Evening The Score

Woman: Swift Creek Photos
Tarantula: Creative Commons: Robert van Mossevelde

It had started so innocently that Sheila didn't even realise it was happening. Slowly, over many months, her husband Eric had been spending (so he said) more and more time in the evenings on work related projects. Sheila had believed him, of course. She loved him. That had all changed when she discovered another woman's lipstick on his shirt collar.

He tried to explain it away as a a kiss for some help he'd volunteered but the seeds of doubt had been sown. Sheila tried things to entice him home earlier in the evening but nothing seemed to hold his attention as the "work" he was doing. She had to admit they had nice things because of that work but she didn't marry him for the things he could give. She wanted him for her!

Finally, she could stand it no longer. Using some money she'd set aside for something else, she hired a private detective. It didn't take long for the results to come back and with pictures, too. Eric, that monster, had a girlfriend on the side. The pictures showed them meeting at restaurants, going to evening night spots, and even into hotels together. Sheila was livid.

Now all would have followed the normal course (her confronting him, a big fight and then maybe divorce) except she happened to mention Eric's infidelity to her great-grandmother. The wise old woman was always consulted on matters like these. Things seemed to work out right when Gram got involved somehow.

"Aye, my dearie," Gram began in her creaky old voice. "'Tis an evil thing he's doing."

"But I thought he loved me!" Sheila wailed.

"Once the other is out of the picture, he'll return to his senses."

"But how can that happen? He's always seeing her."

"She will have to leave the picture."

"If I talk to him, he'll get angry or worse."

"Not if she isn't there any longer."

"Gram, I don't know what to do."

"Ah, dearie. Let me think on this a while. I'm sure I can come up with something. Would you care for some tea?"

Gram tottered off to the kitchen and returned a few minutes later with a teapot and cups. Sheila accepted the tea without question and had one of Gram's famous cookies, too. She felt strangely better having told Gram about her problems.

Later that evening, she had a strange compulsion to go confront the "bitch" that was destroying her life. She drove her car to her husband's office building and parked in a pay lot across the street. She waited and watched. Soon the couple (Eric, the cad, and his hussy) left and walked down the street to a small restaurant. After a leisurely meal, he walked her back to her car and kissed her. Sheila felt her anger rise. He was never that tender with her.

Sheila felt her insides churn and she doubled over, collapsing to the ground. As in a dream, she watched as her body became furry and eight huge furry legs sprouted from her sides. The base of her spine stretched out and grew into a huge furred bulb. She felt her new body convulse as waves of change hit. Finally, when the last wave broke over her, she lay on the ground panting.

Reaching up to brush her hair from her eyes, she discovered she had strange fangs growing from the sides of her face. Turning her head, she discovered she was now some huge spider woman. At first she felt panic rise. Then she realized this must be Gram's doing. And, besides, she was hungry. Her hunger could be sated by only assuaged by a particular prey and Sheila knew exactly where that prey was.

She caught the hussy as she walked to her car. She pounced from the woman's back and sank her fangs into the woman's abdomen. The woman turned in Sheila's grasp and screamed in terror. Before she could break free, though, Sheila's new poison incapacitated her and she collapsed to the ground. Sheila's new instincts kicked in. Using spinnerets she didn't know she had, she bound the unconscious but still breathing woman in a cocoon of spider silk. Using a pair of her legs, she dragged her from the parkade into a secluded park behind the building. It was dark and, for some reason, there was no one at all in the park.

Taking no chances, Sheila pulled the bound woman into a clearing surrounded by trees and paused. She looked down at her husband's girlfriend. She wondered what he saw in this hussy that she couldn't provide him. With the woman bound in silk though, she looked helpless. Although the spider instincts of her new form demanded food and vengeance, Sheila began to feel sorry for the woman. Maybe if she just talked to her, something could be worked out.

After a few moments, the woman stirred slightly and tried to move.

"You let me go! Or I'll scream!"

"What were you doing with my husband!" demanded Sheila.

"Ah, my Eric. He'll not be your husband much longer. He'll be filing the divorce papers any day now. Now cut me loose." She looked over at Sheila. "My God! You're, you're a .. a .." she stammered and then fainted.

Sheila felt any feelings she might have had for this home wrecker vanish and a terrible rage replace it. In her rage, she completed the job, injecting the woman several times with her fangs. She waited, her blood boiling, for the poison to work. There was one more action that must be taken. A drider must feed! Biting through the shroud, Sheila felt her need rise and she drank of the soup within.

When Sheila came to her senses several minutes later, she was back at her car. The hussy was nowhere about and Sheila wondered whether it had been some kind of terrible nightmare. In that nightmare, she had sucked the body dry leaving only a wizened husk wrapped in its silk cocoon. Sheila felt slightly sick and drove home carefully. She wondered what Gram had wanted her to understand with such a nightmare.

The next evening though she found out. It had been no nightmare for the body of the woman, sucked dry and looking a hundred years old was found in the park. The indications were that some giant spider had attacked and drained the woman. Experts, of course, denied the possibility. Such a huge spider couldn't exist and especially not in the middle of the city. Unfortunately, there were no witnesses, and (aside from the reams of spider silk and the drained body) no clues. Strangely, Eric came home early that evening.