Boom! What's that in the sky? Is it a bird? Is it a plane? No, it's a... it's a... it's a giant, mud-covered spider. Everybody down!

Bob was blown over to the side, stunned by the noise and a generous dollop of mud to the face, while the spider exploded upwards, its grasshopper back-legs bulleting it into the sky.

In the final moment Bob had understood. A trick. A trap. The spider had used the beetle as a launching pad. The one safe island in a sea of hostile mud. Bob had tried to respond, but he reacted too slow and the spider had too much momentum. The spider sailed out of the pit, into the air; it was dancing on sunshine; it arched upwards, shedding mud to the heavens... Aha, it'll fall back into the pit. Serve you right.

No Bob. Even you can't be that lucky twice in a row. The spider flew clear out of the pit and the pyramid, whizzed through the air and landed, bang, right on top of George. What are the chances? George's feet were cut out from under him and the two rolled back together until the grass managed to kill their inertia. When the mud-dust cleared, George was under the spider, belly up.

"George's now your chance. Marshmallow that spider. What are you waiting for? Get him George, get him. Fire. Fire. Fire."

Except George didn't get him. George didn't fire. No, George had started acting weird. The dog was staring utterly transfixed by the spider's mustache. The dog couldn't take his eyes off the thing. It was like he'd been hypnotized. And he couldn't hear a word Bob was shouting. No response, no acknowledgement, no tilt of the head or answering bark. Like he was lost in a dream.

I knew there was something funny about that stache. Bloody psychedelic facial hair. Cut me a break. The best my beard's ever been able to do is to repel all members of the feminine sex from a ten-foot distance.

"George, snap out of it. Come on boy."

But the dog was lost off the deep end and he wasn't coming back. Bob would have to save him. He dragged himself to his feet and started running at the pair, scrambling his brain for some kind of quick-fix magic.

The spider too was hardly his best self. A full stomach, two minutes drowning under a mud pyramid and then a brief flight through the air, ending on top of a furry, yellow creature with its tongue lolling out of its mouth, took something out of a monster. You couldn't expect to just pick yourself off, wipe away the mud and get on with your day.

The spider gasped for breath as his body paid back its oxygen debt. Still, generations of deeply-instilled instincts served our spider in its trying time. When in doubt, sink your fangs down into the struggling creature underneath you. You can always think things through after everyone else is dead.

Bob was too far away. He wouldn't make it. George was defenseless. He didn't have a Harry to cover him when things went south. Thankfully George was also a dog and so he didn't fear what should obviously be feared. He had examined the marvelous moustache from a distance and decided it wasn't enough. The moustache needed to be experienced.

George licked the spider on the face. The spider froze mid attack, worried it had been hit by some kind of poison lick, which gave Bob just enough time to shape Harry into a harpoon and hurl him at the animal: "Mudpoon!" Sometimes the right words come at exactly the right time.

The spider had no natural armor and Harry's hooked point latched deep into spider flesh. Bob clasped the trailing rope with one hand and pulled on Harry with mind and muscle. The spider jerked back a step. But the impact had cleared the spider's mind and the creature now wrestled and writhed, lunging for the stupid dog with fangs bared. And painful as it was to admit, Bob didn't have the upper-body strength he might have liked. His mud arts too were more finesse than raw power. Suffice it to say, Bob was not going to win this tug of war.

"George, George. Listen to me, you bloody dog. Get up. Get out of there."

The spider let itself fall back a step, unsettling Bob's balance and then jumped forward before Bob could reestablish himself. The spider's fangs swiped down, "George, nooo..." the monster was in range, they'd connect, Bob could do nothing, it was too late; in a final, desperate attempt, without hope or reason, he called out a single word: "stick!"

At that sound, at that syllable, George sprang instantly to his feet and started to pan the surroundings looking for the fateful object. The spider's attack fell short and Bob and Harry pulled, heaving the monster back one step and then another.

This content has been misappropriated from Royal Road; report any instances of this story if found elsewhere.

George looked at Bob and Bob nodded off into the distance. George didn't need further encouragement. There was a stick to be found. The dog bounded off in search of the imaginary. I hate golden retrievers. But at least the dog was safe now. Bob, however, was in trouble. The spider, seeing one adversary had escaped its reach, decided it ought to commit to the other. The spider twisted and threw itself at Bob, at Bob who was currently pulling the spider towards himself with all his meagre strength.

