The spider loomed, deceptively still, and Jasson scarcely breathed. Some part of his mind started counting the eyes of the nightmare, a morbid interest in facts ticking away the time eye by eye.
Seven, Jasson could breathe. At twelve Jasson could move again. At sixteen eyes Jasson could fight, fingers twitching onto the screen in a drumroll of fear.
In the fervent manner of someone who was raised on click-to-win games, Jasson went to war on his screen. And, to the great horror of all arachnophobes hoping that the spider was a Halloween decoration, it reacted.
Jasson screamed and threw the chair at it, getting in a few final taps before buckling and pulling the door closed above him. The scuttle of too many legs drummed above Jasson’s head and disappeared behind him.
“Did you get it?” The mother said as Jasson desperately held his bladder, “Is it dead?”
“It didn’t sound dead,” Jasson squeaked, “Umm…I don’t think the chair worked.”
“That was awesome!” Ethan said, “It sounds so big! Are you gonna finish it off?”
The kid looked nothing like Jasson’s siblings, not that Jasson had ever defended his siblings. Maybe this swell of protectiveness was his subconscious making up for that. A real threat, a real child. And, perhaps, a real hero.
“It sounds like terror incarnate,” Jasson looked into Ethan’s hopeful eyes, “But…Yeah. I’m gonna finish it off.”
I must be crazy today, Jasson thought.
Taking a breath, Jasson looked at his phone. The Punching John game had a number on the corner.
Since when did this game have hit combos? Jasson thought. Still… forty-two is pretty good. Especially while using two fingers.
Before he could stop himself, Jasson pushed open the attic door. This spider was horrifying but thankfully it was not a jumper. Jasson scanned the room through the bare inch of a gap, flicking from place to place before he shivered from to the top of his head to- well. You know where.
There was a strange little tube right beside the opening, and Jasson leaned closer to see what it-
Suddenly the tube curled and Jasson screamed, ducking down again. Jasson saw the family watching him and smiled desperately. As long as he didn’t count the screaming and tiny leak, he was still in the running to be a hero to this kid.
I want to use the bathroom, Jasson thought, But if I go I’ll never come back. It has to be now or never.
“Just a leg,” Jasson said, tears of terror streaming down his face, “I knocked one off. Erm…can I get something to push it away with? I think the spider has gone into hiding.”
Elizabeth sent Ethan to fetch the fire poker, which Jasson felt they should have led with the first time instead of handing him a newspaper. The kid returned and Jasson gave it a few experimental swings. The poker wielded better than the chair but Jasson could feel the handle rattle as he swung it. This was a terrible weapon.
“It's mostly decorative,” Elizabeth explained, “We use heating crystals, so our fireplace isn’t used that often. Usually for the Winter Feast when the kids want to open presents by the fire.”
How picturesque, Jasson thought, although not any better for me. I shouldn’t rely on this thing unless the big guy corners me.
“This will do fine,” Jasson held up his phone, “I’m just using it to poke around.”
Jasson eased the door open and shoved the leg of terror away from the opening with the poker. He watched it tumble into the distance, then Jasson broke his gaze away to scan the surroundings. He was peaking through a few inches of the open trap door, hoping to see the spider but unable to see directly behind or *shudder* above him.
If the spider was in front of the door like before, then surely he’d be able to land a few more hits. Do that enough times and it would be dead. He wouldn’t need to climb up into the attic after all. But all Jasson saw were boxes and crates, some chests and chairs, and an old rocking horse.
There’s always a rocking horse, Jasson thought, and- yup! Creepy dolls sitting on a chest, cobwebs strung between them. Fantastic. Why don’t people ever put dolls inside the wooden chest for safekeeping? Preferably with a strong lock. Ah well, at least I’m not here for ghosts.
