‘Spider’ grunted in response and waved them away.
Nate was bewildered. Why would he stop them just for their names? No idea. He pondered on the scene for a while then dismissed it. They went on for their usual job.
From the next day, they met the ‘Spider’ frequently. He seemed to get talkative once you’ve known him. He talked to them about their job, food, clothing and much more. The gangster had chuckled when Jaz had mentioned how much Nate was afraid of Spiders. Nate and Jaz did not reveal anything about their families, afraid that they might be used against them.
“So, dontcha get tired of yer job?” the gangster asked them one day, smoking a new brand of cigarette.
“We don’t like it. But we have to do it if we wanna survive,” replies Jaz, suddenly looking sad.
“How dyo like it if I found yer a new job?”
“I don’t know,” she replied, turning to look at Nate, whose face had an alarmed expression at the mention of a new job. He was thinking one thing: I don’t want to lose Jaz.
“C’mon, you could give it a try. See how shit works out and decide,” the ‘Spider’ said, throwing his arms wide, a mad glint in his eyes.
“I would try if it does not include beds and me—“ Jaz started.
But the ‘Spider’ heard just the first three words, he calls out to another Kreecha who is standing nearby, “The girl sez she’ll do it. She’s yers. Everyone‘s gonna love ‘er!”
The kids don’t even have the time to react, the burly man called the ‘Giant’ grabs Jaz by both her shoulders and pulls her away. She screams, but a moment later a balled up piece of cloth is jammed into her mouth.
Nate tries to grab Jaz’s hand but fails. He starts to run, but a thin hand wraps around his waist and lifts him off the ground. He shouts and thrashes wildly, the ‘Giant’ stops and turns around to look at the boy. The crowd moves on as if a screaming boy and a gagged girl is nothing to take a second look at.
“You maniac! You filthy son of a--” Nate stops, feeling the barrel of a gun on his right temple. I’m gonna die, he thought, goodbye mum, goodbye Jaz
The ‘Spider’ sets him down, twists him around and points the gun at his forehead, then he calls to the other gangster, “Gimme the girl, I’ll teach ‘em a lesson they’ll neva forget ‘fore she starts work.”
The kids shuffled along the ‘Spider’ until they reached a large apartment at the edge of the poor district, where there were both shacks and tall buildings. The apartment looked like it hadn’t been even cleaned twice in a century. Cobwebs all over. Nate wondered if this was an act of the ‘Spider’ to imitate a real Spider. They move in. It’s dark except for the little light that penetrates the dark curtains and cobwebs. They move into a spacious room. It is totally empty save the…
Jaz screams as she sees dried blood and torn clothes on the floor, Nate gasps and scrunches his nose against the foul smell. It looked like someone very bloody had crawled all over the floor. Disgusting!
“Sweet, ain’t it?” the ‘Spider’ asks, inhaling deeply.
“Get me out of here!” Jaz screams, both a desperate plea and an authoritative command.
“Shaddap lil girl! Now for yer lesson! This lil feller’s death might serve as a good lesson, eh?” the ‘Spider’ is pointing at Nate.
The kids stood there, dumbstruck. Jaz was shaking her head while Nate gasped for breath. Nate gasped for breath because he saw things other than blood. Spiders. Hundreds of them all around, on the wall, hanging from the ceiling, on the floor and… near his foot. Nate screamed and jumped wildly, all the Spiders seemed to back off.
“My lovelies! Papa is home!” the gangster shouts, picking up a Spider from his pants and petting it, “And as papa always does, papa brought dinner!”
Jaz saw the Spiders now. At any other time she saw a lone Spider; she would have confidently gone forward and squished it with her foot. But she never saw so many Spiders at one place, “Lets getoutta here, Natey!” she says and grabs Nate’s hand. They both bolt towards the door.
An army of spiders scuttles towards the door; they consist of the normal everyday spiders you find on your toilet seat or in your tomato soup to deadly tarantulas that you find in the forest or pet stores. They race past the kids and try to block the door by positioning themselves all over the door, over the cracks and the chain.
Jaz keeps on running, but Nate stops, his face totally a mask of fear. I never wished to die like this! He thought, why don’t they shoot me instead?
Jaz succeeds in opening the door a bit, the spiders don’t attack her, they just resist.
