have gotten them, but here they were despite it all.

We followed the trail, dodging spiders and looking for landmarks until my girlfriend finally said she had to pee.

"I'm just going to walk over this way. Keep an eye out for other hikers?"

I told her I would and she stepped off into the woods to do her business.

When she screamed a few minutes later, I ran into the woods expecting to find a bear or a coyote or something.

Instead, I found my girlfriend leaning against a tree, shaking as she pointed to something strange hanging from a tree.

It looked like a cacoon, but it was practically throbbing with spiders. I had once seen a wasp nest hanging in the woods, and that was what this looked like more than anything. It was hanging from a nearby tree from thick strands of silk, but I could see something rougher wrapped around the limb too. The spiders were scuttling all over it and it was a little sickening to watch.

I'm incapable of doing it justice, but there were more spiders on this cocoon or egg sac or whatever it was than I had ever seen. They had spun webs all over trees and the canopy, and they just kept spinning as they attempted to encase the little clearing in silk. This was their sanctuary, and they meant to keep it safe from people like us.

"What the hell is it?" My girlfriend whispered, "What in the hell is that thing?"

I didn't know, and I told her as much.

As little as I wanted to get closer to it, I couldn't help but sneak towards it as my curiosity cried out for a better look. The closer I got, the less it looked like a wasp nest, and the more it looked like cotton candy. I know, I know what that sounds like, but it was almost translucent and as I stared, I could see something inside it. It was nondistinct, like something seen through a dirty window, but there was definitely something inside that webby bundle. I had to stop myself from sticking my hand out to touch it, and that was when I saw something else that drew my attention.

I would have completely missed it if I hadn't gotten so close, but now I could see the corner of something purple. It was underneath the spider cocoon, and a few more months would have seen the bundle get big enough to cover it too as it came to the ground. Something translucent was over it, and I looked at the bottom of the mass as I reached out a shaky hand to grab for the thing.

"What are you doing?" my girlfriend asked breathily, but I ignored her.

My hand came shakily into contact with the thing and it was a plastic ziplock bag.

As I lifted it up, however, the back of my hand brushed something on the bottom of the cocoon.

I grimaced as something wet slid down my hand, and as I saw something black and stiff fall to the leaves, I gasped and backpedaled toward my girlfriend.

As the sun shone behind the thing, I finally got a good look at what lay inside and my suspicion was confirmed.

"We have to go," I said, helping her up, "we have to call the Ranger service right now."

"What is it?" she asked, but I didn't want to tell her until I was sure.

We went back to the car and called the rangers, and in the meantime, I looked in the bag I had been clutching the whole way down the trail. It was a purple notebook, the kind you could get at Dollar General for a couple bucks, and inside was someone's journal. Her name must have been Lisa because she signed all her entries with it. The more I read, the more I came to understand that this was a journal she was keeping in a mental health facility after a suicide attempt. She talked about the medication they had her on, about the groups she attended, about the phone calls with her parents she had, and how it all helped her see that life had meaning and that she shouldn't squander it. She had left the group home with a new lease on life, but that lease had soon run out.

The last entry was made about four months ago, about a week before one of the worst spring storms in decades.

"I just can't take it. Charles is gone. He says he can't handle my "roller coaster emotions" and he took Sophie to stay with his parents for a while. My parents are trying to be supportive, but I can see what a burden I have become to them, my husband, and my daughter. So, I've decided to leave. I'm going to hike the trails that gave joy, and when I find a spot that I'm not likely to be found, I'll end it. If anyone finds this, my name was Lisa Turner."

I closed it as a jeep pulled into the parking lot and put it back in the bag. The Rangers were a couple of younger guys, college-age and still green. They told us to lead the way and we took them up to see what we had found. They laughed as we tried to explain to them what we had found, joking that it was probably a really big wasp nest.

They shut up when we got to the spot and they saw it for themselves.

They called in a few other people, telling us to stay close just in case. They brought a fogger and some thick suits for dealing with pests. As the spiders either fled or fell from their perch, one of the rangers brought a ladder and started inspecting the web mass. He was an older guy and looked like he'd been doing this since pioneer times. He shook his head and asked for the limb cutters.

One of the younger guys scoffed, "There's no way you can cut that limb with those, Hawk."

"Don't need to," said the older ranger I supposed was Hawk.

He told everyone to stand back and snipped something at the top. The whole thing came down, and when it burst, I saw what I had feared was inside. There was a woman in the cocoon, her body bloated and rotten-looking. She was covered in moving tumors that had burst and began spilling small spiders out of her. She had a rope around her neck, the purple marks still visible on the bloated skin. Her face looked peaceful despite the bulges and tumors where spiders had used her as an incubator.

The police were called, and I handed them the journal and told them how we had found the body.

They thanked us, the Rangers telling us they would put our names in for an accommodation, but it was the old guy I was waiting for. He had looked like he wanted to talk to us since he'd cut that body down, and when he leaned in close so the others couldn't hear, I knew he meant to impart some wisdom.

"These boys haven't seen this kind of thing before, but it's not my first time. I found a hiker two years into my job that had been used as a nest by ground wasps. I've found corpses savaged by bears, bones built into beaver dams, and hikers skewered on the new horns of sporting bucks. Nature is beautiful, but it's unforgiving. You'll eventually forget what you saw here but never forget the lesson. Nature will take you if it can. It will take you, reshape you, and use you for whatever it needs. Be careful when you're in the woods, and always be courteous of the natural order."

My girlfriend and I hiked back to the car in somber silence, neither of us having much to say.

We didn't camp that weekend, but I did propose about three weeks later. I did it at our favorite restaurant, an Italian place in town where we'd had our first date, and she agreed with the expected amount of tears and squeals. I guess that makes her my Fiance now, and I'm glad to have her by my side.

I've tried to forget what I saw in the woods that day, but I'm always mindful of my place when I'm in nature.

Who's to say who might find me if I forget it?