Jasson prayed that the spider wasn’t waiting in ambush from the ceiling, and pushed the trap door all the way open. After a tense moment void of the scuttle of doom, Jasson forced himself to look up. Nothing. With knees that had all the structural integrity of a third-world government, Jasson climbed the steps into the attic. Keeping his head on a swivel, Jasson checked every blind spot the moment his imagination filled it with craven carapace. Once Jasson climbed halfway up, he twisted to see behind the now vertical trap door, bladder threatening to make him the talk of the town.
Safe.
I don’t have enough eyes for this, Jasson thought, not by far!
Once he’d finished climbing up, Jasson looked to where he’d hit the spider. Four legs lay curled in a trail leading straight to the trap door. Jasson shivered, revulsion coming across him* and he dearly hoped that this was as big as spiders got in this world.
*(Detached limbs carry a portion of the terror inflicted by the original owner. This is expressed with the following equation: If Received Terror=T, the number of legs=L and the raw fear of the original owner on a scale of 1 to 10=f. Then: T=f/2+L, plus or minus the number of screams within a five-second period.)
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“Then again,” Jasson said, contemplating the size of the spider’s leg, “it could be a baby.”
As if he didn’t have enough to be paranoid about. Jasson shivered and shut the trap door, cutting off his escape but protecting the family below. Besides, it wasn’t like he’d be safe if he dove through the opening.
Shaking, Jasson used the poker with his left hand as he started the search. He tapped experimentally on his phone, noting how the Punching John app didn’t move any boxes or dolls. Apparently, Punching John only worked on living things or threats of some kind. Jasson kept looking, pulling boxes aside with the poker’s hook and tapping everything in the room with his phone. Quite a few normal spiders squished, but he wasn’t able to find the wounded fiend.
“Of course,” Jasson said, hair standing as he twitched, “What’s worse than a huge spider you can see? One you can’t. #%^&. It’s a pissed-off amputee.”
It could be anywhere.
Jasson tucked the fire poker under his arm and held his phone in his left hand. Now free to use all the fingers on his right hand, Jasson started drumming on his screen. He scanned the room like this, hoping the the app would find and kill the spider before- well he didn’t want to think about it.
Wait a second, Jasson thought, wouldn’t this type of spider have some kind of nest or home? It didn’t look like the type that makes big webs. Thankfully.
As Jasson peered into the edges of the attic, where the roof sloped down and light had trouble reaching, Jasson saw something large pushed against the rafters. It was covered with a canvas, one corner pulled away to reveal a wardrobe. The handles were tied together with a cord and it was probably filled with clothes, reminding Jasson that he was still wearing his t-shirt and blue jeans. After three days of hot sun, kids with coal, digging around for herbs, and hiking up a mountain, Jasson found himself longing for something else to wear. He’d had a bath yesterday after the charcoal incident, but it would be nice if-
Then Jasson saw it, a corner of webbing sticking to the ceiling behind the wardrobe. Jasson cautiously rounded the area, staying on the other side of a stack of boxes marked ‘Baby Clothes, severely worn’.
Jasson stepped up onto a wooden rocking chair and found that he could see the entire nest. The webs made a messy triangle, filling the hole between the tall wardrobe and the angled ceiling. It wasn’t quite a funnel of webs, but structural engineering has rarely been the defining factor of a terrifying spider web. Jasson studied his foe, using the back of the rocking chair as a shield between him and the nest.
Past the gauze of web and safety, the spider glared at Jasson with…well not fury. It had cold eyes that didn’t reflect human emotion, only the evil it was created for.*
*(Yes, we are all aware that spiders kill pests and are generally helpful to mankind. However, anything that doesn’t fit under your shoe is the embodiment of Satan, goats be darned.)
“You’re dead,” Jasson said, locking on with Punching John. Jasson drummed on the screen, and for a heart-stopping moment, it lurched forward. Then it curled up and died.
Oh thank the gods, Jasson thought.
Unfortunately, there is another prayer. One too fearful to be uttered in the hearts of men (usually fathers) for fear of it manifesting by mere mental utterance. The prayer goes thusly:
“By $%*&%^ so &^%*^ please %(*&% don’t let this be a mama spider.”
