“And change that shirt! Don’t think I haven’t noticed you wearing it three times this week.” 

  “It’s my favorite shirt.”

  “It’s disgusting; at least let me wash the thing.”

  “Fine,” he grumbled, returning his attention to his pancakes. 

  The rest of breakfast went without a word. As Charlie made his way for the stairwell, he noted the time on the stove clock.: 7:35 AM. He hurried up the stairs and to the bathroom. His bathroom, because he was an only child and his parents had their own bathroom attached to the bedroom. It being his bathroom, Charlie adorned the room with decorations. Superhero stickers resembling Batman, Superman, and The Flash stuck to his bathroom mirror, while several action figures lay in a basket next to the tub. Elliot peeled the black shirt off and threw it into the hamper next to the sink. He turned on the faucet of the shower. Hot water spewed from the head. He held his hand under the water. Once he was sure it was hot enough, he stepped inside.

  Charlie stayed in the shower long enough for his mother to be convinced he did a thorough job of cleaning himself. When he had first started bathing himself, Charlie could finish a shower in the time it took you to blink, often prompting his mother to send him back in; since then, he’d figured out what constituted an adequate shower by his mother’s standards. He wrapped a towel around his waist as he moved from the shower to the sink. He wiped the steam from the mirror and went to work on brushing his teeth with his spiderman toothbrush. 

  “Charlie, come on! You’re going to be late for school!” His mother called. He opened the door to the bathroom.

  “I’m almost done!” He called back. 

  As he spoke, Charlie felt a tickle on the back of his hand. He looked down and saw a small black speck resting above his thumb. It took him a few moments to realize the speck was staring back at him with eight glassy eyes and four sets of legs to match! 

  “Ahh!” He screamed as he swung his hand away. 

 The spider flew across the room along with his toothbrush, both of which hit the ground alongside the toilet. Charlie scanned his hand for bite marks or web residue, but found nothing. He looked back towards the spider as it scurried away to some unseen place behind the toilet.

  “Charlie! What’s wrong? I heard you scream!” His mother stood in the bathroom doorway, wearing a look of concern.

  “There was a spider,” he said, blushing. His mother breathed a sigh of relief.

  “Is that all, honey? There’s no reason to get so worked up about a spider; it’s more afraid of you than you are of it.” 

  “I’m not afraid; it surprised me.” 

  “Of course, honey. Now come on, we have to go.” 

 

-2-

    While at school, Charlie continued to think about the spider and the way it looked at him. As if it wanted to eat him. He had encountered spiders before; he’d seen daddy long legs along the sidewalk in front of their house. He’d seen tiny spiders in his grandpa’s barn, but he’d never seen a spider like that one. Its legs were longer and hairy. Its body was fatter than other spiders he’d seen. What he thought about most was the two fangs protruding from its mouth, how they could have bitten down at any moment and injected him with poison. He knew little about spiders, but he knew they used poison on their food. Charlie shivered at the thought of being a spider’s dinner. 

  But, it was afraid of him, right? That was what his mom had said, and the spider ran away. It was more afraid of him than he was of it. 

  Charlie went through his school day as he’d done many times before: sitting in the back of the classroom, speaking only when called on to do so by his teacher. During lunch he sat at the farthest end of the table, eating a peanut butter and jelly sandwich without the crust, as his mom had always prepared it. On the playground at recess, he sat on the swing and pushed himself with his small legs. He watched from a distance as kids got together to play sports like basketball or football. Sometimes he would jump from the swing and begin making his way for the field, only to stop halfway and turn around with shaky knees. He spent his study hall time nose deep in whatever book he still hadn’t read on the classroom shelf. This week was his third go at Harry Potter and the Chamber of Secrets. 

  At 3:10 PM, his mother picked him up from school. He returned home just in time to catch a new episode of Adventure Time. At 5:30, his father walked through the doorway. His mother already had dinner ready. At 6:00, they gathered to eat. His father discussed the day’s struggle that only the senior foreman of a paper mill could understand. Charlie and his mother listened quietly; they’d both learned a long time ago not to offer their two cents.

  “Oh, you think you can do my job? How about you try waking up on time first?” His father would say to him. His mother got some version of the same.

  “You can barely handle our ten-year-old. You think you can manage an entire floor?” 

  It was best, they’d learned, to let father vent until he excused himself from the table.

