A Creepy-crawly Tale for Halloween

It is that time of year where the air gets crisp, the leaves change colors and the days get shorter. With this comes the fun holiday, Halloween. To help celebrate this year, I have written a tale to make your skin crawl. It isn't a typical ghost or monster story but it will be enough to make you shudder in the sweet agony of a good scary story. Turn the lights down low, curl up with a blanket and enjoy. Happy Halloween!

    The white foamy water slopped around the sink as I wiped the dishcloth across the dirty plate. I rinsed the suds off of it then set it in drying rack next to the sink. I reached over to my left to grab another dirty plate and noticed a fuzzy piece of lint floating next to the counter. It hung, suspended in air, at the corner of where the counter meets the wall, next to a window. As I went to grab a glass, I looked at the lint again and it had gained a friend; there were two pieces floating there. I set the glass down, peering at the two lint blobs. They were moving but only ever so slightly toward the window, as if riding a whisper of a breeze. The pieces of lint looked like they were spinning or had some sort of motion to them. Most lint is a grayish color but this stuff was a greasy yellow like crusted mustard. I leaned it to see they weren’t floating. They were suspended on a near microscopic thread of webbing. So these lint balls hand landed on a cobweb.  I leaned back and a third piece of lint had joined the first two. I knelt down and got face level with the yellow, spinning blobs as they edged its way closer to the window.

    The lint wasn't really spinning. It was using its legs to creep its way across the silver thread of webbing. My eyes shot wide open as I realized my face was less than an inch away from three tiny spiders! I whipped my head back from the spiders so hard I landed on my butt. I barked an “Oh shit!” as I stood up. Six! No, ten! No, twenty spiders were crawling around on lines of webbing in the corner. I looked over at the blinds because they had to be coming in from outside. No, they were crawling towards the window. They were coming from the counter.

    I snapped my head around and glared at the counter. Up against the wall rested the toaster, a knife block and a deep ceramic container that held a bouquet of spatulas, ladles and wooden spoons. I glanced back to the window and traced the lines of webbing from the sill back to the ceramic container. The wood, black and white tops of the utensils were undulating with a choppy sea of small spiders. Hundreds of them were flowing out of the top of the ceramic container like foam out of a shaken beer bottle.

    “Jesus Christ!” I sprung back from the counter.

    “What is going on?” My wife, Ellie, yelled from the living room as she stormed into the kitchen.

    “Don't come in here!”
    “Why?” She came around the kitchen table.
    “Um, because.” I gawked at the mess of spiders spilling out the container. “You won't like what you see.”

    “Why?” She repeated as she stood next to me.

    “We have a bit of a problem.” I pointed at the arachnid army.

    She screeched, “Oh my God!” then put a hand up to her mouth. She slowly turned her head to look at me. “You have to kill them.”
    “What?!”

    “Kill them, Caden!” She hit me on the arm.

    “Uh, okay?”

    How was I going to pull this off? They were legion and I need to end this quick. I could spray them! But with what? Would Windex kill a spider or would it just piss it off? I could smash them! No, it would take me all night to play whack-a-mole with all of them; plus it would make a tremendous mess of spider innards and corpses.

    Ellie screamed, “Hurry up! They're everywhere!”

    I felt a tingle on my wrist. I flicked my arm out and yelped, positive the invading arachnid forces had made it to my hand. All I found was the dissolving suds from doing dishes. The sink was still full of water. Water! I snatched the ceramic container and lobbed it into the dry side of the sink. Spoons and spatulas clattered as the bottom of the sink was peppered with baby spiders. I turned on the water and grabbed the sprayer from the back of the sink. I fired water at the baby spiders like cops using a fire hose on a rioting crowd. Water circled around the drain, pulling the bugs down with it. I rinsed the outside of the ceramic container and and kept the water moving on the utensils. After several minutes of rinsing, the spiders appeared to be all gone. I unrolled some paper towels and wiped up all the webs with the remaining baby spiders that were crawling towards the window.

    Ellie whispered, “Are they all dead?” After close inspection of the blinds, window sill and remaining counter space, I assured her that they were. I wadded up the paper towels and threw them into the trash.

    I watched the water from the faucet cascade on to the ceramic container and the utensils. I picked up the container. I jostled around some of the straggling spoons still nested in the container while I examined it. A cotton ball of webbing, the egg sac, was still attached inside. I poked at it with the a wooden spoon handle and it appeared to be empty.

    I moved the last straggling spoon. Behind it was a spider, however this one was about the size of a grown man's thumb, it was a sickly snot yellow with black spots for feet. It must have sensed my eyes upon it because it shot up the handle at my hand. Screaming, I flung the spoon at the back of the sink, where it hit that wall the came to a rattling rest by the container.
    “What the hell?” Ellie asked.
    “I just found the mama.”
    “What?! Is it dead too?”
    “I don't know. I threw the spoon before I could kill it.”
    Ellie bolted out of the kitchen and poked her head into the door from the living room. “Find it. Kill it!”

