by Rina Heisel
Rule #13: Heed the whispered warnings of weather;
ignoring its clues will spell your doom.
A raindrop fell. Then another. A steady shower began. “Not today, Wiley. Rule Thirteen! Besides, I promised Talia we’d go in when it really started raining.”
“Seriously?” Wiley cocked his head. “We just got out here.”
“Wind and rain? No way.” Tobin’s nose twitched. “I can’t smell or hear a thing. And neither can you. We should head down.”
“Fine, go in and babysit.” Wiley squinted, peering through the rain. “No way predators are out in this rain. I’m going to take a look. I’ll let you know how awesome the view was.”
“Wait,” Tobin said, but it was too late. Wiley skittered out to the ledge, the pounding of the raindrops doing little to dampen his enthusiasm.
“He’s hawk bait out there,” Talia said.
“I know,” Tobin answered. “Hop back into the shaft, okay? I need to—”
Talia gasped. “What is he doing?”
One branch jutted out from the ledge. Naturally Wiley was creeping onto it.
“He’s a loon,” Tobin whispered.
Thunder rumbled. Lightning ripped the sky like eagle talons.
“We should go in now!” Talia said.
CRACK!
The world went blindingly white. Bolts of lightning splintered in every direction. From a distance, Tobin heard a pop and a sizzle, followed by the sounds of wood snapping. Tobin blinked wildly, his vision clearing just in time to see the canopy of a cottonwood tree falling toward them.
Throwing a paw around his sister, Tobin shoved them both as deep into the bramble as he could. The world shook as the cottonwood crashed to the forest floor. Then all was still and silent, minus the pounding of the rain. Tobin peeked out from his hiding place and saw the timber had landed a deer’s leap away from the burrow.
Then his gaze landed on the branch where Wiley had been; the limb bobbed empty in the wind. “Wiley,” Tobin gasped.
His heart raced like a trapped hummingbird. “Go inside, Tal. Wait at the bottom of the shaft.”
She shook her head. “Where are you going?”
“Just get inside, please.” Tobin looked to the ledge. “I’ll be right behind you.”
“Okay,” she agreed, hopping into the shaft, but not all the way down—she peeked out to watch.
“Good enough,” Tobin muttered.
Crouching low, he crept toward the ledge. Mud exploded around him as raindrops pelted the soil. He tried sniffing for Wiley, but all he could smell was earth and rain.
“Wiley!” he called. The Rules howled in every fiber of his being: danger!
Fighting his instinct to flee, Tobin pushed ahead, one step at a time. He crept until he could peer over the very brim of the burrow. Cascading water, splashing mud, and the last throes of lightning smeared his vision. The search was hopeless.
Until something bizarre caught his eye.
A purple violet bounced merrily below, directly beneath him. He stared at the flower until he could make out Wiley standing near the foot of the burrow, signaling with the bloom that he was all right. Tobin released his breath in relief and waved back. Wiley instantly dropped the violet and darted inside a burrow entrance far below them.
Tobin pulled his claws from the muddy ledge and slogged his way back to the shaft.
“Did you find him?” Talia was peeking over his shoulder.
“He’s fine. Move down so I can get in.”
They slid back into the burrow, the sounds of the storm now muffled by the earthen wall. Tobin could hear his heart pounding in his ears. He shook what mud he could off his coat, but it stuck like clay.
Talia clucked her tongue. “You are a total mess.”
Tobin tucked his head, examining the layers of mud clumps on his belly. “Ugh, this is pretty bad.” He whipped his head up, and his mind spun a bit. That feeling, combined with the nerves, and what a mess he was, set him to giggling.
Talia slapped her tail to the ground. “You think this is funny? This wasn’t a ‘quick peek at the clouds.’ This was dangerous!”
“I know.” Tobin shook his head, though he didn’t succeed in shaking the grin from his muzzle. “Wiley probably shouldn’t have gone out that far.”
“Probably?”
“Let’s just find him and get home.” Tobin set off down the tunnel. “Did you see the lightning strike that tree? And how close it landed to the burrow? I wonder if anyone else saw it.”
“I bet they felt it,” Talia answered.
