Mary stopped cold on the trail. Eyes closed and sputtering, she backed up, wiping furiously at her face and hair. Fairly confident there were no spiders tangled up in there, she moved to her arms, wiping away the sticky webbing as shudders of revulsion pulsed through her.
Every damn night. She carried a large stick in front of her to prevent this exact situation, but somehow, at least one web somehow seemed to melt around the stick and meet her face, almost like something supernatural. She couldn’t abide the feeling of those sticky, gossamer threads against her skin. And she would spend the next hour feeling tiny imaginary legs crawling all over her body, swiping at them just in case they turned out to be real.
Occasionally, they did.
She adjusted her headlamp and peered down the trail, illuminating several more large webs stretched across it, along with about a million tiny, glittering eyes, each one trained on her. Grasping her stick and waving it in front of her like a protective talisman, she pressed on, grumbling aloud to Henry and hoping he could hear her, God rest his soul.
Why in the world he had thought it a good idea to put the chicken coop all the way at the back of their property in the middle of the woods, she would never understand, and she had told him as much when he did it. Somehow, it had made sense to him, and since he’d been the one to collect the eggs and put the chickens to bed after sundown, she hadn’t given it much more thought.
Until he was gone, and the job fell to her. She had plans to relocate the coop next to the house, although she was still debating whether to just get rid of the flock. The girls were past their prime and she didn’t have the energy to raise a new brood. Feeding them cost a damn sight more than just buying eggs, anyway, even at these inflated prices. But she wasn’t sure she had the heart to cull the poor old things.
Mary grit her teeth against the wisps of webbing that made it past the stick and brushed her arms until, at last, she reached the end of the trail. Propping the stick where she’d remember to grab it on the way back, she wiped her bare arms, and took another pass at her face and hair for good measure. As she did, a little pair of eyes crept toward her on the ground and stopped before her feet, staring up at her. She and the spider looked at each other for a good, long moment.
And then she lifted her boot and snuffed its lights out for good.
She felt a flood of satisfaction as she ground her foot in the dirt, but it was fleeting, followed by a pang of guilt. It wasn’t that she hated spiders, so much. She generally left them alone as long as they left her alone. But she was full of anger — at Henry for putting the coop all the way out here, for leaving her alone with a farm to care for that she never wanted in the first place, at her own self for having gotten so old and tired, at the world for continuing on as if the only person in the world who really meant anything to her and to whom she’d ever really meant anything hadn’t keeled over from a heart attack and fallen off his tractor.
And she was angry at the spiders for putting so many goddamned webs in her path every night. At least that was one less web-builder to contend with.
With the chickens shut in for the night, Mary retrieved her stick and headed back, not bothering to hold it up. The way back was never as bad, with no time for the webs to be rebuilt. But a few steps into the trail, she cried out in disgust as webbing wrapped around her face.
Tears threatened to spill over as she wiped her face and batted at her hair. This was too much. God damn it. Just too much.
Composing herself, she angled the lamp, and felt a cold fist clench inside her chest. The trail was full of webs. More than before. How could that be?
Mary shook her head in wonder as much as horror. Looking behind her, she considered her options, but she only had the one unless she wanted to spend the night with the hens. Her gaze landed on a fallen limb, with spindly branches spread out almost the width of the trail. Dropping her stick, she took up the branch and held it before her like a shield, sweeping away the webbing as she made her way along the path. Forty feet felt more like a hundred.
When she reached open ground, she tossed aside the branch and marched across the field, putting as much distance as she could as quickly as she could between herself and the woods. She fumbled with the latch on the gate to the yard, got it opened and then closed behind her as she rushed into the house, stopping in the mud room to strip off her shirt and jeans and throw them in the washer before heading straight to the shower.
