Chapter 2

I reached down and grabbed the chunk of rock which I’d cut myself on. It was about as long as my hand, narrow, and almost knifelike in shape. Obsidian—volcanic glass—which explained how I’d sliced my hand open so easily on the thing.

With luck it would cut through spiders just as easily.

The spiders were almost on top of me. I darted back, trying to put a medium-sized boulder between me and the oncoming arachnids. One scuttled around each side of the thing. I rushed the one on the right, landing a kick that sent it sailing back five feet through the air like a soccer ball.

I gave a silent cheer at that. All those years playing halfback hadn’t been in vain after all! I turned toward the other spider but was a bit too slow. Before I could face off squarely against it, the thing shot a strand of web at me.

I tried to dodge, but the web was well-aimed. It landed on my left arm, tangling the limb. The glass knife was in my right. I considered slicing at the web with it, but the glass wasn’t that sharp, and if it got stuck to the web I’d be weaponless.

Instead, I looped up a handful of the web line with my left hand and yanked as hard as I could. The spider was still attached to the other end of the line. Surprised by my move, it didn’t let go in time and sailed through the air toward me.

I was ready. I stabbed out with the knife and nailed the spider. It made a hissing sound as my blade sank into its abdomen. The spider tried to bend around my hand to bite me. I dropped the knife and the spider with it to the ground before it could sink its fangs into me.

“Already seen what your bites do, little dude,” I told it.

The spider didn’t reply so much as curl up around the blade still embedded in its body. I was pretty sure the thing was done for. But there was still one more spider. Where was it?

I turned back to where it had landed when I kicked it, but the spider wasn’t there anymore. Where had it gone? Panicked, I turned a full circle seeking it.

A now familiar hissing sound caught my attention. I whirled back to the boulder I’d ducked behind and saw the spider clambering over the top of it. Before I could react, it was sailing through the air.

It landed on my upper body with enough force to knock me sprawling onto my back. I let out a cry of panic as the furry arachnid darted nearer to my face, three-inch fangs ready to sink into me.

I punched up, slamming a fist into the spider’s upper body. The thing was big, but it was only the size of a large cat. The force of my blow knocked it clear of me. It wasn’t out of the fight, though. Before I even had my feet back under me, the spider was zipping in for another strike, this time at my leg.

I moved my foot, letting the spider’s fangs pass through empty air, then stepped down—hard.

The spider made a satisfying crunching sound as my foot slammed down onto it.

I looked around, panting. I felt a rush of energy flow into me as it died, and then more hit me as well. The one I’d stabbed was dead, too. “That’s three of them down.”

How many more were there? Well, I knew there were at least a few more. I’d seen them hauling those cocoons away. Dinner, most likely. I swallowed hard, thinking about how close I’d come to being a third course.

I recovered the obsidian knife and then touched each spider in turn, activating the looting ability for each. They faded away into blue smoke the same as the first, and I got another dozen of those little clear bits of crystal between the two of them. I still had no idea what they were, or why the giant spiders were turning into mist and leaving them behind—holy, shit, that sounds crazy saying it. I shoved the crystals in my pocket with the others so I didn’t have to ask questions I didn’t have answers for.

I breathed a sigh of relief and tucked myself down among the boulders, hoping to keep hidden. I was a lot more cautious about where I put my hands, this time. The chunk of volcanic glass was a useful discovery, but I could have done without the slice on my palm or the spider attack.

I glanced down at my hand. It oozed a bit of blood still, but the wound looked fairly superficial. So long as I could get it cleaned out, I’d probably be fine.

“No idea where I am or what’s going on, and there are spiders big enough to snack on me all over the place,” I muttered aloud.

What to do next? I was well and truly lost. Like, I had literally zero idea where I was or how I’d arrived there. I tried to think back, go over my recollections of the past day to see if I could deduce what happened.

I’d gone to work as usual and put in my requisite hours plugging away at the login portal for the ‘Peeps’ social media app. Working for a startup wasn’t nearly as fun as folks made it out to be. Mostly, it was a lot of long hours and not a lot of time off.

The pay was good, for the time being, but I found myself eyeing the door. I had this sneaking suspicion that ‘Peeps’ wasn’t going to be the ‘Facebook killer’ that its CEO wanted it to be. Not for lack of trying on their part, mind. The staff was working overtime and then some, myself included.

I’d gone home, eaten some leftover Chinese food out of the fridge, and then flopped into bed fully dressed, I’d been so exhausted. That was pretty much the last thing I could remember before waking up in this place.

“But did I wake up?” It occurred to me again that with the tattoo appearing out of nowhere, giant spiders trying to eat me, and all that, this might just be an elaborate dream sequence.

But this didn’t feel like a dream. When I squeezed my cut hand, it hurt like the real thing. I couldn’t remember a dream having that much reality to it.

“OK, if I accept that this is real, then everything I am seeing is also real,” I said. “Or maybe I’ve been drugged and this is one hell of a weird trip. But either way, I can’t take the chance that it isn’t real.”

As crazy as that sounded, saying it aloud, it made sense to me. If this was a dream or the effects of a drug, then acting like it was real wouldn’t hurt me any.

But if it was real and I acted like it was a dream? Well, as my wallet had demonstrated, that could get me dead very quickly.

Thinking of death reminded me of the two cocoons the spiders had hauled into the cave. Those were both about the size of a human being. Were those other people, like myself? Maybe they’d been bitten, instead of having their wallets in their pocket. I shuddered to think how close I’d come to being spider lunch.

If those were other people the spiders had captured, they might have information. They might know where I was, how I’d gotten there, and what the hell was going on. Maybe they’d even be able to tell me how to get safely home again.

“I saw six spiders carrying them,” I said. Talking aloud helped me force aside my fear, if only for a few moments. Keeping my voice soft seemed to be enough to avoid notice from the other arachnids. “I just killed two of them.”

Three, if you counted the first one that had been wrapping me up. That still left four more inside the caves. At least four, I corrected myself. It would be foolish to go in there assuming there couldn’t be more of the things.

Go in there? Shit, was I really considering that? If I could somehow kill the other spiders, and if those cocoons had people in them, and if they were even still alive (which I wasn’t sure about after seeing what the spider venom did to my wallet) then maybe they could help me.

It was a whole lot of ifs and maybes.

At the same time, I didn’t feel good about just walking away and leaving them to die. If it were me wrapped up in there, like it almost had been, wouldn’t I want someone to at least try to rescue me? For sure.

Besides, I didn’t see a lot better places to go. The caldera was enormous, but strewn with so many boulders that I couldn’t see very far. For all I knew there was much worse than large spiders only a few meters away, waiting for me to wander by.

“I’ll scout it out. If it looks like I can help, I will. If not, I’ll make a new plan,” I said. Feeling better for having made the decision, I started forward toward the cave the spiders entered. Obsidian knife in hand, I snuck forward as quietly as I could, working my way closer to the cliff face and whatever lay inside.

(Hi there! Hope you're enjoying the story so far! I'll be releasing new chapters at a pace of about five per week. If you want to read ahead, you can get as many as 25 chapters in advance here! https://www.patreon.com/KevinMcLaughlin)