“Huh.” Tobin nodded. As he pondered the thought, he didn’t notice the lump of mud tottering toward him.
“Hey, Tobin!” called the mud lump in a voice that sounded a lot like Wiley’s. “I thought that tree was gonna land right on us.”
A sigh of relief escaped Tobin, and a small smile sprouted on Talia’s muzzle.
“See, Tal?” Tobin nudged her shoulder. “We can be fun.”
“I suppose,” she said, looking at Wiley. “Will your mom let you in your quarters like that?”
He shrugged. “She’s seen worse.”
“You could wash off over there.” Talia pointed to a corridor. It was a burrow breezeway, a narrow corridor with a window at the end, letting fresh air flow into the burrow. Thanks to the rain, a little waterfall cascaded over the small window. Perfect for a quick shower.
Wiley gave an approving nod. “I think our moms would rather us be wet than mud-caked.”
Tobin scratched at his own muck-covered hide. “Agreed.” He scurried into the corridor, Wiley on his tail. The dirt floor of the breezeway itself was mushy from rivulets of water seeping inside, but if they walked carefully along the sides of the tunnel, they could avoid most of the muck. Reaching into the opening, they grabbed pawfuls of water and began scrubbing their fur.
“This was a good idea,” said Wiley.
“Yeah, Talia’s pretty clever. I just wish she wouldn’t worry about every little thing sometimes.”
Wiley shrugged. “She’s still little. Little mice do that.”
Of course, Wiley had a pawful of littles to deal with at home, so Tobin supposed he was an expert.
But, as if Talia wanted to prove his point, her worried voice rang through the corridor. “Tobin, come here. Hurry!”
“See?” said Tobin. Fur sopping wet and still half caked in mud, Tobin shuffled into the tunnel. “What?”
Talia sprang to his side. “There are really weird noises coming from down that tunnel.” She clutched her tail, her voice rising till she sounded like a chickadee. “I think I heard a scream!”
“A scream?” Tobin peered down the tunnel. Talia might exaggerate some things, but he doubted she’d mistake a scream for anything but that. “Stay here.”
Tobin took a step down the tunnel, ears and whiskers pricked. He padded silently through the passageway until it came to a sharp corner. Lowering his head, he leaned his ear against the wall. A strange sound like scuttling, clicking footsteps tapped through the tunnel. Tobin’s neck fur spiked.
That sound . . .
It didn’t belong in the burrow.
“What’s happening?” Wiley hollered.
Tobin held up his paw—Shhhh. He paused a moment. While Wiley no longer called out, Tobin could hear his and Talia’s pawsteps coming his way.
Tobin whipped his tail twice, and the pawsteps ceased. Hoping they wouldn’t follow him any farther, Tobin stepped around the corner.
The long tunnel he expected to see was half caved in. Tobin squinted; the passageway wasn’t filled in with dirt or clay. No, whatever this was—it squirmed. It was alive.
Four
THE NEXT THING TOBIN noticed was the horrible odor. It smacked his nose; it was rancid, sharp. Beyond worse than decay. His body braced to run, but his mind stilled his feet. Something is in your home. Look and learn—quickly.
With a paw over his snout, Tobin took a trembling, three-legged hop toward the bulk. What kind
of cave-in smelled bad and moved? He focused on the blackish mound until a shape began to form before him.
A creature, a big one, was trying to shove its way through the tunnel. Tobin’s throat ran dry as he made out a tiny nub of a head resting on a giant black body. He only figured it was a head because of the quivering patch of blood-red eyes—at least a dozen of them. Jutting from beneath the head was a set of pincers. Like a pair of jagged crescent moons, the pincers flexed open and closed as the creature struggled forward.
Muscles quivering, Tobin stepped back just as the creature wiggled a long, dark appendage free from under its body. A leg? Segmented and insect-like, the limb clicked as its armor-plated sections stretched out. The leg scraped along the tunnel wall, then stopped. It suddenly stabbed down, driving its wicked tip deep into the packed dirt.
Tobin jumped backward, whiskers and ears pricked to full attention. He watched another leg unfurl from beneath the beast. And another. The limbs clawed at the walls and floor, searching out footholds so it could move—move closer to him.
Tobin let his stare linger a moment longer until it became painfully clear what he was looking at.