    I nodded at her and examined the bottom of the sink. The spoons and spatulas lay like drift wood over the drain. The container was standing up straight on it's bottom. No spider. Behind the faucet, the back splash was bare of arachnids as well. My eyes traveled up the wall to the dark wood cabinets hanging above the sink. The spider was slowly crawling up the cabinet door; passed the golden door handle. As soon as my eyes hit it, the damned thing stopped moving. It looked like a tumor with legs. I reached into the sink and pulled up a large metal spatula. We made eye contact and I felt ice roll up my spine as I reared back with a gentle precision as to not scare it then blasted an attack like a tennis player dealing a game winning serve. The instant before the spatula struck the spider, it flung itself off the cabinet door. I was sure it was aiming for my face but I heard it land with a wump! in the dishes stacked up next to the sink. “Sonofabitch!” I shrieked.

    “Is it dead? What happened?” Ellie's head was still poked into the kitchen.
    I just stood, to shocked to move. “Uh, it jumped. It's in the dishes.”
    “Oh my God. You have to find it. I'm not sure I can sleep knowing it's still running around.”

    I used the spatula wedge up a plate and looked under it. No spider.“Um, I can't find it. I'll have to keep looking.”

    “I'm glad you're not afraid of spiders. My skin might crawl off my bones just thinking about it being in there. “

    I laughed, “Yeah, but this is different. I think this spider might actually be pissed. I've never seen one out for revenge but this spider might be..”

    With that, Ellie ran into the living room, threw herself into a recliner and pulled a blanket over her head. I shook my head and started moving dishes from the counter into the sink. I examined each dish thoroughly before picking it up. I might not be afraid of spiders, but having this ugly one scamper across my hand might make me piss my pants.

    I was about to give up when I found it between two bowls at the bottom of the pile. As soon as I uncovered it, the spider scurried up one of the bowls. Adult spider or not, it could drown just like the small ones. I reached out to toss the bowl into the dishwater but it must have read my mind because it jumped from the bowl a full two feet across the counter and ran for the wall. I grabbed and launched the soaking wet dish cloth at the spider. It must have lost contact with my mind because before it could jump away, the dish cloth plopped down on top of it. My fist quickly followed as I hammered the cloth praying I was delivering a coup de grace to that ugly bastard.

The dish cloth was a fabric island in a  sea of white counter top. I reached for it. My fingers clasped the cool, wet edge and slowly lifted. I peeked under the cloth, sucked in a breath and held it. Nothing. I pealed more of the cloth back. More nothing. Finally, I lifted the whole cloth up and the counter top was empty. The spider had got away again. A small jerking movement pulled my attention back to the cloth. On the bottom of it was a smear that had once been the spider with one twitching leg stuck out in revolt like an angry weed bobbing in the wind. With a triumphant, “Yeah!” I ran the cloth under the faucet, rinsing the spider remnant off of it.  

    Ellie rustled her head out from under the blanket. “Is it dead?”
    “Yeah, it's dead.  It's over.”

    She padded her way back into the kitchen and hugged me. “Thank you. That was horrible.”

    I agreed with her.

    Running the events through my mind while laying in bed, I remembered that I had seen one of those sickly looking spiders before. I had been getting a glass of water and just as the jet of water from the front of the fridge splashed into my glass, a glob of mucus fell on my hand. The mucus sprang up, took off across my hand  then dropped to the floor. Before I could even flinch, the spider had run under the fridge. Needless to say, I didn't drink that glass of water. I fell asleep wondering if it was the same spider I had just killed.

    The next day at work, the spider and its young nagged at me. Finally, I pushed aside my work and started scouring the Internet; trying to gather information about that type of spider. The words, “yellow spider” brought up several pictures of odd and unique looking specimens. Some had star shaped abdomens while others were black with yellow stripes. Finally, I found a picture of a spider that matched the one from the kitchen. I followed the link of the picture to a college anthropology web page that discussed all sorts of spiders from the Midwest.  I spotted one that resembled mine and clicked on it.
    “The Yellow Sac Spider belongs to the genus Cheiracanthium and is a prominent spider world wide. It can commonly be found outdoors in gardens, wood piles and brush piles. Sac Spiders are also found indoors. They reside during the day in small web pouches, thus the name Sac Spider.

    The Yellow Sac Spider has a necrotic venom that contains a cytotoxin. The bite is most commonly compared to that of a Brown Recluse Spider. The bite is moderately  painful and can become swollen. A blister may form and, once it has popped, will form an open lesion that can take several weeks to heal.”

