A Walk in the Dark

 

I work the swing shift. I usually get off work at around 11 p.m. 

I left with a few colleagues, chatting aimlessly and complaining lightly about our boss. 

We were almost to the area where we parked our cars (a hundred or so yards away from the warehouse, down a service road), when I realized I had forgotten my lunch box. 

I exchanged a few words with my coworkers, reassuring them I’d be right behind them, and not to wait, and jogged back towards the warehouse. 

I went back inside and quickly located my lunch box in the break room where I’d left it. It was rather dark, as it seemed everyone had already left for the night. Nobody was ever scheduled for the night shift on Fridays, save for the security guard. I figured the security guard was somewhere on the premises, but I made sure to turn the light off and lock the door behind me when I left anyway. He was a younger man, not particularly responsible, who always got a ride from his mother to work. He was usually smoking on the other side of the warehouse at this time of night, and often didn’t check the doors.

When I stepped outside again, the night air felt very still and cold. 

I began the leisurely walk back to my car, swinging my lunch box at my side. 

I reached my car after a few minutes, and pulled out my keys to unlock it. However, when I pressed the button to do so, it didn’t work. My stomach sank. Was my battery dead? That had happened to me once before, but it hadn’t been a big deal, as one of my coworkers had just given me a jumpstart. But now, nobody was here. 

I sighed. I unlocked the car manually and tried to start it up anyway. It clicked, and the engine didn’t turn over. It was as I had suspected. I pulled my phone out of my pocket, thinking that maybe if one of my friends wasn’t too far off, they’d be kind enough to come back to help. To my dismay, my phone was dead. 

I was frustrated, but not panicked. I didn’t live very far away, and it would probably only be two hours tops to walk home. I could ask my neighbor, Greg, who I was friendly with to give me a ride and a jumpstart tomorrow, so I didn’t leave my car there all weekend.

I got out of my car and closed the door, locking it behind me. I began walking. The warehouse where I worked was out of town, so the first portion of the walk was an empty road surrounded by shrubby fields and empty lots.

It wasn’t long before I reached town. It was the more industrial part of town, so there were no people around, just lots of gray concrete buildings and warehouses. 

At night, the area had a foreboding feeling. In the daytime, it was boring at best. I became grateful that I was a tall imposing man, swinging a metal box around. 

That didn’t matter, because I nearly jumped out of my skin when a homeless man suddenly appeared in front of me from the darkness. 

Trying to remain composed, I squared my shoulders and attempted to look intimidating when I passed him. 

He called out, asking me for change. 

I faltered, but didn’t completely stop moving. He wore a big faded red overcoat and had long scraggly hair. He had the wide, paranoid eyes of a drug addict. They glistened in the dark.

I patted my pockets, but knew I had no change. I didn’t carry cash anymore.

I apologized, admitting I didn’t have anything to offer him. 

The homeless man grumbled something under his breath, and retreated into the shadows. 

I wished him a good night. I genuinely meant it. 

The homeless man didn’t reply.

I moved on, and the industrial area became thinner. I knew that the town would become sparser, and then it would open up into a more residential neighborhood. 

The road I was on was a back road, and it wound through the industrial district and passed through a marshy wooded area before reaching the houses on the other side. 

I was about halfway through the marshy area when I saw a couple of stray dogs illuminated by the few streetlamps that adorned this stretch of road. 

I hesitated. Stray dogs weren’t inherently aggressive, but I didn’t want to spook them or make them feel threatened, so I kept my distance, slowly moving forward.

I saw the dogs sniff at each other briefly, and then, as if on a mission, run down a small dirt path that veered off from the road.

Against my better judgement, I followed them. Still keeping a safe distance, of course. 

The small path (probably from deer passing by) led to a little creak that twisted through the marshy area. 

I saw in the dim light that the dogs were devouring something. My stomach turned. Perhaps it was a deer? 

It was then that the dogs seemed to sense me, and they turned tail and ran into the bushes.

I approached their dinner with unease. It was not a deer. It was a person. Or, it used to be. The dogs had made quick work of it. Although, the injuries didn’t seem to add up…

The corpse’s head was crushed into itself, and I could see no evidence left of a brain or eyes. The rib cage was open, and there wasn’t much meat left to speak of. I felt close to vomiting, but for some reason, stepped closer. It looked as though the surface was moving. I squinted, then recoiled. 