Only after she had scrubbed from head to toe was she satisfied that no spiders were crawling on her. Feeling calmer, she put on her nightgown. Seated on her side of the bed, she opened the nightstand drawer and took out a pack of cigarettes. As she tapped one out, she could hear her doctor’s voice warning her that she’d end up just like Henry if she didn’t give them up. Fine by her. What did an old widow have to live long for, anyway, especially if she couldn’t enjoy a good smoke now and then?
Mary lit the cigarette with the lighter she kept with the pack, shut them back in the drawer, and then leaned back in her bed and picked up a book to distract her from the fact she no longer had someone to share it with.
***
“Here’s where we’ll put the chickens.”
Plucking dead leaves that got stuck in her hair during their trek through the woods, Mary looked at Henry, standing there with his fists balled up on his hips as he beamed at the clearing before them. She matched his posture and stared at him. “Why on earth would we do that?”
His high-beam smile dimmed, and he glanced at her. “They’ll be secure back here. Hidden.”
“Hidden from who?”
“Now Mary, you know what the world’s coming to. We don’t want to advertise that we’ve got our own food supply. When the stuff hits the fan, believe me, you’ll be glad they’re out of sight.” He waved toward the far end of the clearing. “There’s room over there for some raised beds, too.”
“But I thought that was the whole point of moving way out here to the BFE. We got no close neighbors. Who’s gonna come looking to steal our food?”
“You never know.” He sidled over and slipped an arm around her waist. “Better safe than sorry, right?”
“But what about four-legged chicken thieves? Back here they’ll just get picked off by raccoons and foxes.”
Henry waved a dismissive hand, indicating the spot where he planned to build. “I’ll build ‘em a good, solid chicken run. Secure. No critters will be able to get to ‘em.” He craned his neck to look at the woods behind them. “‘Course, I’ll have to clear a path through the woods.”
“I still say it’d be a lot easier to just put the coop up by the house.”
“Sure. If you want to get woken up by a rooster crowin’ right outside our bedroom at the first hint of sunrise.”
Mary sighed. Henry pulled her closer. “Tell you what. The chickens’ll be my chore. I’ll build the coop, I’ll raise the chicks, and I’ll feed ‘em and collect the eggs. You won’t have to come all the way out here if you don’t want to.” She made a sound that was something between skepticism and acquiescence, and Henry’s grin lit back up. “That’s my girl. Now let’s seal it with a kiss.”
He puckered up. Laughing in spite of herself, Mary pecked him square on the mouth. “All right, then. Have it your way.”
***
Mary’s cheek itched. Too drowsy and comfortable to bother scratching it, she tried to ignore it and go back to sleep. But it persisted, making the muscle twitch and waking her enough to realize it was daylight on the other side of her eyelids. Time to rise and shine.
Just five more minutes, Henry. She burrowed beneath the sheet and coverlet with every intention of drifting back to sleep. But that itch turned into a tickle, and then a sharp sting. With a startled yelp, she brought a hand to her cheek and felt something small and arachnoid there. A sharp cry of disgust turned into a strangled gasp as she pulled off the covers, sat up in bed and found herself encased in a nightmare.
Thick clumps of webbing molded themselves to her face and neck. Raising her hands to tear them away, they encountered more webbing every inch of the way. Pulling the stuff away from her face, she opened her eyes to see nothing but white. It enveloped her, filling every space that she could see. She pushed a hand out to tear at the webs directly in front of her. That’s when she noticed the little dark spots dotting the webbing, hanging in it, moving in it.
Moving toward her.
With a choked scream, she got out of bed, more webs enfolding and clinging to her as she moved. She wiped them from her face, crying softly to herself as she tore through them to reach the nightstand and open the drawer. She fumbled for the lighter and raised it to the web, but a glimmer of sense broke through her terror before she could flick flame to life.
“Fool woman,” she muttered to herself, “what if it all goes up at once? You’ll torch the whole house and everything in it.”
