R.H.I.P.

Woman with permission of Saledin
Spider & Fly: Death's Stock

The day began, like all too many of them had begun of late, with a tirade from the new boss. She was a bitch and everyone who could had left already. They'd transferred to other divisions, got jobs with other companies, or retired. Isolde had no such choice right now. She was looking, of course, but nothing at her level of management was open right at the moment within the company and she didn't want the hassle of a job hunt. It had only been six months since her last position collapsed (along with the company) and she couldn't afford to be without work right now. So she put up with a boss that "suggested things" but actually expected that any whim of hers was God's law and must be immediately implemented. If it worked, she got the credit. If not, you got the blame. She was an expert at making everyone else take the blame for her stupid mistakes (and there were many).

The boss, too, was a new one. Isolde remembered fondly the last two bosses. They'd been team builders. They'd make sure everyone knew what was coming and what the goals were. They'd then step back, confident that the team would implement them or report problems that required the boss' intervention. The pattern worked and worked well. The new one was a micro-manager. She claimed to be a team player but she meddled in everything. You couldn't count on doing anything to completion without her almighty finger stirring the mud up. What was worse, she'd change goals without telling anyone and launch into a fit because the new goals weren't being met.

The day the virus was released in Jerusalem, Mecca and other major centres in the Mideast was a particularly bad one. Everyone was more interested in the news than working and the boss was in a frenzy. She'd promised someone else in the hierarchy that something would be done that day (and, of course, told no one). She was threatening everyone and everything. Another ten of the critical front line people quit that day leaving them desperately short staffed in the chaotic months that were to follow.

Things settled back down with those remaining doing the work of the ones that couldn't be replaced. It seemed the internal rumour mill had spread the word that this boss wasn't worth any increase in salary. Word had even reached the street. The Careers section of the paper had carried their divisions needs to the eager and waiting jobless only to discover that there was currently far more jobs in their sector than people seeking them. The division stayed understaffed for no one, it seemed, could be found to accept a position. The boss, of course, blamed people for spreading lies about the division and scaring off new prospects as if overworked people wouldn't have welcomed a bunch of new slaves to help carry the load.

Isolde survived the next six months and even weathered the flu that completely shut down the division for four days. It seemed only the boss and a few of the hardiest of the staff were unaffected or chose to come in to work. For nearly a week, nothing got done. The boss was fit to be tied. Rather than welcoming back those people that managed to get well in a day or so rather than lingering on for a week, she attacked them them moment they arrived as ungrateful malingerers.

Soon things were back to normal ... the boss growling and grumbling like a bear with a thorn in her paw and everyone else cowering and attempting to get her Majesty's latest whim completed before she changed her mind. A few months passed and the second wave of transformations began. Of course, none of "Her" staff would ever dream of getting the transformation. They simply couldn't be spared. No one noticed the changes in the boss for several days. She continued to come to work and growl and grumble. It wasn't until the third week after the new wave of transformations started that someone noticed the long stiff hairs that had poked through the sweaters she'd begun to wear (it was summer and sweaters were hardly necessary). Since the boss was dark haired, most had put down the arm hairs to poor personal hygiene or a simian ancestry finally showing through. The rumour mill, of course, loved the changes and used them to poke fun at the boss whenever possible. It wasn't until the hairs became too long to ignore and strange patches of dark shiny skin showed on the boss' face that someone decided this was their chance for a little revenge and phoned the Quarantine Authorities.

They arrived the next day and, after a cursory investigation, quickly carted her off to quarantine. She, of course, protested that she was essential and that the whole division would collapse without her. She even fought her way free of the people in their quarantine suits twice before they sedated her and slipped a wrist band on one arm. The last thing Isolde heard as they marched her off was that if she didn't cooperate she'd end up in one of the barracks at the main quarantine centres instead of in her own home. She shook off their hands and marched almost haughtily to her car. The one of the officers shook his head and held out his hand for the keys. She harrumphed and threw them at him. Isolde watched, in relief, as the convoy, complete with an officer at the wheel of the boss' Mercedes, drove off. The rest of the day was more celebration than work for everyone. They looked forward to a new boss who could not possibly be as bad as the last one.