    Great, I thought to myself, Not only are they disgusting to look at but their bite is horrible as well. All I needed was one them to surprise attack me in my sleep and I would have a lesion in my flesh that looked like a golf divot.

    On my way home from work, I stopped at a store to browse through their insecticide section. A gray jug's label said it worked great out doors but not safe for indoor use. A white jug said it was potent on ants but did very little for any other annoying insects. Finally, a red jug said it was designed for indoor use against spiders and other household pests. I paid cash.

    “Is that stuff safe?” Ellie asked as I presented her with my solution to future spiders.
    “Of course it is! I mean, I think it is. It says it is.” I read over the directions. “It says, 'spray around floor boards and doorways to prevent pests from entering your home and establishing nests. Safe for pets and children.' See, nothing to worry about.”
    Ellie reluctantly agreed then helped me move the furniture away from the walls. I spent over two hours spraying every floor board and door jam just like the jug instructed. I made sure to double spray everything; creating a chemical barrier to protect my home from those ugly snot-yellow bastards. The gallon jug was nearly empty.

    That night, Ellie snuggled up to me in bed and whispered, “You did good today.”
    “Yeah?”

    “Yeah. I don't feel like I have hundreds of little legs crawling all over me knowing that the house has been sprayed.” She gave me a hugging squeeze then nestled her face into my shoulder.
    With her warmth on my chest, I heaved a sigh of content and closed my eyes.

    I awoke the next morning to a shrill scream. The fog of sleep immediately burned off my brain as I heard the scream again. I looked over at Ellie's side of the bed. It was empty. I leaped to the stairwell leading downstairs to find her standing on the last stair. She looked back at me as I bulldozed my way toward her. Her hand was over her mouth, eyes like saucers and her face had gone beyond porcelain pale. She fell into my arms and started sobbing into my shoulder, “They're everywhere!”

    I rubbed her back, “What's everywhere?”

    “They are! The spiders!” She shoved her way passed me and stomped her way up the stairs and into our room. Still sobbing, she slammed the door behind her.

    I looked out into the living room from the door frame of the stairwell. The floor was a sickly yellow sea of spider corpses. There were hundreds of them along the baseboards where the dead spiders formed piles like ghastly snow drifts. Some were still twitch in their death throes while most laid still. The spray had done its work but I had underestimated our problem.

    I spent the morning using a shop vac to clean up the spider grave yard. Other rooms in our house had bodies in them too but the majority of the carcases were in the living room and kitchen. Most of the spiders hand been no bigger than a thumb nail but a few dozen had been bigger than a quarter. All of them were the Yellow Sac Spiders.

    I dumped the last vacuum full of corpses into the outside garbage can by my garage. I watched the last withered body fall into the trashcan like a demonic snowflake. The garbage can was nearly half full of nothing but dead spiders. I looked over at my house. It loomed over me, less like a home and more like a temple for necrotic venomed arachnids.

    Ellie called her mom and left me alone at the house with the stirring words:“You need to figure this out.” Figure this out? The spray had worked! It worked really well; however, she was right. I couldn't do this alone though. I had used my one good idea for a solution by spraying the house.

            .

    “This is Steve. How can I help you?” Steve's voice was all grit and gravel.
    “Yes,” I barked into my cell phone, “This is Caden Reilly. I found you on the Internet and I have some questions for you.”

    “Well, Caden, us guys at Roosevelt Pest Control love answering questions.”

    Steve listened quietly as I spent the next several minutes explaining the spider situation. Once I was through, Steve sat quietly for a moment and grumbled a, “Hmmm,” into the phone. “Well, obviously you have an infestation, although I've never heard of one this, uh, extreme before. I'll tell ya what, kid, I'll come out and take a look for you, if you'd like. We'll see what we can see and then we'll talk. How does that sound?”

    “That sounds great, Steve. Can you be here today?”

    “With a case like this, I can be there within the hour.”

    I was sitting on the front step when a white pick-up pulled into my drive way with a decorative Roosevelt Pest Control stenciled in red on the door. From his deep, construction worker voice, I expected Steve to be an overweight guy with thick black push-broom mustache, a matching mop of black hair and chomping a cigar; like a grizzled Super Mario. Instead, the guy that stood up out of the truck was a tall, lanky middle aged man with a grey flat top and steel wool eye brows. He glanced at the house and then gave me a curt wave as he walked up the drive. He offered me a crushing hand shake in his large hand and said, “I'm Steve Roosevelt. So this is the place, eh?”

    I turned around and gave a dramatic wave at the house, “Yeah, this is it. Grand Central Station for spiders, evidently.”

    The corner of Steve's mouth twitched into a lop sided grin, “Well, let's go see what we can see. Lead the way, buddy.”

