It may have been the slow tapping on the windshield that woke him, or it may have been the sudden feeling of his soul’s first attempt to leave his body. It took a moment for his eyes to focus, the moonlight shading the inside of the car a subtle hue of crypt-like eeriness. It was still night and his head hurt. What time was it? Jack tried to rub the sleep from his eyes but could barely lift his hands and succeeded more in slapping his face. Once conscious, he looked out the front of the car.
On the windshield a spider the size of Jack’s fist sat staring back at him. Its hairy legs tapping on the glass in slow, rhythmic staccato. They stared at each other. The only two beings on earth locked in a silent gaze, Jack now fully awake. The tapping stopped. The beast content in its work.
Jack glanced over to his left. The door was still open from when he had crawled in after his journey to the center line. The spider seemed to follow Jack’s eyes, realizing the car was open for inspection. It looked at the open door and stretched its legs. It slowly stalked across the glass with silent footfalls to the doorjamb, its front legs feeling its way.
Jack lost sight of the creature in the jamb. But he knew it was coming. Soon, two legs moved through the air like antennae listening for sound. Slowly, the spider reached into the car and pulled itself inside. Its thick black body pulled along by its hairy legs. Jack’s heart stopped as he watched it inch its way onto the dash, resting in between the steering wheel and the windshield.
It resumed its staredown of Jack now from the vinyl shelf inside the car, studying him with what seemed to be a hundred eyes. Jack sat paralyzed. Fear gripped him as hard as he gripped the seat he was sitting on.
His breath was now labored. He tried to remember every Discovery Channel show he ever watched. He was sure this thing had come to devour them whole. To wrap them up Frodo Baggins–style and pull them back to its lair.
The spider turned and scurried over to the passenger side, onto the door, and slipped down onto Laura’s leg. It sat there looking back at Jack, rubbing its forelegs together, preparing to dig in.
He was powerless. Does he scream her name? Wake her up? Sit there and watch this thing bite into her leg? It sat there for an eternity, and then it moved slowly toward Jack.
Creeping ever so stealthily, it moved across Laura’s bare legs and reached for the center console. Its eight legs stretched across the cup holder as its body sank into it.
He could jump out of the car back onto the road. But could this thing jump too? Would it leap after him? What if Laura woke up and saw that he had left her there with that thing squatting next to her? He was in full-blown panic mode, indecisive, as his heart did its best to force itself out of his rib cage.
The spider moved across the center console and onto Jack’s thigh. He shut his eyes and waited for the thing to strike. The anticipation was killing him.
Just do it! he thought, but the spider just sat there. Do it!
The bug moved again, across Jack’s other leg, and headed out the door. Jack watched as it hit the pavement and scurried off across the road. He shut the door with all the strength he could muster. The sweat poured off his face, the last of what fluid remained in his body. He looked over at Laura, who slept, oblivious to the events that had just slithered across her body. His body loosened and he passed out.