(This October, InsectPOD is celebrating with a special “creepy story”, the Hopper Case Files, told in installments. New readers should start with the first case file, The Missing Mayfly.)
The goon had me walk in front of him, another sure sign that I was being shuttled to a specific destination. I kept my eyes open for the ambush spot. It’s a fun little game you play at times like this. If you win, you get to live.
As we walked, I tried to ask my “client” for details about the case, mostly for fun. I didn’t think he had it in him to fabricate an interesting story, but sometimes the boss will give them a pretense to work under. As expected he gave me some vague statements about urgency and “you have to see for yourself”, but after a few questions he simply replied to everything with “Just keep walking.”
We rounded the corner of the back porch and the goon told me to go up the railing. From the top of the rail, I could see the whole yard, and I could also see that there was nowhere to go on the railing except along it, to the other end.
About halfway around the porch, sitting on the railing, was a bug zapper.
“Oh, you have got to be kidding me,” I said to the goon as he clambered onto the railing behind me.
“Just keep walking,” he said. “It’s just ahead.”
“I bet,” I replied, and set off down the rail.
The zapper had a tray under it to catch the falling bodies. The zapper itself sat above the tray a couple of inches protected by plastic guards. It was a pretty big model; big enough to take down a moth easy.
Or a grasshopper. I slowed as I approached it, half expecting the goon to give me a shove. But once I got within about a foot of it he stopped following me.
“Not entirely stupid,” I chuckled to myself as I stepped up onto the tray.
The zapper was big enough that a good-sized bug could move around inside it without touching the grids. I would have to cross the tray, walking under the zapper proper, to get to the other side. The bottom of the tray was lined with a screen.
I stepped into the tray. And then I jumped straight up at the grid.
As I went up, I hit the jumping spider coming down. I heard the wind go out of him.
Then we hit the grid.
Well, he hit the grid. The world exploded in blue and white sparkles. Every muscle in my body burned, and I realized that the spider wasn’t insulating me like I had planned. But then I fell, dropping back to the tray. I flopped onto my side, spasming and groaning. Spots danced in front of my eyes and a horrific screeching noise rang through my head.
A moment later, the screeching paused to take a breath before resuming. With a start I realized that the noise wasn’t in my head at all. Above me, the spider squealed as he sparked and burned on the metal mesh. After a minute, the screaming stopped.
The sizzling went on for a good deal longer.
It had been a hugely calculated risk. The ambush might have come from the far side of the zapper, in which case I would have jumped rather pointlessly onto the the grid myself. I realized that this would have saved them some time. The mob would probably think me most inconsiderate.
For some reason I found this immensely funny, and I laughed out loud. I lay on my side, laughing. Granted, it was the sort of laughter you make when you are writhing in pain and wishing the world would stop spinning, but it was laughter nonetheless. I closed my eyes to see if that made any difference. It helped, a little.
I opened them immediately, however, when I heard a soft “plop” from the other side of the tray.
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I groaned. Of course… why set one ambush when you can set two?
I tried to roll to my feet, failed, and slumped back onto my side. I shook my head to try to clear it. The world was still spinning, but at least now there was only one spider coming at me instead of seventy.
Double vision can get out of control pretty quickly when you have compound eyes.
The spider looked up and grunted.
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“Lenny didn’t think you’d know it was an ambush, so I let him take point,” he said. With a start I realized that I recognized the voice. It was none other than Phid Salt.
I took stock of the situation. Phid was a deadly fighter, an experienced pro. My legs felt weak, but I could maybe get off one good kick if I had to. I scooted a bit on the screen, trying to turn my stomach towards Phid. This would put my hind leg in position.
Phid had been advancing cautiously, and when I turned, he skittered around to the side to keep advancing from above my head.
Well, at least he was being respectful, I thought. For some reason I found this funny, too, and I giggled.
Phid stopped and peered at me quizzically. He knew I’d been in fights before and that I could handle myself. He was playing it safe, taking the safest angle to jump me from. He was expecting me to cringe, or retreat, and would jump on me as soon as I turned my back. He was striding low, keeping his center of gravity under him, I surmised that he was also prepared for me to rush him. He would jump over my charge and bite me as I went past beneath him. But lying on my side and laughing wasn’t in the fighting handbook, dirty or otherwise, and that made him nervous.
I found this even funnier, and I laughed some more. Here I was, half-paralyzed and helpless in front of a spider that might be able to take me in a straight up fair fight, and it made him nervous!
As my laughter wound down I gave my legs another experimental flex. The tingling had subsided in my front legs, and my middle legs were still a bit rubbery, but my back legs were still a complete writeoff.