    I let him into the house and showed him the living room and the kitchen. I retold my encounter with the baby spiders and then how I sprayed the place. He nodded his head and grunted a few times to show he was listening but his gun metal grey eyes surveyed the rooms. He would stop by a picture and pull it away from the wall to look behind it. He moved the shades and curtains too look at where they were mounted above the windowsill. Finally, after our walk through was done, Steve stopped in the middle of the the living room. He looked around again, then folded his arms across his chest. “Well, Caden, I'm not seeing to of evidence of Yellow Sac Spiders. I don't see any of their web pouches in the areas they like to make them.”

    “Okay, what does that mean?”
    “It means that they might be nesting somewhere else in the home. You said you didn't have any sign of them upstairs, correct?” I told him that was correct. “That only leaves one other direction, kid. Do you have a basement?” He asked as he tapped his boot on the floor.

    “No we don't. This house was moved from the country to town nearly 100 years ago. It only has a crawl space.”

    The lop sided grin etched his face again as he arched one of his steel wool eyebrows. “Show me.”

    Whenever I open up the crumbling wooden hatch door to the crawl space, I always expect there to be a chorus and symphony music to start at a low beat and build to a blasting crescendo as I pull open the hatch. Nothing that dramatic ever happens and this time was no exception. Steve, clad in navy  blue overalls he slipped on over his work attire, shined a flashlight into the hatch and looked around. Sheets of cobwebs hung from the floor joists and a rich earthy smell billowed out of the two foot by two foot hole. Steve pulled the hood of his overalls up over his hair and said, “I've seen worse.” He lurched himself into hole.

    I sat in the grass next to the hatch waiting to hear him start screaming. He would come out of the crawl space covered in spider bites and foaming at the mouth. I'd have to call 911 and get him help before he had a seizure that hit so hard his spine would shatter from the spastic convulsions. Instead, there was silence. Every now and again, I could see the beam of his flash light dance off the cobwebs as he moved around. In about ten minutes time, he pulled himself out of the hole and up through the hatch. He was covered in dirt and cobwebs and hadn't suffered any bites.

    Steve pulled the hood off his head and started to run his fingers through his short hair. “Well, buddy, I've got good news and I've got bad news. The bad news is there are several egg sacks down there. But the good news is most of them are empty.”

    “Wait, they are empty? How is that good news?”

    He was stepping out of his overalls.“That means they aren't new nests and I'm guessing you killed the lot of them the other night.”

    “Oh. So, I killed them all?”

    “Maybe not all of them, but a considerable amount. I didn't see any traces of baby ones down there like you described. You might see a few more around the house but they won't be like they are down there.”

    “Like they are down there? How bad was it down there?”

    His gun metal eyes met mine. “Kid, I'm not going to lie to you. There were hundreds of egg sacks down there. They were crammed everywhere. To be honest, I'm not sure how such a large population survived down there because they would have a food source. I'm sure they have resorted to cannibalism, which also helps you. I can say you shouldn't have a problem with crickets or ants any time soon.” He let out a chuckle that sounded like a muffler being drug behind a car. “That is also why you are seeing larger numbers in the house. They are starving so they are branching out from their home to find more food. Plus it is spring time. The warm weather gets them moving again after being dormant for most the winter.”

    I considered that for a moment. It made sense but something occurred to me. “When dogs are starved, they become aggressive and attack people. Will spiders do that?”

    He grinned again, “Good question, kid, but no. They will just try to find more to eat. These spiders really aren't aggressive to begin with. Sure, if you piss with one, it might nail you but leave them alone and they will leave you alone. They are way uglier than their personalities.”

    “That is news my wife will like to hear. But you should check this out.” I walked him around the house to the trash bin. I whipped the lid open and had him look all the dead spiders.
    “Jesus Christ, kid! You weren't kidding about it, were ya? This is good though. They are nocturnal so they mostly hunt at night. So last night the majority of them went out to hunt, crossed your poison and that's all she wrote.”
    “Did you see many spiders in the crawl space? You said you saw the empty sacks but you didn't say anything about the spiders.”

    We walked over to his truck. “Yeah you had some down there so I'm going to bomb the crawlspace and spray around the house, inside and out,  for you.” He pulled out some canisters that looked like friendly versions of grenades and a garden sprayer that sloshed with liquid as he walked.  

    While he put together the tools of his trade we discussed price. He had me throw him a number of what I was willing to pay for such a service. I was afraid to insult him so I blurted out a number I thought was reasonable. He laughed his muffler laugh again and said, “How about we take thirty percent off that price.” Before I could agree, he set to work.

    In less than an hour, he was done. He gave me follow up instructions, “Seeing dead ones is a good thing but if you starts seeing several alive or find another egg sack that hatches, you let me know. I'll come back on my dollar to take care of it.” He handed me his card, “Also, if your wife has any questions or concerns or you find something we haven't talked about, call me. My personal number is on there so give me a call day or night. This is a bit of an extreme case and some times those need a bit more attention.” We shook hands again and he left.    

