Bite Me Spider

by Nora Penn

  Back in the lighthouse, Hannah was sleeping peacefully with her newborn child Ben cradled against her rising and falling bosom. The child’s face was a picture of perfect bliss. Only the angels could guess what sort of dreams he was having. For the moment at least, both mother and child were safe and sound.

  Sonja kept a careful eye on them both. She was a mother herself, a grandmother as well, and she knew how crucial it was for a new mother and child to have a modicum of stability so they could bond. While their guests were resting, she set about making a cherry pie. She would wake them up in a bit and give them some food, but for now it was nice to work uninterrupted.

  One of the unforeseen positives of the spider apocalypse was that berries had never been more abundant. Since the spiders ate both humans and other animals, there were no longer any creatures left to eat the blueberries, blackberries, boysenberries, huckleberries, raspberries, and cherries that grew in profusion in rural areas along the coast. Sonja had even noticed tomatoes growing wild by the side of the road that led out to their lighthouse.

  The pie she was making was with cherries that had been picked fresh just two days ago. She halved and pitted them and mixed them with sugar. She made a mental note for her and Bill to pick up a few bags of sugar the next time they went to raid the grocery store. In the back of her mind there gnawed the persistent worry of what they would do when the supplies finally ran out. There were less people these days – and thus fewer competitors for the supplies – but the non-perishable food items wouldn’t last forever. At some point there would be no more sugar, and no more honey. Could she stand to live in a world without sweets? She winced at the thought and shook it from her mind. If and when that day came, she would deal with it. In the meantime she intended to enjoy her cherry pie. She put the pie in the generator-powered oven and started making some other tasty dishes. The pie was almost finished baking when Bill entered the kitchen.

  “I seem to have come down with a stomach ache.”

  “That figures,” Sonja said jokingly. “Just as I’m about to serve up some pie.”

  “I’m sure I’ll be fine in a moment,” Bill said. “I’m just going to lay down for a bit while the pie is baking.”

  “Ok sweetheart,” she said and gave him a kiss on the cheek. “I’ll bring you out a slice when it’s ready. Hopefully you’ll feel better by then.”

  Bill tottered off to lie down on the comfortable chaise lounge outside on the veranda.

  After a bit, Hannah stirred on the couch and finally opened her eyes.

  “Mmmm, I smell something cooking,” she slurred and looked around with sleepy eyes.

  “That would be my world famous cherry pie,” Sonja said proudly. “And don’t worry, you’ll get a big slice as soon as it’s ready.”

  Hannah was happy to hear this. The process of bringing her son Ben into the world had left her famished. Besides, she needed nutrients so she could feed her new baby. As she was lying on the couch, cradling Ben’s head in her lap, she heard a rustling sound. She set the baby on a pile of blankets and slowly rose up.

  “Hey there,” Sonja said from the kitchen. “It’s a little too soon for you to be up and about. You just lay back down and I’ll bring you some food in a moment.”

  “I’ll be fine,” Hannah said softly. She was grateful for Sonja’s concern but continued to ease over to the door. “I just need to check something out.”

  In the center of the door that led to the outside veranda was a porthole-shaped window. Like the portholes on ships and submarines, the porthole window had a metal cap that could be shut and screwed closed. This is because the lighthouse was right on the water and was quite often battered by violent storms. Hannah put her eye to the porthole and looked outside.

  What she saw nearly made her heart explode.

  Bill was lying on the chaise lounge. Or his body was lying there, rather, since Bill was obviously dead. The old man’s pupils had rolled back in his head, leaving only the whites of his eyes visible. His mouth hung open and a stream of baby spiders poured from his lips like black vomit.

  Hannah let out a ragged scream and stumbled back.

  “What is it, dearie?” Sonja dropped what she was doing and came waddling across the room.

  Hannah’s hand was on her heart and a look of total shock twisted her face. Her eyes flitted to Sonja’s and her mouth fell open, but no words came out.