  Following dinner, Charlie helped his mother with the dishes, and once he finished, he went upstairs to his bedroom. He spent the next hour creating epic battles and fantasy worlds with his assortment of toys and action figures, many of which were missing arms and legs, but his parents would not replace.

  “You’re getting too old for toys,” his father often said. 

  He was midway through an Avengers Justice League crossover when he heard his mother’s voice below the stairs.

  “Charlie, time to get ready for bed!” 

  “Okay mom!” He said.

  Charlie made his way to the bathroom, but paused at the door. He remembered the spider from earlier that morning and wondered if it was still there.

  It’s more afraid of you than you are of it, he thought to himself, opening the door. His evening shower was shorter than his morning one. He still wasn’t sure what the point of two showers a day was if you were already clean. He dried himself off and changed back into the same sleepers and t-shirt he’d thrown into the hamper that morning. He moved to the sink to complete his nightly ritual, but froze. He froze because as he approached the sink, he saw it. A large black spider sat in the basin and stared up at him with the same black glass eyes. Charlie knew from those eyes it was the same spider he’d seen this morning, only now it had grown bigger. Much bigger. What had been a speck no bigger than a penny was now the size of a silver dollar.

  How long had it been there?

  He might wash it down the drain? 

  He swallowed a lump in his throat as he approached. The spider stayed motionless as he reached for the faucet. Its eyes locked with his, as if it knew what was coming. He grabbed the silver faucet. It was then that the spider rushed towards him! It climbed the porcelain wall of the sink just below his arm. The boy pulled away as the spider attempted to lunge.

  “Get away!” Charlie cried. He darted from the sink to the door, slamming it behind him. He raced down the stairs until he came to a crashing halt in his father’s chest. 

  “Just what the hell do you think you’re doing slamming doors in my house!?” His father demanded.

  “Charlie, what’s the matter?” His mother asked, joining his father’s side. 

  “I-I saw the spider again.” 

  “Charlie, I already told you it’s more afraid of you than you are of it.”

  “But mom, it got bigger!” Charlie said.

  “This is ridiculous. It’s just a spider. Charlie, get back up there and flush the damn thing down the drain.” 

  “But I-” 

  “Listen to your father, hon; it’s just a spider. It can’t hurt you,” his mother said. 

 Seeing no way of convincing either of them, he sighed and made his way back upstairs.

  “And the next time you slam a door, you’re losing the door!” His father yelled up to him. 

  Charlie didn’t return to the bathroom except to make sure the door was securely shut. He eyed the crack below the door. It was narrow, not enough space for the spider to squeeze under as big as it currently was. That night, he locked his own bedroom door for good measure. Before going to bed, he checked his sheets. He’d heard of bed bugs, though he didn’t know what they looked like. Here, Charlie was more concerned with finding spiders. After a sufficient search, he crawled into bed, and as he drifted off to sleep, he wondered.: 

  Did it know he meant to flush it down the drain? Was it angry at him?

 

-3-

  Charlie woke up that morning, as he did every morning, to the sound of his mother’s voice. 

  “Charlie, time to wake up!” She called. 

  He rose from his bed and stretched his arms out with an enormous yawn. Sliding into his favorite slippers, he made his way to the bathroom. As he reached the bathroom door, he rubbed sleep sand from his eyes. He’d all but forgotten about yesterday’s incident with the spider. That was, until he opened his bathroom door. It took more strength than normal to push open the door, and as he did so, he noticed thick strands of web break apart from the entranceway. As he stepped into the bathroom, he knew the webbing coated much of the ceiling. The basin of the sink was filled with a thick layer of it, and beneath the webs he could see his Spiderman toothbrush. The spider, however, was nowhere to be found. He quickly shut the door and headed for the stairs. 

  He found his mother and father in the kitchen in their usual places. His mother hovered over a frying pan of crackling bacon while his father sipped a cup of coffee and scrolled the news on his tablet.

  “Umm mom, I don’t think I can go to school today,” Charlie said. 

  “Why not, Charlie—are you sick?” His mother asked, placing her hand on his forehead. “You don’t feel warm.” 

  “My stomach just feels funny.”

  “Oh honey, you look pale.” 

  “Thomas, come look at Charlie; he’s shaking.”  

  “Oh God, what is it now?” His father said, placing the coffee mug down. He moved across the kitchen to join Charlie and his mother. “Well, what’s the problem?”

  “I-I don’t feel good.” 