    I looked back at the house. I felt like a person who had their house cleansed by a paranormal group to rid it of poltergeist activity. The white of the siding shined a little brighter and the windows sparkled a bit clearer as I stepped inside the door of my home.

    I worked it out with Ellie that she would stay with her parents a few more night just in case we had another mass die off like we did the night before. I went to bed wondering what the next morning would bring. Would I find dead spiders across my floors like sand at a beach or did Steve get them all?

    I awoke the next morning and sat up in bed. I glanced around the room and didn't find any spiders. I thought to myself that it was a good sign but the real litmus test would be as soon as I went downstairs so, with a groan, I pulled myself out of bed and plodded down the stairs. I found the floors did, indeed, have dead spiders on them again.  This time, they only peppered the floor instead of covering it completely. I found only about two dozen in the kitchen. After some quick work with the shop vac, I had them cleaned up and I left for work. When I got home that night I had a handful of dead spiders in the living room and that was it. The next few days I found less and less spiders.

    In four days time, I awoke to find no spiders on any of the floors. I smiled and let out a big sigh of relief. The first thing I did was call Ellie to tell her the news. She said, “I can finally come home.” And come home, she did.

    The rest of the spring and summer was amazing. We didn't see a single spider in the house. We occasionally saw a wolf spider in the landscaping rocks around the house and a few house spiders in the garage but the ugly yellow monsters were gone. At parties and get-togethers, we'd tell the story of how our house had become infested. I particularly liked telling the story and watching people worm around in their seats. It became something we could all laugh about, even Ellie.  

   

    The weather cooled and Ellie and I spent our evenings inside now that the season had changed. A nice, crisp fall night, Ellie and I were watching TV when she pointed at one of the corners and said, “Oh no. I think the wall paper is starting to peel over there.”
    I looked over at her, “Ellie, we don't have wall paper in here.”
    I stood up from my recliner and walked over the corner. Indeed, it did look like the paper had folded over until I got closer. It was just a trick of the light because instead of wallpaper, I found a wad of yellow snot with eight legs inside a webbed sac. The shadow coming off the sack looked like a tear in wall paper. “Oh shit.”

    “What is it?” Ellie asked.

    “Uh, it's one of those yellow bastards.”
    “Again?! They are all dead.”

    “They are supposed to be.” I grabbed a can of bug spray from under the sink in the kitchen and unloaded a generous portion of poison all over the spider and its webbing. In a matter of moments, the spider started to flail around, then fired itself out of the web sack. It twitched and sputtered along the wall for a few feet then fell to floor in its death throws. I used a shoe to end its life.

    After using a paper towel to throw away the smushed remains, I told Ellie I would call Steve. Her response was, “I'm going to my parent's again. I don't think I can handle this again.”

    “That might be an overreaction.”

    “Caden, with those things, anything short of burning down the house isn't a big enough reaction. I'm going to pack my bag.” She stomped up the stairs.

    I yelled up after her, “You better check your bag to make sure there aren't any spiders.”

    “Not funny!” She slammed the door.

    After seeing her off, I called Steve on his private number.

    His grit-and-gravel voice met my ear. “Hey kid, how ya doing?”

    “Hey, Steve. Look, I just found another Yellow Sac Spider in my living room. A live one. I thought we killed them all in the spring.”

    “There is no way to guarantee 100% that we got them all, buddy. The stuff you bought will last about a month but ours, that we lay down,  is a barrier to keep them out and kill the ones inside. It lasts about six months before you need another coating. It's just time for another coating.”

    “This one was an adult, Steve. It wasn't a little one. How did it live that long to get that big with all the poison around here?”

    “Caden, it's fall. They are going to be coming in the house as a means to stay warm. If the poison has worn off, it won't kill them as they enter the house. “I'll be over tomorrow with more stuff and we will get it taken care of before it become as a big problem like last time.”
    That was good enough for me. I hung up, then immediately called Ellie and told her what he said. “I'm going to stay here tonight since I'm here but maybe I'll come home tomorrow after he's been there.” I agreed with her and hung up.

    I didn't sleep well that night. I was tense thinking about how my house had an illness; one I thought I had cured earlier. I dreamt of spiders all night. In my dreams, they climbed all over my body and I couldn't do anything about it as their eight legs brushed my skin while they skittered around. I woke up in a horrible sweat and all the sheets were on the floor from my nightmare induced thrashing.