  Sonja looked through the window and saw the awful sight of her dead husband and the spiders crawling from him.

  What followed next was a truly harrowing scene. Both women were beside themselves with grief and revulsion. As they were in the process of coming to grips with the scene the newborn baby suddenly awoke on his blanket and began crying in a high-pitched wail.

  This clarion call awoke both women, reminding them that despite their horror and sadness, they needed to defend the new life in their midst.

  Hannah ran across the room to her son and pressed him to her breast.

  “Stay back from the door!” Sonja shouted and ran back into the kitchen. She dug around under the sink and found a can of bug spray and a lighter. Then she ran back to the front door and opened it. The stream of baby spiders was still pouring out of Bill’s corpse and now covered the chaise lounge. In a few seconds they would be marching across the floor.

  Sonja stepped forward and held up the lighter and the can of bug spray, igniting one while pressing the other. An enormous flame sprang out of the can and encompassed her dead husband, the chaise lounge, and the swarm of tiny spiders.

  All it took was that one blast. Sonja stepped back inside the lighthouse and slammed the door behind her. She looked through the porthole at the gruesome and tragic scene. Ben continued to gurgle and mew in the background, adding a strange soundtrack to the fiery spectacle. Sonja watched her husband’s remains burn like a Viking on a funeral pyre until she felt Hannah’s hand on her shoulder.

  “I’m so sorry, Sonja,” Hannah whispered.

  Sonja nodded, her face painted by the glow of the flames. When she opened her eyes again, they were filled with a steely resolve. She knew that despite her pain and grief, life would go on. The young family who had entered her life gave her a new reason to be strong.

  “It was the bite,” the older woman said out of nowhere. She continued to mutter to herself. “He took it as a sign that the spiders had evolved and that their venom was no longer dangerous.”

  Hannah watched the older woman’s face crease with regret as she put two and two together.

  “But what actually happened…” Sonja said with a voice cracking from sorrow. “…was that the spider had merely laid its eggs inside him. They must have been growing in his stomach ….”

  Her voice trailed off and she looked back out at the flames.

  “If only we had known…” she said softly.

  Hannah stroked the older woman’s arm to comfort her.

  “If only we had known...” Sonja repeated. And then her eyes sprang wide open.

  “Oh my god!” she said in a voice shot through with terror.

  “What is it?!?” Hannah asked, suddenly more worried.

  “Carol is in danger!” Sonja gripped Hannah’s arms.

  The same realization began to dawn on Hannah.

  “If Bill was wrong about the spiders’ evolution and the effects of their bite, then he can be wrong about the blue spider that they think will cure Carol.” Sonja said what the two of them were thinking.

  “We have to go after them!” Hannah said urgently. “We have to catch them and stop them!”

  “I’ll go!” Sonja declared. “And I won’t argue with you about it. You need to stay here and take care of your son!”

  Hannah wanted to protest, but she knew that Sonja was right. She felt awful for everything that was happening, for the way events were unfolding for them all. Here Sonja was, still coming to grips with the death of her husband, and now she had to race after two people she barely knew. When all of this was over – if they
all somehow managed to survive – Hannah decided that come hell or high water she was going to make sure that Sonja lived a happy life.

  Sonja grabbed her coat and the keys to a small Toyota that she and Bill used when one of them had the RV.

  Before Sonja left she gave one last peek at Ben and kissed him on the forehead. “Be a good little boy, Ben, and don’t give your mother a hard time. If by some chance I don’t make it back, I hope you grow up to be as wonderful as your parents.”

  Sonja gave Hannah one last hug and sped off. Hannah watched the road until the car faded to a tiny dot and then disappeared.

  Chapter 22

  Sonja could barely see the road ahead for all the tears in her eyes. She had been driving for half an hour and had been crying for the entire time. It wasn’t a sobbing, heaving cry, like one might expect of a woman who had moments ago been widowed of her husband of fifty years. Rather it was a steady, unceasing flow, as if she were a fountain filled with pure grief. At some point she stopped wiping the tears from her face and simply let them run down her cheeks.