Monster impacted Bob. Bob impacted ground. Bob looked up and saw a moustache. A pencil moustache, neatly shaved and combed. It was a respectable, dashing piece of facial hair. Sharp, bold lines in luxurious black hair. Now why couldn't Bob grow something like that. That was a moustache. Bob felt a powerful sense of deja vu.

"Harry, you're not going to believe me, but somehow I think I've been here before."

It was something about the scene. That bulbous, black and green body, those myriad legs with their fine, delicate hairs, the predator's forward-facing eyes, the fangs bobbing up and down in front of his vision.

"Yes, Harry I'm sure of it. I've been here before."

The cloak in question was wriggling and waving, an angry ocean of pulsating mud.

"Then again Harry I'm not sure. I feel like that's not quite the same moustache I remember. What do you think? It's too thin. I'm probably wrong. You know how things go. The mind is always looking for connections. We can't even trust ourselves."

The spider's jaw came so close to Bob's neck that the moustache tickled his neck. He giggled girlishly, "stop that, I'm sensitive there."

Bob didn't try to stand up or run away. He mumbled happily to himself, completely oblivious to the heated struggle taking place on top of him.

"What a nice day it is, don't you think, Harry?" He ran a hand through the grass. "I'm so glad we were able to get outside today and not be stuck inside the office. It'd be such a shame to miss the nice weather."

Harry had had enough of this prattle. The hood came down by itself and blocked out Bob's vision.

"What? Where am I? Something's on top of me."

He flicked off the hood and there was the stache. The glorious stache. "

What a piece of facial hair! I always knew modern society undervalued facial hair. The audacity of expression. Scalp hair really can't compete."

The hood came down again. It was like a bucket of cold water had been thrown over Bob. A part of him wanted to look at the moustache again. This was probably his only chance to see it up close. He'd be mad to throw it away. No Bob, you'd be mad to look.

How had he ended up here? He'd had one goal, only one goal for the fight. And that was not to have to touch the damn animal. And where was the animal, sitting on top of him. Ok he'd been here before. How had he gotten out last time? George. "George, come save me." There was no bark. George always barked when he heard his name. Oh yes, he had sent George off on a wild-goose chase, looking for an imaginary stick. Smart move Bob.

"Wait, I remember something."

"What is it?"

"Don't interrupt me when I'm trying to remember."

"Sorry."

"You interrupted me again."

"I've lost it. Ouch!"

The spider had decided to drop its lower body onto his legs to try and keep its prey from writhing around so much. The move effectively pinned part of Harry to the ground, preventing the cloak from resisting as effectively.

"Bob I've got it. No, no sorry, false alarm, I've lost it again."

Two sharp objects stabbed through the cloth above Bob's face, hovering just above his face. A liquid spilled down from them on top of Bob's cheek. Bloody hell. The venom sizzled against his skin. He snapped his mouth shut to prevent any from rolling inside.

"That's it. That's it. Inside the mouth. "

The spell came to Bob in a flash. And all of sudden, the mud cloak had melted into liquid and was flying from all directions to pile inside those open jaws. It was like someone had pulled out the plug and all the mud was spiraling down inside. The spider coughed, choked, its mouth swelling until it looked like its cheeks would burst outwards; the monster just fell off Bob and onto its back. Its legs twitched and its body convulsed.

Bob rose to his feet and wiped off the dust, standing over the monster curled up on the ground. That there's the power of a continuous connection. Last time Bob had just thrown mud shot after mud shot at the creature's mouth. The moment it had left the ground it was out of his control, just ordinary mud that the creature could spit out or choke down. This time he was using Harry.

The spider didn't have a chance. It tried desperately to vomit out the mud, but Harry stayed right where he was. So the monster changed tactics and tried to swallow down the mud. Big mistake. Harry Mud trickled down inside the spider's digestive system and then solidified into a ball of spikes. The spider was killed from the inside-out, liquified by a muddy, sentient poison. A fitting death for a jumping spider.

And that was when Sir George, the golden knight, decided to make his appearance. He trotted happily up with a stick in his mouth.

"You found it boy," Bob patted the care-free animal, "you found the imaginary stick. That's no easy feat."

When Bob tried to take the stick, George clamped down. "Ok, your stick. I understand."

Pop, Bob's camping chair appeared. "Wow George, how considerate of you. That's a real gentleman move of you."

Bob sat down, just in time to watch George walk over to the corpse and pop it into his storage.

"A distraction George! Low blow. And of course you'd want the body. That's a little bit more barbarian than gentleman, but you do you, George, you do you."