They say you're never more than three feet away from a spider. I bet there's one near you now. Under your desk, behind your couch, in your bathroom drain. They live in a world that’s nearly invisible to the human eye, and a thousand times more violent than anything you’ve ever experienced in your life.
I for one am grateful that the insect world is invisible, but boy, was I reminded of it as my spiders’ predator instincts kicked in. They hunted with a confident, calculating brutality that gave me heart palpitations. If these guys could talk, they’d be bragging about how they dismantled the fly they ate last night, watched it writhe in their web for six hours, and beg for its life before they sucked all the moisture out of it on a slow drip. Trust me, the mind of a spider isn’t pleasant.
Now, imagine four of them beaming their minds into mine and you’ll understand why I had heart palpitations.
I could officially cross aconite poisoning off my bucket list. If I ever had to ingest this crap again, I’d just ask the Good Lord to take me instead.
I sure didn’t have my health, and not much was going my way tonight, but at least I had the element of stealth.
In my mind’s eye, I saw what the Cluster saw, a kaleidoscope of black and white panels, each one divided into hexagon nodes. Each one had different footage from each eye’s perspective. If I tried to focus on all of them, I’d go insane, so I let them simmer against the darkness of my eyelids. I trusted the spiders to alert me when it was necessary.
Spider A made its way onto the front porch and was clambering sideways across the home's brick exterior toward the back of the house. Its path was a rollercoaster as it ran across the brick surface, down into the mortar joints, and up again to the next brick.
Spider B was crawling up a waterspout. I couldn’t help but think just how accurate that nursery rhyme was. It climbed up the dark, rain-slicked spout like it was nothing.
Spider C was inspecting the front window, looking for a crack. I sensed a shift in its emotion—rather than hunting, curiosity was coursing across its mind. It had found something.
Spider D—well, I had no idea what the hell it was doing or where the hell it was, but if I had to guess, it had probably found a void under the house. Dark shapes passed by its field of vision. Every now and again, and I thought I made out a joist.
"Any luck?" Bo asked.
I grunted.
I just had to give the spiders time. Time to find a way in, time to set up surveillance, and time for me to heal.
Spider C’s vision overtook my mind's eye. It found a crack at the top of what looked like a living room window between the brick and the casement. It slipped through into pure darkness. A few seconds later, a pinwheel of light overwhelmed its vision. It was so bright that it made me wince.
Once the spider’s eyes adjusted, it was walking upside down under an interior windowsill.
Spiders have strange vision. Their eyes give them almost 360-degree vision, but they can’t see very far. But what they can see, a few inches in front of them, is clear and big. I wish I could have seen more, but all I could see was a wall of cloth. Looked like a couch of some kind.
Something far off moved, shaking the room, making the spider freeze and retreat as close to the wall as it could.
Spider A wanted me to know something. It was almost on the roof now, racing for a small crevice in the soffit, just under the gutter. It emerged into darkness and its panel went black.
Spider D’s panel was still black too. Whatever it was doing, it was charging along. It knew something I didn’t.
Spider B brought me back to the living room. It was on the floor now, running across carpet. The carpet fibers were as hilly as moguls on a ski slope. Soon, the spider found the shaded underside of a bookcase, and it crawled up the wooden back panel. Then, it beamed sounds to me.
“We have to get him to a hospital,” Cassandra said.
The spider bounded to the top of the bookcase, slipped behind a picture frame, and gave me a better look at the couch.
A big blurry human mass lay on the couch. Another person sat next to the couch on what looked like a folding chair. Another was sitting on the floor. Clearly Cassandra and Thad.
It took me a second to adjust to the spider’s vision. It was like trying to analyze a painting through frosted glass.
Gillian moaned in pain.
“And what is the doctor going to do?” Thad asked. “Give him painkillers? Nothing’s broken, Cass. Just his spirit.”
“This is my fault,” she said. From her voice, I could tell that she had been crying.
“It’s not,” Thad said.
“I should have killed that necromancer in the parking lot. We could have rescued Gillian with shadowcraft.”
“Should’ve, would’ve, could’ve,” Thad said. Even behind closed doors, the guy was not much of a talker.
Spider D’s panel lit up. It charged across a shimmering white surface that looked like a mountain valley.
A bathtub. The spider made it up the porcelain surface, slid down the other side, and crawled behind a toilet. It waited, surveying the blurry bathroom.
Gillian moaned again.
“I’m calling an ambulance,” Cassandra said. She rose, but Thad grabbed her arm.
“I can’t let you,” he said. “Gillian would never approve.”
“I don’t care!” Cassandra cried.
“What are you going to tell the paramedics?” Thad asked. “That Gillian fell off a ladder? That he got assaulted? Then the doctors are going to see his shadow marks and they’re going to start asking all kinds of uncomfortable questions. Then your people are going to think we can’t deliver.”
“He’s one of our own,” Cassandra said.
“And he’s alive,” Thad said softly. “Let’s help him through this, come what may, but the hospital isn’t the answer.”
The two stared at each other. The air was so tense, even my spider could feel it.
In the bathroom, Spider D was running toward the door when Cassandra entered and switched on the light.
The spider froze. Its fight or flight instinct struck and my heart palpitations increased.
I could hardly breathe.
I willed the spider to be still. If it moved, it would give itself away.
But Cassandra didn’t look down. She stood in front of the vanity, staring at herself in the mirror. A giant trumpeting sound filled the bathroom as she blew her nose.
“If you won’t help me, then I’m taking this into my own hands!” she cried.
“Whatever,” Thad said. “Just don’t call an ambulance.”
“You fucking asshole,” she said under her breath.
I sensed that Cassandra was about to leave. She turned off the light.
I willed the spider to latch on to her. It dashed across the tile and leaped onto the back of her shoe. I hoped like hell she wouldn’t feel it.
The spider held on as Cassandra tracked through the house.
“Bo, get down,” I said. “Cassandra is leaving the house.”
Bo slanted his seat down just as Cassandra exited the front door. She was wearing a gray backpack that made her look like a student. I could see the desperation in her eyes, even in the dark. She looked around cautiously.
She ran down her steps to a bike parked against the porch. She unlocked a bike lock, hopped on, and rode away.
I willed the spider to find a way into her backpack as she picked up speed.
The spider jumped onto the chassis of the bike and crawled upside down onto the seat. It jumped onto her lower back, but she didn’t feel it.
Then, the spider made a final leap onto the backside of her backpack, clambered up the cloth, found an opening in the zipper, and threw itself in.