The following weeks went better. Upper management, lacking people in all the divisions, couldn't spare anyone to take over and put their division under the control of their old boss who'd been promoted. He immediately assigned a group of people to handle day-to-day management. When he came to visit the next week, he was appalled at the destruction she'd wrought. He did the best he could to reorganize the team and get things going again but it was apparent it would take months to rebuild. If she wasn't in quarantine, he insisted, she'd have been fired. His report of the situation resulted in bonuses for the "survivors" as he phrased it and a reprimand letter for their ex-boss. Isolde, for the first time in months, began to enjoy going to work. Strange as it sounds, productivity began to increase even though they were understaffed. Good morale and a better situation at work had much to do with this. Isolde even stopped job hunting.

All would have been idyllic had Isolde not discovered the strange patches of bright orange and red fur on her legs and thighs. She'd hoped that the Change of Life Virus (as the media now called it) would bypass her. Apparently it was not to be. Instead of fighting it, she immediately phoned the quarantine centre. They soon arranged for her home to remain supplied with power and utilities and dropped off the first of the supply boxes. Isolde began keeping the requisite log of what happened to her over the next weeks.

She was alarmed by the initial changes. The fur soon covered her from ribs to toes. She also noticed she'd lost height. Nothing fit any more as she began to shrink from her usual 155 cm to only about a third of that. At the same time, she developed a swelling at the base of her spine. This soon developed into a bulge about the same size as her entire body. It soon began to sprout bulges of its own. Eight fat little sausages grew from it's underside and a new large growth started from it's tip. Soon her own legs began to wither, too. This worried Isolde far more than the development of the bulges. She phoned the Quarantine Centre and a doctor (or maybe just a paramedic, she'd never really found out) arrived with the next food delivery. He gave her a quick once over and told her that her transformation would likely be one of the ones that ended up with a new body and legs. Her old legs were being absorbed to support the change.

That was far from reassuring but Isolde decided there wasn't much she could do about it. As the eight sausages grew, they became segmented and became long enough to support her new body. She exercised her new legs to strengthen them as she'd been advised by the doctor as it was apparent that her old legs would soon be gone. The new legs grew in strength and length until Isolde had real difficulty getting through the halls of her house. She spanned a full two meters wide by the time the legs had stopped growing and they didn't work too well scrunched up by her body.

Once the legs and her new abdomen had stopped growing, Isolde took stock of her situation. She'd run across drider images on the Internet but never thought she'd end up one. She couldn't continue to live in her home much longer as it wasn't convenient. But she'd been warned about leaving and feared the consequences. It turned out, though, that her changes hadn't quite stopped. One morning, about six weeks after her changes began, she discovered six more bulges. Two were on the sides of her face and the remaining four were at her hips. The ones on her face soon grew longer and hairier. A pair of menacing and extremely sharp fangs grew from their tips. An identical pair, save in size grew to flank her vagina. The final pair became a pair of short limbs clearly not of any use for walking. A quick Internet search told these were pedipalps and were the spider's equivalent of arms (and other things).

Once all her equipment was in place, Isolde began to wonder what was to happen to her. After all, she couldn't return to work in this form and she doubted the government would continue to feed her forever. She decided she'd best learn to live on her own. Late one night, during one of the now frequent power brownouts, she made her escape. Her new body was far stronger than it looked and she carried everything she could in the way of food. She knew that the provincial forest was only twenty kilometres away and felt sure that she could survive there.

It proved easier than she originally thought. The sticky spider silk she could spin in quantity was strong, as strong as any rope she'd ever dealt with. Within a day or so, she'd learned to catch rabbits and other small mammals. She hated to see them struggle, of course, and would quickly dispatch them with a toxic bite from her hip or cheek fangs. The poison was virulent and dissolved everything inside the skins. She was, at first, loathe to suck the soup in the bodies but soon found she enjoyed the flavours each animal imparted.

