P.I.E. Operation: PARASITIC

XXII: Kingdom of the Spiders

One of the creatures of the night stared ominously through the window of the oh-so-breakable wooden door. It was skeletal, and it appeared to be wielding a crossbow.

Johnny walked up to the door and quickly pulled down the window's curtain in its face. "Stay away from me, ya weirdo!"

A banging sound came from outside.

Johnny looked back at Gertrude and the villager and sardonically said, "Someone's a-knockin'! Shall we let them in?"

Gertrude rolled her eyes with a smile, despite the dangers not too far away from them. Comet squeaked in fear and hid in Gertrude's hood.

The villager gave a blank stare to the entrance, as if he didn't really understand what was going on.

Cracks formed in the wood.

The paranormal investigator cautiously stepped away.

Gertrude's joking grin turned over in a frown."Not again!" She said, referring to when Toast broke the door not too long ago.

The fragile entryway splintered into tiny pieces and once again reformed into a miniature version of itself. It somehow spun around slowly on an invisible axis.

"Nothing in this world makes sense..." Johnny muttered, staring at the small piece of wood.

He was suddenly attacked by a different monster bearing the same green hue as the last one he had stumbled into.

Dodging the arrows that were shot aimlessly around the room, Mama Gertrude grabbed onto the arms of the humanoid pinning down Toast and pulled it backwards out of his way. "Get off of him!" She yelled at the creature. Its arms came loose and pulled out of their sockets without much resistance.

Johnny swiftly stood up with a mental Thank you to Gertrude. He lunged straight at the skeleton that had also broken into what was once a peaceful abode.

The villager stood in the corner of the room with its expression still quite frozen in place.

"If you're bones..." Johnny speculated at the skeleton, "then you should just..." He knocked off both of its thigh bones with one kick; it toppled over in pieces, dropping its bow.

He looked at the cowering Testificate. "Oi! What are you doing waiting over there?! Do something!"

The villager watched innocently as a skeletal hand crawled up Johnny's torso, unnoticed.

It watched as Mama held two maggot filled, detached arms in her hands; she gave them look as if she were going to vomit.

It watched as an oversized spider joined the party by breaking through the ceiling and landing promptly on Johnny's head, who screamed in terror at the darkness that suddenly flew over him.

Then finally, the unnamed mute villager, who didn't ask for any of this trouble in the first place, helpfully picked up the small door and replaced it where it belonged.

As great as that was, that didn't change the fact that the monsters were still actively inside the house. There was no way the Testificate was going outside, so it cowered back into its corner as long as the other villains were occupied by the two tougher travellers.

The live skeletal hand crawled up to Johnny's throat and attempted to choke him. At the same time, the spider blinded him; it was a terrible team effort to kill Toast! He was beginning to have a hard time breathing...

"Johnny!" Without looking, Gertrude threw the disembodied square arms out the door to stomp angrily on the head of the sickly green former human and crush it to death. "Die, you weak excuse of a horror movie!"

The zombie disappeared, indicating that it was probably defeated. There was stale blood coating Gertrude's arms (if that's what the red squares dripping from her hands was supposed to represent).

With her crazy red eyes and her bloody arms, Mama looked more like a madman. In reality, though, she was indeed a bit loopy, yet had a soft heart to anybody she took a liking to.

Gertrude ripped the skeleton away from Toast's skin a bit violently, leaving a few scratches where the hand had dug in. She tore the fingers off of it.

He tried to take a deep breath under the spider, but it was literally smothering his face with its own body.

John's hands shook violently at the thought of touching a spider--and a giant one, at that--but due to the fact that he couldn't breathe, he reached up and pried it off of his face.

Realizing what he just had to do, he looked down at his hands; the bottom of the squirming, leggy spider revolted him so much that he reflexively threw it across the other side of the room, right at the villager. "K-kill it, kill it now!" Johnny screamed in terror.

Gertrude looked around for a weapon. The bow and arrow! She thought. "I'm okay with zombies and dinosaurs, but I can still barely take this with a weapon!"

Just as the tip of the arrow clashed with the eight legged insect and it crumpled together, the spider poofed out of existence.