The spider human hybrid fell down to the floor. Liz thrust a rusty metal rod with a sharp truncated tip through its abdomen and embedded its body in the cement. There was only one spider tonight. Without uttering a sound, it flailed all its giant, hairy black legs in the air like a giant dying cockroach. The balding old woman in a flowery red blouse on the upper half stooped wanly, expressionless, as if it not knowing how to react to its circumstance.
"Hurts, doesn't it?" Liz said flatly.
The spider continued to squirm, trying to pull itself away from the metal pole. Thick, dull red liquid leaked out of its stomach.
With the kitchen knife in hand, she made a clean cut through one of its legs.
"Sometimes it helps to scream a little," she said softly, not withholding even an ounce of spite she was probably feeling inside. "Takes away the tension."
The spider was pushing itself off the ground to dislodge the pole.
"What is the cure?" The knife was already headed for the next leg.
It continued helplessly to pry itself off the black cement.
Liz held up another leg with her hand.
Klang.
The 23cm utility knife broke in half as the tip of the blade fell on the ground. It was the fourth one this week—there were only three left.
The girl turned around looking for a replacement.
I threw another one. The blade spun and scraped along the concrete floor before it stopped by her feet.
She then proceeded to cut off the second leg.
The ones still intact were squirming even more madly than before. None of them could reach her or the pole.
"What is the cure?"
"Liz, just stop it! It won't talk." I tried to bring her to her senses.
With a single cut, the third leg came off and thudded against the floor. The human half continued to stoop lifelessly.
What made her think it was going to work this time?
Every time we tried something on these animals, they'd just go limp and die. No matter how many times she hit and kicked them, nothing worked. After all this time, I thought maybe she'd have figured it out by now.
It was always the same outcome. The maniacal laughter, then those same words again.
She really believed that if she hurt them bad enough, then they might just crack.
It all came down to how much pain she could inflict on them.
Every day she'd learn to become a little more forceful.
A little less humane.
The first few nights were constant blows to the spiders. Kicks and punches that carried inhuman strength. But then she started using the knife.
Liz sliced off the fourth leg. It coiled on the floor like a giant black millipede.
"We're halfway through," she said coldly. "You're a tough one. Or it's probably because I'm just not aiming at the right spot."
Klang.
The knife shattered the moment she pressed it against its flesh, so I threw her one of the last three we had. The fact that we were running out of them much quicker for the past few nights made me wonder if it was because these more recent spiders had harder bodies or if she had gotten even stronger and was getting too rough with the utensils.
"They say arachnids have fewer nerve endings compared to humans." She bent down to pick up the knife. "But judging from how you look, I'm guessing there are still enough of them in there for you to feel something."
She proceeded to cut off the fifth appendage.
Then the sixth.
Then the seventh.
Then the last leg.
I turned away because couldn't watch anymore.
A legless abdomen was nailed to the ground, squirming, trying to tear itself from the pole.
Not a single sound was coming out of it.
"You're a brave one," she said softly.
Then she stepped on the abdomen and started climbing to the old woman on the upper half.
"Just kill her, Liz." I staggered up from the wall.
She didn't even respond to me anymore. She stuck the knife in the woman's mouth.
A scream rang out.
It was laughter.
"It must die!" screamed the old woman, the sharp edge of the knife obstructing the movement of her mouth.
"Liz, stop!" I climbed on the abdomen and grabbed the wrist of her free hand.
The knife on the other hand was stuck in the upper gums inside the woman's mouth.
It must die, the old woman screamed.
A strong draft tore across the room.
The bulb started to swing with greater and greater intensity and the shadows jumped in and out of corners, dancing with terrific vigor, burying us all in starving waves of black.
As the light steadied and the terrific masses of shadows shrank away into nothingness, streaking behind the walls, I saw the blood pour from her mouth and wrap around her wrinkly chin. The red shimmered to the dying bulb swaying above the two of them.
A tooth had gone missing.
The pair of eyes had rolled back inside their sockets.
The spider had died.
"What the hell are you doing?" I shoved her with my hand. "You're going too far!"
She pulled the metal pipe from its abdomen.
"Are you even listening to me? I'm not letting you fight again!"
"What do you want from me?" she raised her voice. "I'm doing this for you, dumb ass!"
My jaws tightened, not knowing how to respond.
"That was—whatever you were doing, that was too much."
Was I in the wrong? They'd wrecked our lives the moment they decided to come to haunt us—but was all of that really necessary?
Sometimes I wished that they really could not feel anything, like she'd said to me, an idea she seemed to wholeheartedly believe in, that it was all a show, an unconscious instinctual reaction without an actual experience of physical pain.
"No, listen. I'm sorry I shouted at you. But you have to understand, even if you could get them to talk, by doing the things that you did, it's wrong. That kind of behavior only belongs to a—"
Her brows stretched up as she looked at me with utter disdain.
"Say it."
"Doesn't matter. Humans or not humans, no one should be acting that way."
"They wanted us dead! If they could tear us limb from limb, they would!"
"It's the animal world. They do what they can to live. If they don't eat, they'll die."
For some reason, her eyes widened in genuine surprise as if I'd struck a chord.
We disposed of the body in our backyard. Another spider to the pile.
She was leaning against the door frame as I tried to pass through to get inside the house.
"It's funny you're so critical of violence when you're all knees-deep in it," she said.
"What's that?"
"Terrorism, wars, serial killers. Humans are not so different from the rest of the ecosystem."
My body went stiff as I could sense the heat crawling up my face.
I'd expected she'd try to go there eventually.
She wasn't wrong.
It was something we all had to live with.
"We all have a choice." I tried to reason with her. "We can choose to engage in violence or abstain from it. I don't want to see you go down a path you'll regret later on."
She didn't say anything—just walked right off.
"Liz."
I limped out of the room, my hand clinging to the doorway. She stopped when I staggered to the front of her and put my hand on her shoulder.
"Promise me you won't do it again."
She looked up and down at me. She looked at the red, soggy bandages wrapping around my entire body, at my messed-up leg, then she looked into my eye. There was a hint of a smile on the corner of her lips.
The room fell silent.
She just stood there.
A million words were sewn up behind that calm expression, threatening to burst.
She was waiting for me to take my hand off her shoulder.
The moment I let go, she walked away.
Even if I couldn't read minds, I could still hear her thoughts.
I felt ashamed, and I knew that I was in no position to tell her anything at all.
Even I couldn't stand the reek of my own hypocrisy.
But what happened tonight was too much.
That kind of thing could forever change a person.
In my mind, there was a clear line that once crossed, a person would never be the same.
She was aware of it. And she was willing to go there.
I didn't want to see that day come.