As the year turned, she wondered how she would survive the winter. Hunting would be considerably more difficult and she wondered how her human portions would fare against the cold. She needn't have worried though. One evening, when the temperature first fell to near zero, Isolde felt sleepy and had an urge to find a cave. She soon found one that had obviously been used by a bear in the past. She scooped out the remains of the litter and brought in armfuls of leaves, pine boughs and other forest litter. Her silk soon sealed the opening and she settled down on her bower for a quick nap.

The warmth of spring awoke her six months later. She yawned and stretched. She took quick stock of her situation. All the extra weight she'd put on over the summer was gone. She looked positively emaciated and she was HUNGRY. That was nothing that some quick hunting couldn't solve. The next few weeks were spent recovering from her hibernation. Soon she was back to her usual hunts. She watched other spiders (much smaller ones) as they set their snares and wondered whether she could build a web.

It turned out that building a web was a lot of work and Isolde's web was only a triangle between two dead trees. She didn't have too much hope for its efficacy as a snare and wandered off to capture rabbits and other small game. Three hours later, she returned to the web. Something large and black was tangled in the tattered remains of her web. But for its size, it looked to Isolde like a strangely distorted housefly. She wandered around beneath the remains of her web looking at the creature tangled in her silk. A familiar voice split the air and twisted her insides.

"You there! Why are you just standing there! Get me down from here," her ex-boss' shrill voice demanded.

Isolde just looked up at the creature her ex-boss had become. Although it was hard to tell through the tangles of silk, she caught enough of the details to realize that Ms. Geraldi was now mostly a fly. Her arms, hands and face remained relatively unchanged but her eyes were now huge compound eyes on either side of her head. A pair of antennae were bent back and pinned to her head by the silk. Isolde climbed the nearest tree and carefully cut her, still bound in the silk, from the web. Being unfamiliar with webs and silk, she cut away too much and her ex-boss dropped like a stone to the ground three meters below. Isolde quickly made her way to the ground.

When the fly-woman regained consciousness, she started in on Isolde again.<

"I know you, Miss Fredricks. I know you. You were one of the worst employees I'd ever had the misfortune of dealing with. I see your change hasn't improved your skills any either. Any sensible employee would have cut me free up there instead of dropping me. I might have been hurt. Damn you, if I've been hurt, you'll hear from my lawyer, you will. I'll not put up with this kind of shoddy work any longer."

Isolde couldn't take it any longer. She felt a rage building in her, a rage fuelled by months of putting up with the woman's tirades, threats and put downs.

"And just who do you think you are? You were replaced within days. The division ended up much better without you."
"You just shut up and listen to me. Cut me loose and now. Or I'll have you fired. I still out rank you. You listen up or I'll make sure you never work again."
"You are, by far, the most ill-mannered, incompetent manager I have ever had the misfortune to deal with," Isolde sneered at the bound fly-woman. "Why should I listen to you?"
"I outrank you. I always will. My father owns the company. I own shares in the company. You are just a worker, a peon, a slave to the dollar. Rank always has its privileges."

Isolde looked down at the fly-woman trapped in her silk. It struck her that the tables had turned and turned decisively.

"So Ms. Geraldi, why should I listen to you? It was my web that caught you. I made it to catch me a meal. Spiders eat flies, in case you've forgotten your basic biology."
"You let me go, you insolent, back-talking, incompetent twit. I'm better than you will ever be. My family will make sure that you ..."
"Just shut up. You are without a doubt the worst manager I ever had..."

"Screw you, you little twit. Cut me loose."
"I suffered months under you because I couldn't afford to move on that soon after getting into the division. I have a ..."
"Listen up, you. You are insubordinate. I order you to..."
"No! You shut the fuck up. You are in no position to demand anything."
"You had better ..."
"I have half a mind to treat you like I've treated dozens of rabbits over the past year."
"Now you listen to me! Cut me loose and now!"
"Shut up, Ms. Lunch. Just shut up."