Jasson screamed internally as hundreds of baby spiders swarmed out, each one the size of a dessert plate. As one, the swarm looked around, as if they hadn’t seen Jasson yet. Trembling, Jasson made sure that Punching John was still working. He had twenty-three minutes left-
Suddenly the trapdoor opened and Elizabeth poked her head in. The spiders immediately turned, then swarmed as one towards the opening.
“Is everything alright?” Elizabeth said, blinded by the trap door.
The kids! Jasson thought. They’ll be scarred for life!
Jasson tapped furiously, years of mobile games giving him the reflexes of a cookie-clicker god. This was no longer Punching John, where you beat up a single opponent. This wasn’t even an advanced Fruit Samurai. Jasson didn’t know what game this was anymore, but he was going to win. (Doom soundtrack kicks in)
Something crawled up Jasson’s pants but but he simply shook it off his leg, focusing on defending the mother. The tide of spiders rushed forward, but Jasson matched it in fervent glory, slowing their progress to a crawl. Elizabeth screamed when she saw the spiders come around the trap door, an ugly thing of panic and vulnerability.
“RUN!” Jasson shouted, killing one right as it reared to bite Elizabeth.
Elizabeth dropped and slammed the trap door shut. Jasson sighed, triumphant until the rest of the ravenous horde turned to him instead. Jasson froze as he realized that some had already made it onto his chair, raising their fangs aggressively. There was no sound that came from Jasson’s lips, merely the essence of terror escaping from his pants. Jasson leapt damply, kicking off the rocking chair and landing in a dead sprint.
crunchcrunchcrunch
Winching and slipping slightly with every crunch, Jasson scrambled until he found an area clear of spiders.
Jasson whipped around and tapped wildly on his screen, watching the hellspawn die in waves. Row after row fell before him, their brothers and sisters climbing over the corpses of those that came before only to splat and curl and die. Jasson was able to push the swarm back, only to have one flank him and start crawling on his pants. Jasson swatted it off with his phone but was still overwhelmed in that moment.
Jumping from his shrinking safety, Jasson realized that there was nowhere left to go. The entire attic was carpeted with enemies, including where he was about to land. Unable to stand still and unable to run, Jasson clogged across the floor.
crunchcrunchcrunchcrunch
The rhythm of terror beat against his soul, keeping Jasson going in his deadly dance. At the same time he wielded his phone, becoming a whirlwind of skipping death. Yet even as he reached his 400th combo, Jasson watched as more spiders spilled from the nest. How many were there?
Thankfully, it seemed that they were unable to handle his dancing, which was the opinion of TikTik whenever Jasson posted a dancing trend video. Except this time he couldn’t stop to take a break after only a minute. Or ten.
The spiders wouldn’t stop, an endless swarm forcing Jasson’s fingers and feet to dance in desperation. Eventually, the pain blurred into the panic, becoming perfectly in tune with the sound of crunching arachnids. On and on, gasping, poker fallen and forgotten long ago. What he wouldn’t give for a flamethrower. There was nothing left to do but go on and pray his phone didn’t run out of power.
And then, slowly, Jasson realized that it was over.
Jasson collapsed to his knees, gasping because his life depended on it, and realized that he hadn’t stepped on a living spider in…a while. Just recrunching the dead into a perverse paste. Like a ripple stilling an entire pond, Jasson saw that there wasn’t a single thing moving in the attic. The only sound was his heart trying to burst out of his ears and the roaring of his lungs cashing in their debt.
The world spun and Jasson put an arm to the side to catch himself, then looked at his hand when he heard a crunch. He’d just put his hand in the remains of a dozen spider, legs and fangs twisting between his fingers as the spines pricked his palm. Jasson didn’t even have the energy to react, merely stared in wonder.
I won, Jasson thought, I fought and won! I did it! Victory! YES! Get pwned!