A spider!
Like no spider he’d ever seen before.
With its front four legs finding a grip, the beast yanked itself forward.
Tobin had seen enough. He bolted back around the corner, his paws skidding to a stop beside Talia and Wiley. Before he could utter a word, Talia’s nose twitched at the stench stuck to his coat. Her fur puffed. Wiley crouched and growled.
“It’s a spider, I think. Nastiest thing I’ve ever seen.” Tobin looked over his shoulder. A gnarled leg poked around the bend in the corridor. “We need to go back to the breezeway where we washed off. Move!”
“That’s a sp-sp-spider?” Talia took a step back toward the corridor.
Wiley remained frozen; a rumble grew in his chest. His tail whipped wildly from side to side.
Tobin knew the cues. The signs were laid out in the Rules: fight or flight. Talia readied for flight, Wiley for a fight.
But fight a monster spider? Not a chance.
Tobin stepped in front of his friend, breaking Wiley’s gaze. “Trust me, we have to hide. Whatever you’re thinking—”
Wiley looked past Tobin, his friend’s eyes doubling in size. All pink drained from Wiley’s nose. Dreading what he was about to see, Tobin turned.
Long, black legs reached around the bend, each seeming to be on its own mission of exploration, bending and flexing what seemed like countless joints.
“That is why we need get inside the corridor,” Tobin hissed.
“Yup.” Wiley turned and scrambled.
Tobin nudged Talia’s shoulder with his head. “Let’s move!”
Talia stepped back slowly, her breath coming in shallow gasps. “Wait, I think I hear something else.”
“We’ve gotta go, Tal!” Tobin poked his snout into her side, spinning her backward.
They scurried down the tunnel, stopping at the waterlogged corridor. Throwing one quick look over his shoulder before diving in, Tobin saw the crimson eyes. The brute rounded the bend and was scraping its way in their direction.
“Cripes!” Talia poked her head out beneath his.
“Scoot in,” Tobin whispered, shuffling all way to the rear of the soggy passage. “Stay close to the dripping water. Wriggle into the mud and hold still.”
“Should we run?” Wiley’s eyes traced the dripping water from the ceiling above to the small breeze hole. “Bet we could claw through that pretty fast.”
Tobin shook his head. “I don’t think it can get us in here; it’s barely fitting through the main tunnels. But if it tries, we’ll bolt.”
Wiley nodded, and they shimmied deep into the muck, huddled at the far end of the corridor. Rivulets of rainwater dripped on their foreheads. Tobin blinked it away, but didn’t dare move another muscle. The spider was getting close.
Click, click, click, click—scrape.
The first probing leg stepped into view. Tobin watched as the massive spider pulled through the tunnel. He shivered. One of the spider’s legs lost its grip, catching on the corridor entrance. Tobin didn’t breathe. The sharp tip of the appendage reached into the shaft, feeling the sides and ceiling. It stretched inside, hovering over Tobin’s head like a fang. He could count the bristly hairs poking out between joints. A trickle of water dripped and spattered the leg, and it recoiled, banging one of its many knees on the ceiling.
This spider, it seemed, wasn’t interested in a wet passageway.
Up to his chest in mud, Tobin finally exhaled. He wanted to clamp his eyes shut and wait for the freakish spider to pass, but he forced himself to watch.
Rule #22: Study your enemies, for all creatures have a weakness.
Another leg crossed his view, then finally, the lump of its head. Rows of red eyes quivered above a set of pincerlike fangs. Did the spider see them, hunkered in the mud? If it did, would it care? It seemed possessed, determined to get through the tunnel.
Tobin lost sight of its face (if he could even call it a face) as it pressed forward, giving way to its disk-shaped midsection. The creature’s legs sprouted from its middle, rippling front to back as the beast scuttled forward. Finally, the spider’s rear section came into sight. A strange, wheezing rasp sounded from this final, pear-shaped segment of spider. And at the very end of its bulbous back end, two fingerlike digits curved upward. On a normal spider, Tobin knew these small digits were called spinnerets—and they made the webs the spiders spun. But nothing about this spider was normal, including its spinnerets, which appeared to be clutching a tiny lump of webbing, much like a cocoon.