    I got up and took a shower. My neck and shoulders hurt like hell from being tense all night and the hot water helped a bit. I called into work so I could meet with Steve later that morning. I sat in my living room with the TV off as I my mind wandered about the situation. Spiders never bothered me. I didn't have a phobia about them like most people but Ellie was deathly afraid of them. I could see where people were afraid of them. Eight legs skittering across the floor as they darted here and there. Plus, they had fangs designed for one thing: injecting venom through bites. I realized as I sat in the silence that I had a low, throbbing head ache.

    I rubbed my temples and itched a spot on my back as I heard a truck pull into my driveway. I stood up out of my chair to see it was Steve in his company truck. The tension hadn't left my joints because they screamed when I stood up to meet Steve at the door.

    “Hey, kid.”

    “Hi, Steve.” I said, still itching my back.

    “Let's have us a look-see, shall we.” I stood back to let him in the house. He walked around looking in all the same spots again. He looked above the curtains and used the sprayer he had brought in with him. Two spiders fell and hit the floor, seized a few times then curled up into small balls.

    “Got a few sitting around this time.” Steve's voice reverberated off the walls of the quiet house and the inside of my skull. My headache increased ten fold and I broke out into a sweat. I itched my back again.

    “Kid, are you ok?”

    “Yeah, I've just got a headache.” Another itch nagged at my back so I ran my nails across it. “I slept wrong too. My neck and shoulders hurt.”

    Steve cocked an eyebrow at me. “Jesus, Caden, you're pale. Pull up your shirt, I want to see something.” I did as I was told. “That's what I thought.”
    “What? What is it?”

    “You've got a bite. You didn't sleep wrong, you're body is fighting off the venom. And you're itching the bite.” He grabbed my hand and pulled it behind my back like he was trying to arrest me. “Here, feel right there.” There was a small lump on my back at the epicenter of the itching and it was hot as a blast furnace.

    I yelled, “It's hot! Am I going to be ok? Is it infected?”

    “No it's just because of the venom. It causes flu-like symptoms but you'll be ok in a few hours. Kid, I'd go see a doctor to make sure it doesn't get infected, especially with the way you're itching at it.”

    I scratched at it again then pulled my shirt down. “So what are you going to do?”

    Steve's brow furrowed as the thought a moment. “Well, I could spray and bomb again. That seemed to work last time.” He pulled a picture away from the wally and sprayed behind it again. Another dead spider fell to the floor. “But, you seem to have a lot more activity this time, buddy. I think you need to have the entire house bombed.”

    “What does that entail?”
    “We would tarp off the outside of your house and pump in the same gas that is in our smaller bug bombs but at much higher levels. We would leave it like that twenty four hours then ventilate the house. You and your wife will have to stay somewhere else for a few days because this will pretty much kill any living thing in your home.”

    “After that do you do any sort of treatment to stop anything from coming back in the house?”

    “You bet I do, Kid. I don't want anything like this happening again at your house. Now that you've been bitten, the stakes have been raised and I'm making it my mission to stop this for you.” His lop sided grin spread across his face and he clapped me on the shoulder.

    I smiled then shook his monstrous hand in appreciation. We set up the bombing appointment for two days later and he stuck around to insure that I made a doctor appointment for my bite.

    I stayed with Ellie at her parents' house while our house was gassed. Steve had talked to Ellie and I together telling us that after they ventilated the house, his crew would clean up anything dead that they found. He assured us that we had nothing to worry about and wouldn't have to lift a finger to ward off spiders again. I went to the doctor and got on some heavy duty antibiotics for my bite. We did stop by to look at the place while the crew set up. Our house looked like a tent for a 3 ring circus as guys in white plastic zip-up overalls came in and out of the tent flaps that hung over our front door.

    Two days later, the tent was gone and the house looked like its old self. Steve opened the door for us and we all stepped into the living room. Steve swept an arm out, “See, good as new. You won't even notice a smell from the gas.” After a few moments, he lowered his eyes to us and said, “I'm not going to beat around the bush here. We only found a few dead spiders.”

    Ellie's face went ashen and she said, “Did you get them all?”
    Steve boomed a laugh and said, “Yeah, I think we did. That's why we let the poison sit for twenty four hours, so it can permeate all the nooks and crannies of your house and weed out those suckers.”

    Ellie visibly relaxed and Steve said, “And don't worry about anything else. I've personally sprayed your house again and planted bait traps in the ground around the perimeter of your house. You now have fantastic defenses against any other pest trying to get into your house.”

    Ellie started to lightly cry as she hugged Steve and said, “Thank you,” over and over again. When she finally let him go, I pulled him into a hug. He clapped my back three times. All of us were smiling like the Cheshire Cat. He bid us farewell and left us to a house we no longer had to share with yellow sac spider. Like a doctor, Steve had killed the illness.  