  “Did you take his temperature?” His father asked. 

  “No, but look at him—he looks like he’s seen a ghost.” 

  Charlie’s father leaned down and looked him over. It was the first time Charlie could remember not looking up at the old man. His brown eyes studied Charlie with suspicion, and his mustache seemed to twitch. After careful contemplation, his father finally spoke.

  “It’s probably last night’s meatloaf. I told you it was undercooked,” his father said, rising. “I’m running late for work. He can stay home for the day, but he’d better be in bed. No games, no toys, no TV. You understand, Charlie?” 

  “Yes, sir,” Charlie said. 

  His father nodded and headed for the door. Charlie and his mother watched him until he pulled out of the garage in his station wagon and drove away.

  “Don’t worry, Charlie; maybe after a nice hot bath and some rest you’ll feel better.” 

  “No baths!” Charlie cried, pulling away. 

  “Charlie, being dirty will not help you feel better,” she scolded.

  “I know I just, I really want to go back to bed right now.” 

  His mother shook her head.

  “Fine, but tonight you’re taking a bath. Now go up to your room.” 

  Charlie obeyed. He crawled the stairs that led to his bedroom; reaching the top, he looked down the hall, at the doorway to the spider’s lair. For a moment he thought he saw a shadow move from behind the door, an enormous shadow. He blinked, and the shadow was gone. He retreated into his room and shut the door behind him. 

  Charlie wasn’t sick, and laying in bed posed its own challenges, mainly coming up with a reason not to take a bath when the time came. 

  He could use his parents’ bathroom! No, his father wouldn’t allow it. He thought he could throw up, but realized that might make his odds of a bath even more likely. As he lay in bed, he wondered how long the Spider would be content with the bathroom. When would it grow too big and too hungry to stay there? Did it know where his room was? Did it know when he slept? He sprang from bed and went to his closet. There were two things that he wanted. The first was the wooden baseball bat his father had bought for him that previous Christmas, hoping he would spend the Ssummer practicing and eventually try out for the team. Neither of those things happened. As for the second thing, there was a vent that ran from the bathroom to his own bedroom. The vent itself was no wider than a shoe box, but he needed to be sure that the spider had not discovered it. He moved aside a pile of unhung clothes to reveal the vent, still bolted to the wall. He kneeled down and peered through the grates. 

  The vent’s interior walls looked like a cocoon of webbing. Large bundles of web rose from the floor. Charlie saw deeper in the vent a small animal, a white mouse, squirming in a thick layer of the webbing,; its pink tail whipped about ferociously as it fought to free itself from the web’s grasp. Beyond the mouse, he saw the light from the bathroom interior. He leaned forward to get a better look inside the bathroom. That was when the spider rose from beneath the webbing. It had grown from the size of a quarter and now had the stature of a small dog. With legs longer than a foot on each side, it compacted itself into the vent. 

  Sensing its demise, the mouse struggled frantically, but it was no use. Charlie watched as the spider snatched the rodent between its fangs. He heard the mouse cry out in agony before being forever silenced. The spider wrapped the rodent in a tightly wound bundle and left it suspended in frozen animation. Then the spider fixed its eyes on Charlie. He saw those eyes, those same black beady eyes, and he knew. It was the same spider. 

 

-4-

    Charlie awoke wrapped in a cocoon of webs. He screamed as he kicked and punched, freeing himself from the web’s grasp. He rose to his feet and as his eyes adjusted to the darkness of his room; he realized that what he thought was web was merely a knitted blanket. 

  “Charlie, dinnertime!” His mother’s voice called. Charlie shot a glance towards the vent as he left his room. The grates remained bolted to the wall and nothing stirred from the other side. 

  He entered the kitchen. His father had returned home from work and was seated at the head of the table, as always. His mother sat off to his left. Charlie’s place at the table, to his father’s right, was already set. 

  “Come sit down dear,” his mother said. Charlie took his seat. 

  “Well, did lounging around for the day make you feel any better?” His father asked as he carved into a piece of steak.

  “A little,” Charlie said. 

  “After dinner, Charlie, you need to take a bath.” His mother said.

  “No!” Charlie cried.

  “Excuse me?” His father said. Charlie sunk into his chair. 

  “I-I just.” 

  “You don’t get to tell us no.”

  “Richard, it’s ok!” His mother said.

