The Spider

CRACK!!

Da dump. Da dump.  Da dump.  My heart races, rattling my chest.  My breaths come out in gasps.  I have to hide, but where? 

In the window, a black spider builds her web.  She is beautiful and dangerous, enchanting and disturbing.  She is precise when choosing the position of each thread in her web.  The light from the moon lingers in the window, illuminating the silver strands.  They sparkled in the light like tiny strings of diamonds.  Like diamonds, they do not break easily.  The spider, a beautiful huntress builds the perfect trap.  She draws her kill in with the lure of splendor before sucking the life out of her victims. 

Da dump.  Da dump.  Da dump.  I look away from the window, remembering the danger I am in.  Trapped in the dark house with a spider, the moonlight, and my would-be fiancé with a gun, I had nowhere to turn. 

He was a dream come true.  After many abusive relationships I thought I had found the one, my knight in shining armor.  He was kind, generous, gentle, and very handsome.  He had the bluest eyes, like ice in a cool glass of water during the summer.  Now his blue eyes are like ice over a racing river in winter, threatening to dump me to a watery grave.  He has the blondest hair and a strong jaw line and good bone structure, soft and discrete.  After being a wrestler for many years, all traces of fat on his body had disappeared, being replaced by muscle, but he is was not bulky.  He was always a gentleman, opening doors, offering to carry things for me, buying me flowers.  It was too good to be true.  How could I have earned the love of someone so wonderful?  I believed we would be together forever, for better or for worse, for richer, or for poorer, in sickness and in health.  He was the sun I revolved around.  His acts of kindness and love continued for six months and twenty eight days, then everything changed. 

The changes were subtle and I believed that I was being paranoid after multiple failed relationships.  The first thing that went was the buying flowers; I claimed it was being short on money.  Next was the opening of doors and carrying my things; I thought he had bad days at work.  Slowly, the kisses and “I love you” stopped as well.  He wouldn’t spare me a glance after five weeks.  This was when I knew there was something terribly wrong.  I went to bed that night dreading the next day, the day I would confront him on his cold attitude.  I never got the chance. 

The next morning when I woke up, I found bacon and eggs on the table.  He said it was an act of love.  The food was delicious though it was laced with Rohypnol.  After eating, I felt woozy and he helped me to a couch where I blacked out.

When I came to, I was tied to a chair in a black space.  I could hear rats scurrying on the floor.  I felt bats flying around my head, making a terrible squealing noise.

Click.  On came a single light bulb hanging from the ceiling above me.

Smack!  A slap on the face.  Smack! Smack! Smack! Many more followed, but it was nothing compared to what would happen next. 

“Are you scared yet?” he asked.  I had thought his deep voice was calming, but now it sounded like a voice rising from a grave.  “Are you scared yet?” he repeated the question. 

I did not reply.

“Do you think you’re special?  Do you think anyone could love you?  Do you think you deserve love?” he shot questions at me. “Why should anyone care about you?  Why would anyone want you? Do you think you are beautiful?  Do you want to be happy?  Why should you be happy?  Do you deserve happiness?”

I couldn’t answer.  How could he be so cruel? He knew all my insecurities and now to spit them in my face was torture. 

“I’ll answer them for you.” He snarled.  “You’re not special and you don’t deserve love.  No one loves you.  You are no beauty.  You wallow in shame, hide in despair.  Even if you dream of happiness, it will never come to you because you do not deserve it.  No one looks at you twice or would care if you live or die.” He taunted my pain, pouring salt on a wound in my soul he had ripped open.  I wanted to die.  “We are going to play a game tonight, a game for your freedom.  There is one way out of this house and you must find it to gain your freedom.  At dusk I will un-tie you so you may begin your search.  At sun rise, if you have not found the escape, you will die.” With that statement, he left, after remembering to shoot me with a dose of anesthesia. 

When I came to, I was still in the inky blackness, but I was untied from the chair. 

Click. The light flashed on, but I was the only one in the room.  I looked to the dirt floor and found a note scratched on a yellow lined tablet:

The Way Out

I am a friend; I am an enemy

I live in the light and dark

I was in the beginning; I will be in the end

People love me; People fear me

Solve the riddle, find your freedom

See you in seven hours

I snatched the scrap just as the light died.  By feeling the grimy walls, I made my way to the stairs, I bounded up them.  Though I believed much of what he said about me, I had learned more about myself in the past few months.  I learned that it was possible to find a wonderful guy, though he turned out to be a creep and psycho.  I learned that I could find love in the world, even if it was fake love.  I learned that I am a resilient individual and a strong woman.  I searched all the rooms by moonlight only to find that all the windows and doors were deadlocked from the outside.  I grew frantic.  There must have been a way out. 

I studied that scrap of paper again:  an enemy and friend, love and fear, light and dark, beginning and end.  There was no connection between these pairs of opposites.  Considering these opposites called me back to him; he was opposites.  He was all opposites, smart and listened to heavy metal, clean cut and swore, kind to people and cruel to insects.  Such diversity within one person was the thing that drew me to him.  Maybe now, that was not such a good idea, it made him unpredictable.

Creeeeeeek.  Creeeeeeeek.  Creeeeeeeeek.  Something or someone was coming.  I knew that going into a daze would not help me if I wanted to survive.  “I’m looking for you. If I find you before morning, it’s game over.  Fly before it’s too late.”  Said a voice from the hall outside the room I was hiding in.  It brought a sense of urgency to me and I realized the direness of my situation.  I waited till the footsteps were gone, then hurried up another staircase to find the top floor windows. 

After I dashed up the stairs, two at a time, I found a room to the right and ran in.  It was a large room with floor length windows facing the full moon.  There were tall bookshelves overflowing with books on all walls.  Placed carefully about the room were large plush couches, luxurious lounges, and cozy recliners.  I chose to crouch behind a velvet couch close to a window where the light was best.

I pulled out the paper fragment and read it over again:  an enemy and friend, love and fear, light and dark, beginning and end.  Still nothing clicked in my mind. 

“Last warning.”  The low murmur was carried into the room on a breath of nonexistent wind.  He knew where I was. He was coming for me.  My heart began to race.  Da dump. Da dump. Da dump.

I looked around for a new hiding place and I spied the spider.  The spider fit the answer to the riddle. She is an enemy to other insects and friend humans for eating the other bugs, loved for eating bugs and feared for being something not understood, can survive in the light but thrives in the dark, created in the beginning and dies in the end of time.  He is just like the spider: drawing in people by his beauty and the hope of a better life while planning to drain them dry. 

I understood.  The spider is not the answer-



CRACK!!

Da dump. Da dump. Da dump. My heart races.  I look back at the spider with sadness.  Then look down at the floor. My body lays there in a pool of my blood, the heat draining quickly. He is the hunter, I am the hunted.  The answer is clear.  The only way to escape life…

Death.