  As she drove along 95 South her mind replayed a hit parade of memories of her and Bill. These memories went back to when they had first met, all the way back through their time dating and then getting married, their raising their children, and then their children’s children, and then living in the lighthouse and fighting off the giant spiders for their survival. As the old woman reminisced she was painfully aware of a hollow place in her soul. It was the place in her life that her husband had occupied. It was more than a hole. It was another half of her that had gone missing. No, not gone missing. This half of her had been ripped away. And as sure as up is up and down is down, Sonja knew that she would never be the same now that the love of her life was gone.

  The only thing keeping the old woman going at that point was her mission. Her sanity hinged on the fact that she was entrusted with saving Carol’s life. In a strange way she was grateful for the task. If she, Sonja, could play a role in saving the child, she thought to herself, she could shuffle off this mortal coil knowing that she had done one last good deed. It occurred to her then that once she had caught up with James and Carol and informed them about the true nature of the spider’s bite, she could simply drive her car off the road and let herself be reunited with her husband in heaven.

  Because her emotions were so chaotic and her thoughts so scattered, and her eyes so misty with tears, Sonja’s driving was extremely erratic. On several occasions she had almost driven off the road and only managed to save herself by swerving back at the very last moment. Compounding the danger was the fact that she was speeding along at 90 miles per hour. Having a highway that was empty of cars (except for the occasional abandoned vehicle) had given her a false sense of safety. What’s more, she figured that James would be driving fast and she deduced that if she was to catch him she would have to drive even faster.

  As she drove she remained just aware enough to keep on the lookout for spiders. The eight-legged bastards had a habit of suddenly scuttling out in front of vehicles. Back when the spiders were no larger than squirrels this was more of a nuisance than a real danger, but now that the spiders were as big as bulls they posed a far more serious threat. But as fate would have it, she hadn’t seen any thus far.

  The unexplained growth of the spiders since the beginning of the spider apocalypse meant that survivors like Sonja had grown accustomed to looking for the larger specimens, as they posed the most obvious danger. But the fact that is that there were still plenty of smaller spiders creeping about, such as those that had hatched inside of her husband. As if further evidence of the danger of the smaller spiders was needed, a normal-sized Black Hermit Spider was crawling up the back of Sonja’s chair as she drove.

  “I’m going to make you proud, Bill,” Sonja said out loud and sniffed. “I know you would want me to help these kids. Just like we would help our own kids.”

  The Black Hermit Spider put its finger-like legs over the top of Sonja’s chair. When the creature saw the exposed neck of the female human, its eyes gleamed with a terrible malevolence.

  Sonja’s thoughts turned to her children and her grandchildren, especially Dylan, who was her favorite. She hadn’t heard news of him since the spider apocalypse began, but she had a feeling that he was still alive. He was such a hearty soul – a lot like this James fellow – and he would certainly put up a fight. If anyone could survive the spider apocalypse and start building civilization afresh, Dylan was the one.

  Sonja snapped out of her reverie just in time to turn the wheel and follow the curve of the highway. The tires squealed but she was oblivious to the danger. Instead of slowing down to a more reasonable pace, she pressed the gas pedal down further. The car was going so fast the frame of the vehicle began to shake.

  The Black Hermit Spider, meanwhile, put its legs over the ridge of Sonja’s collar. The creature was about the size of a human hand, and just as heavy. If Sonja had been thinking clearly she would have felt the weight on the back of her shirt. But she was too lost in her thoughts to notice.

  “Wherever you are, Dylan. I hope you’re well. I hope you know your grandmother loves you. If you’re up in Heaven, then I hope you’re with your grandfather. And if you’re still here on Earth, I hope I see you again someday.”

  The spider’s fangs were hovering over the exposed flesh of the back of Sonja’s neck. As she wrapped up her tearful soliloquy, the spider drove its fangs into her skin. Sonja winced as she felt the needle-like projections burrow into her flesh. There was a sharp sting and then a powerful numbness as the poison was injected into her system.