Tobin cocked his head to get a better look as the giant arachnid passed by. His sudden movement earned a quick elbow in the shoulder from Talia, so he remained still until the arachnid was fully out of view.
Slowly pulling himself up from the mud, he whispered, “Stay here.” Tobin crept to the rim of the corridor, peeking out to get a closer look. He got a clear view of the webbed bundle carried on the spider’s backside. What could that be? It looked so out of place; it was soft and silky, and cradled so delicately by an eight-legged monster. Wiley crept up alongside him, but Tobin never took his eyes off the cocoon.
The sack of webbing twitched.
Now Tobin stepped fully out into the tunnel. There was something in that sack. He took a few cautious steps after the spider. Could it be an egg sack, full of mini monster spiders? No, why would a spider risk carrying its babies on a hunting trip?
Whatever was in that bundle was alive, though too small to be a mouse.
Unless . . .
The thought made his stomach flip. His breath caught in his throat. He looked to Wiley and whispered the quietest whisper he could manage. “Did you see the websack?”
Wiley nodded.
A breeze blew down the tunnel, floating past the spider, tickling Tobin’s whiskers. Raising his head, Tobin sniffed, closing his eyes, breathing in slow and steady. His stomach rolled as he let the spider’s odor fill his senses.
“What are you doing?” Wiley set a paw on his shoulder, but Tobin waved him off.
Decay, like rotting plants. Oil . . . a burned scent. Acidic. An underlying scent of . . . milk. Dandelion.
Tobin’s eyes shot wide open. “Oh no.”
Just then the spider froze, bobbing its body up and down, swirling a leg in the air. Finding the breeze, looking for a way out.
The spider again lurched forward and Tobin took a small step after it, but Wiley thumped a paw on his tail. Tobin turned to see Wiley nodding back toward Talia. His sister’s eyes were wide and her fur was spiked. She put her paw against the tunnel wall.
“Another spider’s coming,” she hissed.
Tobin set his ear beside her paw.
Click, click, click, click—scrape.
A second spider, following the same trail as this one. How much time before it rounded the corner? Tobin looked back at the bundle inchi
ng farther away.
Squeak.
“Did you hear that?” said Tobin. The call was faint, but unmistakable. Almost like a baby bird peep, but more breathy. More familiar.
A paw clamped on Tobin’s shoulder. Talia leaned into him, her voice trembling. “Is that our new baby?”
Tobin’s mind began spinning: Mom. Dad. The baby . . . until a sudden pain in his tail quickly cleared his head. He turned to see it drop from Wiley’s jaws.
“Talia said”—Wiley’s eyes narrowed as he tried to hold his attention—“there’s another spider coming. I heard the squeak, too, but we need to hide. Do you hear me?”
“It’s just . . .” Tobin trailed off as he looked back to the baby-snatching spider.
It reached the source of the breeze—a small lookout hole in the tunnel wall. The spider jabbed at the opening, ripping chunks of the wall down around it. The frenzy of its digging jostled the websack, and two tiny legs poked through the webbing, along with a little gray tail.
“No,” Tobin whispered.
Another pinch on Tobin’s tail.
“I’ll bite your tail clean off if you don’t hide now!” said Wiley.
And there was Talia beside him. Tobin nodded. “We know which way it’s heading. Let’s climb outside.”
Wiley ducked into a nearby passage, a steep, narrow tunnel. They skittered upward. The passageway forked, one path lit by shards of daylight and filled with fresh air. This trail led outside.
Tobin sniffed as he neared the exit. The rain had stopped. A small ridge with just enough space for three sets of paws jutted from the mouth of the opening.
“There.” Talia pointed down.
The spider’s powerful legs were breaking through the crumbling wall. The arachnid stepped out, and only then did its enormity become clear. The spider stood and stretched. Its size rivaled that of a full-grown toad. Despite its bulkiness, the spider nimbly scuttled down the slant of the burrow wall to the forest floor. Tobin waited for it to run away. But it just stood there.
Instead, a much smaller spider, but with the same coloring, stepped out from the bushes. It scurried to the big hunter, stood directly in front of its patch of quivering red eyes, and began bobbing up and down.