    I awoke the next morning from a dream where glass was being shoved into my knees, elbows and shoulders. The pain in the dream woke me up from the nightmare but as the images of faceless torturers faded, the pain did not. My whole body was screaming in agony as I attempted to move my arm. Mustering up all my strength, I rolled over. Several lumps crunched under me and my eyes snapped open. The pain was forgotten as I threw the sheets off of Ellie and me. Our bed was covered in dead spiders. I looked over at Ellie and her body was covered in angry red lumps like a relief map of a Martian mountain chain. I discovered I was covered with horrible red welts too. At seeing the welts, pain shot through my joints again. It was like lightening mixed with broken glass and battery acid had been injected into my body. Even through the agony, I vaulted out of bed. The floor was covered in dead spiders too. As I walked over them to Ellie's side of the bed, they crunched like I was walking across corn flakes.

    I yelled, “Ellie! You have to get up!” I shook her hard. She was always hard to wake up and this time was no different. “Ellie! Come on, we have to get up.” I shook her hard again. She didn't move. A lump formed in my throat and I started to panic. “Ellie! Come on, now! You have to get up!” I started lightly smacking her face. She still didn't move. “Ellie!” I screamed her name and a lump formed in my throat.

    She stirred a bit and cracked her eyes open, “What?” I pulled her into a hug, “Caden, you're crushing me and I already don't feel good. I hurt all over.”

    “I know, sweet heart. You have to get up. We have a problem. The spiders attacked us last night and we've been bitten several times. You're laying in a bunch of dead ones. He have to go.”

    “No way!” She groaned as her joints caught fire from her sitting up in bed. She looked at the bed and saw the dozens of dead spiders. Some had been smeared across the sheets from me getting out of bed. “What the hell, Caden?! I thought we killed them all.” She looked at me and started screaming, “You have bites all over you!”

    “You do too and we have to go, now. We have to get to a hospital or something.”

    Ellie jumped out of bed then heard the crunch of spiders under foot. She shrieked and ran for the closet. She grabbed a hooded sweat shirt and a pair of jeans then flew out the door. I pulled on a pair of jeans and tshirt and followed her. She shrieked the whole way out. The entire upstairs was flooded with dead spiders. I stumbled down the stairs as my joints flared; the venom was taking hold..

    The downstairs was the same as upstairs, spider bodies everywhere. I shook out my shoes, a few dead spiders fell out, and I pulled them on the ducked out the door. Ellie had collapsed in the front yard sobbing in pain and pure disgust. I slumped down next to her and put an arm over her shoulders.

    A neighbor came running over to see if we were alright. After explaining to them that we had been attacked by spiders, they agreed to give us a ride to the hospital.

    After being looked over in the ER, we were admitted into the hospital. We were given pain relievers, antibiotics and a hefty dose of steroids to reduce the itching of the bites. The necrotic nature of the venom took hold on a couple bites on my legs and they deteriorated into lesions. Ellie fared much better and only had one on her arm become a lesion. We were released and we went straight to Ellie's parents house.

    I called Steve and told him what happened. He showed up less than an hour later. We sat at the kitchen table because my legs hurt to bad to walk. A cup of hot coffee sat on the table in front of Steve as I held a beer. Ellie's mom had said I shouldn't mix my pain meds with alcohol but I ignored her protests.
    “What the hell is going on, Steve? I thought you said you fixed this!”
    Steve's voice was still the rumbling gravel I had come to trust, but it's hushed tones had me lean forward to hear him. “I'm sorry, Caden. I'm not sure what happened.” He looked up from his coffee. “I have never seen anything like this. I have never seen a yellow sac spider attack people like this. Honestly, I don't think they sought out to attack you. I think they were in your bed and you two rolled around in your sleep. They bit out of defense.”

    “I don't give a shit how or why they attacked us, Steve. They never should have been there in the first place! What the hell happened?! Why were there any alive to be in our bed, let alone collect in the house like that?” I pulled a drink from the beer bottle. “You're lucky Ellie is taking a nap right now or you'd have to deal with her.”

    “Kid, listen, I am going to fix this and I'm going to cover your hospital bills. I have a guy at your house right now looking around to find out what happened. We are going to make this right.”
    The beer and pain killer cocktail was taking hold and I mellowed a bit. “Steve, this has got to end.” I itched at one of the bites. “I can't live like this and I can't stay married to Ellie if I try to live like this. I have to know what is going on. All of our money is tied up in that house and we can't move. I wouldn't sell the house to people knowing this might happen to them if they bought it.” I looked him dead in the eye. “We need a solution.”
    “I understand, Caden, and I'm looking into it.”

