Terror in the Shadows vol. 7: Terror in the Shadows Anthology

FLIES

Each day is the same, but I don't mind. It saves me the effort of thought and means I have nothing to fight. I can sit down for work and get lost in the web--both literally and figuratively, I suppose. That's the way it should be when I'm the spider and not the fly.

After a stale coffee, I wake the computer with a tap at the keys. An image of a spider takes up the screen when it flashes to life. For a while, I stare, meeting the almost-familiar gaze the same way I did with the spider in my hand earlier that morning.

I didn't open that photo. Something like a shiver tingles at the base of my neck--or maybe it's just another set of legs crawling up my back. Whatever. Where the picture came from is another question not worth worrying about. All I want to do is see what I caught in my phishing net today--how much money I'll rake in.

When I try to close the photo, nothing happens. Frozen--it figures.

With a groan, I bend down beside the computer's chassis. Wisps of cobwebs wave in its exhaust fans. The damn things found their way inside there, too. I grab a screwdriver and cleaning canister from my drawer, unplug my computer, then squat on sore legs to start its surgery. Even after I get the screws out, the back doesn't want to come off. I tug harder, the old metal digging into my fingers. It finally pulls away with a dusty pop. Silver strands come with it like spittle hanging from an opening maw.

Eight eyes, far bigger than my own, stare back at me from inside the chassis. The metal cave stretches on too far, too deep, too black. Pedipalps the size of hands twitch through the opening. The room's faint light reflects green off the spider's gaze.

I don't move.

Eight legs--bigger than my arms, too big for the space they come from--emerge one at a time from the chassis. Eight legs tap and twitch at the floor, their fur blowing in the fans. Eight legs reach toward me.

I scream.

A leg shoots into my mouth--silencing my voice, cutting off my air, holding down my tongue.

I bite. The leg doesn't react, doesn't move, doesn't let me go. It tastes like ashes.

Green eyes hold mine as a bulbous, brown-striped body pulls itself free from the chassis, tangled strands of silk dragging behind it.

My heart cracks against my ribs, but I've already gone numb. I can't breathe.

Another leg hooks around my lips and pulls my jaw open wider.

This has to be a nightmare.

The spider begins to climb.