  At first the numbness was uncomfortable, but then it spread out like rays of sunshine freed from behind a passing cloud. Instead of feeling heavy she began to feel light.

  “I love you Dylan. And I love you Bill. I hope I’ll see you both again someday in Heaven.”

  Sonja closed her eyes. A spasm passed through her body and her spine stiffened, causing her legs to extend and her foot to press the gas pedal to the floor of the car. The vehicle shot forward like a rocket, crossing the highway at a sharp angle and smashing through a partition. On the other side of the partition was a deep ditch waiting to accept the plummeting vehicle. But this isn’t what Sonja saw.

  What Sonja saw was a multitude of faces. The faces belonged to everyone she had known in life, going back to when she was a child. They were all smiling at her as if she had just walked into a surprise birthday party being thrown in her honor. Behind the familiar faces was a bright light and inside this bright light was her husband Bill, who looked just as happy to see her as the rest. He held out his arms to her. Sonja was suddenly no longer in the car. She was in her husband’s arms. And in her husband’s arms she would stay.

  Chapter 23

  James gripped the wheel and ground his teeth in frustration. Spiders were surrounding the RV on all sides. And what’s more, the bridge that had spanned the gulch that he and Carol needed to cross had been destroyed, whether by humans or by spiders he couldn’t be sure. There was only one area ahead that appeared to be clear of the giant spiders. The clear area was to the left of them, at 10 o’clock directionally. James assumed that the empty space opened up onto the gulch. As to the depth of the gulch – or even if there was water at the bottom of it – James hadn’t a clue.

  Ultimately it didn’t matter. The empty gap ahead was the only place the spiders hadn’t yet swarmed and so that was their only possible route of escape. James gunned the gas.

  “Hold on Sweetheart!” he shouted to Carol as they barreled towards the empty space.

  “I love you Daddy!”

  James noticed that Carol didn’t scream this in terror, but rather in a sort of child-like exaltation. The father realized in that split instance that his daughter didn’t think this was the end. To the contrary, she was excited because her daddy was going to save them.

  “I love you too, darling!”

  They reached the edge and the RV hurtled into the
vast beyond.

  James held the steering wheel tight as they shot forward. For a moment it felt as if they were driving on an invisible pane of air. He looked down and saw that the gulch was indeed filled with water.

  “Roll down your window!” he shouted to Carol, and started rolling his own window down. He knew that in a few seconds they would have to swim for their lives.

  Carol continued to squeal excitedly even as she rolled down her window. The gulch wasn’t very deep. They had just managed to get the windows down when the RV hit the water.

  Kasplooooosh!!!

  The RV hit the water with all four wheels at the same time, rather than enter it while tilted forward. This was a godsend. If the RV had been tilted forward it would have made the vehicle sink faster and also make it nearly impossible for them to scramble out before the windows were submerged. This way they had a few extra seconds.

  James unhooked his seatbelt and hurriedly unfastened his daughter’s seatbelt. The RV bobbed back and forth atop the water for a moment, and James almost thought that the RV might float. But then the water rose up to the level of the window and began to pour inside the vehicle.

  James was helping Carol out of her window when a giant spider’s leg suddenly came down and started grasping inside his open window. Carol’s squeal of excitement turned to a scream of terror.

  The giant spider must have jumped on top of their RV just as they drove off the cliff. James quickly pulled Carol away from the window and lurched to the opposite side. Just as he was about to push his daughter through the window and out of the vehicle, another leg came down.

  James looked around, horrified, as eight legs descended. There were legs on each of the four sides of the vehicle, so that the two of them were effectively blocked from leaving.

  James thought quickly. He had his fishing knife on him but he didn’t have the time to unsheathe it. Without pausing for more than the split second it took him to think of the idea, James grabbed the end of the spider’s leg that reached in his window and, holding it firmly, put his mouth on it and bit down as hard as he could.