Tiny bugs swarmed over the body, in its mouth, eye sockets, everywhere. 

I gasped and scrambled back up the path, barely able to contain my puke. As I reached the main road, it came spewing out. I felt little bugs crawling all over me. I don’t know if it was my imagination or not, but I madly began batting my arms and legs and head, desperate to get them off of me as I ran towards home.

Eventually I had to stop. I hunched over, my hands on my knees, breathing heavily. I had a stitch in my side and my lungs burned. I took deep breaths, trying to calm myself down. 

Some junkie probably just passed out in the marsh, and the dogs found them. That was all. Right? Maybe the body had been there for a while, and it was just natural decomposition I’d seen. A shiver went down my spine when I thought of the body again. I almost retched again. 

I stood up, still shaken, but desperately wanting to be home by now. I continued down the road, still breathing heavily, but going much slower now.

I hadn’t made it far before I felt a presence behind me. The hair on the back of my neck stood up. I turned, and my brain could barely comprehend what I saw.

It was tall. Far taller than myself. It stood on eight spindly legs, a spider-like being. But it had human-like arms that reached out to me. 

I tried to run, but what could I do? The thing immediately snatched me off my feet. I heard my lunch box clatter to the pavement. The thing began to wrap something around me. I suppose it was probably a web. 

I struggled, but suddenly found myself very drowsy. I didn’t have time to wonder what the hell the creature had done to me before I lost consciousness.

I woke up upside-down. It was dark all around me, but I could make out the shape of something hanging near me. 

I jumped when the thing next to me spoke. I recognized the voice. It was the homeless man I’d encountered earlier. I could see the faded red color of his jacket, and his long scraggly hair.

He asked me if I was awake. 

I said yes, my voice shaking. 

He wondered aloud what was going on. 

I asked him if he’d seen what had gotten him. 

He described what I had seen; a horrifying, tall spider-creature. 

I shuddered. 

It was then that I remembered I had a box cutter in my back pocket.

My arms were pinned at my sides by the webs, but I could shimmy just enough to get my arm in the right place. 

I told the homeless man my plan. I promised I would free him as soon as I got myself down.

I got to work on the box cutter, carefully extracting it from my pocket, and sliding the blade out. I began to use a sawing motion on the web. Thankfully, they weren’t too thick.

I was almost through my bonds when the spider thing returned. 

I shouted, but it didn’t seem to care. It grasped the homeless man’s head on either side with its human arms, and clamped its grotesque mouth onto the back of his head. He cried out, but the creature quickly silenced him. With a horrible crunching sound, it latched onto his skull. It began to make a horrible sucking sound. I wanted to throw up again, but I couldn’t take my eyes away from it, as it sucked out the poor homeless man’s brain. His eyes went with it, sucked back into the horrible maw of the monster. 

I finally broke through the webs that imprisoned me, and dropped awkwardly to the ground, still covered in the remnants of the cocoon-like prison.

I turned and ran. I didn’t dare stop to check if the monster had followed me, and I hoped it was too busy eating to care.

In what felt like seconds, I had reached my house. Instead of going inside, I headed straight to my neighbor, Greg’s house. My phone was dead, and I needed to call the police.

I banged on Greg’s door until he let me in, looking alarmed.

He asked me if I was okay, but I don’t remember what I said. I do remember insisting that I needed to use his phone. He obliged.

I hysterically told the operator what had happened, but they didn’t seem convinced. Still, they sent a patrol car to check in.

I rambled on to the cops about the awful spider-creature, and demanded that they sweep the marshy area to confirm my story. They scoffed at me, and told me that calling 911 was serious, and not to waste their time. 

Greg was supportive, but I doubt he really believed me either. 

I went home and fell into a fitful sleep, dreaming of the monster’s awful spider legs and human arms, and that I was covered in tiny bugs. 

I awoke with a stomach ache. At first, I figured I was just upset from the night before, but it became clear that the stomach ache was more than that. Pain came in waves, and I found myself doubled-over on my way to the kitchen. 

I decided to take an Uber to the hospital and get myself checked out. 

I’m writing this as I wait for the results. The doctors seemed baffled, but they wouldn’t tell me anything. I know there’s something wrong. When they weighed me, I was shocked to see I’d gained nearly 25 pounds since I’d weighed myself just last week. I keep asking what’s going on, but they won’t say. All they’ve told me is that there is some sort of mass in my stomach. And it’s growing.