Thinking more clearly, Mary’s panic subsided a little. Clutching the lighter, she pulled the coverlet off the bed and wrapped herself up in it, covering her face. Holding a hand in front of her, she moved in the direction of the door, pushing through layer after layer of webbing until it contacted something solid.
She felt around for the knob. Ignored the sensation of legs crawling across the back of her hand, resisting the urge to yank it back underneath the blanket. Grunted in pain as a bite stung her. Finally, she grasped the knob, turned it, and pulled the door open. Stepped out of the room and uncovered her face, and let out a desperate sob.
The hallway was filled with webbing, all of it crawling with spiders. Big ones.
She pushed back into her bedroom and shut the door. Leaning her forehead against it, she cussed a blue streak, or at least tried to. Her breath had become rapid, shallow. Sweat pooled beneath her breasts. “Get a hold of yourself, girl.”
The window. If she could get to it, she could climb through it and head for help. She’d have to walk -- no way to make it to where she’d hung her keys. It was about half a mile to the Parker place. Once outside, she could rest a bit, catch her breath, and then make the trek in minutes.
Mary pulled the blanket back over her face and kept a shoulder to the wall as she pushed along it toward the window. Realized her legs were bare as tiny feet tickled her ankles on their way upward. Shimmying in an attempt to shake them off, she bumped into the dresser. She leaned her hip against it as she navigated it, keeping her spider-bitten hands safely tucked inside the coverlet until she was pretty sure she’d reached the window. Not that it mattered, what with them crawling up underneath her nightgown, filling her with revulsion and a sense of indecency.
Focusing on her task, she reached out and felt the smoothness of glass beneath the sticky webbing. Only then did she uncover her head again. Webbing covered the panes so thickly that she couldn’t see anything. Peeling it away, she soon reached the glass and realized it was on the outside, too. Her breath came more rapidly, and she felt chilled and nauseous and light-headed as she fumbled with the latch and pushed the window up. More webs stretched across the opening. She tore them away, leaning all the way out to pull at them, but that didn’t clear them. “Oh, no,” she whispered.
How could it be? How could any of this be happening?
Dark shapes moved within the webbing that encased the house. Unimaginably large. Larger than any spider had a right to be.
Mary pulled herself back inside and slammed the window shut, just as an enormous shadow passed in front of it. Wheezing, pulling the blanket tight, she backed up, up, as that shadow filled the window, until her legs met the bed. She collapsed onto it as pain shot through her chest, radiated out through both her arms and up into her jaw. She clutched at her heart as if to pull at the vice that had hold of it and only then remembered she still held the lighter.
A loud thump resounded against the window. Mary stared, not believing her own eyes as multiple sets, large, unblinking and filled with intent, pressed against the glass and stared back at her.
It was too much. Her wheezing turned to hoarse laughter, even as stars and a thick grayness filled her vision. “I’m coming, Henry,” she gasped. Flicking her Bic to life, she touched it to the webbing, igniting a blinding flash even as her vision faded to black.
Hello there! Thanks for reading.
If spiders are your ick, I’m sorry, although I doubt you’d have read this far if that were the case. For the record, I actually quite like spiders (except brown recluses. Those can go ahead and burn). But this story sprang to life in my brain a few weeks ago after I planted my face into the third web I encountered on my way to feed my chickens, despite holding a protective stick out in front of me. And if you want to see me completely lose my dignity, just watch me walk face first into a spider web.
Anyway, I guess the moral of this story is, be nice to spiders. They’re just out there trying to eat. And you certainly don’t want to accidentally summon some cthonic spider god who decides you’re on the menu.
Want to read more of my short stories? Here are a few you might enjoy:
You can find more of my short fiction in these collections:
It's spider season up in the PNW and the webs are out of control. This story makes a perfect accompaniment!
🖤🖤🖤 Loved this! Somehow I knew what was coming here but it was scary all the way.
I’ve always been a spider friend myself, except for the tarantula that tried to share a shower with me 🕷️