She couldn't stand the woman any longer. A quick wrap of her silk around the head of the fly-woman soon had the peace and quiet she desired. Her captive continued to struggle. Muffled threats gave way to muffled pleadings. Isolde looked at the package, so neatly trussed in silk at her feet.

"I often wondered why no one in upper management every noticed the drop in productivity of our division when you took over. Other divisions I've been in have had managers replaced for far less than a 25% drop. So you're the CEO's daughter. That explains too much. Your stuck up attitude. Your lack of skill as a manager. Your mistreatment of everyone around you. I despise you. I'm standing here over you wondering why I shouldn't just let my instincts take over. After all, a quick bite of spider venom and for you it would all be over. An hour or so from now, I'd have my week's meal. You're much larger than a stupid rabbit. What do you think now, Miss R.H.I.P.?"

She paused, hands on her hips, looking down at the squirming body wrapped in silk. For the first time, the demands and threats ceased. The head twisted slightly in Isolde's direction. A muffled voice held a note of pleading. Isolde cut a patch from the fly-woman's face.

"You couldn't! You wouldn't! That would be murder!"
"Spiders eat flies all the time," Isolde smirked.
"For God's sake, don't. Please, I'll get you anything you want. Money, a position, anything."
"Since you've run from your house arrest, I doubt you can do anything along those lines anyway."
"I've my bank card. It's in my purse. We could ..."
"What would I do with money? I can just see it now. Giant spider goes into grocery store and shops."
"I could get you away from here. To our island in the Caribbean. No one would every know where you've gone."
"I see. And why aren't you there now then?"
"I just escaped. They are putting all the changees into labs to study the virus. I couldn't stay there."
"But why not just call Daddy? I'm sure he'd pull a few strings."
"I - uh - can't. There's ..."

Isolde took a closer look at the fly-woman squirming in her silk. She did have her expensive purse still clutched to her breasts but her hands were hard and shiny now. Smooth without mark. The fingerprint sensors would definitely not be identify her properly. Her offer of money with her bank card was a straight out lie.

"You can't use your cards, can you?" Isolde interrupted. "You haven't any fingerprints."
"I'll go see the manager. He'll recognize me. He'll ..."
"Call the authorities on both of us. Besides money isn't any good if I can't spend it."
"Let me go! Please let me go. I'll do anything, anything."

Isolde couldn't take it any longer. She'd been fighting the instinct to bite her struggling prey and eat for some time now. Despite the pleading voice, she knew that this bitch wouldn't really change even if she did let her go.

"I really hate you, you know," Isolde said slowly. "Everyone suffered under your stupid management. You are stuck up and self-centred. A lot of good people got demoted because of your lies. You have nothing I want and I wouldn't take anything from you even if you did. God I despise you. Give me one good reason to let you go."
"I'm human! You can't eat a person! That would be cannibalism."
"You aren't a person. People don't have six legs and wings. People don't have antennae. People don't have claws, they have fingers. You aren't human any more than I am any more."
"Stop. Please stop!"

For a moment, Isolde felt a tiny pang of pity for the creature. What would her life be like as a fly, eating garbage and decaying meat? Not quite the expensive restaurants she'd probably frequented in her past life. Would it be greater punishment to let her live as the scavenger she was? Then her instincts took over. Her massive hip fangs sank into the struggling fly body and she felt the orgasmic discharge of the poison. The woman continued to protest and curse Isolde even as the poison dissolved her insides. Finally, the poison began to affect her more human portions and her voice quieted and finally stilled. A quick death was better for her. Even the CEO's daughter didn't deserve what the virus had done to her. Then her own instincts took over.

The fly, Isolde decided after draining its fluids, was the best meal she'd had in many months.