Eight-legged dreams

It came to me in my sleep. One leg over the other. Slow. Methodical. All eight eyes locked onto mine. Its fangs rubbed on one another. If it had lips, it would probably lick them. It was over me. Over my body. It dropped its body onto mine. It laid on top of me. Hugged me with its arms. It wrapped me in a warm blanket. It kissed me good night.

I woke in a sweat. Grabbed my neck and held my breath. This vivid dream wasn’t on its own. Every night I’m hunted, stalked. Sometimes when my eyes open to the dream I’m already in its web. The sweat causes the sheets to cling to me as I step from bed. I have the thought that something may be under my bed, but I push the thought aside.

I continue my day without issue. Get dressed, go to work, eat lunch, and clock out. When I get back to my house, I park the car outside my garage and wait for a reason to step out. Last week I saw in one of the corners a web. Small and out of the way. Nevertheless, I stay for away from it. Couldn’t see the thing. It was hunting. Last I checked web ones don’t hunt, I didn’t feel like taking the chance.

My legs shake from the thought, and a piece of my pants rubs my calf ever so lightly, my body freezes, my eyes well with tears. It takes me a moment to realize what happened. I step out the car and walk to the house. I keep my eyes up away from the floor. When I get to the overhang above my door, I close my eyes and fumble for the handle. That nook might not have something, if it did, it would be best not to know.

I open the door and close it fast. Only a small amount of water got out, nothing that I can’t fix. A couple weeks ago I saw one on the floor, it was looking for me. Now the floors have a half inch of water. Now if they want to get me, they have to risk drowning. I don’t know how much longer I can keep going outside. If I ever saw another one in my car I’d have to call off work again. My boss could tell I was lying when I called in sick, I just didn’t know what to tell him. I sold that car. Got a new one. I can’t afford to do that again. I’ll probably be fired soon anyway.

Placing my clothes in the washer I get naked and take a shower. Each step is calculated. One leg over the other. My eyes keep to the walls and the ceiling above me. I don’t dare check the corners though. They can have those. I get to the bathroom and slowly open the door. One night in a dream, I was in my house, doing nothing, not a care in the world. Like it used to be. I really had to use the bathroom. Once I stepped through the doorway from above me it fell from the ceiling and wrapped me in its silk. I struggled against it, but it was too strong. I yelled and kicked, its silk was too strong, it legs were too strong. It spun me on the floor of my bathroom, covered me in its silk, then it grabbed me in its fangs and dragged me up the wall. It placed me next to several other bodies. I watched for weeks as it ate them. It placed its fangs into them and drained them of blood, I watched the bodies squirm and scream, some begged. It didn’t care. It was hungry. We were just food. It drained them all before getting to me. As it slowly approached me, one leg over the other, I woke up.

This room I hate now. I look up at the ceiling as the door swings open. Sometimes I even swipe my hand past the doorway to see if anything jumps at it. I step through the doorway with a silent prayer and step into the shower. Something about the tub makes me feel safe. Like I can hide in it. Maybe it’s the water, I think they hate water.

I step from the shower and walk past the mirror, one time out of the corner of my eyes I saw one. For a second, for a second it was there. When my brain registered its shape, I snapped my eyes to it, and it scuttered out of sight and into the vent. I sealed all the vents after that. My days are boring now. I think they always were but especially now. I just stay in my bed mostly, I have to rip the covers off and shake them several times before placing them again.

I feel like one of them. In my web. Waiting for something. I wish they saw me as their own so they wouldn’t bother me. I wish I could talk to them, beg them to leave me alone. My phone hasn’t been charged in weeks. The outlet is just under my bed, and I swear I saw one crawl under there. I just lay there, in my web, looking at the ceiling. Eventually I fall asleep.

