Silver Webs

A tongue in cheek horror story around the perils of jogging in a world full of robot spiders

Dawn broke over the town, a silver mist hung on the horizon, shimmering in the light of a new day. I had been woken, early as ever, by my giant of a kitten wanting playtime and I moved to the living room to get him food.

On opening the curtains I was struck by the crispy beauty of the morning, the sun was shining and I could see the dewy silver webs of spiders nestled in the bushes. I made up my mind, I would embrace the early start and go for that run I kept meaning to take. Finding my gear in the pile where I had left it, I got dressed and headed out to the local park.

As I walked along the road, I gazed at the new tower blocks of my home town, still under construction the cables and cranes looks like some sort of giant spider had nested in the heart of the town but it would be worth the chaos the construction caused in the end.

I approached the park gate, put in my headphones and began the run. I had been running for a minute or two when something began to kick at my subconscious. I could not place it, it was a lovely, quiet, sunny morning… wait there it was, quiet where was anybody? I glanced around, sure it was only 6:30am but there is always another jogger, a dog walker or two and that one Pokemon Go insomniac who never seemed to leave.

I was about to dismiss this as one of those things when I caught the faintest muffled sound from above me. I took out my headphones and there it was, a stifled screaming and the trees were shaking. I looked up into the canopy, shading my eyes against the early morning sun and there was an object, wrapped in what looked like steel cable, thrashing weakly as it dangled from a branch.

As I looked closer I realised the steel cables covered the tops of all the trees I could see, and as I stared a metallic spider skittered out over the mummified object, a suspiciously human object, wrapped in metal webbing. More metal spiders followed, each one the size of my hand, and swarmed over the now still corpse.

I fled instantly, I was geared for running and run I did. This time I was alert and I realised just how much of the park was covered in the cable webbing. But mostly I ran because a horrible skittering was building all around me and I dared not look back.

The park gates were blocked by a robotic spider the size of a horse. The thing spotted me and reared onto its back legs, hydraulic mandibles undulating and it sprayed a viscous fluid in my direction. I was in full flight and managed to swerve the initial spray, but I could hear it sizzling on the ground behind me. Acid spraying robot spiders?? What the hell sort of nightmare is this??

I threw myself past the giant spider as it stopped rearing and crashed down to the ground, it pivoted and sprayed another blast of corrosive death in my direction but I was already running for my life, towards town.

There was a thunking of giant feet, and a horrible skittering as thousands of robotic spiders swarmed out of the park gates. From behind me came a cyborgish nightmare of a sound, the spiders were screaming as they chased after me.

 Something fell from a tree and landed on my shoulder, I grabbed at it instinctively and recoiled as I held the upside down arachnophobic’s nightmare. I threw it into the empty road without stopping my mad flight, almost at the town centre, the building site was just up ahead. The skittering had stopped, I turned slightly to look and all the spiders were milling just outside of town. Ha I was safe!

My joy was short lived, as the Great Wizzard once said, never look back and I tripped, sprawling onto the concrete. I lay there trying to get my breath back, the blood was pounding in my ears, and my whole body was shaking. I check myself, minor scrapes, otherwise unhurt so why the pounding in my head?

The sun dims slightly and I look up at the new tower blocks under construction, the ones I thought looked like spiders webs with all the cranes… Strung between two buildings was a 15 story spider web, made of steel cable and walking ponderously slowly into the webs centre was the Queen of the robot spiders.

The Queen roared and I covered my ears at the deafening sound. A metallic echo erupted from all around me, in answer to her summons metallic spiders burst forth, a sea of silver in which I was washed away.

They covered my body as they ran to her, needle like legs piercing my flesh as they spun their webs around me

I couldn’t breathe, my chest was bound so tightly and I could not open my mouth to gasp air. Cocooned within my steel web I began to black out, the last sound I heard was the skittering of the spiders crawling over me.

Author's Note

Written for the competition Get the Bug Spray!

Reviews

[¿]

Man....am scared of these spi***😢
Oh...my phobia.....hope you'll win this contest!😊

[Neil P]

Thank you! As an arachnaphobe who has to walk around this park hunting pokemon later i'm glad its worth it :-D

[¿]

Indeed!.....😊