“Hey, Phid,” I asked as he crept almost to within jumping distance. “What time is it?”
“I got an idea, Hopper,” he said. “Why don’t you ask me for the time of—Ohhh, looks like I got a wise guy here.”
I thought I had enough strength to get to my feet, but I knew that if I showed obvious weakness to Phid he’d be on me in an instant. Then I realized that Phid was already aware I was incapacitated. He just didn’t know how much or how bad.
I made a show of being lame. It wasn’t much of an edge, but any edge was worth taking. I tried again to roll to my feet, grunting as I did so, then fell back onto my side gasping.
Phid took an eager step forward, then paused to squat and stuck down a dot of anchor silk with his spinnerets. He was within jumping distance.
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“Hey, Phid?”
He tensed to pounce. “Yeah?”
“Your mother’s so—” Phid jumped. Right on cue, trying to take me off guard. He was aiming for the back of my head. A single bite there would inject venom right into the ganglia between my brain and the motor functions of my body. Paralysis would be instantaneous. Death, however… would not.
Phid, like all predators, was ready for me to shriek and pull away. So I yelled and lunged forward. It was only half a step, but it was enough momentum. My chitinous forehead connected with his bared fangs, which clacked shut, scraping harmlessly along my armored shell. Phid landed in an angry, sprawling heap in front of me, only slightly dazed. He stood up, and opened his fangs—
And I punched a hand forward and grabbed his mandible.
Phid snapped his fangs closed triumphantly on my wrist. He knew the venom would take much longer to work this way, but that I had just stupidly sealed my own fate. He glared at me triumphantly.
I slumped forward, unable to hold myself upright any longer. Phid tried to back away, but my grip was still strong. He didn’t have the strength to drag my body weight, so he just tugged and waited for the venom to do its work.
“Hey, Phid?” I panted.
He glared at me. “Whabb?” he mumbled around my hand.
“Did you know that grasshoppers can pull their own legs off to escape a trap?”
Phid looked panicked for a moment, then gave me a sly look. “Bud you habband dunnid! An da longa you wabe, da more da bennom workff!”
“That is true, I suppose.”
I lay there, panting. The strength I would need was slowly returning to my legs.
Phid tugged again, and this time grunted in surprise to find my grip still strong. Ready or not, I was out of time.
“Hey, Phid?” I asked.
“WHABB?” he snarled.
“There’s a gap between your chelicerae, just above your fangs.”
Every jumping spider has this gap. Only in the really big ones is it big enough to stuck your hand through. Phid’s eyes crossed as he tried to look down at my forearm. As he did so, I rolled to my feet, and stood up.
“WHABBA YOU BOOING?” he grunted. His voice now had a note of panic. He began to jerk frantically backwards, but I held him fast. I reached back with my free hand.
“Hey, Phid?” I asked.
“WHAAAABB?” he yelled.
I stabbed the point of the HSG between his eyes.
In that instant I knew how evil Heinrich G. Mantis was. The HSG heaved in my hand, writhing, as it pulsed a spurt of venom straight into Phid’s head. He started to scream, but even as he started he began to gurgle, and after half a second he trailed off and fell silent.
I let go of his mandible and jerked my hand back. Phid stared at me in shock, unmoving, as the HSG continued to pulse its lethal gel into his skull. I couldn’t stand the feel of the thing writhing and pulsing any longer, and I jerked it back out. A tiny drop of green ichor glistened at the hole, briefly giving Phid a third eye.
I waited, wary for a counterattack. Phid continued to stare at me. After almost a minute, however, I realized that he wasn’t seeing me. Or anything else. As I waved my hand in front of his face, he began to sink down gently, until he was flat on the ground. His legs collapsed in a heap, lacking even the reflex to curl up.
I holstered the HSG, half enthralled by its power, entirely disgusted by its evil nature. Weakly, I picked up my little suitcase and headed for the other side of the bug zapper. I was in no condition to deal with the goon, and keeping the bug zapper between me and him was the only sane course of action.
Out on the railing, I took two steps and then just stopped. There was a large plant on the other side of the railing here to hide me from any passing birds, the sunlight felt wonderful, and this was as good a place as any to catch my breath.
“That…” I said after a minute, “was a pretty good ambush.”
“You don’t know the half of it,” said Viridiana G. Mantis.
TO BE CONTINUED…
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This female Phidippus audax has evidently declared my patio door as her territory. She hunkers down there at night, huddled in a near-frozen torpor, and then hunts it extensively (and likely the rest of the back of the house) when it warms up during the afternoon.
Slowly getting the site back onto an even keel. It's nice to get back into the old posting rhythm.