“Not so fast!” the gangster slams the door shut with amazing speed. Nate and Jaz try to run to the backdoor only to find it locked. They then run back to the large room, not knowing what to do.
“Trapped! Ain’t ya kiddos?” he chuckles, “Trapped in my web of an apartment. Hah. Yo Girl! The Spiders won’t hurt ya, they’ll jus’ kill yo lil pretty boyfriend! So… Don’t tryda act smarty”
At their master’s signal, the spiders scurry towards Nate. A wide red circle around him, closing fast, black over red, the red circle shrinking till its all just a black sea of eight-legged freaks.
“No!” Jaz screams, she starts to stomp on the spiders around Nate, which looks like dance fit for cavemen. Nate is just an inch away from blacking out. She continues stomping and screams insults at the gangster,
“Your momma didn’t teach you shit!”
“Monster! What the heck are you?
“Where the hell did you come from?”
“You are a bloody moth--”
“Enough!” the gangster booms. Jaz stops, her mouth open, eager to finish the curse. Suddenly the spiders scuttle away into the shadows, the dead ones simply vanish, and the room looks empty again. The gangster menacingly steps forward, “I thought you’d listen punks! All the others fell ‘fore my punishment. But you fools made a mistake of takin’ me on! Killing my lovely friends! Now you shall be tortured beyond your worst imagination! You shall remember me even after you die. You shall be cast to hell!”
Jaz did not notice the change in his accent or choice of words, she was still plotting. But Nate did. This guy just went from an ever familiar gangster words to the kind of words that he had only heard being spoken by some evil kings in the movies. Spooky.
The ‘Spider’ stretched his arms out and made two ‘V’ shapes using his middle finger and his ring finger. His skin splits apart between them, so does the skin in his legs. He turns black, his figure turns round. His arms and legs are torn into two parts each. His clothes rip apart, And the eight bloody, fleshly parts of his hands and legs change, they turn black, grow harder and sharper. His face vanishes and is replaced by two giant eyes and two more eyes materialize on the back of his head. An abomination. A cross between a Spider and a human. But after a few moments there is no human left. Where there must have been a gangster named the ‘Spider’ stands a genuine giant Spider. Horrible to look at one. Much horrible to be killed by one.
Jaz is already formulating a plan to kill the creature, even if she knows that it is impossible. Nate thinks that this is just another one of his nightmares and pinches himself, and screams when he realizes that this is the real deal.
They bolt towards the now spider-free front door once again. But the Spider swiftly crawls across the ceiling and onto the door, covering it entirely. Nate feels a wild burst of courage, out of fear. He couldn’t explain how, but he did what he did. He grabbed a painting of a scantily clad woman from the wall. He smashed it on the floor. The frame broke into many pieces. Swiftly he took the longest and the sharpest piece and ran towards the Spider, screaming like a madman, intending to run it through.
The Spider, which had been looking at Nate’s work curiously, gets alert. But before it has time to move a leg, the sharp wooden piece runs through its eye. Nate had changed the plan and had thrown the wooden piece like a javelin, and he had luckily hit the spot. The spider squeals horribly, It scuttles around madly.
; Seeing the door free, both of the kids run out, Jaz waiting only to grab another wooden piece in case the Spider makes a return. Just as they have run about thirty steps, they hear a loud crash. Their necks disobey them and turn around to find the large spider crawling down from the apartment, colourless blood gushing out from one of its four shiny black eyes.
Chaos everywhere. Men scream. Women scream. Children scream. The Kreechas just look bewildered, some look angry, some more look irritated.
The butcher, Rakhib sees Nate and Jaz. He is a brave man, he rushes out to help the kids, bloody machete in his hands. Just as the Spider gains on the petrified kids, he strikes, and one thin, long spider leg falls away. Some of the other butchers who work with Rakhib join in with their machetes, following their leader. Two more legs fall away. Now the Spider just has two on its right and three on its left.
It squeals angrily and lashes out, striking one of the butchers. Blood spurts as the legs swipes across his throat, he stands there for a moment, he coughs blood as he falls down.
Jaz tries to jab the piece of wood at the Spider, fails. She falls down as a butcher bumps into her. The next moment the butcher is down, blood gushing from a long gash across his bare chest.
Nate drags Jaz out of the mess. Some brave men join in, even a kid starts hurling rocks at the creature. Nate wants to run but he also wants to fight. He doesn’t want to see Rakhib dead,