  “No, Mira, it’s not. You treat him like an infant and it’s a wonder why he acts like one. This is why he doesn’t have the nerve to try out for sports and this is why he doesn’t have any friends. Charlie, you march upstairs and take the damn bath,” his father ordered. Charlie rose from his seat, but he didn’t leave. 

  “I can’t! The spider is in there.”

  “Oh God, not this again,” his father said.

  “Honey, we already told you it’s just a spider, and it’s more afraid of you than you are of it.” 

  “It’s not just a spider, mom! It got bigger!” 

  His father rose from his chair. 

  “That’s it, I’ve had it with this.” His father moved in so that he was towering over Charlie. “You’re going to go upstairs, and you’re going to kill the damn bug.” 

  As he spoke, his father gripped the hook of his belt. Charlie knew too well what that meant. 

  “Dad p-please,” Charlie begged. His father narrowed his eyes down at him.

  “I will not say it again.” 

  Charlie dipped his head as he turned to leave the kitchen. He felt his father’s gaze searing a hole into his back the entire way. His mother never said a word. Charlie climbed the stairs as slowly as he ever had. Each step creaked beneath the weight of his feet. When he finally reached the top, Charlie gazed down the hallway to the bathroom. The light was still on behind the door, but no shadows creeped. Charlie narrowed his eyes.

  “It’s just a bug,” he said to himself. Charlie He took a step toward the bathroom, but stopped. He needed something first. After a quick detour to his bedroom, he reentered the hall, baseball bat in hand. 

  “It’s just a bug,” he said, repeating his father’s mantra. He crept towards the bathroom door. Maybe it was asleep.

  Do spiders sleep? He wondered. It didn’t matter. Charlie reached the bathroom door. He took a breath. 

  “Our son is a coward because you treat him like a child.” His father’s booming voice echoed from the kitchen.

  “He is a child, Richard! You can’t force him to grow up just because you don’t know how to be nurturing!” His mother cried back.

  “You can’t shield him from the world forever, Mira!” 

  “I can shield him from you!” 

  The sound of breaking glass rang out. 

  “Now look at what you’ve done!” 

  Charlie clenched his eyes shut; a tear ran down his cheek. His grip around the bat tightened. He felt the sweat of his palms squeeze out between his fingers. His heart raced and his face became warm with fresh, pumping blood. 

  “It’s just a damn bug!” He screamed. 

  Throwing the bathroom door open, Charlie charged inside. He wished he hadn’t. Webbing now glossed the entire interior of the bathroom. It resembled the inside of a nest. He tried to lift his feet from the floor, but the webbing quickly pulled him back down. In the bathroom’s corner above the toilet he saw his Batman and Superman action figures, suspended as the rat had been, but there was no sign of the spider.

  “It’s just a bug. It’s just a bug. It’s just a bug.” 

  He gripped the bat tighter. He felt like his blood was dropping through his body as his knees became weak. 

  Where is the spider?! He thought as he looked around the bathroom and towards the bathtub. On the floor, he saw something powerful had pried the vent grate from the wall, but he could not see the spider. Again he tried to lift his feet from the webbing. He freed a single foot. He reached as far as he could towards the hallway with his legs, but was just short of the door’s edge. It again trapped his foot. 

  Click click click.

  Charlie heard the unfamiliar noise radiate from the one place he had not looked, had not dared to look. He lifted his head, and that was where he found the spider staring down at him with its black eyes. It had grown substantially. Its body was bigger than his, and its legs spanned the length of the ceiling. He stared into the spider’s eyes. He saw his fear reflected on him. He raised the baseball bat, but the spider was fast. It descended on the boy, enveloping him beneath its body. He felt himself being spun around rapidly as the spider’s webs engulfed him. As it pulled him along the ceiling and suspended him from the webs, he wrestled against the cocoon. He thought to himself, if only he’d squashed it when it was little.

 

-5-

  She cocooned her prey and suspended it in her web for later consumption. She had waited for this prey for many days, feeding on flies and then rodents, growing larger in the brief span of time since she’d arrived from the drain. The prey struggled to free itself from within its cocoon. She took care of that immediately by using her venom to paralyze the prey. There were others in the dwelling, she knew. She listened to the vibrations of their voices below. Eventually they’d come searching for their offspring, her prey. She’d be ready and then she’d be free. Free to make this place her nest, a nest for her children to be born. Before it’s capture, her prey had made a terrible mistake: It left the door open.