A dark hallway, in my hand a candle. Its light only flickers off the walls next to me, the flame isn’t strong enough to hit the ceiling, it’s not strong enough to reach the end of the hall. The hallway is lined with several openings that vier off into different directions. I hold the flame close to me as I pass them. I don’t know what’s worse, seeing what’s at the end of the halls or not. The sound of pitter pater behind me. Swerving around and holding out the light to the darkness the sound stops. I swallow hard. Was I being hunted again. I hear the same sound behind me again in the direction I was headed. Turning again and holding out the light it stops. Again, behind me again. Again, gone once I turn the light to it. Again, behind me once more. I turn the light. Just where light turns to dark, I can see what looks like lines in the dark. Like a giant’s hand past the shadow. The sound echoes behind me and I turn the light to it. The same hand past the dark, barely visible. Tap tap tap. Slow footfalls behind me. Turning to it from first the corner of my eye it comes into full view. The light stops it, legs up ready to pounce. Behind me more skittering. Its close behind me. If I turn this will animate. Come to life. Pounce on me. The pitter patter behind me stops, my eyes are locked onto the one in front of me. I feel something heavy land on my back and move about. The next thing I know I’m on the ground, the candle falls too and rolls on the floor. My vision spins as I’m wrapped in silk. It drags me into the dark out of the candles view.

I practically jump from my bed in a heart attack. My hand balled in a fist on my chest, my heart feels like it’s going a mile a minute. The clock on my dresser lets me know it’s time to go to work. Odd how dreams always end when it’s time to wake up. My clothes smell but what can I do, water can only clean so well, the detergent is in the garage. I walked out to my car keeping my eyes closed until I thought I was past the overhang. I double checked the handles to make sure one wasn’t hiding behind them. I checked the seats five times before getting in. I feel like I’m getting worse. The dreams are getting worse. It doesn’t feel like they will always be dreams.

My boss was mad at me for being late again, yelled at me for smelling, I kept telling him I washed my clothes, but he didn’t believe me. He yelled at me to go to his office, so I followed behind him. I had completely forgotten about my phobia with the amount of embracement I felt. When I got into his office I turned to his desk. It was behind it, crouched. It was odd. Like a statue but I could tell it wasn’t. It had its abdomen in the air like the back of a chair. Its legs were put together making four stable pillars. It eyes were closed as to not reflect the light. I watched with cold blood as my boss walked over to it. I tried to stop him, but I was too afraid to speak. He walked to the back of his desk and sat on it. I thought it might come to life, that it might wrap him in a web. It just stayed like that.

The whole time he was yelling at me he sat on the back of that giant thing. I blacked out the whole time, I was too focused on it. I came too as he was yelling at me to leave his office. I stepped out and looked around. Were there more. Other ones pretending to be things they weren’t. I walked around the whole office. I only saw two more. One was pretending to be a desk. Its hair was a shade of brown, it sat completely still like the other. The individual working on it had no idea her mouse went back and forth on the hairs of a giant eight-legged thing.

The other was pretending to be a plant. A giant clay pot sat at the front of the building doors. This one was green, stripes of a lighter shade ran from it to create the look of leaves. It was standing vertical as if doing a handstand. Its back was to me and its abdomen stood as far up as it could make it. It looked like a bush. I was the only one who could tell it wasn’t. Some people stood next to it, talking about this or that. One of the two stopped talking and dumped their coffee out on it. The thing opened it eyes and slowly lowered itself. The two-standing next to it didn’t notice it getting ready to pounce on them. For some reason it noticed me, its eyes moved onto me, once it realized I was looking at it, it went back to mimicking a plant.

I rushed outside and to my car. I didn’t care if there was a small one or hell even two. I did a quick check to make sure there wasn’t a big one pretending to be my driver’s seat, or my steering wheel. I got on the road and began driving home. My eyes danced from the rear-view mirror looking behind the car and behind me at the back seats. I moved my eyes on the road and the buildings I passed. They were everywhere. Billboards, stop signs, I even saw one pretending to be a streetlight. They were adapting, changing. They didn’t use webs anymore. They used camouflage.

Once I got home a ran into my house and tuned on the tv, I checked every news station but nothing. No one could see them. Only me. I had the sudden realization that I hadn’t checked the house. I froze and became aware of everything. The tv, the couch I sat on, the dresser in the corner. Everything seemed to be normal. I left to the rest of the house. Everything was as it should be.

