The Secret Spider

One day a twelve year old boy named Billy was walking home from school. When he passed old lady Marcy's house, he noticed something odd. The rose bushes that she had only planted last week had already grown, almost as tall as himself. He studied the roses, with intense curiosity until his concentration was broken by a voice calling out to him from the front porch. "Aren't They just lovely?" Old lady Marcy exclaimed. Billy nodded in agreement.

"But how did you get them to grow so fast?" He asked. Marcy chuckled as she sat in her rocking chair. He could tell she had no intention of telling him. After all, people always just assumed that she was just and old crazy woman. What did she know about anything? So while everyone else struggled with there tulips and daffodils, she sat there rocking in her chair, smiling as others walked by with her beautiful rose bushes.

Billy was about to go when he noticed something moving in the bushes. His eyes widened with wonder when he discovered what was the fattest spider he had ever seen. Of course he had seen bigger ones in books and on television, but never in real life. The spider was almost as big as his hand. It was black with yellow stripes. Excited, he hollered up at Marcy, "Quick grab a jar! There's a big spider loose in your roses!"

Leaping to her feet, she ran in side, with the screen door slamming behind her. She promptly returned with a large mason jar. "Oh dear... Oh dear..." She muttered nervously before handing it to Billy. He opened the jar and held it beneath the spider while forcing the spider to retreat with the lid. "Oh be careful," Marcy cried, "It could be poisonous!" "Nah, it's just a banana spider," he responded.

Finally the stubborn spider lost his footing and fell into the jar. Billy quickly replaced the lid. Marcy sighed in relief before thanking him. "I just don't know what I would have done if I came face to face with that horrible creature." Billy did not answer. He was too preoccupied with his new specimen. He gleefully watched the spider as it probed around the jar, looking for a way out.

Billy turning his head away from the jar, asked, "Can I keep the jar?" "Sure Billy," she said.
"Well then, I'd better get it home. I can't wait to tell mom about your roses, she'd give anything to have a flower garden like yours." Marcy smiled back at him. She had decided that she was being selfish, not sharing her secret with him and decided to reveal it, as a way of thanking him.

"When I was a girl, my grandmother once taught me a song," she spoke now with a calmer voice, "We would sing it together when I helped her in her garden." Marcy then reached out to caress a small bud from a cluster of roses, while she sang...

Grow my little darling...
Blossom in the sun.
Then the world shall see...
The beauty you've become.

Grow my little darling...
Greater than before.
Grow beyond the heavens...
And the world shall adore.

Billy watched the small bud blossom into a bright red rose, before his very eyes.
Speechless he turned to look at the old woman. She smiled back at him and with a warm voice said," I'll see you tomorrow."

Billy rushed through the front door. "Mom! Mom! What until I tell you what happened today!"
But his mother, turning away from her cooking was not the least bit interested. Her eyes filled with terror and rage at what was under Billy's arm. "What is that!" She demanded.

"It's a spider, I was gonna keep it."
"You're most certainly not! I want that thing out of this house! Do you understand me?"
"Yes..." He replied, lowering his head before turning away.

He walked back out the door as if to release it, but that was only for show. He had no intention of releasing the spider. It wasn't common for him to disobey his mother, but this was different. How could she ever understand the importance of this creature? Spiders like these don't just fall out of the trees and land onto your lap, after all. He snuck around to his bedroom window and carefully opened it. Then, so delicately, he placed the jar onto his night stand.

As he ran back in he hollered out, "I'm gonna hurry up and get my homework done, before dinner!" He made his way back into his room, and pulled an old shoe box out from his closet. He emptied out the baseball cards he had been collecting and preceded to puncture tiny holes into the lid with a pen.

He emptied the jar into the box and quickly closed the lid. He shook the box and held it up to his ear to be sure the spider was still alive. Once he heard the spider moving around, he slid the box under the bed.

That night Billy laid awake in his bed. His thoughts were continuously replaying the events of that day. The big fat spider, Marcy's roses and that song... "How did it go again?" He squeezed his eyes shut. "If only I could remember... "He thought to himself," Just think how happy my mom would be with her flower garden." Billy then hummed a few random words that he remembered. Then again with a few more. Each time filling more and more of the banks, until he had it almost perfect.

Finally he had remembered the whole song and sang it once, out loud so that he would not forget it. Soon after, his eyelids grew heavy and he had decided that he had practiced enough and had better get some rest. He reached over and turned off his lamp and went to sleep. He had just barely dosed off when he was awakened by an odd sensation. He thought perhaps it was just a dream, but he could have sworn he felt the bed shake.

He reached over and turned the lamp on, then laid back down and remained perfectly still. "There it is again!" A voice in his head screamed. "No!" He fired back at himself, "It's just my imagination." Billy thought about getting up to grab a glass of water, but before he could act, a thrust of pain had entered into his back. He tried to scream but all that came out was a long, dry moan.

When he tried to move he discovered that he had no control over his body. He simply laid there as his hands and feet shook uncontrollably. Then from both sides of his peripheral vision he watched helplessly as eight giant tentacles emerged. As though his bed had somehow spawned legs, they stretched out to the ceiling before flexing down upon him.

Only then did he realize what was happening. It was that song... He didn't intend it for the spider, but the spider was the only living thing around. Now his chest and torso where encased beneath its legs. They began to squeeze his body in short spurts, as if he were a bottle of mustard. He could feel his insides ripen and rot, turning to mush as they were being sucked out through the center of his back. And even though his lungs were now just liquid there was the unmistakable sensation that air was being drawn in from every orifice of his body.

The last thing Billy felt before consciousness had left him was his eyes being sucked into his skull.

THE END...