    Steve sipped his coffee as the medically induced fog of relaxation started to fall over my limbs. I was about to ask him to leave so I could rest when his phone rang. Steve reached to pick it up and said, “There's my guy now.” He answered the phone. “Yeah?! Uh huh. What? Seriously?” He looked up at me and I arched an drunken eye brow, silently questioning him. “Thanks, Barry. I'll be there right away.” He hung up the phone and stood up. “Caden, they found something. I'm going to run over there and take a look for myself. I'll call you when I verify what is going on.”
    I slurred, “What did you find out?”
    “Caden, go rest. By the time you wake up, I'll have answers.” With that, he walked out of the house.

    I really couldn't argue with him. I got up and hobbled my way into the bedroom to doze off next to Ellie.

    When I woke up, it was dark and I was alone in bed. My legs ached and I got out of bed to get more pain pills. I got out to the kitchen where Ellie and her family sat talking while a small TV on the counter flickered some late night talk show. Ellie looked up and said, “Your phone has been buzzing all night.” I nodded at her. I had missed several calls from Steve and he had left a voice message, “Hey, Caden. It's Steve. Give me a call back ASAP. Bye.”

    I walked into another room and dialed his number. On the second ring he picked up. “Caden! Thank God you called. We figured out what is going on.”

    “Yeah? What is it?”

    “My guy, Barry, looked all around your house and couldn't find anything. Nothing under your shelves, behind pictures or even in your closets. Nothing. So he looked in your crawlspace and found it teeming with spiders. He said the whole place was moving. The walls, the ground, everything. When he pulled open the hatch, he said they spilled out out of there and ran off every which way. He said the place looked like it was alive because of all the movement.”

    I said, “That doesn't make sense. You looked down there and saw a bunch of egg sacks but no spiders. Why are they down there now?”

    “I wondered the same thing, buddy, and I think I figured it out. When we put up the tent, we didn't pump gas into the crawlspace. I think they went down there to escape the gas and that was where they were hanging out. I believe they were living in the walls and when the gas was pumped in the house, it started to enter the walls through outlets and vents so they were herded to the crawlspace. The reason they were all over your house when you woke up, and in your bed, was they had raced out to reclaim their territory but they ran across my spray barrier and died. The natural course was to head upstairs to avoid the poison, where they found you. The crawlspace still holds those that didn't leave Well, I mean, it did. Barry and I sprayed and bombed the crawlspace. It took us several hours but I'm pretty sure it clear.”

    I processed this for a bit. “But that means there had to be millions of spiders there even after all of them that died after your first two rounds of spraying. What is so special about my place that they would stay there?”

    “I did some research on the Yellow Sac Spider to see if I could find anything about them. They eat normal bugs and your place show now signs of any other infestation that could support those numbers. I would think they would become cannibalistic after the food source was gone and Nature would even out their numbers but that didn't happen at your house.” Steve paused for a moment then said,”I don't really know why they grew to such large numbers. If this were a movie, I would say they were sprayed with an experimental bug spray that mutated them or they bred with a new species of spider and the hybrid was what infested your house. Hell, it might even be that your house is cursed. The truth is, I don't know. We may never know. I collected a few of the dead ones and will send them to the state university for further study. We will see if that pans out.”

    I thanked him and hung up. I walked back into the kitchen and told Ellie and her family what Steve had told me. “We are moving out,” Ellie barked. I agreed with her. The next day, Ellie and her family packed up our belongings and brought them to her parents house. We stored our furniture and the boxes of our belongings in their garage. We started looking for a new house.

    A couple of weeks later Steve called us back to say he heard from the college. “They say that nothing is unusual about the spiders but they are conducting further studies. This might be one of those head scratchers that never gets answered, kid.”

“Steve, is it possible for spiders to feel a need for revenge? What if I pissed them off by killing of that fist egg sac?”

I could hear Steve scratching his beard on the other end of he phone and he slowly exhaled, “Kid, I’ve been in this business for 30 years. I worked with my dad and took over after he died. I have seen several odd things from bugs. I have seen ants that will only attack people that wear a certain type of cologne. I have seen a house so infested with bees that the walls cried honey. Heck, I have even heard of a venomous butterfly, but kid, I don’t think I have ever heard of or seen a spider look for revenge. But that’s not to say they couldn’t. I don’t think any of us will know what happened or why.” After agreeing to keep in touch, I thanked him and hung up.

    Ellie and I found a new home on the other side of town not much longer after that. We put the other house up for sale after Steve told us he was confident the problem had been dealt with. We took comfort in that. After we got settled in, I was watching TV when Ellie shrieked from the bedroom and I came running in to find her pointing at a spider on the wall screaming, “Kill it! Kill it!” I ripped the shoe off my foot and smashed it; splattering its guts all over the wall. I leaned in to look at what was left of it.“You can relax, Ellie, It's not one of 'them.' It is a black one.”

    She sobbed, “I don't care. They all need to die.”

    I looked back at the smear mark on he wall and rubbed one of my legs where the lesion was still healing. I pulled her into a hug and said, “I couldn't agree with you more.”