He was haunted.
He was haunted by the never-ending thought of being obliterated, of being destroyed. With the booming echo he had grown to interpret as a human marching their boots down the long, narrow hallway, he scurried his eight black legs from the side of the white wall to behind the old and torn couch where he wouldn't be visible. After a view more steps that sounded like the beating of drums in his ears, he could see clearly from the small gap between the couch and the wall the figure of Mr. Dark slowly opening the refrigerator in front of him and pulling out a beer from a ripped open box. He grabbed a metal utensil sitting on the kitchen countertop and pried open the beer bottle, chugging it down his throat after doing so. Soon, Mrs. Dark, Mr. Dark's wife, walked into the kitchen carrying with her their first-born child, Sally, who was a mere few months old. He didn't have a very good sense of time, but he could vaguely remember when they didn't have Sally, and he had one less person in the house to worry about. The couple began talking, Sally fidgeting in the tight grasp Mrs. Dark held.
"We need to call an exterminator," Mrs. Dark began, slowly, bringing Sally up and down, but Sally appeared very unhappy with this, "Last night I saw a spider in our room crawling up and down the walls. Probably covering everything in their disgusting webs. You know what could happen if one of them bite us, or Sally?!"
"Yes, yes I know I know," Mr. Dark was nodding, speaking only in between sips of his beer, "Those darn things just keeping coming back. Trust me, all you gotta do when you see one is just take out something like a newspaper, or, if you're manly like me," he said chuckling, "use your fist and smash that disgraceful thing to bits". He spent a while taking long, peaceful gulps of his beer before burping violently and forcefully pressing it back down onto the kitchen countertop. He watched Mr. and Mrs. Dark slowly admire Sally as she remained in Mrs. Dark's grasp, her eyes darting around the room. He began, crawling up out of the crack behind the sofa, this allowed him to see more light, which he greatly enjoyed, especially after spending long periods of time in the dark. The couple was hugging, now, embracing each other and Sally in their arms, when Mr. Dark turned towards the couch and shouted, "Hey! Look! It's one of those monsters right here. Watch honey, I'll show those spiders a thing or two," he remarked stomping his way towards the spider. The spider liked to call himself Dave. No human knew, but he perfectly understood everything they said; he just couldn't speak, but he had grown quite fond of the name Dave and would always imagine himself as a human. Dave was now scurrying around the room, trying to avoid the wild punches and smacks Mr. Dark was hitting at the wall.
"Honey, be careful!" Mrs. Dark called out to him as he rampantly tried to catch Dave's quick maneuvers and zigzags, "You could break something!"
"Yeah yeah I'll be fine. I just gotta teach these spiders a lesson. Maybe leave their dead body lying around the house as a message for all the others to see, eh?" he cleverly remarked, or, at least he thought it was clever. A small dent was left in the wall above a lamp from one of Mr. Dark's punches, and he hit it so forcefully it caused him great pain, and he had to pause and grab his throbbing fist. "AHH!" he screamed raging with an unstoppable thrust of his arms up and down, "I HATE THESE SPIDERS!!" He threw himself around the room, but to no avail. In the time he was vigorously rubbing his fist with the other hand trying to soothe the pain, Dave had escaped burrowing himself in a small crack the couple could only reach if they moved their two-hundred-pound desk. Mrs. Dark rushed to help Mr. Dark carrying a small bag of ice. And sally, in her arms, having watched the entire event unfold. She kept watching.
A few hours later when Mr. and Mrs. Dark were in their bedroom watching TV, Dave slowly crept out of the spot he had secluded himself in and began wandering along the white plastered walls. He crept slowly, eventually climbing until he was hanging onto the ceiling, praying that he would not be seen. He crawled past the kitchen to a small place near the window to the left of the refrigerator. Mrs. Dark insisted on leaving the windows open to let the air circulate, but this caused a vast number of bugs and flies to infiltrate into the house. In Mr. Dark's mind, a spider, a mosquito, the devil, they were all the same thing. Dave crept up the side of the window and onto the spider web he had constructed. It was a hot summer's day, the prime time for mosquitoes, which meant Dave had many to munch on trapped inside his web. He strung along some reinforcing webs and started feasting on the seven bugs he had caught. He had eaten the previous night, meaning he caught all of these bugs today! He felt quite proud of that, or, at least, as proud as a spider could feel, and began crawling back to his corner. But when he was just above the lamp right near the dent Mr. Dark made, he saw gazing straight at him Sally. She was standing there, her hand raised, watching Dave intently. They were both frozen for a few moments before Dave hurriedly snuck back into the hole he was in before. Sally stood there. Then, she left.
The following morning, Mrs. Dark was cooking eggs with a side of bacon and toast for both herself and Mr. Dark, feeding Sally only the foods the doctor had prescribed. The scent of the freshly cooked food had drawn Dave out of his hole to a location where he could safely observe and inspect everything without being noticed. He had scoured the room and had found the prime locations where he could see them, but they couldn't see him. All three of the humans were sitting at the dining table. They were chatting about summer activities, the food, and whatnot. After a few minutes, Mr. Dark excused himself from the table, claiming there was some sort of work emergency he had to help solve. This left Mrs. Dark and Sally alone at the table. Dave felt relieved by this. It was Mr. Dark he feared the most. Mr. Dark's absence had drawn him further out of his hiding, until he was creeping on the floor hoping the humans would be too distracted to notice him. The aroma was irresistible, and Dave soon found himself making his way over to the kitchen, growing less and less paranoid about whether the humans could see him. And suddenly, it happened.
"EEEHHHHHH. Honey help! HELP!" Mrs. Dark shrieked, frantically trying to grab Sally, but Sally refused to budge, and, instead, rushed over to where Dave was. Mr. Dark was rushing back to the kitchen rapidly, asking Mrs. Dark what happened, and she did her best to explain everything, hiccupping her way through and pointing to where Dave was incessantly maneuvering about.
"I knew it! See what I tell you? You don't kill 'em when you can, and they always come back to bite'ya," Mr. Dark scoffed, grabbing, this time, a thick newspaper that was really three put together. He forced all his strength into rolling them up, and sprinted over to where Sally was standing, frozen, watching Dave twist and turn. Mrs. Dark was crying, begging her husband to fix the problem. Mr. Dark was throwing the rolled-up newspaper at Dave before grabbing it off the floor and violently beating the ground, each time Dave miraculously escaping the swing. But finally, STOMP. Mrs. Dark was relieved at her husband, rushing over to him and thanking him for protecting the house, but Mr. Dark stood still, shocked. Sally looked at them and proceeded to show the couple the bottom of her shoe whose sole was splattered in a black smudge. Sally happily watched her parents, as they gratefully embraced her.
That night, the family was attacked by mosquitoes. Mr. Dark caught a horrible disease. The doctors didn't even know what it was or that mosquitos had caused it. The family's hatred towards spiders had warranted the blame for the disease Mr. Dark got which forced Mrs. Dark to work a job to support her and Sally since Mr. Dark couldn't work. With her parents both out of the house, Sally had spent most of her childhood alone, her parents only able to afford a nanny to cook meals and stay in the house for three hours a day.
Epilogue
Many many years later, Sally was a grown woman and raising children of her own. She had two beautiful boys whose father was out working for a predominant part of their children, leaving Sally to nurture them on her own. Who was to say if it was the aroma from the cooking, or the easily accessible cracks in the wall? But nevertheless....
From the outside, one couldn't tell who it was that shrieked first, but alas the outcome was still the same.