I went around the whole house and made sure every door and window were locked. After that I moved everything I owned into the garage. I still couldn’t stand going in so I just opened the door and pushed everything into it. Everything from the tables to the paintings. I wasn’t taking any chance. Not one.

I was night then. My bed was pushed into the garage with everything else, so I just curled up in the tub. I felt save there. Like nothing could get me. It was now the only place I could hide anyway.

I woke up in a web. I wasn’t stuck though. I was sitting in the middle. There weren’t webs covering me. It was too dark to see past the web, the ends just reached into a fog I couldn’t see past. The web shook. Once it settled it shook again. I looked around to find what was doing it, to my right stuck on the web a think wrapped in silk was desperate to get out. The shaking brought the attention of not just me but the maker of the web. It hung above the web, a long string attacked to an unknown ceiling. It dropped several feet then hung in the air. Waited for more movement. The thing trapped in the sink squirmed again. It took this as an invitation and dropped onto the web. Whatever was in the silk felt the web shake. It stopped struggling, hoping it could wait out the thing. It was wrong. The eight-legged thing was smart, it knew it was there, knew it was alive, it jumped on it and two the shook the web violently. Whatever was wrapped in the sink was screaming and crying. It ran its throat ragged before dying down. It didn’t eat it. Once it killed its pray it grabbed it in its mouth and turned its body, turned it to me.

I jolted awake. I was cold but I was safe. I didn’t know what time it was. I wasn’t going back to work anyway. Wasn’t going outside. Not anymore. I stayed in my tub for hours. When I was thirsty, I wrapped my mouth around the fossit and turned on the water. Sadly, there was nothing to eat, but that was something I didn’t want to worry about right now.

Several days passed like this. Staying in that tub. Dream after dream. I got tired of it, so I finally left the tub. It wasn’t due to boredom, not curiosity, it was hunger. I stripped naked. I opened a drawer from the kitchen and took out a knife. I used the knife to cut off my hair. When it was all off, I used it to cut my clothes into very, very small stands. Then I sat in the middle of the floor. I was hungry. So hungry. I couldn’t leave. Not out there. Not with them. Here I was safe. Here I could hunt. I started in one corner, I laid out the strands. I connected them into a spiral. They lapped over each other. Made a formation. A circle around me. A web. I sat in the middle, cold, naked, hungry. I waited. Waited for something to enter my web. I was tired, from all the work or the hunger I don’t know. I closed my eyes and fell asleep.

I was on the web again. So was it. I was hungry, it knew. It brought me the body. I sunk my fands into it. I drained it. I was bigger than it now. It was smaller than me. It was on my web. Normally I would eat it, but I already ate. It came close to me, touched me with its arm. I knew what it wanted. I let it. I put its seed deep into my womb. It felt so good. I loved every second of it. I was happy, I wanted to say thank you to it. Sadly, my babies would need something to eat. Once it was done it knew what would happen, it didn’t stop me. Perhaps this is what they wanted, to teach me how. How to be like them. I wrapped him in my silk. In my web. And I waited. Waited for my babies. I rubbed my stomach with a smile. I could feel them crawling inside me. I could feel them desperately trying to get out.

I woke up in the center of my web. I was so worried I would lose my babies. My hand reached down and felt my stomach, swollen. Good. I still had my babies. I looked around for their father. He wasn’t there. They would need something. I looked around but there was nothing here. They wanted to get out. I could feel them digging at the walls of my womb.

My babies. They would need something. I would love to feel them on my skin. To feel them crawl on me. To take from me. I want to be a good mother. I want them to have me. They broke the walls of my womb. They were hungry. They dug with their fangs, and they sucked up the blood. They didn’t leave through my vagina, they dug holes through my body. I could feel them crawl inside me. Under my skin. In places where nothing should be. I loved it. I was made for this. They chose me for this. I could feel myself slipping away. I had one hope left. When my eyes closed. I want to have eight-legged dreams.