It's Complicated: A Zombie Romance Novel

Spiders, Oh My!

He didn't need zombies, he had spiders. This room was a garden of spiders. I ran to the door as fast as I could. It was locked, of course.

"What's the riddle this time?" I asked him.

"No riddle. Just follow the web to free yourself," he said. Follow the web? There were so many webs in this place it would be impossible to tell which one to follow. This had to be the next riddle.

I looked closer at the door. Three long thin cords hung down in front of it. Follow the web. Maybe if I followed the cords they'd lead me to the key. It was worth a shot.

I pulled on the first cord. Something sounded over my head like a gong. Then I felt them fall on me. A bucket full of spiders.

I screamed. They were crawling in my clothes, on my skin, my hair, anywhere they liked. I felt like Indiana Jones in that pit of snakes. There was nothing worse than having something crawling all over you. NOTHING.

"Stay still," I managed to tell myself. "Stay perfectly still and they will all crawl away." If I kept hitting them they might start biting, and who knew if they were venomous or not. It wasn't worth the risk.

"Just stay perfectly still."

Headset Guy probably had a response to that, but I tuned it out. I had to stay calm. Drowning in water, and now a room full of live spiders. Someone was using my greatest fears against me. The only question was who?

This was a game, so it stood to reason there were rules. I just needed to use them to my best advantage.

That was the thing. I'd remembered reading in one of my favorite books about a girl that got herself in a similar predicament in the name of love.

I started to tell Headset Guy the story. At least it was keeping me calm.

"I read this book once about a similar test to this."

"You did, did you?" he asked.

"Yeah. She'd been tested, but the test wasn't to the death. Victory went to the person that drew first blood," I continued. The spiders were mostly on the floor now. Crawling away from me.

"If she could manage that, she'd win. It was really that simple, and yet that hard."

"So, did she win?"

"Yes, by knowing the rules and playing right to them."

"So you better learn the rules fast. Or you're not going to win." Headset Guy was toying with me.

"I have suspicions," I continued, "I know you have to be someone in charge. At the same time, you also had to be someone that had access to the whole place. Maybe even a host?" I paused to see if that drew a reaction out of him. Dead air.

"I didn't think hosts were that powerful," I added. In my head I told myself, 'If they were, why wasn't Brian contacting me?'

"You have to be a key person, in that you have keys to all the rooms," I continued.

"So, who are you?" I just out and out asked him. The last of the spiders were on the floor. If there were still some on me I couldn't feel them. I moved to pull the next cord.

"Oh, you have to win to find that out, dearie," he said. I waited for another bucket of spiders, but nothing happened. I pulled on it again.

"Or I could just keep guessing," I said.

"I don't think you would guess right in a million years, but you can try."

"Any hints?" This time the string gave way in my hand. Something clanked behind me.

"The cats are getting closer."

"Then I need to hurry," I said, following the string back to the clanging sound. "Wait, I thought you were the cat and that you were sicking your dogs on me."

"I'm more of a cat person."

"Just like Tommy," I said in an off-handed way. Where had that comment come from? I thought I'd gotten over comparing people to my dead best friend years ago. On the other end of the string was a key. I tried it in the lock. The door swung open on a staircase.

"Scamper up little mouse, my cats are hungry."

I shuddered. These stairs did not look safe, but up was where I needed to go, so up I went.