Another spider pinned to the wall.
Metal rods were coming out of its human torso. Liz wasn't aiming for the spider parts any longer.
For the past couple of days, it seemed like they weren't even trying to fight back. The intent to kill was evident, but their movements had grown sluggish and slow—as if they'd come here just to deliver themselves to her.
It was a one-sided massacre.
What's the cure, she asked the monster with the knife in her hand. It was the usual attempt to get a response from them.
Liz came closer to the human torso.
She started stabbing.
"What's the cure?" Her voice was like ice.
"Liz!" I yelled her name as I rushed over to the monster, the 9mm pistol in my grip.
Even with all the doors closed and the windows boarded up, I knew it was going to be very loud and we would attract even more attention to ourselves.
But I had to do it.
This is not happening—I will not let it happen again!
I pointed the gun point-blank right in the center of the spider's forehead and pulled the trigger. With a deafening bang that ricocheted round the room, the bullet phased right through its skull and dug into the wall, chipping it. I could not kill it—she was the only one who could.
I saw what she'd done to its face.
It continued to take in heavy, labored breaths. She continued stabbing.
Shk.
Shk.
Shk.
Shk.
She stabbed and she stabbed and she stabbed. The motion was almost mechanical, completely detached and unfeeling.
I leaned in and seized her wrist.
"Please."
"Robert." The glare was her warning for me to step away.
"Don't do this!"
"Robert." Her second warning.
This was it.
If I let go of her now, I knew I'd lose her for good.
With one push, she shoved me across the room. No amount of willpower could help me fight against the sheer force of it—as if I was tethered and dragged along by an elephant. My entire body slammed against the wall, feeling the unmoving cinder blocks, unable to tell the difference between the weight of its structure and her shove, as my head bounced from the surface.
This was really it.
While holding onto the back of my head, with my vision blurred and almost blacked out and my ears still ringing from the impact, I screamed at her.
I called her a monster.
I couldn't even hear my own voice or what was happening in the room anymore. After a while, the black in my vision began to clear.
The knife had stopped moving.
The spider was already dead.
She suddenly stormed out of the room.
That was when I knew nothing I said would get to her again.
I pulled a black bag over the human head of the dead spider. What she'd done was too much. It was just too much.
Margaret.
I missed my home.
Liz. She could handle this on her own, right? There was nothing I could do for her.
No. If we separated, nothing would change.
I hauled the body into the yard.
All the answers were right here.
We—
I just had to find them on my own.
"Eat," I said, gesturing the plates in front of us.
Liz sat quietly in her chair.
"Is there something you wanted to say?" I asked her.
She said nothing, instead staring at the dinner plate.
I continued. "I know it's been hard on you. No one would ever want to be in this position. But you've gotten the hang of it—fighting and dealing with them. You're doing great. Just don't think too much. The most important thing now is to stay focused, do what needs to be done, keep moving forward."
"You think they enjoy it?" She continued to stare at her plate.
"What's that?"
"Dying, one after the next. You think they enjoy getting killed?"
"No, but—"
"I've been thinking lately, about all the things that have been happening to us. I remembered when you said how they were just trying to live. Animals in the wild." She poked at the food with her fork. "When I heard you said that, I knew it was already too late for us."
She was stabbing the boiled egg, imprinting neat lines of holes into a column. "I've always hated them—the ones who tormented her. They're the lowest of scum. They took advantage of her because she was weak. If I could go back there, I would kill them all. It makes me so mad."
I sat and listened to her.
"But I'm mad at her, too," she said quietly. "She was the one who'd brought it on herself, after all. She enabled them. Sometimes I'm so mad I wish I had been born into a different body just so I could kill her. "There was no space left on the egg. She jabbed at the same holes again, making them bulge and tear. "Of course you should stand up for yourself, not let others push you around. It's only the right thing to do... And to be honest, it feels really good to fight back... But sometimes... I wonder, you know... Now that I am finally fighting back, and I've won... Does that make it fair?"
At this point, the egg had turned to mush.
"Liz."
"... I'm sorry."
"..."
"I'm sorry I pushed you, but next time I want you to stay out of my way. I'm doing the fighting. I get to decide how I treat them."
What could I possibly say to that?
"I know. Do what you have to do."
She turned up to look at me, a hint of surprise on her face.
Then she quickly looked away.
"It's been hard," I said. "I get it. I'd probably do the same thing if I was in your position. Do what you gotta do."
Without saying anything, she put her head down and ate her dinner, forcefully.
Slow down, I told her. She ate like she was trying to be done with it as quick as possible.
After dinner I went to the backyard. Bodies filled up the whole area like a giant trash pit. Even now, I still hadn't gotten used to the idea that we were the only ones who could see it.
Because of the corpses, the whole house had been submerged in an invisible cloud of wet fur, mixed with a hint of vinegar.
With a pair of scissors and some clear zipper bags in hand, I began to extract what I could from the bodies.
The parts I took were mostly from the lower halves. The spider hair, the different fluids from inside the stomach, the meat inside the stomach.
The last time we'd covered our bodies with these fluids didn't work. I knew it wasn't supposed to be a one-time experiment so I had to try again to test my luck.
I boiled the liquids and the meat. They said a lot of tarantula species were edible. If I was lucky, these ones wouldn't kill me. Consuming them might end the curse.
I also boiled the hair as well. Of course I wouldn't be able to digest them, unless I'd just eat a few short strands. I trimmed them into one-centimeter pieces so the body could excrete them. There was a chance some of these hairs could be stuck in my stomach for the rest of my life. It was a risk I was willing to take.
The liquid poured into the bowl. Unlike regular spiders, their body fluids were not blue, but red. Regardless of whether or not they were actual blood, they still contained nutrients pumped by the heart through their arteries.
I held my breath and swallowed. It tasted like metal.
Next was the meat. The whole thing should weigh around 100 mg on my plate.
Finally was the hair. I put a handful in my mouth and washed them down with water.
Then I lay down on my mattress and closed my eyes. Either this was going to kill me or it would cure my leg.
The next day, I woke up. The food didn't kill me. I leaned forward to down. A fresh bite mark was already on it. Streaks of blood laced down my leg.
If one-time consumption wasn't going to cut it, repeated consumption might be the key to ending the curse.
"You're seriously eating them for the cure?" Liz stood by the door frame. She was not looking at me but rather at the clock on the wall.
"You saw?"
"I noticed the pile looked different all of a sudden. Figured you might have done something to it. Did it work?"
"I don't know, but it might make the bites go away over time."
I suddenly remembered.
The red book.
I wondered if anything had changed over the last few weeks.
"Hey, can I take a look at the book real quick? I want to see if there's anything in there that might help us out."
"No, there's nothing new."
"You sure? Th—"
"It's the same thing as last time."
She was being dismissive all of a sudden. I just had to keep pressing.
"I was thinking maybe you could let me borrow some of the stuff you've written down. I want to give them to my friends to see if they can find something."
"No one can solve it," she said. "The entire Internet can't solve it. Don't bother."
"You never know unless you try. C'mon, just twenty minutes."
"What's the point? You won't get anywhere with it."
The room fell into silence.
"Whatever." She turned to leave.
A moment later she came back.
She handed me a piece of paper.
"Thanks."